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[bigbadrose]

[For those who hadn't seen Rose yet: she looks like a traditional gargoyle: stone, grey skin, bat-like wings, red glowing eyes, but for blonde hair, and her ability to speak in her mostly usual voice.]

They say you're not to keep wolves as pets.

I mean, first off, yeah, it ain't right to coop the wolf up inside, for sure, who wouldn't get stir crazy like that, yeah? But even beyond that, they'll never be domestic. You never know when one might turn around and bite ya, no matter how much you try to feed it.

I was always more a cat person myself. Had one as a kid. Even got a flap in the door on the Powell Estates so she could come and go as she pleased. I know what it's like to need to wander.

I didn't get a new one when she died. Not 'cause it hurt too much, I don't think that should ever make you stop from making new friends, [A VERY STERN LOOK AT THE CAMERA. Brought to you with all the subtlty of engraving it on a rock and throwing it at the Doctor's face.] but 'cause I was fourteen, and ran away at sixteen, and then when I came back I had to work off debts, but basically, I didn't intend ta stick around there very long, or even as long as I did.

[Pouts a cheek to the side, which looks hilarious coming from a gargoyle.] Fer awhile, I thought... outliving your friends, because of a really long life, must be like that. You never forget or stop loving your pets, and how close or important they are to you is just on you and them and whatever yer relationship together. Some people wouldn't let themselves get that close to pets, knowing they're gonna die sooner 'n not, but [Another stern look at the camera. SO SUBTLE ROSE.] I know my friends enough to expect better than that.

[Glances off sideways.] Somewhere along the way I started thinking of myself like a pet dog. I forgot that wolves can make humans or even domestic animals their pack mates, but you still mustn't think of 'em as tamed. It does 'em a disservice, but they can also bite even friendly hands. Never docile, are wolves, yeah?

[Sighs and facepalms. Locking this part to those in the know, and 10 & Sarah Jane (even though they wouldn't know).] That's a lot of words to say I'm sorry. And bein' cooped up is no excuse. I'll try to do as well as my immortal friends from now on.

Koishi, I've got a hat for you, you'll have to add the glitter yourself though, yeah? Like visual pop-rocks on top. [Tongue out the side, despite being literally stoney.]

[Part B: Action In Genessia at night, Rose is playing action superheroine, flying around and divebombing monsters as need to rescue anyone who looks like they could use the help, though she, like anyone who knows the 10th Doctor or experienced his brief bit of bounty hunting; pulls her punches and steadfast refuses to eliminate any monsters in full.]

[During the daytime, the Ponds' house will have discovered a new rooftop ornament, as Rose tries to keep away ghosts and whatever else, and protect it.]

[At evening, she'll try again to talk to Amy and/or Rory if they'll let her. But she can only move at night.]

[In Fayren at night: she laughs, and acts as a fountain.]

Reverse Jesus!!! Turn wine into water!!

[Where's Ted to get this joke?]

[At the Attleton University, whether or not 12 is there, Rose knocks at night -- being unable to make classes during the day of course.]

Little pig, little pig, let me come in!

[Feel free to wtf in person, though it's not filmed.]

[Action C: Choose Your Own Adventure!]

Comments

[poppinsy]

"Oh, but it actually was his fault. He never tells you that part, does he? Never mentions all the things that he could have done so that he didn't need to take that path and leave Jack and Martha stranded for a whole year that no one else remembers. If they'd talk about it to anyone, they'd be sectioned! But it broke them. The both of them, even if dearest Saint Martha Jones doesn't talk about what it must have been like to have an entire nation die because you'd set foot on their soil. Or how many people I killed just to get her to come out and kneel before me. And they always kneel in the end, Wolfie. Every time." Missy grinned and stepped closer, as if she was daring the woman to hit her.

"But how silly of me, I never actually told you how it was his fault that the entire world was held captive for a year. How over a billion people died just because he didn't have it in his heart to kill little old me." Missy almost danced then, and she touched her face. "Course I was a bit of a pretty boy myself back then. But even after everything I'd done, he begged me to live. To live for him so he wouldn't be alone. And do you know why, Rosieposie?" Her voice dropped lower. "Because your silly little slothing human self will never be enough for him. Ever. You can shine brightly with your anger all you want, but at the end of the day, you know that. That's why he married River. And it's why he wanted to bring along Madame de Pompadour. It's because you could never compete with all of time and space and me. You never have and you never will."

