#rose tyler and the dimension cannon

[theladysiubhan]

Wip By The_Lady_Siubhan

-

Rose pulled her hands away from him, tucking her hair nervously behind both ears. She seemed to be waiting for him to stop her. Or encourage her. To tell her whether or not he wanted her there. He wanted her there, alright. At least his body certainly did. His mind had temporarily vacated the scene.

-

Wip for Wrong Time, Wrong Place

(Dimension Cannon Rose/9 - Explicit)

[quantumshade]

most big finish fans in doctor who fandom spaces: hey man how’s it going

some big finish fans in doctor who fandom spaces: oh. you haven’t heard the eighth doctor adventures part 1,236 in which the eighth doctor and the sixth doctor get stuck in a mysterious bathroom with a dead body and they’re handcuffed to pipes and the only other thing in the room is a bone saw? wow. fucking fake fan. i bet you’re a silly stupid fangirl who likes “shipping” too. loser.

[badxwolf]

Rose using the last name Smith as an alias in the Dimension Cannon audios almost killed me

[denimbex1986]

'Former Doctor Who star Billie Piper has reacted to Ncuti Gatwa's debut episode.

Last night, fans were treated to the final episode of the three 60th-anniversary specials in which David Tennant's Time Lord bigenerated into Gatwa.

Taking to her Instagram Stories, Piper shared some thoughts on the episode, which saw Gatwa debut as the Fifteenth Doctor, describing it as "terrifying and beautiful".

Sharing a post from Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies which featured a picture of Gatwa in the role, Piper wrote: "Also… Incredible. Terrifying and beautiful. Bp 4 Dr who".

Piper, who starred as the Time Lord's companion Rose Tyler between 2005 and 2006, previously opened up about reprising the role – on one condition.

"If it was shot in London – sorry that's a really loveless answer! There's a running theme here, I don't want to work much. [If] it was like four episodes all shot in London, then yeah, I'd be like a rat-up-a-drainpipe for that," she said.

Piper also weighed in on Gatwa's casting, saying: "Great! It's just going from strength to strength, I'm so here for it."

Earlier this year, Piper returned to the role of Rose Tyler for the three-part audio drama The Dimension Cannon: Trapped alongside Jackie Tyler actress Camille Coduri.

The three new episodes, which made up the third volume of The Dimension Cannon, saw Rose searching for The Doctor after a dimension jump went wrong and she became trapped in a dangerous reality.

Speaking about reprising the fan-favourite role for the radio, Piper said it was "exciting" to record and that she looks forward to discussing the episodes with fans.

"It's exciting to record The Dimension Cannon and play the part again, but it's even more thrilling when the fans learn about it, listen to it, and then discuss it with me when I meet them at conventions," Piper said. "It doesn't feel over. Rose Tyler has more life in her yet."'

[regenderate-fic]

On Stars and Second Chances

Fandom: Doctor Who Ships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler Rating: Teen Word Count: 8,311 Other Tags: Fix-It, Journey's End, Reunions, Rose Stays, No Tentoo, Dimension Cannon Audios, Hurt/Comfort, Injury

Read on AO3

It was done. The Earth had been saved, everyone had been returned home, and now the Doctor could finally step away from the console and let his focus go to what had been pulling at it for the last six hours: Rose.

She was back. Not only was she back, but she was here, in his TARDIS, chewing anxiously at her bottom lip, bright eyes flitting from the console to his face and back to the console again. And when she noticed him looking, she looked back, searching him the same way he was searching her. She'd found a new eyeshadow, he noted. And her hair was just a little longer than it had been when he'd seen her last. And—

Did she know how beautiful she was? He'd often wondered. Almost gotten up the courage to ask her, once or twice. 

“Doctor?”

The Doctor blinked. He'd been staring, hadn't he? Probably without blinking—he was always doing things like that. He couldn't help it. He'd thought he was never going to see her again. And he'd so desperately wanted to see her again. 

“Rose,” he whispered. 

There was no telling who moved first. All the Doctor knew was that one second, he was standing there, staring, and the next, Rose was pressed against his chest, squeezing the life out of him, and he was surely doing the same to her. It was just that she felt so real, so warm, and he'd been so cold for so long now. 

“I missed you,” he whispered, and the admission simultaneously was too much and far, far too little. 

“Yeah?” Rose moved back a little, just enough so that she and the Doctor could look at each other. He swallowed, then nodded.

“Yeah.”

The beginnings of a smile appeared at the edges of Rose’s lips. “I missed you too.”

The Doctor felt his own smile growing. He had missed her, more than anything, and what was worse, he'd forgotten all her little expressions, the way she looked when she was confident or nervous or excited or dejected. But having forgotten meant he had so much to rediscover—like the way even the barest beginnings of a smile on her face made him feel warm all over. It was brilliant. He'd never need a puffy coat again, not if Rose was with him. Not when her mere smile would keep him warm. Was that a cheesy thought? Never mind that. He was rambling, even if only in his head, and it was distracting him from the important thing. Which was Rose. Here. With him.

He felt caught in her gaze—he couldn’t stop looking, couldn’t stop smiling, and none of this was new, not really, but now it was mingled with the relief of seeing her again and the jubilance of universes saved and the pervasive, flat sadness of having dropped off all the people he cared about so they could go about their human lives (and the guilt, on top of that, that he was taking Rose away from her human life, permanently this time, after saying goodbye to her mum on Bad Wolf Bay). He didn’t know how to break away, didn’t know how to move on from this moment—did he even want to move on from this moment? 

“You’re sure you still want to stay with me?” he asked. 

“You’re sure you still—” She faltered. “You’re sure you still want me?”

“Yes,” the Doctor breathed. “Always. Yes, I want you here.” He wasn’t going to think about the human lifespan, wasn’t going to imagine the patterns wrinkles would eventually etch onto Rose’s skin. The universe (universes) had already given him far, far more than he had ever dreamed of. 

“Well, then, you’re not getting rid of me. Not in a million years.” Rose’s smile grew, her tongue poking out from between her teeth. 

Back before he’d lost Rose, the Doctor had frequently found himself holding back. Holding back information, but also holding back affection, holding back touch. And, specifically, he must’ve spent a good eighty-five percent of his energy stopping himself from throwing caution to the wind and just kissing her—especially when he was sure she was doing the exact same thing. He had thought, at the time, that it would keep him from becoming too attached. He had thought, at the time, that it would make it easier if (when) he lost her. 

He had been horribly, woefully wrong. 

And now, as he stood with her once more in his arms (exactly where she belonged), it dawned on him that he’d been given an improbable, impossible second chance, and he would, in fact, be wasting it if he went back to his old ways. Determined, now, not to waste it, he pulled her just a little bit closer, leaned his head forward so their foreheads were pressed together. She gasped, and the Doctor hesitated: there was no point if she wasn’t as enthusiastic as he was. But then her hand made its way up from his hip to the back of his neck, and he felt her breath warm against his mouth, and when their lips finally met, it was impossible to tell which of them had taken that final leap and finally, finally closed the infinitesimal gap between them. 

He wished he’d let this happen years ago. 

It was, in a word, sublime. Rose’s lips were warm and soft, and her hand had inched up into his hair, and his hands were splayed across her back, and even through her jacket he could feel how warm and strong and alive she was. Now that he was kissing her, he wasn’t sure he was ever going to be able to stop kissing her, which was probably bad news for all of time and space, but he was finding it hard to think about all that. Especially when Rose scraped her teeth against his bottom lip and he found himself, on instinct, letting his mouth open. She tasted sweet—how did she manage to taste sweet, after the day they’d had? Was she hiding breath mints or something in that jacket of hers? 

The Doctor would have pursued that train of thought a little further, but then the hand on his waist edged upwards, slipping under his suit jacket, and he had altogether more on his mind. He let his own hands slide down Rose’s back, fingers tangling in her belt loops, pulling her flush against him (as if she hadn’t been close enough already) (but, if you asked him, she hadn’t been). He moved from her hips up to her waist, intent on touching every bit of her while he had the chance, even though he was hoping to have many, many more chances. He let his hands brush along her sides, from her waist to her ribs—

Rose gasped. This was a sharp gasp, coupled with a break in the kiss, and so the Doctor was fairly sure this one was not a good sign. He stilled, and Rose drew away.

“All right?” he asked, trying not to sound too out of breath.

“Yeah.” Rose did sound out of breath. “Yeah, I’m—never better.” She did sound like she meant it, but the Doctor caught another wince as he moved his hands down, away from her ribs to her waist. He frowned. 

