The Stuff of Legends - helloimwolfy (2024)

Chapter 1: You've Changed

Chapter Text

They were in the vortex. After Rose, the Doctor, Jackie and Mickey had Christmas dinner at the Tyler flat on the Powell Estate, Rose had decided to change some of her wardrobe around between her room in the flat and her room in the Tardis. It had been a tiring day of robot Santa's, killer Christmas trees and just a minor alien invasion by the Sycorax and that was all before Christmas dinner, so by the time she entered the Tardis that evening she couldn’t help but yawn.

‘You know there was a time where people would walk onto the Tardis and their mouths would drop in awe.’ The Doctor had a smile ready for Rose when she opened those doors but put it away in favour of a sassy comment. Sassy, maybe that’s the sort of man he was.

She laughed a little through the yawn and tried to cover it up with a hand. ‘Sorry, just been a long day I guess.’ She walked up the ramp, with her backpack on her shoulders, towards the Doctor who was by the console, hands poised. He pulled a leaver and the Tardis whirred into life.

‘I’ve sent us into the vortex, we can just relax for a bit and do something tomorrow.’

And so relax they did. Rose dropped her bag off in her room, as she couldn’t be bothered to unpack it yet, and then made some tea in the galley before heading to the library. Even though she was yawning she wasn’t quite ready for bed and in Earth time it wasn’t even nine in the evening so it didn’t feel right.

The library was one of her favourite rooms on the Tardis. It was small and cosy, especially with the roaring fire. Nearly all the walls were covered with shelves of books which the Tardis would switch out for others from time to time. The Doctor had shown her the other part of the library one day which he very proudly demonstrated was through a secret door in one of the bookshelves. When she stepped through her mouth dropped in awe. It was humongous. There were walls and walls of books and a spiral staircase that led to a mezzanine with even more books. It even had restricted sections which Rose thought was very Harry Potter.

Back in the main room of the library Rose grabbed the book she had been halfway through and sat in her chair. There were two plush armchairs facing each other closest to the fire and a small sofa that faced the fire a little further away. Sometimes the Doctor would sit opposite her, both in their own worlds; one might rest their feet on the other's chair or sometimes they’d accidentally kick each other when stretching their legs and they’d start a foot war. The Doctor would win most of the time in his big boots though she supposed she might have more of a chance now he wore chucks. Other times they would sit on the sofa and the Doctor would read to her, those were probably some of her favourite times and occasionally she’d find herself waking up in her bed having been lulled to sleep by his voice. He never mentioned it the next day but she always tried to thank him with extra cups of tea or attempt to make him some food even though she was an atrocious cook.

As she sat, her eyes glazed over at the page she’d been staring at for the last five minutes, she hoped he hadn’t changed that much and would still like to spend time in the library together. Stuck in her thoughts she didn’t notice the Doctor standing in the doorway even though her chair faced it.

He watched her silently for a moment not really wanting to disturb her but knowing he would have to. He cleared his throat and said, ‘er Rose. Hello’.

She startled a little but not enough to spill tea down her, not that it would matter much anyway as the half she hadn’t gotten round to drinking had probably gone cold. Looking up with a small smile she said, ‘hi’.

The Doctor looked awkward. He pulled on his ear a little and said, ‘erm, would you mind if I ran some tests on you in the infirmary?

‘What for?’ She placed her cup of tea on the side table as he shuffled on his feet.

‘Well, before I - I changed you absorbed some of the time vortex. No one’s really supposed to do that so I just want to make sure you’re alright.’

Placing a bookmark to save her page, though she would probably have to go back a few anyway, she put it down beside her cup and stood up. ‘Okay sure.’

He stopped shuffling, surprised she wasn’t taking more convincing. ‘Really?’

‘Well yeah,’ she chuckled, walking up to him, ‘you’re just gonna bug me otherwise like when we got gassed with Dickens and the Gelth’.

‘Only takes a bit of carbon monoxide poisoning to lighten the mood,’ he mused, leading the way down the corridor to the infirmary. ‘Quite literally,’ he added with a more sombre note.

‘Gwyneth was so young.’

He nodded sadly. ‘Yeah. She was.’

Rose hopped up on the metal examination bed and was pleased to find it was slightly warm. She reached behind and patted the wall of the Tardis in thanks and received a hum in reply. ‘So what are you looking for?’

He rambled away, his back to her, fiddling with some sort of scanner and trying to alter the settings on it. ‘Oh you know radiation signatures, any particles or vortex energy you shouldn’t have, just the usual stuff.’

She nodded and then frowned. ‘Wait. You said, before you changed, you said you absorbed the vortex but now you’re saying I have too so how did I do that? Was it when you burnt up?’

His hands stilled and his shoulders hunched but he was silent. Internally he was patting himself on the back for a crappy job well done. He’d slipped up and he couldn’t take it back. It was Rose, she was far too smart for that and he didn’t want to undermine her anyway, especially as he was still trying to earn her trust back after regenerating. He didn’t want to tell her but he wasn’t sure she’d let it go.

‘Doctor?’ She said, interrupting his thoughts.

He sighed and attached the final wire into the scanner. ‘No, that was regeneration energy; you didn’t get it from me.’

‘Well where did I get it from?’ She folded her arms as he finally turned to her to show she meant business.

‘What do you remember from when you returned in the Tardis?’ He was wearing glasses. She had never seen the Doctor wearing glasses before. Perhaps this new face needed them or perhaps he thought they made him look smarter, not that he needed any help in that department as he was always the smartest man in the room. Not that she’d tell him that, his ego was big enough as it was. Either way she thought they suited him, but that didn’t matter now as she was meant to be remembering.

‘Like I said there was this bright, golden light and then you were burning up.’ She thought some more and added, ‘and singing there was this singing’.

These answers didn’t seem to please the Doctor as he clenched his jaw and stared off in thought.

‘Doctor?’ She tried, to no avail. ‘What does it all mean? Am I alright?’ Rose was starting to get panicky now.

He sniffed and looked at her properly, but his face didn’t hold any answers. ‘Lay back, let me run some tests,’ he requested but she simply raised her eyebrows at him. ‘Please Rose.’ He changed tactics and begged a little.

She huffed at his big brown eyes but lay back on the bed. ‘It’s my body Doctor; I deserve to know what’s going on.’

He gave a small nod but said no more as he got to work drawing blood samples, taking scans and analysing the results of all his tests. Rose was staring at his back as he leant over the screen reading through the results. He sighed and turned to her, taking off his glasses and placing them back in his jacket pocket. ‘You’re fine, vitamin D is a tad low but we were just in the UK at Christmas so...’ He shrugged and Rose let out a breath.

‘I’m fine?’ She said in disbelief. ‘Then what was the point of getting me so worked up?’ She swung her legs off the bed to sit back up.

The Doctor pushed a stool in front of the bed and sat down, resting his elbows on his legs and clasping his hands together. He stared at his chucks, their white not quite matching the pristine white of the tiles that lined the infirmary walls and floor, and began to speak. ‘Because I didn’t want to tell you. Because you did the impossible and you’re still here.’ He glanced up; she was focused on him, taking in every word he said. Sighing again he continued, ‘you opened up the console and saw the heart of the Tardis. When Margaret did that she turned back into an egg, you could have regressed too but you somehow managed to get the Tardis back to the satellite. You’d absorbed the vortex and had all the power of time and space running through your mind. You were burning Rose,’ he swallowed, ‘I managed to take it out of you and send it back into the Tardis and, after you collapsed, I carried you in there too’.

A silence fell over the infirmary, even the usual background hum of the Tardis sounded quieter.

‘It was killing me?’ Rose breathed. The Doctor swallowed and nodded. ‘And you saved me?’ He nodded again. ‘You took it out of me but then you changed, you said you were dying.’ She was putting the pieces together and finally reached a horrible conclusion. She gasped. Her hands flew to her mouth and she stared at the Doctor with wide sorrowful eyes. ‘Oh my god I killed you!’

He shook his head adamantly. ‘No, no, no. No you didn’t.’

‘But I did,’ she insisted, her eyes starting to well up. ‘I - I killed you. I’m a murderer.’

He gently reached out and took her hands. She was shaking slightly and he tried to comfort her by rubbing his thumbs over the backs of her hands. ‘You didn’t kill me and you’re certainly no murderer. To be either of those things you’d have to injure me purposefully and you didn’t. You were dying and you Rose Tyler only have one life but I’m a Time Lord, I don’t die I just change,’ he told her softly. A tear slipped down her cheek and he reached out to wipe it away before letting his hand rest there. ‘I don’t regret it, Rose. And your mum would actually kill me if I didn’t bring you back safe,’ he said with a small grin, trying to lighten the mood.

She sniffed and let out a watery laugh that made his smile brighter. ‘Come on,’ he said getting up off the stool, ‘how about we go to the media room and watch some comedy before bed?’ He smiled and wiggled his fingers on his outstretched hand.

‘Alright.’ She took his hand and they left the infirmary.

Rose suggested Laurel and Hardy when he asked what she wanted to watch and he agreed, putting on a box set of their short films. They had both seen them all before but that was the comfort in it. All the talk about death had made her think of others she’d loved and lost and when he’d suggested a comedy she immediately thought of her Grandad Prentice. They had spent evenings together curled up on the sofa watching the comedy duo; she’d even been allowed to stay up late, if her mum wasn’t there of course.

Other people she loved.

She backtracked to that thought, not even realising it had crossed her mind. She supposed she did love the Doctor in a way. Even if he was an old alien with big ears and a fifty gigawatt smile. She looked over at him where he sat at the other end of the sofa chuckling away at some bit Laurel was doing with a ladder.

After a while he felt her gaze and glanced across. ‘Alright?’

She shook her head a little and her hand fell away from her big looped earring that she had been fiddling with absentmindedly. ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s nothing just thinking.’ He raised his eyebrows in question and she continued. ‘You’ve changed.’ He swallowed a little nervously and nodded. Rose stared at him, really stared like she could see inside, straight into his soul and with a small smile she concluded, ‘but you’re still the same’.

A relief he didn’t know he’d been missing flooded through him and he grinned back. ‘Yep. Still the Doctor.’

Chapter 2: Apple Pie

Chapter Text

A lot had happened on New (x15) Earth. They smelt apple grass, met cat nuns and met Cassandra again. She was talking out her arse, quite literally after exploding on Platform One and, in a roundabout way, helped save a subspecies of humans that the nuns were creating to infect with every disease known. Really she just stirred things up and ensured this problem was solved with a bit more haste and panic than the Doctor and Rose would have liked. Especially when Cassandra was flitting between the two of them when she lost her skin and had no body to go to. And it was during that time, when she was controlling Rose, that she kissed the Doctor. Rose may not have been in control of what her body was doing but she was still conscious of what was happening around her and could feel everything. She found herself thinking of the hooded look of his eyes afterwards. He might be an alien but he was like any old bloke with that look on his face and Rose didn’t know what to do with it. This was the Doctor she was talking about and he didn’t want her like that really, it was just because he got pounced on by Cassandra/Rose. It was unexpected, that’s all.

She found herself wandering around the Tardis as she thought and had ended up in the wardrobe room. The size of it still impressed her with racks of clothing of all different periods and styles spread out on multiple floors and of course some of it was alien too. Rose was walking back down the spiral stairs to the main part of the wardrobe when a black leather jacket tossed over one of the racks caught her eye. It was the Doctor’s. Her original Doctor’s. She picked it up, it was a bit weighty like all leather jackets but the soft leather was rather comforting. In a weird way it felt like home. She hugged it to her chest and breathed in. It still smelt like him. Still had that mixture of grease and musk and something she couldn’t place that she simply labelled as the Doctor. Slipping her arms into the sleeves she pulled the jacket on and looked at herself in the mirror. She’d worn it a few times, he’d given it to her when she was shivering and there was that one time when they’d been locked in a damp jail cell. The Doctor had parked on the edge of a great aristocratic estate and they didn’t like that or believe in parking tickets so had carted them off to jail to serve time. Luckily they had helped out the aristocrat’s daughter earlier on in the day and she managed to convince her parents to let them go. It had been a surprisingly fun couple of hours with the Doctor teaching her a game involving stones which they had found scattered on the jail floor.

‘Rose? Roo-oose?’ He called out her name again. He’d checked the regular rooms he thought she’d be in like the library, the media room, the galley, her bedroom and her en-suite, the swimming pool, the garden, and he’d gone back to the console to see if she’d gone in there after he left and then checked the infirmary just in case. Even though he hadn’t found her yet his hearts still felt better after she wasn’t in there trying to fix herself up after injuring herself on something. He was about to start branching out into less likely territory when he remembered the wardrobe room. He wound through the corridors and passed the bins to the door of the room and knocked. There was no answer so he opened it and that’s when he saw the back of her golden haired head.

‘Ah Rose, what are you-’ the words dried up in his mouth and she jumped around to face him looking guilty in a black leather jacket. His black leather jacket. She began to take it off. ‘No, no it’s alright you can-’ he started and she paused, still looking at him like a child who had been caught with their hand in the biscuit tin. ‘Well, I don’t wear it anymore so why not?’ He shrugged.

‘Really?’ She asked as she blushed a little. ‘You don’t mind?’

The Doctor didn’t mind at all. He always thought she looked good in it when she wore it, which was very rare but he remembered them all. The way it swamped her a little, not overwhelmingly so, she wasn’t like a toddler would be in his Janis Joplin coat, but it was stylishly large. He never minded that it always smelt of her afterwards too, like a warm summer's day with her unique mix of vanilla, honey and citrus and something that he simply called Rose.

Another much sadder thought intruded his mind. Was Rose missing him? He was still here of course but humans were far more attached to outward appearances than Time Lords were. Yes he supposed he’d changed a bit over his many years and now takes a bit more pride in his look compared to when he thought celery was an accessory but, to a human, regeneration was a bizarre concept. Perhaps this was a way of mourning him. Perhaps she found it comforting to have a tangible piece of him. Maybe he should talk to her about it but he wasn’t sure what to say.

He didn’t voice his thoughts, he simply shook his head and said, ‘no, of course not’.

Rose gave him a sheepish grin then shrugged it back on, moving her hair out of the way to get the look just right. She turned back to the mirror and checked out the outfit; she was wearing pale blue jeans and a pink t-shirt with a faint flower pattern on it. Overall it somehow worked.

‘Suits you.’

She looked through the mirror to see the Doctor leaning on the doorframe with his hands tucked in his pockets. He watched as she gave herself another look over.

‘You think?’ She asked and smiled a little when he nodded.

He pushed off from the doorframe. ‘We’ve landed, you ready to go?’

‘Yeah,’ she said, starting to tug the jacket off again, ‘just let me change’.

‘No keep it on; you'll fit right in out there.’

She turned to question him about it again but when she saw his smile she couldn’t help but trust him on the jacket. Rose jogged over to him with a big smile of her own. ‘Where are we?’

The Doctor tapped his nose with a smirk and led the way to the console. He opened the door and gestured for her to go first, following on behind.

‘Welcome, Rose Tyler, to Arcadium!’ He announced.

They were in a massive car park. This might sound boring but it was filled with a vast collection of futuristic hover cars in a mind boggling array of shapes and colours and those were just the ones they could see under the dull street lamps. The lights could have been brighter but most of the power seemed to be sucked into the building up ahead. Rose almost needed sunglasses to look at it. It was a bright neon lightshow of purples, reds and cyans which glowed so brightly it created an aura in the night’s sky. A great big sign stuck on the roof said Arcadium and the smaller images either side of retro arcade machines really gave away its purpose if one hadn’t already worked it out.

‘It’s a massive arcade,’ Rose said, a bit in awe of its size.

‘Yep.’ He offered his hand and she took it. They sauntered towards the front doors as the Doctor rambled on about the place in his usual gleeful fashion. ‘Covers the entirety of the moon we’re on. Really the moon is called SJ-Apple.05Pi but it’s a big arcade and Arcadium sounds much better.’ He took a breath ready to continue on about the planet it orbits when Rose butted in.

‘Apple pie?’ She asked with a smirk.

‘What? No. SJ-Apple.05Pi,’ he corrected and sped through the names reasoning. ‘Apple as in the fruit numerical system that doesn’t exist in your lifetime and then Pi as in the mathematical symbol Pi, you know 3.14 etc. I could keep going on just about that but I won’t. And that, Pi, refers to the moon's position in regards to its orbiting planet within the quadrant-’ He cut himself off when he saw the look of barely contained mirth on Rose’s face. ‘Yes fine it’s called apple pie,’ he huffed.

She burst into laughter. He tried to look a bit peeved by it but he couldn’t help chuckling along with her. Her laughter was always contagious.

‘First we see apple grass and now we’re on apple pie, is this an apple themed adventure?’ She asked once her laughter had subsided somewhat.

He just shrugged and mumbled, ‘well it’s better than pears’.

They were nearing the entrance now, just a couple rows of cars to go. They couldn’t see inside, the doors were heavily tinted as though they were wearing sunglasses to protect the inside from the bright neon. There were a few people milling about the doors. Some were more humanoid than others but most were blue skinned. A couple off to the right with rather disturbing red eyes were smoking. Quite literally. Their bodies puffing out black smoke into the atmosphere. In a weird way it all reminded Rose a little bit of home.

She leaned in closer, hugging his arm to her chest. ‘So why this place?’

He shrugged. ‘Well, you know, meet cat nuns and you think arcade,’ he joked.

‘Right of course,’ she chuckled.

‘Ah now there’s a thought.’ He started to ramble. ‘Cats the musical gets brought to film in… oh 2019 I think. They’re just spitting out reproductions at that point in film; all your favourite Disney classics are getting live action makeovers. There’s nothing new, no originality. Anyway, back to Cats. Don’t go and see it, terrible reviews and quite frankly creepy cgi. Dame Judi Dench, yeah she’s great but put her in a cat costume and wellll.’ He grimaced at the thought as he opened the door and followed Rose inside.

Her first thought was blimey it’s loud.

It was as though she’d stepped back in time to the 80s. The room was filled with arcade machines as far as the eye could see, it had all the classics like Frogger, Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Donkey Kong but also had more modern games involving virtual reality or movement trackers. The floor was covered in that garish carpet they used to have at the cinemas but it was a bit dull and trampled by the hundreds of beings that were in the arcade.

He pulled her along further into the building and leant down mumbling in her ear, ‘good thing you’re wearing my jacket’. Rose only just managed to stop the shiver that ran through her at the sound of his voice so close but she couldn’t stop the goosebumps that appeared as his breath tickled her. ‘Just think about how many prizes you can fit in pockets that are bigger on the inside.’ He stood up straight again and grinned at her madly.

‘You’re getting confused with fairgrounds, arcades are just the places where you waste your money to get your name on the screen,’ she said with a steady voice, having managed to compose herself a little.

The Doctor looked affronted, ‘Waste your money?’

She nodded. ‘Well that’s what it always felt like to me; I was never much good at them.’

He raised an eyebrow at her and made it his goal to find the game she was the best at. ‘You, Rose Tyler, sound like someone who hasn’t found their game yet. Come on.’

They joined the back of a small queue for the token machine. When they reached the front the Doctor took out his credit stick, flipped it once before catching it and plugging it into the machine. Tokens started pouring out of the bottom and he scooped them up and tipped the lot into Rose’s hands. He smirked at the disgruntled look she gave him and led the way to some of the old arcade machines. After trying out a variety of other games they discovered that her game was air hockey, well at least against the Doctor it was. In his haste to block the puck he kept knocking it into his own goal. After a 7-2 victory for Rose he started grumbling about how the air vents on her side of the table weren’t as powerful as his and were hindering his game play. She shut him up when she beat him again after they switched sides.

Heading towards the futuristic section of the arcade Rose slowed down. She could hear a child crying nearby. It wasn’t the loud type that children do when they haven’t got their way but a quieter kind, like they didn’t want to cause a fuss. She walked around a game telling her she was the perfect captain to defeat the space pirates and found a young girl huddled up on the ground. Rose approached her slowly, not wanting to startle her. ‘Are you alright?’ She asked softly.

The girl’s head shot up and she stared at Rose with burning red eyes like some of the aliens had outside. Rose did her best not to flinch under the stare. Having met many aliens on her travels she was getting much more confident with them but it wasn’t every day you saw red eyes.

She stepped closer and crouched down to appear less threatening. ‘What’s wrong? Why are you crying?’ She tried again.

The young girl sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. She looked about eight in Earth years, with skin like cooling magma and long red hair that matched her eyes. ‘I don’t know where my brothers are,’ she snivelled. ‘They went to play a game but they haven’t come back.’

Rose nodded. ‘And how long have they been gone?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know, maybe an hour, maybe more. I was playing Space Pirates. They said to wait for them but they haven’t come back.’ Her lip trembled and her eyes welled up again.

Reaching out she held the girl's hand to comfort her and said, ‘it’s alright, I’m sure we can find them yeah’. Rose gave the girl a reassuring smile then looked around for the Doctor. ‘And he has a go at me for wandering off,’ she muttered under her breath. She turned and gave the girl a smile again, ‘what’s your name? I’m Rose’.

‘Orvo,’ she mumbled, clutching onto Rose’s hand rather tightly.

‘Come on then Orvo, let’s get you up off the ground.’

The girl let Rose pull her upwards just as the Doctor called out for his companion for the second time today.

‘Rose,’ the Doctor said in triumph, rounding the corner and seeing her blonde hair and his leather jacket. She turned to him, still holding Orvo’s hand. The young girl hid behind her a little at the stranger’s approach. ‘I told you they did prizes. Look what I got.’ He proudly held up a plush toy of a monkey in a space suit. His beaming face fell when he saw the unimpressed look on hers. ‘What?’

‘Whilst you were messing about, I've been trying to help poor Orvo here,’ she lightly scolded as she stepped to the side to reveal the young girl. He raised his eyebrows at her and she continued filling him in, ‘her older brothers left her to go play a game and haven’t come back’.

He nodded and crouched down in front of the girl, giving her a smile. ‘Hello Orvo, I’m the Doctor,’ he said softly, ‘I’m a friend of Rose’s and I can help you look for them. What are your brothers called?’

She glanced up at Rose, still unsure about this new person, but the smile she received back reassured her somewhat. ‘Cranan and Athanda.’

‘And what game did they go to play?’

Orvo turned and pointed to a big poster on the nearby wall. It was advertising a new game called Axatons Attack and had a creature that had the head of an axolotl carrying a handful of weapons front and centre. Above the poster an arrow pointed to the right, leading the way to the game.

He looked back at Orvo after studying the poster. ‘And why did they leave you all on your own eh, did you not want to play?’

She shook her head. ‘I can't, I'm not big enough, I'm only little.’

Rose pulled another unimpressed look. She couldn’t believe that her brothers would just leave her to play a stupid game. Orvo was so young and surrounded by hundreds of strangers. She would have been scared sh*tless if her mum had done that to her at that age.

‘Right, well I’m sure they won’t mind if we all go over there looking for your brothers,’ he said. At this point he wasn’t too keen on the brothers either.

Orvo pulled back from Rose, fiercely shaking her head. ‘No, I can’t go, what if they come back here? They said wait right here. I can’t go, I can’t.’ She was nearly crying again.

‘Hey, hey Orvo it’s alright’. Rose said, trying to calm her.

‘We won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do, we just want to help’ the Doctor assured.

Rose started looking around and noticed a blue skinned lady helping two excited children into the Space Pirates game Orvo had been on earlier. ‘Excuse me,’ she said and the woman turned around with a small smile. Rose had a good sense about people most of the time and thought she looked pleasant enough. ‘Sorry to ask but do you think you could keep an eye on Orvo here, it’s just we’re gonna go look for her brothers and she wants to wait here in case they come back?’

The woman looked down at the young girl with kind eyes then back at Rose, ‘of course I’ll help. Maybe you can be friends with my two,’ she added to Orvo who nodded timidly.

‘Orvo,’ the Doctor said softly and the girl looked back at him. ‘Do you think you’d be able to look after this space monkey whilst I’m looking for your brothers?’ He offered the monkey to her and she gently took it, nodding firmly like it was a very important task. ‘Thank you,’ he smiled, ‘I haven’t got a name for them yet, what do you think they should be called?’

She looked at him with wide eyes as though a toy with no name was a tragedy and studiously looked at the monkey to get the perfect one. ‘Zizi,’ she announced with the first proper smile the travelling pair had seen.

‘That’s a great name isn’t it Doctor.’ Rose smiled.

‘Oh yeah.’ He agreed, standing up straight.

‘Hopefully we’re not too long,’ Rose said to both the woman and Orvo before turning just to the woman and saying, ‘and thank you for looking after her’.

They walked away from the group and turned to the right just like the directions pointed.

‘Glad I never had an older brother, some can be right knobs,’ she muttered, still annoyed about them leaving Orvo.

‘Yeah,’ the Doctor agreed darkly.

‘I mean she looks about eight, anything could have - wait, why are you saying it like-’ Rose turned to him with a frown on her face. ‘Did you have an older brother?’

The Doctor never really opened up about his past, she knew he was the last of his kind and that his planet was gone but he had hardly shared much more with her. It was understandable, he was a bit of a broken man when she met him, full of trauma that wasn’t any of her business though she did hope he would open up to her eventually because it might help. If she thought about it she could still hear her old Doctor screaming in his sleep. She’d paced outside his door a couple of times unsure whether he’d appreciate her going in. They had only been travelling together for a few months at that point and it wasn’t like they really knew each other. Rose always tried to be extra nice to him the next day but never asked about it. He would tell her if he wanted.

The Doctor nodded faintly and said ‘it’s this one isn’t it?’ as he pushed the door open and Rose knew that was the end of the discussion.

Chapter 3: Axatons Attack

Chapter Text

The room was just a waiting area with a desk and a few chairs pushed up against the walls. It was pretty dark compared to the rest of the building they had seen and Rose took a little while to get used to the change in brightness. The walls were dark but covered in posters of axolotl headed characters lit up by led strips around the edges that tied in the games red and blue theme.

There was no one else in the room and the Doctor wandered up to the empty desk to do some snooping. He looked through one of the leaflets, a frown deepening his brows the more he read. ‘I don’t like the look of this,’ he muttered to Rose who had come to stand beside him after having a look at the posters. He passed it over to her and she leafed through it.

The leaflet explained that the new game was played in virtual reality with headsets that read brain waves. This was because the game's greatest feature was allowing the players the ability to bring whatever they wanted into the game via their thoughts. Using their imagination players would be able to have whatever weapons they desired to try and defeat the Axatons who would appear in the city map in waves.

‘Who are the Axatons, are they real?’

‘Yep,’ he said popping the “p”, ‘a race on the neighbouring planet. The Dawaras have been in and out of conflict with them for generations. They’re coming up to about fifty years in their peace treaty at the moment, that’s the longest they’ve lasted in centuries. Though, looking at this, there’s still animosity between them, at least from the Dawaras side’.

He looked through a couple more of the leaflets but, even though the diagrams about the vr headsets, they never went into the science of it and that’s the part he was interested in.

The staff-only door behind the desk opened and a blue skinned woman walked out with the biggest customer service grin. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. Just the two, is it?’ She looked between them.

‘Uh yeah,’ the Doctor spluttered, taken aback for a moment having just been processing the equipment the headsets would need to even comprehend the brainwaves.

‘Perfect. A duo room has just freed up. Follow me.’ She stepped around the desk to a door they hadn’t even noticed as it blended in so well with the dark walls. She opened it and ushered them through.

‘I’m not really sure we want to play the game, we're just looking for two boys.’ Rose tried to explain as they started to get herded through into a small corridor with three further doors.

‘Nonsense, everyone wants to try to defeat the Axatons,’ the woman said in her annoyingly perky voice, forcing them through the first door and into the games room.

‘No, really we’re not into playing games much, just like the science behind them. For example, how do you process the brain waves? I’d love to know more about that.’ He tried to give her an encouraging smile but as usual she didn’t want to spill the secrets of the product.

‘That’s not the fun part, the fun is all in the game.’ Her brilliant smile a little sinister now as she pushed them into the middle of the room.

A loud clunking reverberated around them and the pair looked down realising they had just stepped on pressure plates and their feet were clamped to the ground. Before they could do anything nanobots began to build metal suits around their bodies starting from their feet. It only took around ten seconds before they were suited up and headsets started lowering from the ceiling.

‘Enjoy the game!’ The lady said and left the room.

The headsets settled around their heads and then there was darkness.

Rose tried not to panic, it was just meant to be a game after all but something wasn’t right about it or that smiling woman. Plus getting wrapped in a metal suit in the dark did tend to make things a bit claustrophobic. ‘Doctor I can’t move.’

‘Yep,’ he grunted.

She could hear the scratching of metal to her right where he was standing. ‘What are you doing?’

He grunted again and then sighed. ‘I was trying to get my sonic but this bloody suit is too well made.’

‘So we just play the game, get out and find the boys yeah? She said trying to work out a plan, seeing as his wasn’t working. ‘I mean, we’ve defeated real life aliens so this can’t be that hard.’

A bright white light filled the screens covering their eyes and they both cringed. After flashing the name of the game the brightness gradually faded into a picture of space. In the centre was a dusty grey planet orbited by thirteen moons, one of which had a purple aura around it. A voice over played as the image gradually zoomed into the planet.

Defenders of the Peace, the Delegation of Ax is upon us, they must be stopped at any cost. They cannot take over and destroy our world. Use whatever means you can soldier. I wish you luck. May Peace rule over Dawara once more.

The screen flickered to black for a second before two blue skinned characters appeared on the screen ready for Rose and the Doctor to control. They looked identical. Both were in a grey army uniform holding a pistol as they stood side by side in the middle of an empty street in a greyed out Mediterranean looking city.

Rose lifted her arm and so did her character. ‘Oh this is weird,’ she commented. She then found she could lift her feet up, though they were still attached to the pressure pad, and doing so caused her character to walk around. ‘This is really weird.’

The Doctor was spinning in a slow circle checking out the buildings. ‘This is impressively accurate. They must have used photos or a scanner or something because these details are gorgeous. I mean look how intricate this door knocker is.’

His excited ramblings were cut off by a loud voice announcing it was time for the first wave.

Rose turned to the Doctor. ‘We got a plan?’

He sniffed. ‘Well.’ He looked into his hand where he held the pistol with disgust. ‘Why is it always guns?’ He asked more to himself than anything.

‘I guess it doesn’t have to be. That’s what they were bragging about in that leaflet wasn’t it, being able to bring stuff into the game from your mind?’

The cogs in the Doctor’s brain really started whirring at that comment and a grin grew across his face. ‘Rose Tyler, you’re a genius!’ If he wasn’t glued to the spot he would have grabbed her and kissed her on the forehead in his excitement.

A shot flew just past her head a second later and they whipped round to the direction it came from. Two of the Axatons had found them.

‘Run!’ He yelled, automatically trying to grab Rose’s hand but in a game about war hand holding had surprisingly not been included. All she felt was his hand hit hers lightly, but she didn’t have time to comment as more laser beams were flying around them. They rounded a corner and the Doctor yelped, slowing down to almost a stop as he clutched his head.

‘Doctor?’ She called out worriedly.

‘Someone. In the real world. Is trying to break. Through the barriers. In my mind,’ he grunted. He was over the shock of the attack but still in pain. Something had slithered in through a crack in his shields, only for a moment, and he shoved them out forcefully, however they still seemed very intent on getting back in again. To go into someone’s mind without invitation the way they were, trying to read his thoughts and feelings and see his memories, was highly taboo for Galifreyans. It was a serious crime and one that would stand beside rape in law. For him to be able to even try to do something like that, not that he ever would, he would have to be touching them. He knew for a fact nothing was so how this was happening he didn’t know and that made everything ten times worse. He really didn’t like not knowing things and he hated this attack on his mind even more.

The sound of the running Axatons, which was too heavy for just a pair of them, was getting louder. Rose looked to the corner and then back at the Doctor who she could hear was in pain but his character’s face showed no emotion whatsoever. He didn’t seem ready to move yet, still fighting his internal battle to worry much about the one they were trapped in, especially as it was just a game. She concentrated really hard on a thought in her mind and was both surprised and relieved when a massive wall built itself in front of her, blocking off the route to the Axatons.

‘Okay I think that’ll stop them for a bit. What can I do? Can I help?’ She rushed over to him wanting to do something but not really sure how.

‘Gah,’ he panted. The insistent stabbing in his mind was making his eyes water. Whatever it was, it was very powerful and that made him even more uncomfortable about the game and the disappearances surrounding it. The Doctor spoke through clenched teeth, ‘we need to get up. Somewhere high. Somewhere defensible. I need to get out of here. Get this off me’.

‘Okay, can you climb a ladder?’ She asked and he grunted a few times before nodding. Rose started to imagine a ladder climbing up to the top of the three story building they were next to, as she did a ladder built itself rung by rung on the side of the building. Had the Doctor not been in pain and there were no missing children she might have enjoyed the game as she came up with solutions outside of the box. Granted they weren’t killing the Axatons which was the game's goal but that wasn’t how she and the Doctor did things.

A loud explosion made both of them jump and the wall beside them trembled. The Axatons were trying their best to break through it.

‘Doctor, get up the ladder now,’ she urged. She could hear his ragged breaths beside her and kept an eye on him as his character slowly started to climb the rungs. Rose watched him ascend nervously and followed behind, ready to try and catch him if needed. It was just a game, she knew it, but it was just instinctual after having travelled with him for so long. They took care of each other no matter what.

After a lot of huffing and puffing, especially from the Time Lord, they had reached the top of the building.

‘It’s stopped,’ he gasped. He sounded exhausted and the loud clunk in the real world next to her, as well as the actions of his character, told her he had fallen to his knees.

‘Are you alright? What can I do?’ She begged, finding being unable to help him impossible.

‘I need time. Just make sure they can’t get to us,’ he said, catching his breath.

Rose nodded and rushed to the edge imagining the destruction of her ladder whilst the Doctor finally started to take part in this imagination game. He tried to get it to produce a sonic screwdriver however only a regular screwdriver appeared in front of him and he groaned. It seemed the game's creators didn’t include sonic screwdrivers in the programming so he thought again and this time some of the components for a sonic screwdriver appeared. He could build one, he’d done it before.

‘They just seem to be hanging about on the ground, there are a handful of them now,’ she reported back to him. She’d leant over the ledge just enough so she could see the axolotl headed aliens; they had destroyed the wall but now seemed unsure of what to do next. Rose looked over at the Doctor who was fiddling with small parts and trying to fit them together. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m making something,’ he said unhelpfully.

A small object, as big as an apple, flew through the air and rolled onto the floor beside her. Rose didn’t think, she just automatically picked it up and chucked it back down to the Axtons below. She’d had enough empty beer cans thrown her way at the estate by a group of drunks who couldn’t decide between leering at her and throwing things at her.

A loud explosion rattled from the ground and she gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. ‘Oh my God that was a grenade.’

Wave one complete.

‘I just killed them,’ she breathed. Her hands still covered her mouth in disbelief.

‘Rose it's just a game, remember that, just a game,’ he said, trying to sooth her. And she nodded as she turned back and saw the character and not the Doctor who was putting the final pieces of what looked very much like a sonic screwdriver together. ‘You see they underestimated us.’ He clicked the last piece in place and stood. ‘This is a game about creating whatever tools you need to win but I bet no one ever tried to make this. Primitive mind you but it’ll work.’ He flipped the sonic once, caught it and pressed the button. A high pitched buzzing cut through the air and the screens went black.

Chapter 4: War and Peace

Chapter Text

The claustrophobic feeling eased as the metal suits fell to the floor in tiny pieces and the clamping sensation of the headsets released. They removed the headsets with a huge sigh of relief and looked round at one another.

‘Thank God for that,’ Rose said, dropping hers to the ground as the Doctor studied his own intently trying to work out how the invasion of his mind happened. ‘Are you alright?’ She asked, noticing his furrowed brows as he looked at the headset and thinking of the pain he’d been in.

He seemed to stiffen but nodded and said, ‘yeah I’ll be fine’.

She didn’t want to push so instead she gazed around the room but there really wasn’t much to it. Just the pressure plates where they stood, now thankfully free, surrounded by four walls, two doors and a security camera in the corner. Its red light blinked at her.

‘Doctor?’ He hummed and looked up. She tilted her head towards the camera and he followed her gaze. He made a performance of putting his vr headset on the ground whilst secretly using his real sonic to disable the camera.

‘Come on, we better go. If someone’s been watching, they’ll be on their way.’ He moved to the door they hadn’t come through and peered out, beyond was a long, bright corridor mostly made up of something like concrete. Rose followed him out of the room and they set off in search of answers.

The sound of running echoed through the corridor from around one of the corners up ahead. Noticing a door not too far in front of them he grabbed Rose by the hand and pulled her through it. He nearly fell into the shelves of the cupboard he’d dragged them into and Rose grabbed the back of his coat to stop him crashing about and alerting the running people to their hiding place. He twisted around to face her and sonicked the door locked just in case someone felt like checking the storage cupboard. It was filled with vr headsets, wires and other replacement parts that one would need for a game like this.

‘Well this is cosy,’ Rose whispered with a smile.

He smirked but held a finger to his lips when the running figures were outside the door. She drew in a deep breath. They heard the door to the game room open and shut and the Doctor gently took Rose by the shoulders and shuffled them around so he was closest to the door. He unlocked it, checked the hallway was clear, before moving back to the game room door and sonicking it locked. He nodded his head to Rose, who was peeking around the cupboard door, and she joined him by his side.

There were two further doors before the end of the corridor. They stopped by the first one and the Doctor unlocked it with his sonic. Poking their heads through they saw an identical games room with two people hooked up to the headsets in the middle of a game.

‘Carter, where are you, you’re meant to be watching my back?’ A frustrated feminine voice demanded.

‘I can’t,’ presumably Carter squeaked, ‘I’m trapped and they’re gonna get me, there’s nothing I can do’. He screamed, the suit glowed blue around him and then he disappeared. It only took a minute for his friend to do the same.

‘A transmat,’ said the Doctor, stepping into the room. He disabled the security camera and moved to one of the suits, scanning it with his screwdriver. ‘They just lost the game so why are they taking them?’

‘And where are they taking them?’ Rose added.

‘Well they can’t have gone far, transmats are only short range,’ he replied, scanning the other suit too. He looked at the results, ‘there’s a very faint signal that we could trace’.

She peered out of the doorway, worried that some more of the workers would come running after the others hadn’t returned. ‘So this is what happened to the brothers, they got taken away after they lost?’

‘Seems that way.’ He locked the regular entrance of the room so no more people would face the same fate and walked back to Rose. ‘I think it’s high time we had a word with the manager, I want to make a complaint.’

She looked up at him and smiled with her tongue touched grin, ‘I wouldn’t even give this place one star’.

He chuckled and beamed back at her and they re-entered the corridor.

‘Did you notice she didn’t even ask for our tokens, she just shoved us in there?’ Rose mused as they neared the end of it.

‘Yes I did. Not a good business strategy and it certainly feels like she’s hiding something but what that is I don’t know.’

They had reached the end of the corridor. It was a T junction, to the left was a large metal door not too far away and to the right another corridor stretched on ahead. The Doctor shrugged and went left.

Rose continued voicing her thoughts out loud. ‘Do you think it’s only certain people they take, like age group or species or something?’

The Doctor pushed the handle and was pleasantly surprised when it opened. Inside were about a hundred people of all ages and species. They were all lined up as though in formation, none were moving or speaking, all just standing and facing the opposite wall as though in a trance. Rose found it rather creepy.

‘Does that answer your question?’ He whispered and she nodded faintly.

‘What’s wrong with them?’

He shut the door again but continued to speak low, ‘I think they’ve been taken over by whatever was trying to get through my shields earlier’. He gestured to the corridor they hadn’t been down, ‘let’s try this way, see if we can find someone in charge’.

‘Do I have shields?’ She asked as they walked.

He nodded. ‘You’ll have some form of protection though it won’t be very strong; being a non telepath and a human of the 21st century you don’t generally need them. I was taught from a young age how to build defences in my mind, mainly because it can be so bloody noisy. But it also stops me projecting onto others as being a touch telepath that can be easily done. That’s why I wear layers; it’s a lot easier to cope.’

‘I never realised, I thought you were just… having fun with style.’

‘Who said I wasn’t?’ He raised his eyebrows at her.

The conversation dwindled as they approached a door on the right hand side of the corridor. The Doctor eased it open and a small grin appeared on his face. Before him was a long desk crammed with buttons and above that about eight small screens attached to the wall all showing different things either from in the game world or the game rooms, though a couple of those screens were blank. The room was occupied by a man who sat hunched at the desk on the furthest away of the three chairs; he seemed to be furiously trying to fix the cameras that had been disabled.

‘Ooh a control room,’ the Doctor said happily.

This was much to the shock of the lone man who jumped out of his chair and turned to them. His blue skin glowed in his surprise at the intrusion. ‘Excuse me,’ he said gruffly, ‘you can’t be in here’.

The Doctor smiled at him, walking further into the room as he rummaged in one of his pockets letting out a small ‘aha’ when he found the psychic paper. He held it out to the man. ‘Smith and Tyler, health and safety, surprise inspection,’ he announced much to the confusion of the man.

He scratched his little grey beard and said, ‘but we had an inspection just two days ago before the game opened’.

‘Yeah, we weren’t very happy with it,’ the Doctor said, turning his nose up at the man’s suggestion.

‘But the report was fine,’ the man complained.

Rose stood beside the Doctor with her hands on her hips. ‘It wouldn’t be a surprise inspection if we tell you all the faults in the report though, would it?’

‘Exactly,’ the Doctor agreed, trying to keep a smirk from appearing on his lips.

The man simply stared at them dumbfounded but soon a realisation came over him and he narrowed his grey eyes at them. ‘Wait, weren't you two just in the game?’

He shrugged. ‘Yeah the game broke I’m afraid,’ he said nonchalantly.

‘Doesn’t seem very safe now does it?’ She added.

‘Mind if you shut down the games whilst we inspect?’ He asked.

They bounced off of each other like the excellent team they were and the man just watched like he was at the tennis but wasn’t sure what the rules were. Then he realised he had been asked a question and nodded faintly as he went back to the controls and turned the games off.

Game, set and match to the stuff of legends.

‘Now,’ the Doctor said as the man swivelled back to them in his desk chair, ‘what’s your name?’

‘Samalalungungnuti.’

There was a pause and the Doctor’s eyebrows shot up a bit. He nodded, collecting himself as he asked uncertainly, ‘right, erm - mind if we call you Sam?’

‘No,’ he replied, clasping his hands together a little nervously.

‘Excellent.’ The Doctor clapped, back to his boisterous self and Sam jumped at the sound. ‘So tell me, Sam, what do you need a warehouse full of people for?’ He eyed the man, his eyebrow raised, closely reading his reaction.

Sam stuttered. ‘I - I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You don’t know or you’re ignorant of?’

‘I don’t know,’ the man panicked, ‘I just followed orders, I don’t know about any people’.

‘There are children who are missing. They have been taken by your games,’ Rose informed him coldly.

His blue skin paled and he looked at Rose with wide eyes, hoping she wasn’t telling the truth but her whole demeanour was radiating with the anger and frustration she felt about the situation. Then his eyes grew dark, actually turning black as his face altered to a passive look. His voice was monotone as he said, ‘the children are not missing, they have been chosen’.

Rose, who hadn’t taken in the change, stepped forward to really impress her next angry point but the Doctor raised his arm out and stopped her.

‘Chosen by who? Who are you?’ He asked.

‘The Peace,’ said the thing that had taken over Sam’s voice.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, ‘I thought you were just a legend’.

‘We could say the same about the Time Lords, Doctor.’

Even though the voice was monotone he could still hear the smirk in those words. He knew they were the ones who broke through his barriers earlier. Who attacked his mind. He clenched his jaw, a mixture of anger and disgust whirling within him.

‘Such sadness sits behind your eyes,’ the Peace continued. ‘But you have also seen war; you stepped foot on the biggest battle ground and fought.’

At this Rose stopped staring at Sam and looked over at the Doctor with worry flashing across her eyes. He may not have told her much about the war but she knew enough to know what a comment like that could do.

The Doctor stilled and managed to clench his jaw further. ‘I had no choice,’ he muttered, glaring at them.

‘Your mind could lead us to victory Doctor.’

‘What do you want?’ Annoyance was laced through each word. The Peace was talking about war and had captured children; his patience was wearing thin.

‘The planet Dawara with all the Dawaras extinguished,’ they stated plainly.

He frowned, unable to believe the words that were being said. ‘That’s genocide.’

‘It is necessary.’

‘No. It’s really not,’ he told them darkly.

‘They have grown tiresome, they are far too noisy and irritating.’

Rose let her anger at the words overcome her, ‘then leave,’ she cried out, ‘find an empty planet, don’t kill them’.

Sam’s head turned to her. He stared then stated menacingly, ‘Human and such a primitive one at that. We would have wiped you out centuries ago had Earth been our home world’.

‘Oh no you wouldn’t have,’ the Doctor warned.

‘Is that a promise Doctor?’ The Peace asked as they turned Sam’s head back to face the Time Lord. The black eyes stared into him as though trying to enter his mind again but they didn’t. They did so much worse.

Sam’s head shook as his black eyes reverted back to their usual grey and he panted and held his head.

The Doctor watched in horror. Everything seemed to go in slow motion even though his time senses told him every second passed normally. He turned to Rose and saw her bright hazel eyes turn black and the anger on her face wiped to passiveness. The oncoming storm brewed within him.

‘No! Release her now!’ He shouted. Oh he was seething. Whatever nice little plan he had been forming about forcing the Peace onto another vacant planet was thrown out of the window. They were hurting Rose and that was irredeemable.

‘This vessel is our bargaining chip Doctor,’ the Peace said in Rose’s voice, every syllable they stole grating on his nerves. ‘Help us kill the Dawaras and take back our planet and you can have her back safe and sound.’

‘Every moment you’re in her you’re compressing and killing her,’ he snarled.

‘Then you had better work quickly.’

He stepped forward and Rose stepped back. ‘Not until you get out of her,’ he demanded. His voice was the full oncoming storm at this point. It was low and quiet and at its most dangerous.

‘That’s not how this deal works Doctor. I’ve been inside your head, it was only brief but I saw enough. I saw your planet burn like the sun, I saw your self-loathing but I also saw the human Rose in your mind.’

‘Don’t,’ he warned, stepping forward again.

They stepped back and taunted him again. ‘I saw the way you think about her.’

‘Stop it.’ He stepped forward but Rose was against the wall at this point with nowhere else to go.

‘The way you feel about her.’

‘You want to know what I think,’ he growled, taking a final step so he was right in front of her. ‘I think you need to keep your nose out of other people's business.’ He lifted his hands and placed his fingers gently on her temples, his movements so quick the Peace could do nothing about it. Rose closed her eyes and collapsed into the Doctor’s arms. He held her close, whispering his apologies to her.

‘By the Gods, what did you do?’ Sam gaped, standing from his chair and edging away from the pair thinking the Doctor had just killed her.

‘Sent her into a deep sleep,’ he mumbled as he looked at Rose sadly. He sighed and moved her onto one of the chairs, her head lolled slightly but it was either this or the floor.

‘But that thing, the Peace is still inside of her,’ the man stated as though the Doctor hadn’t considered this.

Stepping back from Rose he turned to Sam, the storm still showing in his eyes. The man gulped. ‘They wanted to kill your race because you were too noisy because what do the Peace like? Peace and quiet and what’s more quiet than sleep. It’ll stay dormant until she wakes. Gives me time to think.’

He began to pace, working through the problem in his mind, his hands running through his hair a few times as he started to get annoyed with himself and started mumbling out loud. ‘Agh! Come on. Think, think, think. They take over the brain and control the body; that’s just a bunch of electrical signals, impulses. Stopping the signal is easy enough but that’ll kill rose.’ He groaned and rubbed his hands over his face. ‘Come on. Think!’ He inhaled sharply, a fresh idea in his mind. A plan that would work. A plan that would save Rose. ‘Oh,’ he breathed, ‘if I separate the energy signatures, isolate them; remove them from her mind… Oh yes!’ He cheered and rushed back over to her side pulling out his sonic and scanning her. ‘Come on,’ he groaned impatiently, hitting the screwdriver against his other hand, ‘you’ve scanned her plenty of times, tell me what’s different’. The hitting did nothing for the sonic's efficiency as it calculated and compared the scans, isolating the Peace’s energy signature from Rose’s. ‘Oh there you are,’ he breathed, ‘excellent’. The Doctor jumped back up to his feet and ran to the door. ‘Sam keep an eye on her I’ll be back in a moment’ he called behind him and he ran out into the corridor.

‘Where are you going?’ Sam asked but the Doctor was already too far away to hear, not that he would have answered anyway.

The Doctor raced back into the room only a short while later with wires tangled around one arm and a vr headset in the other. He dropped the mess of wires onto the floor and sat down next to them, pulling out his glasses and screwdriver and starting to take apart the headset. He sonicked memory boards and chips and rerouted fiddly little wires, creating a new device to stop the Peace.

‘This is happening down on Dawara, yes?’ He questioned a startled Sam who had been watching him work in silence, except for the occasional muttering and grunting, and hadn’t expected to be addressed. The Doctor knew the answer already so didn’t give him a chance to reply, immediately moving onto his real question. ‘What do your people do when someone gets taken over?’

Sam sighed. ‘When we realised it was happening we started to gather the infected and lock them up in the jail cells’.

He held the sonic in his teeth as he used both hands to open up a small internal compartment of the headset. ‘Alright good, that’ll make things easier,’ he said around the screwdriver. He inserted a memory card into the now visible slot, sonicked it then yelled out ‘ha!’ in triumph. He slid under the desk plugging in wires and attaching them to the headset before scooting back out and kneeling in front of Rose. The headset fit snugly on her head just like before as he gently placed it on. He took a deep breath. ‘Okay. Here goes. I’m so sorry Rose.’ Resting one hand on her shoulder he clenched the sonic in the other and pointed it at the control panel.

The quiet air was pierced by the sonic’s buzz and then with Rose’s screams. He winced at her pain and held her gently trying to stop her writhing and hurting herself further.

‘What are you doing, you’re hurting her?’ Sam demanded loudly over the screams.

The Doctor ignored him; his whole focus was comforting Rose and hoping that his plan would work. ‘Shh shh shh,’ he said softly in her ear, ‘it’s alright, it’ll be over soon’.

It was two teeth clenching minutes before Rose went limp in his arms. The room was silent. He pulled the headset off of her, laying it on the control desk before he hugged her close again. His fingers drew soothing circles on her back, absentmindedly writing her name in Gallifreyan.

‘You’ve killed her,’ whispered Sam, breaking the silence as he stood over the pair, his grey eyes wide with shock.

The Doctor shook his head and mumbled, ‘I’ve transferred the Peace into a memory card, and it won’t be able to get out. You can take this back home and do the same for your people’.

Sam nodded wordlessly.

The longest one minute and thirty seven seconds ended when Rose gasped. He drew back and saw her eyelids fluttering open. She squinted her hazel eyes under the bright lights of the room and looked up at the Doctor.

‘Hello,’ he breathed, a relieved smile breaking through his worried features.

‘Hello’. She smiled back.

‘How’s your head?’

‘Hurts,’ she mumbled.

He clenched his jaw. ‘I’m sorry.’

She shook her head a little gingerly. ‘Not your fault.’

‘I took it out of you Rose, I-’

‘Doctor,’ she said, cutting off his guilty ramblings, pleading with her eyes that he would stop blaming himself.

He sighed. ‘Sorry.’ He released her, letting her sit back on the chair and he started reaching into his pockets. ‘I should have something in here that’ll help your head.’

Rose nodded faintly as he continued his search. Her head did feel horrible. It was like she’d been out clubbing with Keisha and Shareen when they were far too young and all the fruity sourz appealed to their sweet tooths. But then of course they tried other drinks too and mixing was everyone’s regret the next morning. Her mum didn’t half yell at her when she banged into the front door at half three in the morning drunk as a skunk having lost her keys.

‘Here we are,’ he said, passing her what looked like a pink mint in a clear wrapper.

‘It’s not from New Earth is it?’ She joked trying to ease the lines of worry that were still etched onto his face.

He chuckled and shook his head. ‘Cat nun free I promise.’

She popped it in and it fizzed and dissolved in her mouth. It tasted vaguely of strawberry which she didn’t mind at all. Even more to her surprise she felt the ache in her head begin to ease almost immediately. She grinned at him. ‘That’s the good stuff that is.’

‘51st century wonder cure,’ he said, standing up and stretching his legs. ‘Very good for hangovers, even hyper vodka which I can assure you, you don’t want to touch. Very potent stuff.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ she laughed, imagining the Doctor drunk on some planet somewhere. He rolled his eyes knowing exactly what was going through her mind.

Once Rose was ready they spent quite a while treating the others that they found in the warehouse earlier who had been infected by the Peace. The Doctor didn’t really like it but he went back to his ship to knock up a concoction to let out into the room to send them all to sleep. He brought out three gas masks for Rose, Sam and himself to wear when entering the warehouse. Of course, he and Rose got the giggles after he asked “are you my mummy?” Sam gave them a very strange look which only made them laugh harder and Rose had to lean against a wall her ribs were aching so much. The pair were on a bit of a relief high and they didn’t care one bit if they looked mad.

The Doctor had altered all the headsets the trio could find and they set them on the heads of all the sleeping people, removing the Peace from their minds before changing the memory card and moving onto the next person. The warehouse ventilation kicked in rather quickly when they turned it on and soon all the people were waking up a bit dazed but overall in good health.

‘Alright listen up you lot.’ The Doctor was standing on a table at the front of the warehouse and shouted to get their attention. It didn’t work however as there were so many people all talking at once that his voice seemed to blend in.

‘Quiet!’ Shouted Rose, her higher pitched voice cut through the crowd having the desired effect.

The Doctor smiled and winked at her before speaking to the people. ‘Alright a little hush thank you. Now we’ll lead you back outside in a moment but there’s two people who I’m looking for. Is there a Cranan and Athanda here?’

There was some shuffling and mumbling as the crowd looked round at one another but two people did slide through to the front of the group. They looked very similar to Orvo, though one of the brothers had short spiky red hair whilst the other had kept his long.

The Doctor looked down on them with a raised eyebrow and the face of a teacher telling off a student. ‘You’ve got a very worried sister outside.’

The brothers just stared up at him and nodded feebly knowing that they had done wrong and that the outcome could have been so much worse.

Orvo was overjoyed when the Doctor and Rose walked towards the Space Pirates game followed by her brothers. She jumped up and hugged them both immediately, crying once again but this time in joy. Then she hugged Rose and the Doctor, thanking them for their help. She was happier still when he told her she could keep Zizi the space monkey and she promised to take good care of them and feed them a lot of bananas. Doctor’s orders.

‘I’ve got to stop taking you to apple themed places’, he mused as they wandered back to the Tardis hand in hand. ‘Seems like everything is out to get in our heads.’

She hugged his arm, looking up at him. ‘You know what they say: an apple a day keeps the Doctor away.’

‘A proverb I should have listened to,’ he mumbled, unlocking the Tardis.

Chapter 5: £10 Note

Chapter Text

‘Oh my God, they’re werewolves,’ Rose exclaimed and she and the Doctor started to cackle, throwing their heads back and howling as the Tardis dematerialised from Victorian Scotland.

He took his hand off the dematerialisation leaver as they settled in the vortex. Rose was around the other side of the console just releasing her white knuckle hold on it, their bumpy ride earlier still fresh in her mind.

‘So what does the wee naked child want to do now?’ He asked with a smirk, putting on his Scottish accent again.

She walked around the console to him as he leant against it with his hands in his pockets and his feet crossed. ‘This wee naked child wants her winnings,’ she said with a cheeky glint in her eye.

He frowned. ‘What?’

‘£10 mister, cough up.’ She held out her hand to him awaiting her winnings on the bet about Queen Victoria, biting her cheek to try and ward off her amusem*nt because his face was a picture.

‘But I don’t have £10,’ he complained.

‘God you’re such a tight arse,’ she laughed, unable to take it anymore, and he sniffed indignantly.

‘Fine.’ He jumped up and Rose had to step back to save him from bumping into her. There was a mad gleam in his eye that told her he was either about to do something stupid, silly or dangerous. Or perhaps all three at once. He was the Doctor after all. Dashing around the console, he was flicking switches and pushing buttons getting the Old Girl ready for flight. He then punched in the coordinates, glancing at the monitor, which told him of his destination in the swirling symbols of Gallifreyan, before darting back over to the dematerialisation leaver. ‘You want money taxman Tyler, I’ll show you money.’

The Tardis groaned and jolted them on their way. Rose was clinging onto the railing behind her watching as the Doctor flicked a few more switches and dragged the monitor around to their side of the console. The flight evened out and she loosened her grip. The Doctor looked over at her. ‘Come and see for yourself,’ he beckoned, pointing at the monitor. A massive ship practically filled the screen whilst smaller ships went to and from it in an orderly manner. She watched one of the smallest ships dock to the side of the huge vessel then only a minute later it moved off to its next destination in the stars.

‘What is it?’ She asked, leaning in close to the screen.

‘This is the largest bank in the universe,’ he said impressively. ‘Started off in your galaxy actually, that’s where it gets its name from Bank of the Milky Way or BMW for short, not related to the car manufacturer,’ he added as she gave him a look. ‘It travels between galaxies every week so planets that don’t have long distance space travel can use it.’ The Tardis lights flashed orange for a moment and the Doctor said, ‘oh, we’re moving,’ and fiddled with a couple of smaller leavers moving the ship forwards a little.

‘Are we in a queue?’ She asked. He nodded as he checked the monitor again. She shook her head in disbelief, a smile growing on her lips. ‘This is domestic.’

His head snapped round and he gave her a big frown. ‘No it isn’t,’ he scoffed.

‘You’re going to the bank to get money out,’ she pointed out in a sing-song voice. She was enjoying this. He hadn’t changed a bit. His reaction to something being accused as domestic was still the same and she loved messing with him about it.

‘The bank is a spaceship. A spaceship Rose,’ he said with exasperation. He waved his arms about like he was trying to show her just how big the spaceship was as if that would make a difference. She simply put on an unimpressed face and shrugged. He saw the glint in her eye and told her to go away. She just laughed.

The Tardis eventually reached the front of the queue and the Doctor piloted her into the tractor beam that guided them towards the dock on the side of the ship. Of course, being the Tardis, she wasn’t exactly built like other vessels so didn’t have a docking station to attach to. She did, however, have an oxygen field so the Doctor simply swung the doors back and was greeted by an alien sitting behind a currency exchange desk.

‘Hello,’ he said in his usual cheery way. The alien blinked at him looking grouchy and bored. Best move on quickly, he thought. ‘Right, Earth. Human. 2006 please.’

Rose came to stand beside him, watching the exchange with amusem*nt. It really was so domestic.

‘And how much do you require?’ The cashier asked.

‘Er,’ he scratched the back of his head in thought. ‘£500 in twenties and tens,’ he stated, but it sounded more like a question. He passed his credit stick to the alien and they got to work exchanging the digital credit for paper notes.

‘£500? How many bets are you planning on losing?’ Rose whispered.

‘Nah just thought if I take out a wodge then I won’t have to come back,’ he replied softly. He took the notes and credit stick from the cashier and thanked them. They were still not amused. He closed the door and turned to Rose passing her a £10 note. ‘Right here you go.’

‘Ta,’ she said, plucking it from his fingers with a smile.

He shoved the rest of the money into a pocket. ‘What are you spending your winnings on?’ He asked as he moved back to the console and took the Tardis out of the tractor beam.

‘Chips,’ she beamed.

