A Young Rose

Rose Tyler has never known her father, Pete Tyler, except for what her mother has told her. He died when she was a baby, in 1987 - the day her friends Stuart Hoskins and Sarah Clarke got married. And no one was around when Pete died after being run over by a hit-and-run driver. All her life, Rose has wished that she’d known her father so she asks The Doctor to take her back in time to meet the father that she never knew. But Rose should be careful what she wishes for…

The Doctor agrees, but cautions Rose to avoid interfering. But witnessing her father’s death, by the car, is too much for Rose. As her father dies The Doctor tells her to go be with her dad but Rose is unable to move.

After she recovers from the shock Rose asks The Doctor if he can take her back to the same moment so she can try again. The Doctor, against his judgement, does as she asks but as they watch from a distance he warns Rose to not run to her father until their former selves have left to prevent a paradox. However just as the accident is about able to happen, Rose runs out and pushes her father aside so saving his life.

Time Interference

But by preventing her father’s death, Rose has damaged the timeline and so has triggered a set of terrible consequences for the human race in the form of the monstrous Reapers - bat-like creatures that heal wounds in time by swallowing everyone involved. With Rose’s father still alive she has inadvertently caused a temporal paradox. One which strange flying beasts - the monstrous Reapers - intend to put right by beginning a bloodthirsty reign of terror now that a cardinal rule of time travel has been contravened.

Rose finds herself trapped within a church, with the Tyler family. With the Reapers outside and trying to get into the church, Rose gets to know a bit more about the father she never had, to meet her mother and also a young Mickey. She also gets to meet herself as young baby…

Rose Tyler

The Doctor is at first at a loss as to what to do to put things right. With his TARDIS now just an empty shell and Rose, by interacting with her parents, continuing to make things steadily worse. The Doctor is forced into taking drastic actions. But then just when he is starting to get things under control Rose finds herself holding her younger self and so triggering an even bigger temporal paradox which results in one of the giant Reapers to enter the church and kill The Doctor.

All alone, without The Doctor, Rose at lasts realises the folly of her earlier action to save her father. With the Reapers attacking the church with greater frenzy, Rose’s father then learns the truth of what should have happened to him and that he should in fact be dead. On the road outside the church the same car that originally tried to run him keeps on appearing and disappearing over and over again. Pete Tyler comes to the conclusion that as he was meant to die by that car and that if he sacrifices himself the timeline will be repaired. Rose therefore has to witness her father take the only course left to him to undo the change that Rose has caused in his life.

After Pete is fatally struck by the car the timeline is restored as all those consumed by the Reapers reappear, including The Doctor. While the others, save for Rose and her father, are unaware of the events and unseen by the others Rose runs to her father's side and quietly stays with him until he dies…