“Rose, are you hurt?”

“No, it’s—” Rose shook her head. “I sort of got slammed into a wall last week. Still healing.” 

“Rose, you should’ve said.” 

Rose raised her eyebrows. “What, when we were saving the world, or d’you mean when you were snogging me within an inch of my life?” 

The Doctor floundered. “Maybe… in between?”

“Oh, so when we were saying goodbye to all your friends? Or how about when I was crying on the beach about never seeing my mum again?” Rose shrugged. “Honestly, Doctor, I just didn’t think of it. So much has happened in the last week, I sort of forgot.”

“At least tell me you had someone look at it.”

“Sure, one of the Torchwood doctors.” 

The Doctor scoffed.

Rose rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Doctor, I’m fine.”

“Can I—” The Doctor gestured at her torso. “Can I take a look at it?”

“What, are you trying to get my shirt off?” She was clearly trying to distract him, and worse, it was working, if only because he continued to be completely mesmerized by her smile.

“No—” And then he thought about it. “Well, technically, yes, but only to see how badly you’re hurt.”

“It’s not that bad!”

“Even if it isn’t!” the Doctor insisted. “Rose, this ship has the best medical technology humanity has to offer. From any time, any place. We’ve got herbs from ancient Rome and radiography from the 45th century. Whatever the Torchwood doctors did, I promise the TARDIS can do better.”

“Oh, all right.” Rose’s hand slipped into the Doctor’s. “Do your worst.”

A few minutes later, Rose was sitting at the edge of the bed in the medical bay. The Doctor gathered a few supplies—painkillers and bandages, mostly—and pulled a stool up next to her. 

“Right,” he said. “May I?” He gestured to Rose’s jacket. She flinched away from him, and he jerked his hands back.

“Sorry,” Rose muttered. “Old habits.” She nodded. “Go ahead.” 

Slowly, carefully, the Doctor moved his hands towards the zipper of Rose’s blue leather jacket. She sat still, stiff, as he unzipped it. 

“This is a nice jacket,” the Doctor noted. The leather was soft, yet sturdy, and of course he was partial to a nice blue.

“Got it before my first jump,” Rose said. “Needed something practical.”

“So you've been wearing it—”

“Two years?” Rose guessed. “Hard to tell. Time isn’t exactly consistent, when you’re jumping between universes.”

The Doctor hummed acknowledgment as he pulled the jacket off Rose’s shoulders and down her arms. Underneath, Rose was wearing a plain pink T-shirt. The Doctor noticed some unfamiliar scarring on her arm, but whatever had caused that had caused it a while ago: the wound had healed into a criss-cross of pale, thin lines.

Rose had caught him looking. “Got scratched up trying to get out of a crashed car. Wasn’t as bad as it looks.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” The Doctor nodded to her torso. “Can I take a look at your ribs?”

“It’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. “That’s not a yes.”

“Fine.” Rose tapped at his calf with her foot. “Go ahead.”

“Right.” He touched the hem of her shirt on her left. “Where are you hurt? Here?”

Rose nodded.

The Doctor began to pull up her shirt, doing everything he could to ignore the feeling of his fingers grazing her soft skin. Yes, he’d thought for a long time, years even, how Rose’s skin might feel against the backs of his fingers, but his fantasies had been predicated on entirely different circumstances. Rose deserved better than to think he was getting anything out of this: she was hurt, and she deserved someone who would help her with no strings attached. 

He stopped at the first sign of injury, a bloom of red and blue surrounded by the yellowish tinge of a mostly-healed bruise. It covered her entire side, disappearing beneath the rest of her shirt, and a wave of horror hit the Doctor as he realized how extensive the injury must have been to still look like this a week later. 

He glanced up at Rose. She was watching him with a detached sort of curiosity.

“All right?” he asked. 

She nodded.

He kept going. The bruising deepened as he got further up her side, hitting its darkest red just below the band of her bra. He was sort of surprised she was managing to wear a bra, considering how much pain she was surely in, but then again, what did he know? 

“Rose,” he breathed. “You’ve been going around like this for a week?”

“It’s not that bad,” Rose insisted.

“That might work on your mum,” the Doctor said, “but it’s not going to work on me.”

Rose sighed. “Doesn’t really work on my mum, either.”

“Rose, this is some serious bruising.” His eyes widened in horror. “I hugged you! Rose, why didn’t you say anything?”

“I—” Rose looked away. “I don’t know. Didn’t want to ruin the moment, I suppose.” 

The Doctor scoffed. “Are you telling me excruciating rib pain didn’t ruin the moment?”

“I told you! It’s not that bad!” 

“I told you! I don’t believe you!”

Rose looked back at him, then down at her bruises. “I don’t know. Didn’t seem to matter, just then.” She raised her gaze until her eyes met his. “Was sort of distracted.”

He suppressed his smile. This was serious business, no matter how happy Rose’s voice made him. “Still,” he said. “As your doctor, I’m prescribing rest.” He peered at the bruises. “And maybe an X-ray.” 

“I already had an X-ray,” Rose said. “Nothing’s broken, promise.”

The Doctor sniffed. “I don’t trust those Torchwood doctors.”

“Fine, then. Suppose you’d better do what you like.” Rose raised her eyebrows. “Considering you’re my doctor.”

Heat filled the Doctor’s cheeks at that. He sort of hoped Rose wouldn’t notice, but then again, who was he kidding? Of course she would. Indeed, she already had, if the smirk on her face was anything to go by. Maybe he could cover it up with a babble. 

“X-ray!” he exclaimed, jumping up to pull a machine down from the ceiling. It descended on a hinged metal arm as he spoke. “D’you know, X-rays have been around since the 18th century?” He tilted his head. “Well, longer than that, if you count all the other species who discovered them first. But still.” He tapped the machine. “This is state-of-the-art. Takes a picture in a millisecond, loads of safeguards, gorgeous detail, doesn’t get better than this.” 

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a bit geeky?” Rose asked. 

“Nope,” the Doctor said. “You’d be the first.” He positioned the machine over Rose’s ribs. “All right, smile for the camera.”

“How’s that supposed to help?” 

The Doctor shrugged. “Morale boost?”

Rose rolled her eyes. “D’you need me to lie down or anything?”

“Nope, should be good.” The Doctor grinned from behind the machine. “Very advanced technology.” He hit a button, and the picture began to print. “Brilliant.”

“What, you don’t need to leave the room?”

“Nah. Time Lord. Biological superiority.” She scoffed, which he cheerfully ignored as he plucked the picture from the machine and waved it like it was a Polaroid—technically completely unnecessary, considering the image was already crisp and clear, but half the fun was in the showmanship. “All right, let’s take a look.” 

He hopped onto the bed next to Rose, picture in hand. She leaned in to look as he traced the image with his finger. 

“Oh, all right,” he said, with a dramatic sigh for good measure. “Those Torchwood doctors were good for something after all.”

“No breaks?” Rose asked. 

“No breaks. Which means—” the Doctor jumped up— “We’ve just got to get you something to accellerate healing, maybe some painkillers—” he grabbed a couple bottles— “And lots and lots of rest.” He whirled around to face Rose. “Sound good?”

“Yeah, all right.” Rose nodded. “Yeah. Sounds good.” 

“So now,” the Doctor said, “as your doctor, I have to ask—when’s the last time you slept?”

“Oh, God.” Rose buried her face in her hands. “Don’t even ask.”

“Understood.” The Doctor stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “How about food? You hungry?”

“Oh, God, starving,” Rose breathed. 

“How about chips?” the Doctor asked. 

A slow smile emerged on Rose’s face. “I could go for chips.”

“Brilliant. Chips it is.” The Doctor held out his hand. Rose took it without a moment’s hesitation, and he pulled her to her feet. Her shoulder bumped against his arm, and something about that small gesture brought him a peace he hadn’t felt in a long time.

They stepped out the TARDIS door together a few minutes later, just across the street from the chippy. They'd landed in the middle of London, a few days after everything; a few of the shops were still a bit banged up, but for the most part, people had gone back to business as usual. 

“Impressive resilience, the human race has,” the Doctor noted. 

“Amnesia, more like,” Rose said. She leaned her head against the Doctor’s shoulder. “Nice to see it all still here, though.”

He squeezed her hand. “We did it again.”

“We did, didn't we?” The smile in Rose’s voice was audible. “Sort of can't believe it.”

“Believe it or not, won't make it any less true.” They’d reached the chippy, and the Doctor pulled the door open for Rose. “After you.”

