Winter wasn't coming, it had already been there and claimed its territory. London was unrelenting at this time of year, the way it tended to be with snowstorms and sleeting rain that solidified into ice and made the going across the roads near to impossible with a steady stride. Jackie was adamant about staying in until things thawed out but Rose never failed to shake her head and choose the chill over listening to her mother fret. Her own flat was six blocks' walk away and she didn't mind it at all. More than once the baby had reached to grab hold of the tassels of her long scarf, and Rose always laughed before taking it away with her. It was almost astonishing, how everyone else in the world - the universe, really - had just gone right onward with life as if nothing was different.

To them, it wasn't. But to Rose it always would be.

John - it was what she thought of him as now, because Doctor wasn't right - was still asleep when Rose left this morning, before the sun had fully found itself from behind the horizon. Moments like these were the last ones where she could feel relatively close to the Doctor, when the sunlight was softly pushing its way through the clouds and there was an other worldly feel to the things she saw every day.

She missed him now, and she always would.

Rose crossed her arms and squinted at the rising sun again. In a few minutes it would be over for another day and she would go back inside to John, to the life they had started. But for now, she could stand here at the edge of the world and think about him - which she would never stop doing.

There wasn't any point in leaving a note. Her parents would be able to guess just because of the way she left without a word, and trying to explain it to John (only recently had she been able to call him John Smith the way he'd adopted instead of Doctor and that had been beneficial to both of them) wouldn't have done anyone any good. There were still things that needed to be said and resolved and -

- oh, who was she kidding? Rose wasn't out to resolve anything, not a damned thing. She just wanted to see him again. If there was a chance - any chance - to see him again, for whatever reason, then she was going to catch hold of it with both hands and not let go.

Rose hadn't bothered to change from her suit (Torchwood regulations, she'd been in a black skirt and dress blazer for over a year now) and the high heels were harder to run in but she still managed. She rounded the corner to the flat and paused just long enough to sweep a strand of hair behind her ear in a misplaced and fidgeting gesture. He was different now, but he still wanted to see her.

And that counted for more than -

- more than what?

Rose leaned against the the exterior wall to the flat and waited. Time was either passing very slowly or not at all.

"The hottest love has the coldest end." Socrates

Her first love was of the stars.

Jackie had never much cared for leaving the flat. It was a lucky, fortunate day if Rose could tug on her mother's hand enough to persuade her outside for shopping, anything that brought her away from the four, stark walls and the monotone of the life that had happened since Rose's father died. Of course she didn't understand why, not in her young, child's mind, but understanding the reason didn't seem too important then. What mattered the most was trying to make things better, to make Mum smile again.

When that didn't work (and often, it didn't), Rose would sneak outside in the dark of night and look at the stars. She would lay on one of the blankets that she'd take from the linen cupboard and stare up at them for as long as she could, for as many hours as she was able. There was never any attempt to count them, that just felt silly and pointless, but she would lay there and look and wonder what else was out there, beyond them. Sometimes, she would think she could fly high enough to reach them and then wonder what would happen, being up that high. It was impossible to dance across them, of course, but that left something for her dreams to show her. Dreams were meant for the things that couldn't be reached with the hands, only with the heart.

More than twelve years later, Rose would be able to see the stars at a closer range than she had ever expected. But what she wouldn't have guessed at was how they would show her more wonder, confusion, mystery, and pain than she could imagine. Rose would never have believed she could hold stardust in her hands, sprinkle it in her hair and entwine her fingers with a man who carried it in his pockets.

The same man would become the love of her life, and later break her heart.

Muse: Rose Tyler
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 330

Rose had been certain she was losing her mind. There was no other logical explanation that her mind was willing to come up with, no rationality that would break itself through the unrelenting, dense clouds of disbelief and prove a reasonable enough result as to how he had come. Had she not known him implicitly, without needing so much as a second glance's time to be certain, she would have thought he was his human counterpart (time and change and adaptation had led his name to be John, even though in her mind she knew, one heart or two, he would still be the Doctor) come 'round to see her, as was far from unexpected.

But it was him. Unmistakeable, unapologetic, without any vestige of doubt.

"It isn't possible."

"When are you going to learn to know better than that?"

She'd wanted to laugh then, or smile, but neither would come.

"Why?"

"Come with me."

Her heart had stopped, then rose to a rapid beating pattern again, warring for domination in her throat. It didn't seem that there was room for both inside of her, not with the roaring of her pulse thundering in her ears and the acceleration of her breathing to a higher, gasping rate. The palms of her hands were tingling and so, too were her little fingers, springing alive along with the high pitched humming in her ears. For a second, Rose thought she would lose consciousness and fall to the ground, only to awaken in the comfort of bed and find out this was all nothing more than a dream.

