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The Daleks and the Cybermen briefly consider a détente before deciding instead that they are going to have a total war and turn everybody into Cybermen and exterminate exterminate and all that. Well, it was unlikely that they'd really play well together. Jake and Pete from the Age of Steel show up, working with Mickey, and everybody's in huge trouble until the Doctor realizes that by rebooting the ghost engines, he can cause the Dalek and Cybermen to be sucked back into the Void/Bleed/Howling/Hell, due to their being covered in a certain sort of radiation. Anybody who's been through the Void, however, would be in danger of also being sucked through. For those of us paying attention, that means Mickey, Rose, the Doctor, and the Age of Steel guys. Pretty much everybody but Jackie, who ends up hooking up with Steel Pete and is more than happy to go live in Steel World once she's narrowly saved from being Cyberized. But that's not what you're asking about, is it? Who cares about Mickey or Jake or Pete or Jackie? We want the Doctor and Rose, and we want it now! The Doctor stays here, and Rose goes there. With her mother and her father -- who she knows just as well as she knew 616 Pete -- and Mickey (and Jake, which should be fun), and the whole life she hated when we met her. It's a lot easier to explain the awfulness of all of this if you've seen either Buffy or read His Dark Materials, since the whole season has relied pretty heavily on one or both of them at any given time. Anyway, then there's like the most painful scene of all time in the history of time which is pretty long, in which the Doctor and Rose say goodbye for the last time. In Bad Wolf Bay. For The Last. Time. Ever. And it sucks, and it's very sad, and also it sucks. For everybody involved. To the point where -- you think I'm fucking kidding? -- mere photographs of a beach, anywhere in the world, will send you into hysterics for a good long while. When this episode aired, the BBC posted pictures of Rose and Ten on a beach as their main DW page for like two weeks, causing three strokes, twelve heart attacks, eighty divorces, and thirteen comas. Plus at least one week-long crying jag; victim's name? Me. Awww. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
"You were my life. You know what the most difficult thing was? Coping with what happens , and with what doesn't happen . You took me to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, you showed me supernovas, intergalactic battles...and then you just dropped me back on Earth. How could anything compare to that?" That was Sarah Jane. The Doctor didn't have an answer for her. "All those things you saw -- do you want me to apologize for that?" Of course not. And he knew that. "No, but we get a taste of that splendor, and then we have to go back."
Rose stands on a beach. They ran. So far, and so fast, in fact, that they met themselves coming, and faced the Doctor's oldest enemies, and his final victims, and Rose found herself in league with time. It sounded like singing. But everything ends. Don't you think she looks tired? Tired of yearning, tired of chasing. Ready to live. They hit pause on so many things, because this is the part of the story they liked best. But the presence of God is defined in the moments of his leaving. Ein soph: the generosity of grace, to remove itself when the time comes. The cruel etiquette of Paradise, of Arcadia, to push you out of the nest when you're ready to fly. You'll be reading this at the New Year. I wish today were just like any other day.
The Dalek advance, upon Rose, upon Mickey and Rajesh Singh, singing extermination. Rose addresses them with the authority of the Bad Wolf: "Daleks!" They go quiet. These devils, these acolytes of a cult of destruction, fall silent at her speech. "You're called Daleks. I know your name." Rose takes off her lab coat as they stare without eyes. She presses closer. "Think about it. How can I know that? A human who knows about the Daleks. And the Time War. If you wanna know how, then keep us alive. That's all I'm asking. Me and my friends." Mickey takes pains to inform the Daleks that he too knows about them, and about the Time War. Rajesh does as well. "You will be necessary," one of them says. His name is Sek. He's in charge. The Daleks obey. He asks another about the status of the Genesis Ark: it is hibernating. Sek commands that it should be awakened; they all agree that it must be protected above all else. The Genesis Ark emerges from the sphere; one of the Daleks attaches itself to the Ark. Mickey Smith, gun still at the ready, wonders that they're still alive; Rose is on to the question: "Never mind that. What the hell's a Genesis Ark?"
Up in Yvonne's office, Jackie's coming unspooled. The Doctor is harsh in admitting his ignorance as to her status. They both agree that she must be protected above all else. Jackie Tyler begins to weep. "I'll find her," says the Doctor, going to her. "I brought you here, I'll get you both out. You and your daughter. Jackie, look at me. Look at me." The Doctor looks her in the eye, once more makes the promise he shouldn't make. A Cyberman approaches Yvonne at her desk: "You will talk to your central world authority and order global surrender." She tells him to eat shit: "Oh, do some research. We haven't got a central world authority." Not a lick of fear in her. The Cyberman explains that now they do: "I will speak on all global wavelengths. This broadcast is for humankind." The Doctor puts on his 3-D glasses.
A huddled family watches the broadcast: "Cybermen now occupy every land mass on this planet. But you need not fear. Cybermen will remove fear. Cybermen will remove sex and class and color and creed. You will become identical. You will become like us." Imagine there's no Heaven. A Cyberman stands over the family, guarding them; others march down the street. The Cybermen come marching, from every house in unison. It's been written that the obsession with the supernatural, the world of Prince Albert, is the symptom of an empire in decline. "And that's the charm of a ghost story, isn't it? Not the scares and chills -- that's just for children -- but the hope of some contact with the great beyond. We all want some message from that place. It's the Creator's greatest mystery that we are allowed no such consolation. The dead stay silent. And we must wait." That was Queen Victoria, from the other end of a magnificent telescope; the Doctor didn't have an answer. See, here, the answer: the terrified faces of families whose ghosts just turned on them. Imagine there's no Heaven.
The Doctor, Jackie, Yvonne, and one of the Cybermen observe chaos from the top of Canary Wharf. The Cyberman is confused: "I ordered surrender." Not getting it. "They're not taking instructions," the Doctor explains angrily. "You're on every street. You're in their homes. You've got their children. Of course they're gonna fight." Cybermen are people, or were, until they had all their humanity taken away. It's a living brain jammed inside a cybernetic body. With a heart of steel. All emotions removed. Why? Because it hurts. "No! The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss -- they define us as much as happiness or love." Sarah Jane again. The Cybermen don't know about fighting.
Dalek Sek asks the question again -- the one Rose has been trying to answer since Christmas: "Which of you is least important?" He has to ask twice before Rose's mouth becomes a thin, angry line: "We don't work like that. None of us." Sek demands again, and Rajesh steps forward: "This is my responsibility." Rose tries to hold him back, but he ignores her: "I represent the Torchwood Institute. Anything you need, you come through me. Leave these two alone." Sek demands that Rajesh kneel. The only thing worse than the God of Daleks is the crazy cult he leaves behind. "The Daleks need information about current Earth history." Rajesh offers "a certain amount of intelligence, but nothing that will compromise homeland security." Heh. Sek explains that speech isn't necessary, and the cult members surround Rajesh with their suction arms. He begins to fear, begs to tell them anything, and his skull is crushed. Mickey jumps forward, but Rose holds him back.