He laughed loudly. He should have known. This was Rose Tyler he was talking to. ‘You want chips now?’ He asked with mirth still in his voice.

She nodded as she walked around the console to him, one hand softly grazing the console edge as she did. ‘Yeah I kinda do. Can we go to the chippy near mums? They are divine.’

His amusem*nt drained a little at the mention of her mother. Rose was right, he didn’t do domestic. It wasn’t that he hadn’t enjoyed spending time at the Tyler’s over Christmas, when he’d not been stuck in a coma of course, but there was always a voice in the back of his head warning him and telling him to run. These days that voice sounded northern. It didn’t used to. ‘You want to go see her?’ He asked, hoping the answer was no. Was it wrong to hope that? She was Rose’s mother after all and human lifespans were so fleeting. About to start going down a dark path in his mind, Rose thankfully brought him out of it with her laughter. He blinked up at her wondering what was so amusing.

‘Oh your face!’ She gasped through her laughter and lightly smacked his arm. After calming down she continued, ‘no we only saw her the other week, I just want chips and actually you can pay because you still owe me for last time’.

**********

They didn’t park in the usual spot on the estate, not wanting to be noticed by Jackie or indeed Mickey seeing as this was just a fleeting visit for the essential chips Rose Tyler needed. It was still only a short walk to the chip shop and they chatted and laughed about their visit to 1879 and how mad it was that they got knighted and then banished before you could say Raxacoricofallapatorius. If you even could. Rose still tripped up a bit halfway through.

The chip shop was pretty quiet, there was an elderly couple a few tables away and one guy who had his laptop out distracting him from his cooling fish and chips. There were only six tables in the small room and Rose scooted onto the bench of one of them facing the window so she could people watch whilst the Doctor went up to the counter and ordered. It didn’t take long and soon he was pushing a steaming basket of golden, salted and vinegared chips in front of her. She thanked him and immediately dived in.

‘Mmm these chips are gorgeous,’ she moaned, biting into a chip.

The Doctor nabbed one and hummed in agreement. ‘They’re not half bad are they?’ he said as he sat back on his bench opposite her. Something rustled behind him and he pulled out a newspaper he hadn’t noticed on his seat. Putting on his glasses, he opened the paper and began to read as Rose happily ate her chips. Of course it didn’t take him long, he flicked through the pages and was finished two chips later. He could have read it quicker but newspapers were not the easiest of page turners.

‘Anything good?’ She asked.

He was about to say no when something hit him and a frown drew across his face. ‘Hold that thought,’ he told her as he opened the paper again and found the page in question, flattening it out on the table for them both to see. She grumbled a little about her chips but lifted them out of the way so she could see what was making him frown. He pointed at an article a few pages in. ‘This is about the Slitheen at Downing Street, but that was months ago,’ he said, his frown deepening further in confusion. Rose leant down and started to read the article. Another thought flashed through the Doctor’s mind and he lifted the newspaper slightly so he could see the front page. And the date. He dropped the pages with a sigh and took off his glasses to rub his eyes.

Rose watched and deduced what had happened with a little smirk. ‘You got the date wrong again didn’t you?’

‘It’s a lot harder than it looks,’ he complained and gave her a stern look when she cackled. That only made her worse.

‘God you’re such a rubbish driver,’ she laughed.

He shook his head and tried his best not to smile at her joy but failed miserably. It was Rose and her happiness was infectious. It was one of the reasons he loved travelling with her; she was always finding the joy and wonder in situations even when there was hardly any to find. She made the universe seem brighter and he needed that. He’d been through enough darkness for all his regenerations.

‘Thank God we weren’t going to see mum,’ she said and then gasped, ‘she wouldn’t even recognise you, she’d just think you were some strange man I was bringing home’.

‘I’m not some strange man,’ he said, slightly offended.

She shook her head. ‘No you’re right, you’re not, you’re some strange alien,’ she joked.

He couldn’t help but smile and chuckled as she gave him her tongue touched grin. It quickly vanished when he leant over and stole one of her forgotten chips. She hit his hand but he simply smirked at her complaints as he ate the now only warm potato.

Rose hugged the box so he couldn’t get anymore, which made him laugh once again, before she turned back to the paper and continued reading the article. ‘Well this Sarah Jane Smith didn’t get it all right but she didn’t do bad considering,’ she said as she finished reading.

He had just been contemplating places he could show Rose when that name drew him out of his thoughts. The Doctor shook his head and stared at her with wide eyes, ‘Sarah Jane Smith?’

‘Yeah,’ Rose shrugged. ‘The reporter. I think she was right to tell them about the Slitheen,’ she said, missing the point of his confusion entirely.

‘Sarah Jane Smith?’ He said again, still in disbelief.

She looked up at him and frowned. ‘Yeah. Why, you know her?’

‘Oh Sarah Jane Smith,’ he repeated the name for a third time but this time in awe with a small smile on his lips. He looked over at Rose who was staring at him quizzically. ‘She used to travel with me, oh many regenerations ago now but she was a good friend.’ He nodded to himself, reminiscing in his mind.

Rose opened her mouth to say something else when a voice called her name. She looked to the front door and saw her friend Keisha. She stood there with a grin on her face and her long dark hair was up in her signature high ponytail. ‘Keisha,’ Rose said in surprise and got up to hug her friend who was walking towards her with her arms outstretched.

‘Blimey, you’re a hard girl to find,’ Keisha said, pulling away. ‘So are you finally back from travelling then?’

‘Oh, um no,’ she said, glancing over to the Doctor who was watching the interaction with interest. She fiddled with her earring awkwardly. ‘More of a pit stop really.’

Keisha followed her gaze and noticed the Doctor for the first time, having zeroed in on Rose after noticing her through the shop window. ‘So this is who you’ve been travelling with?’ She said, her eyes flitting between the two of them. There was a certain suggestive look on her face that Rose didn’t like.

The Doctor smiled amiably and offered his hand. ‘Hello, I’m the Doctor.’ He didn’t register the look on her face when her eyes trailed over him as she shook his hand.

‘I can see why she likes travelling with you.’ Keisha winked at Rose who tried to hide her blush from the oblivious Doctor. ‘He’s nothing like what your mum was saying. She said he was much older and had big ears but she must be blind cus he’s a bit fit.’

Rose was now the shade of a tomato and the Doctor couldn’t help but understand Keisha’s line of thinking now. He cleared his throat and loosened his tie as he sat back once more on the bench. He thought it best if he zoned out of the conversation for a while and looked over at the TV that hung on the wall behind the counter noticing a repeat of the previous evening’s programme The Sky At Night was on. Such a show easily captured his interest.

‘You missed my birthday party the other month,’ Keisha said, changing topics easily after her playful teasing. Rose was rather thankful for the new line of conversation as her face slowly cooled back down. ‘Please say you’ll make it next year, it's not the same with just me and Shareen.’

Rose bit her lip. She hadn’t been the best friend recently, having gotten far too occupied with fighting aliens and visiting new worlds. Not that she could tell anyone that was what she was doing on her travels. She’d even managed to miss a year on Earth with no contact with any one of her friends let alone her poor mum. But that was the thing with travelling with the Doctor, she became someone, someone who could do things, do anything. She wasn’t just some blonde chav off the estate. So when she was away she tended not to think of where she grew up and that included who she grew up with. Rose told herself that she would really try in the future to keep in touch with at least Keisha and Shareen, and Mickey of course but he seemed to turn up whenever she saw her mum.

‘Um. I don’t know yet, I’ll see,’ she answered, fiddling with her earring again.

Keisha nodded as though expecting that reaction. ‘I’m thinking of renting out the back of that pub on Druids Street again. It’s what I did last time as Jay’s got this mate whose dad bought it and he’s really turned it into something. It was such a good party Rose, you really missed out.’ She paused, waiting for Rose’s reaction but saw her glancing at the Doctor again. ‘You can bring him if you want,’ she added, nodding her head towards him. The Doctor was just getting up from his bench and putting his glasses on as he walked over to the television with a frown. Keisha watched him go, a little confused at what he was doing. Rose was just explaining that she didn’t think it was really his thing when Keisha’s eye caught the large clock on the wall by the TV and she swore. ‘sh*t, I’m gonna be late, I’ve gotta go. Look, I’ll send an invite round to your mums, just please think about it will you? We’ve missed you.’

‘Yeah. I will, I promise,’ Rose nodded and hugged her friend.

Keisha moved to the door and said, ‘bye babes,’ before closing it behind her and setting off at a quick pace.

Rose breathed a sigh of relief. It was like she led two different lives. No. She did live two different lives and when they collided it felt very strange. She turned and walked over to the Doctor, standing beside him silently and looking up at the TV. It was showing a recording of some sort of planet or moon. Rose wasn’t sure. Through the grainy footage she could make out some bright fiery light as though an explosion had occurred at one side of it.

‘Sir Patrick Moore says that was an asteroid impact on the Jovian moon Ganymede but that didn’t look like any old impact I’ve seen before,’ the Doctor told her. He never looked around to see her, his eyes still squinting at the screen, he just sensed her presence. Plus the pleasant fragrance of vanilla, honey and citrus that was Rose had grown in his strong Time Lord olfactory organs telling him she was close.

‘Ganymede, that’s one of Jupiter’s isn’t it?’ she asked, biting her lip as she thought.

He looked down at her smiling. He was impressed. ‘Yes, you’re picking stuff up.’

‘Oh no,’ she laughed, shaking her head. ‘That was just from school. We had to do a play about space and I was Ganymede.’

He furrowed his brow. ‘How can you be Ganymede?’

‘Oh mum made a costume. Made a big ball out of papier-mâché and cut holes in it so I could wear it and then painted it to look like the moon. Personally I think I looked like an egg’. She screwed her nose up in distaste remembering the costume.

‘Huh,’ he said, not really sure what to make of what she had told him. It wasn’t like he knew Jackie well; they didn’t have the best of relationships and that didn’t surprise him after essentially stealing her only child away. But he never saw her as the crafty sort of mother, not that he knew what she was like when she was bringing up Rose on her own. Perhaps she was. It was simply unexpected.

‘No need to sound so surprised,’ Rose chastised with a smile.

He pulled on his ear and shook his head. ‘No, not surprised, never doubted Jackie Tyler, not for a second.’ He gave her a big grin and she gave him one back. Taking off his glasses he turned away from the TV saying, ‘right, come on. I want to see what’s going on up there’.

Chapter 6: Mining On The Moon

Chapter Text

Rose had seen pictures of the gas giant Jupiter but seeing it up close and in person was something else. She was standing at the open doors of the Tardis staring at it in awe as the Doctor scanned the space around Ganymede. He had performed this scan many times over the past hour trying to find the right time to be there when the explosion on the moon happened. That was the trouble with pre-recorded television; it was tricky to get timings correct.

‘Aha!’ He cried out, finally picking up a blip on the Tardis’ scanners. He focused the scan and found there was a vessel a few miles from the surface of Ganymede. It sent a bright golden and orange beam to the surface of the moon and small bits of rock flew off into space. It looked to the Doctor like they were mining.

‘Doctor, are you seeing this?’ Rose called from the doors. She watched as a chunk of rock about the size of a family car floated past; Jupiter, as she found out, was surrounded by a vast amount of debris. It blocked her view for a moment but then once again she could see that orange light she thought was an explosion on the television.

‘It’s a ship,’ he replied, ‘looks like some sort of mining vessel. Close the doors, I’m going to take us on board and have a word. They’re breaking at least five laws according to the Shadow Proclamation’. He moved around the console, setting coordinates and getting the ship ready for flight.

‘Well we are in a police box,’ she said closing the doors, ‘makes sense that we get to be the space police’.

The ship wheezed into life and it was only a moment before they felt the jolt of her landing under their feet. The Doctor stayed by the console reading the monitor. ‘There are a handful of life signs on board and, by the looks of it, the ship appears to be Rubissan.’ He stepped away from the monitor and gave her a look as he grabbed his coat from the coral strut and slipped it on. ‘Just be careful okay.’

She gave him a little salute and said, ‘yes sir,’ which made him shake his head and roll his eyes at her.

Rose had been on a few spaceships during her travels with the Doctor but she had never seen one that was quite like this. They had landed in a tunnel-like corridor, which wasn’t all that unusual, and the Tardis had parked so there was just enough room to get by from one end to the other. What was unusual was the bronze colour that covered the round walls and floor. She reached out and ran her hand across one of the walls, its braille-like texture bumping under her fingertips.

‘Classic Rubissan design,’ the Doctor supplied as though reading her thoughts.

‘I like it,’ she said, repeating the motion, ‘It sort of reminds me of the Tardis’.

The Doctor was about to head towards the nearby air lock at the end of the tunnel but stopped and scrunched his face up at Rose. ‘Really?’ he said, perhaps a little offended on his ships behalf because this was certainly no Tardis. This vessel was a Peel P50 to his Ferarri of a ship, incomparable in every way. The Tardis would win every time whatever the contest.

She laughed at the look on his face. ‘No need to get your knickers in a twist.’ Now he really did look offended. ‘I’m just saying,’ she continued, ‘with the colour and the texture of the walls it reminds me of the coral. It’s much more natural than most other ships we’ve been on where they’re all cold colours and flat and sleek. This is better. Got nothing on the Tardis though. Don’t worry,’ she added and he sniffed indignantly.

They could hear voices as the airlock hissed open. Rose closed and turned the wheel on it behind them before standing next to the Doctor and studying the room. It was the flight deck. Large windows curved across the front and up onto the ceiling showing off its impressive view of the moon they were destroying. Before them was a maze of controls and screens and a couple of pilot chairs which both looked well worn and at either side of the glass expanse were what appeared to be turrets. They jutted out of the front of the ship slightly, the large blasters visible through the windows were both aiming at the moon. The two aliens, who were sat at the blaster controls, were so wrapped up in their argument about each other's aiming ability that they hadn’t noticed the time travelling duo watching them.

Eventually the Doctor got fed up of watching their shouting match and cleared his throat loudly. The two Rubissans spun round, both reaching for their guns holstered by the sides.

‘Don’t. We’re not armed,’ he told them and opened his coat to prove it. Rose followed suit and unzipped her hoodie, holding it open to show she had no weapons either. The Rubissans, however, didn’t seem to care and drew their guns anyway as they stood from their chairs. The Doctor sighed and he and Rose raised their arms in surrender.

‘Who are you? How did you get on board?’ Demanded the one on the right. Their faces were nearly identical, both with a beige/yellow skin tone covered in bumps like a cactus without its spikes, but this one was rounder. If Rose’s history lessons on British Royals taught her anything it was that the bigger one was probably in charge.

‘We’re a warning,’ the Doctor told them. Even though he was the one with a gun pointed at his head he still managed to command the room. ‘Article 172.8 of the Shadow Proclamation prohibits the use of mining, terraforming or bleeding of any planet or its associated moons without the proper licensing which I know for a fact belongs to the Sons of Jupiter. That’s just one of the laws you have broken here.’

The commanding Rubissan glanced over at the other as if to say this guy, before smirking at the Doctor. ‘I’m going to stop you there. I’ve got a permit.’

‘A what?’ The Doctor said in disbelief, his eyebrows nearly meeting his hairline.

They sighed and holstered their gun, signalling for the other Rubissan to do so, and reached into a pocket pulling out an electronic notebook. They unfolded it and swiped until they reached the correct screen. ‘Who are you, some new guys? I thought they were all Judoon over there,’ they said as they walked towards the Doctor and Rose who lowered their hands seeing as the initial threat had abated. ‘I got a permit to mine on Ganymede, look.’

‘How the hell do you get a permit to mine Ganymede?’ The Doctor took the book, put on his glasses and read the screen.

Rose leaned over and read it too. It all looked official. It was signed and dated and marked with five different stamps which looked rather important but their meaning went over her head.

‘The universe is going mad,’ he muttered and rubbed his face before reaching into his pocket and scanning the device with his screwdriver.

‘What are you doing?’ The commander protested, reaching forward to grab the notebook. Rose noticed the Rubissan still near the turret grab their gun again.

The Doctor stepped out of reach, still scanning away as he said, ‘just checking its real’.

‘Of course it is,’ they exclaimed, waving their arms about, ‘who do you take me for?’

He looked up and stared at the commander with a scary amount of intensity. ‘An idiot.’

‘Doctor,’ Rose warned.

‘No,’ he told her, ‘I mean it, he is one’. His brown eyes were wide and had a mad glint in them as he turned back to the idiot in question. ‘You may have a permit to mine here, it doesn’t mean you should. You’re trying to reach its iron core right? Love a bit of iron your lot do and I get it, your planet runs out and you’re here raking in all the money selling off the iron you mine. Great scheme. Excellent scheme. Except, now here’s the part where you’re the idiot, did you ever think what would happen when you destroy Ganymede? What effect that would have? No? Didn’t think so. The volcanic moon Io, which only stays in orbit because of the gravitational pull of Ganymede and Europa, would go crashing into the gas giant. Lovely hydrogen combining with molten silicate lava. You’re very lucky that space is a vacuum because blimey that would be a massive explosion wouldn’t it? But now two of the moons are gone and that’s just the start of the domino effect, the ripple that turns into a tsunami as everything around Jupiter starts to fall apart. And I’d hate to see what happens when Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, disappears and what effect that would have on the orbits of the remaining planets. You see, the universe is all about balance, take something out and things start to collapse. How you got a permit from the Sons of Jupiter when it would destroy their home I don’t know but you really shouldn’t use it.’ He’d wandered as he energetically explained about the disastrous effects the mining would have but had ended up face to face glaring at the commander as he finished, hardly out of breath.

The Rubissans looked bug eyed, like they were either shocked about the Doctor and his mad ravings or they had heard his warnings and were shocked at what their mining operation could have done.

Rose, however, had watched the Doctor bounce around the room with amusem*nt and was rather pleased she had managed to follow all his ramblings. She would always have a dig at him for his big gob but she loved it really, he always got so excited when he talked and jabbered on rapidly like he had so many things to say but couldn’t get them out quick enough. She thought he could even read the back of her shampoo bottle and make it sound interesting.

The Doctor raised his eyebrow at the commander who blinked stupidly back. ‘Where did you get the permit?’

They gulped, their skin now looking a little grey. ‘Madame Castile,’ they muttered.

He rolled his eyes. ‘Where can we find her?’

‘Alnitak,’ the commander supplied.

‘Of course she is,’ he sighed. ‘Right,’ he straightened up and clapped his hands together. He glanced between the Rubissans with a now fading stern look on his face. ‘I hope you have heeded my words. If you take so much as a single shot at that moon, or any of the others, I will be back and it won’t just be with a warning.’ The Rubissans nodded and the Doctor smiled a little. ‘Good,’ he said, turning to Rose, ‘we'll be off then, have a good one’. His demeanour changed from strict and scary to friendly with frightening ease. He waved at them and headed to the airlock and Rose glanced back one last time before following.

‘You know you aren’t half impressive when you do that,’ she said as they walked through the corridor to the Tardis.

He looked over at her, his hands in his pockets and an eyebrow raised. ‘Really?’

She nodded. ‘Yeah, I mean one minute we’re being threatened and then you go off on one and then they’re with their tails between their legs.’

‘I do not go off on one,’ he complained and she laughed. It echoed down the corridor bouncing off the walls making them feel golden instead of bronze.

‘Fine, you ramble on a bit,’ she told him, ‘same thing, it still gets them to stop’.

He shook his head. ‘Not always. I wish it was that easy all the time,’ he mumbled.

‘Well you make it look easy,’ she said. She looked up at him with a grin, trying to appease him; he couldn’t help but grin back.

‘Oh, just a day in the life of a Time Lord,’ he shrugged as he unlocked the Tardis and followed Rose inside.

Chapter 7: Orion's Rest

Chapter Text

Alnitak was the most eastern of the three stars that made up Orion’s Belt; however it wasn’t just the singular star that it appeared to be from the perspective of Earth. Alnitak and Mintaka, the western star of the belt, were star systems each consisting of multiple stars but they were so far from Earth that they looked to be one. Alnitak included three stars and in the centre sat a space station that the visitors liked to call Orion’s Rest. It had garnered quite a reputation over the years. It was somewhere that Captain Jack Harkness had visited a few times and would visit again in the future and really that said a lot about the place.

It made sense that it was here where Madame Castile was said to be found. Her name was well known across the galaxy and not for reasons that the Doctor approved of. So far he had been fortunate enough not to have met her but his luck had to run out at some point.

Madame Castile was the spoiled Princess of the Rubissan Emperor. She liked money and she liked power, both of which were a given in her position, and she liked holding both of these things over others. Most of the chatter within the galaxy was about neither of these things, instead people gossiped about the Princess' relationships. Last the Doctor heard she had celebrated her thirtieth marriage, he thought it was a little excessive but who was he to judge other races and their customs. Well, really he should be first in line being a Time Lord, they always did think of themselves as being above others. These relationships were never about love for Madame Castile, it all came back to her biggest wants of money and power, though sometimes she just wanted a new plaything. She would flash her money to attract someone with power or use her power over another to gain money. If the person had both then it was even better. It was a flawless system in her mind and, going by the number of times it had worked, it would be hard to argue against that.

The head chef was still throwing disgusted looks their way as they exited the kitchens of the bar on Orion’s Rest. The Tardis had parked in the walk-in fridge much to the dismay of the chef and Rose who hadn’t realised they were in a fridge at the time and was complaining about the lack of central heating. The chef had shouted at them and told them to move the Tardis but the Doctor complained that they had just landed and that they wouldn’t be long and who orders food at this bar really. This got the chef grumbling so many profanities that the Tardis didn’t bother to translate it, especially as most of them were aimed at her. The Doctor assured them that they wouldn’t be long then he and Rose left the kitchens and entered the bar.

It was clearly a popular spot. It was filled with many species, both old but mostly new to Rose, who were all chatting and laughing merrily. She followed the Doctor as he weaved through the tables towards the oval shaped bar that sat in the centre of the room. His eyes were darting everywhere looking for the Princess but he was struggling to see her through the crowds. Rose was walking along just taking in the atmosphere of the place when she was stopped by an arm sticking out in front of her. She looked up at the owner. He rather looked like a toad and he was accompanied by two others of the same species at the table. All three of them were leering at her.

‘Let me buy you a drink sweetheart,’ the gravelly voice of the first slurred.

‘Oh no thanks,’ she said a little awkwardly and tried to walk on but a second toad stood up and stepped into her path. He stretched his arms out and was flexing his muscles trying to show off.

‘What about me? I’ll get you one.’

She backed away a little. ‘Already had one thanks.’

‘You’re worth at least two drinks you are, pretty little thing,’ the third said as he ogled her body.

She was about to start telling them all where they could shove it when a cool hand grabbed her arm and started dragging her away. Rose whirled round ready to give them a piece of her mind too but found it was only the Doctor. Still, she was annoyed at him for dragging her away when she had the situation under control. ‘Hey,’ she said angrily, yanking her arm out of his.

He stopped and turned to look at her. ‘What?’ He asked with a frown, confused by her tone of voice and why she wasn’t pleased he had gotten her out of there.

‘You don't have to grab me and pull me out of there, I was fine.’

His eyes grew wide. ‘They were - they were hitting on you,’ he said with exasperation, waving his arms about to make his point.

‘So?’ She retorted and his eyes grew even wider. He really hadn’t thought she had wanted them hitting on her but maybe she had. He was so confused. ‘I get enough of that at home,’ she continued to rant, ‘and they're all men even if they do look like toads. I know how to deal with them’.

His confusion dwindled immediately and was replaced by anger. Anger at all the men who had behaved like that towards Rose. At all the men who thought they could behave like that with anyone. No one should know how to deal with it; they shouldn’t have to deal with it because it shouldn’t happen in the first place. ‘That doesn’t mean you should have to,’ he told her, clenching his jaw. The fight in her eyes dimmed and he sighed. ‘Let’s just find Madame Castile so we can get out of here.’

‘It’s singles night,’ the woman behind the bar informed them. ‘Get a drink for someone else and it won’t cost you a credit.’ The patrons had heavily taken advantage of that scheme by the looks of it and had tried to take advantage of it with Rose too.

‘No thanks,’ said the Doctor, ‘just looking for someone. Do you know where Madame Castile is?’

The woman looked intrigued and gave both him and Rose a glance up and down before nodding her head towards an ornate wooden door. ‘She’s in her private room. Are you two her new…’ she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

He chose not to answer. He simply thanked her and headed towards the door ensuring Rose was right behind him. She was biting her lip, deep in thought as she followed and he sighed again thinking of what was going on in her mind.

There was a large bouncer at the door, so tall the Doctor had to tilt his head up to look him in the eye. He stared at them and said, ‘names?’

‘The Doctor and Rose,’ he supplied.

‘Appointment?’

The Doctor took out his psychic paper and showed it to the bouncer who read it slowly but nodded once he had reached the end. He stepped through the door then reappeared a moment later holding it open for them. The Doctor nodded his head at the man and entered the room, a device lightly beeping as he and Rose passed through the doorway.

The private room may not have been grand in size but it sure made up its grandeur in furnishings. Everything was covered with the bronze they had seen on the Rubissan’s mining ship and all soft furnishings were a deep red velvet that glimmered in the candlelight. Thick red curtains outlined an alcove where Madame Castile sat at a table. The many jewels that adorned her danced in the flickering light too. It all made the Doctor shudder a little, the combination of colours reminding him of Gallifrey.

Her eyes were glued to a small screen as they stepped towards the table awaiting an audience. When she did look up Rose wasn’t sure whether she should curtsy or not seeing as she was a Princess but the Doctor hadn’t bothered with any of the pleasantries so neither did she. Her dark eyes trailed down their bodies hungrily. ‘The Doctor and Rose. What an unexpected delight,’ she purred. She looked at Rose and patted the chair to her left ‘Come and sit down next to me my dear, I won’t bite. Not unless you want me to,’ she said seductively.

The Doctor clenched his jaw; he wanted Rose sitting nowhere near that woman but didn’t want another argument so took the other chair opposite as Rose sat in the proffered one.

‘My scanners are never wrong, Doctor.’ She placed the small device she had been looking at on the table. ‘A Time Lord in the flesh. What have I done to deserve such esteemed company?’ She gazed at him with big innocent eyes that were certainly not fooling him.

‘Ganymede,’ he stated.

She stiffened for a moment but collected herself quickly. ’I see you’ve heard of our little endeavour. Let us get comfortable, a drink Doctor, for you and your human friend?’ Her eyes lingered on Rose who sat awkwardly on the chair picking at her nails.

‘No thank you,’ he replied with forced pleasantries.

‘Hyper vodka or perhaps something else?’ Her voice dropping back into that sultry tone that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end like an unhappy cat.

‘No,’ he bit out.

‘Oh he’s so stern isn't he,’ she tittered at Rose trying to get a reaction out of her but none came. She just wanted to get out of here and talk with the Doctor.

‘How did you get a permit to mine on Ganymede?’

His question drew Madame Castile’s attention back to him. ‘My you really are no fun are you? You live up to the legends at least.’ She paused for dramatic effect as she could already see that he was a man that wouldn’t back down so easily. She huffed and said, ‘fine. I married a Son of Jupiter’. Then the Princess turned to Rose and added as an underside, ‘I have many husbands, wives and partners. I’m not picky,’ before glancing back at the Doctor and saying, ‘but now that means I own Ganymede. I own all the moons of Jupiter’. She finished with a giggle. Proud of her achievement.

The Doctor frowned. ‘But the Sons are a collective, no single one of them owns anything.’

‘What the others don’t know won’t harm them,’ Madame Castile smirked.

‘They’ll find out soon enough when Ganymede is destroyed,’ he warned.

‘A mere speck in the universe,’ she tittered again, the noise grating on both his and Rose’s nerves at this point.

‘This is wrong,’ he said forcefully, stabbing the table with a finger to make his point.

His words only made her smile provocatively. She leaned across the table towards him and whispered, ‘so stop me’. He clenched his jaw. The Princess leaned back again, her tone slightly less sensual. ‘I’ll offer you a suggestion. Something in return for my word to stop the mining.’

‘What?’ He bit out.

She laughed heartily as though he had said the most ridiculous thing. He caught Rose’s eye across the table but she was frowning in confusion as much as he was. ‘Marriage of course,’ Madame Castile announced.

The Doctor’s gaze flew back to her. ‘No, I won’t be one of your playthings,’ he growled.

‘Oh he’s so arrogant isn’t he,’ she said with a glimmer in her eye. She turned to Rose, leaning closer to her with every word as she continued, ‘then again that’s the trouble with Time Lords, such a pompous, emotionless race. I need someone who can feel, who can lust and I have heard excellent things about Earthlings’.

‘No!’ The Doctor and Rose chorused. Rose had leant back in her chair as far as she could and the Doctor had jumped out of his.

The Princess sat back, once again laughing heartily. ‘Perhaps there is emotion in Time Lords after all. The fire in your eyes Doctor at the mere suggestion. And there is no ring on your finger, that is Earth custom is it not? She added to Rose.

Rose’s anger had been bubbling throughout the conversation at the Princess’ disregard for what she had done, at her leering, and her tone. Overall she was the kind of woman who rubbed her up the wrong way and now she really had a reason to let loose. ‘Just because I'm not married doesn’t mean I have to be and especially not to you. And, being a British person from Earth, most of us are monogamous so I don’t want to be part of your collection, or your trophies or whatever. And you’re certainly not going to use me like you seem to be using them to get whatever you want. It’s not right’. She’d somehow risen out of her chair in her rant. Her cheeks were burning and she was panting as she glared at the woman who, Rose was quite proud to see, looked shocked. She deserved it. The cow.

It was the second time that day that Rose had used that tone of voice with someone and the Doctor, though he would never admit it, found that when it wasn’t used on him he was a little turned on. His Time Lord biology was betraying him. He had been around humans for too long and must be picking up their ways because Madame Castile was right, Time Lords were meant to be a pretty emotionless race. They weren’t meant to feel things like he did; it was trained out of them at the Academy. But then again he always was a rebel and never did fit in on Gallifrey. He ran away to discover and explore the stars whilst the other Time Lords stayed on Gallifrey and kept things ticking on in the universe just so.

‘It really is such a shame,’ the Princess was telling Rose, seemingly having recovered from the tirade thrown at her, ‘there is a fire in your eyes too, such passion. You would make an excellent wife I am sure’.

‘We’re leaving,’ he said, grabbing Rose’s hand and pulling her towards him. He was trying not to think about why he hated Madame Castile talking about Rose like that so much. He knew it wasn’t just because she didn’t want the Princess leering at her either.

Madame Castile raised an eyebrow at him. ‘And I shall continue mining.’

He made an angry grunt and reached into his inner suit pocket. He took out the notes he had collected from the bank earlier and slammed them on the table before her. ‘Send. Them. Elsewhere.’ He enunciated every word with a jab of a finger at the money.

Her eyes lit up at the amount of money. It may only be £490 on Earth but with the exchange rate she would be getting a lot more. ‘Is Ganymede really worth this much?’ She asked, her eyes fixated on the notes.

‘It is to me. And don’t think I won’t talk to the rest of the Sons of Jupiter if you continue.’

She glared up at him. ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ she breathed.

‘Oh I really would,’ he murmured darkly.

He stalked out of the room with Rose’s hand clasped firmly in his own. He guided them easily through the maze of tables in the bar and back through the kitchen where they ignored the irate chef and stepped straight into the Tardis. As soon as the doors closed he dropped her hand, shucked off his coat and moved to the console, taking them into the vortex. He closed his eyes at the feel of time passing beneath him and let out a deep breath, allowing his anger to ebb away. The thought of setting a reminder to do a few scans of Ganymede in the future, to ensure all had kept their word, ran through the back of his mind. But now wasn’t the moment for that.

He could see Rose lingering on the ramp out the corner of his eye. She hadn’t really moved since he’d let go of her hand, only stepping forward a little to then think better of it. Her hands were wrung together and her lips were redder than usual, the bottom one redder still with a tiny drop of blood from a split she had caused by biting them so often. She sighed, eyeing her feet before finally looking up at him. ‘I’m sorry about earlier, Doctor,’ she began. He kept his gaze on the monitor but listened intently. ‘I get it. You were trying to be chivalrous. I just - I feel like you always think I need protecting or saving and don’t get me wrong sometimes I do, most of the time even, but sometimes I want to stand up for myself even if it's just to prove that I can.’

He nodded solemnly, still staring at the screen. He understood what she was saying completely and she had made some good points. Perhaps he was a little overprotective and, after a while, that had become overbearing for her. He just didn’t want to see her get hurt or – well that didn’t bear thinking about; he really wouldn’t be able to cope with that. And he’d promised Jackie he’d bring her home safe and he was adamant that he wouldn’t break that promise.

Rose sighed again. ‘Please don’t get all silent and sulky on me. Look, I love travelling with you. I really do. But we’re two different people. I’m just Rose and you’re the Doctor. I go wandering off into danger and need saving but you can do the same and never need saving-’

‘You’ve saved me plenty of times,’ he cut her off but mumbled too quietly for Rose to properly catch a word.

‘What?’ She said, stepping closer.

He finally looked up at her and found that he wanted to reach out and smooth away her slightly furrowed brow. ‘Even when we met, on our first adventure you saved me. Twice. The second time with those gymnastic skills of yours,’ he laughed weakly, trying to phrase it like a joke but it came out rather strained.

It wasn’t what she had been expecting him to say and he heard her gasp a little as the air around them seemed to still. ‘And the first time?’ She asked gently.

He shook his head and looked back down, absently fiddling with the controls. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

She stepped forward, up to the edge of the console. ‘Doctor, please.’ He breathed deeply and clenched his jaw but then she softly asked, ‘was it at Henriks?’

His hands stilled, in fact his whole body stiffened. Of course Rose already knew. She was getting rather good at reading him, even the new new him, so there really wasn’t much point trying to hide it anymore. Clearly he’d done a crappy job at that in the first place. But it still felt momentous to confirm her theory. He hid things like this behind walls and façades. Was he ashamed at how he had felt at the time? He supposed he was. It was the easy way out of his pain. He always had been a coward. But then he’d met Rose and boy could she run. She ran into his mad world of time travel and aliens with such ease and blatant curiosity, always asking questions and always trying to help. She even stood up to him and helped him be better. And happier. He was always happier by her side and he wouldn’t let her down now. He faintly nodded his head and felt her searching gaze on him.

‘You weren’t planning to make it out of there were you.’ It was more of a statement than a question because it was Rose and of course she knew.

‘No,’ he answered anyway.

‘How come you did, did it go wrong or…?’ She trailed off, unsure how to phrase it but she didn’t need to.

He took another deep breath. ‘I changed my mind.’ He paused pondering whether to say it or not but, what the hell, he was already this far. ‘You changed my mind,’ he added more quietly.

She heard him this time, only being over the other side of the console, and her breath hitched. He didn’t dare move or say anything else, not wanting to break the silence but he could feel the tension in his shoulders starting to grow every second it continued.

Then she stepped slowly around the console, as if she was trying not to startle a deer, and stopped next to him. She rested her hand on his arm for a moment, just testing the waters, before she tugged a little, turning him towards her. He looked at her and watched as she reached out to him, wordlessly inviting him into a hug. He stepped forwards and they wrapped their arms around each other. He relaxed into her touch and breathed in deeply, receiving a bouquet of vanilla, honey and citrus in return. She did the same, her breath tickling his neck as she laid her head upon his shoulder.

‘Are we alright?’ she whispered, her lips gently brushing his skin a little.

He nodded into her hair. ‘Yeah, yeah of course we are,’ he said softly.

Apart from the Tardis’ general hum, a content silence filled the room and neither wanted to let go and break the moment.

‘Would you have regenerated?’ She asked after a while. She had been toying with it in her mind wondering if she should or not. He stiffened, as she had expected, but thankfully relaxed a moment later and continued to idly play with the ends of her hair.

He shook his head. ‘No. Not from an explosion like that,’ he mumbled.

‘I’m glad you changed your mind,’ she said, squeezing him just a little tighter.

He hummed, his chest reverberating against her as he did so. ‘As am I Rose Tyler.’

Chapter 8: A Call Back Home

Chapter Text

By the next day Rose and the Doctor were back to normal, well nearly normal, there was still a nervous energy between them especially from the Doctor who was trying his best not to overstep. But they were better and the air was cleared and space and time waited for no one.

Before they knew it months had gone by.

They were in the galley finishing breakfast and the Doctor was joking about going back to the planet where they had to hop for their lives. He was only bragging about his ability to stand on one foot because, after he had wildly swung his arms around trying to explain a fact about flying squirrels and their native planet, (it was someplace beginning with a “k” that Rose could not wrap her tongue around and the Doctor had laughed so much he started tearing up, especially after she started to purposefully say it wrong when he couldn’t stop laughing) he had knocked his empty plate to the grating and stepped on one of the pieces, getting it stuck in the bottom of his foot. He was hopping about and whinging as Rose tried to remove it. After she told him to stay still and stop being a baby he said she should try having a piece of crockery stuck in her foot and see if she didn’t make a fuss about it. He wasn’t normally barefoot around the Tardis. He always tried to remember to get dressed before he left his room when he had guests on board. That was if he had slept of course. But the Tardis had hidden his chucks after they had a fierce row about her shield oscillators which the Doctor had wanted to do some alterations to. It had involved sparking and electrocuting on her part and lots of mallet threats and swearing in English and Gallifreyan on his. Eventually the Tardis had engaged the cloister bell, eliciting more rants from the Doctor about how it wasn’t life or death and that she was just being dramatic. Rose ran into the console room at that point, wondering what the hell was going on, and physically dragged the Doctor out of there, much to his protestations, after realising the Old Girl’s distress.

So yes, they were in the Tardis having a very calm breakfast. The piece had been taken out of the Doctor’s foot and the Tardis had dealt with the smashed plate. The Doctor had asked her to deal with it but she was ignoring him, she did however listen to Rose when she asked politely, much to his chagrin. She was finishing her jam on toast and the Doctor his cup of tea and he was wondering whether to make another round of toast just so he could have some more jam, because Rose disapproved when he ate it straight from the jar, when her phone rang.

‘Mickey!’ She said in greeting.

‘Hi babe.’

‘How are you?’

‘Oh same old, you know how the Earth is.’

They chatted briefly about things she had missed and about Jackie then Mickey said, ‘listen, I called cus I wanted to invite you back, you and the Doctor. I’ve been looking into this school because something weird is going on there, Rose. There’s even been UFO sightings.’

‘Alright, we could take a look. What’s the date?’

‘February 28th 2007.’

‘February 28th 2007, got it.’

They said their goodbyes and hung up the phone. She glanced over at the Doctor who had stilled with his cup halfway to his mouth, lost in thought.

The 28th of February was just four days before the anniversary of when he took Rose’s hand and told her to run. That date had already come and gone on the Tardis and they never had a chance to celebrate it having been pretty tied up at the time. Quite literally. They had been imprisoned by the Atraxi for a week after a misunderstanding and then it was one thing after another. After that it felt too late to celebrate. Really he was still unsure whether it was something to be celebrated in the first place. Did humans do that, celebrate the day they met? He knew human couples celebrated their relationships but he and Rose were… Well, they were just he and Rose.

‘Rose to the Doctor?’ She said waving her hand in front of his face. He shook his head dislodging his thoughts and looked at her. When she noticed recognition in his eyes she said, ‘did you get all that?’

‘Yep,’ he popped the “p”, ‘Mickety Mickey. 28th of Feb. Let’s go.’ The switch in his mood from thoughtful to enthusiastic was jarring, though his enthusiasm was marred slightly by the man who had called. They never really got along, he and Mickey, there was something about him that he didn’t like. But he never spent enough time thinking about it to put his finger on it. He swigged the rest of his tea and stood, wincing at the pressure on his forgotten wound.

‘You want to patch that up first?’ She said, seeing his discomfort. When he groaned at the inconvenience she got up from her chair and said, ‘come on I’ll work the dermal regenerator for you it’ll be easier’.

Once he was fixed and wearing his chucks, the Tardis had eventually agreed to give him one pair after some placating from Rose, he set the date and coordinates and landed at the Powell Estate.

It was 2:37 in the afternoon when they materialised which gave them plenty of time to go to Mickey’s. He told them all about the strange exam results and the sightings three months prior and then they worked out a plan of action. The Doctor and Rose were going to investigate Deffry Vale High School whilst posing as members of staff. The Doctor would be a teacher and Rose a dinner lady, as it just so happened that those positions were open at the school. Since the revelation of the undercover personas Rose had been in a grumpy mood and was only too happy to go to her mums after the Doctor had finalised all their plans for the next day.

‘Oh sweetheart.’ Jackie came rushing into the hallway as Rose and The Doctor were letting themselves in. She wrapped her arms tightly around her daughter and Rose held her just as tight. There was nothing else quite like a hug from your mum and Rose did really miss her when she was away.

‘Are you okay?’ Jackie asked as she let her go, fussing over Rose’s blonde strands of hair and moving them over her shoulder.

She stepped out of her mum's reach and put her hair back as it had been. ‘Yeah, fine mum,’ she said, tucking a strand of it behind her ear.

Jackie eyed her a little suspiciously then turned her attention to the Doctor who was standing rather awkwardly by the door looking as though he might scarper. ‘Oh come here you great lump,’ she said, pulling a reluctant Doctor into a hug. ‘Are you feeling better now?’ She asked as she released him, giving him a look over as if to check for any ailment or golden regeneration energy coming out of him.

He nodded and tried not to notice Rose’s smirk over her mum's shoulder. ‘Yes thank you Jackie.’

‘You need to eat more you do, you’re just skin and bones,’ Jackie told him.

Rose sighed. ‘Leave him alone mum.’

‘What?’ she complained, turning to her daughter, ‘I’m being nice’.

‘He doesn’t need your fussing,’ Rose said, now playing with her hair because it still didn’t feel right.

Jackie raised her eyebrows, ‘well that’s me told’. She tutted to herself for a moment then started towards the kitchen and called out, ‘cup of tea?’ She didn’t bother to wait for an answer because she already knew it but there was still a murmur of agreement behind her as the Doctor and Rose headed to the living room. She set the kettle to boil and then called out, ‘whilst I remember, there’s some mail on the sideboard for you love’.

Rose was about to collapse onto the sofa and sighed thinking, like her mum, she better look at it whilst she remembered. She moved to the side board, underneath the kitchen hatch, and looked through the envelopes with her name on. Most of them were rubbish and one was her phone bill, but the most recent one was an invitation to a birthday party. ‘Oh sh*t,’ she gasped.

‘Hmm?’ the Doctor murmured, looking up from one of Jackie’s magazines he’d picked up from the coffee table just because it was there. It was full of celebrity gossip, horoscopes and weight loss tips. Why humans thought this was a good read he had no idea.

She turned to him, holding the invitation in her hand, ‘I completely forgot about the party’.

‘What party?’ He frowned.

Her eyes widened remembering that she never got round to telling him after they were distracted by the mining on Ganymede. ‘You remember when we got chips and Keisha came in?’ she asked and he nodded. ‘She was talking about it then, really wanted me to come if I was in the area.’ Rose kind of wanted to go too, she did want to try and make more of an effort with her friends after all and it would be good to catch up. She had probably missed a lot in the nearly two years she had technically been gone and she was sure she could say bits about her travels without giving away too much.

He gave up on the magazine and threw it back on the coffee table, resting his feet on there too. ‘When is it?’

She eyed the invitation again to make sure she got the correct date. ‘It’s this Friday, on the 3rd.’

He nodded, thinking it over as he took off his glasses then shrugged, ‘wellllll, this might take a few days’. He sniffed and looked back over at Rose; she was biting her lip again as her eyes dashed from left to right rereading the invitation. His brow furrowed.

Eventually she glanced up at him. ‘She er - she also said that you could come as well.’ His eyebrows shot up into his hairline and she quickly continued after seeing the look on his face. ‘But it’s alright, I told her it’s not really your thing so…’ she trailed off with a shrug and studied the invite once more, a blush rising on her cheeks.

He stared at her. He wasn’t sure what to make of what she had told him. The fact that he, the Doctor, had been invited to a party was a surprise first of all. He and Keisha didn’t know each other, he’d simply introduced himself and then she had said - well, she had made some comments and that was that. But then Rose…she had already said no on his behalf which was fair enough, it wasn’t as though parties were his thing. He’d been to parties of course; he just didn’t actively search them out. And this was a human party, full of human beings and human conversation and…whatever else happened at human parties. Perhaps she thought it was a bit domestic. His last self would have shut himself away in the Tardis at the mere mention but now, if it was with Rose, he might consider it. Then again perhaps she didn’t want him to come. He was invited but she didn’t want him there. Maybe she wanted time away from him. Time away from the Tardis even. He wasn’t sure what to make of that.

He opened his mouth to say something but Jackie came in with the teas, forcing one into Rose’s hand then coming up to the coffee table and putting a cup on it for him. ‘Make yourself comfortable why don’t you,’ she said, nodding at his feet as she sat down in the armchair, hugging her own cuppa in her hands.

The Doctor shook his head and apologised, removing his feet from the table and picking up his mug. He glanced at Rose as she dropped the invite on the sideboard and came over to the sofa to sit next to him. She seemed intent on not catching his eye which made him frown further.

‘So what have you pair been up to then?’ Jackie asked and the Doctor sighed gently as Rose began telling the tales of their lighter adventures that wouldn’t frighten her mother too much.

That evening Jackie insisted that the Doctor stay on the sofa instead of going back to the Tardis because of the heavy downpour outside. He reluctantly agreed when she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Both he and Rose had been a little subdued during the visit. It wasn’t as though they had ignored each other, they had chatted and joked and he had stolen one of her chips and received another playful smack on the hand for his efforts. But there was a slight air of tension between them. He had noticed a few instances where Jackie quickly looked away having been studying them to find out what was wrong. Her mothering instinct was always sharp.

It was only when Jackie had announced she was going to have a shower before bed that he and Rose were finally left alone. Her mother had insisted on leaving them until the morning but Rose began gathering up the cups and the plates from their fish and chips and took them through to the kitchen to wash them up. The Doctor stood up from the sofa as she ran the water and leant against the door frame of the kitchen watching her back. He had his hands in his pockets and his feet crossed - the epitome of cool and calm. It was certainly not what he was feeling internally.

‘Yeah?’ Rose said, feeling his gaze on her. She placed the plates in the bubbly water and began cleaning them with a sponge.

‘Do you not want me to come?’ he mumbled.

‘What?’ She let the sponge drop into the water and looked at him with confusion written all over her features.

He sighed and stood up straight. The casual leaning wasn’t working for him; he had always been more of a pacer. ‘To the party. Do you not want me to come?’

She still looked confused but less so. Her hazel eyes brightened and she echoed his own words back to him with a grin forming on her lips, ‘I’d love you to come. I just didn’t think you’d want to, you know…’ her eyes twinkled mischievously as she whispered, ‘bit domestic’.

He snorted. ‘It’s - It’s not domestic,’ he protested, his voice a little higher than usual.

Rose gave him a look. ‘It so is. You, going to a party, on Earth, full of normal humans who you don’t even know, where you’ve got to pretend to be a normal human too? Domestic,’ she finished with a smirk.

He raised his eyebrow in defiance. Now happily knowing the answer he would use it to his advantage. ‘Do you want me to go or not?’ His own smirk was wiped off his face when she scooped up some of the washing up water and bubbles and flung it at him, splattering on his suit jacket. ‘Oi,’ he complained, a playful look in his eyes, ‘I’m wearing this’. She laughed as he tutted and shook his head. He stripped off the damp jacket and flung it on the sofa in the living room before rolling up his sleeves. He stepped over to her by the sink and took her by the shoulders moving her out of the way. ‘Go on out of the way. You can’t be trusted with the bubbles. I’ll do this, you dry and put away because I don’t know where they go do I?’

‘Domestic,’ she sang, drying her hands on the tea towel before drying the cleaned pots.

‘Shut it Tyler,’ he warned and she laughed.

Chapter 9: Of Friends Old And New

Chapter Text

It was day two of being undercover as a dinner lady and Rose already wanted to strangle the Doctor with her hairnet. He had joined the queue for food in the hall in a much too chipper mood for her liking and when he saw the disgruntled look on her face, as she slopped custard onto his crumble, he only got worse. He smirked and practically bounced away to find a table. She really hated being a dinner lady.

After the line had dwindled she set about wiping the empty tables in the hall but made a beeline for the Doctor who was sitting alone, idly munching on a chip, his eyes darting around at the students and teachers. She leant close to him, leaning over to wipe a spot of gravy near his tray. ‘I’m gonna kill you,’ she muttered darkly.

He didn’t flinch at her sudden appearance over his shoulder and chuckled a little at her threat. ‘It’s not my fault we’re here,’ he protested, watching as she stepped around to the side of him still making an effort at looking busy wiping the table. ‘Anyway, good thing we are,’ he continued, stabbing a chip on his fork. ‘Boy in class this morning, got a knowledge way beyond planet Earth. You should have seen him.’ He took a bite of the chip and scrunched his nose up at the taste.

‘Maybe I would have if I weren’t in the bloody kitchen,’ she grumbled and he rolled his eyes. He’d already had an earful in the Tardis the previous evening and she really hadn’t appreciated him saying that it couldn’t be that bad. He thought he was in danger of another Tyler slap with the look she had given him.

‘You eating them?’ She asked, pointing to his chips. He pulled a face and pushed the tray towards her and she grabbed the chair beside him and sat down, starting to happily much away.

The Doctor saw the way she was digging in with delight and gave another distasteful glance at the chip on his fork. ‘They're a bit…different.’

‘I think they’re gorgeous,’ she said as she chewed, ‘wish I had school dinners like this’.

He sighed and ate the chip anyway. ‘What about you, anything?’

Her eyes lit up and she hummed around a chip as she swallowed. ‘Yeah actually, some of the dinner ladies were moving this barrel of oil and it spilled and got on one of them. It was like it had burnt her. She screamed bloody murder.’

He looked up at her thoughtfully, ‘hmm, something in the oil, ‘he mused.

Rose nodded, eating the chips again. ‘I mean I haven’t seen her since, it was really weird.’

Raising an eyebrow he said suggestively, ‘the same oil on the chips you’re eating?’

Her eyes widened and she glanced between the Doctor and the chip in her hand that was halfway towards her mouth. She paled a little and dropped it back onto the tray thinking better of it, reluctantly swallowing any remaining chips in her mouth.

He shrugged and tried to assure her with a smile, ‘you should be fine’. Gesturing around at the hall he continued, ‘these kids have been eating them for the past three months and they’re all still here’.

‘Then how come she wasn’t?’ She asked seriously.

‘You are not permitted to leave your station during a sitting.’

Both of their heads snapped up at the stern voice and Rose shot up out of the chair like she had been scalded. It was another one of the dinner ladies and she did not look impressed at the newest member of the kitchen staff.

‘I was just talking to this teacher,’ Rose began to explain like she was a misbehaving pupil.

The Doctor grinned and waved at the other woman, greeting her with an enthusiastic, ‘hello!’

Rose shook her head, trying not to smirk at him. ‘He doesn’t like the chips,’ she told her colleague in a stage whisper as though this was the one thing the school prided itself on and to go against that would be sacrilege.

‘The menu has been specifically designed by the headmaster to improve concentration and performance. Now, get back to work.’ Her voice was calm and quiet, not wanting to draw attention, but it had a slightly threatening undertone. She turned around to head back to the kitchens expecting Rose to follow. The pair made faces at each other first that said well that’s us told before Rose started to trail the other dinner lady.

‘Have fun,’ the Doctor called happily from the table. Rose shook her head and stuck her middle finger up at him and could hear him chuckling away as she left.

**********

The Doctor had headed to the staff room after lunch. The teaching staff had all been informed to gather there before afternoon classes began for a small announcement. What that announcement was the Doctor had no idea but he was not very hopeful that it would be good news, especially after what he had heard from other staff members; Mr Parsons had been particularly insightful. The teacher was pacing in the staff room telling the Doctor all about his classes whilst he leant against one of the tables nibbling on a biscuit.

‘But yesterday, I had a twelve year old girl give me the exact height of the Walls of Troy… in cubits,’ Mr Parsons explained.

The Doctor nodded thoughtfully, ‘and it’s ever since the new headmaster arrived?’

‘Finch arrived three months ago. Next day, half the staff got flu. Finch replaced them with that lot.’ He nodded towards a group of very smart looking teachers who stood at the other side of the room and the Doctor glanced over his shoulder to study them. There did seem to be something strange about them. No teacher came into work looking that put together let alone had that appearance halfway through the school day no matter how professional they were trying to be. ‘Except for the teacher you replaced,’ Parsons continued, ‘and that was just plain weird, her winning the lottery like that’.

He turned back to the other teacher and frowned, ‘How’s that weird?’

‘She never played!’ Parsons exclaimed, ‘Said the ticket was posted through her door at midnight’.

Popping another biscuit into his mouth he shrugged at the man, ‘hmm, the world is very strange’. There was certainly something going on with Mr Finch and apparently the entire maths department according to Parsons. Plus all the timelines with the appearances of the new staff were adding up with Mickey’s information on UFO sightings three months back as well. He would have a snoop around Finch’s office later on to see if there was anything of interest there.

Speaking of Finch, the headmaster had entered the room and was clearing his throat announcing himself. ‘Excuse me, colleagues, a moment of your time,’ he said with a simpering smile.

The general murmur in the room quietened and the Doctor turned expectantly. His eyes widened and he stood from the table he had been leaning on, transfixed at the sight before him.

‘May I introduce Miss Sarah Jane Smith,’ Finch continued, ‘Miss Smith is a journalist, who’s writing a profile about me for the Sunday times’. He gestured at the woman who stood peering around at the room beside him, smiling genially as she did so.

Sarah Jane Smith. Sarah Jane Smith. She looked just the same. She was the last thing he was expecting when he had heard about the announcement. Then again perhaps he shouldn’t have been that surprised. There was clearly some alien activity happening at the school and Mickey could hardly have been the only person to notice. Plus she had done that report on the Slitheen in Downing Street so she was used to investigating extra-terrestrial happenings. Still doing what they used to. Oh she hadn’t changed a bit.

‘Hello,’ she said in greeting, now standing before the Doctor. Mr Finch had gone on about something to do with trenches of all things and now here she was just saying hello and he was having trouble trying to stop grinning like a loon.

‘Oh, I should think so,’ he replied.

‘And you are?’

He studied her face, still in disbelief that she was in front of him. His Sarah Jane. She really hadn’t changed. ‘Hm?’ He said, pulling himself back into the conversation. He almost called himself the Doctor but he shouldn’t. They had both moved on. Just seeing her again, even if she didn’t recognise him, was enough. ‘Uh, Smith. John Smith,’ he answered.

Her eyes widened for a moment, not expecting to hear that name of all names, but then they softened. ‘John Smith? I used to have a friend who sometimes went by that name,’ she said with a small smile that warmed the Doctor’s hearts.

‘Well, it's a very common name,’ he shrugged.

Memories flashed before her eyes; there was some sadness there but at the forefront were happier times. ‘He was a very uncommon man.’ She shook herself out of her reverie and held out her hand. ‘Nice to meet you!’

He took it with great enthusiasm. ‘Nice to meet you! Yes! Very nice. More than nice. Brilliant!’

She didn’t seem to either notice or care about his strangely enthusiastic greeting and moved straight into her investigating. ‘Erm... So, um, have you worked here long?’

‘No. Um, it’s only my second day,’ he answered and she seemed to pounce on this information eagerly.

‘Oh, so you’re new then?’ Sarah Jane stepped closer to him, sensing he was a very good person to get the lowdown on all the strange happenings if he was new. A fresh set of eyes. ‘So, what do you think of the school? I mean, this new curriculum? So many children getting ill, doesn’t that strike you as odd?’

The Doctor beamed at her. Oh she really was brilliant. He leant a little closer too. ‘You don’t sound like someone just doing a profile.’

His suggestion caught her off guard a little but she brushed it off smoothly. ‘Well, no harm in a little investigation while I’m here,’ she said, her eyes twinkling a little before she started walking away to meet the other teachers in the room.

‘No. Good for you,’ he beamed again. He couldn't have been prouder of the woman she was and the woman she had become. Just look at her now. Magnificent. Going around investigating alien activity under the façade of writing up something nice about the headmaster. Oh she was brilliant. ‘Good for you. Oh, good for you, Sarah Jane Smith.’

Chapter 10: Infiltration And Investigation

Chapter Text

Classes were finished for the day; the students and staff had left and the sun had set over Deffry Vale High School. The corridors were dark and empty which created a slightly sinister atmosphere due to the startling contrast between day and night in the building. It was quiet too except for…well that must have been the wind getting through an open window and that occasional screeching was surely an owl.

In one of the corridors the faint buzzing noise of a sonic screwdriver pierced the still air and the fire door opened with a creak. The Doctor stepped inside followed by Rose and Mickey. They looked around and walked cautiously down the corridor, the effect of the night time atmosphere in the school not getting past Rose.

‘Oh, it’s weird seeing school at night. It just feels wrong,’ she said, her voice slightly quieter than usual, trying not to break the spell. She continued with a smile, amused by her own musings, ‘when I was a kid, I used to think all the teachers slept in school’.

They had come to a point in the corridor where it connected to others leading to different parts of the school. The Doctor brought them to a halt by the side of a staircase and addressed the group. ‘Alright team,’ he frowned and turned his nose up at his choice of words, stumbling over what could be a better alternative before shooting off instructions to his fellow investigators. ‘Oh I hate people who say team. Um - gang. Um - comrades. Uh - anyway. Rose, go to the kitchen and get a sample of that oil. Mickey, the new staff are all Maths teachers, go and check out the Maths department. I’m going to look in Finch’s office. Be back here in ten minutes.’ In true Doctor fashion he immediately did an about turn and dashed up the stairs beside him, his great coat billowing out behind him.

Rose followed him with her eyes then turned to Mickey. It was strange having him accompanying them again, it was nice, he was her best mate after all, but it was still strange. It had been just Rose and the Doctor going on mad alien adventures since he had changed and, if she was being honest with herself, she kind of loved it like that. Just the two of them. ‘You gonna be alright?’ She asked.

Mickey puffed himself up, his words charged with a bravado that was not at all true to himself. ‘Me? Please. Infiltration and investigation? I’m an expert at this.’

She saw straight through his confident façade, especially when he strode away with purpose down the wrong corridor. Smirking, she awaited his return which happened only moments later.

He came to stand back by her side trying not to notice Rose’s amused grin. ‘Where’s the Maths department?’

She pointed in the opposite direction. ‘Down there, turn left, through the fire doors, on the right.’

‘Thank you,’ he said and, still keeping up with his confident persona, he strode away down the correct corridor to the Maths department.

Rose shook her head at him, fondness written on her face, and then headed towards the kitchen to take a sample of the oil.

As the Doctor wandered carefully through the dark corridors on his way to Finch’s office a sudden screech ran through the air. His eyes narrowed and he followed the sound more purposefully, leaving his cautious steps behind. The sound led him to the corridor outside the gymnasium. He pushed open the doors and stepped inside. Through the high windows a couple of beams of moonlight hit the wooden floor. There didn’t seem to be anything out of place from what he could tell as he wandered further inside. He hadn’t regularly been in the gym, he was posing as a physics teacher after all, but he’d nipped in and out because in the storage cupboard at the rear of the room was his Tardis. The red doors to said cupboard twitched and he watched as they were slowly eased open revealing Sarah Jane Smith. She was walking backwards, staring at the doors clearly in shock after seeing what stood behind them. She continued to stare until she felt his gaze upon her. Sarah Jane turned and before her stood the Doctor, cutting an imposing figure standing in a stretch of moonlight in the otherwise dark school gym.