But it wasn't. Not now. And that had made her surprisingly angry.

"Come with you?" Her voice hadn't trembled with tears, but with something akin to venom. "Come where? Someplace so you can leave me again, on the pretense it's for my own good?"

His eyes were unwavering. "No. Come away with me. Anywhere that you want to go. Name the place and time, and that's where we'll go."

Rose's heart had jarred against her ribs again, and she had known, somehow, that he meant it. That for whatever reason he had found a way back to her, chosen to come back, and that he meant what he said.

There wasn't too much time to say her goodbyes, not with a gap in between the universes as unreliable as it was, but the Doctor had given her an indefinite amount of time and stayed, away and by the side of the TARDIS. If she was late he would either leave without her or snatch her bodily through the TARDIS doors, though Rose wasn't certain right now which outcome was more likely.

But the walk back to her flat had never seemed so long. She could leave a note for her parents, but for him there had to be a conversation. For John Smith, for the Doctor, she would have to look at him and tell him where she was going, and why. Rose's hand shook for a brief instant, bringing her to fumble with her keys, but she regained her composure and unlocked the front door.

No going back now.

Illuminate

I fell asleep in his arms for the first time on that very first day. The sun was setting when it was happening, because it had been over forty-eight hours since I had known sleep and while he was still human, with only one beating heart to mark his life's time, he hadn't mastered the cycle of sleep. It wasn't something he had ever wanted to do, he had always told me that humans spent so much time with our eyes closed, staring at the unchanging backs of our eyelids and dreaming of things that should be actually happening to us, if only we were brave enough to go out and do them.

Mum was discreet enough, and looking back on it I think she thought more was going to happen in that first night than sleeping. I don't blame her for it, even though she was wrong. Since we'd said goodbye, I hadn't spent a day without thinking of, in some magnitude, the Doctor and not all of my thoughts had been chaste. My dreams had been nothing I could mention to anyone except for a blank page with a pen as my means of communication, and even that was something I refrained from because if anyone ever found what I had written, I'd never be able to look them in the face again.

But now, I didn't have to dream. I didn't have to save my nighttime thoughts for things that couldn't happen. As much as I didn't understand it completely at the time (he'd have called me daft for that, made some remark about humans never understanding what was right in front of their faces) I realized, on the drive back to Mum and Dad's, that Donna had been right. He had given me a gift, and while it wasn't quite the fairytale ending I had been hoping for in crossing time, space and all of the rushing void in between, it still could be a happy one.

He breathed and my head lifted when his chest filled. My hair was itching at the corner of my eyes but I went on with the discomfort in favor of lifting my chin so I could see him.

It was going to take a long time for me to get used to the fact that he wasn't a dream. I could touch my fingers to his cheek and feel warm skin, the soft puff of his breath trying to tousle my hair, and see the light in his eyes when he smiled at me. I could know that the smile was just for me, and even though it was bright and should be the kind of thing that illuminated the entire world, I knew it was okay for me to be selfish and keep it for myself.

His arm passed across my back, his fingers making a memory of the vertebrae beneath the skin, and, in the same fashion I had done for so many nights, I told my restless mind to be quiet for now, because there was time to worry about other things but also time to be comfortable and safe, and that right now it was time for the latter.

And this time, my mind listened and I slept without dreaming.

Muse: Rose Tyler
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 545

Lipstick

The first time she left her lipstick on his collar, it was an accident. She had lost her footing, caught the toe of one boot against a tree's root where it peeked out of the earth as if to say hello, and the change in her balance had sent her toppling forward with the ground rushing up to meet her wide, unblinking eyes. He had caught her then, snatched her around her waist as if by an afterthought, and when she'd turned her head, a smear of cherry gloss had streaked across the white collar of his shirt. She had apologized profusely but he'd laughed it off.

Look, I've gone and ruined your shirt!

Nah, don't worry. Got three others just like it that I can think of offhand, plenty more that I can't remember. Funny thing, that, in the TARDIS, don't have to worry about my laundry, takes care of it for me, nothing's ever dirty -

Then he'd released her and she'd passed her arm through his, long since having found a right side up kind of footing in the ground again, and the world had kept turning around them in new, impossible ways.

She found the shirt a few weeks later, when he had sent her to change into something fit for the Renaissance courts and Rose had been looking forward to a tightly drawn bodice and the flowing, full skirts. It had been an accident, finding it because she wasn't even looking for it, but the white shirt still had the smear of her mouth against the collar and she wondered, for a brief and fleeting instant, why it was still there if there wasn't reason to hesitate in laundering things in a machine capable of walking through time and space.