The Cybermen detect "unknown technology" in the sphere chamber, and two of them are sent (designated by unit number) to investigate. "We obey," they say.
"His mind spoke of a second species invading Earth infected by the superstition of ghosts," say the Dalek. Rose protests that they didn't need to kill him; they answer that they didn't need him alive, either. Sek sends a Dalek (designated by name: Thay) to investigate outside. "I obey," says Thay.
The two Cybermen meet Thay in the corridor outside the sphere chamber. The image comes up on Yvonne's laptop, and the Doctor goes white. Thay commands them to identify themselves; they demand that he identify himself. This goes on for a while. "It's like Stephen Hawking meets the Speaking Clock," says Mickey. "Illogical. You will modify," the Cybermen tell Thay, who informs them that Daleks don't take orders. Which the Cybermen smugly illustrate as self-identification: he is Dalek. And inside the chamber, Sek recognizes their vague shape: "The inferior species known as Cybermen."
Jackie's now scared to death: "Rose said about the Daleks. She was terrified of them. What have they done to her, Doctor? Is she dead?" Probably. The Doctor turns on Jackie with a scary amount of quickness, demanding her phone. She passes it to him carefully, so that the Cybermen don't notice. The Doctor dials Rose's number and shivers as he holds it to his ear. Rose answers, but doesn't say anything; the Dalek and Cybermen continue to bitch at each other hilariously. "She's answered, she's alive," reports the Doctor. Jackie claps her hands over her mouth; he wonders why they haven't killed her yet. She tells him not to complain about it, but the Doctor's on to the question: "They must need her for something."
Another Dalek talks about how they have to protect the Genesis Ark; the Doctor -- hearing this on the phone -- gets confused: "The Genesis Ark?" He puts on his 3-D glasses and watches the laptop. The Cybermen in the hallway note to the Dalek that their two species are similar, "though [the Daleks'] design is inelegant." Thay proudly tells the Cybermen that Daleks have no concept of elegance. And the Cybermen win this round soundly: "This is obvious." However, they wonder about alliance: "Our technologies are compatible. Cybermen plus Daleks. Together, we could upgrade the Universe." Thay tells the Cybermen to eat shit, and the Cybermen thrust their fists out, ready to shoot: "Hostile elements will be deleted." Their shots bounce off the Dalek's armor, and he exterminates them with a quickness.
The Cyberman in Yvonne's office addresses the sphere chamber through the projection screen, scaring Jackie even worse: "Daleks, be warned. You have declared war upon the Cybermen." Sek tries to explain that it's not war: "This is pest control." Upgrading, as the Cybermen would say. They both couch their destruction in the most logical, positive ways. "We have five million Cybermen. How many are you?" Four. Hell yeah! "You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks?" And you know the Dalek are gonna fuck him up: "We would destroy the Cybermen with one Dalek. You are superior in only one respect: You are better at dying." I really love them sometimes. Sek closes off communications, sending the Doctor's call to static and severing the link to the office.
A Dalek demands that someone reverse the webcam image by "nine rels," which is a Dalek unit of time dating back to the '60s movies. The more you know... "Identify grid seven gamma frame." They zoom in on the Doctor: "This male registers as enemy." Rose grins, but somehow doesn't do the fist-pump that naturally goes there. Doesn't help: Sek immediately recognizes that her heartbeat has increased. "Yeah, tell me about it," sniffs Mickey. Heh. "Identify him," screeches Sek, and she smiles cattily: "All right then, if you really wanna know. That's the Doctor." They roll backward, all of them at once, awesomely. "Five million Cybermen: Easy. One Doctor? Now you're scared." Rose smiles proudly.
The Cybermen order the quarantine of the sphere chamber and "emergency upgrading" for everybody, starting with the people in Yvonne's office. Yvonne shouts as they drag her away: "No, you can't do this! We surrendered! We surrendered!" If it's alien, it's yours, though. Right? Isn't that the deal? The Cybermen grab Jackie and the Doctor, but one of them notices the Doctor's "increased adrenaline," which somehow suggests that he has "vital Dalek information." As they haul Jackie out of there, she shouts at the Doctor over her shoulder: "You promised me! You gave me your word!" The Doctor repeats that he'll think of something, and then Jackie's gone.
"Cyber threat irrelevant. Concentrate on the Genesis Ark." Sek presses its suction arm against the Genesis Ark. Black Daleks like this have always been called Dalek Supreme. Keep an eye on Sek. Mickey asks why they're being kept alive, and in the grand tradition of all Mary Sues -- or at least those that stand accused -- she assumes (correctly) that they will need her for something. She knows what it is, and stares at them in fear, ignoring Mickey's further questions.
Yvonne and Jackie are brought to the plastic curtains, about to be dragged beyond the veil, for upgrading. Everywhere is the screaming, drilling, sparking sound of progress. "What happens in there? What's 'upgrading' mean? What do they do?" Yvonne gulps, positing that they take out your brain and put it "in a suit of armor." That's what happens when you dance with ghosts: you get hard. "That's what these things are. They're us." They stare. A Cyberman calls, "," heh, and Yvonne is dragged away. "This is your fault!" screams Jackie. "You and your Torchwood. You've killed us all!" Yvonne, tears streaming, screaming backward: "I did my duty for Queen and Country." She wrenches her arm away from the Cyberman and walks in by herself, muttering her creed: "I did my duty. I did my duty. Oh, God. I did my duty." She did. Torchwood is just people. Jackie winces as Yvonne begins to scream.
The Doctor sits on the window sill, in silence. "You are proof," says an approaching Cyberman, "that emotions destroy you." Also true, but you're asking the wrong questions. The Doctor nods sadly: "Mind you, I quite like hope. Hope's a good emotion." He looks back down, into the lab: "And here it comes." The Cyberman turns to see a squad in black, wearing helmets, carrying guns, appearing from nowhere. Destruction from the other side of Hell. One of them shouts to the others, and they shoot down a row of Cybermen, destroying them. The Doctor rolls and crouches in a corner of the office as the last Cyberman goes down. The man with the gun addresses the Doctor: "Doctor, good to see you again." He takes off his helmet, and it's Jake Simmonds from the Age of Steel: Rickey's lover, Mickey's partner. Jake is proud, but the Doctor's concerned. The walls between the worlds, getting weaker all the time. The Void pressing in.
A Cyberman drags Jackie along, but lets go of her briefly as he informs his fellows that "Cyber Leader One has been terminated." While they download the pertinent files to each other, Jackie sneaks away. Her Cyberman proclaims that he'll be upgraded to Cyber Leader as she escapes down the stairs.