Well, there went his thoughts about moving on. He should have known really that she wouldn’t resist investigating further; it was just a matter of time before they bumped into each other, both running around the school. He supposed it was better this way. Sarah Jane seeing Rose or Mickey first could have caused a bit of trouble as it wasn’t as though either would be willing to explain what they were doing, breaking into the school after dark.

‘Hello Sarah Jane,’ he said quietly.

She studied him, still in disbelief, her eyes wide. ‘It’s you,’ she breathed. ‘Oh…Doctor.’ Slowly, she stepped towards him. ‘Oh my God, it’s you isn’t it?’ She raised a hand, just for a moment, as if to touch him, to ensure he wasn’t a figment of her imagination. Then she lowered it again, still studying him, her face a mixture of emotion. ‘You’ve regenerated.’

He shrugged. ‘Oh half a dozen times since we last met.’

Her eyes never leaving him, she said, ‘you look…’ she paused, still in disbelief that the man who stood in front of her was the Doctor. That the man she spoke to earlier was the Doctor, her Doctor, who looked so different to the man before her now. There simply were not enough words to describe him, to describe the moment, but she eventually found one. ‘Incredible,’ she whispered.

‘So do you,’ he smiled.

She was shaking her head in denial before he had finished complimenting her. ‘I got old.’ She began to wander and the Doctor slowly turned on the spot following her every step. ‘What are you doing here?’ She asked.

‘Wellll UFO sightings, school gets record results, I couldn’t resist,’ he said, eying the room before turning back to Sarah Jane. ‘What about you?’

Her eyes lit up a little as she nodded and said, ‘same’. They beamed at each other but the happy moment was cut short as her smile faltered, her choked up words coming out in a rush, ‘I thought you’d died. I waited for you and you didn’t come back and I thought you must’ve died’.

The Doctor watched her, his own smile faltering too. His happily shining eyes lost their spark as they always did when he was reminded of his past. Of the Time War. ‘I lived. Everyone else died.’

She narrowed her eyes a little and her accusatory tone disappeared. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Everyone died Sarah,’ he repeated, his voice giving a little, unable to hide the sadness from her.

She closed her eyes for a moment, shaking her head still in disbelief. ‘I can’t believe it’s you,’ she whispered once more. A wail from somewhere within the school broke the quiet atmosphere. The Doctor’s head snapped round in the direction and Sarah Jane looked over his shoulder. ‘Okay,’ she gasped, an excited smile forming on her lips, ‘now I can’.

The Doctor matched it with one of his own and they raced out of the gym. They went down a couple of corridors in the direction of the sound then the Doctor nearly hurtled into Rose who came round another corner at the same time. He grabbed hold of her shoulders to stop them from falling and gave her a breathy smile. ‘Hello.’

‘Did you hear that?’ she said, releasing his elbows as she stepped back. Sarah Jane, who had skidded to a halt too, was watching the pair from behind the Doctor. Rose noticed her and frowned a little. ‘Who’s this?’ She asked him.

‘Ah,’ he said cheerfully, ‘Rose, Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane, Rose’.

Sarah Jane was eyeing Rose a little jealously but Rose didn’t catch the other woman’s gaze as she looked back up at the Doctor. ‘Sarah Jane as in the Sarah Jane Smith you used to travel with?’

Sarah Jane’s head shot towards the Doctor. ‘You talk about me?’ She asked, happily surprised that this Rose knew of her.

He shrugged as he scratched the back of his head a little awkwardly, ‘welllll…’

She turned her gaze back to Rose, dampening down on her jealousy because if the Doctor had spoken of her then Rose already had an impression of the person she was. She wanted to live up to that person, or be better than them, depending on how he had painted her. Either way she still wanted to seem worthy of having travelled with the man. Or yes, perhaps she was still a little jealous and wanted to prove that she was the better of the two. It may have been a while since she had travelled with him but she was sure she still had some tricks up her sleeve. ‘So you’re his new assistant?’ she asked Rose.

‘I’m not his assistant,’ said Rose a little incredulously.

‘No?’ she said, her eyes twinkling a little at Rose’s tone.

‘No. He’s - we’re uh…’ Well that was the thing wasn’t it? What were they, if they were anything at all? They were mates, easily. Best mates even. You would have to be to spend the amount of time they did together. She couldn’t exactly label it as more than that though, even if she wanted to, because they weren’t like that. He wasn’t like that. So what if their hugs lingered or they spent half the time holding hands and so what if their banter fell into flirting a little too often these days. They were just the Doctor and Rose.

The Doctor cut off her stuttering. ‘We’re going to find the source of that scream,’ he announced, glancing between the two of them with a raised eyebrow before darting past them and down the corridor. Rose and Sarah Jane eyed each other a moment longer before following.

Mickey was scrambling on the floor when the trio entered the classroom, trying to clean up the mess he had made. He had opened one of the cupboards and found himself swamped in vacuum packed rats which were now scattered across the floor. A little breathless, he stood up noticing their footsteps and apologised for the yelling. ‘Sorry. Sorry, it was only me. You told me to investigate, so I - I started looking through some of these cupboards and all these fell out of them.’

The rest of the group gathered around him and the mass of rats as he spoke, with the Doctor going further and bending down to examine them closer. He picked up a few of the bags studying the yellow rats within.

‘Oh my God they’re rats,’ stated Rose unbelievably. ‘Dozens of rats. Vacuum packed rats’. She stared at the mess on the floor wondering what the hell sort of school this was.

The Doctor stood back up still holding one of the rats, playing with it in his hands as he taunted Mickey. ‘And you decided to scream,’ he stated.

‘It took me by surprise,’ Mickey protested.

The Doctor pulled a face at him. ‘Like a little girl?’ he jabbed, his voice a little higher than usual.

‘It was dark. I was covered in rats,’ Mickey complained indignantly.

‘Nine, maybe ten years old. I’m seeing pigtails, frilly skirt.’

Mickey reached up into his own hair as though expecting pigtails to have been produced at the Doctor’s words. He was about to get back at him with his own retort when Rose interrupted their spat.

‘Hello, can we focus?’ she said, gaining everyone’s attention. ‘Does anyone notice anything strange about this? Rats in school?’ She looked between them all expectantly until Sarah Jane piped up.

‘Obviously they use them in Biology lessons. They dissect them,’ she said, glancing between the rats and Rose.

Rose frowned and shook her head, ‘no, no one dissects rats in school anymore. They haven’t done that for years’.

‘Anyway,’ the Doctor cut in, deciding there were better things to do than stand around talking about rats, especially when he had already formulated his own ideas around them. Ideas involving food. But food for what, now that was the important question. ‘Everything started when Mr. Finch arrived. We should go and check his office,’ he said and he chucked the rat in Mickey’s direction and he fumbled with it, dropping it on the floor along with all the others.

Rose and Sarah Jane led the way through the corridors towards the office, with the Doctor and Mickey following just behind.

‘So how long have you been travelling with him then?’ asked Sarah Jane.

It was a simple enough question but it made the Doctor eye the back of Rose’s head intently as though trying to hear her thoughts. He wondered if she knew or even if she remembered. The fourth was only two days away now and he still wasn’t sure what to do about it. Perhaps he would take her somewhere but only mention it if she brought it up. That seemed like a safe option.

Rose glanced at the other woman and shrugged. ‘Well it depends if you mean Earth time or Tardis time.’

The expectancy in the Doctor faded immediately at her answer. He knew where this was going and rolled his eyes. Rose never gave up a chance to tell this tale.

‘What do you mean?’ Sarah Jane asked with a frown.

‘Took me home once, said I’d only been gone twelve hours…’

‘Every time,’ he sighed, rubbing at his eye.

She glanced back at him, her eyes glinting playfully before turning to Sarah Jane and telling her the punch line. ‘I’d missed a whole year.’

Sarah Jane gasped in disbelief. ‘A year?’

‘It only happened once,’ he protested, giving Mickey a stern glance for laughing.

‘Oh yeah, I really enjoyed seeing Ian Dury and the Blockheads with Queen Victoria,’ she teased with a smirk.

He shook his head and sighed exasperatedly at her antics, though a moment later his eyes lit up upon noticing the door to the head masters office. He stepped around Rose to reach the door, pulling out his sonic screwdriver to unlock it. He eased it open and peered inside. His eyes trailed up to the ceiling following a strange stuttery hissing sound. ‘Rose,’ he said softly, sensing she was behind him, ‘you know how you used to think all the teachers slept in the school?’ He stepped to the side, his eyes still looking up above, allowing the others to enter the room too. ‘Well. They do.’

Their gazes rose upwards and their eyes widened with shock at what they saw before them. Upside down, clinging to poles attached to the ceiling, were a number of large fleshy bat-like creatures. Their wings were folded around themselves protectively as they slept, occasionally twitching or making small noises in their sleep.

Mickey spent a second longer looking up at the bats before he shook his head and said, ‘no way,’ and darted out of the room. He was quickly followed by Sarah Jane and Rose. The Doctor slowly brought up the rear, taking another glance at the creatures before shutting the door.

Mickey led the way, closely followed by Rose, legging it out of the front doors and into the grounds. Stopping, he bent down and rested his hands on his knees as he panted, ‘I am not going back in there. No way’.

‘Those were teachers,’ she panted alongside him.

The Doctor strode out of the school, looking completely unfazed in comparison but he was a 900 year old time lord and really it took a lot to faze him these days. Instead he barrelled straight into the observations he had made, ‘when Finch arrived, he brought with him seven new teachers, four dinner ladies and a nurse. Thirteen. Thirteen big bat people. Come on.’ He turned and started to head back inside, the group followed but Mickey loudly protested.

‘Come on, you’ve got to be kidding!’

He stopped and rolled his eyes. ‘I need the Tardis. I’ve got to analyse that oil from the kitchen,’ he told Mickey.

Sarah Jane stepped towards the Doctor immediately, excitedly taking his arm as she said, ‘I might be able to help you there. I’ve got something to show you’. She dragged him away from the school, followed by a bewildered looking Rose and Mickey. She led them to her car in the school car park and opened up the boot to reveal a green tartan blanket covering something bulky. The Doctor leant inside and pulled the blanket off as the others watched from behind.

His face lit up and he beamed at the sight before him exclaiming, ‘K9!’

A silver robotic dog sat in the boot of the car. It’s paintwork old and rusting and one of the large side panels on its body was unattached revealing the dog’s inner workings of tubes, wires and all sorts of futuristic technology.

‘Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, allow me to introduce K9 - well, K9 Mark III to be precise,’ the Doctor continued excitedly and studying the dog eagerly.

Rose and Mickey gave each other a look. ‘Why does he look so…disco?’ she asked.

‘Oi,’ he complained, standing upright again. ‘Listen, in the year five thousand this was cutting edge. What’s happened to him?’ he asked Sarah Jane, turning back to look at his old friend.

‘Oh, one day he just…,’ she shrugged and made a “poof” sound, ‘...nothing’.

‘Well, didn’t you try and get him repaired?’ he asked incredulously, his voice going higher than usual once more in shock that she had done nothing for the poor dog.

‘Well it's not like getting parts for a mini metro,’ she protested as the Doctor played with K9’s wires a little, wanting to fix him up immediately. ‘Besides,’ she continued, ‘the technology inside him could rewrite human science. I couldn’t show him to anyone’.

He bent down and addressed K9 like a real dog, cooing at him as he said, ‘oh what’s the nasty lady done to you eh?’ He reached out and began petting him, scratching behind the little antenna ears that sat atop of his head with a grin on his face. Sarah Jane watched over the Doctor’s shoulder fondly and Rose couldn’t help but smile at the Doctor’s actions too. He was mad and that was just a tin dog but it was the Doctor and seeing him all happy and excited was one of her favourite things.

Chapter 11: Chips and Toast

Chapter Text

The Doctor was a terrible backseat driver and it really cracked Rose up when Sarah Jane told him off. His face was a picture. Rose directed them to a nearby chip shop because she was hungry and ‘they have tables where you can work on your tin dog’. He had never been to so many chip shops in his life but he would go to a lot more trying to find the one that had the best chips so Rose could try them. They should have a book of chip shops like they do of pubs in the UK, it would be very useful, he imagined.

It was late and the chip shop was quiet, they were the only customers inside. The establishment was small and had little tables adorned with red gingham table cloths that were made out of some sort of plastic that made them easy to clean though they were still slightly sticky with age. The Doctor had set K9 down atop of one of the tables by the window and began to try and fix the dog with his sonic screwdriver as he chatted with Sarah Jane who sat beside him. Mickey joined Rose at the counter where she was waiting for her chips. She was looking over at the Doctor and Sarah Jane thoughtfully, listening in on their conversation because in a place as small and as quiet as this you couldn’t really miss it. Mickey had read her look rather differently though and decided that this was the perfect time to brag. ‘You see, what’s impressive is that it's been nearly an hour since we met her and I still haven't said “I told you so”,’ he told her, smiling co*ckily.

Rose turned and stared at the man, her brow furrowed, ‘what are you on about?’ Then she glanced up at the lady behind the counter who was indicating whether she would like salt and vinegar and Rose gave her a small smile and a nod.

‘I have prepared a little “I was right dance” that I can show you later,’ Mickey continued with a laugh.

‘Two quid, love,’ the lady said and Rose dived into her pocket to retrieve the money before taking the polystyrene box filled with the hot golden chips. At the sight of them she suddenly felt as though she was starving and stabbed one with her fork and bit into it enthusiastically.

Mickey collected his tea that the lady had placed on the counter, still having a dig at Rose, ‘all this time you’ve been giving it, “he’s different”, when the truth is, he’s just like any other bloke’.

She shook her head and walked to the other table by the window. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said sitting down, her back to the Doctor. Mickey sat opposite but gave up his teasing after a strong glare from Rose.

Over at the other table the Doctor was fiddling with some wires as Sarah Jane watched on. ‘I thought of you on Christmas Day. This Christmas just gone,’ she began. ‘Great big spaceship overhead, I thought oh yeah. I bet he’s up there’.

He gave her a grin. ‘Right on top of it, yeah.’

‘And Rose?’ She asked, tilting her head to the left to indicate the other woman.

The Doctor followed the nod and glanced at the back of her golden blonde hair, a small smile playing on his lips. ‘Oh yeah,’ he said a bit reminiscently, remembering the eventful day.

Sarah Jane gazed at the look on his face with a mixture of warmth and sorrow pasted across her own. She wanted him to be happy, of course she did, how could she not when he gave her so much, showed her so much and the way he looked at Rose spoke volumes. There was still something inside that tugged at that happiness she felt for him, something that said it should have been her. But it couldn’t have been because he left her and it had taken her a long time to come to terms with that. If she was being honest with herself she was still coming to terms with it. Now there he was sitting next to her, fixing her canine companion, a huge reminder of the man she lost. There was no better time to ask the question she had been pondering all those years. ‘Did I do something wrong?’ She said, glancing down at the table. The Doctor’s head shot round to look at her as she continued. ‘Because you never came back for me. You just dumped me.’

He frowned. ‘I told you. I was called back home and in those days humans weren’t allowed.’

She looked back up at him, right into his eyes, trying to get him to understand how much he had hurt her. ‘I waited for you. I missed you.’

The Doctor smiled and shook his head, brushing off her remarks. ‘Oh you didn’t need me. You were getting on with your life.’

‘You were my life,’ she stated, the words easily coming out because they were true. He stared at her for a moment sensing the truth in her words and, unable to know what to do with it, he went back to fixing K9.

‘You know what the most difficult thing was? She continued, allowing her hurt to show a little in her tone. ‘Coping with what happens next and with what doesn’t happen next. 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?’

His brow furrowed. ‘All those things you saw, do you want me to apologise for that?’

‘No,’ she scorned. ‘But we get a taste of the splendour and then we have to go back.’

‘But look at you, you’re investigating,’ he said enthusiastically as he smiled at her, trying to placate her. Trying to prove to her that her life had more meaning than just the years they went off gallivanting in the Tardis together. ‘You found that school; you’re doing what we always did.’

She didn’t share his joy, her face was stony. ‘You could've come back.’

The joy on his own face vanished in a second and he shook his head. ‘I couldn’t.’

‘Why not?’ She whispered.

He didn’t answer. He simply looked at her, his dark brown eyes swimming with so many things he could never tell her, then he set back to work on K9, leaving her question forever unanswered.

If the Doctor had been watching Rose during his conversation with Sarah Jane he would have seen her shoulders tense when they spoke about Sarah Jane’s departure. He had sent her away before but then she found her way back to him. He had also left her at her mum’s but then he had come back to her. But before her was living proof, someone who had travelled with him before, maybe as good of friends as he and Rose were, and he had left her behind and never came back. Was that her future? The Doctor was just going to disappear one day and that would be that. Would he do that to her? She thought that they were different. That maybe, just maybe, there was something between them.

Her thoughts were cut off by the electronic whirring of K9 behind her and the Doctor’s shouts of joy. He banged on the table as he jumped up from his seat, K9’s head lifting and ears wagging as his electronic voice said, ‘Master’.

The Doctor was ecstatic at the greeting. ‘He recognises me.’

K9 nodded his head and wagged both his ears and tail. ‘Affirmative.’

The Doctor beamed again before leaning around to the next table where Rose and Mickey sat. He nabbed a chip to which he received the usual ‘oi’ and a glare. He smirked and winked at her as he munched on the chip which was far, far better than the rubbish they had at the school. ‘You got that oil?’ he asked her, holding his hand out expectantly.

‘Yeah,’ she said dismissively and the Doctor frowned at her tone as she stood and reached into her pocket to take out the small glass jar he had given her earlier. She pressed it into his hand without looking up at his face. He studied her for a moment longer before unscrewing the lid. He was about to dip his finger into it when Rose’s voice stopped him.

‘I wouldn’t touch it though, that dinner lady got all scorched, remember?’ she warned.

He glanced at her as she finally looked at him; whatever she had been feeling earlier had been smothered by her worry for him. He shook his head and assured her, ‘I’m no dinner lady. And I don’t often say that’. He dipped his finger into the oil and smeared it onto the sensor that K9 had extended towards him. ‘Here we go,’ he said, screwing the lid back on and placing the jar on the counter beside him. He crossed his arms and watched as K9 retracted the sensor and began to work on the analysis. ‘Come on boy, here we go.’

K9’s robotic voice stuttered. ‘Oil. Ex - ex - ex - extract ana - an - analysing..’

Mickey chuckled at it, delighted at the weird tin dog. ‘Listen to it, man. That’s a voice!’ He exclaimed.

‘Careful. That’s my dog,’ Sarah Jane scolded and Mickey had the decency to look sheepish.

‘Confirmation of analysis,’ announced K9, bringing the room back to the matter at hand. ‘Substance is Krillitane Oil.’

The Doctor’s eyes widened as the rest of the group turned to him for answers. ‘They’re Krillitanes,’ he breathed.

‘Is that bad?’ asked Rose and the Doctor nodded.

‘Very. Think of how bad things could possibly be and add another suitcase full of bad,’ he confirmed darkly.

‘And what are Krillitanes?’ said Sarah Jane.

He looked around at the group as he explained in his usual rambling way, unfolding one of his arms so he could wave it about to help make his points. ‘They’re a composite race. Just like your culture is a mixture of traditions from all sorts of countries, people you’ve invaded or been invaded by. You’ve got bits of - bits of Viking, bits of France, bits of whatever. The Krillitanes are the same. An amalgam of the races they’ve conquered. But they take physical aspects as well. They cherry pick the best bits from the people they destroy.’ He pulled a face as he thought, scolding himself for not realising it sooner but knowing he couldn’t have known who they were in the first place. How could he have? He shook his head. ‘That’s why I didn’t recognise them. The last time I saw Krillitanes they looked just like us except they had really long necks.’

Rose stared at him, her eyes wide during his explanation. ‘What are they doing here?’ she asked.

He paused for a moment before he had a horrible realisation. ‘It’s the children,’ he said softly. ‘They’re doing something to the children.’

The Doctor spent the next few minutes pacing, trying to figure out exactly what the Krillitanes wanted with the children. He ran his hands through his hair as he did so, muttering darkly under his breath every so often. Rose sat back down and watched, though her mind trailed elsewhere knowing there wasn’t much she could do about the situation. She thought of Sarah Jane and the Doctor leaving her and tried, really tried to believe he wouldn’t do the same to her.

When Sarah Jane asked him if she could return K9 to the car he nodded vaguely as he paced. She turned back to her dog and asked Mickey for assistance, he agreed and helped her carry him to her car, which was parked just outside the shop, and they placed him in the boot. It was easy enough once they had made it through the entrance and they idly chatted about life with the Doctor.

He stopped pacing with a groan as soon as the door closed behind them. He sighed and looked over at Rose who was staring off into the distance lost in her thoughts. ‘Hey,’ he said softly, gaining her attention, ‘come on’. He nodded to the door and she stood up and followed him outside.

Her heart was beating a little harder than usual and her thoughts screamed in her mind to be let out because she had to know. She had to. Just so she could at least prepare herself. And he had to know that she really didn’t want to leave him. ‘So is that what you do to us?’ she asked to the back of his long brown coat as the door swung shut behind her.

He turned with a frown, his thoughts still embedded in the puzzle that was the Krillitanes. ‘What?’

‘Just go and leave us behind,’ she accused. He sighed and rubbed his face. ‘Is - is that what you’re gonna do to me?’

Fiercely shaking his head he adamantly said, ‘no, not to you.’

‘Why not?’ She protested. ‘You were close with Sarah Jane once and-’

‘No,’ he tried to cut her off but she spoke over him, her voice raised and harsh.

‘And you left her behind. Why not me? What’s so different?’ She held her arms up in the air questioningly as she stared at him demanding to know. To know what she never could. What he could never tell her.

‘Because - because - I -’ he stuttered, unable to get the words out because he really couldn’t do that to her. Or to himself. She was a Human and he was a Time Lord. He was old and ancient and she was so young but even still he would live way past her timeline and that might break him if he let himself give in and admit it to her. Had he been human he would have jumped at the chance. He knew she felt some sort of attraction to him, her pheromones were overwhelming sometimes but he wasn’t human. This. Right now. Was what they would always have to be.

‘What Doctor?’ she breathed. Her eyes studied his face astutely and he stared right back as he tried to portray his feelings, begging her to know without him admitting them because truly that was the best he could do.

‘You can spend the rest of your life with me,’ he said before swallowing thickly at the glossy look in Rose’s eyes. He breathed deeply and continued. ‘But I can’t spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on. Alone. That’s the curse of the Time Lords,’ he finished bitterly. Their eyes locked, each saying so much and yet so little, but another voice spoke quietly into the night distracting them.

‘Time Lord,’ said the voice and the Doctor and Rose instantly turned and looked up tracing the voice to the roof of the building opposite where Mr. Finch and a Krillitrane were standing on a ledge. The Krillitane screeched and swooped down towards the group. They all ducked, the Doctor protectively placing his arm over Rose to help prevent her getting attacked. Its talons nearly grazed Sarah Jane instead before it rose back into the air and flew away.

‘Was that a Krillitane?’ Sarah Jane breathed as they stood back up.

Rose followed it with her gaze, her face lined with confusion. ‘But it didn’t even touch her, it just flew off. What did it do that for?’

‘A warning,’ the Doctor muttered darkly, watching as the creature flew high into the sky towards the full moon. ‘Dammit,’ he groaned and once again started to pace and run his hands through his hair as he ranted. ‘Now they know we’re onto them. We can’t go back to the school not tonight, too many of them versus us, too many variables, but we need to find out what they’re doing to the children. What they need them for.’ He stopping pacing and looked at the group. ‘We’ll have to go back tomorrow, I don’t think they’d risk being out in the open when the children are around and maybe we’ll get some questions answered. Come on,’ he nodded his head to Rose before starting to step away in the general direction of the school.

She shook her head at him. ‘Where are you going?’

He turned and frowned as if the answer should be obvious. ‘To the - agh the Tardis is in the school,’ he groaned again at his realisation, grabbing at his hair in frustration.

‘Looks like you’re on the sofa again mister,’ she lightly teased and smirked as he let go of his hair and pulled a face at her. ‘And you better fix whatever you did to the toaster, I’ve been getting non-stop complaints from mum,’ she warned.

‘I was improving it,’ he protested.

‘To bellow out more black smoke than Battersea?’ She retorted.

He gave her a glare as he grumbled, ‘I wasn’t finished’.

Sarah Jane watched the pair with amusem*nt. She realised she was getting a glimpse into a side of the Doctor that she had never witnessed before, had never known was there, not until Rose brought it out of him. When they had spoken in the gym earlier his eyes had become so dark, filled with pain and sorrow but now all she saw was affection in the way he looked at Rose. Maybe even more than affection. Sure he had looked delighted to see her again and looked at her with affection too. But the looks he gave to Rose were so different and they held so much more meaning. ‘Are they always like this,’ she asked Mickey quietly.

‘Yup,’ he confirmed, crossing his arms as he glanced at the pair.

She nodded and watched them bicker a few moments longer, a smile tugging at her lips, before she interrupted them. ‘Come on, I’ll drop you all off,’ she announced.

**********

Jackie Tyler was about to go to bed when they entered the flat. Sarah Jane had kindly dropped them off on the road at the edge of the Powell Estate where Mickey headed to his flat and Rose and the Doctor to the Tyler’s. They had agreed to meet at the roadside in the morning to go back to the school with Sarah Jane driving them there once more.

Jackie grumbled a little at their late arrival but agreed to them stopping the night, grabbing some spare blankets and dumping them into the Doctor’s arms before going into her room to sleep, seemingly too tired or shocked by their appearance to mention the toaster which the Doctor was quietly pleased about. He hadn’t been looking forward to that confrontation. Rose bid him goodnight shortly after and then it was just him in the flat, standing in the living room wondering how his life had come to this. He could hear Rose’s voice telling him it was domestic and he chuckled to himself.

He didn’t bother to unfold the blankets he had put down on one of the sofa cushions, having no intention to sleep. He laid his coat and suit jacket over the armchair and grabbed the toaster from the kitchen. Clearing a place on the coffee table he set the toaster down and rolled up his shirt sleeves, just remembering to grab his glasses and screwdriver from his jacket pocket before sitting down on the carpet. His back rested against the sofa and his long legs stretched beneath the coffee table and beyond to the other side. The toaster was filled with lots of fiddly components and he grumbled a little as he worked, two hours flying by unnoticed. He was about done when he heard a door creak in the hallway and the soft padding footsteps of Rose approaching.

The Doctor glanced around at her, straining his neck a little from his position on the floor. ‘Can’t sleep? He asked softly.

She stood in the archway wearing a white camisole and grey jogging bottoms looking at him a little sheepishly as she shook her head and simply said, ‘thirsty,’ and pointed in the direction of the kitchen as he nodded in understanding. He watched as she walked into the kitchen then turned back to the toaster a little smile forming on his lips as he heard the clink of two mugs as she set about making tea. He glanced back up as she entered the living room once more, thanking her as she passed him a cup before she lowered herself onto the floor beside him and settled back against the sofa. It didn’t take long before she sighed and put her mug on the now mostly toaster-parts-free coffee table. She reached behind her and grabbed one of the blankets intended for the Doctor and wrapped it around her bare arms before picking up her tea and hugging it between her hands. The Doctor took a sip of his every so often as he put the final pieces back together. He didn’t say anything and neither did Rose; she was simply content with watching him.

‘There,’ he said with a grin, the buzzing of the sonic fading as the last screw was fixed into place.

‘And it’s back to normal?’ She asked with a smirk in her voice and he rolled his eyes.

‘Yes, back to normal. Though it’ll toast fifty percent quicker,’ he added and she raised her eyebrows at him. He protested and assured her that it would be fine but Rose just hummed uncertainly. The conversation faded away as the Doctor took off his glasses, laying them on the coffee table and picked up his tea which was just about warm enough to finish off.

‘Alright?’ he asked softly when they had both set their empty mugs down. He had noticed Rose biting at her nails and could tell something was bothering her.

She nodded and sighed, ‘yeah’. When he raised his eyebrow she added, ‘just thinking’.

‘About?’ he gently pressed.

She worried her lip for a moment before she said, ‘you know Sarah Jane?’

‘Yeah…’ he said a little warily.

‘Have there been many others who have travelled with you?’

He had been expecting that question for a while and since meeting a former companion it was obvious that it would get brought up now. He nodded. ‘A few yeah, here and there.’ His answer was perhaps a little vague but it was still the truth, she deserved that even if he didn’t particularly want to delve deeper into his past.

‘Human?’

‘Not all of them.’

Rose turned to face him fully, reaching the crux of her questioning. ‘Do you keep in touch with any of them?’ She studied him with big hazel eyes, noticing every blink, every twitch and every clench of his jaw. He swallowed and shook his head. ‘Why not?’ she asked, her brows creasing in the sorrowful way they did.

He glanced away for a moment, closing his eyes tightly before looking up at her again. All she could see were his eyes swimming with all the pain, hurt and loss he had ever felt for his companions. ‘I don’t age,’ he told her with a slight waver in his voice. ‘I regenerate. But humans decay. You wither and you die…’ His words trailed off as he stared at Rose and her look of complete understanding. He was taken aback a little. His actions had always been selfish, brought out of self preservation. Companions had died, left him or he left them and it all hurt. Even if he left them and didn’t watch them grow old, it still hurt. He knew after leaving them that they would age but he allowed himself to believe they wouldn’t. Allowed himself to believe that they all continued in their human lives looking just the same because he had known so many and lost so many and he was so tired of losing once again. Maybe it was unfair to them, him taking them home and offering no alternative but he would have gone mad a long time ago if he didn’t. Or madder than he already was. In some ways it truly was a curse to be a Time Lord.

‘And you carry on alone,’ Rose stated softly.

He nodded his head and let out a faint, ‘yeah’.

She glanced down and reached for his left hand that lay limply in his lap. He watched as she began entwining their hands, their fingers slotting together in the perfect way they did before she squeezed firmly, grounding him in a way he didn’t know he needed. Placing their hands in her lap she tugged his arm close and hugged it, letting her head rest on his shoulder. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply trying to focus on the present, on the scent of vanilla, honey and citrus that would forever be Rose’s as well as the comforting heat and weight of her body as she leant into his side. They sat like that until the Doctor could no longer feel his arm and he decided to alter their positions. The blanket that had been around Rose’s shoulders was long forgotten and pooled around her waist, but it was replaced with the warmth of the Doctor as he lifted their entwined hands to hook his arm around her shoulders allowing him to pull her closer and gain the feeling back in his arm. He rubbed his thumb over hers and leant down to place a kiss into her hair, trying to show he appreciated her comfort. She sighed contentedly at his actions.

Eventually he heard her breathing start to even out from where she had rested her head on his shoulder. ‘Rose?’ He whispered and she hummed a little. ‘You shouldn’t sleep here, you should go to bed.’

She shook her head, her hair tickling his neck. ‘Comfy,’ she mumbled sleepily.

He smiled a little because he was too. ‘You won’t feel that way when you wake up in the morning with a cricked neck,’ he told her and she groaned, making him chuckle softly. He loosened his grip on her and she complained when he shuffled and stood up, holding out his hands to her to pull her upright too. His smile grew as she looked up at him with bleary eyes and a grumpy face. She eventually grabbed his wiggling fingers and allowed him to help her up and lead her to her room.

‘Goodnight Rose,’ he said at her door.

She opened it and looked back at him, still tired but a little more awake now that she had moved. ‘You gonna be alright?’

He stuck his hands in his pockets and nodded. ‘I’m always alright.’

She studied him for a moment before accepting his words. Not believing them but accepting them. ‘Goodnight Doctor,’ she said and stepped into her bedroom, shutting the door softly behind her.

Chapter 12: School's Out Forever

Chapter Text

The next day the group exited Sarah Jane’s car and headed towards the school building just as the morning bell rang. The Doctor dished out instructions as they went. He sent Rose and Sarah Jane to the computer labs in the Maths department to look at the hardware they were using. He threw his sonic in their general direction and Sarah Jane caught it. Mickey complained about his task of staying outside and being surveillance but after his poor performance the day before the Doctor wasn’t taking any more risks with the man. Sarah Jane pitied him and offered her car keys so he could at least sit there whilst he waited, plus K9 was in there to keep him company. Mickey took the keys and grumbled all the way back to the car and didn’t let up even when he was inside. The Doctor had set himself his own task of tracking down Mr. Finch so he could finally have a word with him. This, the Doctor thought, turned out to be a complete waste of time when he eventually found him by the swimming pool. He learnt a more recent background of the Krillitanes and the headmaster's true name, Brother Lassa, but had gained no information on what they were doing with the kids. Instead he’d just be taunted and told to work it out for himself. Why did no one ever want to tell him their plans? After his disappointing meeting he made his way to the Maths department to see if Rose and Sarah Jane had made more progress than he had.

Row after row of computers filled the classroom, each one of them turned on but locked onto a screensaver of the school's logo. Sarah Jane was on her knees under one of the desks trying to use the sonic on the CPU’s which were tucked away under there. She chatted with Rose who was sitting on a nearby chair idly pressing at a keyboard with no results to show for it on the monitor.

‘So how long did you travel with the Doctor then?’ She asked Sarah Jane, a little bored with nothing else to do but wait for the sonic to do something.

‘Oh, about three and a half years I’d say,’ she mumbled from below the desk, frowning at the screwdriver as she sonicked wire after wire to no avail. ‘It can be a bit hard to keep track of things like that.’

‘Yeah tell me about it,’ Rose chuckled.

‘Oh it’s not working,’ Sarah Jane complained as she crawled back out.

‘Let me have a go.’

She dropped the sonic into Rose’s awaiting hand and they switched positions. ‘So what about you? You never did get round to saying.’

‘About a year I think,’ Rose murmured, and then sat up, almost banging her head on the underside of the desk. ‘Hang on what’s the date?’

‘Erm, the third of March I believe.’

‘Oh my God,’ she breathed. ‘It’s tomorrow. It will be a whole year tomorrow.’ She sat on her heels on the classroom floor in awe, staring off into the distance thinking about how her life became this impossible in the best of ways.

‘Get you,’ said Sarah Jane as she watched Rose with a small smile, easily imagining the thoughts going through her mind. ‘Bet you’ve seen some things out there haven't you?’ She asked wistfully.

Rose turned and nodded. ‘I’m sure you have too,’ she said with a knowing grin.

‘Of course!’ Sarah Jane cried out, excited to finally tell someone of her adventures. ‘Let’s see, I’ve met mummies,’ she began, listing them off on her fingers as she said them.

‘I’ve met ghosts,’ Rose said just as excitedly.

‘Robots. Lots of robots.’

‘Slitheen in Downing Street.’

Sarah Jane raised her eyebrows at that. ‘Ah, you were with him for that one were you? What about Daleks?’

‘Met the Emperor,’ Rose stated impressively.

‘Anti-Matter monsters.’

‘Gas mask zombies.’

‘Real living dinosaurs.’

‘Real living werewolf.’

‘The Loch Ness Monster.’

Rose paused and stared at her with a frown. ‘Seriously?’ Sarah Jane nodded and began to laugh at the absurdity of it all and Rose quickly joined in. ‘It’s mad, it’s just mad travelling with him,’ she sighed after calming down, a big grin still on her face.

‘It always is,’ Sarah Jane agreed.

Rose stood up and brushed her knees off, having started to get pins and needles in her feet. She looked at Sarah Jane thoughtfully. ‘With you, did he do that thing where he’d explain something at like ninety miles per hour and you’d go, “what?” and he’d look at you like you’d just dribbled on your shirt?’

She nodded before Rose had finished her question. ‘All the time,’ she chuckled. Rose shook her head and laughed fondly. ‘Does he still stroke bits of the Tardis?’ Sarah Jane added.

‘Yeah! Yeah he does,’ Rose exclaimed. ‘I’m like, “do you two want to be alone?”’ At this point they were in hysterics which weren’t helped one bit when an oblivious Doctor strode into the room already asking questions before he had observed the scene before him.

‘How’s it going?’ he asked, stopping by the row of computers closest to the door with his hands in his pockets. They saw him and simply laughed harder. He frowned, not having a clue what was going on. ‘What? Listen, I need to find out what’s programmed inside these,’ he said, trying to get them back to the matter at hand. At their continued hysterics his voice became a little whiny, ‘what? Stop it,’ he complained. ‘Oh for goodness sake.’ he shook his head and walked over to the pair, grumbling affectionately at them. Really their behaviour warmed his hearts even if their laughter was a little mistimed as he was trying to stop the Krillitanes after all. But he adored both women and seeing them together and as joyous as they were buoyed his spirits immensely. ‘Give it here,’ he said to Rose, taking his screwdriver from her. ‘Can't leave you two alone for five minutes,’ he scolded playfully, pointing the screwdriver at them threateningly as they began to calm down. He dove under the teacher’s desk at the front of the class, sonicking and pulling out wires as he worked. Hooking some of the wires around his neck he stood up, holding part of the computer that was rammed with more wires plugged into the back of it but, as the others found, his sonic was doing nothing. ‘I can’t shift it,’ he groaned.

Sarah Jane was watching him anxiously. ‘I thought the sonic screwdriver could open anything.’

‘Anything except a deadlock seal. There’s got to be something inside here. What are they teaching those kids?’ He raced around to the other computers trialling the sonic on them too. Rose and Sarah Jane followed and began typing on the keyboards again, seeing if there was some sort of code or combination of keys they hadn’t tried yet. A few moments later the school logo on the monitors vanished, replaced by a green glowing screen showing a rotating cube with some strange symbols on it and a code at the side of the screen also using those symbols. The trio stood as one, the green glow alerting them to the new screen on the monitors.

‘Well you wanted the program, there it is,’ stated Sarah Jane as they all stared at the large screen at the front of the room, the glow of it so powerfully bright it made their skin have a sickly green hue.

The Doctor squinted at it, his mouth slightly open as he studied it intently. ‘Some sort of code…’ he trailed off, trying to work it out in his head. His eyes grew wide as he breathed, ‘no - no they can’t be…’ He shook his head and frowned. ‘The Skasis Paradigm,’ he announced bitterly, still unable to believe that someone would even do such a thing. ‘They’re trying to crack the Skasis Paradigm.’

Rose and Sarah Jane looked at him lost. ‘The Skasis what?’ the latter asked.

‘The - God maker,’ he said ominously, still transfixed on the screen before him. ‘The universal theory. Crack that equation and you’ve got control of the building blocks of the universe. Time and space and matter, yours to control.

‘What, and the kids are like a giant computer?’ Rose asked, looking up at him with furrowed brows.

‘Yes.’ He began to pace a little, he always thought better when he paced. ‘And their learning power is being accelerated by the oil,’ he exclaimed. It was all coming together in his mind now. ‘That oil from the kitchens, it works as a - as a - conducting agent. Makes the kids cleverer.’

Rose looked at him with wide eyes, ‘But that oil’s on the chips. I’ve been eating them.’

‘What’s fifty-nine times thirty-five?’

‘Two thousand and sixty-five,’ she answered immediately. The Doctor raised his eyebrows and gave her a meaningful look. ‘Oh my God,’ she breathed.

‘But why use children? Can’t it be adults? Asked Sarah Jane.

He shook his head. ‘No it’s got to be children. The God maker needs imagination to crack it. They’re not just using the children’s brains to break the code,’ he paused a little for dramatic effect before sinisterly adding, ‘they’re using their souls’.

‘Let the lesson begin.’ Mr. Finch had stepped into the room behind the Doctor, who spun round to see the headmaster. He slowly approached the trio, finally telling them of the Krillitane’s plans. ‘Think of it Doctor, with the Paradigm solved reality becomes clay in our hands. We can shape the universe and improve it.’

‘Oh yeah? The whole of creation with the face of Mr. Finch?’ He said a little sarcastically, his hands resting on his hips. ‘Call me old fashioned, but I like things as they are.’

Mr. Finch’s brow creased and he tilted his head a little questioningly. ‘You act like such a radical and yet all you want to do is preserve the old order. Think of the changes that could be made if this power was used for good.’

‘What, by someone like you?’ The Doctor said, scepticism lacing each word as the headmaster came to stand just before him.

‘No. Someone like you,’ he said softly. The Doctor stared at the man silently, having not expected such an answer. ‘The Paradigm gives us power but you could give us wisdom. Become a God at my side. Imagine what you could do, think of the civilisations you could save. Perganon, Assinta. Your own people Doctor,’ he breathed, his words really catching the Doctor out now. He swallowed a little thickly as Mr. Finch continued. ‘Standing tall. The Time Lords - reborn.’

‘Doctor, don’t listen to him,’ Sarah Jane pleaded.

‘And you,’ Mr. Finch said, stepping around the Doctor to address her and Rose, ‘could be with him throughout eternity. Never ageing. Never dying. Their lives are so fleeting.’ He turned back to the Doctor to see the full effect his taunts had. ‘So many goodbyes. How lonely you must be, Doctor. Join us.’

He glanced over at Rose, his jaw clenched tightly as their eyes locked, both thinking of the conversation the previous night. Mr. Finch’s words were so painful and yet tantalising because they held so much truth. What he would give to regain that feeling in his mind, the presence of other Time Lords. He had felt so constantly empty since he had ended it all. Ended them all. They weren’t the only ones he had lost though, nor would lose. All the companions he had ever travelled with, gone. So many goodbyes indeed. He lowered his head and closed his eyes. Eternity was a long time; he would be the first to say so. He was so old and so tired. It wasn’t fair. He couldn’t put them through that. He couldn’t put Rose through that no matter how much he wished she could stay by his side.

‘No,’ he said under his breath.

The smile that had been growing on the headmaster's lips as the Doctor thought was wiped from his face. ‘What?’ he asked with a frown.

The Doctor gritted his teeth and said it again, louder and with finality. He grabbed the chair beside him and hurled it into the screen at the front of the room which smashed spectacularly. ‘Out,’ he yelled to his companions and they fled the classroom.

The trio ran through corridors and down a set of stairs, bumping into Mickey and a student called Kenny at the bottom of them. The Krillitanes caught up to them at that point, the large bat-like creatures pounced along the walls and floor as quick as they could towards the group who turned and legged it in the opposite direction, ending up in the school hall. They found themselves as a dead end and soon they were surrounded by the Krillitanes and Mr. Finch in his favoured human form. The creatures dove and scratched and screamed as they attacked the group who were trying to bat them off and kick them away. Luckily K9 arrived and shot at the Krillitanes with his red laser beams causing a distraction and allowing them to flee from the creatures once more. After hiding out in a physics lab they headed to the kitchens, the Doctor having figured out that the oil the Krillitanes were using must be toxic to them and he wanted to use it against them. He sent Mickey to get all the children out of the school and the rest of the group raced to the kitchens, meeting K9 along the way. The barrels containing the oil were deadlock sealed, however, and only K9’s laser could destroy them and therefore the Krillitanes. The Doctor shooed his entourage out into the school grounds where the children were gathering and managed to get himself and Sarah Jane just clear of the building before it blew up with the most tremendous bang. Everyone but Sarah Jane celebrated. She had just lost her long-time companion, even if he was just a daft metal dog.

Chapter 13: The World Doesn't End

Chapter Text

They went back to the Tardis after the fires had cooled down at the remains of Deffry Vale High School, though Sarah Jane did not come with them. She said she needed some time and space, and not the kind that the Tardis could provide, so drove herself back home to Bannerman Road after saying her goodbyes.

The Tardis didn’t have a scorch mark on her of course and it wasn’t long before she rematerialised in her usual spot on the Powell Estate.

‘Here we are, home sweet home,’ the Doctor announced as the Tardis gently thudded onto the ground. ‘Pretty explosive start but its early afternoon still loads of time for more…or not,’ he added having glanced over at Rose yawning away as she sat on the jump seat.

‘Sorry,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I think my lack of sleep has caught up with me. I might have a nap to be honest.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘You humans, you sleep half your lives away.’

‘Yeah, well we don’t all have superior biology,’ she quipped and stood up from the chair with a smirk. He sniffed a little indignantly at her remark.

‘I guess I’ll head off then,’ Mickey said, a little put out. Rose and the Doctor snapped their heads around to the man who was standing forgotten on the other side of the console.

‘Mickey!’ the Doctor said a little too enthusiastically.

‘You forgot I was here didn’t you?’

He frowned and shook his head as he said, ‘no, no of course not,’ in the least believable way possible.

Mickey looked over at Rose who was shaking her head just as adamantly before he glanced back at the Doctor again. ‘Do you think I could come with you? I’m kind of tired of being the one left behind and forgotten about and I’m not the tin dog either. I want to see what’s out there.’

He raised his eyebrow and looked at Mickey considering his words and with a brief glance at Rose, who he missed mouthing “no” at him, he agreed.

Mickey laughed jubilantly but he soon stopped upon noticing Rose’s less than pleased look. ‘Rose, is that okay?’

‘No, great. Why not?’ she said rather unconvincingly causing the Doctor to eye her with confusion. He may not have a particular fondness for Mickey but he knew Rose did, they were together after all so why she didn’t want Mickey around he had no idea.

‘Right, so I’ll just head back to my flat,’ Mickey told them after an awkward pause. ‘But I’ll see you at the party later, yeah?’ He said, directing his question to Rose.

She nodded. ‘Yeah, we’ll be there.’

‘We?’ He said surprised as he nodded his head towards the Doctor. ‘You mean he’s coming to a party?’

‘Standing right here.’ The Doctor stated, not looking up from the monitor on the console.

Mickey smirked. ‘Right sorry, see you later then,’ he said and the Tardis door squeaked behind him as it shut.

Rose went off for her nap after asking the Doctor to wake her up in a couple of hours if she wasn’t already. He agreed and spent that time in the Tardis’ workshop and storage rooms gathering all the pieces he would need for his latest project. Most would say he was a hoarder of junk but he would strongly disagree, most people didn’t have the imagination that he had to turn that “junk” into something useful. He often enjoyed visiting the markets on other worlds to pick up a few interesting looking pieces that no one else would bat an eyelid at and right now all that scavenging was coming in handy. He was trying to make a new K9, K9 Mark IV, and when he saw Sarah Jane again he was hoping to give it to her as an apology for blowing up the last one.

After her nap Rose went to her mum’s flat to get ready for the party. Her mum, being a hairdresser, was going to do her hair for her and she had no idea what she was going to wear yet. The Doctor complained to her over his shoulder as he tinkered in the workshop about how long it took for her to get ready for things and she took a dig at him saying how he didn’t take long because he wore the same thing all the time. She laughed at his grumblings and left him to it.

Just to prove Rose Tyler wrong he arrived at the Tyler flat in a different suit after he found it hanging in his wardrobe, the Tardis having placed it there. He nearly didn’t pick it out, unsure whether she was taking sides with Rose again and heavily hinting he changed outfits but, after some consideration, he shrugged and thought it would help him make his point just as much. It was blue, still pinstripes but blue. He paired it with a white oxford and a red tie with blue flowers on. Of course he wore his chucks as well, though a red pair to go with the tie.

‘Oh look at you, you’ve changed,’ Jackie remarked as soon as he closed the door behind him.

He sighed. ‘I’ll have you know I wear similar but very different things all the time, thank you.’

‘Cause you do,’ she said in an appeasing manner before shouting through to Rose telling her the Doctor was here. ‘Come sit down whilst you wait.’ He sat on the sofa as she busied herself with cleaning up her hairdressing equipment from the coffee table. ‘Saw that school you were at on the news earlier. They’re saying it was a gas leak and faulty electricals in the kitchens but Rose said something about big bats.’ She scrunched her nose up a little in confusion before she continued. ‘I’m just glad you managed to get all the kids out of there before it went up.’

‘Oh that was all Mickey.’

‘Mickey?’ she asked in disbelief, pausing her tidying to look at the Doctor.

‘Oh yeah,’ he nodded and sniffed as he considered the man. ‘He didn’t do too badly I suppose.’

‘Well good for him,’ Jackie stated proudly, collecting the last few items and then taking the lot into her bedroom to put away before rejoining the Doctor in the living room and idly chatting some more.

It wasn’t long before Rose stepped out of her bedroom, immediately talking about her outfit choices as though she had to give explanations for what she had decided on wearing for the evening. ‘I got this a while back and never got round to wearing it so I thought I’d just try it on. What do you think?’ She asked the room as she stepped out of the hallway and into the living room where they were waiting. Jackie was just picking up a magazine from the coffee table and turned to look at her daughter but the Doctor, from his seat on the sofa, was already staring at her. His mouth had dropped open at what he saw before him. She wore a stunning deep blue dress that hugged her figure at the top before loosening towards the ankles where it ended, giving her legs room to move. Her hair was up in a bun but she’d let two curled strands rest on either side of her face. She wore slightly more makeup than usual and he found himself drawn to the red lipstick which accentuated the curves of her lips and her sheepish smile.

Jackie complimented her daughter before catching sight of the Doctor’s reaction. The amount of love in his gaze made her heart swell for her. She had been quite disappointed when she heard that Rose and Mickey had broken up again. She was very fond of him and he was always good to Rose, not like that Jimmy Stone who she would have more than words with if she ever saw him again. But she’d never seen Mickey look at her daughter with such undeniable love. She only wanted the best for her of course so when she first met the alien she would never have dreamed something like that would happen. Would have wanted anything else really. But the way those pair were around each other…Jackie couldn’t help but feel a bit delighted because she couldn’t deny they weren’t good together or that they weren’t good for one another. They were the Doctor and Rose and that was that.

When she pulled herself from her thoughts a second later she found the Doctor still staring. Staring a little too long she thought. She might be pleased to see it at first but that was still her little girl. She rolled up the magazine in her hand and whacked him on the arm.

‘Hey!’ He protested, his head snapping towards his assailant as he held his arms up to protect himself.

‘That’s my daughter you’re staring at,’ she warned.

His brow furrowed and he looked between Rose and Jackie, his mouth working but no words coming out.

‘Mum,’ Rose complained, blushing at having the fact the Doctor had been looking pointed out. She was hoping that he’d appreciate the bluest dress she owned if nothing more. But she’d seen the look on his face too and it made her heart skip a few beats. Maybe, just maybe he did want her like that. Like she wanted him.

‘Right,’ the Doctor stood, clearing his throat a little awkwardly. ‘Shall we?’

Rose nodded, said goodbye to her mum and then they headed to the door.

‘And wish Keisha a happy birthday, won't you love,’ Jackie added before the door closed behind them.

Druids Street was only a short walk away so there was no need to take the Tardis, plus she didn’t particularly like short hops anyway. Rose was trying to fill him in a bit on Keisha but he wasn’t particularly focused on what she was saying. He kept glancing at her from the corner of his eye as they walked side by side. He, being a Time Lord, had better eyesight than humans and could still see the colour of her dress in the darkness and the way it highlighted every curve of her figure. When Rose paused in her tales about her friend he swallowed and finally allowed himself to say what he’d been thinking since he saw her step out of her bedroom. ‘You look beautiful Rose.’

She was taken aback by the change in topic and her heart hammered in her chest at his words. She didn’t let herself get her hopes up, however, she had been through that before. ‘Considering?’ She teased, her eyes flashing playfully. The longer she waited the more it felt like her heart was both soaring and sinking because he was neither denying her comment nor agreeing with it and she didn’t know what to think. She changed the topic a little instead, not enjoying the lingering silence where her thoughts could start to overwhelm her. ‘And you’re looking dapper in a blue suit.’

He sniffed. ‘Thought I’d try it out.’ Then, as if just realising something, he did a double take and gave Rose a frown as he started to unbutton his jacket ‘hey it’s March you should be…’ he trailed off slipping his jacket off and hanging it on Rose’s shoulders. It felt quite warm on her cool arms. He was right, she had been feeling the late winter temperature and tugged on the lapels pulling it closer. The smell of him enveloped her as she adjusted his jacket, it wasn’t the same mixture of grease and musk it used to be, now he smelled of sweet tea with a hint of cinnamon and there was still something she couldn’t put her finger on that she just called the Doctor.

‘Thank you.’

‘No problem.’

When Keisha had told Rose she would rent out the back of the pub what she actually meant was the pub’s converted distillery in the grounds. It was now a large event space that still retained its rustic charm and showed off its history by keeping some of the old barrels and the odd bit of disabled machinery. Twinkling lights were strung around the rafters causing the disco ball over the dance floor to shimmer. There was a selection of round tables at one side of the room, a DJ near the dance floor and at the other side a bar. Rose spotted the bar first. There were a lot of people in the room laughing and chatting and generally having fun and she recognised quite a few from her school days. She decided she was going to need a drink before people tried chatting to her. They would probably try some small talk and ask what she’d been up to and Rose would have to bend the truth a bit and keep her tales consistent because who knew who spoke to who these days. She sighed a little. She already felt like she was back at school.

‘Do you want a drink?’ She asked the Doctor who seemed to be studying the room just as much as she was.

He shrugged. ‘Yeah sure.’

She took his hand and wound her way towards the bar with him in tow. There were a few people milling about the bar but she managed to find a space right at the end of it. There was only one bartender serving and he gestured to her that he’d be with them in a moment. She nodded and turned back to the Doctor. ‘What do you want?’

He was studying the chalkboard of co*cktails that stood on the bar next to him. ‘I think,’ he said looking up at her,’ I think I might have a banana daiquiri’.

She rolled her eyes affectionately. ‘I should have known.’

‘What?’ He complained. ‘They’re-’

‘They’re an excellent source of potassium I know,’ she cut him off word for word and he huffed. ‘Just don’t know if you’d actually be getting any of the potassium drinking it like this.’

He shrugged. ‘Might do if you drink enough of them.’

She laughed and shook her head. ‘I am not carrying you back to the Tardis.’

‘What can I get you love?’

They turned to see the bartender looking at Rose, awaiting her answer. He had a soft smile and quite nice hair. Her previous Doctor would have called him a pretty boy, not that the current face he wore could complain about that anymore seeing as he had joined them in her opinion. ‘Oh. Er - a banana daiquiri and…’ She trailed off as she wondered what she wanted but nothing particularly sprung to mind. There was quite a list on that chalkboard the Doctor had been looking at so she shrugged and said, ‘and a co*cktail of some sort. Surprise me’.

The bartender looked at her appraisingly then smiled and winked at Rose before turning away. The Doctor glared at the back of his head as he got to work making their drinks, not keen on the way he had been studying Rose.

It wasn’t long before two glasses were placed in front of them with another wink at Rose from the bartender before he went rushing off to serve more customers. The Doctor’s creamy co*cktail was in a martini glass and Rose’s pinky/red one in a tumbler. She frowned as she saw that the small black straw had a drumstick lolly pop stuck in it. She took it out and put it on the bar before using the straw to take a sip. She could already hear the Doctor humming his approval at his drink but after a sip of her own she was sure his drink paled in comparison. She suddenly had a new favourite co*cktail.

‘Oh my God you’ve got to try this,’ Rose said and held the glass up to him.

He pulled a face as he stared at the drink uncertainly. ‘What is it?’ He asked, and she simply shrugged. He wrinkled his brow and leant forward, taking a sip through the straw. All of his uncertainty about the drink vanished immediately. ‘Oh that is gorgeous.’

‘Isn’t it,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘I dunno what it’s called but it comes with a lolly.’ She nodded to the drumstick on the bar and he picked it up, unwrapped it with impressive speed for a sticky lollipop and stuck it in his mouth. ‘Git,’ she said and smacked him playfully on the arm. He smirked around the lolly. ‘You don’t need any more sugar; you’re bad enough as it is.’

He was about to come up with some sort of retort when someone behind Rose called out her name. Rose turned and found Shareen squeezing between a couple of people hanging around at the bar to reach her.

‘You came!’ She exclaimed wrapping Rose in a quick hug, when she pulled back she was still grabbing onto her arms tightly as though she didn’t want Rose to disappear. ‘Come on, I've got to take you over to Keisha. Oh and Lottie is trying to chat up Dean and we all know how that’s going to turn out. She’d have to grow a pair before he gave her a second glance.’ Shareen giggled and started to drag Rose away still chatting about anything and everything. That was the thing with Shareen, she never stopped talking.

Rose glanced back at the Doctor who shook his head slightly at her, answering the question in her eyes. She still wasn’t sure about leaving him on his own though. Shareen may have been smaller than her but she was very feisty, however Rose, even though she may not look it, had grown in strength since travelling with the Doctor. She managed to pull enough to halt her friend in her tracks. ‘Do you mind? You gonna be alright?’ She asked the Doctor with a guilty look on her face.

He shook his head again and gave her a small smile. ‘Go on, I’m fine. Go have fun.’

After the Doctor had finished his daiquiri he ordered another and had a read of the plagues that described the history of the building and the process of manufacturing the alcohol they produced. He wasn’t a particularly big drinker but had tried quite a few different alcoholic beverages across the universe. He’d never made his own though, he was far too impatient for that, but the process of it was interesting enough. He ended up chatting with a few people at some of the tables but eventually found himself sitting alone after declining to join them on the dance floor. His eyes trailed over to the other side of the room where he had noticed Rose being taken to earlier. It was an area that was slightly sectioned off as though made for VIPs and Keisha was using it as her hang out zone for some of her closest friends. He only recognised Keisha and Shareen and Rose of course. She was smiling and laughing and even though she was too far away and it was far too noisy, he could still hear her laughter in his mind. It made him feel warm.

‘So you made it then.’ He turned to look at Mickey. He had dressed up a little for the party and was wearing a shirt and a dark pair of jeans. Mickey had seen where the Doctor was looking before announcing himself and nodded his head over in Rose’s direction. ‘You were the main topic of conversation when I was over there earlier.’

The Doctor scrunched his nose up and crossed his arms as he eyed Mickey in disbelief. ‘Really?’

‘Well it’s not every day a kid off the estates gets to travel the world. Or time and space but we don’t tell them that bit,’ he added quietly and chuckled a little.

He hummed considering Mickey’s words. ‘No I suppose not.’

They briefly spoke about Mickey’s first trip in the Tardis, with Mickey saying he’d want to check out the future, before he spotted someone by the bar that he wanted to catch up with so he left the Doctor saying he’d see him later.

That meant the Doctor alone once more. He looked over at the little VIP section again but couldn’t see Rose; he then scanned the dance floor and still couldn’t see her. He didn’t panic though, this was Rose Tyler and she had a habit of wandering off and it wasn’t like they were on some other planet or vessel in space, they were just at a party on Earth after all. He never had long enough to panic either way before he heard her voice from behind.

‘Do you want to check if the world is going to end?’ She asked, giving him a shy smile as she stepped in front of him.

He looked up at her and started to decline saying ‘oh I don’t think we need to put these people through seeing my dance skills,’ but as he saw her face drop he thought what the hell and put on a big sigh as he agreed. ‘Oh alright then.’

‘Really?’ She asked her eyes bright and hopeful. It warmed his hearts.

‘It better be a good song,’ he said, getting up and taking her hand. ‘I don’t want any of those that are just beats.’

She laughed and gave him her tongue touched smile. ‘God you’re so old.’

The music for the next song started up as they stepped onto the dance floor, it was the upbeat tune and trumpet introduction of Love Don’t Roam. The Doctor happily announced, ‘ooh I know this one,’ and twirled a giggling Rose towards him.

Well I’ve roamed about this Earth
With just a suitcase in my hand,
And I’ve met some bug-eyed Joe’s,
I’ve met the blessed, I’ve met the damned.
But of all the strange, strange creatures
In the air, at sea, on land,
Oh my girl, my girl, my precious girl,
I love you, you understand.

Their dance was a little erratic. It involved lots of arm swinging, spinning, twirling and, most of all, a lot of smiles and laughter. Neither seemed to really notice when they bumped into the occasional person, too caught up in their own happy bubble.