[guitar_hero]

He grunts as she grabs onto him again, her beak thing sharp against his neck. Of course she doesn't think it's his fault. That was what she did. Compassion. More or less. Less these days than more it felt like. He peers at Missy when Rose says that she might be a manifestation of his fear. That would make sense but he hoped not because that would only make things worse not better and--

--it was a little disappointing. The last thing he wanted was Missy sinking her claws into the people he cared about, but he missed her, too. He wanted her to be here. So he could show her how it was. How it could be. No matter who was disgusted with him for it ad he could understand. He puts an arm absently around Rose's shoulders as she mentions Jack, shivering against him with a faint grinding noise.

He can't imagine Jack would even forgive him for that. Maybe he would. Whether he did or not didn't matter. Redemption was a beautiful thing. And if he could change-- if he could change just one little bit of the universe that had always been terrible into something a little less terrible... His oldest friend. His dearest enemy. To look up into the stars with someone and know that he wasn't-- that someone understood him more than anyone else and what it was like to be a Time Lord from Gallifrey. To have seen the time war and survived it.

Please, he wanted to say.

But he didn't and she continued, bright and cruel as a bird. He didn't know how Rose would take her words. He didn't know how he could defend them. It was true. It wasn't true. He already knew she didn't want what he was. Not really. That he was so much bigger than she was. A solar system compared to her raging star. One inferno compared to a thousand lifetimes. Not that she was small, no, she was brilliant. She shone through universes.

But...

She could never understand and maybe didn't want to. Always reaching for the impossible dream.

"River and Reinette have nothing to do with you." Not that that was going to be any comfort. "Look can we just forget about Mean Girls and-- I don't know-- It doesn't matter. Missy isn't going to hurt anyone. I won't let her." He could face that fear couldn't he? He could stop her. He always had.

...Eventually...

The nine times out of ten she didn't hang herself from her own banner because she just couldn't people correctly.

But this time it would be different.

"So let's all calm down and...get something to eat." It was fairly mundane, he had to admit, but getting Missy to try new foods was on his to do list. A great experience food. Bought people together.

[bigbadrose]

Rose wings were tense, somehow even stonier than rock and granite, and forged through friction and heat like diamond. She desperately wanted to reach out and choke the woman. Puppet. THING. To stop the words from hurting the Doctor. To just make them stop.

As if his guilt would ever be so easily defeated.

She hugged him hard, unable to lessen the grip into something more... normal. But just regarded the manifestation of his darkness, fear, and loathing, with piercing red eyes.

"What can you eat?" She hadn't tried to eat any solids yet. Liquids all turned to water, and she hadn't even been hungry. But she wasn't sure the vampire could handle proper chips without an allergic reaction or something either.

With a deep breath, she let go carefully, and stepped back, simply holding onto his hand, but looked up at him, a little worried.

"Better with two, yeah?"

She didn't want him to be alone.

She didn't like, no, hated and despised the low petty feeling of self-loathing and hatred in her that was jealous of River not being human, of Jack's immortality that still meant the Doctor ran away from him, of sheer annoyance twisted over and over into self-loathing and hatred; that she wouldn't be --

It wasn't even that she wasn't enough.

Just that she was too much.

Too human. Too fast. Too fleeting. Too intense. That even just taking a big step back from her and being with...

Whatever the TimeLord Nanny was supposed to be...

Or River who was kidnapped and brainwashed just to kill him...

That even that was preferable to--

But he had said it wasn't that. That it wasn't better. It just was. And she hated that too.

It was all mixed up and too emotional, even with the slight distance of being able to breathe from being outwardly stonier. Her heart would always be intensely human, no matter what she was changed into physically, mentally, or otherwise.

A deep breath, and she was nevertheless relieved that the glowing red eyes were incapable of tears. It made her calmer than she really felt. "Not a bad life, is it?"

The Doctor had asked her that once, rhetorically. Now she was asking him, a bit less rhetorically. She really was worried about him.