Jake orders his group to defend the lab, setting up comms and such. The Doctor puts on his 3-D glasses and stares at them. "Kill one Cyber Leader and they just download into another," says Jake. Everybody scampers, leaving the Doctor and Jake alone. The Doctor's flabbergasted, protesting that you can't just hop from one world to another like this. "We just did," says Jake, "with these." He tosses the Doctor a large yellow plastic button on a chain. "But that's impossible," says the Doctor. "You can't have this sort of technology." Jake explains that the Age of Steel has its own version of Torchwood (can you imagine?) and that the Steel Torchwood developed it. For good reason, as we shall see. "Do you wanna come and see?" asks Jake, proud of himself, and happy to see the Doctor again. The Doctor shouts a protest, but it's too late: Jake presses the button. They cross Hell to the other side, where Canary Wharf is a little worse for wear. All the shininess of our Torchwood gone down in war. There's equipment and stuff in piles. "Parallel Earth, parallel Torchwood. Except we found out what the Institute was doing, and the People's Republic took control." The Doctor urgently demands to go back: "Rose is in danger. And her mother." And who should appear but Peter Alan Tyler, the most wonderful man in both worlds, with a retinue of soldiers: "That'd be Jackie. My wife in a parallel universe. And as for you, Doctor, at least this time I know who you are." Pete's up to speed. The Doctor's proud but has no time for this: "Right, yes, fine, hooray. But I've gotta get back. Right now." Pete is calm, and strong. This is what dads do, in fairy tales: give you the rules. It's another kind of grace, the other side. The punishment and the limitation. This is Peter's world; this is what happens when the fathers come back to Sunnydale. "No, you're not in charge here. This is our world, not yours. And you're gonna listen for once." The Doctor falls silent, with a dark look.
The Daleks crowd around the Genesis Ark as Mickey shows Rose his yellow button: "I could transport out of here, but it only carries one and I'm not leaving you." She looks at him: "You'd follow me anywhere. What did I do to you all those years ago?" He admits the possibility that he's just stupid, but she squeezes his hand: "You're the bravest man I've ever met." Of course, he asks if that includes the Doctor, and of course, she won't lie: "Oh, all right. Bravest human." They smile, finally able just to love each other. "Well, I can't think what the Daleks need with me," says Mickey. "I'm nothing to them." Rose isn't so sure: "Whatever's inside that Ark is waking up, and I've seen this happen before." She flashes back to the first Dalek she ever met: when, full of warmth and pity, she put her hands upon him -- I mean to say that she touched him -- and brought him back to life: "It was broken. It was dying." But she touched him, and brought him back to life: "The Doctor said when you travel in time in the TARDIS, you soak up all this...um, background radiation. It's harmless, it's just there. But in the Time War, the Daleks evolved so they could use it as a power supply." Mickey gazes at her, goofy: "I love it when you talk technical." She tells him to shut up and continues: "If the Daleks have got something inside that thing that needs waking up..." He needs Rose. She points out that she and Mickey have both been Companions; they've both traveled. "But why would they build something they can't open themselves?" Sek answers, helpfully: "The technology is stolen. The Ark is not of Dalek design." Then who? "The Time Lords. This is all that survives of their homeworld." Nobody has said "Gallifrey." It's too big. Nobody's going to. The Daleks shuffle around the Ark. "What's inside?" The future, Sek tells her. Rose stares.
The Doctor presses against the wall in the parallel white room, as though listening for something. Pete stands behind him: "When you left this world, you warned us there'd be more Cybermen. So we sealed them inside the factories." Except, Jake explains, people argued and said that they were alive, that they needed to be helped. This is the question of Torchwood, and this is the question of Harriet Jones, Prime Minister: how do you answer this question? "All that time, the Cybermen made plans. Infiltrated this version of Torchwood, mapped themselves onto your world, and then vanished." That was three years ago. It took three years to cross the Void, forging cracks and breaking fault lines as they went. The Doctor surmises that it was the sheer mass of five million Cybermen crossing all at once that took them that long -- three years for the Age of Steel could be ten minutes in the Void, or three thousand years, but they're Cybermen. They wouldn't notice. "Yeah," Pete smiles, "Mickey said you'd rattle off that sort of stuff." The Doctor delightedly asks where "Mickey-boy" is, and Pete laughs that he's gone ahead: "Any chance to go and find Miss Rose Tyler." Jake puts his fist through a concrete wall and goes to watch Brokeback Mountain for the 187th time. "She's your daughter," the Doctor tells Pete. "You do know that? Did Mickey explain?" Pete shakes his head: "She's not mine. She's the child of a dead man."
They look out into a beautiful, calm city. Like London but a little different. "A world of peace. They're calling this the Golden Age." Who's the President? "A woman called Harriet Jones," says Pete, and the Doctor goes: Hoo. "I'd keep an eye on her." (But I would think that the fact she didn't just airlock all five million of the Cybermen means she's better -- worse? -- than the one we had here.) Pete calls the Golden Age a lie. It always is. "Temperatures have risen by two degrees in the past six months. The ice caps are melting. They're saying all this is gonna be flooded." They both know it's not just global warming: "It's the breach." The Doctor is like, "Exactly, that's what I'm saying." Travel between parallel worlds is impossible -- until the Dalek broke down the walls. Pete asks about that, but the Doctor keeps talking: "Then the Cybermen traveled across, then you lot...Every time you jump from one reality to another, you rip a hole in the universe. This planet is starting to boil. Keep going and both worlds will fall into the Void." Pete assumes that "the famous Doctor" can stop this, and seal the breach. The Doctor notes that this leaves five million Cybermen stranded on his Earth. "That's your problem," says Pete. "I'm protecting this world, and this world only." Peter's World. The Doctor chuckles and looks at him softly: "Hm. Pete Tyler...I knew you when you were dead. Now here you are, fighting the fight. Alone. ...There is a chance, back on my world, Jackie Tyler might still be alive." Pete's World: "My wife died." The Doctor notes that, coincidentally, her husband died too: "Good match." Pete ignores the Doctor, and basically starts begging for help. "What?" asks the Doctor. "Close the breach? Stop the Cybermen? Defeat the Daleks? Do you believe I can do that?" Pete is all confidence, realities, facts: "Yes." And the Doctor muses, before rushing off: "Maybe that's all I need. Off we go, then!" He grins.
Back at Canary Wharf, ours, the Doctor rushes to the phone and dials Jackie's number, guarded by Jake and Pete and their men.