 “Still a gentleman, then,” she teased.

The shop was busy, but not so busy they couldn’t slide into a booth in the back. For half a second, it felt like nothing had changed: here were the Doctor and Rose, sitting across from each other, stealing chips from each other’s baskets just like always. But it was different—the Doctor was different, and Rose was different. She carried herself differently, and not just because of her injury. In fact, it seemed like she was carrying herself differently despite her injury: it was hard to quantify, but there was a new fluidity to her movements, a new confidence in her posture. There was something guarded about her, too, now they were out and about. She’d put the jacket back on and zipped it all the way up, and she looked up every time the door opened, even though it was invariably just another family or couple or group of raucous-but-harmless teenagers. 

The Doctor tapped his foot against her ankle under the table. She startled.

“All right?” he asked.

“Tired, is all.” Rose plucked a chip out of her basket. “And… it’s a bit weird, not having a universe-ending threat to worry about.”

“Lots of those, where you’ve been?”

Rose took a deep breath—although, the Doctor noticed, she stopped just short of filling her ribcage. “It took me two years to find you,” she said. “The dimension cannon, it didn’t exactly come ready-made with coordinates, or anything. At first, I was just jumping into random universes, looking for my—anything familiar—trying to figure out how close they were to yours.” She stared down at the chip in her hands. “The thing the Daleks did—the reality bomb—it was already hitting. Stars going out.” There was a pause. “So, yeah. Lots of universe-ending threats. We were lucky, today.”

The Doctor reached to cover Rose’s free hand with his own. “Rose, I'm so sorry.”

Rose shook her head. “I'm the one who couldn't stay put.”

“Do you think I didn't try?” the Doctor asked. “Rose, I burned up more than just the one sun looking for a gap. If I’d thought there was any chance—” He cut off. “I probably gave up just before it would've started working.”

“Might've taken longer,” Rose said. “From this side.” She shrugged. “My universe, we were just getting the fallout. This one was at the center. The theory at Torchwood was that all the universes I visited were just getting ripples from whatever was going on here.” She smiled. “‘Course, we were only assuming it was here. Would've been really unfortunate if I’d finally found you and the problem was somewhere else.”

“Nah, we would've figured it out.” The Doctor tapped his foot against hers. “Your dimension cannon with my TARDIS? Unstoppable.”

“The cannon’s hardly as good as a TARDIS. Can't even travel in time.” 

“Nah, I’d guess it's loads better for interdimensional travel. TARDIS isn't really made for that.” He winked. “Even if I make it look easy.”

Rose scoffed. “As if you make anything look easy in that contraption of yours.”

“Oi! I said earlier! It's meant to have six pilots!” The Doctor leaned back and crossed his arms. “You'll have to admit, I'm doing pretty well for trying to do a six-person job on my own.”

Rose grinned. “Oh, all right. Maybe you're not such a bad driver.”

“Thank you.” The Doctor plucked a chip from his basket and took an emphatic bite. He swallowed, then added, “I’d like to look at that cannon, by the way. For curiosity’s sake, and all that.”

“The main bit’s still in the other universe,” Rose said. “I just have the travel disc, and it won't do anything now the walls are up again. But you can look at it if you like.” She pulled the little silver-and-yellow button out of her pocket and held it up for a moment. Her eyes stayed on it as she held it out to the Doctor. The Doctor accepted it, his fingers brushing against hers for a second, then another, before he pulled away. 

“It's impressive work,” he said, turning it over in his hands. It was a simple device, a yellow disc set into a silver frame, but of course he knew how much work had to have gone into it. “I imagine Torchwood had the technology?”

Rose nodded. “We adjusted it a little. I mean, at first we were trying to make it work with the universes closed off—but we were also trying to make it punch a smaller hole. Didn't want to cause any problems or anything.” She paused. “The navigation system is all new, too. The original design was sort of hitching a ride from the Cybermen. Only went from that universe to this one. We spent months trying to figure out how to navigate between universes.”

“How'd you manage it?” the Doctor asked. 

“There’s always someone back at Torchwood controlling the thing.” Rose pulled something out of her pocket and dropped it on the table—it was her old phone, the Doctor realized, the one he'd done his “jiggery pokery” on way back when he and Rose had only just met. “Rigged this thing up to work as a communicator. So they can—could—keep in touch with me. The cannon records all the different patterns of whatever universe I’m in—timelines, geography, background radiation—and we compare it to all the other data from all the other universes. And then we can pick which patterns to look for in the next go round.” She tucked the phone back in her pocket. “It all gets pretty boring, after a while.”

The Doctor stared at her. 

“What?” 

“Nothing, just—” He shook his head. “Do you know how completely impossible this is? You not only managed to cross between universes—”

“That bit wasn’t me—”

“—you also figured out how to navigate between them, and how to find this specific universe—”

“Had loads of people working on that—”

“—and then you spent years traveling between universes until you found the one you were looking for.” 

“Had company for that too.”

“Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said, “don't you dare tell me you didn't do anything special. You were absolutely brilliant, and you won't convince me otherwise.”

Rose looked down at the table. A small smile was slowly emerging on her face, despite her teeth pulling at her bottom lip. She looked up through her eyelashes at the Doctor. “All right, then. Call me brilliant, if you like.”

The Doctor held her gaze. “You, Rose Tyler, are brilliant.”

Rose’s smile grew. 

The Doctor scanned the table. He'd only picked at his chips, but Rose had practically inhaled hers—he'd count that a success. 

“What do you say we get out of here?” He tapped Rose’s foot with his own again. “Get some sleep?”

On cue, Rose yawned. “Yeah. Sleep might be nice.”

The Doctor stood. He stacked both their baskets in one hand and held out his other to Rose. Her hand was in his immediately, and he pulled her to her feet. Together, they moved to return the baskets, then stepped back out onto the street. The cool evening air brushed against the Doctor’s face, and he found himself smiling down at Rose, who was, in turn, smiling up at him. He almost got lost in it again, but then he remembered they did, technically, need to get back to the TARDIS, and if they were looking at each other no one was going to be making sure they were going in the right direction and not about to trip on anything. So he forced himself to look away so they could have at least some hope of crossing the street safely. 

Really, though, it was probably the least danger they'd been in all day. 

And thankfully, that held true: in the thirty seconds it took them to cross the street, they weren’t hit by any cars, no wayward bicyclists; not even a stray alien crisis crossed their paths. The Doctor pushed open the TARDIS door and held it there, saying, “After you,” with a dramatic flourish of his free hand. 

Rose rolled her eyes at him, but she was smiling, and—at the risk of sounding cheesy—he sort of felt like anything was worth it if he got to see her smile. 

There was something special, about that step across the threshold, from a public street to the privacy of the console room. Everything felt quiet now, maybe even too quiet, despite the thrum of the TARDIS all around them. The Doctor looked at Rose, and Rose looked back, neither one speaking. 

Finally, Rose broke the silence.

“Doctor,” she said, her voice soft. “I—” She broke off. 

The Doctor tilted his head to the side. “What?”

Rose shook her head. “I don't even know. Think I just need a nap.”

“I’d wager you need a lot more than just a nap,” the Doctor said. “I won't hold it against you if the actual event could be better described as a hibernation.”

“Well, that's a relief.” Rose giggled. “Imagine, I come all this way only for you to drop me the first chance you get ‘cause I said I was going for a nap and didn’t get up for hours!”

“Nah,” the Doctor said. “I wouldn't drop you. Might get out the foghorn, mind, but—”

“Don't you dare.” 

“Oh, all right.” The Doctor smiled. “No foghorn.” He hesitated. “Actually, speaking of, your bedroom should still be there. Just how you left it.” 

Rose wrinkled her nose. “I shudder to think.”

“Oh, I mean—” The Doctor looked past her, his eyes focusing on one of the coral pillars holding up the ceiling. “I might've… cleaned up a bit. Just in case. But the room is still there. Still yours.”

“Thanks.” Rose stepped away as if she was going to go, but then she stopped, teetering for a long moment. “I—” She swallowed. “I don't know if I want to be alone.”

The Doctor found himself stammering. Not that he didn't want to help—but he didn't want to overstep, didn't want to overwhelm. “Oh, I mean—I could—you—” He forced himself to stop and take a breath. “I could come with you. If you like.”

“Is that—all right?”

The Doctor almost laughed. “Rose. After everything—I count myself lucky if you don't want to leave my sight.”

