Scotland's Mist

Chapter 16

Thanks for the love on the last post, sweethearts <3 I think I'll take a week break after this book before my next AU episode-rewrite-with-Rose thing

The Doctor had given up finding traces of Rose on his own. He headed back to the TARDIS and fervently started towards the console.

"Alright, old girl, let's find our Rose, eh?" The Doctor's voice was anxious as he started flipping switches and levers. The TARDIS hummed at him and he read it well. The time ship was telling him that she needed him to insert something of Rose's into the panels.

"I can't go into her room!" The Doctor said, trying to sound scandalized.

The TARDIS sent him a disapproving hum, along with the moments they had recently shared in that same room, mostly of the snogging and the touching. The Doctor colored deeply and lowered his head. "Okay, point taken," he mumbled before setting off down the hallway for Rose's room.

He shuffled around in her room for a bit, hoping to find something that he could use to put into the panels. He scanned her desk with his eyes, not seeing anything that would have anything other than fingerprints.

He shifted his gaze to her en suite bathroom and made his way to the sink. "Ah ha!" He shouted in triumph, snapping up her hairbrush and bolting back out to the console room.

He pulled a clump of hair out of the brush and shoved it into the console, glancing up at the console screens to watch the analysis as it was taking place.

The only hope he had left was that he could track Rose by this part of her DNA. If she'd lost a hair in the forest (Which was a hundred percent likely, because humans lose strands of hair every day) he could track her all the way through to where she was now, if he was lucky.

He found that when he met Rose, he seemed to become a man of luck, but he didn't know if it would be enough.

Circular Gallifreyan poured across the console screens, rolling and tumbling in blue and gold. The Doctor read it quickly, watching as the words flashed by. He was seeing things he already knew, the content of her DNA as he had seen it before, since he was her medical doctor in addition to her... Whatever he was.

Boyfriend? He asked himself as the TARDIS continued to read Rose's DNA. No, he was too old to be anybody's boyfriend. Lover? No, not a lover. Significant other? Date mate? Too stuffy and too immature. He found that best mate still fit him, and the only step up was husband. He nodded resolutely to himself and jerked when the TARDIS made a beeping noise at him.

The scan was complete. The TARDIS presented him with a map of the Scotland moors and woods, with a pink and yellow trail where Rose had been. The Doctor traced the path with his eyes, until he reached where the path of pink and yellow stopped.

The Doctor furrowed his brows and enlarged the image of where Rose's path disappeared. He groaned and smacked the console when he realized it was the exact point where she had been ripped from him in the night. Whatever or whoever this was, was incredibly thorough. And this made it one hundred percent obvious that it was not going to let Rose go anytime soon.

**********

The hissing continued in Rose's head, her slightly chapped lips passing through the motions of speaking without actually speaking. She felt that the words really did mean something, and it scared her that she was saying them. Her memory faded in and out, and she kept tracking back to the thoughts of saving the Doctor.

Every time coherent thoughts would return, she would remember that she was the one in danger. She was the one that couldn't move any muscle at will, obviously.

Unless they'd gotten to the Doctor too. She felt her stomach lurch at the thought, and panic washed through her. An alarm started going off above her head, and she felt her brain get fuzzy as she was put out of consciousness.

**********

The Doctor pulled pieces of Rose's clothing and her perfume and her chapsticks, hoping to find something stronger to track her by. It was al unsuccessful. He started to panic, carding his hands through his hair and letting out long strings of curses in Gallifreyan every time the pink and yellow path at the same end.

"You can't give me anything else?" He asked the TARDIS desperately, tilting his head to look up at the ceiling. "There's nothing more specific?"

The TARDIS sent him an apologetic hum.

"She can't die, not like this," he murmured to himself.

The TARDIS admonished him again and sent him images of Satellite 5 and the Bad Wolf.

The Doctor sighed. "I know. I mean, I guess you know her better than anyone, don't you? But I'd like to think-"

The TARDIS caught him off guard with more images, of him and Rose together, dancing around the console in leather and union jacks, falling to the grating after a rough landing when leather morphed into pinstripes, and the moment she could've been stolen from him, but wasn't.

He rested his hands on the console, leaning his head forwards. "Please don't show me Canary Warf," he pleaded, "I know how that could've ended."

The TARDIS apologized, but she was right in proving her point. Rose was strong, and she would live, and maybe even escape, on her own. And the TARDIS knew both of them better than they knew themselves.

"What do I do?" The Doctor whispered, not sure if he was truly asking the TARDIS or himself. "How do I get to her?"

The only idea he could come up with was to ask the mist, but that wasn't giving him anything. It was being less than helpful, in fact. And maybe that was the point. But maybe he could trick it.