When the Doctor wasn’t laughing with Rose he was singing along to the song. ‘So reel me in my precious girl, come on, take me home. Cause my body’s tired of travelling and my heart don’t wish to roam. Come on Rose sing along,’ he encouraged after singing the chorus.

She laughed at him and his goofy behaviour, she loved it when he acted like this; all the traces of darkness disappeared and he was just happy and silly. ‘I don’t know the words.’

‘Oh they’re simple enough,’ he said as he twirled under her arm this time which made her laugh even harder.

By the end of the song Rose had picked up the lyrics for the chorus and joined the Doctor as he sang. He beamed when he heard her join in and dipped her as the music faded away into a slower song. She had a flashback to when her first Doctor did the same as they danced around the Tardis but it soon faded when the brown eyed one before her pulled her towards him. He held her by the waist, with his other hand still holding hers. Rose rested her other hand on his shoulder and they began to sway to the slower tune, both breathing a little hard after their energetic first dance. As though drawn to one another, they found themselves pressed up against each other a few songs later. Not all of the songs were slow enough for their swaying dance but neither bothered to change the pace, just enjoying the closeness of the moment they had found themselves in.

Rose could feel the rumble of his voice as he told her about some distant planet they should visit. She didn’t mean to but she found her thoughts wandering elsewhere. They had danced before and not just that time on the Tardis, but it was never like this. One or two songs and he would go swanning off having seen or thought of something that was worth investigating for the adventure they were on. She had always been a little disappointed when he did but the thrill of the chase soon caught up to her and her earlier disappointment would be forgotten. But without a problem to solve he stayed with her and continued to dance, his hands resting on the small of her back holding her tightly against him. She wished the moment could continue forever.

He was in the middle of describing the planet's version of the pyramids when he suddenly stopped talking and swaying. She leant back a little to look up at his confused face. ‘Is that - is that Mickey?’ He said as though he couldn’t believe what his eyes had seen.

She glanced behind her and spotted Mickey snogging a woman near the bar. ‘I see he still likes Trisha Delaney then,’ she commented lightly.

The Doctor looked down at her, thoroughly confused. ‘But I thought you and he were - were - you know…’

Rose shook her head and rolled her eyes at the man before her as though it was obvious. ‘We haven’t been together for a while now Doctor.’

‘Huh.’ He thought over this new information. ‘And I invited him onto the Tardis,’ he added after a moment, more to himself than anyone.

‘Yes you did,’ she said, her tone accusatory.

‘Because I thought you and he were together,’ he protested.

She shook her head and sighed, leaning her head on his shoulder as she started them swaying again. ‘Sometimes you really are oblivious, Doctor.’

**********

It was the early hours of the morning by the time they left the party. Rose’s feet were aching as they walked back to the Tardis; she wasn’t used to wearing heels, even the small chunky ones she had worn just in case she needed to run. It was more likely than not with the Doctor. Her arm was hooked around his as they led the way with Mickey following a few paces behind. His eyes were glued to his phone, a smile on his face as he staggered a little in their wake.

The Doctor looked straight ahead as he took a deep breath and asked, ‘do you know what day it is?’

She thought for a moment then announced, ‘Saturday’.

‘No. Well, yeah it is. But I - I meant the date.’ She gave him a puzzled look as to why he was being so pedantic so he continued softly, ‘it’s the 4th of March’. He hesitantly glanced at her searching for recognition but when he saw none he decided to let the subject drop.

He was internally kicking himself for saying something when she took her arm back from the crook of his elbow. She looked up at him, now with a twinkle in her eye and smiled as she held out her hand. He felt a tug at his lips hoping that she did know after all and took her hand in his. Rose gave him the tongue touched smile that he loved so much as her eyes danced playfully with his for a second.

‘Run!’ She shouted and dragged him along after her until he matched his pace with hers. They caught each other’s gaze and started to laugh loudly as they ran towards the Tardis.

Mickey, who had been dawdling even further behind, looked up from texting on his phone and shouted after them, ‘hey, what are you doing?’ He waited for a response then sighed, starting to jog after the mad pair.

Chapter 14: One Of Nine Lives

Chapter Text

The Doctor was idly humming the tune to Love Don’t Roam as he read a book on robotics in the year 5000. He had found an interesting chapter on cooling systems and was hoping to implement one of the ideas in the new and improved version of K9 he was building. He would have to fetch a few more parts but that shouldn’t be a problem if you knew where to look and, of course, the Doctor did.

‘Something smells good.’

He glanced behind to Rose who had wandered into the galley, her nose instantly drawn to the banana bread that he had baked and left on the side to cool. The restraint he had shown was quite miraculous seeing as it was one of his favourite foods. The only reason he hadn’t dug in was because the chapter had been getting particularly interesting when the timer in his head went off telling him it was ready. He raced straight back to the chapter after taking it out of the oven and got comfortable on the galley chair again, leaning back on it and crossing his legs on the table.

‘Oi, feet,’ she scolded, noticing his position. ‘We eat there and I don’t want to know what weird alien stuff you’ve trodden in with those shoes.’

‘It’s fine,’ he drawled, taking his feet off the table anyway. ‘The Tardis sterilises it.’

‘Still.’ She walked over to the counter where the banana bread sat and stared at it a little longingly. The slight hangover she had was making her hungry and the banana bread looked divine. ‘Can we have some?’ She asked, turning back to the Doctor.

He put down the book and grinned at her. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

They each had a slice and then a couple more. By the time they had finished stuffing themselves three quarters of the bread was gone. It wasn’t the biggest of loaves so they didn’t feel too guilty about it. They did enough running most days to make up for it anyway.

‘How’s your head?’ he asked, noticing that Rose was resting her cheek on her hand with her elbow on the table.

‘Been better but it's not too bad considering. How long was I asleep for?’

‘Just over ten hours. Ten hours Rose,’ he repeated just to make sure she understood the ridiculousness of it. Rose smirked and the Tardis hummed at his words. ‘Oh don’t you start,’ he said to the ceiling, ‘ten consistent hours of sleep is a long time’. The lights in the galley flashed in disapproval and Rose chuckled. ‘Why is she always taking your side? She’s my ship,’ he complained.

‘Maybe you could try being nicer to her,’ she suggested, leaning over the other chair to pat the wall, the lights glowed gently and the Doctor huffed and crossed his arms.

He didn’t stay in a mood for too long, Rose quickly brought him out of it by asking about the book he had been reading. He enthusiastically began telling her about the cooling system and the mechanics behind it. Rose glazed over a little at that point but her attention was regained when he told her he wanted to visit the market on the small planet of Khallisso in the Delta Sphere to collect the parts.

‘What about Mickey?’ She asked as she joined him in the console room after getting herself ready for the day.

The Doctor glanced up from inputting the planet coordinates. ‘What about him?’

‘Won’t he want to come?’

‘Nah.’ He finished the coordinates and after a few more tweaks of the controls the ship groaned into life. ‘He said he was going to be a vegetable in the media room earlier. Anyway won’t be long, it’s just a bit of shopping.’ The Tardis landed rather smoothly and the Doctor grinned over at Rose. ‘Come on,’ he said and swung his coat over his brown suit and dashed to the doors where he waited for her to catch up before leading her outside. Rose felt a bit guilty about going without Mickey but if it was just shopping Mickey wouldn’t have cared much for it.

Rose’s trainers crunched a little on the purple sand beneath her feet. It glittered under the twin suns that were starting to rise on this side of the planet. The Doctor took her hand and pulled her along, muttering something about not wanting to stay too long because the radiation from the suns would be too strong for her in a few hours. As they wound their way through the wooden town towards the market the Doctor explained why the sand was purple.

‘It’s made of a relative of the stone Kunzite,’ he said, answering Rose’s question before rambling on further. ‘You have that on Earth, though you mine it for gemstones. On Khallisso it’s everywhere; practically worthless to the Khallissions. Didn’t always used to look like this. No, it was a beautiful planet millenniums ago, not saying it’s not nice now, but before the people arrived the whole planet was covered in massive purple crystals. Kunzite isn’t the hardest of stones, only a six or seven on the Mohns Scale, and its weakness is temperature fluctuations and it gets very hot here during the day and very cold at night. The crystals broke down over time, just like any other rock, and ta-dah purple sand,’ he finished enthusiastically.

‘Well I don’t think it worthless, I think it looks beautiful,’ Rose said with a smile as she admired the glistening sand. Her look made a smile tug on the Doctor’s lips too.

He took a couple more steps before halting abruptly and letting go of Rose’s hand. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, rifling through his coat pockets. He eventually found the small jar he was looking for, which was similar to the one he gave to Rose to store the Krillitane oil, and he popped the lid, scooped up some of the sand and filled the jar with it. ‘Here you go,’ he screwed the lid on and held the jar out to Rose, ‘a bit of Khallisso to take with you’. She took the jar and thanked him, holding it up to the light to see it sparkle again. ‘And I’ll tell you something else,’ he began, leaning in a little and lowering his voice like he was telling her a secret, ‘I said this stuff was a relative of Kunzite. They don’t get proper nights here so they don’t know but stick that in your room and when the Tardis lights go out it’ll glow a beautiful purple. Don’t get solar powered rocks on Earth that’s for sure’. He grinned and leaned back again, rocking on his heels happily.

‘Wow,’ she said in awe of the little crystals. Then another thought popped into her head and she frowned. ‘And they’ll just let us take it?’

‘Oh yeah,’ he nodded,’ it’s like nicking a bit of soil from Earth, you lot wouldn’t care about that’.

‘But this is a glowing crystal, not some soil.’

‘It may be to you but not to them.’ Rose deliberated his words for a moment before faintly nodding her agreement. The Doctor took her hand again. ‘Come on, otherwise we’ll miss the morning market.’

There were at least a hundred market stalls in the centre of the town, all with signs, awnings and a collection of wares for sale. The people, who all protected their skin under scarves and robes, were shouting for customers just like they did back on Earth and said customers were milling around the stalls browsing and buying as they went.

‘Now Rose Tyler,’ the Doctor began after stopping by a large signpost pointing out the different areas of the market. He turned to her and eyed her seriously. ‘I will be over there,’ he waved to the right, ‘don’t go wandering off elsewhere, just stay around the markets and I’ll meet you back here in an hour. Deal?’ She smiled and held out her hand. He shook it. ‘Don’t spend it all at once,’ he said as he passed her a credit stick. She thanked him and they went their separate ways.

Rose wanted to take her hoodie off because after half an hour of wandering around the stalls she was starting to get a bit hot. However she never did, not wanting to offend the Khallissions who covered themselves so much; she was already feeling a little exposed with her head on show. She had only browsed so far, she wanted to pick something up for her mum but nothing had caught her eye as of yet. The warm smell of spices wafted over to her as she neared the end of the current area of markets and was apparently about to enter the area with the food stalls. It was only when she reached the penultimate stall that something finally got her attention. It was a life sized statue of a sleeping cat. It was beautifully crafted, with every ginger hair and every whisker painted so realistically she expected it to move at any moment and start opening its eyes and uncurling its body. She thought it was a bit strange that there was a cat statue all the way out here on this alien planet but then again she had met cat nuns so it didn’t faze her too much.

The stall holder was watching her as she looked at the statue. ‘Do you want to look a bit closer?’ She asked as she picked up the cat and held it over the stall towards Rose. Rose leaned in and studied the detail, it reminded her so much of the stray cat that she and her mum took in when she was younger. ‘Hold it, go on, don’t be shy. Feel the weight, feel the worth,’ the stall holder said, stretching her arms out to Rose as far as she could.

Rose gently took the cat; it did feel weighty but not as heavy as she was expecting, not like a solid stone statue. But it was probably some alien stone that was lighter in weight than the ones they used for statues on Earth.

‘Hello,’ the Doctor said from right behind her. She used to flinch in shock when he did that but he had unexpectedly popped up beside her so many times that she had grown accustomed to it.

She turned and smiled before starting to look apologetic. ‘Sorry, am I late? I didn’t realise.’

‘No, no I’m early,’ he reassured her and the look began to fade away. ‘I managed to find everything and got an excellent deal so thought I’d come and find you. What you got there?’ She held the cat back up and as he eyed it his nose scrunched up a little in distaste.

‘Hey, don’t look at it like that, it’s nice.’ Even with Rose’s complaints he still didn’t look best pleased with her find. ‘No need to worry about it being kept on the Tardis anyway,’ she continued, ‘I was thinking of giving it to mum because it reminds me of our cat Puffin and mum really loved her even if she was a bit of a menace’.

‘Well, I suppose if that’s the case I might allow it,’ he said, sighing dramatically.

‘Git,’ she chuckled and he smirked. She turned the cat so she could see it from the front again before her brow furrowed and she leaned in closer. ‘What?’ She breathed.

If the Doctor didn’t have his superior Time Lord hearing he would have missed Rose’s quiet exclamation over the racket of the market. ‘Problem?’ He asked.

‘The cat’s moved,’ she said slowly as if unsure what she was seeing was true. ‘Its eyes were fully closed before but now I can see a bit of green like it’s opened them a little.’ She continued to stare at the cat, trying not to blink in case it did something else and she missed it.

He leaned over her shoulder and sure enough there was a sliver of green showing underneath barely opened eyelids. He frowned and tapped it lightly on its back. It certainly wasn’t solid stone whatever it was. Reaching into his pocket he grabbed his sonic screwdriver and began to scan the cat for signs of life. The scan didn’t take long and he wasn’t sure he liked the result. He turned to the stall holder and stated, ‘this cat is alive’.

She shook her head. ‘No it’s not real, just a statue,’ she tried to reassure him.

Rose spoke at the same time as the stall holder. She stared up at the Doctor with wide eyes as she said, ‘what do you mean it’s alive?’

‘It has a heartbeat,’ he told both women.

The stall holder adamantly shook her head in denial as she brought her hands up to her mouth.

Rose softly said, ‘oh my God,’ as she stared down at the cat in horror.

‘It’s like it’s been petrified,’ the Doctor mumbled, reading the results on the sonic again.

‘Like in Harry Potter?’ She asked and he nodded. It wasn’t exactly the same as in book or film but it was a close enough analogy. ‘Is there some cure? What can we do?’ She asked with a mixture of sadness and determination written on her face.

He frowned as he thought, his mind whirling with ideas. ‘Perhaps,’ he began slowly, still contemplating the success rate of his current plan. ‘If I can get the correct frequency I should be able to crack it open, I just need the sound to resonate.’

Rose, as ever the compassionate one, asked, ‘will it hurt it?

‘No.’ He shook his head as he fiddled with the sonic, it was emitting sounds of various pitches, its blue light millimetres from the cat's back. ‘It should be like peeling a hardboiled egg.’

‘But sometimes you peel the egg off with the shell,’ she pointed out.

‘Not if I do this properly,’ he said, his voice low and determined.

He flicked through frequency after frequency on the sonic. The sounds attracted many strange looks from passing customers who decided to give that stall, as well as the ones closest to it, a wide berth for good measure. It was probably for the best as the Doctor, Rose and the stall holder were all cringing as the buzzing got higher and higher. But nothing seemed to be happening. The Doctor stepped back with a growl. He hit his screwdriver against his palm as he chanted, ‘think,’ to himself in a voice filled with frustration. Rose was muttering reassurances to the cat, petting it gently on its cold stone head when the Doctor groaned and began to pace. He almost tripped over a metal box he hadn’t noticed on the ground, too caught up in his own mind. It clanged loudly as his chucks knocked into it, the lid becoming misplaced and falling to the floor with another clang. He huffed and replaced the lid on the box, ignoring the glare of the next stall holder over for knocking their stock about. He was about to stand back up when it hit him. A victorious smile grew across his face as he exclaimed, ‘oh Schrödinger you genius!’ He grabbed the box and leapt back up. His eyes were alight and a little mad as he stepped next to Rose once more. She was grinning at him like he’d already fixed the cat, which he nearly had, there was just one more step. He took the lid off and held the box out to her. ‘Cat in box.’

She carefully lowered the cat into the box; it was only just big enough for the poor creature. She gave it a final pat for luck before the Doctor added the lid and passed the box to Rose.

‘Amplification,’ he muttered as he fiddled with the sonic, it’s buzzing changing in pitch again as he pressed it against the keyhole. ‘A metal box like this should help the sound resonate.’ The pitch rose and rose and they began to cringe once more. Then it stopped. He removed the sonic from the keyhole and glanced over at Rose with apprehension. ‘Ready?’

She nodded firmly and gave him a look, not of nervousness but of full trust. It was one he had received from her many times and he really didn’t know what he’d done to ever deserve her unyielding faith in him.

He lifted the lid and they peered inside the box as one. The stone shell that covered the exterior of the cat had cracked and peeking through some of the cracks were wisps of ginger fur. He reached inside and carefully peeled a large piece of the shell from its back revealing more fur. As he picked and picked at the shell the cat began to twitch back into life, finally letting out a meow as the last piece was removed from its tail. ‘Hello,’ he cooed, gently picking up the cat and holding it in his arms. ‘What happened to you eh?’

After putting the box on the ground, Rose stroked the cat's fluffy orange head and scratched behind its ears causing the cat to purr contentedly. ‘You poor thing. How could this have happened Doctor?’ She asked him not taking her eyes from the creature.

He shook his head uncertainly. ‘It’s strange, it’s almost like the people of Pompeii; their bodies were found preserved by the hot ash that buried them. But they died. This cat really shouldn’t be alive.’ He stared at it with disbelief, marvelling at it like the marvel it was.

‘But it is,’ she said, relieved.

The Doctor passed the cat to her as he said, ‘I’ll get it some food and water. Be back in a tick’. He rushed off to the nearby food stalls leaving Rose hugging the cat close to her chest and whispering soothing words to it.

The stall holder was still gaping at the cat in shock. Rose eventually looked over at her and invited her to come and say hello to what she had thought was a stone statue. She stepped out to the front of her stall but was rather reluctant to stroke the cat having never seen a real one before. With some encouragement from Rose she touched the soft ginger fur and by the time the Doctor had returned she was rocking the cat in her arms singing a local lullaby as Rose watched on with a smile. The cat wanted to gobble up the meat the Doctor had brought back but he only offered small chunks, holding them up to its hungry mouth one at the time not wanting it to make itself sick. When the fed and watered cat began to fall asleep in the stall holder's arms the Doctor and Rose took their leave. The stall holder was very excited about keeping the cat and after lots of advice from the time travelling duo they felt confident that the cat would have an excellent life with her.

**********

The Doctor took them into the vortex when they got back to the Tardis before excitedly rushing off to his workshop itching to make the cooling system now he had the parts. Rose smiled fondly as he dashed away down the corridor.

She took herself to the galley to get a cup of tea. Mickey was in there rooting through the fridge; he looked around at the sound of her footsteps. ‘You left didn’t you,’ he pouted, closing the door a bit harder than necessary.

The guilt she had felt earlier took hold again. She wanted to deny it but knew she couldn’t, it would only make the situation worse. ‘It was just shopping Mickey,’ she tried to reason with him, ‘you hate shopping’. He gave her a look and she continued, ‘the Doctor just wanted some parts for something he’s building, it was a quick shopping trip that’s all’. That wasn’t all and Rose knew it but she didn’t want to make his disappointment any worse.

‘Alright I guess,’ he mumbled after a bit of thought. ‘But my first trip better be really good after this,‘ he added and she grinned in agreement and a bit of relief that he wasn’t too mad that they had left him behind.

She made them both a cup of tea and they chatted about the party at the table in the galley with Mickey complaining about his hangover.

‘How’s Trisha?’ Rose asked him after remembering what the Doctor had pointed out the previous night.

Mickey nodded. ‘Yeah she’s good, yeah. Haven’t seen her for a bit so it was good to catch up.’

‘Is that what we’re calling it these days,’ she teased.

He blushed at the knowing look in her eye. ‘Hey!’ He complained and then tried to get his own back. ‘And what about you and him? I saw you two out on the dance floor,’ he said suggestively.

She shook her head and brushed his comment off, still smiling at his embarrassment. ‘It was just dancing.’

‘Right yeah,’ he said, his tone suggesting he didn’t believe her.

‘Nothing’s going on Mickey,’ she protested.

Smirking knowingly he said, ‘so that’s why he couldn’t take his eyes off you all night?’

Heat spread across her cheeks and she glanced away trying to hide it. ‘It’s not - it’s not like that,’ she said but she couldn’t help the smile tugging on her lips at Mickey’s words. Hope was blooming in her chest because she really couldn’t deny all the evidence before her. She had noticed the way the Doctor looked at her a few times now and both her mum and Mickey had pointed it out too. The Doctor liked her, as in really liked her. The Doctor liked Rose Tyler.

Chapter 15: Madame De Pompadour

Chapter Text

Mickey's first trip wasn't at all what she had expected. Rose was alone. Well that wasn’t exactly correct, Mickey was hanging about somewhere and the Tardis was there but the Doctor was sealed in eighteenth century France. As soon as the horse’s tail passed through the threshold all the doorways connecting the fifty-first to the eighteenth century closed, trapping Rose in one century and the Doctor in the other. It wasn’t an unexpected outcome, he knew they would close the minute he thought of the plan to smash the mirror and save Madame de Pompadour but it had to be done. Her early death due to the clockwork androids would rewrite history and as a Time Lord it was his duty to protect the timelines even if the outcome wasn’t great for himself.

It had been over five hours since she had seen him. Mickey had waited with her outside the Tardis for the first hour or so. He didn’t believe the Doctor would make it back. He had even encouraged her to open up the console to try and fly the Tardis again but she knew she couldn’t. She knew the cost of that action even if he didn’t and she wouldn’t do that to the Doctor again. She didn’t doubt that he would try to save her like he did the first time. He had given up his life for her, even if he didn’t technically die and just regenerated, it was still his life. Rose still felt guilty about it but she tried not to let it show. She didn’t want the Doctor to feel bad about changing, to feel like she would rather he was still the same man she had first met because she really didn’t feel like that. They were both her Doctor and she saw them as equals; she couldn’t imagine it being any other way.

Mickey’s constant grumbling eventually grated on her nerves so much that she snapped at him and he retreated into the Tardis to probably watch some football whilst they waited. She couldn’t help getting angry at him because she was already angry with the Doctor. She might have been awaiting his return, with full belief that he would because he was the Doctor and he did impossible things, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be angry with him too. Rose wasn’t sure if she had any right to even feel angry about the situation but she really did. She had just allowed herself to truly believe that the Doctor liked her. She had gone to bed feeling high with hope and joy but that had been crushed. He had sounded so giddy when he had shouted out that he had just snogged Madame de Pompadour. Rose and Mickey may have wandered a little away from the fireplace that he had disappeared behind once again but she had still heard. She had tried to reason with herself that it was just a kiss and one kiss didn’t mean anything but there was still a lingering doubt in her mind because he really sounded happy. Then there was the way he spoke about her, listing off her impressive accomplishments and Rose knew she could never compete with such a woman, especially as she was so pretty as well. She had everything and Rose felt a bit worthless compared to her. Madame de Pompadour was definitely more deserving of the Doctor’s affections than she ever would be.

‘Rose? Rose!’ The Doctor shouted as he ran back from the fireplace. He beamed when he saw her standing up from the box she had sat on to wait next to the Tardis. He pulled her into a tight embrace which she returned just as willingly. She may have been angry but she was also so relieved he was back.

‘How long did you wait?’ He mumbled into her hair.

‘Five and a half hours.’ The Doctor could hear the silent “you git” in her tone, it made him smile a little more.

He pulled away from the hug, his hands rested on her shoulders as he looked at her properly. ‘Right, always wait five and a half hours,’ he said as he stepped back.

‘Where have you been?’ A hint of her anger accidentally slipped into the words but he didn’t take note.

He brushed off her question and said, ‘explain later. Into the Tardis, be with you in a sec,’ before dashing off back to the fireplace calling for Reinette.

The relief Rose had been feeling died immediately. It all seemed clear to her now. She had been travelling with him for over a year and never once had he made a move. They held hands and they hugged but nothing more but he spent less than a day with Madame de Pompadour and snogged her. Just in case Rose didn’t get the hint that nothing would ever happen between them he then went sodding off to bring her back to the Tardis.

Rose was stewing everything over on the jump seat when he returned. She glanced up and saw him throw his coat over the strut and walk up the ramp to the console. He was alone and he looked sad. Rose couldn’t help but feel a little bit victorious at his obvious rejection. The jealous green monster within her was clawing to get out and make itself known. ‘Where is she then?’ She asked as he sent them into the vortex. ‘Didn’t she want to come?’ There was a gloating edge to her voice. He stiffened at the tone of her words but said nothing so she continued. ‘I’ve heard you’ve got to ask the blonde ones twice.’ Her jealousy was on full show now, there was nothing holding it back.

‘Rose Tyler there is only one person I’ve ever asked twice,’ he said with a dangerous edge to his voice. He didn’t understand why Rose was acting this way but Reinette had just died and all his emotions were getting mixed up and her words were making him angry.

‘Yeah well maybe you shouldn’t have,’ she snapped.

His head shot up and he stared at her fiercely. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

Rose slid off the seat and watched her feet as she stepped across the grating towards him. ‘I’m only a shop girl off the estates, don’t even have A-levels,’ she said almost nonchalantly.

‘Why does that matter?’ His brows were so drawn together it almost looked painful.

‘Not good enough for you, am I?’ She said to the grating, still with an eerily calm voice. Rose shook her head and the Doctor saw a bitter smile flash across her face as she added, ‘shouldn’t have kidded myself that I ever was,’ under her breath.

‘Rose,’ he warned with a hint of the oncoming storm.

Her voice rose a little. ‘Nah, someone like Madame de Pompadour is though.’ Finally she lifted her head, letting him see all the anger that radiated through her, all the hurt that swam in her hardened eyes and all the frustration she clamped in her clenched jaw. However he was glaring at her just as much. Reinette was dead and Rose had decided now of all times was the best to do this - this - whatever this was.

‘What about Madame de Pompadour?’ He exclaimed.

‘You snogged her!’ She shouted. The console room went silent. Even the Tardis’ hum vanished, leaving Rose’s words lingering in the air. He gaped at her. ‘Couldn’t help notice it when you shouted it out for the whole ship to hear,’ she added furiously.

‘She snogged me!’ He bellowed.

‘Didn’t sound like you had a problem with it!’

‘She’s - a - a - a - historical figure,’ he stuttered as if that was an excuse.

She laughed bitterly. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that earlier? That’s fine then,’ she said, her words venomously laced with sarcasm.

‘Rose,’ he growled, baring his clenched teeth.

‘Got a little book of historical figures have you? That’s another one to cross off your list.’

‘What?’ He gestured wildly. ‘Is that who you think I am? I don’t just go around kissing people,’ he exclaimed.

‘No, clearly you don’t,’ she shouted, ‘only the ones that are good enough!’

They stood panting, glaring at one another. The Doctor growled again and closed the gap between them. He cupped her face with his hands and kissed her angrily.

For a moment Rose did nothing, too shocked to react. Then she came to herself and pushed the Doctor away, their lips separating with a pop. He was staring at her seething but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Her eyes stung as she turned and began storming out of the console room.

‘Happy now? Want me to write your name on a list and cross it off?’ He shouted after her. His furious gaze could have burnt a hole in her back as he watched her leave. As soon as she turned the corner into the corridor he spun and whacked the console with his hand, the Tardis lights flashed purple in retaliation but he didn’t care. He leant against the console; his knuckles were white as he gripped it drawing out ragged breaths.

Quick footsteps clattered down the corridor coming to a halt in the doorway. ‘What the hell have you done?’ Mickey shouted. He had overheard some of their argument and when he bumped into Rose in the corridor he wanted nothing more than to punch the Doctor in the face for hurting her.

‘Oh f*ck off Mickey,’ he growled dangerously, turning to face the other man with the full oncoming storm ablaze in his eyes.

At the look he gave him, Mickey thought better of his decision, no matter how much the Doctor deserved it, and turned back down the corridor going to check on Rose instead.

The Doctor clenched and unclenched his fist as Mickey left, his hand was throbbing but he felt like he deserved that pain. Reinette had died and he had been too late. He was a Time Lord and he had been too late. It was laughable really. He was already saddened by her death and angry at himself for not making it back in time but then Rose’s harsh words had stabbed at him and had pushed him over the edge. She was very clearly angry at him for kissing Reinette and was most probably jealous of her going by what Rose had said about not being worthy enough. Not worthy enough for him? If anything he was unworthy of her. She deserved so much better than him. If only she knew what he really was, then she wouldn’t want him, wouldn’t even want to be near him and would probably ask to be taken home straight away. He clenched his jaw hard at the thought. Even though he was angry at her he would still hate for that to happen. He would loathe himself even more if this fight was what caused her to leave. He shouldn’t have kissed her. He knew shouldn’t have. Especially not like that. He wasn’t sure what came over him but in the heat of the moment, when every word he said seemed to anger her further, he saw no other way to get his point across. She was good enough. More than good enough. Better. Now he was kicking himself. He had forced himself upon her and he was beginning to heavily regret it. It wasn’t as though he didn’t want to kiss Rose because oh he absolutely did, but that wasn’t the way he wanted it to go. That wasn’t the way it should ever have gone. If he was to ever let it happen. Now it never would. ‘Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!’ He shouted, punctuating every word with a kick to the console. Now both his hand and foot throbbed; he savoured that pain because he had hurt Rose so much more. He had just lost Rose Tyler and he was the biggest idiot of them all.

A claxon broke through the Doctor’s thoughts and the ship jolted, locking onto the distress signal. He spun around and stared at the monitor that was wildly flashing red at him. ‘Now? Really?’ He asked the Tardis with exasperation. He groaned and started moving about the controls piloting the ship to its unexpected destination. He really didn’t want to go but the universe didn’t wait, not even for a Time Lord.

Chapter 16: Distress Signals

Chapter Text

The ground trembled beneath his feet nearly knocking him off balance as he made his way back to the Tardis. It was soon over and, after keeping himself upright, he didn’t take any further notice of it. The ground had shaken twice before when the Tardis had first landed on Drava-Five. Each of the Drava’s were known for their temperamental tectonic plates but the fifth of the collection of planets encountered quakes and tremors most frequently, usually occurring a couple of times a day.

His anger and sadness hadn’t depleted with the adventure the distress signal had promised. He wasn’t even sure it was worth the high alert the Tardis had granted it. Just because the people on Drava-Five had never seen a Temporal Portal before didn’t mean the object was particularly dangerous. Admittedly it might have been this time around but it wasn’t usually. The Temporal Portal was commonly found in classrooms and museums after the thirty-second century. Their goal was to teach the user about history by allowing them to travel through time and step into the past. This may seem like it would be a terrible idea in the Time Lord’s eyes but he was always up for a teaching or learning opportunity. It was a perfectly safe version of time travel for anyone who wanted to try it because it involved no interaction during the visits. The user became more of an apparition when they stepped through the portal and were without the ability to touch or speak, only able to watch history pass them by before returning to the present. Interactive history; it was usually a boon in the Doctor’s books, though this time was certainly more interactive than it should have been.

An idiotic teenage genius called Preema had tampered with the portals to allow her physical form to fully enter the past, giving herself the ability to interact with everything around her as if she were actually there. Her sentiment was a noble one, she wanted to try and save her parents from the quake that caused a building to collapse upon them. He could understand her wish to turn back time but past events like that were unchangeable especially when it was that quake that caused the builders on Drava-Five to change the materials they used in construction. Just like the death of Pete Tyler, theirs too was a fixed point in time and altering the outcome would have dire consequences.

The portal was surrounded by a group of inquisitive Va, the people of the Drava’s, when the Doctor found it. A mesmerising oval doorway made up of ocean blue swirls grew from the ground where a silver disk lay in the dirt at the centre of the group. But the blue swirls weren’t that of a calm sea as they normally were; instead they spiked and the entire portal shook violently every few moments. It was destabilising and Preema would be trapped. He flashed his psychic paper about and got the area cordoned off so no others would enter the portal then he stepped through it himself in search of the teenager.

The air was thick with dust. He coughed into the crook of his elbow as he looked around the rubble that had once been a family neighbourhood. People were shouting and crying out for help whilst others rushed about trying to aid those who needed it. The Doctor’s mind flashed to Gallifrey and the destruction there caused by the war. And by him. Beside him the portal angrily flashed again drawing him out of his thoughts and putting his mind back on the task at hand. He believed he was close to the teenager because why else would she have used a portal out in the middle of the street if not to arrive at her destination quicker. He shouted her name and looked around at all the people trying to find one who matched the description he had been given of the girl. It was hard, as he walked around, not to help those who were injured and trapped in the destruction. One might have had a slight air of indifference when the ability to interact had been taken away but since Preema had tampered with the portals the urge was a lot harder to control. He eventually found her by the side of what had been a bank but it was hardly recognisable now. She had found her parents but she had arrived too late and was now lying in the dust sobbing next to their bodies.

‘Preema?’ the Doctor said softly as he slowly approached her. He crouched next to her shaking form and looked at the scene before him, understanding what had happened without her needing to explain. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. She finally glanced up at his touch and he gave her a small smile as she pushed herself up. ‘I’m the Doctor and I’ve come to take you home, Preema.’

She looked down at her parents and then back at the Doctor with tears still streaming down her face leaving trails on her dusty cheeks. ‘I - I was too late,’ she said, her voice cracking and shaky.

‘There was nothing you could have done,’ he said softly, trying to reassure her.

Preema shook her head and sniffled. ‘I was coming to save them.’

‘I know.’

‘I saw them. I shouted. They nearly made it out. I could have saved them.’

He shook his head sadly and repeated, ‘there was nothing you could have done’.

‘I just need to go back again,’ she stated, her voice now strong with determination. ‘I can save them this time. I know I can.’

He laid his hand on her shoulder again and looked directly into her eyes. ‘Preema, you can’t. I’m sorry but they’re gone and you can’t change that.’

‘I can,’ she insisted, ‘I just need to go back and try again.’

The Doctor was about to reply when the world around them shook and not in another earthquake kind of way. Pieces of the rubble nearby flashed in and out of existence like a glitch in a video game. His head shot round to the portal in the distance. It was shaking constantly now and its oval edges were contorting and shrinking.

‘What’s happening?’ Preema asked in alarm.

‘The world is destabilising.’ He jumped up to his feet and held out his hand to her. ‘Come on, we need to go now,’ he urged.

She glanced back at her parents again. ‘But my parents…’

‘Preema there is nothing you can do, you can’t go back and change the past, now come on.’ He grabbed her hand and pulled her upright, dragging her along behind him at a run because if they didn’t make it through that portal they would be trapped forever.

They flung themselves through the portal just as its ocean blues began to fade away and landed on the dirt in a heap. Preema was sobbing once again and the Doctor shuffled over to her and pulled her into a hug whispering apologies and words of comfort to her as they sat rocking on the ground.

They eventually got back up and the Doctor pocketed the silver disc of the portal, the only reminder that there had ever been such a thing in the street. It had closed itself after destabilising and would need a lot of repairs before it would work again. Preema led him back to her house in another part of the town. Inside her bedroom another portal still stood open. It was the portal she had used to get to his present and her past. She believed that she had inputted the correct dates for the disaster when her parents had died but when she ran to the street all the buildings were still upright with no sign of wreckage at all. She noticed the plague on the wall of the bank, the one that had her parent’s names on it, and realised she hadn’t gone back far enough. She took out the spare Temporal Portal that she had modified and set the dates before stepping through just as the earthquake began. That was where the Doctor found her, after she was just moments too late to save them.

**********

The Doctor had made his way back to the Tardis after bidding Preema goodbye with a light warning to not repeat her actions; she had just lost her parents again after all. He slung his long coat over the coral strut and just as he laid a finger on the controls Mickey burst into the console room.

‘Hold on Doctor. Wait. We can’t leave,’ he shouted. He stopped near the Time Lord and panted, he wasn’t used to running much.

‘Why not?’ The Doctor sighed. The distress signal had been a good distraction from his thoughts about his fight with Rose and now he was back he was fully expecting the rant from Mickey that he had dismissed earlier.

‘Rose is out there.’

Well that certainly wasn’t what he had been expecting. His eyebrows flew into his hairline. ‘What?’

‘She said she felt the Tardis land and that she needed some air,’ Mickey explained, receiving a harsh glare from the Doctor. ‘I tried to stop her, I really did,’ he continued.

The Doctor groaned. As if this day couldn’t get any worse he had now lost Rose twice. ‘For God's sake!’ He ran down the ramp and out of the Tardis with Mickey in his wake. ‘Which way? Which way did she go?’ he asked the other man urgently. Rose could be anywhere by now and although the Va were generally nice people he would have hated for her to get mixed up with the wrong kind.

He pointed down the street to the left; it was not one that the Doctor had gone down earlier. ‘This way I think.’

They set off down the street, the Doctor’s long strides were a little too long for Mickey’s slightly shorter legs and he was half jogging and half quick walking to keep up with the Time Lord.

‘First rule in the Tardis: don't go wandering off,’ he grumbled before shooting another glare at Mickey. ‘And you let her go alone?’ He asked incredulously.

‘She wouldn’t let me go, said she needed space,’ Mickey complained, waving his arms about before he pointed out, ‘and you would have just left her here if I wasn’t there to stop you’.

‘So leave a bloody post-it on the door and follow her anyway,’ he snapped. His head was looking side to side looking for any signs of Rose but so far there was no trace of her.

He scowled at the Time Lord. ‘Hey, don’t have a go at me, you’re the reason she’s gone off.’ The Doctor opened his mouth to say something back but Mickey cut him off. ‘I don’t know all of what you did but I caught enough. You really upset her, you know.’

The Doctor groaned. Here was the talk from Mickey. ‘Alright, I don’t need you yapping on about it.’

‘No?’ Mickey retorted. He was only just getting into his stride. ‘Because the way I see it you’re just stringing her along. She thinks the world of you, always saying you’re better than anyone else but I don’t think you are. You’re just like any other bloke and now you’ve finally let her see it.’ He glared at the Doctor who was looking adamantly ahead. He knew he had hit home when a man with a gob as big as his shut up for once. ‘I don’t care if you’re some big shot Time Lord,’ he continued. ‘She's my best mate and I won’t let you treat her like that.’

They walked in silence for a couple of minutes as the Doctor mulled over Mickey’s words. He felt the other man glower at him a few times as he waited for the Doctor’s reply. He slowed and looked at Mickey thoughtfully. ‘You’re not such an idiot after all are you?’

‘No I’m not,’ Mickey replied defiantly, still with a bit of a scowl. ‘But I sure am looking at one.’

The Doctor let out a huffed laugh in surprise. He didn’t like to concede that other people were right, especially if that other person was Mickey but the man did have a point.

They carried on down the street in near silence. It eventually led them towards the market square where crowds of Va were gathered. Mickey and the Doctor assumed there must have been an exciting new ware to purchase or perhaps a little show or exhibit going by the size of the gathering. As they got closer the people’s murmurs were more distinguishable. Some were crying, some were praying and some were questioning how such a thing could happen. The Doctor’s hearts dropped. He pushed a little impolitely through the crowds to the front where he pulled up sharp. There was no new ware or show or exhibit. There wasn’t anything at all. A sinkhole nearly as wide as the entire street had swallowed the ground and a couple of market stalls with it. The drop wasn’t too great, only nine or ten feet, very much survivable, though it could cause some nasty injuries if you weren’t expecting it. Mickey stood gaping at the edge of the hole next to him. He could see a couple of people down there. Neither looked like Rose. He shouted down to them asking if they were alright. One of them had a bloody nose and the other had broken their arm but otherwise they were fine sitting down there waiting to be rescued.

The Doctor turned away from the hole and pulled out his psychic paper once again. He flashed it at the people nearest to him not bothering to check what it said just assuming that it would be pertinent to the situation. Reaching into another pocket he pulled out a Polaroid picture. He gazed at it for a moment. It was of him and Rose, the old him with the leather jacket and northern accent. They hadn’t realised that Jack was taking the picture; they were too caught up smiling and laughing at something or other. They looked so happy. He breathed in deeply and thought if things with Rose ever got to a good place again they should take more pictures to let them see the fun they’ve had along the way. He withdrew his gaze from the photograph and looked back up at the people before him who were giving him a slightly puzzled look. He held the Polaroid out to the group. ‘Have you seen her?’ He asked, feeling both dread and hope at what could be the answer. He looked from person to person receiving frowns and shakes of the head until finally one lady said that she had.

‘Yes, she jumped into the sinkhole to go and help the others,’ the lady told him.

Of course she had. Rose Tyler, the most compassionate human. She would save and help as many people as she could no matter the risk to herself. Of course she had jumped into a bloody sinkhole.

Chapter 17: Lost And Found

Chapter Text

A group of willing volunteers agreed to make a pulley system with a scoop at the bottom to lift up those who had become trapped underground. The Doctor had clearly described how to make it and what materials would be best before leaving them to it. He stood by the edge of the sinkhole and glanced over at Mickey. He was staring back at him, gearing himself up for the drop. The Doctor nodded and they dropped into the sinkhole as one.

He stumbled a little upon landing, getting his footing wrong on a piece of wood from one of the broken stalls and falling onto his hands and knees whilst Mickey attempted a forward roll that he didn’t quite pull off either. They both ended up looking a little worse for wear with Mickey coming out on top with only slightly soil stained clothes to show for it. The Doctor hissed a little when he lifted his right knee to stand. His suit trousers were ripped and were starting to become a little bloody. It was only a small flesh wound, he’d had much worse. He stood and stepped closer to the other couple of people who were staring at the newcomers. They were sitting side by side in the light of the hole above them, both looking pale and strained. The man held a bloody rag up to his nose and a firm but comforting hand on the woman’s back.

‘Are you alright?’ asked the woman who was clutching her arm; she nodded to his leg and looked at him with sympathy.

He huffed out a laugh. She had a broken bone and he had a little cut, the compassion of others still amazed him and reminded him that the universe wasn’t always so dark. ‘I should be asking you that,’ he replied as he studied her arm the best he could. He crouched down and Mickey joined him at her side. His knee twinged a little but he didn’t pay it any attention. ‘Can I take a look?’ He asked softly. ‘I’m a doctor.’ She looked at him for a moment before nodding and slowly removing her other hand. The sonic buzzed as he scanned her arm. The couple were staring at it in amazement and Mickey couldn’t help feeling that way too.

‘Is there anything that can’t do?’ He asked.

‘Nope,’ the Doctor replied, ignoring the thought about wood that crossed his mind. He really did need a setting for wood. He read the results of the scan. It was a clean break of the ulna. ‘You’ll be fine,’ he reassured her, ‘just need to rest it for a few weeks. As for you,’ he shifted and turned to the man who was dabbing at his nose with the rag. ‘Let me see.’ The man removed the rag; the blood was starting to congeal now. The Doctor fished out a clean white handkerchief and handed it to the man. ‘Here. Now don’t dab, just hold it and mouth breathe only. You’ll need to get it reset above ground.’ The man nodded and exchanged his old rag for the new.

‘Who are you?’ The woman asked, impressed by the man before her.

‘I’m the Doctor.’ He stood and began to look around the rest of the cavern-like area into which they had landed. The edges of the space were only just visible from the light pouring into the hole. There seemed to be two tunnels on either side of the cavern leading away to somewhere. Perhaps Rose had taken one to try and find a way out of there.

‘A Doctor called the Doctor,’ she said, a little amused. She turned to Mickey who was still crouched at her side. ‘And what about you? What profession is your name?’

Mickey smirked. ‘That’s just him. I’m Mickey. What about you two?’

‘I’m Andorra and this is my husband Cass,’ she said with a smile and Cass nodded at Mickey in greeting.

‘Right, pleasantries. Excellent. Good. Can we go now?’ The Doctor said impatiently, giving Mickey a stern glance that caused the man to nod and stand. He looked over at the Andorra and Cass who were both frowning at his sudden change in behaviour and the Rose in his mind supplied “being rude again”. He sighed and quickly added, ‘Sorry, our friend Rose - woman with blonde hair?’ He continued after receiving nods from the couple. ‘We need to find her, which way did she go?’

‘Oh,’ the woman said softly. ‘She went that way with two others’. She pointed to the tunnel behind the Doctor and he immediately began to stride towards it. ‘But what about us? What are we meant to do?’ She called after him with a little panic in her voice. She and her husband had already been left once, he had been feeling faint and she wasn’t going to leave him, and the first group who went down the tunnel had not returned yet.

The Doctor didn’t answer, he was getting his screwdriver back out and turning it onto the torch setting at the tunnel entrance. He was already grumbling about the size of it knowing that he would have to duck a couple of inches.

‘Don’t worry,’ Mickey assured her and the woman turned to look up at him instead. ‘The Doctor’s got them building something to help get you guys out and once we’ve found them we’ll probably head back this way to use it too. You’ll be alright.’

After she had calmed Mickey set off down the tunnel after the Doctor following the sound of the screwdriver buzzing lightly ahead. Unlike the Doctor, Mickey didn’t have to duck and soon caught up to the Time Lord after a short jog. He couldn’t see too much, just where the blue light of the sonic bounced off the rough dirt walls that were wide enough for single file. The Doctor’s hunched back was blocking his view of the tunnel up ahead. ‘What is this place?’ Mickey asked as they strode along.

‘Smuggling tunnels maybe?’ The Doctor contemplated, his voice going higher in the way it did when he wasn’t certain. ‘Or perhaps this lot had the same problem with monks as you guys did and they had to have an escape route.’

‘I’m just glad it's not the sewers,’ Mickey quipped.

‘You and me both.’

They had been walking for nearly two miles before they heard the faint sounds of life up ahead.

‘Rose?’ The Doctor shouted, speeding up his pace as he neared a bend in the tunnel. His hearts hammered in his chest both with hope and worry. Mickey rushed after him, also eager to find her.

‘Help,’ a voice cried out. It was the voice of a child.

His stomach dropped as he turned the corner. He stood stock still staring at the scene before him, his back rigid and his hands trembling. Mickey crashed into him, having not expected him to stop but that still didn’t rouse the Time Lord.

‘Doctor?’ He said, trying to peer around the man to see further into the tunnel.

There was a young boy crouched next to a man who had collapsed to the ground with his back against the tunnel wall. Beyond them there was nothing but fresh rubble where the tunnel had caved in. The Doctor only had such a good view of the scene because of the smashed jar of Kunzite; the small purple crystals were flung across the dirt in the impact, making the tunnel before them glow purple. ‘No! No, no, no, no, no!’ The Doctor shouted and he ran through the tunnel, leaping over the man’s outstretched legs and skidding to a halt in front of the rubble. His eyes were darting all over the rocks as he shouted her name, trying to see through but it was to no avail. ‘Where is she?’ His head snapped round to the two new people. ‘Where is she?’ He bellowed again. He already knew the answer. He just didn’t want to believe it. He couldn’t lose Rose, especially not now, not like this. They still had so much more to do. So much more to see. So much more to say. That is if she ever wanted to hear it from him anymore.

The young boy gingerly lifted up a shaking arm and pointed at the rubble. He was scared by the panicked Time Lord whose eyes were wild as he panted heavily in fear and frustration.

As the Doctor stared at the young boy he couldn’t help but notice the pained face of the man next to him. He looked down his body and his eyes came to rest on the man’s left leg. A shard of rock had splintered off and embedded itself in the man’s thigh. It wasn’t a pretty sight, the three inch gash was bleeding profusely and the poor boy’s hands were covered in the blood from where he had tried to help. Luckily he had left the shard in the wound but that still wouldn’t halt the bleeding. The Doctor yanked at his tie and pulled it over his head holding it out to Mickey who was still looking at the collapsed tunnel behind the Time Lord.

Mickey seemed to sense the Doctor’s eyes upon him as he mumbled, ‘she’s not…’ he trailed off, unable to bring himself to say it or take his eyes off the rubble.

The Doctor growled at him. ‘Tourniquet now,’ he ordered, thrusting his tie into the other man’s hand and turning back to the rubble, beginning to remove it.

Mickey stared at him for a moment before coming to himself and kneeling next to the injured man. He knotted the tie above the wound tightly whilst apologising to the man who groaned at every touch to his leg. He’d seen enough television and films to know you had to apply pressure to the wound as well. The man swore as Mickey’s hands pressed around the shard of rock, apologising again as he did so. The child was clinging to the man’s arm with one hand whilst the other had a white knuckle grip on his carved wooden toy. He noticed how frightened the boy was and tried to comfort him too by asking questions in an attempt to distract him. He found out that he was called Alwin and the man was the boy’s father. They had been in the market to buy flowers for his mother for her birthday the next day when the sinkhole opened up beneath them. He proudly announced that he had been to all five of the Drava’s because his father was a top mechanic and would occasionally take him along on trips to the other planets where he would fix their vessels.

The Doctor could hear Alwin’s now calmer voice happily explaining the differences in the planets as he scrambled at the rocks. His fingers were bleeding but he had become numb to the pain. He had one thing on his mind and it was Rose. He flung rocks to the side of him, away from the others, as he struggled to clear a way through. If Rose was beside the rocks and not underneath them, as he feared, then he didn’t want to cause the rubble to fall upon her and injure her further if he wasn’t careful enough. Eventually he began to make headway; even to the Time Lord it felt like he had been digging at the rocks for hours trying to see through. A faint purple glow shone through the gap he had made, it wasn’t quite large enough to get through yet but he stuck his head through the hole and looked down. His hearts stopped. They only restarted when he noticed her chest rise and fall as she breathed, it was laboured but she was alive. He tore at rock after rock yanking them away until finally, finally he could scramble through the hole. Rose lay splayed on the floor surrounded by smaller pieces of rubble that had caused cuts and gashes all across her cheeks and arms when the tunnel ceiling had collapsed. One of her arms laid awkwardly trapped beneath a heavy looking rock but what drew the Doctor’s gaze the most was the part of her blonde hair that was sticky and red. Head wounds always did bleed a lot so it probably looked worse than it actually was, though it still brought a lump to the Doctor’s throat. He took a deep breath and carefully lifted the rock, freeing her arm and enabling him to move her. He climbed over the top of her and sat on the ground pulling her unconscious body into his lap, just needing to feel the weight of her for a moment. To feel her chest rise and fall against his. To simply feel that she was alive. Holding her as close as he dared, he cradled her head in one shaking hand and pressed a kiss into her hairline where he whispered constant apologies and reassurances to her.

‘Doctor, have you found her?’ Mickey called out. After the Time Lord’s mad scramble at the rocks his silence now was not reassuring. Mickey really hoped that she was alright. He couldn’t bear to lose her and he knew what it would do to Jackie. He’d seen a bit of that before she turned on him when Rose went missing for a year. At least then Jackie still had a morsel of hope that her daughter would return. But death was final and there was no space left for hope.

‘Yeah,’ the Doctor answered with a croak. He cleared his throat and added, ‘she’s alive’.

Mickey let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. He nodded to himself and softly said, ‘good, good’.

Eventually the group began to make their way through the tunnel and back towards the cavern with Alwin leading the way, followed by Mickey and Alwin’s father Maxin, and bringing up the rear was the Doctor who was carrying Rose. He had created a makeshift sling from his suit jacket to hold her arm in place as he carried her a little awkwardly through the tight space. He wanted to move quicker, to get her back to the Tardis as soon as he could but Maxin could only go so fast. The slower pace was probably for the best in a tunnel like that one especially when he had to edge along sideward when it thinned in places. Maxin had stopped groaning and moaning as Mickey supported him as they made their way along. He was telling Mickey about his wife being one of the healers in the town and how she would be able to treat his wounds when they got out of here. He offered her services to Rose too but the Doctor declined, even an excellent healer was no match for the services that the Doctor and Tardis could provide. Alwin, at the front of the group, had a very important job that he was taking very seriously. He was holding the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver out in front of him bathing the tunnel in light to show them the way. At one point the carved wooden toy he was holding slipped through his fingers and dropped to the ground. He leant down to pick it up, scolding it as he did so saying, ‘bad wolf’. With the toy in his hand he continued down the tunnel but the Doctor halted. It had been some time since he had last heard those two words. He glanced down at Rose expecting to see her glow with the energy of the time vortex. Thankfully she wasn’t. He took a deep breath and stepped forwards once more.

Rose had begun to occasionally murmur incoherently but she hadn’t yet opened her eyes. It was only when a gentle light seeped through the tunnel ahead of them when they reached the cavern that she became coherent as she murmured, ‘Doctor’.

It was so soft that if he wasn’t a Time Lord he thought he would have missed it. Hope soared within him as his eyes shot down to where her head lay against his chest, her eyes were still closed but her lips were moving slightly though no more words were coming out. He gripped her a little tighter and whispered, ‘I’m here Rose, I’ve got you, you’re safe now’.

‘Doctor,’ she murmured once more.

‘Shh, shh, it’s alright I’ve got you.’ She quietened again and he planted a kiss into her hair just as the cavern opened up before them.

The couple, Andorra and Cass, were gone and on the ground lay a scoop with ropes leading upwards into the light coming off of it. A cry sounded from above the sinkhole that they had returned as soon as they stepped into the opening. The Doctor nodded at Mickey to let Maxin go first and Mickey helped the man onto the scoop. Slowly he was hoisted upwards and the people helped him off before lowering the scoop once more. Mickey and Alwin went up next and they agreed to meet back in the Tardis once Mickey had helped get the father and son home. Finally it was the turn of the Doctor and Rose. He gently laid her upon the makeshift scoop before shuffling in behind her and pulling her upper body against him so they could fit. He’d be damned if he was leaving her alone now even if it was just a short trip up to the surface.

The Tardis hummed excitedly when he stepped inside with Rose in his arms. She had swung her doors open expectantly as they approached the ship and the Doctor thanked her and said, ‘yes I know,’ as the lights flashed golden in the console room.

He lay Rose down on the metal examination bed in the infirmary and washed his hands before beginning a full body scan. He hooked her up to some intravenous pain relief but Rose still groaned a little as he wiped the blood away from her head wound so he could get a better look at it. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. When the scan was complete he took a quick glance at it, determining that she had a concussion with probable minor amnesia and both her ulna and radius in her forearm were broken. He was quite happily surprised that the severity of the arm injury was not worse, having expected the bones to be crushed beneath the rock. The fractures were still comminuted but the pieces of bone had not splintered off or become so displaced that she would require surgery. Instead Rose would make do with a cast for a few weeks. Next he sutured her head wound, cleaned up all the smaller cuts that littered her face and arms and used the dermal regenerator to speed up the healing process of them. He was sure Rose was going to have words with him about shaving her head a little to do the sutures but it would hardly be visible when her hair was cleaned of the blood and styled as it usually was.

When there was nothing else left to do he pulled up the stool and sat by her bedside holding her right hand in both of his. He tried to move away when he sensed she was waking fully but she tightened her grasp and he stilled and looked up at her expectantly. Her eyelids fluttered open and she squinted into the bright white infirmary lights. The Tardis immediately dimmed them and Rose stopped grimacing at the brightness. Slowly she tilted her head to face the Doctor.

‘Hello,’ she breathed.

‘Hello, how are you feeling?’ He said softly. His eyes darted over her face, as though trying to read her.

‘Hurts.’

He started to stand as he said, ‘I can increase the dosage of your pain meds’.

She tugged on his hand and he paused hovering above the stool. ‘Don’t,’ she said, lightly shaking her head. Rose regretted the decision to move her head immediately but tried to hide the extra pain she had just caused from his fierce gaze.

‘Rose, if you’re in pain-’ he began but she cut him off.

‘It’s not that bad,’ she insisted and he raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Honest,’ she added. He observed her for a moment longer before he relented and sat back down on the stool.

She glanced down her body and studied her injuries, noticing the faint pink marks where the cuts on her arms were healing and the cast that covered her left forearm. ‘Pink?’ she asked him with a twinkle in her eye, lifting her injured arm a little to indicate what she was talking about.

He shrugged. ‘Well, your room is so I thought it was a safe bet.’

He didn’t reply with the same cheerful spark that she had tried to initiate and it dampened her mood slightly. She noted the tension in his shoulders and the way his eyes were hardened with worry. Glancing down at herself and then back at him she tentatively asked, ‘what happened?’

His jaw clenched when he heard the question and he took a deep breath before replying. ‘The roof collapsed in the tunnel you were in,’ he told her, looking directly into her hazel eyes. Rose could tell he wasn’t finished so waited for him to continue. His gaze dropped to their conjoined hands and he swallowed thickly. ‘Just a few inches to your left and you’d be - be -’ he grunted in frustration, not even able to say the word.

Squeezing his hand tighter she said, ‘but I’m not Doctor. I’m not’. Rose stared at him, willing him to look back up at her but he was determinedly fixated on their hands. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly after a moment. He simply shook his head so she continued. ‘I shouldn’t have gone off like that it was stupid -’

‘Don’t Rose,’ he exhaled and glanced up, shaking his head. ‘It was my fault.’

It was impossible, seeing as they were in the Tardis, but it felt as though the air grew thicker as the topic of conversation shifted from the accident to the argument.

Now that the Doctor was finally looking at her she wanted him to stop, his brown eyes were filled with such sorrow and guilt and even though she was still mad at him, it broke her a little to know that she was the cause of that look. ‘Stop looking at me with those big sad eyes,’ she said with a sigh.

‘I’m - I’m not,’ he protested weakly before taking a deep breath and adding, ‘I’m sorry Rose’.

His eyes were pleading and were full of sincerity but she wasn’t ready to accept an apology from him yet. She had to say her peace and he would have to say his even if she had to drag him along kicking and screaming to do so. ‘I just -’ she glanced away trying to find the words. They had to be the right words because this was important. This was about her and the Doctor and she couldn’t afford to mess it up with the wrong ones. Her life with him was crazy and mad and she didn’t want to give up a moment of it, not if she didn’t have to. If he did want more, then great. If he just wanted to be friends, still great. She just wanted to be with him and the Tardis and their adventures and she would just have to try her best to get over him and get over her jealousy because if it wasn’t her that he wanted then there would probably be others and she would have to be okay with that.

She sighed again and slipped her hand out of his so she could wave it around as she spoke. ‘I - I - really don’t understand you Doctor. Just when I think I finally have you go off and do something like that.’ She glanced back at him and if the guiltiness he felt wasn’t on show it sure was now. ‘We were good, you and me. And I know we’re not together and I have no right to say who you can and can’t snog but…’ she paused and shook her head, so caught up in her thoughts that she didn’t notice any pain this time. ‘I don’t know. I got it wrong I guess. With the party and…’ she trailed off with a shrug.

His head had lowered as she spoke and he was back to staring at his hands. She could see his jaw working before he shook his head and said, ‘I never meant to hurt you Rose. I’m sorry’.

She reached up and rested her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it a little. ‘I know.’ Neither said anymore and she left her hand resting there, playing with the collar of his shirt as they sat both lost in their thoughts. Her hand ended up winding into the soft, short hair at the back of his head and she began to stroke it, enjoying the comforting feel of it between her fingers.

He shot up from the stool and it squeaked loudly on the floor in protest of his rash movement. ‘Don’t,’ he warned.

Her hand was still hovering mid air where his head had been only seconds before. She brought it down to rest at her side as she frowned at him. ‘Why not?’

He took a step away from the bed and glanced around the room as though it would give him answers. ‘Because -’ he cut himself off with a groan not wanting to admit it to her. ‘Because it feels nice and I don’t deserve it,’ he said quickly. There was a slight tinge of pink in his cheeks that hadn’t been there moments before and he turned away hoping that she hadn’t seen it. He tried to busy himself by checking the drip stand even though he knew it would be perfectly okay. He had set it up after all.

‘Doctor,’ she said sadly.

He let out a shaky breath and stilled his hands, resting them on the IV machine that monitored the drip rate. ‘Do you want to go home?’