[poppinsy]

If there was one thing that bothered Missy more than anything else in the universe, it was being ignored. And her came little old blondie and she was ignoring Missy when she was doing her best to get under her skin. Well, that just wouldn't do at all, and the Time Lady clicked her tongue once more. If the Mountain wouldn't come to Mohammed, then Mohammed would break that mountain down to the ground. Or something like that. Missy never really cared about what it was that humans said.

But she definitely cared about what they did, and the most important thing that a human could do, in her opinion, was to die.

So, she didn't say anything for a moment, and instead fiddled dramatically with the handle of her umbrella. Quickly, she then fired it at Rose with the intention of attempting to get her to shatter with the force of it.

[guitar_hero]

"I'll manage." He'll choke down anything or at least pretend that he's eating if he has to. If it helps-- Rose is afraid, he can tell, though for her own reasons and he knows that too. He smiles faintly at her better with two comment but doesn't address it because Missy is right there. As for it's not a bad life, what can he say to that when he's not entirely sure what she's talking about.

He's about to ask if Missy will join him and just in time he sees her movement. It's not easy to pivot solid granite out of the way and so he insinuates himself in between them at the last possible second. Pain rips through him. It's like an internal earth quake. Vibrations that make his teeth hum and the sharp pain of a breaking rib, an organ or two being ruptured but nothing that won't repair itself-- nothing that will kill a Time Lord and less a Time Lord who happens to be slightly vampiric at the moment.

But it would have shattered Rose. Cracked her at best but at worst, sent her to dust.

Right in front of him. Right under his nose.

He doesn't know if this is Missy or someone or something else. At the moment, it doesn't matter.

"I've tried so many times to be kind. It's harder to be kind, but it makes the universe just a little bit better." He clutches his ribs, trying to keep from outright snarling even though he is nearly shaking with emotion. "So I'll give you one last kindness. Whatever you are." He meets her eyes, so she knows exactly what she's in for.

"Run."

[bigbadrose]

"Doctor!"

Rose honestly would have preferred to take the blow and fracture. She's pretty sure the emotional and mental anguish cracking her is worse than any physical damage.

Was this how it was for the two of them? Maybe they really were star-crossed. Doomed to always watch each other die or come close enough to make them feel frozen and nearly wanting to die themselves. She can't breathe, can't think, can't figure out how to move. What does she do? She can't break the evil nanny, but the Doctor--

"Don't ever do that again!" she cried, carefully picking him up in stone arms and taking off at supernatural speed trying to figure out a safe building to bring him into. Well, any building would do. The school? The TARDIS? The Ponds' house? How injured was he?

"Why do you always do this?!" She could barely breathe, couldn't cry, tears, just red dry burning eyes. She was about to duck into a building and began laughing semi-hysterically... Vampires had to be invited in! TARDIS then.

[guitar_hero]

"Calm" Ow "Down! I'm fine! I'm healing up as we speak." Or would if it wasn't so jarring. Stone arms were still stone. "Let me down, Rose I have to catch her before she does anything." And he'd already told her 'run' and he already meant it so now he had to follow through. Though he was pretty sure he'd already lost her.

[bigbadrose]

"Are you sure?" It's not that she distrusts him, as much as disbelieves him... Which might be the same thing.

Rose set him down carefully but shook her head. "No, they're not real. I told you. It's puppets. Feeding from your mind. Fears maybe. Or at least, trying to cause fear. She's not real."

Rose's red eyes were dull, and surprisingly dry for all they burned. "Amy's been seein' Madame Kavorian, and River says the trick is stayin' inside. She's not real, Doctor."

Part of why she was willing to break it. But since it would hurt the Doctor even for a fake version to be broken by Rose, she wouldn't. So long as Jack wouldn't get hurt instead. If he would be... then she didn't care about how it hurt the Doctor, he could take that pain and bloody deal with it.

"Doctor... I don't want you to take a bullet for me. Remember the dalek that made you regenerate? It scares me. You and Jack hurting hurts me more than anything anyone else can ever do to me, yeah?"

[guitar_hero]

Well she's wise in any case. He grunts as he's set down and takes her words to heart. Just a puppet. Just a fear. Also he's starving. He reaches into his pocket for the blood bag only to find it's burst and his hand comes out red.

He just sort of deadpans at it for a second.