"Help me! Oh, my God, help me," Jackie gasps at the Doctor, running down the stairs. She screams into the phone as he's congratulating her on still being alive: "They tried to download me but I ran away!" The Doctor begs Jackie to calm down -- this is such a cool scene -- and tell him where she is. These are the landmarks she gives: "Staircase! There's a fire extinguisher!" She finally notices a sign on the wall and the Doctor figures out where she is: "Just keep low, we're trying our best." He doesn't want to hang up, he knows she's scared and he doesn't want to break the connection, but it's an office phone -- it's tied to the wall. "No, don't leave me!" Jackie calls, pitifully, and the Doctor apologizes, hanging up.
The Doctor puts the phone down and turns to Pete: "Jacqueline Andrea Suzette Tyler." Still not Pete's wife. "I was at the wedding! You got her name wrong," he says archly, and then grabs Jake's gun: "Now then, Jakey-boy, if I can open up the bonding chamber on this thing, we can pop in polycarbide: skin of a Dalek." Like diamond cutting diamond.
A tiny white flag of office paper, attached to a stick or something, waves comically at the Cybermen, from around a corner. The Doctor emerges: "Sorry. No white flag. I only had a sheet of A4. Same difference." The Cybermen stare, and then ready guns: "Do you surrender?" He does, walking forward casually, until they are nose-to-nose. "I surrender, unto you...a very good idea!" He grins. I do love his little plans.
The Daleks back away from the Genesis Ark: "Final stage of awakening." Sek orders them to touch the Ark, and Rose tells them to go to Hell. "Obey, or the male will die," says Sek, and Rose immediately steps toward it, against Mickey's pleas. "Place your hand upon the casket," shrieks Sek, and Rose gives him serious attitude: "All right!" She turns to the Ark. "You're gonna kill us anyway, so what the hell?" She stalls, and comes back to stare at the Dalek. "If you, um...escaped the Time War...don't you want to know what happened?" Sek's like, "Place your hand..." Rose ignores him: "What happened to the Emperor?" Sek totally scoffs: "The Emperor survived." Rose stands strong. She is beautiful: "'Til he met me. 'Cause if these are gonna be my last words, then you're gonna listen: I met the Emperor. And I took the Time Vortex, and I pulled it into his head, and turned him into dust. Do you get that? The God of all Daleks...and I destroyed him." She laughs, gloating. Girl, do not go out this way. "You will be exterminated!" shrieks Sek...
...and the Doctor appears in the doorway: "Oh now, hold on, wait a minute." Sek goes mad: "Alert! Alert! You are the Doctor!" Fuck yeah. Rose smiles, and the Doctor walks in, wearing those 3-D glasses again. "Sensors report he is unarmed," says one, and the Doctor nods: "That's me. Always." You think he's covering? He's not covering. "Then you are powerless," reasons Sek. "Not me. Never," says the Doctor. He swipes off the glasses and gives Rose a how do you do. "Same old, you know," she giggles. The Doctor daps Mickey, and they are happy to see each other as well. With Daleks just standing there! "Social interaction will cease!" screams one of the Daleks. Which is just...so awesome.
Sek asks how the Doctor survived the Time War, which is what Nine asked the Dalek cult. "By fighting," the Doctor says darkly. "On the front line." Mickey stares. "I was there at the fall of Arcadia," the Doctor goes on. "Someday I might even come to terms with that." Arcadia is a twenty-fifth-century human colony, in the non-canon, but I'm thinking of Paradise. "Take Arcadia apart if you have to." I've gotten suspicious about things clicking together too easily, this season. Power over the narrative and all that. But: he brings down the Great and Bountiful, and on the day he's talking about, I think, he ended two races, including his own. The fall of Arcadia. And everything since then has been a fight to protect what's left: once you remove Heaven from the equation, all you've got is here and now. The Doctor needles the Daleks for running away, and Sek protests that they had to survive. "The last four Daleks in existence," muses the Doctor. "So what's so special about you?" Rose murmurs to the Doctor that they have names, which she knows is off-message. They count off their names proudly: Thay, Sek, Jast, Caan. The Doctor is delighted finally to meet them, the Cult of Skaro: "I thought you were just a legend!" (Even I know this, but just in case: Skaro, which hasn't been mentioned in the New Series except by reference, is the Dalek homeworld.) "A secret order, above and beyond the Emperor himself." Of course. "Their job was to imagine, think as the enemy thinks. Even dared to have names. All to find new ways of killing." Just like the Cybermen, linking psychically to history, coming through as ghosts. Just like Torchwood, giving up the essential in order to concentrate on the temporal. (This concept, the "think as the enemy" thing, dates back to the '60s, and it's come up in lots of Dalek stories. We've also seen Daleks with names; the Second Doctor gave the "human factor" to three of them -- Alpha, Beta, Omega -- and they got nicer.) Mickey says what Rose was trying to say earlier -- that the Ark is a Time Lord product -- and the Doctor shrugs: "Never seen it before." Rose is surprised, but the Doctor's not, sadly: "Both sides had secrets."
The Doctor turns to the Daleks, scolding like a schoolmaster: "What is it? What have you done?" Sek illustrates the divine symmetry, and I can't say it horrifies me: "Time Lord science will restore Dalek supremacy." The Doctor gets pissy, like Ten always does when he doesn't understand what you're talking about: "What does that mean? What sort of Time Lord science? What do you mean?" Rose mentions about the time traveler touch issue, and the Doctor gets a tad bit heavy-handed: "Technology using the one thing a Dalek can't do: touch." We switch to the Dalek POV, which is intriguing. Makes it seem more like arrogance. "Sealed inside your casing, not feeling anything, ever, from birth to death, locked inside a cold metal cage. Completely alone." These aren't their nightmares, they're his: "And that explains your voice. No wonder you scream." Awesome. Awesome. You had to know I'd love that. Sek orders the Doctor to open the Ark, and he laughs his ass off, getting angry again. "You have no way of resisting," insists Sek. Which is never, ever true.
"Although...there is always this," the Doctor says, retrieving his screwdriver. "It is harmless," says Sek. Every tool's a weapon if you hold it right. That's, like, my favorite quote ever. "Oh, yes," the Doctor agrees. "'Harmless' is just the word. That's why I like it. Doesn't kill, doesn't wound, doesn't maim. But I'll tell you what it does do -- it is very good at opening doors." The Doctor bleeps; the doors explode inward from all sides. Jake and his men flood into the room, shooting, and alongside them are the Cybermen, singing awful hymns of deletion. The Daleks scream, and our guys hit the deck. The Doctor urges Rose out, and she stumbles, as the fight goes on around them; she's shocked but recovers as Peter Alan Tyler helps her to her feet. They make for the door; Mickey grabs a gun and starts firing anywhere, into the battle. The Doctor joins Rose and Pete in the doorway, out of harm's way. Rose screams to Mickey as the Daleks get their feet under them and start blowing away Cybermen, which is when Mickey stumbles against the Ark, and burns one handprint into its metal skin. The party escapes, sealing the Daleks and Cybermen inside, and as they run, steam begins to pour from the Ark in there. Sek shouts, "Cybermen have been exterminated! Daleks are supreme! The Ark needs area of thirteen square miles. Move!" They follow as the Ark glides smoothly across the floor. "Genesis Ark mobile!" Outside, Mickey apologizes wildly, but the Doctor is sweet and smiling: "Mickey, without us, they'd have opened it by force -- to do that, they'd have blown up the sun. You've done us a favor!" He kisses Mickey's head and they all run out together. (I confess, I really did think, at this point, that Mickey was a goner.)