His voice was quiet and Rose only just heard it. She stared at his back; his entire being was radiating tension as he waited for her answer. Of course she didn’t want to, but maybe he wanted her to go. It was his Tardis. His home. He had every right to kick her out. ‘Do you want me to leave?’ She asked just as quietly.

The Doctor shook his head. ‘No, I don’t want you to but if you-’

‘Then I want to stay,’ she said firmly, cutting him off.

The tension in his body lessened as he turned and studied her. She was giving him her most determined look, the kind she gave him when he told her to go back to the Tardis and she adamantly refused. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes,’ she said with mild exasperation. ‘I want to stay with you for as long as you’ll have me.’

He nodded then added, ‘and you’re still mad at me.’ It was more of a statement than a question but he just wanted to ensure they were on the same page.

‘Of course I am, but we’ll figure it out’. They looked at each other for a moment before she indicated to the stool and he re-joined her bedside, giving her his hand when she reached for it. ‘Let’s just stay away from historical figures for a while yeah?' She teased after a few minutes of silence. His wild eyes shot up to stare at her in disbelief that she’d be making light of it so soon and she chuckled at his reaction. ‘It’s a joke, Doctor,’ she said with a small smile. He clenched his jaw before looking back down at their conjoined hands. She squeezed his hand and he squeezed back.

Her eyes trailed from their hands and up his arm to his body. He looked dishevelled. He had his shirt sleeves rolled back revealing scratches along his arms and was missing his tie. His once light blue shirt was covered with dirt and dust and a little dried blood. Even his brown pinstripe trousers hadn’t missed out on the dishevelled treatment, they looked dusty too and one of the knees was ripped and stained with more blood.

‘I know I probably look it too, if not worse, but you look a right mess,’ she said with a playful look in her eye.

He glanced up and shook his head. ‘You’re always beautiful Rose,’ he said softly.

She sighed. ‘Doctor…’ They really had to have a proper talk before he could start telling her things like that.

‘Rose? Rose?’ Mickey called. Rose guessed this wasn’t the moment for that talk.

Just as Mickey burst into the room the Doctor shot up from the stool and backed away from the bed once again. Rose frowned at him briefly before turning to Mickey who was panting but beaming at her.

‘You’re alright,’ he panted, sounding relieved.

‘Been better but yeah,’ she said with a smile. As he nodded and smiled back she glanced over at the Doctor, he was tidying up the pink bandages he had used for her cast and putting other bits of equipment away.

‘So what’s wrong with you?’

‘Oh.’ Rose frowned; she hadn’t actually got around to asking that question. She could easily see that she had a broken arm and a few scrapes but she couldn’t tell there was much else except for the feeling of someone using a hammer on her brain.

The Doctor broke the growing silence by listing off her injuries as he turned and leaned on the counter behind him, crossing his arms over his chest as he spoke. ‘Comminuted fracture of the ulna and radius in the left arm and a laceration near the temple on the left hand side causing concussion and minor amnesia. Other than that it’s just cuts and bruises.’

‘So that’s not too bad?’ Mickey asked, looking over at the other man. The Doctor shook his head in reply and Mickey breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to Rose with another big smile. He began to put his hands in his pockets when he frowned at what he found within them before his face lit up in realisation. ‘That’s for you,’ he said, turning to the Doctor and tossing him his sonic screwdriver. He caught it and inspected it a little lovingly. ‘I think Alwin wanted to keep it but when I told him it was yours he was practically pushing it into my hands. I think you might have scared him,’ he added when the Doctor’s head shot round to him, brow furrowed in confusion.

‘You scared a child?’ Rose asked the Doctor a little incredulously.

‘You were a bit scary back there Doctor, I gotta admit,’ Mickey said but he stopped that line of conversation as he stepped towards Rose and handed her something out of his other pocket. It was the carved wooden wolf toy. ‘Alwin wanted you to have this,’ he told her as she took the toy and turned it over in her hands looking at the intricacies of the object that must have taken hours to craft. ‘He said you should keep it with you to protect you like it did him.’

The Doctor was staring at the wolf darkly as Rose studied it, his hearts hammering a little harder at what it meant. It couldn’t be a coincidence, the universe was rarely so lazy and he and Rose had seen far too much of the Bad Wolf for it to mean nothing. She glanced up at him, their eyes locked as the same thoughts went through her mind. Only Mickey stood there looking at the wolf without the knowledge of the significance it had for the Doctor and Rose.

Chapter 18: Ignorance Is Bliss

Chapter Text

Mickey had suggested they all eat junk food and hang out in the media room for the rest of the day if Rose was feeling up for it. Rose thought it was an excellent idea, though she felt very grimy and wanted to clean up first and she thought the Doctor and Mickey could do with a shower too if she was being honest. They both began to pawn over her with offers of help but she adamantly refused. After confirming with the Doctor that she could shower, even with her stitches, she headed off to her room with a plastic bag and an elastic band in her hand for her cast. Both the Doctor and Mickey watched her warily as she slid off the examination bed and out of the room, ensuring that she was really alright.

Mickey left the infirmary first and headed off to his bedroom agreeing with Rose that he could probably use a shower and a change of clothes.

After finishing packing all the equipment away, and pocketing a small jar of pain relief tablets to give to Rose, the Doctor went to the console room to finally take them away from Drava-Five and into the vortex. It had been a long day. A very long day and even his Time Lord self was feeling tired. For once he wanted to sleep but he also knew he had to check on Rose. She had a head wound and had been knocked unconscious and, like any other doctor, he should keep her under observation. He knew the Tardis would alert him if there was a problem with Rose but what if he couldn’t get there quick enough even if the Tardis could move the rooms about? His fears were irrational but those were the thoughts that had been plaguing his mind since he saw the cave-in and the crystals in the tunnel. In a way, his mind supplied, he was just like Preema. What if he had gotten to her quicker, would she have gotten injured like she did anyway? What if he had gotten there too late and he was the one crying over her lifeless body? He was a mess of what ifs. He ran a hand through his hair and heaved a big sigh. His hair felt horrible, all coated with dust and other debris. He walked through the corridor, slowing by the door to Rose’s room before continuing to his own to shower.

In her en-suite Rose was staring at herself in the mirror. It was the first time she had seen herself since her injuries and she looked a right sight. She would make an excellent zombie in some budget horror film though. She knew the Doctor had cleaned her up a bit but there was still a lot of blood in her hair on her left hand side. It clung to her hair in disgusting clumps that made her want to dive into the shower immediately without bothering to cover up her cast. But she wouldn’t because she had to prove that she could be responsible for caring for her injuries and could shower alone.

Getting the plastic bag on her arm was the easy part; the hard part was tightening the elastic band. It took her a few attempts and a few choice words before she managed it without snapping the band. Then she realised that she hadn’t changed out of her clothes and should probably have done that first when she had access to two sets of fingers. Still, she struggled on. She kicked off her shoes and socks and found that shuffling out of her jeans and underwear came without much trouble. It was only when it came to her t-shirt that her issues began. Rose’s right shoulder began screaming in protest when she tried to lift her arm above her elbow. She must have landed heavily on a rock or something during the accident. It couldn’t have been broken, the Doctor would have mentioned it, but it sure as hell wasn't half bruised. She winced, groaned, moaned and swore before finally both her t-shirt and bra were off and she stood naked, panting in the middle of her bathroom with tears of pain in her eyes.

Rose considered using her plastic wrapped hand to at least clean her hair at that side but the rustling of the plastic near her ear grated on her nerves too much and it was just too fiddly through the layers anyway. She conceded and asked the Tardis to get the Doctor for her as she shrugged her fluffy dressing gown on with only a minor struggle. She had just finished shoving her clothes into the laundry basket when the urgent knocks of the Doctor pounded on her bedroom door.

‘Rose? Are you alright?’ He called with worry lacing his tone.

She opened her en-suite door and waited there. ‘Yeah I’m fine, don't panic. You can come in.’

The door opened and his eyes darted around the room before landing upon Rose in the en-suite doorway wearing her fluffy purple dressing gown with white stars on it. He shuffled inside, closing the door behind him before stepping closer to her and noticing her red rimmed eyes.

‘What’s wrong?’ He asked with such sincere concern that she kind of wanted to laugh for how unwarranted it was for her predicament.

She gently shook her head as his eyes trailed all over her studiously, looking for the problem. ‘Nothing really. I - I just can’t - my shoulder is kind of hurting and I don’t…’ she trailed off as she watched him stride towards her; his hastily replaced shirt was open and flapping as he strode. She had never seen him in such undress before and she guessed he’d been about to shower himself before he rushed over to her aid. He squeezed by her into the en-suite and grabbed the glass from the side by the sink and filled it with water before deftly unscrewing the cap of the pain medication he’d pocketed earlier and tipping two of the small white tablets into his hand. He turned to Rose and held both the water and tablets out towards her.

‘Pain relief. Take them. You can have more in eight hours,’ he instructed.

She did as she was told because boy was her shoulder aching now that she had aggravated it. He took the glass from her when she had finished and replaced it on the side.

‘Shouldn’t be too long before they start to take effect,’ he told her, running another hand through his hair and pulling a face at the feel of it.

‘Speaking of hair,’ she said, indicating to his hand that was trying to pick out a bit of rubble from his own. ‘Do you think - um - could you possibly help me with - with mine?’ His hand stilled in his hair and he blinked at her dumbly so she quickly continued. ‘It’s just I’ve got the cast on this side and can’t really tell what I’m doing with the bag on and I’m struggling to reach with my other arm and I just really want to get the blood out of it at least because it’s just a mess-’

‘Rose. Rose, shhh,’ he said, resting his hands gently on her upper arms as he tried to calm her, worried that she was about to start hyperventilating if she continued.

She took a deep, steadying breath and relaxed a little. It appeared that everything that had happened was just catching up to her and was making her emotions a bit overwhelming.

‘You want me to wash your hair for you?’ The Doctor asked softly and she nodded a little shyly. ‘Okay,’ he agreed after a moment. He released her and glanced around the room before leaving and returning with the plush footstool from her armchair in his hands. She edged out of the way and he placed it at the side of the bathtub. ‘Sit,’ he said, patting the stool. So she did. She sat with her back to the tub and watched as he stepped into the shower and retrieved her hair products. Then he grabbed a couple of towels from the cupboard and said, ‘thank you dear,’ once he had turned back to Rose and noticed the plastic jug the Tardis had provided sitting on the side of the tub. He laid one of the fluffy white towels over the front of her shoulders and then lifted her hair and laid the other so it protected her back and draped that too over her shoulders to keep it in place. Just as he was about ready to begin he inspected her head wound once more saying, ‘yeah you should be fine, Earth doctors would warn you off getting your sutures wet for forty-eight hours but the dermal regenerator has done the trick’. He hummed happily for a moment before glancing back at Rose. ‘Ready?’

‘Well I’m not sitting here waiting for a bus,’ she said dryly.

He huffed and reached around her to turn on the little shower head that was attached to the bath. ‘And you call me the rude one.’ The water heated almost instantly and he sprayed a little on the top of her head. ‘Is that alright?’ He asked, checking the temperature with her. She simply hummed contentedly so he began to spray the rest of her hair, protecting her face with his other hand when he was near her forehead and using the jug filled with water when it came to the area near her stitches, not wanting to damage the sutures nor freshly healed skin with the water pressure. He carefully tried to pick out as much blood as he could now that her hair was damp. Some of it came out easier than other bits but he dropped it all into the bath to wash away down the drain.

Rose had intended on closing her eyes when the Doctor began to wash her hair but had become distracted. His open shirt had offered her a great view of his chest as he stood beside her picking at her hair. If she was being honest she really didn’t mind the view at all. His chest had a covering of dark hair, though as her eyes drifted downwards she noticed it didn’t continue across his flat stomach and there was only a small trail from his belly button that crept below his waistline.

The Doctor leant down to pick the jug back up again and Rose quickly closed her eyes not wanting to be caught out, deciding that she should probably keep them closed until he was finished. She couldn’t help but let out a small moan as the Doctor massaged the shampoo into her scalp. The feeling of his fingers as he worked it into her hair was delightful. He paused for a fraction of a second in shock at the sound before continuing, not wanting her to know what that sound had done to him. The moan, as well as her increased pheromones, ensured that he was going to have a very cold shower when he got back to his room.

After her hair was washed, and as dry as he could get it by patting it with a towel, he carefully brushed and plaited it into two plaits on either side of her head. He had plaited her hair once before in his old body. One of her hands had swollen up after being stung a few times by this angry hornet-like alien and she wouldn’t stop complaining about the wind as they walked along the cliff top. The Doctor had stopped and gruffly asked if she had a hair band or two before plaiting her hair for her to keep it out of the way. She had been in complete shock at the time. He could have just tied it back but no he’d plaited it. Perhaps he knew that Rose preferred it that way after seeing her with her hair in plaits after a shower before bed. He seemed more adept at plaiting with the hands of his current body but he was always fiddling and making things so she supposed it made sense. Once he was finished she thanked and assured him that she needed no more help and he left her to return to his room to finally have that shower. She tried to shower too but found she couldn’t reach everywhere so gave up after doing her best because she certainly wasn’t going to ask the Doctor for more help. And it certainly wouldn’t be in the shower.

When she entered the media room Mickey was already on his fourth slice of the large pizza that he had found and cooked in the galley as it constituted as his requirement for junk food. He apologised for starting without them but Rose shrugged and took a seat beside him on the sofa. She noticed, as she reached over to the coffee table to grab a slice, that the Tardis had been keeping the temperature of the pizza like it had just been brought out of the oven. She looked up and tried to thank the ship in her head and was pleasantly surprised when she received a happy hum back. The Doctor arrived into the media room a moment later wearing just a green Henley over his undershirt and a darker pair of pinstriped trousers. His hair was still damp and a bit floppy as though he hadn’t bothered to add any product to it. She thought he looked very much at home as he too grabbed a slice of pizza and flopped onto the sofa on her right hand side.

Rose had only had a couple of slices before she was struggling to keep her eyes open. Mickey had put on some sort of action film that wasn’t really keeping her attention and it felt like it had been such a long time since she had actually slept that eventually she couldn’t stop her heavy eyelids from closing. She told herself she would just sit there for another five minutes before taking herself off to bed.

The Doctor gazed down at her when her head slowly crept onto his shoulder. Mickey glanced at him after seeing the other man’s movement out of the corner of his eye. He thought the Doctor had that look about him again; the kind of one that said Rose was his everything. Mickey didn’t feel jealous, not anymore, now he just felt protective of Rose and a bit more so after the fight. He didn’t know what was going on between them but they must have made up at least if this was how they were acting now. He decided to skip the rest of the film and head to bed after bidding the Doctor goodnight.

It was only another ten minutes before the Doctor decided to do the same and carefully shuffled off the sofa before scooping up Rose and carrying her into her bedroom. The lights came on dimly as the door opened before him. It was still recognisable as Rose Tyler’s bedroom if one was comparing it to the one she had in the flat, though this one was larger and more updated than the bedroom she had decorated in that very pink way years before they met. The walls were a paler shade of pink and matched the large shag rug that sat in the centre, warming up the light wooden flooring that covered the room. Built in wardrobes and chests of drawers lined the opposite wall to the door and nearby was a free standing mirror and the deep blue armchair with matching footstool that Rose said was the comfiest thing she had ever sat on. There was a stack of shelves that stood next to her bathroom door where she stored a few books, a couple of photo albums, one of which was filled with photos just from the time Jack brought a camera on board, as well as knick knacks from their travels in time and space. Her dressing table, littered with makeup, jewellery and hair products, sat next to the shelves and its chair had a few jackets dumped and forgotten about on it. Her bed sat with the wooden headboard against the right hand wall. It was queen sized and covered with a duvet that had one of those double sided covers on it. It was currently on the pale blue side with the folded top of the duvet showing off its white alternative. Four pillows, in matching blue and white, sat at the head of the bed, awaiting Rose’s head when the Doctor softly laid her down onto them. She was already wearing her pyjamas so he lifted up the duvet and covered her with it, gently tucking her in. He took the glass from her bathroom, filled it with water and set it beside two of the pain relief tablets on her bedside table. He wrote a note telling her at what time she could take them after working it out and comparing the timer in his mind to her watch that sat on the table. She snuggled a little into the duvet as he stood over her before deciding he would sleep in his room for two hours before coming back and checking on her.

Over the next few days the Doctor continued to wash Rose’s hair until she was feeling up to it again. He dialled down on his observations of her too, happy that she was doing better and healing well. But then he started to distance himself from Rose, spending more and more time in the workshop or tinkering under the Tardis or researching in the library. Over the next few weeks some days she didn’t even see him and when she did it was never just the two of them. Mickey was there tagging along on the smaller and less dangerous adventures that they’d been having since her accident. Even on the adventures the Doctor was still distant. He didn’t reach for her hand whenever they ran or as they simply strolled along. He didn’t hug her after a plan worked out or when Rose had a great idea. He didn’t banter and joke with her like they usually did either. What she hated most was the sadness he tried to hide in his eyes when he looked at her. She wanted to talk to him, to see what was going on in that big Time Lord brain of his but every time she tried to reach out he’d brush off her questions, something else would pop up or occasionally he blatantly ignored her. So instead of spending most of her time with the Doctor, which had been the way since she had joined him on the Tardis, she now spent most of her time hanging out with Mickey when she fancied company and most of that time they spent watching a hilarious comedy from the forty-seventh century that had just as many seasons.

**********

One day the Doctor entered the console room followed by the brand new K9 he had been making. Rose had started coming into the room to sit on the jump seat with a cup of tea and a book to try and catch the Doctor so she could finally talk to him. It hadn’t worked as far yet but at least he had one less room to hide in. He glanced over at her a little warily but breathed a small sigh of relief when her first question wasn’t about him avoiding her.

‘You’ve finally finished him then?’ She asked, eyeing K9 over the top of her book. The tin dog looked nearly identical; she would have assumed he’d just given him a new paint job if she didn’t know the fate of the previous one.

He moved over to the controls and started punching in coordinates. ‘Good as new. Better actually,’ he said. His words were succinct. Short and clipped. It made her sigh.

‘Are you taking him to Sarah Jane?’ She asked, hoping to gain more of a reaction out of the man but he simply nodded. He hardly spoke to her and wouldn’t even look at her. He was being ridiculous.

‘Hey, it’s the tin dog,’ Mickey said in an all too cheery tone as he entered the console room.

‘Don’t listen to him K9, you’re much better than a tin dog,’ the Doctor told him as he moved around the console flicking switches before pulling the dematerialisation leaver. Oh, he was fine talking to the tin dog but Rose, no, let’s just ignore her. ‘Wait here boy,’ he said as the Tardis ground to a halt.

‘Affirmative Master,’ the dog’s robotic voice said with a wag of the tail.

The Doctor shrugged on his coat and darted out of the doors without another look back at his companions.

Rose sighed again and got up from the jump seat going to follow the Doctor outside.

‘Rose,’ Mickey said, catching her hand, ‘are you alright?’ He had been asking that a lot lately and it was starting to bug her even though she knew he meant well. He could see how the Doctor’s recent behaviour was affecting her. He’d even wanted to go against her wishes and confront the other man multiple times but he wouldn’t do that to Rose. She didn’t want him interfering and said the Doctor would speak to her when he was ready but it had been going on for weeks now.

‘Mickey, I told you I don’t want to talk about it anymore,’ she said with exasperation.

He dropped her hand and looked determinedly into her eyes. ‘If you don’t manage to talk to him soon I will and he will listen,’ he promised and left the Tardis before she could respond.

‘Mickey! Good, at least there’s a Smith on board,’ Sarah Jane Smith was saying enthusiastically as Rose stepped out of the Tardis. Sarah Jane was smiling brightly at him as she shook his hand, looking much happier than she did when they last saw her.

Rose looked around. The Tardis was parked on the gravel drive of 13 Bannerman Road. It was a large, red brick, three story house with a quirky look about it that made it stand out on the street corner. The Doctor was peering up at the house just behind Sarah Jane whose eyes had now fallen on the final companion to step out of the Tardis.

‘Rose! Hello you,’ she greeted warmly, making her way over to her and giving her a big hug.

She smiled back at the woman, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘Hi, Sarah Jane.’

Sarah Jane either didn’t notice or didn’t mention it but she happily led the way into her house, inviting them into the living room where they began to chat about their recent adventures and the weird happenings on Earth that Sarah Jane had been investigating. Rose didn’t talk much, just adding in the occasional detail that someone had overlooked. She mostly stared at the Doctor who was adamantly looking at anywhere but her, even though he could feel her burning gaze. Sarah Jane caught on fairly quickly that something wasn’t right between the pair. They were nothing like they had been when she saw them last. Handily she had forgotten to offer any refreshments for her guests so got to her feet announcing she was going to make everyone some tea and asked if Rose could come and help.

‘Is everything alright between you two?’ She asked immediately after closing the door to the kitchen.

Rose wasn’t surprised that she had noticed; she was getting too annoyed at him to care about hiding it anymore. She didn’t think twice before opening up to the other woman because who else would understand her predicament better than a former travelling companion. ‘Honestly, I don’t know anymore.’

Sarah Jane frowned, her voice full of concern, ‘why, what happened?’

‘We had this argument and then this happened,’ she held up her left arm with the pink cast and sighed. ‘Things were good for a bit. We spoke about it and he was real caring, doing stuff for me that I couldn’t but now I feel like I hardly see him even when he is physically there.’

‘Have you tried talking to him?’ Sarah Jane asked as she removed cups and saucers from the cupboard whilst the kettle boiled.

Rose chuckled but there was no real humour in it. She began to pace a little in the centre of the room as Sarah Jane worked around her collecting tea bags, milk and sugar and even making up a plate of biscuits. ‘Believe me for a man who doesn’t shut up half the time he doesn’t actually say much. I’ve been trying for weeks but he just hides away and broods…’ She stopped pacing and looked up at the back of the other woman as she picked at her thumbnail nervously. ‘Do you think - do you think he’s going to leave me behind?’

Sarah Jane finished adding the boiling water to the teapot and left it to stew before turning to Rose and leaning back against the counter behind her. ‘I expected him to come back when he dropped me off. I always felt as though I was waiting for him. For years even. Never fully committing to things just in case.’ She paused and gave the younger woman a small knowing smile. ‘He was my life. I never regretted any of it even though the end was painful.’ She glanced away for a moment as she searched for the right words then looked back up and straight into Rose’s hazel eyes. ‘The Doctor doesn’t speak his mind, he never has, but the fact that he hasn’t taken you home really does tell me a lot.’

Rose frowned and shook her head. ‘How?’

‘You would already be at home Rose, wondering where it all went wrong,’ she said, raising her arms in a shrug. ‘I’m sorry but that’s just the sort of man I believe he can be.’

‘So what am I supposed to do? Do I - do I leave him?’ Rose really didn’t want it to come down to that but if this was how life on the Tardis was going to be from now on she knew she couldn’t live with it.

Sarah Jane sighed a little sadly. ‘Only you know what to do, you have to follow your heart. Speak to him, or try to at least and make sure he knows you’re serious.’ She reached out and gently took her hands. ‘You know where I live now. You can come if you need me or call me. I'll always be here for you.’ She pulled Rose into another comforting hug before they stacked everything on two trays and rejoined the group in the living room.

They exchanged a few more tales before the Doctor invited Sarah Jane to see the Tardis. She was a little wary to go in, expecting it to look the same and be a bittersweet reminder of their time together. She needn’t have worried however as the interior was a far cry from the clean and sharp surfaces of the one she remembered. And preferred. She hugged the Doctor tightly when he presented K9 to her. It was certainly a surprise to see her canine companion once again. After a while Sarah Jane took her leave after bidding Mickey and Rose goodbye. The Doctor followed her and K9 outside to say his goodbyes leaving his companions in the console room.

Rose had decided that this was the moment to talk to the Doctor and from the determined look in her eyes Mickey could tell it too. As soon as the other man stepped into the console he walked into the corridor and waited there just in case he had to stop the Doctor from running away. He felt the ship take them into the vortex and then heard Rose’s commanding voice.

‘Sit,’ she said, pointing to the jump seat as she glared at the Doctor. He looked up from the controls with wide eyes at her tone. ‘Sit,’ she demanded once again. Rose had decided to stand in the way of the corridor in the hopes of giving him no other option.

He frowned at her but shuffled towards the seat. ‘Why?’

‘Because you’re giving me the silent treatment and I can’t take it anymore.’ Her voice was calm but full of annoyance. As he sat down she slowly stepped towards him and asked, ‘what’s going on in that big Time Lord head of yours?’ He didn’t answer immediately but she hadn’t expected him to. Thinking he would find it easier to talk if he wasn’t being stared at, she decided to sit next to him and not look in his direction. He didn’t shift as she took the spot beside him, as she had done so many times before. It was the closest they had been in weeks yet it somehow still felt like they were miles apart.

The Doctor sniffed and scratched the back of his head before leaning forward on the jump seat and resting his elbows on his knees, clamping his hands together as he did so. He opened his mouth a few times, thought better of what he was going to say and closed it again. Eventually he spoke, softly at first but it grew into his usual tone. ‘Back on Gallifrey the children are taken to the Academy when they turn eight. You become a novice and in initiation you stand in front of the Untempered Schism. It’s a gap in the fabric of reality and through it is the vortex,’ he released his hands to gesture with them and sat back against the seat again. ‘Time and space in its entirety. Some were inspired, some would run and some would go mad.’

‘You ran?’ Rose quietly asked when he paused.

‘Oh yeah,’ he nodded, ‘been running ever since. It’s all I ever do, just run and run and run’. His voice had turned slightly bitter. He sighed heavily. Leaning his head back a little he titled it to look at her, actually look at her, and she hesitantly turned to meet his gaze. ‘I’m old, Rose. So old and so tired and I’ve lost so many times. So many it’s hard to keep track.’ He glanced away again. ‘Sometimes it makes you wonder…’ He trailed off running a hand through his hair.

Rose stared at him, her eyes wide and begging. ‘What Doctor?’ She asked softly.

He took a deep breath and finished, ‘if it really was all worth it.’ He glanced back at her again, his brown eyes swimming with so much pain. ‘900 years of loss. It hurts Rose. It hurts every single time I lose someone and I…’ He paused, his mouth was working but no words were coming out until he whispered, ‘I don’t want to lose you’.

She shook her head. ‘I feel like you’re already trying to lose me.’

Guilt flashed in his eyes and he clenched his jaw before looking away once again. ‘I thought it would make things easier. Distance myself. Make it hurt less in the long run,’ he said with a shrug.

Now they were finally getting somewhere Rose couldn’t help but look on at him sadly.
Yes she had been the one physically injured in the cave-in, but he had been there to put her back together and pick up the pieces. Clearly he had suffered just as much, though his suffering had been more emotionally damaging. He had acted all fine at first, he was a bit more panicky and she found herself under his worried gaze a little more often but it was to be expected. It was a traumatic event. Then he had spiralled and wouldn't let anyone in, especially not Rose because she was partially the cause. No, she was the cause. He was hurting and he was dealing with it the best way he knew how and that was to run. To run away from the problem and not look back. But Rose was doing her best to drag him back to it because his solution was helping no one and really it wasn’t fair. Not on either of them. But especially not on Rose because she didn’t get the choice. The Doctor just shoved her away without explanation and now she was getting one she wanted him to hear her thoughts on it.

Rose spoke gently to him, letting her annoyance slide because he was clearly struggling so much. ‘You’re doing all of this for you, but what about me, what about how I feel? Do I not get a say in this? Because right now you’re making it hurt.’ She sighed a little when she saw his jaw clench again as he stared at his hands. ‘I get it Doctor, I really do. You’ve gone through so much pain and loss and you’re just trying to protect yourself from having to feel it again. But when I look at you now, you’re not you. You’re back to the man who had just come from the war.’ His whole body stiffened at this comparison but she pushed on. ‘You changed Doctor, you’d become happier, but you’ve hidden yourself away and now there’s this constant air of sadness around you.’ She looked at him as though she could see that sadness radiating off of him whilst she waited for a response.

The Doctor swallowed and glanced back at her and mumbled a little thickly, ‘I nearly lost you Rose’. He was wearing his big sad eyes expression again and Rose couldn’t help but lay a hand on his thigh in comfort even if she couldn’t give the full effect with the cast on. He didn’t flinch away so she marked that up as a win.

‘I know, but you didn’t and it’ll probably happen again.’ He did flinch a little at that remark but it was the truth and he had to accept it. ‘It’s part of the package of the life we lead but neither of us would change that life for a second. You’re acting like I’m already gone but surely it would be better to enjoy it whilst I’m still here, otherwise what’s the point?’ She locked her eyes with his and gazed at him imploringly. ‘I came into the Tardis to travel with you, Doctor, not the shell of a man who looks like you.’ He let out a long shaky exhale and swallowed, no longer looking her in the eyes but he was still looking her way at least. She twisted on the seat so she could reach out and cup his face with her right hand. Her thumb brushed against the light stubble gently and he leaned into the touch. When his gaze reached her eyes once more she pleaded, ‘please Doctor. Come back to me’. Her hand slipped from his cheek and he looked away again, his eyes on the console before him.

They sat in silence for quite some time but as Rose stood up, about to leave him to his brooding, she heard him shuffle behind her and felt his hand close around her right wrist. She glanced back at him; he had slid across the jump seat so he could reach out to her uninjured arm. He gently tugged her closer and she sat down where he had been just moments prior. Entwining their fingers so their hands came together perfectly, he cupped her hand with his other and drew them upwards towards him. He placed a kiss on the back of hers before lowering their conjoined hands a little and holding them tightly against his chest. Taking a deep breath he looked at her directly in the eyes as he said. ‘You, Rose Tyler, mean an awful lot to me and I don’t want to push you away and lose you, or lose you in any other way.’ He paused for a moment and she noticed the hammering of his hearts where her hand rested with his. ‘I’m going to try my best to stop running when it comes to you. I can’t make any promises or change straight away but I will try.’

His eyes were filled with such sincerity that she believed him. He would try. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

It turned out it shouldn’t have been the Doctor worrying about loss; it should have been Rose because the next day she lost one of the constants she’d had for most of her life. Someone she had grown up with. Someone who was her best friend. The next day she lost Mickey Smith, and she would never see him again.

Chapter 19: Gingerbread House

Chapter Text

The day had started off well for Rose, the Doctor was still quiet but he was at least talking to her properly now. He had found her in the galley finishing breakfast when he invited her to the infirmary for a scan of her arm to see if it was time to remove her cast. The type of break the collapsed tunnel had caused would usually take a little longer to heal so he wanted to at least check her progress if nothing else.

‘Healed,’ he announced when the scan was complete. ‘Quite remarkable for a human, Tyler.’

‘Yeah?’ she said, excited that she could finally get rid of the cast. It had been so annoyingly itchy that some days she just wanted to rip it off herself. Oh and she could finally shower properly or bathe, yes she would love a nice, long, relaxing bath.

‘Yeah,’ he said uncertainly. His eyes were still darting back and forth over the scan, his brow furrowed a little at what he saw on the screen.

She stared at the back of his head, her happy mood dampened by his tone. ‘You don’t sound pleased.’

‘Oh, no, no I’m pleased,’ he said, shaking his head. He turned around on the stool and pocketed his glasses, ‘of course I’m pleased. Pleased as punch, that's me’. He added a little smile just to ensure he got across the fact that he was pleased.

Rose didn’t buy it one bit. ‘Right, and when you’ve finished acting all weird can you tell me what’s wrong?’ She said, raising her eyebrows at him.

His smile dropped and he sighed. ‘Nothing’s wrong exactly, it’s just unexpected that’s all.’ She continued staring at him, awaiting a further explanation so he added, ‘you’re healing more at the rate of a child than an adult but you’re young…’ He tailed off with a shrug. ‘It’s fine, Rose, really,’ he tried to assure her. When she finally looked more content at his words he got up and rooted through the cupboards to find the oscillating saw to take off her cast.

She had a shower afterwards, which she found delightful, before meeting the Doctor and Mickey in the console room where they were chatting and reminiscing on past adventures. That was just before everything went wrong.

The Tardis fell out of the vortex. They should have been nowhere but somehow they had ended up in London. A parallel London with Zeppelins. They met Jackie Tyler, an alive Pete Tyler and their dog Rose. This was something that the Doctor did not find funny whatsoever. He was rather worried about Rose wanting to see the parallel version of her dad. Her last meeting with her real dad had certainly been a lesson on the do’s and don'ts of time travel. What he hadn’t expected to be worried about was the appearance of the Cybermen. They crashed the party at the Tyler Mansion and started killing and taking the guests for upgrading. After joining forces with a rebellion group called The Preachers, which was led by Mickey’s parallel self Ricky, and together they fought Cybus Industries to stop the Cybermen. Lumic and his Cybermen had already caused a lot of damage resulting in many casualties including the parallel world’s version of Jackie Tyler and two members of The Preachers: Ricky Smith and Mrs. Moore.

**********

It was late evening in parallel London by the time they made it back to the Tardis. She was parked on the Thames embankment and was alive once again with the power cell the Doctor had been charging.

‘Rose,’ the Doctor called, looking out of the Tardis trying to find her. When he spotted his companion he jogged over to her. ‘I’ve only got five minutes of power,’ he stopped before her, ‘we’ve gotta go’.

She turned back to Pete Tyler, still trying to convince him to see the Tardis. To see her life. Because isn’t that what every young girl wants? To show your dad who you are and what you’ve done? To try and make him proud? ‘The Doctor could show you…’

‘Thank you, for everything,’ Pete said, glancing at Rose and then awkwardly looking away and around him at anything but.

Rose stared at him intensely with tears in her eyes. When she caught his gaze once more she said, ‘Dad’.

There was a pain in his eyes as he looked at her. He wanted a child, a daughter, so very much but his Jackie never felt the same way. Yet there was Rose. The child of another Pete and Jackie. A child he could have had. It was too much. ‘Don’t,’ he frowned and shook his head. ‘Just - just don’t.’ He pushed past and walked away from her.

Rose swallowed, her eyes shining brightly at the rejection as she stared off into the distance. The Doctor watched her, scratching the back of his head as he always did when he was feeling awkward. He knew he should say something to her but he wasn’t sure what she wanted to hear. In any case it didn’t matter as Mickey and Jake came walking up to them, diverting his attention from the grieving Rose. The Doctor was overjoyed when he noticed Mickey was holding his suit and coat, having found it for him at the Tyler Mansion. He then turned his attention to Jake asking him to find the family of Mrs. Moore before he announced that they really should be off. The timer in his head was ticking.

Mickey, however, had other plans. ‘Uh… thing is, I’m staying.’

The Doctor stared at him unbelievably. ‘You’re doing what?’

‘You can’t,’ Rose insisted, her eyes teary again as she also stared at Mickey, shaking her head at him.

Mickey looked at her sadly, his voice trembling. ‘It sort of balances it out, cos this world lost its Ricky. But there’s me. And there’s work to be done with all those Cybermen still out there.’

She shook her head again. ‘But you can’t stay,’ she said, a little choked with emotion.

‘Rose, my gran’s here,’ he began, begging her to understand. ‘She’s still alive. My old gran, remember her?’

She sniffed and wiped at her nose. ‘Yeah.’

‘She needs me.’

‘What about me? What if I need you?’

‘Yeah, but Rose…you don’t. You’ve got the Doctor haven’t you?’ He finally turned to the Time Lord and looked at him with a question in his eyes. A question of whether Rose really did have him, especially after all that they had been through recently. The Doctor matched his gaze and gave him a determined nod. Mickey nodded back and glanced at Rose once more. ‘It’s just you and him now. We had something a long time ago but - not anymore.’

She was really trying her hardest not to cry at this point. ‘Well…we’ll come back. We can travel anywhere, come and see you, yeah?’ She said, but she knew she was clutching at straws.

‘We can’t,’ the Doctor said with a shake of his head. ‘I told you, travel between parallel worlds is impossible. We only got here by accident. We - we fell through a crack in time. When we leave I’ve got to close it.’ He glanced between Rose and Mickey making sure they understood before turning solely to Mickey as he said with finality, ‘we can’t ever return.’

Mickey looked away, taking in his warnings before looking back up and offering his hand to the Time Lord. ‘Doctor.’

He grasped Mickey’s hand in his and shook it. ‘Take Rose’s phone. It’s got the code. Get it out there. Stop those factories.’ A small twinkle grew in his eyes. ‘And good luck Mickey the Idiot.’ He gently smacked the man’s cheek.

‘Watch it!’ Mickey retorted. The Doctor smiled at him and began to head to the Tardis. ‘Make sure you’re not one yourself,’ Mickey added and the Time Lord acknowledged his words with a wave of his hand before entering his ship. Now it was just him and Rose. ‘Thanks,’ he said as she passed him her phone and he pocketed it. ‘You gonna be alright with him?’ He nodded his head towards the Tardis.

Rose nodded, looking down and picking at her nails trying to distract herself from getting too upset. ‘Yeah, of cause.’

He rested a hand on her shoulder and she met his gaze. It was full of determination. ‘If he ever does something stupid, you just remind him that I will find a way back through to you, even if he is closing off cracks in time or whatever. I’ll come back and give him a piece of my mind.’ His words brought a small grin to Rose’s lips and she let out a watery laugh. He smiled back at her, glad that he had at least cheered her up a little bit. That cheer didn’t last long enough though and soon they were back to looking at each other sadly. ‘Come here,’ he said, pulling her towards him and into a hug that she readily accepted. ‘I love you, Rose,’ he mumbled.

‘I love you,’ she said as she held onto him tightly, her voice all choked up again.

‘Say goodbye to your mum from me.’

She nodded into his shoulder. ‘Hug your gran for me.’

He swallowed and gave her a small nod back, pulling away from her before nodding towards the Tardis for a final time. ‘Go on, you’ll miss your flight.’

She couldn’t look at him as she walked away, her tears ready to fall at any second. It was only when she stood in the doorway that she found herself able to look back out of the Tardis and at Mickey for the last time. He gave her a small smile and a nod as she closed the door.

The Doctor looked up from the console when the door clicked shut. ‘Rose, hold onto the railing. We’ve got to go now and it’s going to be bumpy.’ As soon as her hands were clenched on the rail by the door he pulled the dematerialisation leaver to take them back into the vortex. The Tardis groaned and jolted about erratically, throwing the Doctor onto the grating and forcing Rose to hug the railing to stop herself ending up the same way. He dragged himself to his knees with a grunt and flicked a couple of nearby switches. The Tardis eased her shaking as they re-entered the vortex. ‘You alright?’ He called over his shoulder as he got up and dashed about the console, closing the crack in time that they had fallen through to enter the Parallel world.

Rose was still clinging on to the railings as though her life depended on it. So much had happened out there. She’d seen her dad again, it wasn’t her real dad and she knew it, but it was still him. By the end of the night he’d rejected her and that had hurt so much. She’d been too late to save her mum; she had died by the hands of the Cybermen becoming one of them. Rose knew it was unreasonable to feel too sad about her death because that wasn’t actually her mum, but when she looks like your mum, talks like your mum and acts like your mum it can be hard to think of her as anything but. And then there was Mickey. He had stayed behind, stayed with his gran and would keep up the fight against the Cybermen. And she would never see him again.

‘Rose.’

She jolted at the sound of the Doctor’s voice. He was standing right behind her, watching over her with such understanding in his eyes.

‘You don’t have to hold on anymore,’ he said softly. When she didn’t react he reached around and gently lifted her hands from the railing and tugged her slightly so she was facing him. Her hair shielded her face from his but she looked up at him as he soothingly rubbed the back of her hands with his thumbs. Her eyes were teary and she sniffed a little. With a trembling voice she said, ‘I’m never going to see him again’.

His eyes met hers and he shook his head. ‘You can’t, I’m sorry.’

She swallowed and nodded in sorrowful acceptance of his words. ‘Can I?’ She said after a moment, gesturing towards him.

He immediately pulled her into a tight embrace, answering her question. ‘Of course you can.’ He hated that she felt like she had to ask. That wasn’t how they used to be. He’d done that to them. She was there thinking that he didn’t want her but no it wasn’t that he didn’t want her. He wanted her too much. He needed her. He had been a wreck when he found her injured and unconscious. He knew he couldn’t bear to lose her but when that possibility was playing out right before his very eyes it hit him more than he expected it to. But she was fine. It was a phrase he had to repeat to himself. Tattooed it onto his subconscious just so he could close his eyes, as he laid in bed that first night, without seeing her bleeding out before him. Just another nightmare to add to the list.

Then there had been the afterwards. Her recovery. She had asked for his help and how could he refuse. They were close, he and Rose, they held hands a lot of the time and more recently their hugs lingered past the usual length of just friendship. There was a lot to unpack about Rose’s behaviour with Reinette that he couldn’t afford to go into, nor could he afford to think about the kiss he had forced upon her either. His mind unhelpfully supplied the soft feel of her lips against his whenever his eyes fell upon them. He wanted that feeling again. To feel Rose pull him towards her instead of pushing him away. To feel Rose wrap her arms around him, her fingers in his hair and digging into his back. What made it worse was that he wanted so much more than that. That was why he withdrew. The intimacy they had found themselves in when he cared for her after the accident only made it harder to hold back. He couldn’t let himself want Rose in that way. He couldn’t. She was Rose Tyler, Human and he was the Doctor, Time Lord. Nearly nine centuries of incompatibility stood between them and there was the small matter that he could outlive her for possibly another nine, though with the rate of his regenerations at the moment it wasn’t likely. It was selfish of him he knew but the feelings that Rose inspired within him weren’t ones he ever thought he would feel and he didn’t have a great track record with dealing with his feelings. But if Rose did feel the same way and something did happen between them he wasn’t sure he could do anything to stop it. It would break him in the long run but he had promised to stop running from her. He just wasn’t sure if that was included in the promise.

‘I’m so sorry Rose’, he mumbled into her golden hair. He was sorry for the suffering she was going through now. Sorry for the hurt he’d caused by pushing her away. Even sorry for the kiss with Reinette. It was an all inclusive apology and he tried to emphasise that in his tone. He held her a little tighter and breathed her in. Oh how he had missed this. Of course he wished their embrace now was in happier circ*mstances but it was what it was. She needed him. She needed this. And he would be there for her for whatever she needed. He wouldn’t run away.

He ran his fingers through her hair as he held her, her face buried in his chest, dampening the white shirt of the tuxedo he’d essentially stolen. He didn’t mind it and her reaction hadn’t surprised him at all. Rose Tyler cared and when she did she cared deeply, with all of her heart. It was just one of the many things he loved about her.

After a while she sniffed and leant back in his arms so she could look up at the Doctor’s face. His hand stilled on her back as he glanced down at her puffy red eyes that tugged on his hearts a little. Oh Rose. He slipped one of his hands from her back and brought it up to her cheek, brushing away the tear stains with his thumb. ‘Any better?’ he asked softly.

She shrugged. ‘A little.’ Her voice was small and it sounded wrong in his ears. It was a far cry from the woman who put Cassandra, Mr. Sneed and Madame Castile in their places. He wasn’t exactly sure how to fix it either but he knew someone who probably could.

‘Do you want to visit Jackie?’

She didn’t need to think about the answer. ‘Yeah,’ she said with a nod. She had just lost her parallel mum. Now she needed her real one.

‘Okay,’ he said, finally pulling away from her. He let one hand trail down her arm to find hers and entwined their fingers, starting to walk them further into the console room. He nodded to the corridor and said, ‘let’s go get changed and then pop over’.

**********

Jackie was filling up the kettle at the kitchen sink, about to make a cup of tea, when she heard the distinctive wheezing of the Tardis appearing in her living room. She set the kettle down on the counter and walked into the living room expectantly awaiting her daughter’s return.

Rose opened the door of the Tardis and walked out looking at her mum like she didn’t quite believe she was there. ‘You’re alive,’ she breathed. The happiness on Jackie’s face faded a little and her eyes grew wide. ‘Oh mum you’re alive.’ Rose stepped towards her mother and flung her arms around her, embracing her tightly.

The Tardis door swung shut behind the Doctor as he leant against his ship with his arms crossed watching the two Tyler’s before him.

‘Well I was last time I looked,’ Jackie said, easily accepting the hug but flummoxed by her daughter’s behaviour. ‘What is it? What’s happened, sweetheart? Rose didn’t answer she simply clung to her mum tighter, squeezing her eyes shut as she tried not to cry once again. Jackie directed her questions to the Doctor instead. ‘What’s wrong? Where did you go?’

‘Far away,’ he answered pensively. ‘That was…’ He paused and nodded to himself a little, thinking of no better way to put it. ‘Far away.’

Jackie frowned at him. ‘Where’s Mickey?’

‘He’s gone home.’

The Doctor watched over them a little while longer before thinking that Rose would probably want to stay the night. He announced he was going to re-park the Tardis and the wheezing sounded out through the flat once again before it could be heard more quietly moments later out on the street. The Tardis would need some repairs before he felt happy flying her on long adventures but he decided that could be done later, probably when the humans were asleep. Really he just wanted to be there for Rose. He knew she was in the best of care now. She was with her mother, Jackie Tyler, the woman who brought her up singlehandedly, of course she was. Maybe it was because he felt a little guilty. Oh Rose would tell him off if she knew; he could hear her now. But that was just who the Doctor was. He would take every problem and rest it on his shoulders and Mickey leaving was partially his fault. It was his Tardis that took them there, not that he could have done anything about it, and then Mickey felt like Rose didn’t need him because she had him, the Doctor. He had assured Mickey that he would be there for Rose so he would be.

She was curled up on the sofa when he re-entered the flat. Jackie was busy making the tea in the kitchen and the television was on though it was just background noise, no one was actually watching it. The sofa cushions sunk beneath him as he sat next to her; she was biting her thumbnail, staring at the screen but lost in thought. ‘You alright?’ he whispered.

‘Yeah.’ She nodded and glanced over at him. He thought she did look better. She was calmer, perhaps more at ease with the events of the day now that she was with her mum and a little time had passed. ‘Would you explain it to her? You don’t need to go into all the details but she needs to know, she needs to know what’s happened to Mickey.’

‘Yeah, of course,’ he agreed just before Jackie entered the room. She was carrying three cups of tea, because tea fixes everything, and going on about food.

‘Now, I was telling Rose that I wasn’t doing much for tea, just having some leftover chicken with potatoes and carrots, but I can go chop up some more if you’re wanting some.’ She passed him and Rose their cups and stood back, looking at the Doctor expectantly.

‘Oh, um, yeah that sounds lovely Jackie,’ he said a little awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. He opened his mouth to start to tell her about the parallel world when she spoke up again, having apparently not finished with her thoughts on food.

‘And do you want the chicken hot or cold because I’ll have to put the oven on?’

He blinked at her for a second then said, ‘I don’t mind, eat anything, me - well almost anything,’ he corrected, slightly screwing up his nose at the thought of pears and then quickly continuing before she could ask him what shape he wanted his carrots or something ridiculous like that. ‘Jackie, can we just leave the food for a sec,’ he said softly, glancing over at Rose and then back to her mother. ‘Would you sit down, we need to tell you something.’ She breathed in a little sharply at his words. A bright spark flitted across her eyes as she nodded and reversed into the armchair, studying the two time travellers intently. He frowned a little at her reaction and looked back to Rose to see if she could clear up his confusion but she was already looking at him, awaiting his explanation. She nodded to him, ready to start, so he did. Going by the slightly crestfallen look on Jackie’s face when he began rambling on about parallel worlds, the topic of conversation was not what she had been expecting. But what she had been expecting he had no idea.

When Jackie announced that she was going to bed she offered him the sofa again but he declined. Rose’s head shot round to stare at him so he explained that he was going to do some repairs on the Tardis as she had taken on some damage getting in and out of the parallel world. He could tell that Rose wasn’t happy with his decision but the Tardis did need repairs and she would be asleep so what else was he supposed to do. He promised he wouldn’t go off anywhere and would be back at the flat in the morning then he left.

He spent the next few hours tinkering. He replaced a few of the buttons that had burnt up in a small fire the crash had caused, did some maintenance on the shields, re-stabilised the gyroscopic stabiliser and found a few loose connections under the grating. He reconnected the wires to hopefully the correct places and set the scanner going, checking to see if he had indeed reconnected everything successfully. He hadn’t expected the scanner to actually pick anything up; he was only meant to be testing its functionality. The energy signature was peculiar and he studied it again, still in disbelief. There was that feeling inside of him. That excited feeling. The thrill of adventure. Oh, he wanted to check it out, just to see it with his eyes and then he’d have to take it back to where it came from of course before it did any damage. It definitely didn’t belong on this world. He began to set the date for some thirty years prior before another thought hit him. He couldn’t leave. He’d told Rose he wouldn’t. But it was four in the morning Earth time, she would be asleep, she needn’t have to know. And the reading on the scanner was very strange, very unlikely. Maybe he had calibrated it wrong. He thought it was best to check. And if it was there, he needed to stop it.

The Doctor was very proud, as he walked up the stairs to the Tyler flat, that he had managed to return just ten minutes after he left. He wanted to boast to Rose about it, she was constantly having digs at his driving ability, so for once he wanted to prove he could drive his ship well. Not that he could boast because he had to maintain that he never left. That all went out of the window when he stepped inside and nearly jumped out of his skin when a stony faced Rose Tyler was waiting for him in the hallway.

‘You left,’ she stated quietly, not wanting to wake her mum up.

The Doctor swallowed and pulled at his ear. The lie was never going to last anyway, he was always terrible at lying to her. ‘Yeah,’ he said just as quietly.

‘You said you wouldn’t leave but you left anyway?’ Her wide hazel eyes searched his face for answers but all he could see in hers was disappointment and sorrow. He didn’t know if he was the cause of the sorrow as well or if that was lingering from recent events. Either way he had certainly caused the disappointment. She had put her trust in him and he had broken it.

He sighed heavily and rubbed his hands over his face in silent frustration. ‘God I’m just mucking everything up at the moment aren’t I?’ He looked at her with an apology dancing in his eyes as he quietly tried to explain himself and the situation. Said explanation turned into a bit of a ramble of course. ‘It was never my intention. I was fixing the Tardis like I said, made a few adjustments to the scanners and tested them, not expecting to pick anything up but it did. It picked up a strange energy signature nearby. It was an escaped Elemental Shade; I just sent it back to the Howling Halls where it came from. Didn’t take long, an hour tops.’ He added, hoping to show her that she didn’t miss out on much and that he really wasn’t away for long.

‘Nearby as in present day?’ She asked, getting hung up on a detail the Doctor hadn’t been expecting.

He scratched his neck a little awkwardly. ‘Erm - a few decades ago.’ His voice went up in pitch like it did when he was uncertain.

She crossed her arms and leaned into her hip as she stared at him with hurt in her eyes. ‘So you could have waited?’ He gulped. ‘You didn’t have to go immediately; you could have waited or woken me up?’

She was right. He certainly could have and probably should have after promising he wouldn’t leave. He’d gotten too caught up in the thrill of the impossible. The thrill of the chase. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be up for it,’ he tried, but it was weak. By Rose’s eyebrows he could tell she thought so too. ‘Yes, I could have waited,’ he conceded and then apologised with all the sincerity he could muster, ‘I’m sorry’. Her rigid posture lessened as he watched her study him again, checking to see if he was fully truthful and there wasn’t anything else going on. He took a step towards her and was quietly pleased when she allowed him to take her hands in his. He held them as one and pulled them up against his chest, mimicking his movement from the other day. ‘I know I just broke a promise,’ he said, looking her directly in the eyes and begging her to believe him, ‘but please trust me Rose when I promise you I’m not running’.

Rose held his gaze for a few moments as she considered his words. ‘Okay,’ she said with a small nod.

‘Yeah?’ the Doctor said, his eyes widening with hope.

‘Yeah,’ she confirmed before adding, ‘you idiot,’ with a hint of a grin. He nodded in solemn agreement at Mickey’s words and was pleasantly surprised when she untangled her hands from his before wrapping her arms around his waist instead, pulling him into a hug. His hands made their way onto her back as he held her close.

‘What did you want to do today? Do you want to stay here?’ He mumbled into her hair after a while of embracing the closeness they had once again. He had really missed it.

He felt her shake her hair before she answered, ‘no, I want to get out. I need a distraction.’

‘Distraction. Okay. Yep, distraction. I can do those.’ He pulled back from the hug with a mad gleam in his eye and a smile on his lips. ‘Come to think of it, I've got just the thing.’ He took her hand and tried to walk back to the door. ‘Oh you’ll love this Rose Tyler, the authentic experience…’ He trailed off when he realised she wasn’t moving with him. Turning back with a frown he said, ‘what?’

‘Should probably wait a couple of hours for mum to get up, don’t just want to leave a note to say we’ve gone off,’ Rose explained a little awkwardly.

The Doctor could see a solution to her issue though. ‘Well, we can skip ahead in the Tardis, say bye and be off then,’ he said enthusiastically and was turning back to the door when the tug on his hand stopped him.

Her eyes twinkled as she said, ‘I’m not sure I trust your driving enough’.

He gaped at her in mock outrage. ‘Oi, I’ll have you know I arrived back here ten minutes after I left.’ He dropped her hand and raised his eyebrow to add to the effect as she giggled at him. ‘You try driving a temperamental time machine and see if you end up where you intended,’ he concluded with a huff. ‘Fine we’ll stay here for a bit,’ he conceded before he smiled at her mischievously and watched her own amused expression drop, unsure of what he was about to do. He took a couple of steps past her, further into the flat before he threatened, ‘I’m sure there are some improvements I can do to the toaster’. He dashed into the kitchen and she followed just as quick.

‘Don’t you dare touch that toaster mister,’ she warned with a harsh whisper.

Chapter 20: The Dawn Of A New Day

Chapter Text

The pair had stayed at the Powell Estate waiting for Jackie to wake up before they set off on their next adventure. The Doctor said he wasn’t letting on where he was taking Rose until they got to the Tardis and he annoyingly kept his word even with her nagging that had only managed to make him laugh. At around five in the morning he took Rose’s hand and led her out of the flat and up the stairs to the roof.

‘What are you doing?’ She asked as they started climbing upwards.

‘Going to the roof,’ he replied over his shoulder.

She rolled her eyes at his typically vague response. ‘Yeah, I see that but why?’

He glanced back with a small smile. ‘You’ll see.’

She shook her head fondly at him as he continued to pull her up the stairs.

The early morning sky was gradually growing lighter over London and for once there was hardly a cloud in sight. Rose had slipped on some trainers when the Doctor said he wanted them to step outside, but underneath her hoodie she was still wearing her pyjamas; not that there was anyone else up on the roof to see but she still felt a little self conscious when she realised she hadn’t changed. It was late April but still a bit cool, especially that early in the morning, so she was certainly glad of her thick hoodie and joggers. They were sitting almost in the same spot as when she found the Doctor hiding on the roof after she had returned home for the first time. Now he was leant backwards, his back against the roofing felt and his feet dangling off the edge of the slightly taller part of the roof that they had sat upon. He was gazing contently up at the sky and watching as it slowly lightened. Rose was swinging her legs back and forth, her trainers hitting against the graffitied brickwork as she looked out at the growing outlines of the blocks of flats that had a glowing window here and there, the only indication of life on the otherwise quiet estate. To her right a couple of street lamps lit up the park that she and Mickey played in when they were younger. She found her mind wandering back to him. She was happy for him really that he got to have a life with his gran again, she had practically brought him up and he was devastated after she died. She knew he blamed himself for her death so maybe this chance would help him to ease his guilt.

‘Ah here we go,’ The Doctor said, bringing her out of her thoughts. She turned towards him; he was sitting up a little, resting on his elbows and staring out at the view ahead. He glanced at her and said, ‘bet you hardly got up early enough to see this when you were living here’. He nodded his head in the direction he had been looking and she followed his lead.

A warm glow was appearing on the horizon. They watched as it expanded across the sky and changed to a mass of yellows and oranges and blues and purples. The colours all blended into one, lighting up the world around them like a painting.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Rose whispered as she stared.

‘Yeah,’ he agreed softly.

She took her eyes off the sky for a moment to look back at the Doctor. He was looking at the sunrise as though it was a marvel and had a content smile on his face. He glanced up at her, feeling her gaze, and his smile grew a little more. She decided to join him so leant back and rested on her elbows and looked out at the sky again, its bright colours fading into a light blue as the sun continued to rise.

‘You can travel the entire universe,’ he murmured, ‘the whole of time and space looking for the wonders that are out there. But sometimes the best things were there right in front of you, you just needed to take the time to stop and appreciate them’.

‘You really think that this is one of the best things out there?’ She asked tilting her head to the side to look at him. Out of everything that he must have seen travelling throughout the universe, surely this can’t have been one of the best experiences.

He nodded seriously, not needing a moment to consider his answer. He followed her movement and looked at her as he said, ‘oh yeah, there’s nothing out there that’s quite like it, not really’.

‘Not even on your planet?’ She asked without thinking. The Doctor’s smile slipped a little and his eyes hardened. Having realised what she had said Rose was about to apologise for her insensitivity when he spoke up.

‘No,’ he said softly, ‘not quite.’ Though he still looked at Rose, his eyes had glazed over as memories of his home washed over him. His voice was rather wistful as he spoke again. ‘Gallifrey was in a binary star system with two golden-red suns. The sky burnt orange at night and when the second sun rose from the east in the morning the mountains would glow and the silver forests looked as though they were on fire. The sky would then fade to blue, rather like Earth, during the day before the suns set in the south. Pazithi Gallifreya, one of the two moons, would shine so bright it was always visible no matter the time of day…’ His eyes looked back to the sky as he trailed off remembering the atmospheric flare that had destroyed the moon during the war.

Rose stared at the Time Lord in wonder; he had hardly ever spoken of his home world, all she really knew was that there had been a war and that it had been destroyed. Now here he was describing it to her. She wished she could visit it, to fully appreciate the beauty that the Doctor’s words had created in her mind. ‘It sounds beautiful, Doctor,’ she said softly. He hummed in agreement, though even that sounded distant as his thoughts of Gallifrey continued. ‘Would you,’ Rose began a little nervously. She didn’t want to upset him but now he had begun talking she didn’t want him to stop. ‘Would you tell me more?’ She bit her lip as she awaited his response.

He breathed in deeply before his eyes locked with hers and he said, ‘what would you like to know?’

She nearly gasped. Her eyes definitely widened enough for him to see her surprise but he didn’t react to it as he continued to gaze at her. He could have told her no or agreed and continued talking about his planet. Instead he had asked what she wanted to know. Of course, again, he could refuse to answer her questions but this was an invitation that she had never expected from the man in front of her. A man who hid behind so many walls. Yet here he was showing her a doorway inside and all she could do was stare at him hoping that she wouldn’t scare him off, leading him to bar those doors from her forever. She didn’t know where to start, but then thinking about it, what better place to start than the beginning. ‘Where did you grow up?’

He didn’t react to her question or if he did it was extremely minimal. His eyes studied her for a moment before he lay back fully on the rooftop and turned to face the sky once more. He didn’t speak and Rose worried that she had scared him off. That was until she felt the brush of a cool hand blindly reaching across to find hers. She adjusted her position so she leant just on her right elbow, allowing the Doctor to take her left hand. He entwined their fingers and rubbed his thumb over hers in a comforting motion that was probably more for himself than it was for her. Then he gently tugged her hand towards him and in understanding she followed his lead and leant back, copying his prone figure. Her gaze turned to the sky as they lay side by side; it felt far too intrusive to continue to look at the Time Lord when there were merely inches between them.