"Well it's certainly thematically appropriate for the holiday." He licks the blood off his fingers anyway, annoyed at how good it tastes. Vampires. Ugh.

"You think I want you to take a bullet for me? It doesn't hurt me any less to see you in pain. Anyway, I could have survived it. This body advances my already quite capable healing abilities. You would have been shattered to stone and, aside from -- my own consequences, others off me would be even more upset and unable to calm down. Not to mention clingy. I promise, Rose Tyler, I won't let myself get deliberately killed, but I've got to take the hits that you can't."

[bigbadrose]

She wanted to snap back at him, something about pain and whatever else, but she doesn't bother. What's the point?

But by the end of it, her blood is boiling all the same.

"That's not gonna happen," she snapped quietly.

She spread her wings and physically picked him up again to prove her point.

"You can't take my bullets for me. Understand that, all right?" She set him down, but her wings remained flared wide, and she folded her arms.

"Even if we pretend you could go--"

A muscle in her cheek twitched, and she gently hugged the doctor and tried to equally gently pet his hair, bemused by all of it, and sticking her own finger into the blood and holding it up for him to taste.

She let out a small sigh. "Even if you could go back and become the Face of Boe instead of Jack, I wouldn't let you."

She gently hugged her free around around his shoulders and rested her head even more gently against one. "I never let you die either, not when I had a say in it. Look, remember bein' in Cardiff in 1860 with Charles Dickens? Most o' the time, neither o' us would'a survived without each other, but we needed others too! When you got shot by the dalek, who saved us? Jack. When my grip slipped? My Da' did. When you wouldn't leave the Thames floodin' and I couldn' get back ta ya? Donna did."

She tightened the hug, still carefully, aware of her stone strength. "We go together, or not at all. Holding hands like facing the gelth, and huddled up with Harriet Jones averting World War 3, or I'll be goin' so mad to come save you that I'll pop open the heart o' the TARDIS, make Jack immortal, and cross even the void no matter who bans me from even tryin'."

She sighed slowly. "It's your fear so..." She clucked her tongue quietly, "But see? I just wound up feedin' it then. We should be runnin' together. Because if you fall, I'm not leavin' you. I'll be a half second right after if Jack or someone else doesn't rescue us first, understand?"

She let go of the hug.

"It's not about sacrifices. It's about us. Who we are. Together. I know you'll never let me die, but next time, pull me down, throw something to change the trajectory, knock your foe off their feet, all right? I wouldn't'a thanked you if you tried to sacrifice yourself to the void so I could live." She curled a finger and gently brushed the stony skin across his cheek. It was still stone, but the smoothness could seem softer at least. "The world needs the Doctor. And me? I need my best friend."

[guitar_hero]

He turns his head away from her offering the blood, even if it isn't hers, it's revolting somehow. He wouldn't go together or not at all. Because that wasn't how it worked. People saved him, yes, he got that. But in the end he stood alone and that was how it always was and always would be and it wasn't anyone's fault. It was just the nature of life and time and Time Lords come to think of it.

"Sorry, it was the first thing that came into my head. There wasn't time and I-- You don't--" Want to see who I become when I'm angry. But she had seen it. A little bit of it. Hints, here and there. But she hadn't yet seen the cruelty he was capable of because he always wanted to show her his good sides.

"--Next time I'll think of something better, alright." He holds her stony hand in his, squeezing it. "Better together. Better with two...."

[bigbadrose]

She sighs at the rejection, almost getting used to it, though it still hurt, no matter the face. It was funny. She'd tell him off for not doing... what scared her. What hurt her. Maybe he was right and she should just... pull back like him. She hadn't the faintest idea how to.

She glanced back as he took her hands, surprised by the promise, unsure. Was he saying it to reassure her, or did he mean it? Time would tell, but she smiled anyway. "Yeah!" Her wings perked up happily.

"Come on, lets see if we can get you blood pudding or something, yeah? Or Fluffy's synthetic blood. All the vitamins, none of the people."

Married, she reminded herself. Married.

Off limits.

She still wanted to hold his hand, hug him around the middle and never let go. Somethings she couldn't change.

"For the record, I never thought you left me just because I'm human," her stony ears twitched though, "Just fragile, innit? I'm not so fragile, Doctor. I promise." She nudged him to get going.