“When the Chaos Calls Me Out“ Masterpost
Chapters: 9/?
Fandom: Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), Doctor Who (1963)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler
Characters: Thirteenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Tony Tyler, Original Characters, Yasmin Khan, Ryan Sinclair, Graham O'Brien
Additional Tags: Pete’s World (Doctor Who), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst and Smut, Slash, Lesbian Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, Telepathic Sex, Telepathic Bond, bondmates, Soulmates, Mutual Pining, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler (past), Femslash, Humor, Fluff and Smut, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor
Summary:
*Chapter 9 posted 6 February 2021*
“The Doctor is regenerating.
As a rule of thumb, the regeneration process is effectively a rebirth. Every cell in the body dies, and this triggers the birth of brand new ones. You are completely renewed…rebooted. Your warranty extended. Your subscription continued just before lapsing.
The Doctor has gone through this arduous and complicated process so many times now that she’s nearly lost track. And yet, this process somehow between being burned alive and being cocooned all at the same time is as painful as it is cathartic and soothing.
Near death and decrepit, its feathers begin falling out, and its skin becomes aachrous and too tight for its body. Its death becomes the inexorable link between exhaustion and exuberance, and it suddenly is engulfed in flames, immediately turning to ash.
It then emerges from its charred remains, brand new.
A self-contained cataclysm.
The Doctor is the same— effectively dying, and then being reborn from the embers of her former self.
This time, as always, she’s not sure what she’ll end up as— and at this point she doesn’t much care. She’s savouring the cocoon period as long as she can.
Like a dream you don’t want to wake up from because you know you’ll have to get out of your warm bed.
This time, though, feels a bit different in that she feels as though she’s floating— suspended in mid-air. Or maybe in space, bouncing endlessly about the universe, like an asteroid. Maybe even a speck of dust.
The more she’s aware of it, the more the feeling resembles being suspended in water instead of in space.
She can even hear muffled voices beyond whatever body of liquid she happens to be submerged in. Regardless of where she is, however, it starts to dawn on her that she really should find a way to take a breath.
She opens her eyes to find herself indeed in water, her clothes puffing out in front of her in swathes, and her hair clouded in front of her face. She looks down to see nothing but a boundless blue void.
She notices the bright ripples across her body, coming from a light source above, so she looks up. Her lungs ache to swim to the surface, but she just feels…tired. Like she doesn’t want to. Her lungs are burning, now, despite the respiratory bypass.
But the surface seems a million miles away, what is the point?
Just as she’s contemplating whether or not swimming upward would have any advantages at all, a body dives into the water. The person is haloed by the light source’s rays, as if the person has been stitched together by light itself. Long, blond hair billows around the person’s head, and suddenly, they put their arm around the Doctor’s waist and begin to hoist her to the surface.
The Doctor is so exhausted, that being pulled upwards causes her head to tilt and lull forwards, so that she finds herself now able to see the floor of whatever body of water this is.
Resting on the bottom, is a fob watch.
Giving in to the overwhelming urge to retrieve it despite the inevitable hypoxia, the Doctor struggles and reaches her arms downwards to attempt to break free, but the person won’t release her.
She has the distinct feeling that this person wouldn’t let go of her under any circumstance—ever.
They finally break the surface and she is hoisted onto the side of what she now recognises as the TARDIS swimming pool.
Familiar faces from various points in her life crowd around her.
Zoe Heriot. One of the incarnations of Rassilon—complete with the big, stupid collar. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Donna Noble’s mum. Queen Nefertiti. The Kerblam man?
They all help, trying to clear the water out of her airway so that she can take a breath, and someone rolls her onto her side, smacking her back.
She coughs and sputters water, and finally takes a breath. Her lungs are raw.
The air stinks of sulphur.
Then, the edges and contours of the faces of the people crowded around melt away and bleed like a mirage, or even paint on a hot day. She feels a comfortable presence in her mind, as though the sun is warming her very soul from the inside out, regardless of whether she had really been underwater or not.
She finally opens her eyes, in the real world.
She sees that she is still in the room cast in all metal, strapped to a chair by the Krotons, and Rose is still next to her, holding her hand like her life depends on it.
However, Rose is not herself.
She is infused in light and glowing, and looks to be on the brink of self-combusting. Light is practically escaping her pores and her eyes, illuminating her blood vessels and capillaries. It is scorching everything around her, making her translucent.”