Jackie, still hustling down the stairwell, comes upon Cybermen; there is some patented Doctor Who running about, and she finally gets cornered and almost upgraded, but then, in a long corridor, is saved. Her attackers are shot from behind, and as they fall, they reveal her savior: Peter Alan Tyler, with the Doctor, Rose, and Mickey at his side. Jackie squints through the smoke, uncomprehending. Her eyes widen; her face turns to ash. She says Pete's name; her daughter puts hands to her mouth. "Hello, Jacks," says Pete. Her relief and joy war with her fear and exasperation. She asks the saddest question: "Said there were ghosts, but that's not fair. Why him?" This is so the greatest scene. Pete tells her he's not a ghost, and she stands firm: "But you're dead. You died twenty years ago, Pete." The Doctor steps forward to explain -- "It's Pete from a different Universe. There are parallel worlds, Jackie. Every single decision we make creates a parallel existence, a different dimension, where..." -- and she tells him, softly, to shut up. For once, he does, and steps back into line. Pete smiles at her. She gazes at him in wonder: "Oh...you look old." He smiles more deeply: "You don't." But how can he be standing there? He shakes his head, reality crashing sidelong into Peter's world: "Just got lucky. Lived my life. You were left on your own. You didn't marry again, or...?" Jackie's hands are useless. "There was never anyone else," she says quietly. "Twenty years, though. Look at me! I never left that flat. Did nothing with myself!" Pete nods back at the family. "Brought her up. Rose Tyler." The Doctor and Mickey smile. "That's not bad," adds Pete. True. Jackie whispers her agreement. "In my world, it worked," says Pete. "All those daft little plans of mine. They worked. Made me rich." Jackie shakes her head, still devouring the look of him: "I don't care about that. ...How rich?" Very. "I don't care about that. ...How very?" Pete laughs; Rose rolls her eyes, and the Doctor grins, loving this. "Thing is, though, Jacks. You're...you're not my wife. I'm sorry, but you're not. I mean, we both..." She nods, and he just looks at her, softly. Peter's World: the hard truth.
Once there were a couple of London kids, named Peter Tyler and Jackie Prentiss. They couldn't make it work: Peter was a layabout who died early, without ever pulling off that final Del Boy scheme. Jackie got hard, and lonely, and lost her daughter to the stars. Or Peter was in the right place at the right time, and won everything he ever wanted, but Jackie got hard, and lonely, and lost her life to technology and the belief that things can keep from changing. They loved each other, and in our world they even had a lovely daughter, and Jackie always told their girl that Pete was the most wonderful man in the world. Rose spun out fantasy after fantasy, and in growing up she discarded them, one by one. In his world, he lost his wife to the Cybermen, but that was only a technicality: he'd lost her long ago, somewhere as he was reaching higher. They forgot each other. That's Peter's World: the hard truth that things don't ever work out this way. That sometimes you fall in love with someone, and you lose him -- or her -- and there's no rotty magic or silly time machine that can get him -- or her -- back again. But somewhere else, there's a song, a touch of grace, a single moment in time when you can burn off what doesn't work, take half of each side and combine them together. Rose was a Yorkie, Mickey a tin dog, until they went to Hell, and came back again. And sometimes, when you jump, it's more than approximation the world hands you. You get another chance -- to be strong, to love. And if you could hear grace speaking, this might be her song: "Trust me on this. Trust me on this. Trust me on this. Trust me on this. Trust me on this." Pete stares, looks at Jackie, imagining, remembering, fighting it: "You know, it's just sort of..." Jackie nods again; just another ghost. And just when she's about to step back, it's Peter Alan Tyler, once again, who's brave enough to jump: "...Oh, come here." And he runs to her, and sweeps her into his arms, and they both begin to weep. Home again. That's the story of Peter and Jackie Tyler. It starts now.
The Daleks burst onto the factory floor, meeting row on row of Cybermen, each side screaming their song of war, the destruction of humanity and divinity combined, rays bouncing off armor and bullets filling the air. The soldiers join in, swept up in the choreography of hell. And through the Cybermen, the Dalek come, shepherding their Ark toward the sky. The new Cyber Leader calls all units to Canary Wharf, and they take to the streets. "Repeat: all Cybermen to Torchwood." The frightened families of London stand outside their houses in silence, watching the Cybermen march away.
The Doctor watches the battle, waiting for his moment and diving into the room. Rose winces visibly every time the beams and lasers come close. The Doctor ganks two of Torchwood's Magnaclamps, using them as shields, and returns, tripping slightly over a Cyberman's body. Rose whispers to herself, urging him on. He escapes, and puts on his 3-D glasses, staring around. Sek orders the roof open, and the Dalek all "Elevate." The Doctor thinks and thinks, even rips his specs off again, but can't put it together: "Time Lord science..." Sek rises through the air over London with the Ark, and the Doctor grabs the gang to follow. Jackie jokes that the top of the building is forty-five floors up -- "Believe me, I've done 'em all" -- and Jake appears out of nowhere: "We could always take the lift." With that maniacal grin Companions get. They clamber in, and as the Ark rises up the side of Torchwood Tower, our heroes rise in tandem.
"The Genesis Ark will open," says Sek, and it does. A Dalek is revealed within. The Ark begins to spin.
Everybody gets off on the floor containing Yvonne's office, and the white room, the Doctor tossing his Magnaclamps down on Yvonne's desk as he goes. As the Genesis Ark spins, Daleks begin to shoot out of it at ridiculous speed, more and more of them. The Doctor stares in horror: "Time Lord science...it's bigger on the inside." It's a prison ship. Just like the Cybermen, locked up in the Age of Steel. Two cages from the other side of Hell; bringing vengeance. How many Daleks? "Millions." They begin to spread out, across London. Down below, the Cybermen march. They stop as one, and fire their weapons up into the air at the Daleks, to no effect. Sek orders, "Exterminate all life forms below. Exterminate!" The Daleks fire on the Cybermen, and on the terrified people of London. This is what Daleks do best.