It wasn't a question she remembered to ask him, but it was one she always wondered about the answer to.

Muse: Rose Tyler
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 315

Talk about a great battle that you fought.

It was supposed to be easier, writing about it. Putting words onto paper was supposed to give a person the means of coping with confusion and loss and other things that were hard to face on their own. If you wrote it down then you were putting it out there, giving someone else the chance to take on the weight if you so chose to pass it on, to give them the means to help you. Most people, really, were inherently good, in spite of what the rest of the world was saying to try and prove otherwise. Most people really were good, wanted to do something nice for others, try and help even when it was scary to do so.

And if someone helped then the nightmares would stop, maybe, and then there might be less of a chance to panic when something moved in the darkness or the shadows, or when a high pitched buzzing sounded just a little too close to the mark, so close that Rose would feel her heart skip a beat and freeze with worried panic, wondering if it was the end yet again, if there was any chance or hope she might be wrong.

But writing it down hadn't helped. The nightmares didn't lessen and nothing changed, her life didn't become easier. In time, she threw the book she'd written everything down on into the fireplace when her mother was tending to the baby and her father was preoccupied on the phone. They had been the ones who asked her to try and move past what she'd seen and she knew it was because they cared, but she didn't want the book with her lines of scripted writing in it anywhere that someone else could find. If that was the risk she had to take then she didn't want to, she'd just take it on herself.

No one else, after all, needed to have those nightmares in their head.

Muse: Rose Tyler
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 326

“I don’t like that man very much ... I’m going to have to get to know him better.” - Abraham Lincoln

It wasn't that I didn't like him. I liked him very much, because it was impossible not to like someone who was the complete mirror image of someone that I loved. And seeing the gift he had given me, where brown and blue had stood side by side and become the same kind of fixture in my life, it was disorienting and wonderful at the same time. Of course there was the heartbreaking feeling of loss, and I didn't expect that to ever fade, but I couldn't discredit what he had given me by being petty.

And the truth is that it would take some time. Granted, they looked the same and in most cases and senses acted the same, had the same mannerisms and the same consistent glimmer of unabashed, unrestricted joy in their eyes that came when something was exciting and newfound, the same kinds of fixations and nervous, jittery habits. There were so many things that were the same and yet little, new facets where the differences were amazing, incredible even.

But it was going to take some time to get used to, and I knew that if I was thinking anything other than that, then I was completely naïve. Change was never easy to go through, but I'd gone through change before. And he was going to be dealing with the same thing I was, in a different state of mind.

The least I could do was try.

Muse: Rose Tyler
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 242

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” – Mohandas Ghandi

For the first two weeks, I hated him.

It was the kind of feeling I knew too well, the anger that came up for more people in my life than I can count back on. Funny, I can't really remember most of their names and that just makes me think I didn't really hate them. But I thought I did. The difference now, this time, was that I actually hated him. There's really a fine, thin line between love and hate, I didn't realize it until the hatred was focused on someone I love that much, and I think I stood with one foot on both sides of that line, too afraid to fall because I didn't want to fall on either side. It was too scary to think about either way.

So I told myself that I hated him for taking the decision away from me, for giving me a responsibility I knew I had to take on, but taking himself away from me in the process. There had never been a rock and a hard place for me to be caught between until then, and I felt the pressure, the oppression from both sides. I hated it, but that didn't make it go away.

So I turned the hatred on him instead, and gave it my best effort for two weeks. And when I couldn't hate him anymore without tears coming to my eyes, I made myself let go. He didn't want me to hate him, didn't want me to spend any more of my life and my time in pain. He just wanted me to have the life that he thought I deserved.

It did need saying, and he said it in the only way he could. I can't hate him for that.

Muse: Rose Tyler
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 296

Myth

(taking into consideration the DW novel the Stone Rose for this prompt.)

There was something different, wholly disorienting about seeing a statue bearing the face that looked back at her in the mirror every morning. Rose could pick apart the same lines that bridged and outlined her nose, where imperfections nested and resided in places she tried to erase but to no avail, because no amount of cleanser or moisturizer could completely remove a birthmark her great-grandmother had been proud to pass onward. No amount of concealer hid it away and even the sculptor had captured it, right beneath her chin. No one else would notice it, but she would. She always would.

In the artificial lighting of the museum the statue looked as if it were made of opal or moonstone rather than the marble it was sculpted from, something that came out of the sky, crafted by stardust with moonlight touching against the updo of her hair. The sight itself was beautiful, the image of immortality that beonged in art books and postcards.