“Oh.” She took the step back towards him. Timidly, she held out her hand, and he took it. He expected her to lead him to the corridor, but instead she stood there for another moment, searching his face. He was about to open his mouth to say something—he wasn't sure what—but then she raised herself on tiptoe and pressed her lips against his. 

This kiss was different from the one they'd shared earlier: slower, more deliberate. It took the Doctor a moment to process, and by the time he remembered to kiss back, Rose was already pulling away, and he wound up chasing after her for a moment. It was strange, suddenly living in a world where Rose Tyler was not only there with him but also kissing him—but it was the best sort of strange. Like the apple grass on New Earth: a lovely meadow, and then an unexpected apple-flavored snack. 

“Right,” Rose said. She was still holding the Doctor’s hand, and now she swung it, back and forth between them. “Sleep.”

The Doctor gestured with his free hand. “Lead the way.” 

Rose’s room wasn't too deep into the TARDIS—down a corridor and to the right. She’d always liked being right by the kitchen, convenient for a midnight snack or quick breakfast, and she never would've put up with a longer walk to the console room. When she'd been gone, the TARDIS had tucked her room deeper in its recesses, but the Doctor had no doubt it would be back in its place now. 

And he was right: Rose found the room easily. The door slid open for her, and she stepped across the threshold, the Doctor in tow. 

She stopped short just inside. The Doctor watched as she took in the room: it was exactly the same as the one she'd left, with the pink bedspread, vanity covered in makeup, pictures of her mum and her friends and the Doctor plastered everywhere. Something about it was incongruous with Rose now—the Rose who stood next to him was older, a little neater, more guarded.

There were tears running down Rose’s face. Without a second thought, the Doctor tugged at her hand until she collapsed into his arms, her quiet tears escalating into full-blown sobs as he held her. If he hadn't had such a strong time sense, he might've said he didn't know how long he held her, how long she cried, but in actuality he was well aware that it had been six minutes and forty-three seconds when Rose pulled back, tear tracks etched onto her cheeks, and said, “It's only just started to feel real.”

“Which part?” the Doctor asked. 

“I don't know. All of it?” Rose rested her head against his chest. “I wanted to be back here for so long. I think I sort of got so used to looking, I didn't really think I’d ever be able to stop.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “But I did it, didn't I? I can stop now.”

“Oh, Rose.” The Doctor traced gentle circles on her back, careful to steer extremely clear of her injured ribs. “You've been so brilliant.” He rested his cheek against her hair. “And it's time you had a rest.”

Rose sighed as she stepped away. “Might go for a shower first. I feel a bit greasy.” 

“Bathroom’s all set,” the Doctor said. 

“You'll still be here when I'm out?” Rose checked. 

“Might go wash up myself, actually,” the Doctor said. “But I'll come right back here after, promise.”

“You'd better.” Rose stepped forward to wrap her arms around his waist one more time. When she stepped away again, it was in the direction of her vanity. “The real question is, where did I used to keep my makeup wipes?” 

“Now, that I can’t help you with.”

“They’ll be around here somewhere. Probably long past expired—”

The Doctor shook his head. “Not on the TARDIS. The rooms you’re not using tend to get a bit frozen, timewise.”

Rose smiled. “Never mind, then.” She reached up to take off one earring, then the other, hanging both on her old jewelry holder, the one she’d brought from her flat after losing one too many earrings to the recesses of her makeup drawer. The Doctor had watched her take off her earrings in that same mirror countless times, usually waiting impatiently for her to be done so they could go play a game or watch a show together. She still shook her head in the exact same way to get her hair to settle back over her ears—still pressed her lips together while she searched for something in the drawers—still flashed him a grin as she held up her prize. 

“Found ‘em. See you in a few.” 

The Doctor grinned back. Rose disappeared into the bathroom, and he stepped back out into the corridor. His own room—with the associated washing-up facilities—tended to move around, but he had a hunch he wouldn’t have to look too hard to find it. Indeed, it was only a couple doors past Rose’s. 

He didn’t take long. Just long enough to scrub himself, and a few extra minutes to be sure he’d gotten all the dust out of his hair—fighting Daleks was dirty work, it turned out. He pulled on a random pair of flannel pajama bottoms (which regeneration had bought them? He didn’t remember. They weren’t quite his style) and a navy blue T-shirt and stepped back into the corridor.

Rose’s room was still empty when he returned, although he could hear the shower running through the bathroom door. He sat down on the bed to wait. He had to keep reminding himself that it was really her, that Rose was on the other side of that door. He’d spent more time than he liked to admit in this room on his own, organizing her clothes and her magazines and her souvenirs as if that would do anything to bring her back. But she had come back on her own, a reminder of his complete failure, but also a reminder that she was so incredibly determined, so persistent, so completely herself. She had never needed him; he was just lucky she kept coming back anyway. 

The water turned off, and the Doctor shifted towards the bathroom door. It was a couple more minutes before the door opened and a slightly damp Rose stepped out. Her makeup was gone, and her hair had gone a little wavy from the water. She was wearing a plain white vest top over lavender shorts—her ordinary sleepwear. A shy smile appeared on her face when she saw him. 

“Those are new,” she said, nodding to his trousers. 

He glanced down at his flannel-clad legs. “Old, more like. Don't even remember which regeneration they were for. I'm lucky they fit.”

“So you're telling me those trousers could be hundreds of years old?”

“Suppose they could, yeah.” He tapped the empty space next to him on the bed. “C'mon, sit.”

Rose lowered herself onto the bed next to him. Hastily, he stacked a couple pillows behind her so she could lean back against the headboard without hurting herself—she wavered, looking speculatively at him, until he tugged at her arm in a bid for her to come closer. She moved to sit against the pillows, and when he extended his arm to wrap around her shoulders, she practically fell into his side. Deep in his soul, something small seemed to click into place, something he hadn't even quite realized was out of place. There was just such a comfort in having Rose’s body nestled next to his. Her hair was putting a damp spot in his shirt, and he didn't even mind. He looked down at her and couldn’t help but smile.

“How’s your side?” he asked.

“Still fine.” Her eye roll was audible, but then, so was her smile. 

“Oi, it's not unreasonable to be worried,” the Doctor said. “A bruised rib can be serious!”

“But mine isn't,” Rose insisted. She looked up at him. “You checked it out, didn't you? And now I'm resting, just like you said.”

“Oh, all right.” The Doctor raised his eyebrows. “But I think I'm allowed to be worried, considering you seem to have spent the last two years being battered by cars and walls from across the multiverse.”

“Oi, you can talk. Blow up any buildings lately?” 

“Depends. Would you say a Dalek spaceship counts as a building?”

Rose gave him a look. He sighed.

“Fine, point taken.” 

Her responding smile was all but irresistible. And, the Doctor remembered, there was no real reason to resist. He lifted his free hand to trace her cheekbone with his thumb, pushing a bit of hair back and off her face. Her smile softened, and he ducked his head so he could kiss her. She kissed him back, gentler then he'd ever dared hope for. 

When she pulled away, it was with a furrowed brow. “How comes you're doing this now?”

The Doctor matched her frown. “Doing what?” 

“You know.” Rose waved a hand. “The kissing, and all that.”

“Oh.” The Doctor swallowed, mostly in an attempt to buy himself the time to formulate an answer. Finally, he took a stab at honesty, staring out at the pictures on Rose’s wall as he spoke. “I was so scared of losing you, before. I thought it might hurt less, if we were… less involved.” He looked down at Rose. “But when I did lose you, every single day I regretted not making the most of what we had while we had it. It was cowardly, and I'm sorry.”

“So—” Rose pushed herself further upright, angling herself to look him right in the eyes. “You want to be with me?”

“Rose Tyler.” The Doctor’s mouth was dry. Once he said the next bit, he couldn't ever go back. Although—who was he kidding? He'd hit the point of return a long time ago, with Rose. “Of course I want to be with you. I—” His voice broke. 

“What?”

He steeled himself. “I love you.”

Rose held his gaze. “Really?”

The Doctor nodded. “Extremely. Definitively. Very—”

And then she was kissing him. He was startled, at first, by the force of it, by her hand in his hair and her tongue running across his lower lip, but then she'd been waiting years for this, and so had he, and it was long past time they did something about it. It was a bit of an awkward angle—she was still sort of sitting next to him, and he had to twist his torso if he wanted to kiss her properly, and with her injuries she couldn’t quite do the same—but there was nothing that could ruin this moment for him. He kept having to remind himself that it was real, Rose was real, not a hologram this time, she was tangible and here and he could tell because he was kissing her. It was overwhelming in the best possible way. 