After a few more moments he swallowed and then began to speak. ‘I used to lie side by side like this with my father,’ he said, closing his eyes as he pictured the memory. ‘He would take me out onto the grass and we’d lie there watching the meteor storms. Just the two of us. Occasionally my brother Brax would join but he was older than me, already at the Academy, so it was only when his home visits coincided with a shower that he joined. That was if he could be bothered, he was always a bit stuck up.’

Rose’s eyes darted over to him as he paused. The freckles that dotted across his cheeks and nose were more prominent in the morning sunlight as were the crows feet that gently lined the edges of his eyes. He didn’t look relaxed as though in sleep, his brow was too creased for that and his mouth was open and twitching ever so slightly, on the verge between words and silence as he worked out what to say and how to say it.

The Doctor’s thumb rubbed against hers again before he spoke once more. ‘We lived in a house on the west side of Mount Lung, though that was just its nickname; it was actually called Mount Cadon. It was the highest peak on Gallifrey. It reached up into the atmosphere past the violet clouds and the hovering flocks of air diamonds into the transduction barrier. The red grass grew tall on the slopes before haytime and afterwards it was carpeted with tiny blue flowers. I never managed to climb to the top of its snowy peak. Oh I tried many times but could never quite make it, the snow was hallucinogenic you see, it played with your mind making it that much harder.’

The scent of bacon frying had been wafting over them from one of the flats below during the last minute that the Doctor had been speaking. Rose’s stomach growled hungrily as he paused in his tale and she groaned internally hoping that he hadn’t noticed and that he wouldn’t stop telling her about his home because she wasn’t sure he’d want to talk about it ever again.

Of course the Doctor had noticed the sound. His eyes fluttered open and he squinted a little at the brightness. Then his head tilted to the side as he looked around at Rose, his whole demeanour shifting back to what she normally associated with the Doctor as he smirked and said, ‘hungry?’ The spell was broken and she tried her best to hide her disappointment. At her lack of reaction the Doctor gave her a small smile and added, ‘come on let’s get some breakfast’. As he began to sit up, Rose firmly held his hand and tugged him back, preventing him from doing so. He glanced back at her with a raised eyebrow and a slightly wary look in his eyes that she could tell meant he didn’t want to talk about Gallifrey any longer.

Reaching out with her free hand she rested it on his cheek, her thumb delicately caressing his smooth, freckled cheekbone. ‘Thank you,’ she said softly, ‘thank you for telling me’.

His wariness vanished and his eyebrow settled. He simply stared at her for a moment, his eyes darting across her features before he gave a barely imperceptible nod. She let her hand slide away from his cheek and he began to sit up from the roof again. This time she joined him.

They walked back in silence, hand in hand, to the Tyler flat where Jackie had just padded into the kitchen in her dressing gown about to make herself her morning tea. She poked her head back into the hallway at the sound of the door and saw them enter the flat and close it behind them. ‘I thought you pair had disappeared off,’ Jackie remarked, ‘wouldn’t put it past you either,’ she added as she went back into the kitchen to fill the kettle.

A wave of guilt flooded through Rose at her mother’s words as she remembered the first time that she left her. The Doctor seemed to sense this as he squeezed her hand a little in comfort which she appreciated. ‘We will be off soon,’ Rose said as she walked them to the kitchen doorway, ‘but we just popped outside for a bit’.

‘At this hour?’ Jackie said as she turned back towards her daughter and gave her an incredulous look. Rose simply shrugged. ‘Who are you and what have you done with my daughter? I’d be getting nothing but groans and glares if I tried to get you up at this time let alone any earlier.’ She turned back to pour the boiling water into three mugs and Rose chuckled a little at her mum’s remarks. They got a smirk out of the Doctor too; he knew far too well what she meant as he quickly learnt after he invited Rose onto the Tardis. She was certainly not a morning person by any stretch though, quite like her mother, she did become more amicable after a cup of tea. Jackie shook her head fondly and concluded her thoughts about them, ‘barmy, the pair of you’.

They stayed to have breakfast with Jackie though they didn’t have any bacon that had been so annoyingly tempting to Rose up on the roof. The Doctor happily slathered quite a lot of marmalade on his toast and munched away at it ignoring Rose’s playful digs of, “do you want any toast with that marmalade?” Jackie was more than happy to give him her browning bananas that she didn't fancy anymore. Rose thought he looked adorable as her mum passed him the fruit when they were leaving, his face full of a delight that only he could portray at such a gift.

‘Now will you tell me where we’re going?’ Rose asked as she followed the Doctor into the time machine.

He bounded towards the console, back to his usual energetic self, but didn’t start fiddling with any of the controls yet. Instead he spun towards her, with that slightly manic smile of his, and grandly announced ‘1985!’ He didn’t worry himself with her lack of reaction as he had hardly explained himself yet and began to do so in his usual excitable rambling ways. ‘Ronald Reagan was inaugurated for the second time. The first British mobile phone call was made and the internet’s domain system was created. There’s the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, that’s a whole hullabaloo…erm - oh your mum would like this, the premier of EastEnders!’ He announced that fact with such enthusiasm that it really made Rose giggle as she wandered towards the Time Lord. ‘July 3rd, Back To The Future was released and just ten days later the Live Aid concert takes place raising money for the famine in Ethiopia’.

Her eyes lit up as she stood before him. ‘We’re going to Live Aid?’

He tried his best to imitate the presenters voice as he said, ‘its twelve noon in London, seven am in Philadelphia, and -’

‘Around the world it’s time for Live Aid,’ she finished enthusiastically, completing his quote for him. He beamed at her, delighted that she was really thrilled with his destination choice. He was hoping she would be. ‘Which one are we going to?’ She asked with a smile still pasted on her lips. He couldn’t help but match it with his own.

‘I thought we’d go to JFK Stadium, see a bit of Billy Ocean, Bryan Adams, The Beach Boys, Madonna, Duran Duran, Bob Dylan,’ he listed, watching her eyes twinkle at the names of the performers. ‘It is around sixteen hours so we can just pick and choose,’ he said and Rose nodded, though he had a feeling that she wouldn’t choose that option and would rather experience them all. ‘Then stop for a spot of lunch and because we’re in Philadelphia I thought we’ve got to try Cheesesteaks, although I’m really not sure what one is,’ he added with a slightly confused look and a scratch of his sideburn.

Her brows furrowed a little as she thought about it. ‘I dunno either. All I’m thinking of is a steak with some cheese on top but I really don’t think that’s it.’

‘No,’ he chuckled and shook his head affectionately at her before shrugging off his confusion and saying, ‘anyway, if you fancy it, we can always head to Wembley afterwards and catch Queen, Elton, Bowie, U2 -’

Rose cut him off. ‘I bet you want to see The Boomtown Rats, big punk rocker like you,’ she said with a fond smile and a slightly teasing glint in her eye.

‘Wellllll,’ he began, scratching the back of his neck nonchalantly. ‘It would be wrong to not show support to the band of Geldof when he’s organising the whole thing.’

‘Right, yeah,’ she giggled, not believing his excuses for one moment.

‘Go on then, go get changed,’ he nodded his head to the corridor behind them and Rose glanced down realising she was still in her pyjamas. ‘It’s going to be around thirty-five degrees out there so dress in something cool.’ She stepped away from the console giving him a little salute, for which she received a customary eye roll, and headed towards the corridor. ‘Oh and chuck these in the galley will you?’ The Doctor added, throwing the bunch of bananas at her as she turned back to him.

She caught them and scrunched up her nose. ‘I don’t want your manky bananas,’ she complained.

‘Hey, they’re not manky.’ He pouted and she raised her eyebrows at him. ‘And they’ll make excellent banana bread, thank you very much,’ he said with a bit of a huff. Rose had to give him that, the Doctor did make divine banana bread. Even if the bananas he was going to use didn’t look that appealing to her the thoughts of his banana bread did.

Chapter 21: Cheesesteaks

Chapter Text

‘Oi! Watch it,’ Rose cried out as she tried to step out of the Tardis and was promptly knocked back into the Doctor who grunted at the unexpected body weight but caught her anyway. The teen didn’t seem to have noticed and continued running, laughing and calling after the friend he was chasing after.

‘Good start,’ he muttered, raising his eyebrow at the back of the kid as he ran off.

‘Let’s try that again,’ she said, pushing herself off the Time Lord and finally stepping out onto Philadelphian soil - well tarmac. The Tardis was parked at the edge of the road at the end of a cul-de-sac. This was the first thing that slightly baffled Rose, she didn’t think that the Americans had cul-de-sacs and if they did they certainly wouldn’t be in the city. The second thing that slightly baffled her was that all the houses down the street were terraces. When she thought of American homes she either thought of apartments or sprawling detached houses with huge gardens. This was certainly not either of those things. The street did still have an American feel to it though. All the houses were red brick with pale sliding and they all had dark shutters on either side of the windows. Small patches of grass with a few shrubs or trees separated the properties from the pavements that were made up of those typical big concrete slabs. Most of the houses had garages and driveways and at the edge of a couple of them were moveable basketball hoops set up for the kids on the street to play with. She couldn’t help notice the cars either; they were mostly a collection of red, browns and whites that littered the street and the driveways. There were a couple of trucks and some estates and a few even had the wooden panelling on the side that was so fashionable in the era.

‘This is not what I was expecting,’ Rose stated as she turned on the spot and took in her surroundings.

The Doctor did a cursory glance around and frowned a little at her statement. ‘What were you expecting?’

She shrugged and turned her gaze back to him. ‘I dunno but it wasn’t terraced houses and a cul-de-sac, I feel like I could still be in England.’

He chuckled a little. ‘These are called row houses or Philadelphia rows.’ He gestured around at the surrounding buildings. ‘They’re the most typical type of house in the state. And going by the look of it,’ he said as his eyes trailed across the houses,’ this is one of the new or revitalised neighbourhoods made to provide affordable housing to the city folk’.

‘So no apartment blocks?’ She asked, sounding a little disappointed.

His eyes flitted back to her and he scratched the back of his neck. ‘Oh, there are apartment blocks though not particularly tall ones. The city’s not really known for its high architecture and the skyscrapers don’t really come about until the end of the decade.’ He watched her as she nodded and crossed her arms as she studied the street once again. His mood waned a little at her reaction. ‘Are you disappointed?’

Her head shot back to him, and she shook it fiercely. ‘No, no I just had a different picture in my head of what it would be like that’s all. It’s not a bad thing, it’s nice,’ she added with a small smile, trying to reassure him.

He raised his eyebrows at her and she raised hers back just as defiantly. ‘Come on.’ He stuck out his hand to her and wiggled his fingers. Her grin grew. She took his hand and they began a leisurely stroll down the street. ‘I’ll take you to New York one day, and your New York, not the new new kind,’ he assured with a raised brow. ‘Then you’ll see all the apartment blocks and skyscrapers your heart desires. And after that you can have a hot dog and a pretzel from one of those stands on the streets and see the trees blossoming in Central Park.’

‘And find the apartment where they filmed Friends?’ She asked, practically skipping beside him at the thought of it.

He gave her a look. ‘You do know it’s just the exterior that they filmed right? The inside was made up of sets in a studio.’ His words didn’t dampen her spirits, she was still grinning up at him, hugging his arm with a knowing look in her eye that he would give in. He wouldn’t put it past her to start batting her eyelashes just to pull off the full performance but she knew that she didn’t have to. Rose Tyler asking him for things was his weakness. He sighed a long, laboured sigh and said, ‘yes we’ll see the apartment where they filmed Friends’. She beamed up at him and he rolled his eyes back. ‘As long as you let me take you to the Natural History Museum,’ he added and she laughed.

‘So you can point out all the stuff they got wrong?’

‘What better point is there?’ He asked incredulously.

As they walked through the neighbourhood on the way to the stadium Rose began to notice that something wasn’t right about the world around them. First of all she was getting goose bumps on her exposed arms and legs. She had decided on some jean shorts and a pale orange tank top thinking that they would be cool enough for the above thirty heat she was expecting. Atop her head she had a pair of silver aviator sunglasses tucked into her hair which was up in pigtails, showing off her usual silver hooped earrings. To Rose it felt like ten degrees rather than plus thirty. That wasn’t the only thing that was off. She had begun to notice carved pumpkins sitting on front lawns or by the doors of the houses. There was the occasional white sheet or pillowcase that had been altered to look like a ghost. And to top it all off more children were walking around and, now she was looking at them properly, she realised they were all in costume. She followed a pair of kids who were running to the house that she and the Doctor were passing; one was a skeleton and the other a vampire, two classic choices. They each had a pillowcase held in their hand like a sack so they could store their treats. They knocked on the door and waited.

‘It’s October,’ the Doctor breathed, apparently having the same revelation. They had both been so caught up in themselves that neither had noticed the abnormalities for what should have been July.

As if on cue the door of the house opened and the kids shouted, ‘trick or treat!’

‘It’s Halloween,’ he stated quite obviously. His eyes were wide as he slowed and regarded the scene around him in disbelief.

‘We missed it.’

He looked down at her immediately upon hearing her disheartened tone. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said and gave her hand a small squeeze.

She glanced at him, shaking her head as a small smile formed on her lips. ‘Don’t be sorry. It’s part of the fun of it. We may not always end up where we want to be but we end up where we need to be.’ Her optimism and joy seemed like they had an endless supply. As long as she was out travelling with the Doctor she was happy and always would be happy. There was always an adventure to be had and it not being the expected one just added that much more excitement to their travels.

‘Yeah?’ The Doctor said hopefully.

Her grin broadened. ‘Yeah.’

He grinned back at her. ‘So what do you want to do?’

‘Well I’ve certainly never been here before so we could wander for a bit, see what we come across and find somewhere that does Cheesesteaks?’ She suggested with a shrug.

‘Sounds like a plan to me,’ he said with a wink and pulled her along once more. They were nearing the end of the residential area and coming up on the more commercial streets that would take them to the stadium, not that there was any need to head that way anymore. A gust of wind hit them as they reached the corner, though that wasn’t the only thing that hit him. He stopped in his tracks and Rose turned to him with confusion written on her face. ‘It’s October,’ he said again as he stared down at Rose with concern marring his features. He reached out and pressed his free hand on her arm. His concern deepened when he felt her temperature and he relinquished his hand from Rose’s grip. Placing it on her other arm he began rubbing them to provide a little heat. ‘You’re freezing. Let’s go back to the Tardis and you can get changed into something warmer.’

She tried to shrug him off. ‘No it’s alright, let’s just keep exploring,’ she said, attempting to get him to walk on but he wasn’t budging. He raised his eyebrows at her and upon seeing her defiant expression he decided on doing the next best thing.

As the Doctor started to shrug off his coat she shook her head adamantly at him. ‘No Doctor, really I’m fine,’ she insisted.

He held the coat out to her with a stern look. ‘Rose Tyler, put it on.’

She huffed a little but slipped her arms into the pre-warmed coat; it made her shiver with the temperature difference. It was already a long coat on the Doctor, practically hugging his ankles, so it was even longer on her. She thought it was fortunate that she had chosen to wear her white trainers that had a bit of a platform to them which was just high enough to keep the hem from dragging on the ground. She appreciated the gesture, she really did. She just didn’t want to feel like she was a burden to him, clearly not coming prepared for the situation even though she couldn’t have. She always liked the coat on the Doctor. Now that she was wearing it she didn’t mind that the sleeves were a bit too long or that she might look a little ridiculous in a coat that was obviously not hers. It made her feel loved and cared for and seeing as that love and care was coming from the Doctor she appreciated it even more.

The Doctor tried to hide his smile as he stared at Rose as she adjusted her hair after putting on his coat. He felt like teasing her, mentioning that he hadn’t realised he would have to bring some of her wardrobe with him in his pockets at all times just in case she wasn’t wearing the right thing. But he didn’t mention it out loud. That would mean she wouldn’t need to borrow his jacket or coat in the rare eventuality that a similar situation would arise again. Seeing her in his old leather jacket was quite something and when he offered her his suit jacket on the way to the party she was a sight to behold. Not that she wasn’t already in that dress. But now she walked beside him with her hand in his, his long coat only inches from the ground - oh it did things to him, especially when he glanced down and was unable to see anything but her bare legs from behind the coat as she strode along. He clenched his jaw as he tried not to think of the imagery that his mind was supplying.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘Always such a gentleman.’

If only she knew, then she wouldn’t think he was a gentleman by any means. ‘I try,’ he mumbled back because he did. He did try. His brain was simply not cooperating with the gentleman part anymore.

As they walked past the shops the Doctor kept an eye out for somewhere that might do Cheesesteaks so they could sit inside and Rose could warm up a little bit more. They turned to joking about her attire and how Queen Victoria might have been even less amused by her outfit choice of the day. At least previously she was wearing a t-shirt, now Rose was showing off her shoulders in a tank top that they were sure would have been seen as highly scandalous. This got a good chuckle out of them both and a fair few terrible impressions of the Queen. They both agreed that deep down she would want to be wearing something akin to Rose if she had to be outside in over thirty degrees for hours on end, her heavy black dress sure wouldn’t cut it nor would the corset that all the women of the age wore.

Rose was also studying the shops as they walked by. When she noticed one with a lot of Halloween decorations an idea popped into her mind. She leant closer to the Doctor and hugged his arm a little, as was her customary way when she wanted something, and said, ‘so seeing as its Halloween we could get into the spirit of things. I’m sure there will be a store around here somewhere that has costumes’. She glanced up at him with a smile and was met by a hardly unexpected glare from the man who consistently wore the same thing in her opinion. Not that she would complain about it, his pinstripes fitted him exceptionally well and Cassandra certainly wasn’t lying when she called him “foxy”. Some men could really pull off a suit and he was definitely one of them. ‘Go on Doctor,’ she encouraged further.

He shook his head and raised his eyebrows at her. ‘No.’

She pouted a little and loosened her grip on his arm. ‘Why not?’

He had to try his best not to smile at her for that, he thought she looked adorable. Instead he settled for a roll of his eyes as he went on to explain, ‘I just don’t see the point of a holiday where you dress up and go around harassing your neighbours for sweets’.

‘Spoil sport,’ she chastised with a teasing glint in her eye.

‘And,’ he drawled before continuing on his explanation with some gestures for good measure, ‘I’ve seen enough monsters up there. I don’t need to see any fake ones down here’.

‘You don’t even like the eating sweets part?’ She tried, seeing if he would agree to liking some part of the day. It wasn’t a big deal to her if he didn’t as Halloween was never a real big thing where she grew up. Yes she enjoyed going around to a few of her friends and neighbours doors to trick or treat when she was younger but that was about it apart from the occasional costume party. They never made as big of a deal out of it as they did in America, though as a kid she was thoroughly jealous of the stories she had heard from over the Atlantic.

His brow furrowed a little. ‘You can eat sweets whenever you want, you don’t need a holiday to tell you what to do,’ he concluded before halting outside a small café called The Shack. It described itself as having the best Cheesesteaks in the state and the few people that were inside seemed to be enjoying what they were eating. He raised his eyebrows at Rose in question and she glanced inside too before shrugging at him.

It turned out that the Cheesesteak was more of a sandwich consisting of chopped rib-eye beef, covered in cheese and served in a long roll with any toppings you want to add. It also turned out that the Doctor and Rose loved to eat them. The Doctor in particular thought that his was fantastic and that the advertising on the window might not just be a ruse to get customers to eat there, though he couldn’t agree that they were actually the best in the state. For that he would have to try one at all the establishments that served them because he was a man of science and he would need the data to create a fair and unbiased assessment to determine if The Shack did indeed serve the best. Rose laughed at him as they walked along the street again. She called him mad and said that if he ever was bored enough to do such a thing she would not be joining him because she was sure to get sick.

Darkness had fallen as they sat in the café but the light from the shops and the street lamps lit up the world around them. A few people milled about, some of which were dressed up for the holiday. Rose pointed out a couple of guys who were dressed as Doc Brown and Marty McFly from Back To The Future and she incessantly pointed out that it would have been the perfect costume for him seeing as they were both doctors and men of science as he kept putting it. When the Doctor stopped and didn't react to her banter she frowned up at him. His eyes were fierce as he stared at something across the street. She followed his gaze to the park they had found themselves walking by but his gaze was not focused on the park, it was focused on the two costumed people who were lit up brightly by the street lamp above them and looked as though they were patrolling the boundary. Their costumes were khaki green in colour and seemed to cover their bodies like a skin, though the skin wasn’t smooth it was scaly. The scales covered the entirety of their bodies, even their heads where they were wearing some sort of helmet that created ridges of scales where hair would normally be on a human. They also wore brown and silver armour and carried some sort of gun to complete the look. Rose wasn’t sure who they were meant to be but that they had sure put a lot of effort into the costume because it looked very realistic.

‘They’re not costumes are they?’ she voiced quietly.

‘No,’ he said darkly. ‘No, they’re Silurians.’

Chapter 22: Journey To The Centre Of The Earth

Chapter Text

‘What’s a Silurian?’ Rose asked as they watched the green creatures, unnoticed from across the street. They had paused in their patrol and were now guarding one of the park entrances, standing as sentries at either side of the metal gates.

The Doctor had slipped his hand from Rose’s, instead putting them in his trouser pockets as he rolled back on his heels a little, watching them curiously. ‘Earth Reptiles. hom*o Reptilia,’ he answered. ‘They lived on the Earth years before your lot ever did and then they moved underground.’

Rose was taken aback by his answer. She expected to see other species when she was out travelling the stars and understood that in the future the human race would live amongst other races but this was Earth in 1985, not too long before she was born and she struggled to believe that these Silurians were there the whole time. ‘There’s a whole other species living right under our feet?’ She asked in disbelief as she looked up to the Doctor with wide eyes. ‘We didn’t even know,’ she added under her breath, more to herself than to him. Her gaze travelled down to the paving slabs beneath her feet as though she could now see a Silurian settlement below.

The Doctor hummed at her musings but was distracted by what was going on inside his own mind. He had met the Silurians a few times and most of the encounters had not ended peacefully. His thoughts were immediately taken back to UNIT and their treatment of them. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart had ordered strikes on two Silurian colonies; one of them was in America in Oregon. He hadn’t agreed with the bombings, of course he hadn’t, and he had fought quite fiercely with the Brigadier about it. He understood the other man’s concerns, the Silurians were trying to reclaim the planet, though both species did have a rightful claim to it, but he would never agree to resort to violence. He was quite relieved when he managed to end the conflict when a third group of Silurians came above ground and he managed to deter them without the Brigadier getting wind. In the future he knew the relationship between Silurians and UNIT would improve drastically, some would even work for the taskforce. But that was the future and right now he needed to find out what they were up to and hopefully deal with it before their appearance above ground started to cause problems. Seeing as a few humans were passing by with words or nods of approval at the Silurian sentries he was at least thankful that it was Halloween and they were blending in and not causing the alarm that would alert UNIT.

‘So what are they doing up here?’ Rose asked, pulling him from his thoughts.

He looked over at her and saw the thrill of adventure in her eyes that he was sure matched his own. He smirked a little and raised a brow, ‘why don’t we go and find out’. He stepped out onto the road. A horn blared and tires screeched as a car swerved around him. Rose dragged him back onto the pavement, her hands yanking on his arm and the back of his jacket roughly.

‘Careful you idiot,’ she scolded.

The Doctor eyed the car that apparently almost hit him as it carried on down the street, the driver sticking their middle finger up at him from the open window. He shrugged off Rose’s hands and looked before beginning to cross the road as he tried to brush off his near regeneration. ‘They saw me coming,’ he drawled.

She shook her head and followed, muttering, ‘and you call me jeopardy friendly’.

He chose to ignore that remark in favour of watching the Silurians whose attention had been drawn by the near collision and were now eyeing the time travellers as they crossed the street. The Doctor stood before them with Rose at his side, there was an air of nonchalance about him as he put on his performance. ‘Hello,’ the Doctor said brightly, a big beaming grin plastered on his face. He rocked back on his heels as he spoke, his arms flailing a little madly in his enthusiasm. ‘Couldn’t help but notice you from over there and thought we must come over and commend you on your costumes. Marvellous. Absolutely fantastic. Shame we didn’t dress up,’ he said, acting a little disappointed at the fact and gesturing at Rose. ‘She didn’t want to, doesn’t like the holiday that much though I can’t see why,’ He put on a puzzled look and scratched at his sideburn, trying his best not to react as Rose subtly trod on his toe for his remarks. He shrugged and put on a smile again as he continued complimenting the Silurians. ‘But you two, bellissimo, molto bene, ten out of ten for effort. Though, and this is probably just me here because I’m a bit of an idiot and a hermit, don’t keep up with modern culture, I’m not entirely sure who you’re dressed as.’ He glanced between the two sentries curious as to how they would respond. They didn’t seem to be attacking the humans but none had been so blatant about their interest in them as he had been.

The Silurians gripped their blasters a little tighter and hissed at him.

He decided to prod them a little further. ‘Sound effects as well that really is amazing,’ he said still with feigned enthusiasm.

They hissed again and the one on the right stepped closer threateningly and spat, ‘who do you think you are, primitive ape, to dare speak to us?’

His happy performance waned as he shook his head and said, ‘oh, I wouldn’t call them that, they’re not so primitive anymore’.

The second of the Silurians tilted their head at him curiously. ‘You speak as though you are not one of them.’

‘I’m not,’ he said, raising an eyebrow in defiance.

They narrowed their eyes at him. ‘Who are you?’

He stepped forward, the act entirely gone now as he eyed them and said darkly, ‘someone who knows Silurians don’t come to the surface anymore’.

Both of them hissed loudly. ‘You name us,’ said the first and they both drew their blasters at the apparent threat of the Doctor and Rose.

He stepped back by Rose’s side and pulled a face at their reaction. ‘Oh don’t,’ he complained, raising his arms in surrender. Rose followed suit. ‘Let’s not do that. I just want to know why you’re up here.’ He looked between them again but was met with a stony silence. ‘To me it looks like you’re protecting something,’ he suggested to further silence. ‘Come on, work with me here,’ he whined. ‘Clearly something is wrong otherwise you wouldn’t be on the surface.’ He eyed them seriously, urging them to tell him what was going on and was finally rewarded when the second one relented.

‘We are under attack,’ they stated and lowered their weapon a little. The first Silurian turned and glared at their fellow sentry, still with their blaster poised to shoot at any moment.

‘Okay thank you,’ he said slowly, lowering his hands a little and turning his attention to the seemingly more amenable Silurian of the two. ‘Attack from what?’ He was met with that same stony silence once more but the silence was telling and he answered the question himself. ‘You don’t know…do you think it’s the humans?’ He truly hoped that they didn’t believe it was; he really didn’t want to get dragged into another conflict between the races.

‘Vermin,’ the first Silurian spat.

‘Humans,’ he countered.

‘No humans,’ the second one began, though they still seemed to have trouble with the word, ‘have been seen entering the colony’.

The Doctor nodded with relief. ‘So that’s what you’re guarding, the entrances.’ His mind was whirring, working out what he could from the information he had been given. He glanced between them, his eyebrows raised a little as he slowly said, ‘but that isn’t working is it? The attacks are still happening…’

Rose may have been just a bystander to the conversation so far but that didn’t mean she wasn’t involved. She had been following along with what had been said and was trying to come up with possible solutions or angles to the problem that had perhaps been overlooked. ‘How do you know the attacks aren’t coming from within?’ She finally voiced and all eyes turned to her. The Doctor looked at her approvingly with admiration written across his features; the Silurians, however, regarded her suggestion in a less than positive manner. Her question garnered her with another round of loud hissing and a highly contemptuous look from both of them. She stared at them defiantly, unfazed by their hostile reaction. The Doctor was slightly less unfazed and retaliated on her behalf.

‘Oi, I’ll have none of that thank you,’ the Doctor reprimanded, his finger pointing at them threateningly. ‘Her question is very valid.’ His fierce eyes flitted between them awaiting an answer.

‘We would rather die than be a traitor to our species,’ the first bit out.

He turned to them and stared, his brown eyes locking with theirs as he challenged, ‘would all of you?’ The Silurian glared back at him, their hands gripping their weapon tighter still.

Rose didn’t like the threat to the Doctor and tried to turn their attention away from him with another suggestion. ‘What about a hidden entrance?’

The Silurian glared at the Doctor for a moment longer before turning to Rose. ‘That is impossible,’ they hissed, dismissing her suggestion immediately. ‘It would have to connect to our tunnel systems to ever work.’

The Doctor groaned internally. This was getting them nowhere. ‘Let us help you,’ he offered.

The first Silurian glared at him again, it was harsher this time, filled with more contempt and menace. ‘We do not need your help.’

He sighed. ‘Look, you don’t want to be up here involved with the humans and you want the attacks to stop,’ he began, looking at them both imploringly, hoping that they would see reason. ‘I don’t want whatever is attacking you to start attacking the humans too. Let’s work together, solve the problem.’ The first Silurian continued to glare but the second tilted their head slightly as if contemplating his offer. He directed his final suggestion to the latter of the pair. ‘At least let me talk to your leader.’ He watched and waited as his idea was considered.

His eyes lit up a little when the second gave a slight nod. ‘I shall take you to Rohlen,’ they said commandingly.

The other Silurian’s head shot around to them. ‘You shall not,’ they said in disbelief at what they had just heard.

‘You will stay on guard here,’ ordered the second.

The first scoffed. ‘We are the same rank, you cannot order me to do anything,’ they spat.

‘Our brother was murdered!’ The words cut through the air sharply, even the slight wind around them settled at the impact of them. Their eyes were ablaze as they stared at their kin and stepped closer, trying to get them to understand. ‘This is our chance at revenge.’ For a few moments they simply stared at each other before the first Silurian hissed and looked away in defeat. ‘Follow me,’ the second ordered the Doctor and Rose, glancing their way then turning and walking into the park.

The Doctor let out a breath as the tension around them dissipated. He eyed the Silurian that still stood before him, they wouldn’t even look in the direction of him or Rose. He sniffed, put his hands in his pockets and nodded towards the park. ‘Come on then Holmes,’ he said and stepped forwards.

Rose stepped in line with him, glancing up with a slightly puzzled look on her face. ‘Holmes?’

He shrugged and caught her gaze. ‘Sherlock Holmes. You were up there being all detective-y, asking all the right questions. You don’t like it?’

‘Surely you’d be Sherlock,’ she said as though it was obvious. ‘I’m just the assistant.’

He raised his eyebrows at her line of thinking. ‘He’s not called Dr. Holmes is he? It’s Dr. Watson. Clearly I’m Watson.’ Then his demeanour changed and he eyed her seriously. ‘And, Rose Tyler, you’re never just anything.’

The intensity in his eyes and his assured tone of voice caused heat to spread across Rose’s cheeks which she hoped he couldn’t notice in the darkness of the park. She turned away from him anyway, just in case, and they continued along the path trailing the Silurian who was a few metres ahead.

It was darker in the park, the street lamps were few and far between and the path was winding between trees and shrubs and leading them towards a shimmering surface that she assumed was a lake. As they approached it the Silurian led them off the path and closer to the lake. Hidden behind some bushes was a large concrete outflow pipe that seemed rather useless as it was far too high to actually intake any water. But, Rose supposed, in a flood the pipe would probably be of some use then. Metal grating covered the entrance. It had a plaque on it that read: Sistemas de Alcantarillado y Desagüe del Lobo Malo. Neither Rose nor the Doctor took notice of it as the Silurian pushed the grating open like a door and led them inside. Their footsteps echoed all around them, joined by the occasional drip from the ceiling, but other than that it was quiet and dark as they walked along single file. It wasn’t long before the Silurian stopped again. They turned to their left and stepped up to a secure looking metal door with a very unusual side panel linked up to it. They rested their four fingers on the protruding ball from the side panel and moved them rhythmically as though typing in a password before the door clunked and opened ajar.

Another Silurian stood in the centre of the small room through the door. They looked nearly identical to the one leading the Doctor and Rose, both in skin tone and head ridge shape. They frowned when they saw the time travellers enter the room after their kin and drew their blaster. ‘Medrek what are these apes doing with you?’ They demanded.

‘I am taking them to Rohlen,’ the Silurian, apparently called Medrek, replied calmly.

‘Sister,’ they hissed, outraged at such a suggestion.

Medrek’s eyes blazed with fire once again. ‘Don’t question me.’

They glared at each other before once again the other Silurian backed down, they nodded slightly and stepped back allowing the group some space. Medrek seemed like a force to be reckoned with.

By the left wall four identical round discs that looked a bit like drain covers stood on the floor next to each other and on the opposite side of the room were four round holes of identical proportion. Medrek led them towards the discs on the left and stood upon the farthest one. The Doctor’s eyes lit up at the mode of transport whilst Rose just stood staring at the Silurian in confusion.

‘Transport discs,’ he announced enthusiastically, stepping past Rose to get closer to them.

‘What do you mean transport discs?’ she asked sceptically, looking at the supposedly not drain covers whilst Medrek eyed her a little impatiently.

‘Haven’t seen transport discs for years,’ he continued with pure joy in his voice, as though Rose hadn’t spoken, before turning his approving gaze to Medrek, ‘you lot, you always had some of the best technology’.

Medrek inferred something else from his words. ‘There are others of our kind out there?’ They asked with disbelief.

He raised his eyebrow at them and said carefully, ‘not on the surface, no, and it’s been quite a few years since I last saw them. I’m a whole new man - a few new men,’ he corrected. Medrek seemed unfazed by his strange ramblings about new men, still staring at him in wonder at what he was saying about other Silurians. ‘But yes I have met other tribes,’ he concluded. There was a distant sadness in his eyes that only Rose picked up on and she wondered what he wasn’t saying. ‘How many are you?’ he asked, moving the topic on so he hopefully wouldn’t have to answer questions about the other tribes.

Medrek stared at him a moment, still caught up with new information to fully take in his question, then they answered a little monotonously, ‘forty-nine of us awoke, our numbers are now down to forty-seven.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, with full sincerity.

They nodded and stated, ‘we thought we were the last of our kind’.

‘I know the feeling,’ he mumbled sadly. Medrek tilted their head at him in question and Rose wanted to reach out to him, to offer comfort. She almost did but then the Doctor bounced back to his usual self and said, ‘anyway,’ and clapped and rubbed his hands together. His eyes landed on the discs again. ‘Down we go hmm?’ He glanced at Rose who was looking at him with uncertainty. He took her look to mean in regards to the discs, which is partly was, and began to quickly explain them. ‘They use geothermal currents to project you up through a system of tunnels and gravity bubbles to take you smoothly downwards. Fantastic technology, as I was saying, and really rather fun.’ He gave her a manic grin. She couldn’t help but chuckle and shake her head back at him. His eyes lightened a little at her reaction and he stepped onto the disc next to Medrek. Rose followed his lead and stepped on the one next to him. He turned his head and grinned at her again. ‘Hands and feet inside the disc at all times Tyler.’ His eyes glinted a little madly as he added, ‘we’re going down. Ha!’

Medrek nodded to the other Silurian in the room and they activated the transport discs from the control panel on the wall beside them and the trio began to descend.

**********

Rose had to admit the transport disc was rather fun. She felt like she was on a water slide, though there was no water and you had to stand the whole time, so really it was nothing like a water slide at all. Still, that was what it felt like to her.

The discs softly landed them in a small cavern. The grey stone walls and floor were smoothly carved and a few green leafy plants grew from small crevices here and there. Scattered patches of a strange fungus that glowed in oranges and yellows also grew on the walls and the fungus lit up the cavern around them and seemed to spread into the four tunnels leading away.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Rose breathed upon taking in the cavern. She was mesmerised by this new underground world that was unlike anything that she had ever seen before. In a strange way it was more mesmerising because it was still on Earth and not too far out of her timeline and that made it all the more surreal. ‘And to think this was right beneath our feet the whole time,’ she said to the cavern at large.

The Doctor, on the other hand, only cast a brief glance around the room before his gaze landed on Rose. His manic energy had dampened since the cavern had entered his vision. He thought he would be fine. There was a task to do after all, they weren’t just down here for a jaunt, they were here with a purpose and he thought that would be able to distract him. He hated being wrong. Memories of Drava-Five were creeping their way into his head and he tried to shake them off. Rose was there right in front of him, regarding the cavern with delight. She was fine. She was right there and she was fine.

‘Follow,’ Medrek commanded and walked down the rightmost tunnel without looking back, expecting them to do so.

Rose stepped beside the Doctor, still staring around in amazement, and they walked side by side into the tunnel. He was certainly glad that it was wide enough to do so and his eyes kept flitting to Rose as they followed Medrek. She stepped further away from him to run a hand over the smooth wall to get a feel for it and he wanted to reach out to pull her back so she was close. So she was safe. When a few small bits of stone fell from the ceiling, however, he grabbed Rose’s hand tightly and yanked her towards him causing her to yelp out in surprise. Medrek turned slightly at the sound to regard them but clearly didn’t think much of it and turned back to the tunnel ahead. Rose stared up at the Doctor in shock, her hand slightly painful in his vice-like grip but she didn’t pull away. She watched him as he continued looking straight ahead, his eyes a little wild and his jaw clamped together and she recognised his actions for what they were. Her heart broke a little for him. She hugged his arm and leaned into him trying to ease his silent distress.

‘I’m here Doctor,’ she whispered soothingly, ‘I’m right here and I’m fine’. After a moment he loosened his grip on her hand and she wiggled her fingers about a little to return some feeling to them whilst still keeping her hand within his grasp. She glanced up at him again. ‘Are you alright?’ She saw the muscles of his jaw twitching but other than that he didn’t react. ‘Doctor?’ She tried again. He swallowed and gave a small nod. Rose sighed a little at his minimal reaction, but at least she had a reaction.

Up ahead, Medrek had stopped in front of a grand stone archway into which was set a large golden metal door. The Silurian was waiting for them and spoke immediately when they stopped before them. ‘Wait here, I shall get Rohlen. He will call you when he is ready.’ The Doctor nodded and Rose thanked them. Medrek opened the ornate door, just enough to pass through, before slipping inside and closing it behind them.

‘That will be the court,’ the Doctor said, thankful his voice was sounding normal, if not a bit hollow, as he tried to dismiss what Rose could not.

She unlatched herself from his side to stand in front of him so she could see him fully. ‘Doctor, are you sure you’re alright?’ she asked softly, her eyes wide and full of both sympathy and sorrow for the man before her.

He let out a breath and locked his eyes with hers. He would have liked to say that he was alright, that he was always alright, but this was Rose Tyler and she could see through that façade a mile off. He didn’t need to say anything though. His silence matched with the look in his eyes was enough of a message for Rose. She stepped forwards and wrapped her arms around his neck pulling him into her. Automatically he embraced her back, his arms clutching her tightly and his fingers digging in a little to her sides. He breathed in her vanilla, honey and citrus fragrance and sighed as her hand at the back of his head began to softly stroke his hair.

‘We’ll just deal with this as quick as we can and then get out of here yeah?’ Rose suggested, the words tickling his neck.

He swallowed and hummed in agreement, the sound reverberating from his chest and into hers, pressed up against each other as they were.

After a few minutes he began to pull back, placing a kiss into her hair before he did so. Rose’s hands slid down from his neck and onto his arms as she looked back up to his face, her eyes searching his for answers to the same question as earlier. A small smile accompanied his nod this time and her worry for him dissipated a little.

It wasn’t long before the door eased open and Medrek appeared. Rose released the Doctor’s arms and they turned to face the Silurian who stood in the doorway, blocking the way through. ‘Rohlen requests your presence,’ they announced and stepped back, opening the door wider and finally allowing the Doctor and Rose to see what stood on the other side.

Chapter 23: Infested

Chapter Text

The court opened up before them as they stepped through the doors. The entire interior was made up of polished stone and some of it glinted underneath the light of the lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Tiered stone benches, going up four levels, rose from either side creating a dominating feel over the pit part of the room in which they stood. A long stone table stood in the centre of the pit, again with stone benches set either side, and standing before them was an older looking Silurian, presumably Rohlen, in long robes of red and silver.

Rose and the Doctor came to a stop in front of Rohlen who studied them astutely. ‘Thank you Medrek,’ he said in his slow and elegant timbre, his eyes darting to the other Silurian in the room who was still stood by the door. ‘Please wait here, you may be of further service.’ Medrek nodded and closed the door as Rohlen’s eyes trailed back to the time travellers in front of him. ‘An ape and a man who looks like an ape,’ he stated rather curiously.

‘They look like me,’ the Doctor countered, back to his usual bravado.

There was a hissing from behind and Rose glanced back, Medrek was not happy that the Doctor had spoken out of turn and was glaring at the back of his head.

‘Now now Medrek,’ Rohlen said calmly, ‘he is not aware of our ways and customs, we must offer some leniency towards our guests’. Rohlen smiled a little graciously at them before asking, ‘now, who are you?’

‘I’m Rose,’ she said and nodded her head to the man on her left before adding, ‘this is the Doctor’.

Rohlen bowed his head to her. ‘You, Rose, are human, but you are not Doctor,’ he said, turning his gaze to the Time Lord, ‘what species are you?’

He shook his head at the Silurian dismissively. ‘Doesn’t matter. I’m help.’ His eyes were hard showing he wasn’t going to budge.

Rohlen studied the man before him again before accepting the Doctor’s reluctance to divulge such information. He nodded and began to sceptically say, ‘yes, your offer of help…what is in it for you? What do you want?’

Rose understood his scepticism; it wasn’t as though the Silurians were asking for help. They hadn’t received any distress signal to the Tardis nor had they heard of some trouble and come running, no, the Silurians were trying to quietly solve the problem themselves. Instead they had ambled into their tribe and simply offered their services because that was what they did. Even though she understood the scepticism it didn’t mean that she liked it, she was still more worried about the Doctor. The way he had clung to her really broke her heart. It was an act filled with such desperation and such drive to protect her, to keep her safe. She loved that he wanted to do those things for her but hated the fear behind it because it was far too real. She knew what they said about facing your fears, and she had a strong feeling he had a new fear of Rose Tyler being underground, but this was too soon. The memories were too fresh and the wounds were still open. He was always protective over her. Now it was her turn to be protective over him. Right now she didn’t have the time for Rohlen’s scepticism. Right now she wanted to get the Doctor out of there as fast as she could. She knew he was too much of a good man to leave without helping and she didn’t particularly want to go either, but what they could do was get it sorted out quickly and for that Rohlen needed to believe them.

‘Just let him help alright,’ she began a little exasperatedly. ‘It’s what he does, all across the universe, he just helps. There’s no ulterior motive.’ She probably could have said it a little more calmly and been a little nicer about it but it had just sort of slipped out that way, her frustration at the situation was getting the better of her. She felt the Doctor’s gaze on her and knew he would be trying to figure her out but she continued to look at Rohlen, awaiting his reaction.

Luckily he didn’t seem affronted by her tone; instead he did something rather peculiar, though perhaps, being a Silurian, it was not so peculiar after all. He stuck out his forked tongue just a little, tasting the air before withdrawing it and stating, ‘you do not lie’.

Rose crossed her arms a little defiantly. ‘No I don’t.’

He studied her for a moment before accepting her words, though there was still some lingering doubt. ‘But as a doctor,’ he said, turning to the man in question, ‘how would you help?’

‘Oh, I’m very good,’ the Doctor said assuredly.

That statement didn’t particularly strengthen the Doctor’s case, but Rohlen was no closer to finding a culprit so he considered it. An outsider’s view may be just what they needed to grant the answers that the tribe so craved. ‘It would be folly to refuse such an offer of help when our kind is so few in number. Two have already died from the attacks. I cannot afford to lose more.’ He paused for a moment before his gaze turned from sorrowful to seriousness. ‘But I am no fool, Doctor and Rose. Medrek shall accompany you, they are one of our finest soldiers,’ he said and eyed them both sternly. ‘I would advise you to keep that in mind if you are not as genuine as you seem.’ After his warning, once again his demeanour reverted back to the gentile leader who they had first met. ‘Please report back to me here with any findings. I would suggest beginning at the farms where the attacks happened. Good luck and thank you.’ He bowed his head to them both and Rose and the Doctor bowed back.

**********

Medrek led the pair through the tunnels to the farms. It wasn’t a long walk and Rose kept by the Doctor’s side the entire time, her hand in his. It had been easy to forget that they were underground when they had been in the grandeur of the court. The tension in his shoulders seemed to ease when they were in there but now that they were back in the tunnels his frame was rigid once more. His worries were soon distracted by the mystery of the attacks when they walked through an archway and into a large blue lit room. It was unlike any of the Silurian settlement that they had seen so far. The walls were a dark metal and the floor was no longer solid stone but soil and that soil stretched the entire expanse. Scattered across it were hundreds of mostly broken canes, some squashed tomatoes, bits of leaves and a few roots protruding from the ground.

‘Ultraviolet lighting, very nice,’ the Doctor commended, his face awash with the blue light as he glanced up at them appreciatively. The lights hung from the ceiling in strips, the UV rays produced from them acting as sunlight in the underground world allowing the Silurians to farm fruits and vegetables to sustain the tribe.

‘Looks a bit disco,’ Rose said as her eyes darted around the room.

The Doctor hummed. ‘Well there are studies that show plants react well to music.’ He released Rose’s hand and crouched down, scooping up some of the soil and bringing it up to his eyes to examine it closely. Rose cringed when he stuck out his tongue and tasted it. He let the soil rest on his tongue for a moment to work out the mineral content before spitting it back out with disgust. He dropped the rest of the soil from his hand and wiped said hand on his trousers as he stood back up, his tongue sticking out as he pulled a face at the flavour. Rose raised her eyebrows at him but he ignored her usual complaint of him tasting things and announced, ‘loam. Forty parts sand, forty parts silt, twenty parts clay. Perfect for growing tomatoes’.

That may be all well and good but that was the thing: ‘there’s no plants here,’ Rose stated with a frown.

‘This is the farm where the damage was first found,’ Medrek said a little monotonously. Rose turned to look back at them whilst the Doctor took a few steps further into the field and had a look at a few of the remaining leaves. Medrek was still standing in the entrance of the room, their eyes gazing past the time travelling duo to a spot on the soil beyond them. They were hardly blinking, their eyes a far cry from the fiery determination that lit them earlier.

‘And this room was full of crops?’ asked Rose.

Medrek nodded vaguely, their eyes still transfixed to the spot. ‘It was almost time for harvest.’

‘And whatever it was came and ate them all…’ Rose muttered to herself trying to work out what it might have been. She had heard something about locust swarms once, perhaps the Doctor had mentioned it, but locusts never killed the people, they just ravaged the crops. She was very sure the Silurians would notice a plague of locusts arriving through their tunnel systems and why they would even try to get down the tunnels to get to the food didn’t make sense either. A lot of it didn’t make sense. They were deep underground and no one had spotted any intruders even though they were guarding the entrances. But that was the thing, if it wasn’t an inside job then how would they know about the Silurians being there and how did they get access to the settlement?

‘Are there other rooms like this?’ The Doctor asked. The sonic screwdriver buzzed in his hand, he trailed it across the earth scanning for anything out of the ordinary as he paced back and forth across the field. Rose thought he looked rather like a metal detectorist.

The Silurian snapped themselves out of the reverie as the Doctor passed in front of the patch of soil they had been staring at. They shook their head a little to dislodge their thoughts and realised the question was directed at them. ‘There are four others. Exactly the same,’ they answered.

The buzzing altered pitch so minimally only the Doctor could tell and he reversed a little, waving the sonic around in a more confined area. He crouched down over the patch of soil Medrek had been staring. His body created a shadow over the earth allowing him to barely see some sort of substance in the brown dirt. He shuffled back, allowing the UV lights to light up the patch of earth and any trace of the substance vanished.

Rose was now regretting her white trainers, the soil wasn’t particularly wet but it would still muck up the near pristine look of her shoes. She shrugged a little and walked further onto the field and over to the Doctor to see what had caught his eye. She knew better than to think her trainers would stay that colour when travelling with him and she would bet that there was some quick futuristic technology that could brighten them back up again. Or the Tardis might be able to help her out if she asked nicely. She crouched next to him and the Doctor’s long coat trailed out behind her in the dirt. She felt a bit guilty about getting it dirty but the man beside her wouldn’t have thought twice before rolling in the mud with it on if that was what had to be done. He’d already wiped mud onto his pinstripes; the coat was probably in better hands with her. ‘What you got?’ She asked.

‘Something that doesn’t like UV rays.’ he replied a little distractedly, trying to understand the readings he was getting from the sonic. The Doctor hummed a little before fiddling with the settings and turning it onto torch mode. This time, instead of increasing the output of the sonic’s usual blue light, it produced a bright white light, more like a regular torch. He shone it at the ground he had been alerted to and the strange substance glittered a little under the light.

‘That looks like a slug or snail trail,’ Rose said as she stared at the substance.

‘That’s no ordinary slug or snail,’ he began as he shuffled back to see the full size of it, ‘that’s two feet wide’. His voice was full of awe at the scale of it. He stood back up, the white light of the sonic shining onto the ground as he followed the trail to where it stopped, about eight feet from the entrance to another tunnel. He backtracked and ended up next to Rose again who was standing at the sight of his initial findings watching him. He ran back to the other end of the trail and shone the light at all the surrounding soil just in case he missed something but the rest of the dirt was unaffected. ‘Where did it go?’ he questioned the room, waving his hands about, the light of the torch shone around the room like a strange strobe lighting display. ‘How could it just disappear? Can it turn off its slime production, or is the slime just a by-product of what it has eaten? And how the hell did it get in here in the first place without you lot seeing it? It’s bloody two feet wide, let alone how long it is. It’s not like you can miss it,’ he stopped his rambling with a frustrated groan and tugged at his hair a little with his free hand. ‘What am I not seeing?’ He raised his arms in question and Rose gasped a little.

‘Doctor, look!’ She cried out and pointed at the other tunnel. His arms dropped and he spun around to face her with wide, questioning eyes then turned back and eyed the tunnel she was pointing at.

‘What?’ He frowned at the empty tunnel wondering what she was seeing that he could not.

She sighed and walked over to him. ‘No. Look,’ she said and pulled on his right hand that held his screwdriver. She lifted it up and pointed the white light into the tunnel and more importantly onto the glittering ceiling.

‘The roof,’ he said, baffled as they walked over to the tunnel entrance and looked up. ‘How’d it get up there?’

‘More importantly,’ Rose added, pointing back behind them, ‘how did it get from up there and down onto the soil without leaving a trace until about eight feet later? Slugs can’t usually jump’.

He shook his head, still staring upwards at the trail that went about four feet along the tunnel ceiling before vanishing again. ‘I’m not sure this is your usual garden slug.’

‘No kidding,’ she deadpanned.

They spent some time scanning the entirety of the room with the white light of the sonic screwdriver. The ceiling, the walls and the soil, once again for good measure, but no more trails were found and the Doctor concluded that there was nothing more to be learnt from walking around in the mud for any longer. He did, however, take a small sample of the soil with additional slimy substance and placed it into one of the small glass jars he seemed to have in abundance in his pockets. Rose hadn’t put her hands into the Doctor’s coat pockets since she had been given it and wondered what interesting things could be found within. But she didn’t dive into them. It was the Doctor’s coat after all and it felt a little wrong, like she would be invading his privacy if she did so, no matter how curious she was.

Next on the agenda for the Doctor was seeing the body of the murdered brother. Rose hit him on the arm for the insensitive way he asked Medrek if they could take them to him. After rubbing his arm with a few complaints he apologised to the Silurian but they hadn’t taken offence at the Doctor’s more scientific approach of asking and agreed to take the time travellers to see him.

Medrek led them to a laboratory. It was pristine, brightly lit and mostly made up of a lighter metal which was a far cry from the further tunnels they had walked through to get there. The Doctor bounced a little as they entered the lab. Rose watched him affectionately as he studied the equipment they had with fascination, bounding from one piece to the next making interested sounds or giving a brief explanation as to their purpose. He was in his element.

Then Rose’s gaze fell on Medrek who was staring into the frosted window of one of the six cryogenic chambers that lined one of the walls. She walked up behind them making sure her footsteps were loud enough to be heard so she wouldn’t startle the Silurian. ‘Are you alright?’ She asked gently. Rose could see they were grieving their loss and wanted to reach out and rest a hand on their shoulder but wasn’t sure if the action would be appreciated.

Medrek turned stiffly and dismissed Rose’s comfort completely, instead moving on to the matter at hand as they stated to the room, ‘my brother Kinlira died in that field. His body has been frozen in this chamber. I give you permission to perform whatever tests you need so we can have justice’. They turned back and their fingers traced over the keypad of the cryo chamber with ease, starting the defrosting process.

‘Why haven’t any of your lot done this?’ The Doctor asked before holding his arms out to indicate to the room ‘You’ve got the resources right here, you could have examined him yourselves.’

They stared at their brother through the clearing glass and simply stated, ‘our scientists never awoke’. The Doctor nodded solemnly in understanding and Medrek swiftly left the room to stand just outside the door, unable to watch them perform the tests on their brother’s body to try and get some answers for his untimely demise.

**********

Kinlira lay on a metal table in the centre of the laboratory. The Doctor had carried him with apparent ease that shocked Rose a little due to the Silurian being about two feet taller than the Time Lord. He had taken off his pinstriped jacket, tie, rolled up his sleeves and put on his glasses whilst Rose removed the Doctor’s coat and placed it with the discarded articles of clothing, following his lead. They both washed up and the Doctor found them some gloves before he removed Kinlira’s armour to do a physical examination, keeping his modesty intact. This was Rose’s first time seeing a Silurian properly and up close. She was polite enough not to stare at the ones that she had met earlier because, well, it was rude to stare and she sure didn’t appreciate it when other species stared at her on their travels. She wasn’t entirely sure what they should be looking for that was out of the ordinary for the species but was quite pleased when the Doctor agreed with her that the red welt on his stomach was not a usual part of Silurian biology. A Silurian was hatched from an egg like regular reptiles so they did not have belly buttons, but the red welt was double the size of a regular belly button and in around the same area on Kinlira’s green, scaled stomach.

He had prepared all the instruments for an autopsy whilst they were waiting for the cryo chamber to complete the defrosting of the Siluran. Perched on a metal stool at the side of the table where Kinlira’s body lay, the Doctor took a small sample of the welt for later testing before beginning the autopsy. Rose was very thankful she wasn’t squeamish, though it was pushing her limits a little. She was in charge of using the forceps to hold back the green, scaly skin as the Doctor carefully cut through layers of tissue and muscle to see if they could find answers inside.

‘When Medrek said woke up, what did they mean?’ Rose had been pondering the meaning of Medrek’s words ever since they left the laboratory and thought now was as good a time as any to ask, she didn’t feel like she was contributing much, just sitting there holding the forceps in place whilst the Doctor worked.

He continued to cut through the thick layers of flesh, easily multitasking with answering her question whilst still focusing on his task. ‘The Silurians thought the world was going to end so they took shelter underground and went into hibernation,’ he mumbled. ‘Of course it didn’t, it’s here right now, but they stayed put waiting for the all clear. They became trapped in their hibernation units for millenia and the reanimation units deteriorated. Not many woke up, so now there’s hardly any tribes left,’ he finished sombrely.

‘So those tribes you met, what happened to them?’

He sighed a little. ‘UNIT happened,’ he said bitterly, ‘they saw them as a threat and killed them’.

Rose frowned. The Silurians they had met had been a little hostile but were otherwise accommodating. Perhaps this behaviour was unusual for them and they were this way because of the attacks but she still couldn’t believe that UNIT would just kill them, especially when they were so few in numbers. They were an endangered species. ‘All of them?’ She asked, hoping that the answer wouldn’t be an affirmative.

The Doctor sniffed and then said, ‘definitely two tribes. I managed to save a third but I don’t know if they’re still around now. That was hundreds of years ago for me,’ he added a little thoughtfully.

‘Sometimes I forget just how old you are.’ She shook her head at him with a small smile on her face and wonder written in her eyes. ‘I mean look at you, you look so young.’

He paused in his dissection and laid a hand over hers correcting the forceps that she had accidentally moved. ‘Youngest I’ve ever looked.’

‘Really?’

He glanced upwards at Rose as he considered his regenerations; he’d mostly been getting younger in looks over the years. He’d never really given much thought to the person he’d become after regenerating but this regeneration he had really tried. He had hoped to become someone who Rose would like because his previous self had been just a little smitten with her. So there he was with the younger and hopefully more appealing looks and the hair. Even though it wasn’t ginger he still appreciated the hair of this body and the rest of him wasn’t too bad either. The Doctor finished his musings and nodded. ‘Yeah I’d say so.’

‘So what did your past selves look like?’ Rose asked with a slightly cheeky grin, already conjuring images in her mind of possible Doctors.

He raised an eyebrow at her as he cut through the final layer protecting the cavity where the internal organs resided. ‘I can show you pictures of them in the Tardis if you insist but I’d rather not.’ He placed the scalpel down and grabbed a set of clamps to hold back all the layers of muscle and skin and scale so he could see inside properly.

Rose put her unneeded forceps down and asked, ‘why not?’

‘Because you’ll laugh at me,’ he stated as though it were obvious as he adjusted the overhead light to angle it better into the cavity.

She chuckled, already proving his point but she couldn’t help it. ‘I wouldn’t laugh at you. Why would I do that?’

‘Time Lords aren’t known for their dress sense,’ he mumbled distractedly. Silurian internal organs were a little different than a Human Being but the differences he was seeing inside Kinlira were drastic and were certainly nothing he had seen before. His internal organs were like soup. Nothing seemed solid nor recognisable anymore and even the bones were starting to become affected. He had noticed a discrepancy with the Siluran’s lower ribs before he had begun the procedure but hadn’t known that they seemed smaller and more fragile because they were being eaten away. Throughout the soup of the organs and across the ribcage hundreds of green and orange spotted creatures, about an inch long, were feasting.

‘Could’ve fooled me,’ Rose said, carrying on the conversation, unaware of the Doctor’s discovery.

He plucked one of the tiny, slippery slug-like creatures from one of the ribs with a pair of tweezers. ‘Petri dish, Petri dish, Petri dish,’ he ordered.

Rose leant around to the counter beside her and retrieved one of the dishes, removing the lid and holding it out towards the Doctor. She looked at the creature as it slowly slipped from the tweezers, with a long clear trail of slime following behind, and landed into the dish. She pulled a face at it. ‘Ew, what is that?’

‘Something that shouldn’t be inside a Silurian,’ he mumbled darkly, looking back inside the cavity and at the destruction that was being done and had been done.

‘Why is it so slimy?’ Rose was holding the Petri dish close to her face to study the creature within, tilting the dish a little to catch it at different angles in the light.

He glanced back up at her, realising what she was doing. ‘Careful, if that thing can eat through bone it can certainly eat through skin,’ he warned.

She immediately lowered the dish and caught the Doctor’s gaze with a slightly guilty look. ‘I’ll put the lid on it.’

He nodded. ‘Probably for the best.’

The Doctor wasn’t happy with the discovery. He had sewn Kinlira back up and replaced his body in the cryo chamber, though that clearly hadn’t had too much of an effect in slowing down the creatures. He would advise a pyre, which he knew was not usual for Silurians like it was for Time Lords, but his body held an infestation and that needed to be dealt with before it spread. After cleaning everything up he sat on the stool next to Rose. She was leant upon the counter top, her chin resting on her crossed arms as she studied the creature before her.

‘So what is it?’ She asked, sitting up once again.

He picked up the Petri dish and inspected it through his glasses before he shrugged. ‘Haven’t the faintest.’

Rose turned to him with a mixture of surprise and delight in her eyes. ‘You don’t know?’

‘Not a clue,’ he said with a shake of the head.

‘Can you say that again?’ She asked, hardly hiding her mirth. It was so rare that the Doctor didn’t know things that when he didn’t she couldn’t help but tease him about it.