Pete walks away from the window shaking his head, bringing back the rules of Peter's World: "I'm sorry, but you've had it. This world's gonna crash and burn. There's nothing we can do. We're going home. Jacks, take this." He tosses her one of the yellow buttons, and she protests that they're destroying the city. He smiles affectionately: "I'd forgotten you could argue." He loops the chain around her neck himself: "It's not just London, it's the whole world." He takes her face in his hands: "But there's another world, just waiting for you, Jacks. And it's safe. As long as the Doctor closes the breach. Doctor?" The Doctor arrives, grinning madly, wearing his 3-D glasses again: "Oh, I'm ready. I've got the equipment right here. Thank you, Torchwood!" If it's alien? "Slam it down and close off both Universes." The computer reboots. "But we can't just leave. What about the Daleks? And the Cybermen?" That's Rose. The Doctor doesn't have an answer: "They're part of the problem. And that makes them part of the solution. Isn't anyone gonna ask, what is it with the glasses?" Rose grins hugely and asks: "What is it with the glasses?" He can see, that's what: "We've got two separate worlds, but in-between the two separate worlds, we've got the Void. That's where the Daleks were hiding. And the Cybermen traveled through the Void to get here! And you lot, one world to another, via the Void! Oh, I like that. Via the Void! Look!" The Doctor puts the glasses on Rose's face and presents himself: "I've been through it. Do you see?" The Doctor dances before her, shimmering in green and red. She reaches out to touch them, but she can't. "Void stuff!" The Doctor points her to the others. Jackie's the only one who hasn't been through the Void: "Your mother. First time she's looked normal in her life." Rose giggles; the Doctor earns himself a sharp "Oi!"
Out into the white room, the Doctor is dashing with Rose on his heels: "The Daleks lived inside the Void, they're bristling with it! Cybermen, all of them! I just open the Void, end of verse. The Void stuff gets sucked back inside." Rose follows enthusiastically: "Pulling them all in." Mickey asks for the information, and the Doctor complies: "The dead space. Some people call it Hell." Mickey loops his button round his neck: "So you're sending the Daleks and Cybermen to Hell." He turns to Jake: "Man, I told you he was good." Rose, still wearing the glasses, points out that they've all got Void radiation on them. She moves her hands around, before her eyes, watches the particles. She pulls the glasses off, and the Doctor stands before her: "We're all contaminated. We'll get pulled in." He pretends this isn't happening: "That's why you've gotta go." Two minutes to reboot. Two minutes to death. Rose stares at the Doctor, uncomprehending. "Back to Pete's world," says the Doctor, still excited. "Hey, we should call it that! 'Pete's World'!" He turns back to Rose: "I'm opening the Void, but only on this side. You'll be safe on that side." Rose keeps staring. "And then you'll close it?" Pete asks. "For good?" Yes. The breach itself is "soaked" in Void stuff: "In the end, it'll close itself. And that's it. Kaput." Rose puts this together: "But you stay on this side?" Mickey joins her: "But you'll get pulled in." The Doctor holds Rose's gaze a moment, and then runs to the Magnaclamps. Rose looks like she's been smacked. "That's why I got these," says the Doctor of the Magnaclamps. "I'll just have to hold on tight. I've been doing it all my life." Today's the day you stop. Today's the day you jump, and let her jump. He's only been alive for a year.
"I'm supposed to go," says Rose. Yeah. "To another world. And then it gets sealed off." The Doctor ducks away. "Forever." Rose laughs at the absurdity: "That's not gonna happen." The building begins to shake and crash. "We haven't got time to argue," says Pete. "The plan works, we go in. You too. All of us." Rose gets pissed: "I'm not leaving it." Jackie refuses to leave without her daughter. Pete gets exasperated: "Oh my God. We're going." Jackie shakes her head: "I've had twenty years without you, so button it. I'm not leaving her." Rose tells Jackie she's got to, and Jackie tells her that's tough. One minute to reboot. Rose: "I've had a life with you for nineteen years. But then I met the Doctor and...all the things I've seen him do for me. For you. For all of us. For the whole...stupid planet, and every planet out there. He does it alone, Mum." She begs her mother with tears in her throat to understand. Behind her is the Doctor. With a yellow button on a chain. "But not anymore," Rose swears. "'Cause now he's got me." She backs away from Jackie, from Mickey and Peter and Jake. Toward the Doctor. The Doctor loops the chain around Rose's neck and Pete presses the button, and they all disappear. The Doctor stands alone, staring at the place Rose just was.
Everyone appears in the other Torchwood, and Rose thinks of Emergency Protocol One. Of what love can make you do. "Oh, no you don't. He's not doing that to me again." She presses the button and reappears before the Doctor.
Pete snatches Jackie's button from her before she can even think of using it. She screams, but Pete's forceful. Hard truth: "The Doctor said every time we use one of these, it damages the whole world. Now that's it." Jackie shouts that Rose is his daughter, but this is Peter's World: "She's your daughter, not mine." He walks away, grabbing Mickey's button as well. And Jackie keeps trying, desperately, telling Mickey to explain it better. To make Pete see Rose the way they do. Mickey doesn't respond: he's been in Peter's World long enough to know about hard truth.
The Doctor shakes Rose by the shoulders, staring terrified into her eyes: "Once the breach collapses, that's it. You will never be able to see her again. Your own mother!" Rose is calm, and strong. Her voice trembles, but her back is straight. The first thing Rose ever said was "Goodbye." "I made my choice a long time ago, and I'm never gonna leave you," says Rose. The Doctor stares, but it's too real, too naked. He lets go. "...So what can I do to help?" asks Rose, stubbornly holding his gaze. The system reboots. He gives in, points to a computer: "Those coordinates over there, set them all at 6." Of course. This is Hell. He sounds angry: "And hurry up." Rose leans over the computer, glancing at him nervously. Is this how we fuck it up? Is this unforgivable?
Jackie pushes Pete away, shouting, "Get away from me!" before she breaks into tears, hands covering her face.
Rose detects Cybermen, just one floor down. Coming up.
"We will retreat through the breach," says a Cyberman. "Regain the homeworld." At the top of the stairs, between Rose and the Doctor and the white room, stands a Cyberman with a familiar voice, gun trained down at them. "You will not pass." The Cybermen are flummoxed: "What is the meaning of this?" It is Yvonne. She kills them with bright white light. "You will not pass. I did my duty for Queen and country. I did my duty for Queen and country. I did my duty for Queen and country." She sheds a single black tear. And that relieved feeling you're having? That sense of redemption? You can drop that shit right now. Torchwood is made of people. Yvonne is a person. She did her best. She did her duty, now and every second before now. She didn't need to be redeemed, she just needed to be Yvonne. She already was.