Rose pulled away. She was breathing heavily, and fear spiked through the Doctor—had he hurt her?

“All right?” he checked.

“Yeah, fine.” She flushed. “Better than fine. Just processing, is all.” Her bottom lip caught itself between her teeth. “Haven't exactly done this in a while.”

“What, dimension travel isn't full of people throwing themselves at you?”

“Not exactly.” Rose grimaced. “And the one time I flirted with somebody, he turned out to be a parallel version of me.”

The Doctor guffawed. “What, really?”

“And he was gay!” She swatted at the still-laughing Doctor. “Oi, it's not funny!”

“You're telling me that, of all the men in all the universes, the one you flirted with was your gay clone?” 

Rose rolled her eyes. “He's not a clone.”

“Fine. Your gay doppelgänger?”

“Well, when you put it that way—”

“See? Funny!”

“You know what? You can have this one.” Rose let her cheek rest on the Doctor’s shoulder. “My point is, I haven’t been doing a lot of kissing, these last few years. Got to readjust.”

“Well, I’m happy to help any way I can.”

Rose swatted at him again. He grinned.

“Say, how many different versions of yourself did you meet, anyway? Lots of Rose Tylers running around out there?”

“Not unless you count the cats and dogs,” Rose said. “Only two humans. Rob and Rosie.” She glanced up at the Doctor. “Rob and me snuck into Downing Street together. Rosie ran a cafe, and my mum walked in and Rosie tried to kick her out. And I wound up babysitting.” 

“What, like, she had a baby?” 

Rose nodded. “And his name was Jimmy. After Jimmy Stone!”

“Jimmy Stone, your ex?” the Doctor asked. Rose had never explained all the details of the whole Jimmy Stone saga to him, but the Doctor got the impression he hadn’t been all that great of a boyfriend.

“That’s the one.” Rose wrinkled her nose. “She seemed all right, though. Was doing well with the cafe. Jimmy, Senior was dead, but she had good friends, nice neighbors. ‘Course, I don’t know how many of them survived.”

“Survived?”

Rose glanced at the Doctor. “Stars going out, remember? In all these universes.” She picked at a loose thread on her shorts. “With Rosie’s, there was this planet, must’ve been flung from a dead solar system, and it was heading right for Earth. Was going to stop it rotating. Barely any warning or anything. And the dimension cannon was malfunctioning, too. I almost didn’t get out in time. And then it didn’t bring me back to Torchwood, it launched me into another universe with a whole other crisis.” She glanced at the Doctor. “Had a parallel half-sibling in that one. Danni. We traveled together for a while.” 

A dim sense of horror had settled over the Doctor. Rose had said the stars were going out, but he hadn’t really thought about it, hadn’t considered the physics of it. Stars—the Earth’s sun was a star, and so were all the other suns, and there were loads of stars that didn’t have planets but still pulled on the stars around it in all sorts of ways… he always said he was from the constellation Kasterborous, a constellation of seventeen suns, but he’d somehow never thought about the impact of even one of those suns disappearing. No star lasted forever, of course. And neither did any planet, nor any other piece of space. He and Rose had watched the sun expand swallow the Earth. But stars going out unexpectedly, all at once—that could be disastrous. Was disastrous, from the sound of it.

And Rose had been there. From universe to universe, she had seen the effects. The Doctor had seen all sorts of things, watched plenty of worlds end, seen entire species wiped out—he’d seen timelines unraveled, people’s births and deaths undone; indeed, he’d been the cause of plenty of it himself. But that had all been within this universe. He’d never seen universe after universe on the brink of collapse, never tried to save the same planet more than once. The stars going out… Rose loved the stars. The Doctor reached for her hand and interlaced their fingers, the same way he had earlier in the Dalek ship, the same way he had back in that shop elevator. Even all the way back in that shop, when Rose had been a stranger, when he’d been cold and angry and hurt, their hands had fit together. 

“Rose,” he said, his voice low. “I’m sorry.” 

Rose frowned. “What for?”

“You’ve gone through so much,” the Doctor said. “All those universes… all those stars. I’m sorry you had to do that.”

“It’s not like I could’ve done anything else.” Rose’s thumb rubbed absently at the back of his hand. “Even if I hadn’t been trying to get back to you. All those lives… someone had to help them. I knew if I could find you, you would.” She paused. “Anyway, it wasn’t all bad. In one of the universes I got to help the people on Earth make contact with an alien species. These aliens were taking all the salt out of the oceans, and no one on Earth could figure out what was going on. But it turned out they were just trying to survive, same as we were.”

The Doctor grinned. He was sure it was an extremely silly grin, but he couldn’t help it. “Have I told you how brilliant you are?”

“Might’ve said something to that effect, yeah.” Rose bumped her shoulder against his. “Anyway, you still haven’t said what you were up to. Made lots of new friends, did you?”

“Not so many,” the Doctor said. “Just the two, really. Martha and Donna. Donna showed up in the console room just after we said goodbye.”

“She—what?”

“She was being dosed with huon particles, turns out,” the Doctor explained. “The TARDIS, it runs on these particles—the details aren’t important. But it’s sort of like a magnet. She had the particles in her, and the TARDIS has the particles, and there she was in the TARDIS.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t exactly good company at the time. Asked if she wanted to come with me, she said no, invited me to dinner, I said yes, I went off and didn’t come back.”

“But you found her again?” 

The Doctor nodded. “Much later. She’d been looking for me. Well, you met her, you know some of the story.”

“Not so much,” Rose said. “She didn’t know most of it, in that other universe.”

“Nice job not telling her your name, by the way,” the Doctor added. “Added loads of suspense to that whole conversation.”

“Well, it’s no fun if the answer comes easy, is it?” Rose smirked. “Anyway, you clearly got there in the end.” She nudged him again. “What about Martha?” 

“Oh, Martha, she’s brilliant too. Met her in hospital, she was a med student, I was investigating—”

“So, what, you checked in as a patient just to see how people would react to your extra heart?”

Now the Doctor was smirking. “We all need a bit of a thrill now and then, don’t we?”

“Oh, shut up.” 

“We had a good few adventures together,” the Doctor said. “She left on her own, in the end. Went through a pretty awful year—and, well.” He wrinkled his nose. “She fancied me.”

Rose laughed. “Oh, and I bet you were awful to her.”

“I wasn’t awful!” 

“If you say so.”

“I wasn’t!” 

Rose shook her head. “I know better than anyone what it’s like when you show up in that box of yours and ask someone on an adventure.”

“It was completely platonic!” the Doctor protested. “She knew that! I told her that!”

“Loads of people say things are platonic when they’re flirting,” Rose pointed out. “I used to say all the time that we weren’t together. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t head over heels.”

“That was because your mum kept thinking I was some sort of predator,” the Doctor reminded her.

“All right, but still.” Rose gave him a look. “How soon was this after you lost me?”

“Not—not too long.”

“Oh, so you were moping the whole time?” 

The Doctor scoffed. “I didn’t mope. I’ve never moped.”

“You do,” Rose said. “Remember when I ate the last one of those little pastries you got from that little bakery in Oktoflan? You moped for a week. Even after we went and got more.”

“They weren’t as good the second time round.”

“You just think that because you’d gotten tired of them.”

“What does any of this have to do with Martha?”

“Oh, come on, Doctor,” Rose said. “You were moping. You met Martha. You asked her to come with you. You give her those sad puppy eyes—I’ve seen ‘em! You show her all of time and space—of course she fancied you! Who wouldn’t?”

The Doctor sputtered. “Donna didn’t!” 

Rose placed an affectionate kiss on his cheek. “You’re completely oblivious, you are.”

“Oi, I figured out you fancied me, didn’t I?”

“And how long did that take you?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the Doctor said. “I was worried it was wishful thinking, at first.” He frowned. “Hang on. How long did you fancy me?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Rose parroted. “There was something about you grabbing my hand and telling me you could feel the earth turning?”

“What, that long? Never mind, then, I suppose I must be oblivious.”

Rose grinned. “It’s good to be back,” she said. “Been a while since I had anyone to make a mockery of, too. Unless you count Danni, I suppose, but that was different.”

“Suppose that’s all I’m good for, then. A bit of humor at my expense.”

“Yep, that’s it.” But the way Rose was curling into his side said otherwise. “You’re just here to be funny.” 