He turned to her with an arched brow and she bit her lip at the fierce look he gave her. ‘Shut it Tyler,’ he growled. Unable to hold back her laughter anymore she cackled and he shook his head at her with a fond smile on his lips.

Chapter 24: Pest Control

Chapter Text

The Doctor had a plan. Well, part of a plan. Perhaps just a bit of a plan. Still, some form of a plan, no matter how vague it was, was better than nothing.

When he and Rose were studying the slimy, green and orange spotted creature he realised it would crawl to the right of the Petri dish, closer to where he sat. He moved around to the other side of Rose and watched as it again crawled closer to him. After repeating his movements a few times, just to ensure there was no strange coincidence between them, he racked his brain as to why he was so interesting to the little creature until an idea popped into his mind. Rifling through his pockets, he eventually found what he was looking for and produced a white paper bag of jelly babies. He placed the bag on the countertop, on the left of the Petri dish, and stood to the right, watching as the creature crawled closer to the jelly babies. They were still in the bag, still unable to be seen yet they drew the creature towards them just as they had towards the Doctor when they were in his pockets. It was the smell, the smell of the food.

‘Aha!’ The Doctor leapt up from his stool jubilantly. ‘I know why they’re coming down here,’ he said with a manic grin on his face as Rose turned to look at him.

Her eyes lit up as they always did when he started to put the puzzle pieces together. ‘Why?’

‘The food,’ he said looking at her with those big, mad eyes of his. ‘They can smell it.’

For once she was able to give him a look like he had dribbled on his shirt. ‘Yeah, I can see that they’re eating the food but there’s a whole world up there full of it too,’ she pointed out.

He shook his head and continued grinning at her because she hadn’t understood his point yet. ‘Oh, but this isn’t any old food, this is what the Silurians are growing. Excellent gardeners, the Silurians.’ Picking up the Petri dish, he held it between them as he said, ‘imagine being one of these tiny slugs, up there in that park with your big olfactory system. The smell of that field of gorgeous, ripe, juicy tomatoes. Sure there’s other stuff out there but it’s like walking down a street of food shops and smelling fresh bread at the bakers. The other options don’t matter now you’ve smelt that glorious bread, that’s what you make a beeline for. I reckon we can draw in the big one. Set a trap with a whole heap of food and entice them inside.’ The Doctor grinned again and looked at Rose expectantly. Oh he loved explaining things, he’d ramble on for ages whether others were listening or not, though it was always nicer when they did listen. But what he appreciated even more was that look in Rose’s eyes when he’d done something brilliant or the praise she’d give him or that tongue touched grin he loved so much.

None of those things happened however, Rose simply said, ‘and how are they getting in and out to get this food?’

The Doctor deflated. ‘Alright, one step at a time,’ he said in a whiny voice. ‘You don’t half know how to knock down a man’s ego don’t you?’

‘With an ego your size I’m sure you can take it,’ Rose said with a smirk.

**********

The Doctor had decided it had to be tomatoes that they would use as the bait. It was the first crop that had been devastated by the creature so it was more likely that they were the preferred food of choice and therefore perfect for the trap. Luckily, as Medrek led the time travellers back to the court to put forth the plan to Rohlen and to update him on their findings, they explained that a lot of their produce was frozen and that they should have some tomatoes to spare from other harvests.

‘This is your problem,’ the Doctor announced rather grandly as he entered the court. Rose rolled her eyes at him. He always did like to make an entrance.

Rohlen rose from his seat at the head of the long table and walked over to the group of three who gathered at the other end. The Time Lord placed the Petri dish upon the table and stepped back to allow the Silurian to see for himself. Rohlen bent down and squinted at the creature. It looked even smaller now it was on such a large table and in such a grand room. His voice was full of disbelief that such a thing could have caused all their issues. ‘A slug?’

The Doctor shrugged and vaguely said, ‘looks can be deceiving’.

Rose tried not to smile at the Doctor’s need for the dramatic reveal because what they were about to say was certainly not a cause worth smiling about. ‘We found it in Kinlira,’ she said, beginning the discussion of their discoveries.

‘He had been infected by the original creature, the one who is destroying your crops. His body was infested with them,’ the Doctor explained, pointing at the Petri dish, ‘the other deceased Silurian was just the same. I believe the creature reproduces through parthenogenesis and I’m afraid it chose your people as the surrogates to raise its young’. He paused before delicately adding, ‘they became the source of food for the young’.

Medrek, who had been standing just behind the time travellers, peering over their shoulders at the creature, let out a cry. It was a high pitched sob, torn out of their body like a breath. There was so much remorse in that sound that Rose didn’t hesitate to rest a hand on their shoulder.

‘Medrek, I’m sorry,’ she said soothingly, gently rubbing the Silurian on the arm in a bid to comfort them. They didn’t react to Rose’s touch and let out a few more sobs as the rest of the group looked on.

‘How do we stop it?’ Rohlen’s determined voice cut through the sombre air.

The Doctor spun back round to face the leader and matched his determined expression with one of his own and quickly explained his plan. ‘I propose a trap. Medrek mentioned you might have spare tomatoes. I suggest we use them as a lure, attract the adult to the first field it destroyed.’

‘And how do you suppose you trap it? A creature that can walk through doors and solid stone walls, it would be impossible,’ the Silurian said with a frown.

‘Near impossible Rohlen, but that’s just what I deal with every other Tuesday,’ he added with a smirk and an air of nonchalance.

‘Care to share with the class?’ Voiced Rose who gave the Doctor a stern look telling him that now wasn’t the time for that sort of behaviour.

He caught her meaning and glanced at her sheepishly before quickly moving onto his energetic explanation. ‘Forcefield! Should be simple enough. Will have to go back to the Tardis though, that’s, uh, my ship,’ he added a little awkwardly after seeing the confusion on Rohlen’s face. ‘I’m sure I’ve got one knocking around somewhere, or the parts of one at least.’ He reached out and collected the Petri dish from the table. ‘I’ll check it on this little one just to make sure it works but if we set up a perimeter around that field we should be able to keep it in place. We contain it and then take it back to its homeworld.’

‘It is not of Earth origin?’ Rohlen asked as he wrung his hands together.

‘No, definitely not,’ he answered with a shake of the head. He lifted the dish up to his eye level and studied it again and continued on thoughtfully, ‘I would like to say it's a mutation going by the size the adult appears to be but its way of reproducing, though not unheard of on Earth, is unheard of in its species. I’ll set up a scan on the Tardis, then we should have some answers.’ He lowered his arm and gave Rohlen another determined look that promised the Silurian that he would get to the bottom of this. The leader bowed his head to the Time Lord and, after some confusion in his understanding as to how the Doctor would be able to land his ship within the underground settlement, he sent the duo on their way.

Any remaining tension dissipated from the Time Lord’s shoulders as they exited the drainage tunnel by the lake in the park and walked into the morning sunlight. Rose had noticed that he had begun to relax as the problem took over and shoved his worries into the back of his mind. He had become much more like his usual self which she was pleased about. She hoped that the adventure was helping him to heal which is not what she had predicted earlier but looking at him now it seemed to be doing the trick. Perhaps it was just as the doctor ordered she thought and chuckled at herself internally before turning her attention back to the man in question. He was babbling on about the reproductive cycles of common garden slugs as they walked past the shop windows, though it wasn’t long before he stopped in front of one of them after something caught his eye. He told her to wait outside the electronics store as he dashed through the door excitedly and it wasn’t long before he was back by her side, stuffing a brown paper bag into his suit jacket. She asked him what he had bought but he simply winked and told her she’d find out later. Rose eyed him a little suspiciously but let it slide as he grabbed her hand and led them at a run the rest of the way back to the time machine.

Once inside the Doctor set the Tardis up to do some scans of the creature in the Petri dish, hoping to find out its origins. Afterwards he led Rose to storage three and described the appearance of the forcefield he was certain he had stashed away somewhere inside. After looking through every container and even underneath the shelving units he conceded it might actually be inside storage four so they began a thorough search of that room instead. It turned out it was in storage six. Rose grumbled at him for making her needlessly search through the other rooms and he tried to point out it could have been worse: they could have started in storage one and needed to be in ten. That thought didn’t particularly appease her.

They took it out into the corridor and attempted to untangle it from the mess that all wires somehow get into when they were stored away. The forcefield was made up of black stakes that were about two feet in height. When set around a perimeter, and all connected up via the wires, it could be turned on with its controls and a pale white barrier would appear and encircle the entire area blocking anything from getting in or out. The good thing about that type of forcefield was that it was transportable; the stakes could be picked up and moved allowing them to take the creature out of the field, where they were hoping to catch it, and lead it into the Tardis. That was once the wire was untangled. They spent quite some time separating the stakes and unknotting the wire, chatting in between their grumblings as they came across particularly knotted sections.

‘I’m sure that baby had doubled in size when I was setting up the scan,’ the Doctor said as they sat across from each other in the corridor, their backs against the coral walls and their legs stretched out over the solid metal floor.

‘That doesn’t surprise me you gave it two jelly babies,’ Rose said before glancing up at him with a slightly furrowed brow. ‘How old were those jelly babies anyway?’

He stopped in his untangling and looked thoughtful. ‘I don’t think I restocked them too long ago, errrrrrrm - well, actually,’ his tune changed and he pulled on his ear a little as he glanced at Rose a little sheepishly, ‘they’re probably older than you’. Her jaw dropped and he quickly added, ‘they don’t go off do they? I mean it’s just sugar and gelatine’. He paused at the amused expression growing on her face. ‘What?’ he asked with a frown.

She shook her head at him with a teasing glint in her eye. ‘Remind me to never accept sweets from you in the future’.

He gave her a smug smile. ‘Well that’s more for me then.’

She rolled her eyes at him then added thoughtfully, ‘though it would explain a lot if you’ve been eating twenty plus year old sweets, who knows what effect that could have on a person’.

‘Oi,’ he cried out and pointed at her with a playfully threatening finger. ‘You really are getting ruder you know.’

Rose shrugged and simply said, ‘must be the company I keep’. She gave him a cheeky smile and received a glare in return.

They bundled all the stakes together and carefully wrapped the untangled wire around the lot to keep it together and to keep the wire from knotting itself back up whilst they transported it to the field. Rose carried it into the console room and the Doctor raced past her to the controls where he had set up the scan eager to see if it was completed yet. He was studying the results that it had found on the monitor when Rose came up beside him. She looked at the creature sitting in its Petri dish and thought it was at least triple its original size now.

‘It reminds me of this book mum used to read to me when I was little about this caterpillar who’d just eat and eat and eat and wouldn’t stop and it just kept getting bigger and bigger until at the end it became a butterfly,’ she said.

The Doctor hummed. ‘I don’t know about this turning into a butterfly but the rest is certainly familiar,’ he mumbled a little absentmindedly until he made an interested sound and said, ‘oooh have a look at this’. He dragged the monitor across a little so that she could see it better but that wouldn’t have made the slightest difference in her understanding of it.

She sighed, ‘Gallifreyan Doctor’.

‘Oh right of course,’ he said and looked a little sheepish as he scratched at his sideburn before explaining it to her in English. ‘It says our creature is from Arrokoth.’ He gave her a grin like he’d just solved the puzzle.

He received a blank look from Rose. She wasn’t sure if she was meant to have heard of it going by his reaction, but she couldn’t help it if he waffled on at fifty miles an hour most of the time. It was impossible to catch everything he said let alone remember it all. ‘Where’s that?’

He gave her a look like she’d grown a second head before a thought struck him. ‘Oh of course, they haven't discovered it yet in your time.’ He chuckled softly before adding, ‘actually they’ve not long sent New Hoizons out on the mission that will end up discovering it and that won’t happen until New Year's Day in 2019’.

Rose shook her head at him fondly. ‘No offence Doctor but I’m not sure I would have heard of it even if it was discovered in my time, not unless it was something as big as a planet. I mean I only heard of them demoting Pluto when you mentioned it, but that was during the year I missed,’ she added with a shrug.

A flash of guilt crossed his face and he hurriedly moved on, explaining the facts he knew about it as enthusiastically as always. ‘Funny you should mention Pluto as that’s nearby-ish,’ he pulled a small face at his description but knowing that Rose wouldn’t care about the accuracy of the distance, he brushed it off and continued. ‘They’re both in the Kuiper Belt anyway. Arrokoth is technically known as an object, well a Kuiper Belt object or KBO if you don’t have the time or just fancy an acronym. Do love a good acronym me,’ he finished, smiling to himself.

‘And that’s what it looks like?’ Rose asked, pointing at the image on the monitor which was the only thing she could understand between all the swirling writing.

‘Yep,’ he confirmed, popping the “p”.

She scrunched her nose up at it. ‘Why does it look like a snowman?’

He laughed at her description of the image, especially because it was rather accurate. ‘It’s called contact binary, when two components come into mechanical contact with each other; in this case the two distinct lobes are connected via a narrow neck,’ he explained, pointing at the monitor as he did so.

She nodded in vague understanding then caught a glimpse of the creature out of the corner of her eye. It prompted her final question, ‘so how did it get to Earth?’

He took in a deep breath then said, ‘asteroid I expect. Or objectoid?’ He cringed and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Most likely reason anyway. Tiny rock falls out of the sky and lands in that park with a little stowaway on board. Then off it went to feast on the world...’ He trailed off, his eyes, like Rose’s, studying the creature astutely as it shuffled around, leaving a trail of slime on the already slime covered Petri dish.

**********

The Doctor sent his ship down into the Silurian settlement when he was confident they were prepared to lay their trap for the adult creature. As Rose stepped out of the Tardis she realised that they were parked in the food storage area. A storage unit, which was bigger than the other cryogenic chambers that they had seen earlier, was open and freshly defrosted tomatoes were being removed by the crate load and transported away from the area and down a tunnel. It was a strange sight to behold as a group of Silurian soldiers created a line through the tunnels from the nearby food storage area to the original tomato field. Crate after crate of tomatoes were transported along the Silurian line as Rose walked by holding the parts of the forcefield in her arms. The Doctor was following behind, sonicking the forcefield controls and making some last minute adjustments to them to try and ensure the plan went off without a hitch.

They met Medrek in the field; they had been gathering and commanding the other Silurians, telling them what to do whilst the Doctor and Rose were gone. They rushed over to the duo, when they spotted them arrive, immediately asking what they could do to help. The Doctor exchanged the forcefield parts with the controls, telling Rose she could be in charge of testing once he had set it up. He then asked her to put the crates into the middle of the field before turning to the Silurian and asking them to help him lay out the forcefield around the perimeter.

It was easy enough to set up. Medrek stood the stakes into the ground around two feet apart as the Doctor attached the wire that ran between them. They made their way around the edge of the field ending back up at the tunnel that led them to the food storage area. The rest of the Silurians were long gone, having completed their task of transporting the tomatoes and needing to attend to their original duties.

As Medrek stabbed the final stake into the ground they stood up and stretched their back, looking around the field at the trap that they had helped create. ‘I hope this plan of yours works, Doctor,’ they said as they glanced down at the man crouched in the dirt, his screwdriver buzzing in his hand as he attached the wires to the final stake.

He hummed and replied a little distractedly, concentrating on the fiddly bit of wire that wasn’t doing as it should. ‘As do I, though I don’t see why it wouldn’t. Tested the forcefield on the little one and that was fine, should be able to keep it contained and get it into the Tardis.’

The Silurian nodded and was quiet for a moment before they said, ‘I apologise for my reaction earlier, my emotions got the better of me’.

He shook his head at their words, his screwdriver in his mouth. He pulled off the connector at the end of the wires and scraped the insulation away, exposing the silver metal of them and winding that around a connecting point in the stake. ‘Oh, you don’t need to apologise, you’re grieving, it’s natural,’ he mumbled around the sonic in between his teeth.

Medrek relaxed a little at his words and said, ‘your mate was an unexpected comfort’.

‘Yes, well-’ the words died in his mouth as he understood what they were inferring. He spat the sonic out into his hand and his head shot up to the Silurian with a frown. ‘Wait wh - what? My - my mate?’ he stuttered.

They tilted their head to the side as they looked down at the Time Lord, a small amount of amusem*nt in their eyes at his reaction. ‘Yes, of course,’ they said with a nod, the relationship between the pair seemingly obvious to the Silurian.

The Doctor stared at them, glanced over at Rose and then back at Medrek before doing a double take. He spun around to face Rose as she adjusted the final crate of tomatoes that she had dragged into the centre of the field. Crawling closer to her, unnoticed from behind, was the creature. Its green and orange spotted body was giant compared to its young; it was about five feet long and was shuffling towards her leaving a currently invisible slimy trail in the blue lighting of the room. Where it had appeared from he had no idea but that wasn’t his top most concern.

‘Rose!’ he yelled. Medrek looked around at the woman who was standing in the middle of the field with wide, panicked eyes, having spun around after hearing the Doctor’s shouts. ‘Run,’ he bellowed, ‘get out of the forcefield!’ He watched as Rose turned and legged it towards the opposite tunnel. The creature, seemingly uncaring for their tomato trap, followed her with remarkable speed for a being with a body that didn’t look able to produce such a thing. Jumping up the Doctor forced Medrek back into the entrance of the tunnel beside them, ensuring they were both beyond the line of the forcefield themselves. The rapid thumping of his hearts settled a little as Rose passed the boundary, reached into the Doctor’s exterior coat pocket and activated the forcefield using the controls he had given her. The creature was trapped on one side and Rose on the other. She still stepped back slightly as the creature continued to bound her way before crashing spectacularly into the pale white glow that was the forcefield. ‘Ha!’ he cried out jubilantly, happy his plan to contain the creature had worked. He grinned a little manically over at Rose who was looking at him with both a mixture of happiness and relief in her own smile. Their triumph was short lived. The creature wiggled itself back upright, its eyes still set on Rose and then it disappeared. Their smiles faded as they studied the spot where it had last been, baffled as to how it had seemingly vanished.

Rose felt a drip upon her shoulder, she glanced down at herself as another drip joined it and the glistening slime slithered down the arm of the long brown coat. She gingerly tilted her head back and looked up to find the creature staring down at her from the tunnel ceiling. She took a step back and then another, reversing away from the forcefield and down the tunnel. ‘Doctor?’ She said, her voice wavering a little in her fear. It wasn’t a shout, just loud enough for him to hear.

His eyes locked onto her. ‘Rose,’ he breathed, the shock of the scene having gotten the better of him for a moment before his head kicked back into gear and he yelled, ‘Run!’

Rose ran. She turned and ran like her life depended on it which, after seeing Kinlira and the other dead Silurian, she thought it really rather might. The creature squelched close behind her, giving chase from the ceiling, its slime dripping down into the tunnel below. She followed the tunnel and its winding path panting as her legs burned with her haste. Up ahead was a door that she knew would open automatically having been down the tunnel previously when they were led to the field by Medrek for the first time. The door slid open as expected and she bolted into the cavern and heard it slide closed behind her. She glanced back and saw no sign of the creature. She knew those doors wouldn’t stop it though, the thing could somehow teleport.

From the other tunnel the Doctor was trying to use the sonic to disable the forcefield since Rose still had the controls. ‘Come on you bloody thing,’ he growled, hitting his screwdriver in his other hand before trying it again. The white glow diminished and he ran immediately towards the tunnel Rose had gone down with Medrek in his wake.

Rose had decided it was probably best to just keep running so began down the next tunnel hastily coming to a stop as the creature appeared in front of her. Slime dripped from its mouth as its black eyes studied her hungrily. She quickly turned and legged it back the way she came, the creature chasing her once again. As she ran she could hear other footsteps coming down the tunnel from up ahead. She sprinted around a bend she saw the Doctor barreling towards her. She waved her arm at him and panted out, ‘turn around. Turn around,’ as loud as she could. Luckily he got the message, as did the Silurian following him. The Doctor and Medrek skidded to a halt, turned and ran back towards the field with Rose close on their tail and the creature close on hers.

Medrek sprinted out of the tunnel first; they ran away from the entrance a little before turning to watch as the Doctor appeared. He spun around and Rose ran towards him. He quickly grabbed her and put himself between her and the creature who was just squelching out of the tunnel. It encroached upon the time travellers before stopping in its tracks, shrieking as the red beams from Medrek’s blaster hit it before its writhing body stilled.

‘Don’t kill it!’ The Doctor yelled at the Silurian. His wide eyes had shot to Medrek and he was glaring at them as he panted. He couldn’t believe that they had killed the creature just like that. How he hated guns. He might not have yet come up with another plan as to how to deal with the teleporting slug-like thing but that didn’t mean that they needed to kill it.

‘It was killing us,’ they replied fiercely, lowering their blaster to their side.

He stepped away from Rose, closer to the Silurian, feeling safe to do so now the danger was gone. ‘And that’s how you want to play it is it? Make yourself no better than them?’ He spat.

‘It’s what it deserved.’

‘Deserved?!’ He exclaimed. ‘It at least deserved a trial before execution.’

‘That thing couldn’t speak,’ Medrek hissed.

‘That doesn’t matter,’ he said furiously, gesturing at the creature lying still on the soil. ‘It’s a living being. It was alive.’

Medrek raised their voice for the first time during their argument and shouted, ‘and now it’s dead like my brother!’

The shout echoed around the field, the statement silencing any remaining argument that the Doctor had. He panted and continued to glower at them for a moment, though it was slightly less intense after the Silurian’s final words, before he turned back to Rose. ‘Are you alright?’ He asked, his voice now far softer than it had been just a moment before.

She glanced up from the creature that she had been staring at and caught his eyes, the anger within them depleting and being replaced with concern over her well being. She nodded at him and said, ‘yeah I’m fine, I’m alright’.

There was clearly something in her tone that didn’t sit well with him as he stepped right in front of her and studied her intently, checking for any injuries. ‘Are you sure? It didn’t get you at all?’

‘No, I’m fine Doctor,’ she said with a small smile, trying to ease his worries. ‘I just got a little slimed is all,’ she gave him an apologetic look and glanced at her shoulder which glistened ever so slightly under the shadow of the Doctor.

He shook his head at her and reached out placing one finger into the slime. It created a trail as he drew his finger back and wiped it on an unaffected part of the sleeve of his coat. ‘That doesn’t matter, it’s just a coat.’

A playful glint appeared in Rose’s eyes. ‘A coat from Janis Joplin,’ she pointed out.

He smirked, ‘oh well when you put it like that then yes I do care more about the coat than you’.

She giggled and hit him lightly on the arm. ‘Shut up.’

‘What?’ He chuckled, gently taking a hold of the lapels and rubbing them a little between his thumbs and fingers. ‘You know I love my coat, it’s a great coat, hardly go anywhere without my coat,’ he mumbled, his eyes trailing downwards as he admired Rose in said coat.

She couldn’t help the blush that coloured her cheeks and hoped he couldn’t feel the way her heart raced not too far beneath where he rested his hands. He had never been so blatant in his interest before, especially not standing as close as they were. She wasn’t sure he realised what he was doing and became certain of that when he lifted his gaze again. His brown eyes connected with hers, she could see they were slightly dilated and she didn’t think that was due to the lighting. Rose only caught that look for a second before he came to himself and dropped his hands, stepping back and clearing his throat as he did so. He turned away, suddenly finding the rest of the room rather interesting, but the reddening tips of his ears rather gave him away if Rose hadn’t already noticed. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little disappointed. It wasn’t great timing, that much was obvious, but would there ever be great timing for such a thing? After all that they had been through they were finally back to how they were, if not a little closer than before. They were teetering on the edge of something. Rose just hoped that whatever happened next brought them closer together and wouldn’t break them apart.

**********

The duo escaped into the Tardis as quickly as they could after debriefing Rohlen. He was rather insistent in rewarding their success, they both adamantly refused until he offered them just a crate of tomatoes. The Doctor gave in and accepted them just so he could see what all the fuss was about. Medrek, on the other hand, received a promotion for their efforts. Though proud of it, it offered little solace after their loss but the fact that they killed the creature did enable them to have the revenge that they so wanted. The Time Lord understood that feeling, even if he didn’t like it.

They dropped the baby creature, who had doubled in size once again, off on Arrokoth as the Doctor certainly wasn’t going to keep a teleporting slug on board. He wasn’t sure at what stage of growth they gained their abilities in teleportation either so he wanted to be rid of it as soon as he could even if it was rather interesting to study.

‘One freshly cleaned coat,’ Rose announced as he closed the Tardis doors on the Kuiper Belt.

He turned to see her walking towards him with a grin, holding out his coat for him. He beamed back at her. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said, taking it and unfolding it so he could inspect the shoulder for slimy residue. ‘Ah, ah, ah. Missed a spot.’ He pointed at the fabric and Rose leaned in to have a look.

She frowned as she gazed at the shoulder that probably looked as good as the day he got it, there didn’t seem to be a mark on it at all. She glanced up at him and saw his barely contained mirth and hit him on the arm. ‘Git.’ He laughed loudly at her reaction and she soon joined in.

‘Right, I’m going to bed to dream of slugs,’ she began after their laughter had died down. ‘Oh and I put the tomatoes in the fridge, though what we’re gonna do with them all before they start to go off I don’t know,’ she said with a slight shake of the head.

‘It’s the fridge on the Tardis they’ll keep a bit longer in there, but yes we’ll have to get some tomato based meals together.’ He thought for a moment before a gleam appeared in his eyes. ‘I know, for breakfast you can have tomato juice with fried tomatoes on toast.’ Rose was already pulling a face at his first suggestion but he wasn’t done yet. ‘And at lunch there will be tomato soup for starters, with tomato juice again of course, and some pasta in tomato sauce or perhaps a caprese salad with a side of tomato chutney.’ His eyes lit up even more as a new thought popped into his mind and he excitedly exclaimed, ‘oooh crisps! We could make tomato crisps, never had tomato crisps before-’

‘If you start force feeding me tomatoes in every meal I will go out and find some pears,’ she threatened with a hand on her hip.

He gasped and looked back at her, his eyes finding her playful glare. ‘You wouldn’t.’

Rose smirked. ‘Try me.’

Chapter 25: The 27th of April - Part One

Chapter Text

The Doctor was glad that they never made it to storage ten when they were looking for the forcefield to trap that creature for the Silurians because now he had another surprise for Rose. It wasn’t a gift for her, he’d already got that sorted and planned a trip he thought she’d enjoy, but it was something fun he was sure she would like a go on. His Tardis blue Vespa. He’d fixed it up years ago and took it for a few spins but it hadn’t been particularly well used, he had the Tardis after all and it wasn’t often that the need to drive around on roads took a hold. When he got the bike he had been missing his canary yellow car Bessie and felt like a set of wheels would help to fix that. The bike was small enough to fit into the Tardis and was a fixer upper which suited him perfectly, he loved a good tinker. When he had mended it he had driven it around a bit but other things came up that took his interest more so the bike was left forgotten and put into storage. Now seemed like the perfect time to give it a trip out. He ensured it was all working and gave it a bit of a polish so it was ready to go when Rose was up. But there were other things to be done before then.

The Doctor made his way into the console room to find his coat, looking for the gift he had gotten Rose. He had found some wrapping paper to wrap it in and wanted to get it sorted before she awoke. It was a Polaroid 600 camera. He’d brought it from the electronics store in Philadelphia after he’d spotted one in the window. He knew she treasured the photos they had of them and their trips when Jack brought his camera on board so thought she would appreciate the gift. He rifled through his coat pockets, not coming across it, until he caught a hold of something else. He had forgotten all about it. It was the broken Temporal Portal he had confiscated from Preema on Drava-Five. The round metal portal was cold in his hand as he withdrew it from his pocket. He stared at it and took in a deep breath. He knew he could fix it, he was the Doctor of course he could, but he was on the fence about whether he should. If he did then he knew where he’d go. It was simple. He could almost smell those blue flowers on the side of the mountain after haytime and feel the soft red grass running through his hands as he walked through the fields underneath the twin suns. The Tardis hummed sorrowfully around him and he nodded. ‘You miss home too, I know,’ he murmured. The lights in the console room flickered and the Doctor stepped away from the coral strut where he had laid his coat and walked to the controls, placing a hand upon the rotor. ‘I’m sorry I can’t take you back there Old Girl…’ he sighed then added, ‘it’s just you and me now’. The lights glowed gold as she hummed again and the Doctor nodded and patted the rotor before removing his hand. ‘Yeah you’re right, we’ve got Rose.’ He let out a breath. ‘Much prefer to have her than most of those stuffy old Time Lords anyway,’ he chuckled softly though there wasn’t much humour in it. He stood there for a moment simply staring at the time rotor before he reached up and scratched the back of his head with a frown appearing on his face. ‘And speaking of Rose, where did I put her present? I thought I put it-’ He cut himself off. His eyes widened in realisation and he slowly said, ‘I wasn’t wearing my coat…she was…’ The Tardis hummed again, it was higher pitched and wavered a little like she was giggling. ‘Oh, don’t you start,’ he said with a glare at the rotor, ‘we’ve already had that conversation and you made your point’. The lights dimmed for a moment then he added, ‘and my answer still hasn’t changed’.

‘What hasn’t changed?’

The Doctor poked his head around the rotor to see Rose shuffling into the console room. He thought she looked adorable as she stood there in her fluffy purple dressing gown with white stars that she’d put on over her pyjamas. Her eyes were a little puffy from sleep and her hair was one of the best bed heads he’d seen her have yet. The Tardis produced that giggling hum again and he smacked the console lightly and muttered threateningly, ‘I’m not so stop it’.

‘Were you two having another argument?’ She said around a yawn.

‘No, just a discussion,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘What are you doing up, a bit early isn’t it?’

She shrugged. ‘I was thirsty, was gonna get a drink then I heard you yapping away so I thought I’d come and see what’s up.’

He decided not to get into the fact that he didn’t yap and instead stated, ‘you are,’ as he walked around the console towards her, ‘it’s far too early, come on back to bed’. He took her by the shoulders and spun her around, pushing her gently back into the corridor.

‘But I’m not tired and I’m up now,’ she complained but didn’t resist as he moved her along the corridor in the direction of her bedroom.

‘Well just go to your room then.’

‘Go to my room?’ her head shot around to him with wide eyes. ‘Didn’t realise I put my gas mask on before I went to bed.’

He smiled and shook his head at her. Her sarcasm was on fine form as always. He opened the door to her room and moved her inside.

She turned around as soon as he released her and gazed at him suspiciously, her eyebrows raised. ‘You’re up to something mister,’ she accused with a smirk and a prod to his chest with one of her fingers.

‘No I’m not,’ he said with a shake of the head, ‘no idea what you’re talking about’. It was a lie she was easily seeing through but that was okay, she was already onto him in that regard but that didn’t matter. She could know he was up to something all she liked just as long as she didn’t actually know what it was he was up to.

Rose chuckled at him. ‘Oh you definitely are,’ she said with a teasing grin.

He began to back out of the room saying, ‘just - just stay in here’. She raised her eyebrows at him again. ‘Please,’ he begged. He watched from the doorway as she leant into her hip, still giving him that unimpressed look, but knew he was off the hook when she eventually rolled her eyes. He grinned at her and bounded out of the room.

‘And get me a tea whilst you’re not doing whatever it is you’re doing,’ she called after him. She watched his back as he raced down the corridor before closing the door, shaking her head fondly as she thought of the mad man. Rose had no idea what he was up to. Whatever little plan he was scheming she sincerely hoped it didn’t involve tomatoes. They’d had cheese and tomato sandwiches at lunch the previous day and then the Doctor had made spaghetti bolognese for tea. It wasn’t a too tomato heavy day compared to his previous threats but Rose had a feeling her tomato limits weren’t too far away, even if they did taste gorgeous.

They’d had a rather relaxing day after their Silurian adventure in Philadelphia, just hanging out in the Tardis together. She had found his The Lord of the Rings collection previously and, in need of a new book, she went to the library to find the first in the trilogy. The Doctor was already in there at the desk that sat near the rear of the room surrounded by the bookshelves. His hair was a bit wild and his nose was in a very thick book that gave her a headache just by glancing at the tiny size of the writing on the page it was open at. He sighed as he heard her walking over and leant back in his chair, tossing his glasses onto the desk before rubbing his hands across his face. Rose squeezed his shoulder as she walked behind him, studying the shelves to see if the book she was looking for was in this part of the library or if she had to venture through the secret door to the larger section where the majority of the books were stored.

‘Alright?’

‘I can’t seem to find any trace of our little slug friend,’ he began with another sigh, ‘should have known when the Tardis couldn’t identify it. She has access to all the books, don’t know why I thought I’d be able to find it if she hadn’t’. The general Tardis hum of the library grew and became high pitch for a moment. ‘Alright no need to boast,’ the Time Lord complained as he crossed his arms.

Rose turned to see him sulking in his chair and chuckled softly at him. She rested both her hands on his shoulders and rubbed them soothingly. ‘Does that mean we found a new species?’ She voiced slowly, the idea just coming to mind.

He shrugged and made a noncommittal noise. ‘Perhaps.’ He didn’t sound enthusiastic about the idea, more doubtful about it than anything. The Kuiper Belt was massive so it was possible that no one else had discovered it but also very possible someone had. He didn’t know everything, as much as he liked to claim he did, and neither did the Tardis. There was infinitely more knowledge out there in the universe just waiting to be discovered. He could write up a paper on the creature and submit it for review, claiming it to be a new species if he so wanted and although he couldn’t deny that he liked the attention, he didn’t want that sort of attention, especially when it involved getting a slug named after you. He didn’t think Rose would like it much either. She squeezed his shoulders once more before letting go, leaving him to his thoughts. After a moment he tilted his head backwards to see an upside down Rose scanning the shelves behind him. ‘What are you searching for?’

‘The Lord of the Rings,’ she answered, trailing her fingers along the spines of books as she looked. He hummed approvingly. ‘I’ve never read it.’

‘Oh, Rose Tyler, you are in for a treat,’ he said with his usual enthusiasm back at full gusto. He turned around in his chair with a wide grin and watched as she crouched down with a little noise of triumph having found the first book. ‘The beginning is a bit slow and Tolkien is a bit wordy but he’s good at world building,’ he said thoughtfully as she rose back up, book in hand and walked around the desk towards the sofa and armchairs.

‘Wordy? You two should be best of buds then,’ she commented, flashing him a cheeky smile before lowering herself onto the sofa and stretching her legs out across the cushions, her head resting on the armrest.

The Doctor chose not to succumb to her teasing as he stood from his chair and picked up his glasses placing them back on his nose. ‘Never met the man,’ he mused, ‘not yet anyway’. He leant over the top of the sofa and snatched the book out of Rose’s hands, much to her annoyance, then walked around to the front of the sofa, lifted up her legs and sat down on the cushion beneath them. He let her legs lie upon his and rested his arms on top of them then opened the book to the first chapter and began to read it out loud. ‘Chapter one. A long-expected party. When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday…’

Rose gazed at him as he read, the words flowing easily from his lips as he spoke in his soft, soothing tone. She felt herself relax quickly, as she always did when he read to her, though the position they were sitting in was new for them but it didn’t feel unnatural. The Doctor idly played with one of the legs of her blue denim dungarees with his free hand as he told her about Hobbits, Hobbiton and Middle Earth. He did voices for all the characters, though she thought his Gandalf impression was rather lacking. She told him just as much, teasing him about how he should be able to do a great old man impression seeing as he was one himself. He didn’t appreciate her remark. He set the book down, upside down to keep the page, upon the table at the side of the sofa before turning back to her with a frown and a mischievous look in his eyes. His hands shot forwards and he dug his fingers into her sides, tickling her. She laughed and writhed about on the sofa underneath his touch, begging him to stop so she could breathe. He eventually let up and was beaming down at her as she caught her breath, the smile from her laughter still bright.

Rose thought of that memory fondly as she now stood in her bedroom waiting for the Doctor to return after his secretive scheming. She was contemplating whether or not she had time to change out of her pyjamas when she caught a glimpse of herself in the standing mirror near her wardrobes. She looked a right sight. She quickly moved over to her dressing table and grabbed her hairbrush, running it through her hair in an attempt to tame her bed head. She had never even thought about it before she left her bedroom to go to the galley before making an unexpected detour to the console room instead. Her face heated up a little at what the Doctor must have thought seeing her with her hair in such a mess. She could have been dragged through a hedge backwards. Once her hair was under control she decided to begin getting ready for the day starting with her makeup. She had just finished applying her mascara when there was a thudding at her door.

‘You can come in,’ she called, putting the brush back into the tube and placing it on her dressing table. The door swung open and in stepped the Doctor holding a tray of food. She glanced over at him and he nodded to her bed so she wandered over and sat in the middle with her back against the headboard. He was beaming at her as he set the tray down on her lap. Sat on the tray were two plates of pancakes, one with a lit candle in it, three small bowls of chopped bananas, strawberries and raspberries, a little jug of syrup, half a lemon, two glasses of orange juice and finally her requested tea in her Tardis blue mug. It had a pink rose on one side and on the other was her name written in Gallifreyan, the only Gallifreyan she knew how to read. Her mug sat beside the Doctor’s, though his Tardis blue mug was adorned with stars. He had explained once that it depicted the constellation of Kasterborous and pointed out Gallifrey and the other planets that resided there.

‘Happy birthday Rose Tyler,’ he said as she looked up at him with a pleased but slightly bewildered expression on her face.

Her bewilderment turned into shock. ‘It’s my birthday?’ She gasped. Her hands flew to her mouth and she stared at him with wide eyes. She had no idea of the date; it was quite hard to keep track of such things when you travelled in time. She used to use her mobile to check the date and time it would be in the UK, that especially helped with phoning her mum so she knew how long it had been between her calls and that she wouldn’t be waking her up in the middle of the night by ringing her. Jackie didn’t appreciate that even if she hadn’t spoken to her daughter for a couple of weeks. But now she didn’t have a phone, since giving her previous one to Mickey when he stayed behind in the parallel world, she was rather out of the loop.

His grin somehow grew even larger at her reaction. He thought she looked adorable again. ‘In linear time it’s the twenty-seventh of April on Earth.’ She shook her head, her hands still up to her mouth as she studied the wealth of things on the tray once more, properly registering the candle on one of the pancake stacks this time. ‘Go on, blow your candle out, make a wish or whatever,’ he encouraged, bending down and undoing his laces to take his chucks off, ‘otherwise you’ll just be having wax as a topping on that one’. The bed lowered as the Doctor lay down on his side facing her. He leant on his elbow, his cheek resting in his hand as he watched her with the kind of glee a kid has on their own birthday. He’d been in her bedroom plenty of times and sat on her bed too but he’d never laid down on it. Somehow he looked right at home there beside her, like he had done it countless times before and would do it countless more times in the future. It was like he belonged. She blew out her candle and made her wish and the Doctor said, ‘happy birthday Rose,’ again.

She glanced down at him with an amazed smile. ‘Thank you Doctor,’ she said softly.

‘My pleasure.’

They dug into the pancakes enthusiastically, choosing a different topping per pancake from the mixture that the Doctor had provided. He was showing off, throwing and catching the remainder of the raspberries in his mouth when he made a noise and shoved the rest of them into his mouth. He sat up, quickly sucking the juices from his fingers and wiping them on his brown pinstripe trousers before diving into his pockets. In his left hand he brought out a wrapped box and in his right a plain cardboard one. Rose lifted the emptied tray from her lap and set it down at the end of the bed then turned back to the Doctor and sat crossed legged with her back against the headboard once more. Her eyes gleamed excitedly as he passed her the boxes before lying on the bed like he had been previously.

‘The wrapped one is your present and the other is not.’

She scrunched her nose up in confusion. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ She placed the wrapped box beside her and focused on the plain one wondering what could be inside.

‘Well, open it up and find out.’ She pulled at the sellotape and opened the box; inside was another box displaying a picture of a mobile phone. ‘Samsung D500, exactly the same make and model as your old one,’ he explained as she took out the smaller box and opened it to reveal the phone within. ‘You’ll have to add your contacts back in it of course but other than that it’s the same.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. Rose took the phone out of its little plastic bag and took the back off to insert the battery that still sat in the box. The small screen lit up straight away and she replaced the back of the phone with a click. ‘How much do I owe you?’ She asked.

He shook his head at her. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ When she frowned at him he added, ‘it’s my fault you don’t have one at the moment and I can already feel the slap Jackie will give me if she doesn’t hear from you’.

Rose chuckled and rolled her eyes. ‘She wouldn’t slap you’.

He brought his hand to his cheek and rubbed it as though he was already feeling the sting. ‘She has before,’ he said with a bit of a pout.

She shook her head and gave him a fond smile. ‘You go around the universe facing monsters and aliens but you’re scared of my mum.’

‘They’d all go off running if they were facing Jackie Tyler.’

‘Oh, they wouldn’t stand a chance,’ she said with an assured grin and the Doctor snickered in agreement. She put the phone and the boxes down at her side and picked up the wrapped gift and opened it under the Doctor’s eager gaze. ‘A Polaroid camera?’ She said with awe.

His eyes lit up at the joy on her face. ‘Got it from that electronics store in Philadelphia,’ he explained. ‘I had no idea what to get you but then I saw that and I thought of how much you like the pictures you’ve already got so thought you’d appreciate being able to take some more.’

‘I love it, thank you,’ she beamed, hurriedly unwrapping it and inserting the film into it with the precision of someone who has used a Polaroid before. She shuffled to the edge of the bed and lifted the camera up to her face so she was able to see the Doctor lying on his side at the other edge through the lens.

‘No, no, no,’ he chuckled and waved his hand to try and stop her from taking the picture.

‘Go on,’ she said playfully, giggling behind the camera. ‘I need to test it to see if it works.’ He sighed, dropping his hand as he pulled a silly face. She laughed loudly and she snapped a picture of him. The camera printed it out and she laid the Polaroid upside down on the bedside table so the light wouldn’t affect it as it developed. The Doctor was watching her with soft eyes and an affectionate smile and she quickly took another snap of him before he could pull a face again.

‘Another one?’ he complained with a roll of his eyes.

She placed the second photograph next to the first and shrugged. ‘Always best to double check,’ she said before giving him her tongue touched grin.

He shook his head and a mischievous glint appeared in his eyes. ‘I’m going to get you back for that,’ he promised as he sat up.

Rose slid off the bed and hid the camera behind her back. ‘You’re not coming anywhere near this camera mister.’ He raised his eyebrows at her and she pointed at him threateningly. ‘You’re gonna sit there and it’s gonna sit here,’ she said as she placed it on her blue armchair on the other side of the room, ‘and I’m gonna ring mum whilst the photos are developing. The Doctor huffed and pouted at her as she walked back to the bed and grabbed her new mobile phone. ‘You done your jiggery-pokery?’ She asked after creating a new contact for her mum.

The Doctor shook his head and held out his hand into which she placed the phone. He took the back off and sonicked it before putting the mobile back together. He slid the phone open and tapped away at it for a moment before closing it and handing it back to her. ‘Added the Tardis in there too,’ he explained at her questioning gaze. The Doctor lay on his back on the bed as she phoned her mum, his hands behind his head which rested on her pillow. He crossed his ankles and jiggled one of his feet a little impatiently because he could never really sit still for long, he was far too energetic for that. His gaze followed Rose as she paced around her room, a smile on her face as she chatted and laughed with her mum. The call wasn’t all that long really, mainly because Jackie wanted to see her later.

‘She wants to take me clothes shopping,’ Rose explained after she’d hung up. She stood at the foot of the bed, resting her hands on the wooden footboard and chucked when he pulled a face. ‘You don’t have to come,’ she added, ‘you can stay in the Tardis and I’ll meet you back here’.

‘Is this after I’ve taken you on a trip?’

She gave him another tongue touched grin and swayed from side to side a little excitedly. ‘You’re taking me on a trip?’

‘Of course,’ he scoffed, ‘we’re in the Tardis - of course I am’. He gave her a look like she was absolutely mad and she giggled at him.

‘Where are you taking me?’

He bounced upright so he was sitting on the bed crossed legged. ‘We’re going to see Elvis,’ he announced impressively.

She raised her eyebrows at him and asked a little doubtfully, ‘another concert? Are you sure?’

His happy mood waned and his brow furrowed a little with disappointment. ‘Why? Don’t you want to see Elvis?’

Rose shook her head. ‘No, no it's not that,’ she assured him with a smile and eagerly added, ‘I’d love to see Elvis. It’s - it’s just.’ She sighed and pointed out, ‘our track record with actually going to concerts isn't very good’.

The Doctor smiled at her again, relieved that her worries were more about them actually being able to get there rather than his choice of destination. Not that her worries were unfounded. He would have a word with the Tardis and he was sure his ship would understand the importance of landing at their destination seeing as she and Rose seemed to be best mates. ‘Well third time’s a charm as they say.’ he said, brushing off her comments.

‘They also say that things come in threes,’ she retorted with her eyebrows raised once more.

He shook his head at her. ‘Where’s your optimism gone, Rose Tyler?’ He jumped off the bed and darted to the door, full of energy for their trip. ‘I’ll leave you to get dressed for the fifties,’ he said as he rested his hand on the door knob and turned back, flashing her a big grin. She laughed at his enthusiasm. As he was about to turn to leave when he spotted his chucks out of the corner of his eye. ‘Shoes!’ He exclaimed, grabbing them and dashing back to the door, ‘might be needing them’. He closed it behind him and started down the corridor before loudly adding, ‘meet you in the console room’.

**********

Rose’s cheeks were aching as she entered the wardrobe room, she felt like she had never smiled so much before. It was a truly delightful surprise when he came in with breakfast and gifts and announced it was her birthday. She’d never had anything like it and felt very much spoiled by the Time Lord. He’d been very sweet and thoughtful and now he was taking her to see Elvis as a birthday treat. It was mad, absolutely bonkers and she was loving every second of it.

The Tardis directed her to a rack of fifties style dresses and she pulled out a pink satin one with pleats and a tulle underskirt and stepped into the changing room to try it on. It fitted perfectly as she expected it would because the Tardis was excellent with helping her with clothing. She made sure to tell her as such and received a happy hum in return. Rose spotted a slate blue jacket one rack over and slipped that on over the top, remembering her previous adventure with the Doctor. It had a pink flower pinned to the left pocket of the jacket and she found further matching pink accessories at the nearby dressing table. She put her hair up into a beehive and added the matching headband, earrings and ring to complete her look. She touched up her lips with a pale pink lipstick but was otherwise happy with the makeup she’d applied earlier. After putting on some fishnet stockings she slipped on the pink heels, which were stored beneath the rack where she had found the dress, then had a quick glance at her outfit in the mirror before deciding she was Elvis ready.

Her heels clicked on the grating as she entered the console room. The Doctor was sitting on the jump seat with his feet up on the console whilst he waited for her but jumped up at her approaching footsteps. His awed gaze trailed over her. ‘Oh, Rose Tyler,’ he said, his voice full of admiration and he grinned as she did a little twirl, her dress dancing around her.

‘This alright?’ She asked, looking down at herself and straightening out the hem of her jacket.

‘Alright? Alright?’ he said with such disbelief that she stopped fiddling with her clothing and glanced up at him, giggling at his stunned expression. ‘I’ll show you how alright it is, wait here,’ he said as he disappeared out of the console room. She watched him go with a puzzled expression on her face but didn’t have to wait long for her answer. He ran back in, holding her new camera. ‘Go over there and pose or something,’ he said, waving his hand towards the railing. She didn’t move and upon seeing her expression the Doctor added a little indignantly, ‘you did it to me earlier - twice I might add!’

She rolled her eyes at him and stood over by the railing. ‘Happy?’

He squinted into the lens and focused it on her as she posed, resting one hand on the railing and holding her skirt out a little with the other. ‘Only if you say bananas.’ She laughed at him and he snapped the picture. Once it had printed he slipped it into the darkness of his breast pocket. ‘That’ll be ready in about half an hour,’ he said, patting the pocket. ‘Ready for some rock and roll?’ He looked up at her with a grin which waned slightly at the thoughtful expression on her own face. ‘What?’

‘When’s your birthday?’

‘Oh.’ He certainly hadn’t been expecting that question. He scratched the back of his head and shrugged. ‘I don’t know, don’t really have one, not for - for hundreds of years anyway.’ She looked so sorrowful as she stepped towards him and he wished he’d chosen a better answer so she didn’t have to have such an expression on her birthday of all days, especially not when he was the cause.

‘You can’t remember?’ She asked softly.

‘I’m very old, Rose, and birthdays weren’t a big thing on Gallifrey.’ He took in a deep breath and added, ‘even if I did remember it would be hard to translate into your Gregorian calendar’.

She continued to look at him sadly until, as usual, she tried her best to come up with a solution. ‘Well, you’ll just have to choose a new date and then we can celebrate it,’ she said with a small smile and the happy twinkle back in her eyes.

His ears went slightly red at her idea and he shook his head. ‘No it’s alright-’

‘Go on Doctor,’ she said, cutting off his refusal. ‘You need a day where you can relax and be celebrated and treated by others without having to worry about saving the universe.’

After seeing the look in her eyes he relented. ‘I - I don’t have any date in mind,’ he said, holding his arms out as he shrugged.

Rose bit her lip for a moment in thought and then beamed at him. ‘Christmas Eve!’ She exclaimed.

He frowned at her. ‘Christmas Eve?’

‘Yeah,’ she said, nodding enthusiastically. ‘You landed us back at the estate on Christmas Eve just after you regenerated.’ When he looked like he was considering the idea she added, ‘new new Doctor, new new birthday’.

‘New new birthday,’ he repeated with a chuckle. She gave him her tongue touched smile and how could he refuse her idea after that? ‘Alright, Christmas Eve it is,’ he announced with a grin back at her.

Chapter 26: The 27th of April - Part Two

Chapter Text

Once the Tardis had landed, the Doctor sent Rose out ahead of him, but not before chucking her a pair of pink sunglasses that had appeared on the console after he’d flipped the dematerialisation leaver. He’d gone and put her camera back in her room and quickly detoured to his own to add some more product to his hair to sculpt it into a pompadour before racing back to the console room. He may have preened a little when Rose called him dapper after seeing his teddy-boy hairstyle as he sent them to their destination.

Rose opened the door and stepped out onto the street where the Tardis had landed them. She flicked her hair back as she spoke to the Doctor who was still inside the ship. ‘I thought we’d be going for the Vegas era, you know, the white flares and the,’ she seductively growled and clawed her left hand a little, ‘chest hair’.

He popped his head out of the door with a frown. ‘You are kidding aren’t you?’ She turned around to watch him complain. ‘You want to see Elvis you go to the late fifties! The time before burgers.’ He leant back into the Tardis still talking away as Rose glanced down at her shoes with a fond smile as she chuckled at him. ‘When they called him “The Pelvis” and he still had a waist...what’s more, you see him in style!’ The sound of an engine being revved came from within the ship and Rose’s head shot round to see the Doctor ride out on a blue Vespa moped. She watched him and laughed in amazement as he came to a stop a few feet down the road. He was wearing a white bike helmet and a pair of aviators, to really try to look the part, and did his best Elvis impression as he smiled over at her and said ‘you goin’ my way doll?’

‘Is there any other way to go, daddy-o?’ She answered in her best American accent. She put on her sunglasses as she stepped towards him. ‘Straight from the fridge, man!’ She chuckled.

He beamed at her, delighted. ‘Hey, you speak the lingo!’ He took the pink helmet he had hooked onto the handlebars and chucked it towards her.

Rose caught it and made her way to the back of the bike. ‘Yeah well me, mum, Cliff Richard movies every Bank Holiday Monday,’ she said as she got onto the bike and put on the helmet.

‘Ah, Cliff. I knew your mother’d be a Cliff fan.’

After she had tightened the strap on her helmet, the Doctor revved the bike and off they went down the street with Rose clinging tightly to his waist.

‘Where are we off to?’ She asked loudly over the engine, her head peering over his shoulder as they rode along.

‘Ed Sullivan TV Studios. Elvis did Hound Dog on one of the shows; there were a load of complaints. Bit of luck we’ll just catch it.’

‘And that’ll be the TV studios in, what, New York?’

‘That’s the one!’ He agreed with a grin. It was promptly wiped from his face as a red double-decker bus drove past at the crossroads and he pulled up, his eyes trailing around the scene before him in confusion. The street was lined with red brick terraced houses with small walled front gardens that led out onto the pavement. And if seeing the great big double-decker wasn’t a big enough hint there was a red letter box adorned with the Royal ciphers denoting that they had at least landed in the correct era as the ciphers were “G R” which stood for King George.

Rose laughed behind him as she studied the street too. ‘Digging that New York vibe,’ she joked.

‘Wellllllll…this could still be New York,’ he began a bit unconvincingly as he continued to look around. ‘I mean this looks very New York to me…sort of…London-y New York mind…’

Rose glanced upwards. ‘What are all the flags for?’

The Doctor followed her lead and saw the red, white and blue bunting criss-crossing over the street from the houses and a few Union flags just to really rub it in that they were not in New York. Oh he was going to have words with the Tardis later. He sighed and said, ‘I guess…we go and find out’. He glanced back at her; she didn’t seem too disappointed that they wouldn’t catch Elvis that trip so he thought there was no point in feeling down about it either. He perked up a little and said, ‘up for some investigation, Holmes?’

She grinned at him. ‘Always. The game’s afoot Watson.’

He laughed loudly before revving the bike and driving off down the street once more. With Rose by his side, or pressed up against his back with her arms wrapped around him as she was, and with the smell of adventure in the air the Doctor certainly couldn’t complain.

As they journeyed along Rose piped up again and asked, ‘would you teach me?’

He glanced back at her with a slight frown not knowing what she was referring to. Perhaps it was how to ride the bike. ‘Teach you what?’

‘How to fly the Tardis,’ she stated as though it should have been obvious as to where the conversation was heading. ‘Like actually fly her, not open her up and-’

His huffed laughter cut her off. ‘We’ve just gone to the wrong place again and you want lessons from me?’ He said, his voice going all high with disbelief at what he was hearing. He felt her shrug behind him.

‘Well, I can’t do any worse than you.’

‘Oi,’ The Doctor cried out. His complaint was immediately dampened by her joyful laughter at his reaction. When her laughter had died down he sighed a little and said, ‘it’s not really a thing I teach people, Rose’. Because it wasn’t. There were less than a handful of people who knew how to fly the Tardis and most were from Gallifrey, such as Romana or his granddaughter Susan. Both gone. He was the only person who knew how to fly her now.

‘Okay,’ she said. She sounded a little disappointed though accepting of his answer nonetheless.

They turned onto Florizel Street where the Doctor noticed a van parked up at the side of the road. There were a few men near the open doors at the rear of the vehicle where they seemed to be unloading something. ‘Ooh people! We can ask them what’s going on,’ He said perhaps a little bit too eagerly but he wanted to move past Rose’s disappointment. It would be very hard to teach someone how to fly the Tardis, it was a ship meant for six pilots after all which is why he spent half the time dashing around the console just so he could reach all the buttons, switches, knobs and levers. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too bad to teach her a little, it would save him from making mad lunges over the controls all the time if she was around the other side knowing what to do. He pulled up beside the curb not too far from the van. Rose got off the bike and he followed suit, taking off his helmet and leaving it on the seat. ‘Maybe,’ he said as he turned to her. She was making sure her hair was still fine after squishing it beneath the helmet.

Rose stopped fussing with her hair and frowned up at him. ‘What?’

He took off his sunglasses and raised his eyebrow. ‘I said maybe.’

Her face lit up. ‘Really?’

‘It’s not a yes, it’s a maybe,’ he told her seriously.

‘But it’s not a no.’ She was swaying excitedly on her feet, giving him her tongue touched smile. Oh she was really trying to make refusing her anything impossible.

He rolled his eyes at her affectionately. ‘You’re insufferable you are, come on.’ He led them over to the van, with Rose bouncing a little joyfully by his side.

That was when they met Mr. Magpie of Magpie Electricals and soon after things went pear-shaped, and the Doctor would know all about that. He’d accidentally coined the term back in the forties when he and Rose had gotten mixed up with the Royal Air Force and he described one pilot’s attempt at a loop as having gone a bit pear-shaped. Rose had still enjoyed her little adventure in the aircraft though even if she was sort of a stowaway at the time.

As they stood there chatting with Mr. Magpie Rose had done her usual and noticed the problem straight away. Of course she had. She was always pointing out things to him that he otherwise wouldn’t have noticed. She’d been doing that since their first adventure when they were looking for the Nestene Consciousness. That’s one of the reasons why they were a great pair. She was the Holmes to his Watson, the Shiver to his Shake, the Lewis to his Morse. And he’d abandoned her. Abandoned his partner. And that meant that she had been hurt.

The Wire, the Hermethian criminal, who fed off the mental signals of human brains leaving them mindless and faceless, had been stealing many of the faces on Florizel Street due to Mr. Magpie’s televisions being controlled by the creature. The Doctor didn’t know that at the time of course, that’s why he’d abandoned Rose at the Connolly house to chase after the police who were abducting the faceless. He wanted to know what they were doing with them and to find out why and indeed how this face snatching was happening. He found a group of the faceless caged in a derelict warehouse before being caught by Detective Inspector Bishop. It wasn’t long after that, once he’d got Bishop on his side and had been allowed to help with the case, that things went from bad to worse.

One of Bishop’s men, Crabtree, brought in another faceless, their head hidden by a blanket as they all were. The Doctor didn’t need to see under the blanket for his hearts to drop. The pink heels with the small bows. The fishnet stockings. The matching pink dress. He’d admired that outfit earlier that day, admired the woman wearing that outfit, and had a photograph of the woman wearing that outfit in the pocket over his left heart. Crabtree pulled off the blanket to reveal the faceless Rose and the world stopped. It was a ridiculous notion that the world would stop for a Time Lord. He could feel the turn of the Earth beneath his feet, spinning at a thousand miles per hour as it hurtled around the sun. But that didn’t matter to the Doctor. This was Rose. His Rose. The sound of Bishop and Crabtree talking seemed to drown out as he stared at her, his eyes raking over her faceless form. Oh Rose. He’d left her behind. He’d abandoned her and this was what had happened because of that. A deep anger swirled within him merging with the guilt of what his own actions had caused. Someone - something had done this to her and he was going to find them and restore Rose Tyler if it was the last thing he ever did. The world around him seemed to catch up and the men’s words filtered into his mind and with that the bubbling anger within him threatened to overflow. ‘They did what?’ The Doctor asked quietly, his anger simmering just beneath the surface.

The men behind him stopped talking between themselves and Bishop said, ‘sorry?’

‘They left her where?’ He bit out.

‘Just in the street.’

‘In the street? They left her in the street,’ he whispered with a quiet rage which grew and grew as he continued speaking. ‘They took her face, and just chucked her out and left her in the street. And as a result that makes things…simple. Very, very simple. Do you know why?’ He turned to the other man as he took off his glasses. Oh he was seething. They had not only stolen her face but they’d thrown her out like she was rubbish, like she was dirt, like she was nothing. And, Rose Tyler, oh, Rose Tyler was not nothing. She could never be nothing. Especially not to the Doctor. To the Doctor she was everything.

‘No,’ Bishop replied.

‘Because now, Detective Inspector Bishop,’ he yelled, the full force of his anger now on show for all to see, ‘there is no power on this Earth that can stop me. Come on’. He stalked out of the room with Bishop in his wake.