The Doctor gets the levers operational, tapping on a computer, and his smile is relief for Rose: "That's more like it, bit of a smile! The old team!" He gives in, grabbing Magnaclamps and coming to her. "Hope and Glory, Mutt and Jeff, Shiver and Shake!" Which one's Shiver? The Doctor claims Shake. He and Rose get into position, with their Magnaclamps attached to the walls, near the levers, one on either side. On the left is the Doctor. On the right is Rose. Now, who will stand on either hand, and keep the bridge with me?
Sek, from the air, notes the activation of the breach: "It is the Doctor! Exterminate him!" Four Daleks swoop toward Torchwood Tower, screaming death.
"When it starts, just hold on tight. Shouldn't be too bad for us, but the Daleks and the Cybermen are steeped in Void Stuff. Are you ready?" They get into position; Rose notices the Daleks appearing at the window. "Let's do it!" shouts the Doctor, and they push the levers up. Up, up, up. The white light begins to build, and this time brings with it a strong wind. ("Make it brighter," begged the wolf. "Let me go.") The Daleks at the window are pulled through, smashing the glass, and fly into the Void. Rose and the Doctor hang onto to their clamps tightly, grunting and striving. "The breach is open! Into the Void!" laughs the Doctor, wildly. Cybermen across the world are lifted; millions of Daleks come rush at the breach, shrieking, powerless, terrified. The Void takes them all. We don't see this, but the Cybermen are pulled through smaller faultlines. They aren't left behind. The TARDIS doesn't move, because the TARDIS is more powerful than Hell. Up in the sky, Dalek Sek Supreme calls out, "Emergency temporal shift!" He vanishes, off the board entirely, to revolve around the Doctor's life and reappear somewhere else. season, I assume. The Genesis Ark disappears into Torchwood; people start to come out and watch. Rose and the Doctor smile sweetly at each other, pulled parallel to the floor as they are; the Void is suddenly down, but they're holding the line. They're safe again. Grace intervenes.
Sparks rain out suddenly, and Rose's lever begins to slip. The computer goes offline, wiping the grins from Rose's and the Doctor's faces. The power of the Void is diminishing, and the job isn't done. Rose reaches for the lever, but can't. She lets go of her anchor -- that's the Doctor -- and falls onto the lever, as the Doctor watches, frantic. Full of dread. Rose pushes the lever back upright as the Doctor watches; now she's got nothing but the lever to keep from being pulled in. The enemy's gate is down. As she begins to slip, the helpless Doctor stares, horrified and powerless, reaching out in vain. Rose screams her last cry and her grasp finally slips. He calls her name. The Void pulls her in.
Pete appears in the nick of time, between Rose and the edge of the breach, just long enough to wrap his arms around her, and activate his button once again. Don't ask why or how. It's a fairy tale. Rose looks over her shoulder at the Doctor before she vanishes. Silence falls. The devil is gone. He's all alone. The Doctor stares at the place where they disappeared, breathing very heavily. The breach closes itself. The wind dies down, leaving the place silent. Everything is normal. The wall is just a wall. The light is from the sun. The sound of the world continues all over it, things get back to normal. The Doctor continues to look.
In Steel Torchwood, Rose hammers on the wall, hysterical, screaming once more: "Take me back! Take me back!" She breaks down into hollow grief, slamming her fists against it, begging. Rageful. Pete quietly stares at his button: "It's stopped working. He did it. He closed the breach." Rose sobs, with her hands against the wall. As if she's listening for something.
The Doctor walks slowly to the wall on his side, and lays one hand against it, flat. He rests his head along it. Empty. Listening. The sun and the moon, the day and night: but why do they hurt? Because one follows the other and that's not a dance that ever stops.
Rose suddenly presses her cheek against the wall as though listening for the Doctor, her palm aligned with his. But they aren't touching. She continues to sob. Plant your feet in the dirt of a foreign world, get a mortgage. Remember the world again, and remember him: Nine's ears, Ten's mouth. The suits and the smile and Barcelona. That's what you do. "Same size as the Earth," he said. "Same air, same orbit. Lovely!" The fantasy of the exile. Prospero destroys his books, but nobody ever said he didn't write new ones afterward. You jump, because it's your only option. Jump. Don't ask the question, who's going to hold his hand now?
The Doctor lets his hand slide down the wall, weak; on her side, Rose does the same. She feels him going. The Doctor turns from the wall, expressionless. He walks away. Life is very long when you're lonely. "I have to live on," he said. "Alone. That's the curse of the Time Lords." He burns all the time. There's no standard for comparison. He stands in the white room a nearly unchartable labyrinth of corridors, and mirrors, and fireplaces, and doors. One of which has closed forever. You plant your feet in the impossible dirt and you remember her. The mascara and the pink, the laugh, the way she'd push her hair back when it was time to work harder. Remember chips, and a Little Red Hoodie. That's what you do when you're forever.
Rose leans against the wall, wiping away tears, going into shock. Peter, Jackie, and Mickey watch, staring. Memory, knowledge, will. Now, who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me? Mickey Smith. Jackie Tyler. Peter Tyler. They join hands, and they watch Rose in her grief, waiting to catch her when she finally falls.
In the black, the Doctor's voice rings out, so softly. Like Tennyson at Christmas; reverent. He calls her name: "Rose?" She's sleeping in a house of Steel, a soft bedroom. It's been at least a year. When she speaks to us, she sounds like she's still breaking. "Last night I had a dream." She awakens. "I heard a voice, and it was calling my name." She opens her eyes, sits up, at attention. The world seems a restless place for a moment, until she thinks of her face that Christmas, looking back at her. He calls her name. Mickey was summoned; by the Tyler fireside she told them -- Mickey, Jackie, Peter -- about her dream. How he called her name. "Anyone else would think I was mad, but not those three. They believed it. Because they've met the Doctor. So they listened to the dream." He calls her name. It's still dark when the four of them leave the house, fully dressed, all packed up. "Got into Dad's old Jeep, and off we went. Just like the dream said." They started to walk, and soon they were running. Daylight now, driving down a long country road. Following the voice across the water. "Kept on driving, hundreds and hundreds of miles. Because he's calling." He calls her name. She follows her star. The family stands on a bleak white beach. The TARDIS sings, now. Her heart is broken, too.
Rose walks across the sand: "Here I am at last. And this is the story of how I died." She comes to a stop, and out of the mist comes a Doctor. Slightly translucent. Remember the Gamestation? "Let this old box gather dust"? Slightly translucent. "Where are you?" Inside the TARDIS, he says, from a long way away. "There's one tiny little gap in the Universe left, just about the close. And it takes a lot of power to send this projection. I'm in orbit around a supernova!" He laughs softly. "I'm burning up a sun, just to say goodbye." It's true: she's orbiting. It's beautiful. "You look like a ghost," Rose says, shaking her head. Ghosts. The Doctor adjusts something on the TARDIS console with his screwdriver, and comes through more clearly. But a footprint doesn't look like a boot: Rose raises her hand to his face. "I'm still just an image. No touch," he says. Her voice trembles: "Can't you come through properly?" The whole thing would fracture. Two Universes would collapse. "So?" She's only barely joking; only barely hanging on. The Doctor smiles, and he and Rose look. At each other. Memorizing.
