By Another Name

Prologue

Rose was dying as she stood over the bed of her husband. They were both dying- her, and her lovely human Doctor. Her lovely, annoying, sarcastic, beautiful Doctor. There was irony in it too. Why did everything that had to do with her Doctor have to have layers of irony? As she stood there, looking barely a day older than the day she met him, forever ago, in a universe away, and he was lying there, dying of old age. It was killing her. 

He knew how she felt, of that she was sure. This was a man who was born old, born with thousands of years and places and experiences crammed into his tiny human head. This was a man who, if he had not split himself to age and live with her, would have been in her very same predicament. Having your heart ripped out of your living chest, and then having to live forever after pretending it was still there, beating away. 

Rose was supposed to be in that bed, next to her husband, dying with him. She knew that. But she had swallowed the universe, all of time itself, and it turned out that after you did that, there was no going back. The other Doctor had told her that the universe was gone, that he had taken it out of her, put it back where it belonged, but it turns out that hadn't happened. At least not completely. Some of the universe would always belong to her, and it would keep her alive as long as it still pulsed through her veins. So she had to stand there and watch her heart die, old and grey. 

She had stayed with him, her silly, human Doctor. He'd told her to go live her life, live her eternal youth, take the TARDIS and fly anywhere and everywhere, all at once, but she refused. She knew that some days she hurt him with her youth. Some days he hurt her with his age. But she couldn't leave her heart behind, no matter what people would say of the odd couple. People could think her husband was a cradle robber all they wanted. She was twenty-something years older than him, though the thought never crossed people's minds. And she would not leave him behind, so long as he held her heart. 

Except now time itself was forcing the departure that people never could. And it wasn't like she could go back and visit him again with her Time And Relative Dimension In Space. They'd spent every moment of their lives together, and she couldn't mess with her own timeline. Even if she could, she wouldn't. It wouldn't be the same, knowing that she had stood here, at his deathbed. People change with time, and this Doctor, lying before her, was this Rose's husband. No other version of him would ever be this Rose's husband. And she was his wife, his Rose. They were each other's. 

"Doctor." Rose finally choked out, knowing they had mere minutes left. Tears finally clouded her vision and dripped down her cheeks. Too weak to lift his hand and wipe them away as he used to whenever she was sad, he let out a shuddering sigh and gave her a small smile instead. 

"My Rose." They gazed at each other, and, seized with a sudden sort of panic, the Doctor requested, "Don't forget me." The urgency was laced heavily in his voice. Gently picking up his hand, Rose whispered, "Never." The Doctor did not look reassured, in fact, it was quite the opposite, as he gripped her hand tighter than before. 

"Don't forget me." This time Rose could only nod, too strangled by her own tears to even respond. He gave her face one last stare as if he wanted to take the image with him to the other side. The fear in his eyes was so real, that Rose wanted to look away, but could not find it in herself to do so. You would not have guessed that this was the man who had died at least ten times before. He gave her one last terrified smile. "So beautiful. Just like the day I met you." He whispered. Then his smile crumbled. "I don't want to go." He choked out as he felt his eyes closing and the blackness descending over him. 

"NO!" The sob ripped out of Rose's throat as she felt the feeble pulse in the hand within hers cease to beat. "NO! NO! NO!" She desperately gazed at him, praying for that beautiful golden light to wash over him. He could change his appearance all he liked as long as he was with her again. She waited for him to come back, and, when it became obvious that this was the final death of her love, crumbled to the floor sobbing. Her hand was still limply intertwined with that of the body that had once held her beloved's soul. She stayed there for hours or minutes, it was impossible for her to tell. She stayed there for a million forevers. Those moments were longer than their entire time together, and she felt herself get ripped apart, atomized. Payback, she supposed, for what she had done to those Daleks. 

When she finally rose, she was no longer her husband's. She was no longer his Rose. That part of her would always be there, getting buried deeper within her as each day of her immortal life passed, but she was more than that now. This loss had made her grow. She wasn't Rose anymore. 

She was Bad Wolf.