“You know what? I’ll take it.” The Doctor looked down at her. There was something vulnerable about her, now she was out of her dimension-hopping clothes, now she was no longer trying to project confidence into her every action and word. She was brilliant at it, brilliant at all that talking and running and world-saving, and he loved her all the more for it. But now she’d let her guard down, and there was something gorgeous about it, her tired eyes and soft smile as she peered up at him. Carefully, he kissed her forehead. “Say, weren’t you going to get some sleep now?”

“Oh, who needs sleep?” But even as she said it, Rose yawned massively.

The Doctor laughed. “Come on. .D’you want the light off?”

Rose shook her head. “That’s all right. Not a big fan of darkness, right about now.”

Another mark of her time away, then. “All right, then.” The Doctor lifted the covers over both their legs. He laid on his back, and Rose settled on her good side with her head on his chest, one arm around his waist. 

“You’ll still be here?” she asked. “When I wake up?”

“Only if you are,” the Doctor replied.

“Good enough for me.” Rose shifted to lie more securely in his arms. “Night, Doctor.” 

“Good night, Rose Tyler.” He let his hand run through her hair, drawing slow patterns on her scalp. It wasn’t long before her breaths evened out, and it wasn’t long after that that he, too, drifted off, perfectly content. 

[gingerteaonthetardis]

Did you listen to the Rose Tyler dimension cannon audio series? were they any good?

hey, nonny! sorry for the slow reply, life is A Lot right now.

so, i listened to the first dimension cannon release when it first came out and really enjoyed it, but unfortunately haven't kept up with the series for money reasons. i plan to catch up eventually, though, because i am a sucker for rose donning her leather jacket and Becoming The Doctor.

on that note, i will be the first to admit that nostalgia was a driving force of my enjoyment. like, i would have been happy just hearing camille and billie and shaun's voices and knowing the tyler family were being reunited in the studio! but it's not just about nostalgia either—there's new places, new people, and a bit of development for side characters, people who are mentioned or who we meet only in passing in the original series. and i was interested in that. i was particularly excited for her to take on clive as a companion!

on top of all that, we see rose grappling with the reality of jumping from doomed world to doomed world, and with being put in the same situations the doctor was in time and time again: situations where there are no good choices. it's compelling to me, and might be compelling to you!

also! the audios are not particularly shippy (as i recall) if that sways you either way. her relationship with the doctor is a motivating force and certainly not denied in any way, but it's also not always in the foreground.

hope this was helpful, nonny. and again, sorry for taking so long to answer!

[johamfated]

"I'm Rose Tyler. I can leap across dimensions."

She sounded so much like the Doctor when she said it. 🤣🤣

[bronzeagepizzeria]

something about how pete recognises rose as his in every universe…

[luthqrs]

doctor who big finish audio stories!

⚠️ this post is no longer being updated or monitored x ⚠️

you may have seen my nuwho books post and thought “well that’s all good and proper but i wanted the big finish audio dramas >:(“ fear not, because i have a collection of those too and i am still not allergic to sharing :)

also up for grabs: doctor who novelisations (x) and torchwood big finish audios (x)

a list of what’s there + how to play below the cut x

things you’ll find here:

new who + misc

the diary of river song (series 1-12)

the death and life of river song (series 1)

the tenth doctor and river song (series 1)

the tenth doctor adventures (series 1-3)

the ninth doctor adventures (series 1 + series 4 vol. 1)

unit incursions (episodes 8.04 + 8.05)

unit nemesis (series 4)

missy (series 1-4)

the eighth of march (3.01 + 3.02)

masterful + terror of the master

rose tyler: the dimension cannon (series 1-3)

the paternoster gang (series 1-5)

master! (series 1-3)

time lord victorious (008)

once and future (005)

tenth doctor adventures: dalek universe (3.02)

classic who

the eighth doctor adventures (series 1-4)

stranded series (series 1-3)

doom coalition (series 1-4) (exc. 3.02.... working on it)

dark eyes (series 1-4)

ravenous (series 1-4)

classic main range (134, 135 + 168)

companion chronicles: the second doctor (vol 1-3 / series 10, 12 + 14)

gallifrey (series 1-3)

!!! torchwood audios have moved. they can now be found here !!!

and how to access them

press play!!

if you like to listen at 1.5x speed like me, you can use an independent media player. on ios, press the 3 dots -> open with: [audio player of choice] (i use evermusic)

make and save copies of what you want even if you don’t have time to listen right now. don’t rely on this link always being here.

want something you can't have?

⚠️ this post is not currently being monitored or updated ⚠️

if there's a particular story/series you wanted to hear that i don't have listed yet, send me an ask or pop it in the comments x

happy listening! x

[stuckwithyounotsobad]

The biggest misconception of Rose Tyler is probably the reason why she came back in Stolen Earth and Journey’s End. Yes, originally she started working on the dimension cannon project to get back to The Doctor. But and I know media literacy is dead and people really don’t listen to characters anymore; She stated “But then then the stars going out.” Meaning her objective changed…So yes she originally wanted to get back to the doctor (and part of it was to get back to him) But that wasn’t the only reason and to act like it was is misremembering/finding a reason to put your dislike on her.

[regenderate]

thought about rose tyler going to a universe where there's an alternate version of herself but the alternate version of herself just wants to live a normal life running a cafe and raising her kid and then they find out a big planet is about to stop the earth from spinning which in turn is going to fling everyone off the earth's surface unless they can get underground but there's not enough underground shelter space for everyone and also there's not enough warning to get anyone down there and so rose is running around trying to save everyone she can and also herself and while she's doing that her alternate self calls her out on being selfish for jumping in and out of all these universes and keeping herself safe even though everyone in the universes has to deal with whatever apocalyptic thing is happening and rose is like "sometimes survival is selfish" and keeps pushing for her alternate self to find shelter and then they get separated and rose never sees her again. no survivors

thought about the rose tyler dimension cannon audios incident no survivors

[tenr0se0]

Agent Rose Tyler, on the way to the presentation for dimension cannon project

Selena’s “wolves” always reminds me of Rose Tyler’s torchwood agent era

I've been runnin' through the jungle

I've been runnin' with the wolves

To get to you, to get to you

I've been down the darkest alleys

Saw the dark side of the moon

To get to you, to get to you

[pers-books]

SALE! THE LADIES OF TIME! 💅🏻

Browse the link above for up to 50% off selected releases featuring Jenny, Rose, Martha, Susan, Lady Christina and Donna.

Hurry! Offers expire at 23:59 (UK time) on 21 March 2025.

Bundles can be found here:

Rose Tyler: The Dimension Cannon 2-3 (CD)

Rose Tyler: The Dimension Cannon 2-3 (Download)

Susan's War 2-3 (CD)

Susan's War 2-3 (Download)

Jenny 1 + Lady Christina 1 (CD)

Jenny 1 + Lady Christina 1 (Download)

Jenny 1-2 (Download)

[bluenotemagpie]

a jake simmonds/mickey smith fic recommendations post

hello, it's me, who for some reason set up camp in this particular corner of rarepair hell back in, like, 2012 and has not left. i've tried, but i live here now. all because i watched age of steel and thought:

there are 80 fics in the jake/mickey tag on ao3, and a handful scattered on ff.net. here are the ones i've returned to over the years. <3

The Spiral by LetThemRot

excerpt:

Harriet Jones is on the tele, like she's been for the last ten nights, saying that yes, the Cybermen are gone (it's taken three years for the information to get out - the factories have been sealed off and uninvestigated for so long that none of the public noticed), and no, it's not information that the public has access to. Everyone should understand this and get on with their lives. The Cybermen have been separate for a long time - now they're just gone for good. Let the authorities handle this.

But she is Jackie Tyler, and she knows the authorities. She's living with three of them.

summary: The Doctor is in one world, Rose Tyler in another, and the Void stretches between them. Life in the days following the Battle of Canary Wharf, told by those stranded in Pete's World.

thoughts: on any given day there is a 50% chance that i am thinking about this fic and chewing on the walls. this was the first jake/mickey fic i ever read and i might have to credit it with how unhinged i am about this ship. it follows rose, mickey, jake, pete, and jackie after the events of doomsday, and it is so canon in my brain that getting through the immediately post-doomsday parts of my own fic was a real challenge because i wanted to just go "look, go read The Spiral and come back, that's what happens." it is in my writer DNA. i could not choose one of the actual jake/mickey parts of the story for the excerpt because i just want you to go read it and experience it. i love it so much.