"Where are we? Where did the gap come out?" Norway. A beautiful, cold, stark beach in Norway: "About fifty miles out of Burgen. It's called Dårlig Ulv Stranden." Sounds like Dalek. "Dårlig. It's Norwegian for 'bad.'" They're standing on Bad Wolf Bay. They laugh at this, but only for a moment. In the silence, Rose remembers their best day: everything she ever dreamed. "Forever." "How long have we got?" About two minutes. She laughs, suddenly wrong-footed: "I can't think of what to say!" The Doctor looks over at the family: "You've still got Mr. Mickey, then?" There are five of them now. Mum and Dad, Mickey. And the baby. The Doctor's jaw drops, and Rose laughs at him: "It's Mum, she's three months gone. More Tylers on the way." And Rose? "Yeah, I'm...I'm back working in the shop." Thank God for Rose Tyler; thank God she can fly now. "Oh, good for you," the Doctor nods sweetly, and she laughs at him, like old times. "Shut up. No, I'm not. There's still a Torchwood on this planet, it's open for business..." Rose starts to cry again. "I think I know a thing or two about aliens." His pride. His Rose: "Rose Tyler. Defender of the Earth." They look.
The Doctor snaps to it, remembering: "You're dead, officially, back home. So many people died that day, and you've gone missing. You're on a list of the dead." This is when she dies. This is when she begins to cry. "Here you are. Living a life, day after day. The one adventure I can never have." Rose sobs in earnest: "Am I ever gonna see you again?" She already knows the answer. He's so sorry: "You can't." She asks what on Earth he's going to do. "Oh, I've got the TARDIS," says the Doctor. "Same old life. Last of the Time Lords..." Rose asks if he's going to do it on his own. No fear, just worry. His old hearts. The Doctor nods silently; they weep for each other, now. "I lo--" she stares at her feet, heart breaking again, shocked back into life after a year of stasis. "...I love you," she says, looking into his eyes, another shuddering sob. The Doctor's devotion is apparent: "Quite right, too." They smile at each other. He takes a step, opens a door. "And I suppose if it's one last chance to say it..." He locks eyes with her. "Rose Tyler, I..." It ends. He fades. He's gone.
There is grace in this that cuts. The Bad Wolf is the Bad Wolf of the season: this is the end of the story. Change feels like dying because it is. Rose stands alone on Bad Wolf Bay, staring into nothing, face twisted with pain. Rose sobs into her hands. Jackie runs to her, wraps her arms around her daughter, and Rose buries her head in her mother's shoulder, and cries until she's spent.
The Doctor stands alone in the TARDIS, tears spilling down his cheeks, his mouth still open to speak the words that could have broken Rose for good. He swallows, hard. Continues to cry, silently, until he can finally wipe the tears away and breathe, hit buttons and flick switches, push levers and get away. His hands are heavy, and empty. He turns suddenly, to see a woman named Donna Noble, wearing a wedding gown, as shocked as he is. The tears are still drying on his face. "What?" he asks, and she jerks toward him, yelping in surprise, angry. "Who are you?" He stares around the TARDIS, dumbfounded. "What the hell is this place?" she hollers. He stares: "What?"
But that's for the Christmas special, "The Runaway Bride," which we'll be seeing sometime in the summer, I guess, and anyway, that's not what we were talking about, was it? We were talking about Rose and the Doctor. This isn't one funeral, but two.
Once there was a girl named Rose Tyler, and we've talked about this before. She touched magic and fell in love, two rarities. She looked into time, and knew everything, and liberated and saved and comforted and brought joy to people at a prodigious rate. Basically a superhero, she became. And she went up into Heaven and came down into Hell, and through it, and out the other side. She came close to losing her humanity, until grace relented, and lent her a hand, and got her nudged back into place, with a family, a mother and a father who loved her, and she could begin again. But the man she fell in love with, now, he was strong, and wise, and funny, and strange. Sometimes he didn't make any sense at all. Sometimes he scared her. But they were a team, and they fought together. And one day, he was taken from her. He died, passed away to another world, where she could never see him again. And she mourned him, and she found her place, and she remembered how to fly again. The thing he taught her was to be better than just another shopgirl: the thing she learned from him was that she always was. Conservative average is like 9,000 words a recap. Twenty-seven recaps. I don't care to do the math and I don't know how to say this without coming across just ridiculous, and I am slightly drunk, but I mean: Rose Tyler. On every single page. I know this girl, and she's gone, forever, and tonight I really miss her. I wish today were just like every other day. My Rose. You were fantastic.
Once there was a boy, loom-born and Academy-taught, who went out into the world with a magical machine, and had adventures. Lots and lots and lots of freaking adventures. In time and space and comics and novels and the occasional TV show. And one day Gallifrey burned, and the Time Lords died, and the Daleks were gone, and Arcadia fell. And I'm pretty sure he died that day, too. And I'm pretty sure the first thing he saw after that was a blonde girl from South London, who took his hand and led him back into the light. And they went everywhere together, up the ramp and down again, and he died. He changed his face. It hurt like hell. And when he came back, they went to Barcelona -- the planet, not the city -- and then back to London, and he learned what a family was like. Things got domestic. Her mom would do things like kiss him right on the mouth. And that South London girl taught him how to love again. He cracked open his chest and let himself take chances and risk oblivion in ways he never had before. She opened doors and left them unlocked, and she knew him. This is what love means; this is what existence demands. And then she died. The ramp down for him, too: she reached up to Heaven and he reached down to Earth, and where they touched, it was magic. He got more human; she got more human, too. He had to let go, without turning back to look, without saying it aloud; and this is also what love means.
But somewhere in the sky, there's a star they followed, and almost everywhere you look, there's somebody they touched, and behind every door, there's a face you haven't met yet; and what we learn from them is that there's nothing so terrible as not taking the chance. Not allowing grace to catch you; not having the grace to accept getting knocked down again, and returning to build. Letting fear build walls the width of Hell. If Hell is the space between worlds, where nothing is -- if the Void ship is the opposite of a TARDIS -- then you already know where Heaven is. Where it always was, where you already are. Look, Americans dream of wolves at the door. The British dream of solitude, and facelessness. You and I dream, when we dream nightmares, of being somehow less than worthy of that grace, that strength, that love. We dream of cages, where nothing is permitted. These dreams are lies.
Jump.