And it was nothing that she wanted.

It was strange, how something you thought you wanted became the very thing you wanted to erase.

The Doctor's hand touched the place above her elbow with long, inquisitive fingers and when she turned her hair brushed across his coat, leaving a strand or two behind. That's the kind of immortality I think I'd like rattled around in her mind as an afterthought, wound into the fabric of the life of someone I love. Not...that.

“Can we go now?”

“Quite right. Come on.”

She didn't look back, and didn't turn her head to see if the Doctor did.

Muse: Rose Tyler
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 270

I promise I'm going to get to all of that good writing I've been promising, but I saw something come up tonight and wanted to address it briefly before I went off to get some sleep.

There seems to be a good bit of negativity flying about in LJ world, a lot of injured feelings in regards to character portrayal and voice and things like that. And to be quite honest, it makes me sad. It seems like there are specified cliques and things of writers, and if you aren't "in" with those people then you run the risk of being either passed by or ridiculed for the way you're writing a character. While these things aren't life by any means, they are supposed to be a form of recreation and fun, and it can be hard to have fun doing something you enjoy when you're being picked at and picked apart, told you're not as good at a character as Person X, etc. In fact, it can hurt feelings and just take the fun right out of something that you used to love.

I won't lie, I feel this way frequently, and it hurts. I've even had it happen recently with Rose and Cuddy. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't feel good. But it makes me more sad to see others feel discouraged and saddened when they should be having fun.

So to all of you out there writing muse prompts, fics, role playing, anything like that - do yourself a favor and don't ever let it stop being fun. Ignore the popularity contest and all the things that can be negative, and just do something that you enjoy doing it. If the popular kids don't want to play with you, then it's not your loss - it's theirs. Just have fun, be good to yourself, and don't think for a minute that one person's critique is the final say. Because every person out there is going to write differently, see a character in a situation differently, and make different choices. That doesn't mean one person's right and the other's wrong - it just means there are two different stories or responses out there to read, and the more the merrier, right?

Have some fun. It's therapeutic, I promise.

♥

Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in. - American Beauty

The thrill of anticipation was the same, whether or not his face still was. Never mind that now he was in possession of a full head of hair and a spring in his step that was traded in for his usual hastened, yet slightly downtrodden gait. He wasn't the same, except for the few ways that he was, and it was still not quite possible for her to wrap her mind around the possibility. Hearing of regeneration, that was one thing, but watching, experiencing it, those fell into another category of their own making.

The TARDIS hummed and his smile was bright, vibrant, electric of a force all its own.

"Where are we going?"

"Further than we've ever gone before."

He smiled and she couldn't help it, she smiled back to him, some kind of smile that made her eyes crinkle up at the edges and send the world half unfocused and soft. The surroundings were gentle but his eyes were as brilliant as they had been.

The ground lurched beneath her feet and the TARDIS moved, and all too suddenly everything was still again. It was a disorienting feeling, the world catapulting out of control and then jarring to a sudden, unexpected halt without apology or hesitation. She would never get used to it, and yet at the same time she didn't want to. The unexpected was, somehow, part of the reason she wanted to keep traveling.

The Doctor's voice was behind her, telling her a year and a place and a brief, summarized history about where they were and what had happened to lead this place to this moment but the TARDIS doors were already open and cool, roaring breeze was in Rose's hair, obstructing not only the majority of her range of hearing but her peripheral vision in kind.

" - and this is New Earth."

It was New Earth, the kind of future that people in her lifetime were talking about, with flying crafts and buildings far more elaborate than a skyscraper's wildest dreams, with richness all around and the bright, sparkling, unmistakable hint of progress and life coming from every niche and nook.

And it was beautiful. Rose had seen things of which she had considered beautiful before but the definition of the word seemed to have developed and changed - where Earth was now New Earth perhaps Beautiful was now New Beautiful or More Beautiful, something to follow in stride - and everywhere she looked, no matter how quick the glance, there was beauty to be found.

The Doctor was by her side and smiling - now he was smiling more than he had before - and the wind was in his hair, apple grass was in his fingertips, and in that moment he became part of that beauty. It took her breath away but left her able to speak, and when he took her hand again to run past the water's edge Rose knew, for the first time since his change, that nothing had really changed at all.

Muse: Rose Tyler
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 505

I just got around to updating Rose's friends list, so hello to all of you newcomers! Sorry that I didn't get to you sooner, I have a horrible habit of not checking my characters' friends' pages as much as I should, so I promise you weren't being ignored!

I'm going to see about getting in a prompt or two tonight, and if anyone wants Rose for any reason at all don't hesitate to drop me a line!