--

These Conversations We Have by LetThemRot

excerpt:

Rose turns away once Jake presses his lips to Mickey's. It's not the jealousy of what they have, or the daydreaming - so she tells herself - it's the roommate-kissing-your-ex-boyfriend factor. It's not the unfair way that they can be happy and know (roughly) where the other is at all times and whether they're safe. It's just the roommate-and-ex-boyfriend factor - that's all. She plants her chin on a jumper-covered fist and stares resolutely at the screen, not seeing a single atom of it.

summary: Things said and heard in Pete's World. Life is hard when everyone has a different idea of what's right. Post-Doomsday, pre-Journey's End.

thoughts: like the above, this fic is in my writer DNA. rose, queen of burnout, is determined to get the dimension cannon working even if it kills her. rose & jake are besties and flatmates, which is truly a delight because they're both goddamn disasters. this is also a fic which doesn't shy away from how - even if jake & mickey get their shit together and decide to date - the ghost of ricky smith will never be easily disregarded.

--

Not Made of Tin by Nope

excerpt:

Three years before this, he comes awake, startled into the sudden chill of the back of the van. He can't hear, can't remember the noise that brought him out of the dark into this bleary half-light, tinted, smeared windows and Jake snuffle-snoring in the front seat, but there are seabird screeches and the faint rough hum of traffic and he has the strangest craving for ice-cream, proper fake soft Mister Whippy style ice-cream, all chemicals and sugar buzz cold. They should sell that on the sea-front, he reckons. That's what people do, even in foreign parts. Assuming they even have ice-cream in this damn dimension and, if they don't, he's going to invent it and make a fucking fortune. How hard can it be?

thoughts: this is a dark fic - I'd add a warning about non-con & rate this E - but it also has some really excellent, prickly characterization & an intriguing narrative structure. ymmv depending on your tolerance for the aforementioned warnings. but i love fics that put the characters' flaws front & centre, so on the list it goes! (this was also written in 2009, so there's some ableist language that wouldn't fly today, fwiw.)

--

Guy Fawkes Has Nothing on Us by misspamela ( @miss-pamela on tumblr)

excerpt:

It was three days before Mickey got himself together enough to freak out.

He woke up an hour after he'd gone to sleep, with Jake sitting first watch up front and the communications equipment turned down to a dull hum. The van was dark, not the dark of his room at home, ringed with fluorescent lighting, and not the whirring, yellowish dark of the TARDIS. Cold dark. Alien dark.

Next thing, he's thrashing about and yelling, knocking wires and ammunition to the floor.

"You're not losing it, mate?" Jake scrambled into the back of the van.

All Mickey can think of to say is, "I've never even been to Greece."

thoughts: this hits my favourite tone of "lighthearted banter with some emotions & growing fondness" <3 i'm very fond of fics where there's clearly an action movie plot happening in the background, but that's not the focus dammit the feelings are the focus

--

Rain Like Ghosts by carolinecrane

excerpt:

Jake shifted against him, somehow moving closer without touching any more than he had to. Like he was afraid what Mickey would say if he noticed how close they were. Like it would be possible for Mickey to miss it. And it was probably just as well the French blokes had given them a room of their own, because Jake's arm had landed on top of him somehow and his hand was pressed against Mickey's chest, heat radiating from his fingers and making Mickey feel in a way he hadn't for a long time.

thoughts: god bless carolinecrane for writing many of the fics in the jake/mickey tag. idk where you are now but i salute you 🫡 in any case, who can resist a "there was only one bed" fic

--

Birds by carolinecrane

excerpt:

He liked the way Mickey kissed him -- different from Ricky, less intense but sweeter somehow -- and he liked that Mickey needed him more than Ricky ever had.

He didn't think much about what that said about him until Rose crashed back into Mickey's life, dragging her mum with her and suddenly Mickey didn't need Jake so much anymore. And he'd never really thought of himself as selfish until Jackie and Rose turned up, but as it turned out, he didn't like having to share.

thought: you might be noticing a recurring theme, which is that i really enjoy fics where jake is a bit of a bastard. this one is set around the trip to bad wolf bay & is very cute

--

sorry for the runner-up by carolinecrane

excerpt:

"Look, mate, I know it's different for you and me. You and Ricky…well, it was different, anyway."

"We got shot at a lot less," Jake says, and Mickey knows he's trying to be funny, but he doesn't feel much like laughing.

"Maybe that's your problem."

"You think I should get shot at more?"

thoughts: jake's "you think I should get shot at more?" joke to avoid discussing his own feelings is so canon to me that i did end up putting a reference to it into my own fic while editing a chapter recently. mickey's down bad in this fic, which is sometimes a challenge when you're stuck together in the back of a zeppelin. 10/10 very fun times

(carolinecrane has other v good jake/mickey oneshots, but these three are my favourites!)

--

Possibilities, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bananas by rosa_acicularis

excerpt:

“Suppose I don’t have to ask how it went last night, do I?” Pete Tyler said from the doorway. Unconsciously, both Mickey and Jake straightened in their chairs.

Rose gave him a wan smile. “He was an idiot.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Pete replied evenly as he walked to the coffeemaker, ceramic ‘World’s Best Dad’ mug in hand. Rose and Mickey exchanged an amused look; a man as powerful as Pete Tyler hardly needed to fetch his own coffee, much less travel the three floors down to Recovery and First Contact to get it. Yet two or three days a week he spent his five minutes of precious free time with a woman who was not his daughter, a man who was not her boyfriend, and a man who may (or may not) have been his boyfriend. Pete poured his coffee and sipped at it gingerly. “So,” he said, leaning back and resting his elbows on the counter just as Rose had done moments ago. “Should I be forming a taskforce to deal with an imminent invasion of alien fruit and veg?”

“No,” Mickey said.

“Maybe,” Rose said.

Pete looked to Jake, who shook his head. “I’m just sitting here, reading my paper. I am opinionless.”

“Spineless,” Mickey muttered, and Jake arched an eyebrow in his direction. Rose watched them and sighed inwardly; their epic saga of will-they-won’t-they had recently resolved itself (to neither man’s satisfaction) as they-will-but-just-the-once-because-apparently-they-are-both-idiots. They rarely let the tension interfere with their working camaraderie, but it was beginning to get under her skin nevertheless.

thoughts: genuinely one of my fave fics. rose-centric, takes a different path from journey's end. all the character relationships are spot-on and crack me up, including rose's little brother - HOLD ON I JUST FOUND OUT THAT THE AUTHOR HAS A BUNCH MORE DOCTOR WHO FICS, BRB I GOTTA GO READ THEM ALL RIGHT NOW

--

Interlude (The Space Between Breaths) by freefall

excerpt:

Later, when the fight is over and the wounds are bandaged, and it’s just you and Mickey again in the hull of an abandoned warehouse, the only light coming from some flickering candles and the only warmth from the slow heat of cheap gin in your stomach, is when he asks. ‘Course he asks, and you realize that somewhere along the way he had learned you just as well as you learned him (and how is that even fair when he didn’t have the advantage of knowing his parallel universe self, but he did it anyway. Bloody Mickey.)

thoughts: this fic fucking slaps. i don't read a lot of second-person stuff, but the second-person here has such a strong voice to it. short but sweet with a lot of that good good subtext.

--

a parisian sunset by @lesbiandonnanoble

excerpt:

Jake pulled his thermos out of his bag. In the middle of winter, with just a van and just the two of them, it really was the only source of warmth. It usually held some kind of tea - spiked, more often than not - or cider. He unscrewed the cap, which also functioned as the mug, and filled it up. He looked down at it, swirled the liquid around in the cup, and passed it to Mickey. “Cheers.”  Mickey didn’t know what Jake wanted him to do. Logically, it was a drink for him. He should drink it. But there was only one cup, and Jake had been very hesitant to share anything with him insofar. Did Jake want to share it? “For me?” he asked.  Jake laughed. “Yes, man. You look cold.”

thoughts: CUTE SHIT. i love a good jake-and-mickey-have-emotions-in-paris fic. and as someone who gets cold very easily, i'm obsessed with helping people get warm as an act of love.

--

so there we have it! the jake/mickey fics that have haunted my brain like my mind is a cursed cathedral!! my own fic is still a WIP - it's a long one, currently going through edits - but you can check out the beginnings of the first draft here if you want more. or i post about it with the my dw magnum opus tag, because i have had this fic rattling around in my brain for over a decade and was finally compelled to put it to paper.

happy reading! <3

[quietwingsinthesky]

For prompt sunday: missy/rose with it being rose post s4 Finale

fun with immortal rose and newly regenerated missy, let’s goooo. they are so silly.

Rose Tyler keeps living.

Of course she’s angry about that, left in another dimension until everyone around her that she loves grows old and dies. Of course she mourns it, once she runs out of anger. Of course she tries to be the Doctor for this universe, but in the end, she’s still Rose.

It was a good life. It’s time for her to find another. She has to reconstruct the dimension cannon mostly by herself, but if there’s one thing she has to spare, it’s time. She loses track of how many years it takes, but at the end, she takes one final aim between dimensional fabric and blasts right through.

“My TARDIS is built out of firmer things than wood and straw. You’ll have to try a little harder to knock it down,” is the first thing Rose hears, but really, the only word that matters is TARDIS. It’s too good to be true, she knows that, or her memory of how good the cannon’s aim used to be does.

Still, she picks herself up off the floor, throws her gaze around the opulent console room until it lands on the woman standing by the controls, and asks, “Doctor?” The woman curtseys playfully.

“Yes, it’s me, the Doctor, catching pretty strays as they tear through dimensions.” Rose narrows her eyes.

“Oh, you’re definitely not the Doctor,” she says, absolutely certain.

“Excuse you! I could be!”

“What’s my name then?” Rose asks.

“It’s been centuries,” the woman protests. Rose raises an eyebrow. “You’re his- my Big Bad Wolf.” She has the same wild look in her eyes as the Doctor, Rose will give her that, but she’s not fooling anyone, least of all Rose herself.

“My name is Rose. Who the hell are you?”

“Fine. Not the Doctor. And still figuring the rest out, but there’s two things I know for certain: One, I’m the Doctor’s very best friend-”

“He never mentioned you,” Rose deadpans.

“And two,” the woman speaks over her, clearly annoyed by that, “you may address me as… the Master.” The showiness of that reveal is ruined when a moment later, she cringes from her own words. “No, no, you may not. I told you, I’m still cooking.”

“Look, if you’re the Doctor’s friend, you know where he is. Can you take me to him?”

“Now that you mention it, I could. I will. You’re a much better present than what I was planning.”

“I’m not a present!”

“Cybermen it is, then!”

“What- No! What is wrong with you?!” The woman cackles, and it’s alarming, how much her laughter also sounds like the Doctor’s.

“They don’t even have a word for it,” she says. She looks Rose up and down. “Oh, you wouldn’t understand. How old are you? Twenty?”

“I lost track around two hundred,” Rose says. For the first time, the woman stills, and when she look at Rose again, there’s more than amusement behind her eyes. Rose isn’t sure she’d call it respect, but it’s near enough.

“Wouldn’t want him to be too happy to see you,” the woman says, finally. “It is his fault, isn’t it? He’ll find a way to blame me, even if it is, but I want to hold it over his head.”

“I think it might be my own fault,” Rose says, and she approaches the console. The controls, even after all these years, are familiar to her. Crystallized in her memory, a borrowed heart’s worth of knowledge.

“If we blame him, we get to watch him squirm. Mistress! There’s the word. That is so me, don’t you think?” She lays a hand over one heart, and Rose laughs.

“I’m not calling you that.”

“Yet,” says the Mistress.

[demdifferentstories-29]

Very softly placing butterfly kisses on your lover's skin up the length of their arm, either stopping at their neck, or drifting back down to their pulse point. For tentoorose pleaseeee🥺🥺🥺🥺

Thank you, queen <3 Read on AO3, or below the cut:

“Shhhh,” a voice whispered, not so quietly as they hoped to be, as two bodies stumbled up a stairwell. They clung onto each other and the banister that winded upwards with them, swaying side-to-side on unsteady feet. One pair of said feet was adorned with rather impractical heels, which made the whole ordeal even harder than it was. “We don’t want to wake the neighbours!” the voice whisper-shouted, pressing his hot, moist mouth close to his companion’s ear in an attempt at inconspicuousness.

The other voice tried to muffle her giggles, clutching onto her friend’s coat and trying to stifle a belly laugh that threatened to emerge and fill up the echoey space of the stairs. Tears pricked in the corners of her eyes, smudging her perfectly done makeup just a little. “Doctor, I’m pretty sure you already have,” she snorted, smacking a hand over her mouth as the need to laugh rambunctiously burned in her core.

“Oi! I have not!” the Doctor fiercely protested, his volume jumping to a louder level than previously. Their eyes widened simultaneously at the outburst and he mimicked Rose’s physical silencing with his hand over his own lips, shoulders shaking with contained laughter. 

“Oh my god,” Rose wheezed, tears trickling down her cheeks. She started to frantically wave at her face, clutching onto the handrail beside her. “Oh, bollocks, please get the bloody keys out,” she demanded, sniffling and gesturing to her clutch that was in his hands. “‘M about to wake the whole bleedin’ place up.”

“I’m trying,” he whinged softly, digging through it. “Where are the blasted things?” he questioned aloud as they continued to stagger up the final steps, now on the landing where their flat was located. His nimble fingers finally wrapped around the jangly collection of metal and he did a very good job at not shouting in triumph. He shook them at Rose with a smug grin and she just rolled her eyes at him, gesturing at the door.

After trying four different keys, they finally got inside their home, nearly face-planting on the carpet when they tripped over their collection of shoes in their very small hall that led into the living room and kitchen area. They giggled in the safety of their flat as they wrangled off their respective shoes, dumping them before staggering into the open layout. 

“Oh, why do you humans love getting sloshed like this?” the Doctor groaned, sprawling across the couch and covering his face with his hands. “I mean, it’s pretty fun and a brilliant demonstration of biology, but blimey it’s also difficult to deal with!” he complained, twisting and turning as he fought to get his coat off. 

“You’re human now too, you know,” Rose teased, straddling him and helping him wrangle off the piece of clothing. She tossed it onto the armchair adjacent to them and added her own denim jacket to the mix before sitting back on her haunches, admiring her lover beneath her. “You deserve to tick off all these human-y, domestic experiences you’ve never had before,” she declared, dancing her fingertips across his jumper-covered chest. He gazed upon her with a lazy smile on his lips, simply in awe of it all. 

In awe of the fact that he was here right now, sharing a flat with Rose Tyler, being introduced as her partner to new people like she had all evening at the pub crawl they’d gone on in celebration of the success of the dimension cannon, getting to kiss and touch and hug and love her without shame or fear, and knowing that he was going to spend the rest of his life with her.

It was everything he had ever wanted since meeting her in that basement all those years ago, and no words could describe the fullness he felt in his heart when he woke up every morning to the sight of her beside him.

He chose not to respond to her, instead bringing his focus to her hand. He grasped it, threading their fingers together and just admiring the smooth, creamy complexion he had found himself memorising every inch of these last few weeks. 

His stomach grew tight at the thought of what it would look like with a diamond ring on. A wedding band. 

He drew her knuckles to his lips and adorned a kiss to each one, staring at her as he did. She laughed softly at the gesture, eyes drooping and heavy from the alcohol and exhaustion of moving throughout London all night. His kisses started to trail up her arm, pulling her further down inch by inch until she was chest-to-chest with him. Rose giggled softly at the ticklish, featherlight sensations brushing her skin, wriggling and thrashing beneath the overwhelming touch. It was setting all of her nerve ends alight, sensitive and driving her mad. 

“Doctor,” she drawled teasingly in between laughter, feeling his grin pressed against her skin, “stop!” He chuckled lowly in his throat and ignored her half-hearted pleas, continuing to transverse across her flesh with his mouth.

“I don’t think I will, Rose Tyler,” he countered, flicking his tongue against the inside of her elbow in a moment of mischief before continuing his journey, mapping out her skin with the pillowy texture of his lips and butterfly kisses. 

He traced over the bare complexion of her shoulders, Rose having opted for a halter-neck top tonight, pressing one long, yearning kiss to the junction of her neck and shoulder before following back down the path he had made. He stopped where her pulse fluttered in her wrist, sighing softly into the final kiss he left. 

“I love you,” he mumbled, running his thumb over the same spot. He still struggled to accept that this was his reality on some days. He could hardly believe that he had lucked out this good, and fixating on Rose Tyler’s signs of life often helped as reminders that this was in fact the reward he had wished for. He flicked his eyes back to her, their faces barely apart from one another, and she merely smiled at him, softly kissing the tip of his nose.

“I love you too,” she murmured back, snuggling against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and closed his eyes, basking in the feeling of his precious girl in his embrace.

Everything he’d been through — every terror, trauma, and pain — had been worth it for this.