If you could place your muse in any work of fiction outside their normal genre, which would it be and why? How do you think they might adapt to their new surroundings?

I think I'd want Rose in something set in the Tudor era. I know there was room to touch on that with Reinette and her entire appearance, but the truth is I'd like to see what happened to Rose if she was tossed head onward into King Henry's court.

She'd hate what she saw in terms of the court and its corruption, because she'd never want to have to stand by and watch that happen. Rose values life too greatly to want to see the darker side of it without being able to do anything about it. But I think she'd actually adjust well to the particular time period. She'd want to try and make things better for anyone that she came in contact with, the way that she already does now, but she wouldn't have to have a vehement, drastic change in who she was. It'd be hard for her at first, but she'd find her footing.

I think she'd have the hardest time learning to be careful of what she says and to who she says it to. There were so many spies for the king in that era, so many people wanting to get into his pocket and profit from telling him something out of place, and Rose might find herself stepping wrong and have to adjust quickly to keep herself from getting into a bad place. But I think she'd actually do quite well in that era, and I was sad that she didn't get a chance to participate more in the French courts and things in season two's episode. I think she'd have done well.

prompt 2009.9.b.8

You don’t know what you’ve got, till it’s gone.

But that isn't true. I always knew what I had. It might not have seen me back in the same way, but I always knew. I was completely aware of how much I loved him and why, just how desperately I had come to rely on him and everything about him, everything that came up and surrounded me, took me in for what it was and what it wasn't. I knew what was going to happen in my life in the sense that I was never going to want to be without him, but I wasn't even sure myself if I'd get that kind of luxury, that kind of chance.

Maybe, though, I didn't completely understand how impossibly painful it would be for me when he was gone. I didn't let myself think there'd be forever, even though that's what I wanted, because he'd told me more than once that forever was an impossible thing to hope for and that I'd never be able to stay with him for the rest of his life. But I did want it, I did think it was possible, and I didn't realize the way my world would shift off balance when reality crashed head onward into me.

I should have thought about it more, but I didn't want to. I just wanted what everyone wants - the chance to be happy with someone that I love.

And I had it. At least, for a little while.

Muse: Rose Tyler
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 230

The hard part hadn't been deciding what to wear, for once. Rose had given herself time to scrutinize the contents of her closet and find something that worked - more specifically, something she thought Jack would approve of. Dancing was one thing, dancing with complete strangers another, and dancing with a close person in one's life became a whole other realm of a matter which merited more than a slight bit of discussion and consideration.

But Jack had said he knew the place, a place, several places, and Rose had given consent to allow him to choose.

All she had to do for this particular moment in time was wait.

What do you see as your muses resolution for the New Year? Do you see them being the type to successfully accomplish it, or will they abandon it? If that's the case, how quickly? Discuss what your resolutions for the New Year are for you and your muses.

I think this year, Rose would resolve to do more for herself. She takes a lot on her own shoulders and doesn't give herself a lot of room to take care of what she should do for herself, for her own better interests. It doesn't make her a bad person, really the opposite, because she had a great, strong and powerful heart that really makes her the kind of friend anyone would be lucky to have. But if she isn't careful, she'll run herself down and have nothing left to give the world the way that she wants to.

I do think that Rose has the capability to make this resolution happen, but it won't really be an easy route for her because she's so adamant about taking care of everyone else before herself. She can take better care of herself emotionally, make certain that she does what's best for herself, but it won't be the kind of thing she's able to do effortlessly. It's going to take a lot of conscious thought on her part to make the change, but I think she can do it if she wants to and as a result I think that a new year could be very promising for Rose. I'd really like the chance to write more with her and see what develops, and I'm hoping that the new year brings all of that for me, too.

Muse: Rose Tyler
Fandom: Doctor Who

Do your parents drive you nuts?

Mum does. She drives me nuts in the kind of way that overbearing, well meaning mothers tend to do to all of their children, probably most of all daughters because we're still trying to find our footing and independence in this crazy world. No one really knows what the best way to raise a daughter is, but my mother did her best. She did everything that she could with me, with a baby girl who didn't know her father because he was dead before she could even talk.

I won't say I had a perfect childhood because anyone that's saying something along those lines is just out of their head and has no idea what they're talking about, but I did have a good one. A good, solid, true life, one with a mother that, drive me mad as she might, loved me. We argued, we had plenty of conflicts, we had all kinds of crazy, out of control situations that we wish now we had done differently, and we grew stronger from them.

My mother, she's my best friend. And I'm not sorry for anything that happened, because I wouldn't want anyone else, and wouldn't want her any other way.

Muse: Rose Tyler
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 201