When they stepped outside the Doctor found that it was a new day and the day of the Queen’s Coronation. He and Bishop went back to the Connolly house where they collected Tommy, the teenage son who had introduced them to his faceless gran before she was abducted by the police. Tommy gave them a lead and suggested they check out Mr. Magpie’s store because he was selling off televisions cheaply and that was what his gran had been watching before her face had been stolen. It was at the electronics store that they met the Wire. She had attempted to steal their faces too, successfully taking Bishops, but not the Doctor’s nor Tommy’s. They chased Magpie after the Doctor had gathered some parts from the shop, and briefly stopped to pick up one more from the Tardis, which he used to build a device to contain and stop the Wire. Mr. Magpie was climbing Alexandra Palace’s large antenna tower to enable the Wire to go into all the televisions in the area as the public eagerly sat down to watch the Coronation, unknowing that their faces were about to be stolen too. The Doctor raced up there after him leaving Tommy to manage the device he had created on the way. He managed to turn the receiver, which the Wire had forced the tower to become, back into a transmitter and trapped the creature in a Betamax cassette.

He and Tommy made their way back to the warehouse afterwards. As they walked around the corner of the street they saw a group of people milling about outside, it was the group of the caged faceless. Tommy’s gran was one of them and he ran to her and they hugged one another. The Doctor eyed the people looking for one in particular. Then he saw her. Rose. She turned and grinned at him and he grinned back just as brightly. He quickly made his way over to her and wrapped her in a tight embrace, picking her up off the ground just a little and spinning her around. She held him just as tightly, wrapping her arms around his neck and chuckling softly with a mixture of joy and relief.

‘God I missed you,’ he mumbled into her neck, breathing in her comforting scent of vanilla, honey and citrus.

She brought one of her hands up to the back of his head, letting it rest in his hair. She stroked it softly as she said, ‘I missed you too’. He could hear the smile in her voice and it warmed his hearts.

They stayed like that, content in enjoying the comfort of being with one another again, until the Doctor’s thoughts changed from relief at having Rose back to guilt over her getting hurt. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured.

Rose shook her head slightly, the strands of hair from her fringe tickling his neck. ‘Don’t say that, it wasn’t your fault.’

There was a bitter edge to his voice as he said, ‘I left you’.

‘Doctor…’ She sighed into his shoulder. Rose leant back in his arms, letting her hands trail from his back and hair onto his cheeks, cupping them gently and forcing him to look at her as she gazed at him seriously. ‘You went off to do some investigating and so did I, that’s how I got into this mess, but you stopped them. You solved it and brought everyone back. You did good. So please don’t feel sad that I got taken-’

‘But it’s your birthday,’ he interrupted.

She shook her head and again. ‘That don’t matter, this could’ve happened on any day, just because I was born today doesn’t make it any different…you saved everyone Doctor, let yourself feel happy about it. Please? For me?’

She looked at him with those beautiful hazel eyes of hers; standing so close he could see the flecks of gold within them. It felt like she was looking into him, into his soul. Not in a soul sucking Wire way but in a way that felt like she knew him. Of course she did know him, it would be hard not to when they spent most of their time together, but this was Rose and this was different. People saw him, the Doctor, they saw the person he had created for himself, the person who he paraded around as. His whole being was a lie and a façade, not even the name he gave to people was his own. Yes, it was one that he had chosen and one he hoped he lived up to most of the time, but it wasn’t his real name. No one else knew that, just like no one else knew the real him. Not even Rose knew all of him but she had certainly come the closest. The closest by a mile. This pink and yellow human. He never expected their lives to become so entangled, just as much as he supposed she hadn’t, but he was so glad they did. He had been so alone and she had wandered in like a ray of sunshine that broke through the darkness of his life. She had saved him and she had fixed him and he had gradually opened up to her because she somehow seemed to understand. She saw through the walls he had built around himself, saw through his lies and façades and at this point he really didn’t care that she did. Originally he would try to hide and bury himself deeper but the truth was if he was ever going to reveal himself fully to anyone, anyone in time and space, it would be to Rose. His past wasn’t pretty, there was so much blood on his hands, his own people most of all. That was what he was most reluctant to share with her. He hoped that she would understand but really how could someone understand that the reason you’re the last of your kind was because you murdered all the rest? And for what? The Time War may have stopped but there were probably more Daleks out there. Van Statten had one in his bunker and then they had met a whole fleet which Rose had destroyed but that didn’t mean that there weren’t more. But that wasn’t the point. The point was if he let those remaining walls crumble, would she run? He couldn’t bear it if she did, he would understand but that wouldn’t mean her reaction was bearable. But then again this was Rose. She ran but she didn’t run and she’d never run from him before. Nearly? Yes, perhaps, but she hadn’t. She’d stood up to him and fought with him and made her point known. But Rose Tyler didn’t run. She was so much stronger than he ever would be and he really admired her for it. Right now she was standing just before him with those pleading eyes, her thumbs brushing soothingly across his cheeks. Maybe, just maybe this was included in his promise to stop running. It would kill him if she did leave and if she chose to stay with him into her old age it would kill him just the same. But he would never stop loving her. One day he might admit that.

A gentle smile grew on his face at the thought and Rose gave him a larger one back. ‘That’s more like it, bit of a smile,’ she said happily.

They eventually separated and made their way back towards the Tardis. They found a street party on the way where they stopped for a bit to join in the celebrations of both the Queen’s Coronation and the safe return of their family members, neighbours and friends. They had cake and drinks and the Doctor offered the Vespa to Tommy as a reward for helping him out and Rose encouraged him to make up with his dad. Then one of the houses brought out a portable gramophone and placed it in the middle of the long table the street had put together. When Vera Lynn began to sing The Homecoming Waltz the Doctor placed down his glass of orange squash and turned to Rose who was leaning on the table beside him.

‘I don’t think the world is ending right now,’ he said quietly.

She turned to him, her eyebrows raised and a smile toying on her lips. ‘If it was you’d come and save it.’

He chuckled softly, her undying faith in him, ever present. He took her hand and pulled her away from the table, wrapping his arms around her waist as her own came to rest around his shoulders. The street party faded into the background as they swayed to the music. It was just the Doctor and Rose Tyler, together, as it should be.

This sweet melody
That brought you to me
Will linger forever
In my memory.
I found what I prayed for,
The arms I was made for,
The night when we danced
To the homecoming waltz.

**********

The Doctor was under the console performing some maintenance. It wasn’t very crucial; it was just something to do to pass the time whilst he waited for Rose to return. It had been over four hours since she had left the Tardis when the ship had landed at the Powell Estate. He didn’t particularly understand why clothes shopping would be taking that length of time but then again he did have to consider that they would be taking public transport to the shops and back so that would add up a bit. Then there was Jackie, an unknown variable. He’d been clothes shopping with Rose before, he knew how she browsed and found if she stopped at an item and picked it up, held it against her then put it back but still lingered, then it was probably best to grab the hanger and hold it with the other clothes she was considering so she could try it on in the changing rooms. She would stop browsing when he was holding around five items and would then try them on and make her choices and then that was that. He had no idea if Jackie would shop the same way and perhaps he was a variable in Rose’s shopping habits. Maybe she would shop differently if he wasn’t there.

These thoughts were all passing through his mind as he crouched beneath the grating fiddling with the mechanics of the Tardis shields because if anything needed regular maintenance it was them. He was humming away to The Homecoming Waltz with the sonic in between his teeth as he fought with some nuisance wiring when the door creaked open. The grating clunked beneath her feet and she came to a stop by the hole he was hidden in beneath the console. He looked up, his eyes trailing up her blue jeans and grey hoodie, which she had quickly changed into before heading out, to her smiling face. His gaze lingered there a little, trying to blot out the memory of her without a face at all, however his view was soon intercepted by a pink shoe.

‘Do you like them?’ Rose asked excitedly.

He blinked, took the sonic from his mouth and looked at the scene before him. Rose had lifted up her right foot, bringing it to his eye level. She was wearing a pair of pink chucks. ‘Do I like them?’ He scoffed as he hopped out of the grating and replaced the floor panel. He turned to see her beaming at him and he couldn’t help but beam back. ‘Of course I do, I think they’re fantastic,’ he enthused.

Rose was delighted with his reaction. She raised an eyebrow at him as she said, ‘good for running?’

He nodded adamantly. ‘Oh, excellent for running.’

She glanced down to check out her new shoes once more when her gaze caught sight of the bag she held in her hand. Her smile faded slightly as a few nerves took hold before she looked back up at the Doctor. ‘I - er - I got you something too.’

His brows shot up in surprise. ‘Oh, you didn’t need to get me anything; it’s your birthday after all.’

‘Well that’s the thing; this is for yours,’ she said as she offered him the bag, ‘a late birthday present’. He took the bag and watched as she looked away from him shyly as she explained, ‘it’s not much, I didn’t exactly have a lot from working in the shop and paying off - off bills and stuff but, yeah…’

The Doctor waited for her to look back up at him and offered her a reassuring smile before he looked in the bag. Inside was a small black box. He put the bag on the console beside him and opened the box revealing a silk tie within. He could feel Rose’s nervous gaze on him as he studied the tie. It was navy in colour with a twisting pattern of vines, leaves and flowers in a pale pink and a slightly paler shade of blue than the base fabric. He laid a finger on it, tracing a path along one of the vines before he rested the box on the console next to the bag. The Doctor began to undo the brown tie with paler brown and blue swirls that he was wearing, flipping his shirt collar up and loosening the knot before tugging it over his head. He dropped it on the console too and gently picked up the new navy tie, draping it around his neck. He glanced up to find Rose looking at him a little expectantly. ‘Would you?’ The Doctor asked softly, indicating to his tie.

She was a little surprised by his request but stepped closer and took the two ends of the tie and began knotting them together, remembering how to do so from her school days. She bent the collar back down and tightened the knot. ‘There,’ she said, trailing a hand down the fabric and smoothing it out.

‘Perfect,’ he mumbled, looking down at the tie and watching her movements.

‘You like it?’ She asked hopefully.

He glanced back up at her and nodded. ‘I love it. Thank you.’

Rose tried her best not to blush at his gaze. ‘Thank you for my birthday, Doctor,’ she said softly as she rested her hands on his shoulders, close enough to his neck that the tips of her fingers ended up in the ends of his hair. She leant in and kissed him on the cheek. It was only a brief peck and she was soon face to face with him again, her hazel eyes not meeting his as she could now feel that her cheeks were flushed ever so slightly. She moved her right hand onto his cheek, her thumb rubbing against the spot where her lips had been only moments before, removing the faint trace of the pale pink lipstick she had left behind. The Doctor’s hands came to rest on her hips as Rose started babbling. ‘Might not have seen the King but there was the Queen, even if she was just on the telly,’ she commented with a little nervous chuckle, still not meeting his gaze. That was the thing, when she got nervous she’d just blabber on trying to ease the tension of the moment. The Doctor not saying anything back wasn’t helping either. He could talk for at least ten people but now he was silent and it was making her heart thud even harder. She realised her hand was still on his cheek, her thumb brushing over the stubble that had grown over the two days they had been gone. As she let it fall to his shoulder his own hand reached up to her. He gently lifted up her chin so they were finally looking at one another once more. His eyes were dark and it made her breath catch a little. They darted to her lips a couple of times before catching her gaze again.

Thump
Thump
Thump

She saw the Doctor’s brow furrow before both of their heads turned to the Tardis doors.

Thump
Thump
Thump

He sighed a little and dropped his hands, moving out of Rose’s touch as he started towards the door. ‘That better not be your mother,’ he warned, shooting a glance back at Rose who was still by the console. His voice had a trace of annoyance in it but there was no real threat to his words of course. As he reached the ramp the cloister bell rang out and he halted. ‘What?’ The hum he received was low and dark.

Thump
Thump
Thump

The Doctor turned and darted over to the monitor which was showing a live feed of the exterior of the ship.

Rose walked around the console to join him and she frowned at the monitor. ‘Who are they?’ Three men in plain black uniforms were standing outside the door. To Rose they looked a bit military with their guns, matching black berets and just how the larger two at the rear were holding themselves as the front one banged on the door once again. The Tardis produced another low hum and Rose turned to see the Doctor nodding slowly beside her, his jaw clenched and his brow painfully drawn.

‘Rose,’ he said as he turned to her. He took her by the shoulders and looked directly into her eyes with his own hardened and darker brown pair. ‘I need you to stay in the Tardis,’ he stated seriously, ‘I don’t know who they are or what they want but I’m going to try and find out. Don’t follow me’. The Doctor released her but continued to stare at her with his fierce gaze. He raised a stern eyebrow. ‘I mean it. Don’t.’ And with that he was gone. He walked across the grating and down the ramp, tension radiating from beneath his pinstripes. He opened the door, just enough for him to pass through, and began speaking immediately to the men just beyond. His voice was light and polite, a juxtaposition to how he was really feeling. ‘Nice of you to pop by but you’re kind of interrupting something fellas and no thank you I don’t need double glazing, I’m good with what I’ve got…’

The door clicked shut behind him and Rose could hear him no more. She turned her gaze from the door back to the monitor to see him still talking away. His head was snapping around at the three men who seemed to be encircling him as he spoke to the smallest of the trio. There were lots of arm waving and the shaking of heads as the man and the Doctor spoke. With no warning one of the larger men used the butt of his gun to jab it into the Time Lord’s stomach, knocking all the air out of him and causing him to bend over in pain. The other larger man shoved a black sack over the Doctor’s head before the pair of them grabbed him by his arms. The shorter man rested a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder and with a blue flash they all vanished. All of this happened within seconds and Rose could do nothing but cry out his name in anguish.

Chapter 27: The Golden Child

Chapter Text

With no warning one of the larger men used the butt of his gun to jab it into the Time Lord’s stomach, knocking all the air out of him and causing him to bend over in pain. The other larger man shoved a black sack over the Doctor’s head before the pair of them grabbed him by his arms. The shorter man rested a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder and with a blue flash they all vanished. All of this happened within seconds and Rose could do nothing but cry out his name in anguish.

Rose ran to the doors and slammed into them, they rattled but didn’t budge. ‘Let me out! Let me out!’ She yelled, her fists pounding against the wood. ‘I have to save him!’ She continued her tirade against the doors until her hands hurt too much. Panting, she stepped away and turned her furious gaze up to the ceiling. ‘Do you know where he’s gone? Where they’ve taken him?’ She shouted at the Tardis. She hummed and flashed in response and Rose groaned. ‘I don’t know what that means!’ She yelled with exasperation. All the lights in the console room dimmed, all but the ones that glowed by the controls where the monitor was. Rose took the hint and ran to the monitor which was showing a scan of the Earth. In orbit around the planet was the dark outline of some kind of spaceship. It was only just visible and would have probably stayed unnoticed if no one had been purposefully looking for it. ‘He’s up there yeah?’ The lights around her flashed brightly. ‘So they used some sort of teleport or a - a transmat or something,’ she mumbled, chewing on her thumbnail as she continued to stare at the monitor. She glanced back up at the ceiling a moment later. ‘Can you get us up there?’ A sorrowful hum filled the air and she sighed. ‘Well I can’t fly you like last time.’ She groaned again and ran her fingers through her hair as she paced beside the console. If the situation had been different she would have laughed at how she was acting because her movements reminded her so much of the Doctor. ‘See, this is why he needs to teach me to fly you so I can save his sorry arse,’ Rose said, her voice full of frustration. She rested her hands on the console; her knuckles were white as she gripped the edges of it tightly. Her eyes were staring at the monitor blankly, not taking notice of what was on the screen anymore as she thought hard about what to do. ‘Do you have any idea who they are? She asked, glancing up at the ceiling. ‘Can you scan the ship or something?’

A loud clunking coming from the door interrupted them before the Tardis could answer. Rose’s head snapped towards the sound as she said, ‘what the hell’s that?’ Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the monitor flicker to a new image, she glanced back at it. On the live feed a man dressed just the same as the others was trying to break through the doors using a crowbar whilst another stood guard, tightly holding onto his gun. ‘They can’t get in here right? She murmured, her voice growing a little louder and her words coming out quicker in her panic at the thought of them getting inside. ‘The Doctor said something about Genghis Khan not being able to get in…’ She trailed off at the comforting sounds of the Tardis and tried to calm herself. There was only so much she could worry about at once and if the Tardis was telling her that they weren’t getting inside then she had to focus on getting to the Doctor. It crossed her mind, as she thought of what to do next, that she could just wait it out. That the situation might not be as bad as it appeared but there was this niggling feeling within her that told her otherwise. Plus there was this worry in the back of her mind that she knew wasn’t hers but the Tardis’. She sighed and said, ‘so what about that scan? Can we get a detailed scan of the ship so we can see its inner workings - like a floor plan or something?’ The lights flashed brightly and Rose looked back at the monitor which showed a closer image of the outline of the ship with a line flowing over it from one side to the other as though the Old Girl was scanning it. Another thought popped into Rose’s mind and she quickly added, ‘oooh and life signs, can you show life signs? And do it so we can see the Doctor, like scan for his Time Lord - his - his body signature or something’. Her words all tumbled out in a rush and the lights flickered a few times irritably. Rose calmed down a little. ‘Yeah sorry. One thing at a time.’ Her fingers tapped impatiently on the edge of the console as she awaited her requests. ‘I’m just worried about him,’ she murmured sadly. She received an equally sorrowful hum. ‘Yeah, I know you are too…but we’ll get him back, we’ll save the Doctor.’ Her voice altered from one of despair to one full of determination because she was Rose Tyler and she would do everything in her power to get that Time Lord back where he belonged. By her side.

The shielding on the orbiting ship meant that the scans took far longer than Rose would have liked and she spent quite a while pacing and mumbling to herself whilst she waited. The monitor flickered back to the live feed when a new grinding sound came from beyond the door revealing two men using a new tool to try and get inside. Sparks flew at them as they tried to break through the door and Rose secretly hoped they hurt them. She then asked the Tardis if it hurt her. The Old Girl admitted that it did but that she was alright. Rose really hoped that they could get it all sorted out soon for the ship's sake as well as the Doctor’s.

When the scans were finally complete Rose and the Tardis spent quite some time going over them. They showed the floor plan of the ship, it had quite a few red dots scattered about and one blue dot alone in a small room. They discussed the layout and the movement patterns of the red dots. Rose’s heart beat faster when one of them entered the room with the Doctor. She tried not to think about what was going on up there but her mind was going to the worst case scenarios. What if they were hurting him, torturing him even? What if he was hurt so badly that he wasn’t her Doctor by the time she got up there? Every so often the monitor would flicker to the live feed to show whatever new method the men were trying to get in. They seemed very adamant to get inside.

Rose was watching on the monitor to see what happened on board the ship when the men teleported back to get the next tool when she froze. She stepped back a little unsteadily from the console. There was a questioning hum in the air but Rose didn’t answer the Old Girl because that was the thing, she now understood the Tardis. She didn’t speak in words as such, just in feelings and thoughts and flickering images. Rose could feel how the ship felt without any other visual clues like the lights changing colour or flashing. She didn’t need to hear a different pitch of hum to know what she was saying. She could actually understand the Tardis just in her mind.

‘I can understand you,’ Rose said slowly. The lights flickered brightly around her. ‘I couldn’t understand you before but I can now,’ she continued, ‘did you do something?’ The Tardis hummed a little noncommittally and Rose frowned. ‘But how? How can I understand you?’ The console room glowed gold. Her own eyes flashed gold for a second as she whispered, ‘Bad Wolf’.

It was as though a switch was flicked in her mind. A wolf howled around her from somewhere as Rose’s memories of that fatal day were suddenly unlocked. They all came rushing to her at once. A blur of images. The glow of the Tardis as she opened the panel. The look on her first Doctor’s face as she stepped through the doors. The feel of time passing around her. All that is, all that was, all that ever could be. The moment when she scattered the words across all of time and space. Throughout the universe. Bad Wolf. A message to lead herself back to the Doctor. She saw herself tearing the Daleks apart atom by atom, her head pounding with the weight of all time. Watched as she gave the command to bring life as her head felt like it was ripping open. She was burning from the inside out just as the Doctor had said. And then he saved her. He stepped forwards and kissed her gently, taking the vortex and all its power with it. Or so he had thought.

Her head pounded as the memories faded away and a blurred vision of the console room swam before her eyes. She squeezed them shut and swayed a little under the onslaught in her mind. She was burning. She was burning up and there was no Doctor there to save her this time. Rose collapsed to the grating with a thump and the Tardis hummed apologetically as the darkness took over her Wolf.

**********

One of the things the Doctor hated most was being chained up. He was a wanderer who gallivanted across the stars, never stopping and never settling. Plus he had the energy of a four year old that had eaten a few too many sugary snacks. Of course he hated being chained up. And really, what more did they expect to learn from him being in chains than just leaving him to rot in the jail cell? Well, he couldn’t fight back when they went through his pockets, that was for certain. The two beefy thugs, as he called them, dismissed everything but his sonic screwdriver. They didn’t know what it was of course. One had pressed the button making it buzz and glow blue but they passed it off as a torch. It still got confiscated though in case he wanted to hit them over the head with it which he very much did. Then one of them spied his breast pocket and dived in there. The Doctor writhed around beneath him just as much as he had when they stuck their fingers in his other pockets but he found himself more agitated than before because this was Rose. He was stealing Rose. The Doctor hadn’t taken the time to look at the picture yet and now the man’s greedy mitts had taken it away from him. He and the other thug were staring at her likeness hungrily and the Doctor couldn’t help but let out a low growl at their expressions. One of them heard and nudged the other and they both snigg*red at the Time Lord.

‘She’s pretty,’ one of the thugs stated.

‘Don’t,’ he bit out. His answer only made them smile more.

‘Far too good for you.’

‘And don’t I know it,’ he muttered before he raised his voice once more as he demanded, ‘give it back’. Their following laughter made him feel sick, which was quite an achievement for a Time Lord.

‘No,’ the talkative thug replied, ‘don’t think we will’.

They left him alone in his cell after that, locking the door behind them with that customary big ring of keys that all jailers seemed to possess. The Doctor heard what sounded like a small cupboard door being opened just outside his cell. The sonic buzzed for a second as one of the men threw it into the cupboard before closing it up again. At least his sonic wasn’t far away, not that he’d have any chance of reaching it being chained up how he was. He sighed as their footsteps faded away and looked down at himself. The chains around his ankles were tight and slightly digging in, clearly not made for a being of his size if that wasn’t already being made apparent enough by the position of his legs. His knees were bent a little; the length of the chains neither allowing him to stretch out his legs nor bend them fully forcing him into this half and half position that he could tell would make his knees seize up if he couldn’t move soon. His arms were up against the cold metal wall behind him, his elbows bent so his wrists could be attached to the wall leaving his hands dangling limply and uselessly. He would lose the feeling in his hands soon enough, they were already beginning to tingle slightly from the poor circulation the position offered. He did have to hand it to them, it was a pretty fool proof arrangement and at the moment his only means of escape was his big gob, though that had been the reason for quite a few cell visits in the past.

It was two hours, seventeen minutes and thirty two seconds of complete boredom for the Time Lord before keys rattled in his cell door. He slowly looked up as the footsteps came to a halt in front of him.

‘Changed your mind yet?’ The nasally voice of the shorter of his three captors asked.

‘No,’ he mumbled.

‘Shame,’ the man said, though the way he said it certainly suggested he didn’t believe it was. ‘We’ve got some information on you…pertinent information,’ he gave a horribly spiky grin; the only real tell that he wasn’t human. The Doctor didn’t have to fake the bored look on his face as he looked up at the man who continued stating, ‘we scan all of our guests’. He scoffed at the word choice but the man ignored him. ‘A most interesting specimen you are. We didn’t believe you existed anymore…yet here you are.’ He bent down in front of him, studying him with intrigue, so close that the Doctor could feel the disgustingly hot, eggy breath upon his face. The Time Lord glared at his captor and he offered him his spiked grin in return. ‘I’m afraid our previous arrangement has altered due to the circ*mstances,’ the man began as he leant back again. The Doctor rolled his eyes. ‘We won’t be freeing you after we get control of your vessel because you’ll fetch a pretty penny just as much as your ship will. And we will be having your ship. If you’re a Time Lord then that is a Time Machine.’ The man’s eyes glimmered excitedly at the thought.

‘I’ve told you, you’re not having my ship,’ he snarled.

The man snorted. ‘That’s what they all say, but we have our methods of making you…comply,’ he grinned, his sharp teeth jutting out threateningly. He left the Doctor alone after that, but that didn’t last for long.

One hour later the Doctor’s left index finger was dislocated.

By two and a half hours later all the fingers and his thumb on his left hand were dislocated.

He’d also received a black eye, which was forming nicely on his face, after trying to trip one of the thugs by raising his knee as far as the chains allowed when they climbed over him to reach his left hand. They came crashing to the ground spectacularly, even managing to break their nose by not catching themself in time. But that was what they got for hurting his ship. The back of the Doctor’s head was throbbing as the punch resulting in his black eye had sent it slamming into the wall behind him. They could do what they liked to him, he was never giving up his ship especially not when Rose was in there.

**********

Darkness had fallen on the Powell Estate. The Tardis sat in the spot that had almost become commonplace for her, though what was uncommon was the man that stood outside guarding her doors. He was pacing, his gun clutched at his side as he peered into the night around him. This was something the Tardis much preferred. The men had either run out of ideas to get inside her doors or did not like to work in the dark. Though she preferred it neither option was particularly good. The latter meant more painful attacks on her come morning and the former meant more trouble for her Thief. She could feel his pain through their bond and tried to send comfort and reassurances back. He thanked her and sent his own to her. He questioned her about what was happening down on Earth, though he wasn’t happy with her answers. Then the topic changed and he asked about Rose and the Tardis lied. Her Thief would not like the truth. Her Thief had to stay strong so he could return.

**********

An unearthly song filled the air. It was like a sigh. It floated around caressing everything it touched with its wordless tune. It embraced like a warm blanket, wrapping delicately and soothingly, yet it never actually touched. Not physically. It was a mere presence, though not like a thought, it was far more than that. Far greater. It was alive. Forever lingering. Never fading. Eternal. The eternal song.

As she drifted in and out of consciousness it was this singing that she heard. It was a song that she had heard once before though it had been long forgotten. Her next thoughts were less comforting. It was cold and hard. Where she was, it was cold and hard. She groaned and tilted her head a little, lifting up her cheek and leaning on the back of her head instead. Slightly less cold. Still hard. It was the floor that was cold and hard beneath her. One of her fingers trailed across it, rising and falling over the crisscrossing grating. She was in the Tardis, her mind supplied. It wasn’t often that she spent time on the grating and certainly not in the position she found herself in now but she still knew that feeling beneath her fingers. Rose blinked open her eyes to see the dimly lit console room around her, she then sat up a little gingerly because it had not been a soft landing and the back of her head ached. Around her the Tardis hummed inquisitively and she replied with a murmured, ‘yeah, yeah I’m alright’. She raised a hand to the back of her head, feeling for any bumps or blood because it certainly felt like there should be something to show for the lingering throbbing in her skull. Then it came to her, why her head hurt so much, and her gaze shot up to the ceiling. ‘Am I - am I alright?’ Rose stuttered as her realisation hit her. ‘I was burning wasn’t I? But I’m still here. I’m alive…’ She was both confused and amazed that she was here because she had, once again, been burning up. Or that is what it had felt like anyway. ‘It was you wasn’t it?’ She continued slowly, putting the pieces together. ‘Bad Wolf happened because I looked into you, so you did this, you made this happen.’ The Tardis’ hum was like a shrug and Rose sighed in frustration. ‘You give me the ability to actually understand you and you don’t even use it?’ Her words lingered in the air and Rose got up to her feet, finally feeling like was catching a glimpse of understanding why the Doctor rowed with the Old Girl if she was behaving like this.

The Doctor.

‘Oh my God, the Doctor,’ she breathed. ‘He’s still up there. I have to save him.’ The ache in her head was slightly less prevalent now though she pushed that aside as she darted to the monitor firing off quick questions to the Tardis, uncaring about what had happened to herself now that his kidnapping had come to the forefront of her mind once again. ‘Show me the ship right now, those internal scans again,’ she demanded and the monitor flickered back to the floor plan. The Doctor’s blue spot was still in the small room but there was a red dot just outside the door. Quite a few red dots were gathered in two larger rooms at one end of the ship though a handful still roamed elsewhere. Her eyes flitted back to that initial red dot as they moved away from the Doctor’s room and she let out a sigh of relief. On the floor plan his room was about halfway down the length of the ship with the two large rooms, where most were gathered, situated near the bottom. She pointed towards the bottom end of the ship, merely a few rooms away from the two large ones and said, ‘so this is where they kept teleporting to right?’ The Tardis hummed in agreement and Rose traced the best possible route. She saw two options. One: the longer route that led her down corridors around the rest of the ship before looping around to the section where the Doctor was. She would have to watch out for the two patrolling guards who were sauntering separately around the corridors; it would be helpful to no one if she got caught too. Two: pass through the small room next to those two larger ones. It seemed to attach to the corridor not far from the Doctor’s room and would be a much quicker route and less time out in the patrol areas. The guards didn’t seem to pass through there either; they just took the corridors instead.

Now the only thing left to work out was how she would actually get on board. ‘I need a teleport,’ she stated out loud. The monitor flickered to the live feed once again and Rose saw a single guard standing not too far away seemingly guarding the Tardis. ‘You want me to take the teleport from him?’ She received a short affirmative hum and Rose looked on at the monitor a little nervously. He had a gun with him, he could easily kill her if it went wrong but this was for the Doctor. She had to do it. She steeled herself and went through the next problem in her mind. She couldn’t just walk up and ask him for it nor could she pick his pockets. Really it would be best if he was unconscious. She’d never knocked someone unconscious before but it seemed like the only option.

She left the console room and ran down the corridors until she reached storage four, an idea sprouting in her mind. Rose remembered seeing it in there when they had been searching for the forcefield for the Silurians. Now if only she could find it again. ‘Gotcha,’ she said triumphantly as she spied the signed cricket bat. It was a memento of their time at the Ashes in Australia. One of the British players on the cricket team was actually a very excited cricket fan from Temu Tama. They had disguised themselves as one of the actual players by using something called a Shimmer, according to the Doctor. The poor alien had an equivalent of a cold but it affected the human players much worse. Halfway through the game they were becoming drowsy. They were missing catches and failing at batting and they had started to lose against Australia. When half the team had suddenly fallen asleep where they stood, the Doctor stepped in and saved the day, batting an impressive run and enabling the British to win by a point. When the players awoke, having slept off their brief illness, they were delighted with the Doctor and each signed the cricket bat and gave it to him as a reward. Then he and Rose had taken the alien back to Temu Tama and had tea with their parents. Overall, a very successful adventure for team Tardis.

As Rose turned to leave the storage room something hit her foot. She glanced down at her pink chucks and saw a red cricket ball lying on the metal floor. The Tardis hummed and Rose nodded, she picked up the ball and threw it in the air once before catching it then made her way back to the console room. She walked to the doors feeling more nervous the closer she got but she had to do this to save the Doctor. When she reached them the lights flashed brightly and she stopped. ‘What?’ Rose sighed at the ceiling. The Old Girl hummed again and Rose turned to the coral strut that the Tardis had flashed an image of in her mind. On top of it, as usual, lay the Doctor’s coat and on top of that was his old leather jacket. ‘What do you want me to do with that?’ She asked as she stepped towards the jacket with a frown. The lights glowed blue for a moment in answer. Rose’s frown deepened but her hand dived inside the interior pocket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. Her original Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. It was mostly the same as his current one though some of the components were a slightly different shade. ‘He just leaves these lying around when he’s done with them?’ She commented with disbelief. Rose was about to pocket the screwdriver and put the jacket back down, agreeing that the sonic would be useful to have especially as she knew the setting to unlock and lock things, when she paused. Instead she began to take off her grey hoodie and replaced that with the leather jacket. The Doctor used to wear it like a piece of armour; he’d walk out there and battle with aliens full of confidence and bravado. Right now Rose felt like she needed that. She put the sonic back in the jacket and picked up the cricket bat and ball she had left by the doors ready to face her own battle.

The door squeaked slightly as she began to open it. Rose stilled in her movements hoping that the man hadn’t heard. After a moment she started to open the door once again. Her first realisation was that it was dark out. How many hours had she been unconscious for? She sent a wave of anger from her mind to the Tardis and decided she would certainly be having words with her about her timing. The Old Girl sent an apology back but Rose wasn’t paying much attention to her now, her eyes were on the guard. His back was towards her though he was looking to the left, his gaze searching the streets of the estate. Now seemed as good a moment as any. Rose threw the cricket ball to the right and pushed the door closed as quickly as she could. She heard his footsteps pass to the right of the ship and she eased the door open once more. The ball had rolled its way to the edge of the row of garages and the man was walking towards it. Rose knew she had to act fast before he realised it was just a harmless ball and a mere distraction tactic. With the cricket bat held in her hands she crept up behind the man and swung the bat at his head just as he reached the ball. He fell to the floor instantly. Rose dropped the bat from her shaking hands and stared at him. She couldn’t believe that she had done that but as she kept telling herself, she had to. It was for the Doctor. She found the teleporter hooked onto his belt and grabbed it. About to press the button she stopped. She couldn’t just leave him here; what if someone saw him? He looked just like a human so they would probably try to help. And then again what about her mum, what if she saw that the Tardis was still on the estate and thought they were inside? What if more men came down to try and get in and she saw them? Rose didn’t think her mum would just go over and confront them but perhaps she would if she thought they were trying to get to Rose, she could be very protective of her. Another thought popped into her mind as she fretted over her mum and she pulled the sonic out of the jacket’s inner pocket and used it to unlock the garage at the end of the row. It was as good a spot as any to hide an alien when she was under a time constraint because she wasn’t sure how long it would take for said alien to awake. She lifted the creaky door as she got her phone out of her pocket and rang her mum. She put the mobile to her ear and held it there with her shoulder, waiting for her to pick up. As she waited she gripped the man under his arms and began to drag him backwards into the garage.

‘Rose? What is it sweetheart? You only saw me a few hours ago, can’t be missing me already.’

Even though she didn’t want her mum to worry, Rose was slightly thankful that her mum already knew something wasn’t quite right because it was strange for her to call so soon after seeing her. It also meant she could skip the pleasantries and get straight to the point. ‘Are you still at home?’

‘Of course I am, I was about to go to bed. Why, what is it?’

‘Just stay inside the flat, yeah?’ Her voice was slightly strained from the effort of dragging the man inside the garage.

‘Why? What’s happening out there? What’s wrong? Where are you sweetheart?’

She was going into full panic mode and that was exactly what Rose didn’t want. ‘Mum, just calm down, I’m sorting it out. It’ll be fine.’ She truly hoped it would be fine. She had dragged the man to the back corner of the garage and tucked him behind a large metal shelf stacked with paint cans and a few replacement motorbike tires for the bike that sat in the centre of the garage.

‘You’re sorting it? Is he with you, is the Doctor with you?’

‘Yeah,’ she answered. It wasn’t the answer to all her mum’s questions but she wasn’t going to tell her otherwise because she would worry more. ‘Just promise me you’ll stay inside? I’ll come visit you after and explain more okay.’ Rose noticed a couple of bike locks on the shelf too, she picked them up and started to tie the man’s wrists and attach him to the sturdy shelving unit. She couldn’t afford for him to get out and alert the others whilst she was trying to find the Doctor. Rose heard her mum’s reluctant sigh before she replied.

‘Okay, I promise. But you be safe Rose, you and himself.’

Rose was caught off guard by her mum’s words. She had certainly not expected to find herself a little choked up by them. It was a simple wish for her to stay safe. It was something her mum always worried about so she knew it wasn’t that that got to her even though she was about to do something that was probably incredibly dangerous. It was the fact that her mum wished for the Doctor to stay safe too and that was something that Rose had no idea about. It had been hours since he had been taken and anything could have happened to him. She had no idea if he was okay and that was why her mum’s words got to her.

After checking the coast was clear she stepped out of the garage, closed the door on the unconscious guard and sonicked it locked once more. She took a deep calming breath and said, ‘I gotta go mum, I love you’.

‘I love you too Rose-’

She hung up the phone and put it in her pocket before her mum could get in another word. As she took a step away from the garage her foot kicked something on the ground. Expecting the cricket ball she gasped a little when she saw it was the guard’s pistol. It must have become dislodged at she dragged him away. The Doctor didn’t like guns and Rose didn’t really either but she had no idea what she was about to step into. She picked it up and tucked it in the back of her trousers like she had seen people do in films and television. It felt strange and cold and not particularly pleasant but she felt a little safer with it because she wasn’t the Doctor. She could wear his clothes and have his sonic but she wasn’t him. She was just Rose Tyler.

With one last glance at the Tardis Rose stepped out of sight, around the corner of the garages so if she teleported back and there were more guards by the Old Girl she wouldn’t be caught by them, at least not straight away. She looked down at the teleporter; it seemed simple enough to understand. Rose pressed one of the buttons and vanished in a blue flash.

Chapter 28: Double Vision

Chapter Text

It was dull in his jail cell, in both senses of the word. The ship had moved into its night cycle so all the lights had been dimmed and the Doctor was still bored because there was nothing to do. He didn’t like it when he got imprisoned with Rose, which did certainly happen more often than he’d like to admit, but at least then he had someone to talk to. Now it was just him alone within the compressing four walls. Just him, a barely openable eye and his aching hand. His right hand had gone to sleep, as they say, from lack of circulation, his left probably would have too except his nerves were sending electrical signals back to his brain telling him it was still painful. Really it wasn’t too bad; he’d rewritten all of his cells far too many times to think that a few dislocations were bad.

He wasn’t just sitting around doing nothing though; his mind was still fully active even if his body couldn’t be. He had been trying to narrow down who his captors were although he didn’t have too much to go on. Their military look was rather simple, plain and black with no badges or insignias, it really didn’t offer much. He knew that they were originally just after his ship and he was already rather annoyed with himself about that. If he hadn’t been fiddling with the shielding and doing some maintenance to it then the Tardis would never have registered on their scanners let alone been able to get a lock onto her. She had a perception filter, they shouldn’t have been able to wander up to the door and pound on it waiting for attention. They shouldn’t have noticed her at all. But because they had found her via their scans and were then actively looking for her when they had teleported to the ground the perception filter didn’t work. It was either that or they were particularly smart thugs who had so much intelligence that they could see through perception filters. The Doctor was smart, he knew what smart people were like, they were not in that category. So these thugs wanted his ship which suggested that they were in some dodgy ship trading business where they stole ships and sold them for credits. That was far too common an occurrence, it didn’t narrow it down. Their reaction when they learnt that he was a Time Lord, however, did help narrow it slightly. They thought of him as an exotic good and something to be traded so clearly it wasn’t just spacecraft that they specialised in. Or perhaps they did a bit of people trading on the side just for fun. The Doctor thought it was barbaric. They also wanted the Tardis more after that because they knew how rare she was too. They would never get through those doors though so he wasn’t worried about that. If they were Daleks, Daleks at the height of their power, then yes he would have been worried and Rose would already be…

The Doctor didn’t look up initially when his cell door was opened but when he did he did a double take. His eyebrows shot up into his hairline and he whispered, ‘Rose?’

‘I’m here,’ she said with a small smile and stepped closer to him.

‘What? How? What - what - what are you doing here?’ He was so baffled by her appearance that he couldn’t get his words out properly and that was quite an achievement for him.

She frowned slightly and said, ‘I’m here to rescue you,’ as though it was obvious, which to be fair to her it was, because why else would she be there.

His amazement at her appearance was overtaken by another feeling. Dread. She couldn’t be up here. What if they found her? One of the jailers could look in his cell at any moment and she would be found and it would be all his fault. He’d thought he had made it absolutely clear that she shouldn’t leave the Tardis but then again she never did listen to him. He loved that she cared so much to find a way onto the ship to rescue him but it was far too dangerous for her. If they wanted him, a Time Lord, and they were still prepared to injure him then what hope did she have if they caught her? He would find another way out but right now Rose had to go before it was too late. The Doctor shook his head at her adamantly. ‘You have to go now before they find you. They want the Tardis and they want me because I’m a Time Lord but I don’t know what they’ll do to you if they find you. You have to leave.’ He looked straight into her eyes begging her to understand. She couldn’t be here, she just couldn’t.

Rose then did the opposite of what he wanted her to do. He groaned in frustration as she kneeled beside him, her pink dress flowing around her on the cold metal floor.

‘Let’s get you out of here and go to the Tardis.’

‘I can’t,’ he replied with exasperation. Why wouldn’t she just understand? ‘They’ve taken my sonic and I’m a little chained up right now.’ He moved his right arm, rattling the chains a little to make his point. ‘They can’t get in there and that’s what they want so just go to your mums. I’ll be fine here. Just go Rose, please,’ he pleaded.

She reached inside her jacket pocket and pulled something out. ‘I have the key,’ Rose stated before turning her attention to the chain around his right hand and unlocking it.

His eyebrows shot up once more. ‘What? How do you have the key?’

‘I can pickpocket,’ she said as she began to unlock the chains around his right ankle.

He lowered his right arm and flexed his joints, it was such a relief to be able to move again and finally get the sensation back in his hand. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still fiercely studying Rose with a wide confused stare as she crouched by his left ankle and unlocked the chain there. ‘Since when? When did you learn to do that?’

Rose shrugged. ‘When I was younger,’ she said, finally getting to the final chain around his left wrist.

‘But - but why did you learn? How? I know you lived in a - wellllll rough-ish sort of area,’ he said as they both stood back up. His limbs were aching but that didn’t matter, it was better to be aching and free than the alternative. He followed her as she walked to the door. He never gave her a chance to reply as he quickly continued saying, ‘and what was that place called again?’ She didn’t answer as she put the key in the lock and he chuckled softly though there was no humour in it. ‘You know me, Mr. Forgetful as you call me, can’t keep a damn fact in this old brain of mine.’

As soon as she had turned the key in the lock he reached out from behind and placed his fingertips on her temples. It really bloody hurt with his left hand but he managed. He caught her with his right arm and gently lowered her sleeping form to the floor. Well, technically not her sleeping form, some shapeshifting alien who had stolen her image. They probably thought he wouldn’t see through it and he’d take them back to the Tardis where they would then attempt to steal her from the inside. But he had noticed. Eventually. It was embarrassing how long that had taken him to work out. Oh he was thick. Thick and stupid. What was the point of having a big Time Lord brain if he wasn’t going to use it? He had been so caught up in the amazement of her appearance and then the fear had settled in and apparently that had rendered him blind. Well, he could only see out of one eye currently but the other was still working fine. It was no excuse to not realise sooner that Rose was wearing her pink dress again when she hadn’t been wearing it earlier. Well, she had, but she had then changed and why would she change back into it when coming on a rescue mission? It made no sense. Her speech had tipped him off in the end but again he had been too slow. Still, he got there eventually and she had freed him. Now he just had to work out how to get off the ship.

The corridor was clear as he peered out. He found the small cupboard on the wall by the side of his cell and smiled to himself as he grabbed his sonic screwdriver. He tossed it in the air and caught it before pocketing it. The Polaroid of Rose was in there too and the Doctor grabbed that before he closed the door. She looked beautiful, he thought as he placed the photograph back in its rightful place of his breast pocket, far more beautiful than the shapeshifter who had stolen her likeness from said photograph. Though nothing beat the real Rose Tyler.

**********

He hadn’t gotten too far from his cell before he heard footsteps from behind. He ran as quietly as he could to the next closest door to get inside and hide from the patrolling jailer. He never got the chance.

An electrified whip cracked through the air hitting the Doctor as he ran. It felt like a machete had just been swung at his back, splitting the skin and muscles open. He cried out as he hit the floor, landing in a heap on top of his already injured left hand. His body writhed under the electrical current that was running through it and he grimaced as he tried not to groan out loud in pain. Another crack of the whip and that pain doubled instantly. His limbs flailed with the onslaught of electricity. His back felt as though it was screaming as loud as he was as his muscles tensed and jerked, irritating his fresh lashings further and making the pain that much more unbearable. A large black boot tipped him onto his side as he trembled with the last of the current. Panting, he slowly tilted his head to see his attacker looming over him.

‘Usually we punish those who run,’ He stated gruffly, barely containing his spiked grin at the thought. ‘Enough so they are sorry for their actions. Enough so that they want to die. But you, you’re different. I know you can come back to life if you do die.’ His sharp teeth were now on full show.

‘I don’t have to,’ the Doctor mumbled from the floor.

The grin faded. ‘What?’ The jailer grabbed him by the hair and pulled him upwards so the Time Lord was close enough to hear.

A fresh hot wave of eggy breath hit him and he tried not to gag, instead he grunted, ‘I can choose not to.’

The jailer tipped his head back and let out a loud menacing laugh. ‘Alright Time Lord,’ he began as he shoved the Doctor’s head back down so it smacked hard against the floor. He groaned at the impact. ‘I’ll play your game for now. Just punishment instead, though I won’t be too harsh on you. I hear you’re not talking. Have to leave some fun for your interrogators.’ His sharp smile returned as he ordered the Doctor about. ‘Get up.’

He didn’t see any alternative but to comply. As the Doctor began to move he received a swift kick to the abdomen from the boot of the jailer. He grunted at the impact and fell back to the floor.

‘Get up!’ The jailer demanded once more and the Doctor tried again. This time his rib cage became the target of the attack. ‘I said get up!’ He didn’t move. He was pulled upwards by his hair once more and the jailer bellowed, ‘didn’t you hear me, I said get up!’ His head was pushed unceremoniously to the floor again and he felt the warmth of blood trickling out of a wound by his left eyebrow from where it had connected with the hard, dark metal. The jailer grabbed his right arm and yanked, beginning to drag the Doctor back to his cell. When his pinstripe jacket snagged on the floor the jailer yanked harder, and even harder still when the Doctor got caught up on the step leading into his cell. He cried out as the limb was torn from its socket. He was shoved up against the wall, his limbs roughly moved into position as he was chained back up again. As the jailer stepped back to admire his work he trod on the Doctor’s left foot. He saw the Time Lord flinch and produced a crooked smile as he stamped on the foot, the Doctor’s hoarse shout echoed around them. The jailer snigg*red as he locked the cell leaving the Doctor to his pain in peace.

**********

Rose was quite proud that she didn’t stumble when she landed. When you spent enough time travelling with the Doctor and his driving style of the Tardis you got used to being rocked and jolted about so much so that a teleport landing didn’t faze you. What did faze her, however, was where she had landed. It was a weapons locker. It made sense that just before these people left the ship that they would go grab their weapons and in this case their Tardis attacking tools. There was a table covered in them. From angle grinders to blow torches and laser blasters to a simple lock picking set, there was a wide array of attempts. These items didn’t make her palms sweaty like the number of guns stored along one of the walls did. If this went wrong she would definitely be dead. She just hoped that the Doctor hadn’t succumbed to the same fate.

After she took a deep steadying breath she stepped towards the door, everything was a dark grey metal from the ceilings and floors to the walls and doors and that continued out into the corridor from what she could tell from peering through the small window in the door. Sliding it open she poked her head around to the far ends of the corridor to see if anyone was coming. They were thankfully empty though a little dark. With the dark metal furnishings, the dim lighting really made the place dreary but her eyes were becoming accustomed to it. To her left the corridor stretched on for a bit before turning off but the path to her right was much shorter. At the end was the entrance to one of the large rooms where a hoard of red dots were. She did not want to go in there.

Rose sonicked the door locked behind her, to at least try and slow them down in the process of grabbing their weapons, and set off towards the right, her footsteps near silent as she crept along. It wasn’t until she was four doors down that she stopped again. She was near the end of the corridor with only the door to the large room remaining, though the door she was standing before was the one that should lead her through a shortcut into the other corridor near the Doctor’s room. A faint buzzing filled the air whilst the sonic worked. Rose pulled on the door trying to slide it open but it only rattled. She then pushed and yanked it towards her in case it wasn’t a sliding door but again nothing happened. After sonicking it a couple more times to no avail she decided that her attempts were fruitless. The Doctor in her mind supplied her with the idea that it had a deadlock seal and she groaned quietly immediately shutting up when she heard approaching footsteps. Her head shot up to the left, she had mere seconds before they rounded the corner. She considered going back the way she came but those previous doors were too far away and she couldn’t stay out in the open like she was. There was only one thing for it. Rose gulped and backed into the remaining sliding door that was her only option. She slid it open and entered the large room just as a large black boot stepped around the end of the corridor.

Her first thought was that she wanted to throw up. Instead she silently gagged at the repulsive smell that hit her when she slid the door shut behind her. It was a very strong eggy odour. It was the kind of smell they got in the flat when the washing machine was on the blink and the old water went the other way in the pipes and got regurgitated back out into the sink. It really didn’t help that the flat was as small as it was as there had been no escape from it indoors whilst they waited for the plumber. She must have been about seven but the smell around her now brought the memories flooding back. Rose tried to just breathe through her mouth as she eyed the room though it only helped a little. She found she was in the sleeping quarters which now made a lot of sense as to why there were a lot of red dots in the room on the scans. The two long walls were lined with bed after bed and in nearly all of them lay an alien. She supposed it was their true form and that perhaps they too wore a shimmer like the one from Temu Tama so they could appear as human. They sure didn’t look it now. Their skin was near translucent and looked tightly stretched over their skull, the shape of which reminded her more of a lizard than anything. They were hairless though they did have two small horns at the top of their foreheads. So far they all seemed to be asleep in their beds.

Behind her, beyond the door, the footsteps were getting louder. Rose knew she had to move in case this was their destination. She knew that the two large rooms were connected and also led through to the corridor that she wanted to get to but she had dismissed this route as an option because of the amount of life signs in it. Well she was here now she might as well try. She began to sneak past the beds and towards the other sliding doors. The eggy stench got worse as she tiptoed along and she tried her best not to gag again. At every slight shuffle, murmur or snort she halted expecting one of the creatures to get up and confront her at any moment which would result in them alerting the rest. Rose would be done for and her heart pounded so hard at the thought that she was sure they would wake up with the loud thudding of it. When she reached the door she didn’t breathe a sigh of relief because she had no idea what was through the next one.

She slid the door open as quietly as she could and took in a deep breath as she closed it. The stench was still in the air, there was no doubt about that, but it had lessened for which she was very thankful. It made sense that she had now found herself in the living quarters. There was a large dining table along one of the walls and opposite the room was segmented into two: a kitchen area and a living area. It was cosier than she imagined after the cold, dark look of the ship. The colours still continued in the room but there was also a large corner sofa and plush armchairs to relax on and the kitchen units were a bright white, though they perhaps had a more sterile than cosy feel to them. There were a couple of aliens with their heads resting on the dining table, going by the bottles next to them they had fallen into a drunken stupor. The only other alien in the room was asleep on the sofa. Most of them must have gone to bed in the time since Rose last looked at the scans because unless some had gone so translucent that they had turned invisible there sure weren’t enough aliens in the room to warrant the number of red dots she had seen on the monitor. She began her tiptoeing steps towards the sliding door at the far end of the room again halting at any sound she could hear beyond the sound of her heart pounding.

Suddenly she was falling to the floor. She managed to catch herself but ended up jarring her wrists with the sudden impact as she tried to land as quietly as possible. Rose spun around on the floor so she could eye the aliens in the room, hoping that she hadn’t woken any of them. Luckily they still all appeared to be asleep though the aggressive snort from one at the dining table made her gaze linger on them just to make sure. As she stood back up she looked at the floor wondering what she had tripped over. It was a tail. A long translucent tail that led back to the alien asleep on the sofa. She gulped at how close she had come to disaster before turning and carrying on towards the door keeping a closer eye on her footing. Just before she could reach it a shuffling from behind halted her in her tracks. One step. Two steps. The footsteps cautiously shuffled closer and Rose was sure her heart was about to break through her chest with its furious pounding. Slowly she turned to face the alien who was no longer asleep on the sofa. Her luck had finally run out. They gave her a menacing sharp toothed grin as they approached, their tail swinging slightly behind them. With her right hand she slowly reached behind her to grasp the cold grip of the gun tucked in the back of her jeans. She felt so unprepared because she had no idea how to use it and she really didn’t want to have to either.

‘A little girl,’ the alien hissed. Rose thought that they were one to talk when she was taller than they were. They continued to step closer, their threatening hisses thankfully quiet enough to not wake the others in the room. With every step they took, Rose took one too until she was backed up against the door. ‘How did you get on board little one?’ Another step closer. ‘I don’t remember seeing anyone like you before.’ Another step closer. The stench of rotten eggs was strong now they were mere feet away. Every word they spoke another sickening wave floated her way. ‘Seems to me we have a stowaway. An intruder.’ The spiked grin grew and their eyes gleamed. ‘And there’s only one way to deal with an intruder...’

If it hadn’t been for their translucent skin Rose wouldn’t have seen it coming. As soon as they had finished speaking she noticed something within their throat bubbling. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. Rose tilted to the right as she brought up her left hand to shield her face at the exact moment they spat at her. It burned as it hit her palm and the sleeve of the leather jacket but she didn’t take much notice of it as she swung her right arm around from her back, gun in hand, and whacked it around the alien’s head. They slumped to the floor and she pointed the gun at them in case they weren’t knocked out. They didn’t move. She stood panting for a moment collecting herself. She lifted her trembling hand towards her so she could see her burning palm. The skin was bright red, the acidic spit having eaten through the layers. Rose tried not to think about how much it hurt because she hadn’t got the time to be in pain, she needed to move before anyone else found her. Sliding open the door she had been backed up against she checked the coast was clear. She knew the door opposite led to a small room and peered through the window to see if it was empty. It was. She opened that door and, after tucking the gun away again, she dragged the unconscious alien inside, just using her right hand to do so. It was a bit of a struggle but luckily they were smaller and lighter than the one she had dragged into the garage earlier. She didn’t like how it seemed to be becoming a habit. The sonic buzzed as it locked both the room that was now occupied by one unconscious alien and the door to the living quarters. She wasn’t taking any chances especially as she was so close to the Doctor now.

Rose glanced down at her palm for a moment as she walked along the corridor. Five doors to go. It wasn’t hurting as much anymore and the skin didn’t look as red either. Four doors. It was more like the pale pink it would change to after having been treated by the dermal regenerator. Three doors. She frowned at it and gently pressed a finger to the healing skin. Two doors. It was hot to the touch, hotter than it usually would be, and tingled a little as she ran her finger across it. One door. She lowered her hand with a shrug because she didn’t have time to think about it now. Rose stepped up to the next door and peered through the small window to find her Time Lord trapped inside.

She sonicked the door and slid it open. ‘Doctor?’ she whispered as she stepped inside. ‘Doctor it’s me.’ It was a sorry sight to see. He looked so small sitting on the floor in his rumpled suit, chains tight around every limb. She heard him mumble something but couldn’t catch it, he had spoken far too quietly and his head was facing away, lolling on his left shoulder. ‘What?’ She whispered again as she approached him.

‘Not falling for it.’

She may have heard him this time but that didn’t mean she understood him. She frowned as she knelt next to him. ‘What are you on about?’

‘Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me,’ he murmured bitterly.

Rose stared at him, she still couldn’t properly see his face but she could see the edge of a black eye that he was sporting. ‘Look I’ve no idea what you’re on about but I’m here to get you out.’ Her gaze travelled down him, part of his jacket was torn and the rest of his suit did look thoroughly rumpled. She wondered what other injuries he had. ‘Can you - can you stand?’ She asked as she gently rested her palm on his thigh. He flinched and she tore her hand away as though she had been scalded. Rose watched as he grimaced and shook his head a little. Her heart dropped. He couldn’t stand. What had they done to him? ‘No? She asked, her voice wavering slightly, ‘you can’t stand?’

‘Not going with you,’ he mumbled.

‘What?’ He wasn’t making sense. She wanted to grab him and shake some sense into him but he seemed far too delicate especially after his reaction to her previous touch. ‘Doctor just look at me, it’s me Rose, I’ve come to rescue you and take you home.’

His huffed laughter made her frown even further. It didn’t last long; soon he was grimacing once again in pain. ‘Home,’ he began, his words bitter once again, ‘I don’t have one anymore. Bet you’d have thought twice about locking me up if you knew I was the reason why I don’t have a home.’ His voice was strained. It looked like each word caused him pain.

She shook her head at him. ‘What?’

‘I destroyed my planet. Killed them all. Could easily destroy this ship if it comes to it,’ he bit out.

‘Doctor, just shut up and look at me.’ She cupped his face gently and forced him to lift his head up and actually see her. She gasped a little at what she saw. His right eye was completely swollen shut and there was a cut above his left eyebrow that had left a trail of dried blood down his cheek. It was a miserable sight to see. It made her angry at the people who had done this to him, even angrier than she already was about them kidnapping him in the first place. But then she felt so sorry for the Time Lord who looked so broken before her. He was usually such a strong figure but all of that had simply faded away. ‘It’s me, Rose,’ she said looking at him with big pleading eyes, begging him to understand. Her thumbs gently began to caress his stubbled cheeks as she spoke. ‘I dunno what’s going on with you but I’m getting you out of here,’ she told him, her voice full of determination. She already felt like they’d spent too long without making any progress in actually getting him out.

Finally a flicker of recognition passed through him and beneath her hands she felt his clenched jaw relax. ‘Rose?’ He whispered hopefully.

The smile she gave him was full of relief. ‘Yeah. It’s me. I’m right here.’

‘T - Tell me something only you’d know.’ The eye she could see was pleading with her.

She had no idea what had happened and felt like they didn’t have time for this but he clearly needed some sort of confirmation that it truly was her. Rose glanced down as she thought and what she saw gave her an idea. ‘I got you this tie for your birthday because we gave you a new birthday on Christmas Eve,’ she suggested.

A tiny smile began to tug at his lips but it wasn’t quite enough confirmation for him, he had to be certain. ‘Something further back.’

‘Erm - day we met?’ He nodded and her smile grew as she told him, thinking of the day fondly. ‘In the cellar of Henriks, I was surrounded by Autons. You took my hand and you said one word to me, just one word. You said-’

‘Run,’ he breathed.

‘You believe me now?’ He nodded again and she released his cheeks, reaching into the leather jacket to pull out his old sonic screwdriver. ‘Alright, I’ll unlock you and then we need to go because I don’t know how much time we’ve got.’

His brow creased as he watched her sonic the chain around his right wrist. ‘Wh - how?’ He stuttered before groaning in pain as his wrist was released and the weight of his arm pulled on his shoulder as it flopped to the ground. Rose’s eyes went wide at his reaction; she stared at him not knowing what to do. He panted and blinked his left eye open at her biting out, ‘carry on’.

She nodded hastily and moved to his ankles. When she got to his left hand she felt like she wanted to be sick but she held herself together. They didn’t have time for that and they were nearly out. She tucked the sonic back inside its pocket after she had freed him and laid a gentle hand on his left forearm, he looked over at her with a grimace. ‘I’m gonna teleport us out of here now okay?’ He nodded

She pulled the teleporter out of her pocket and, holding onto his arm a little tighter, she pressed the button and they vanished from the cell in a blue flash.

Chapter 29: I Will Look After You

Chapter Text

‘Gah!’ The Doctor grunted as they landed on the damp tarmac of the Powell estate. They were still in the same positions, he was sitting and Rose was kneeling by his side. He tipped backwards as the wall that had been behind him on the ship was of course now gone. As he hit the garage wall, not too far behind him, he let out another cry of pain. Rose quickly put her hand to his mouth to muffle it in case the aliens were outside of the Tardis again. They couldn’t get caught now, not when she had just got him back. Once the Doctor had settled and was glaring at her she removed her hand and got up from the ground. Her jeans stuck to her knees a little where the dampness had seeped through the fabric but that wasn’t her highest concern. She quietly moved to the corner and poked her head around it. There was the Tardis looking just as she had left her but in front of her blue doors were two guards. They wouldn’t be getting back in there anytime soon. She pulled her head back as soon as she spotted another guard approaching the Old Girl. Perhaps they were doing patrols now. She couldn’t tell if this behaviour was because they had already found the Doctor missing or because they knew she had been on board or because of the missing guard she’d knocked out to get the teleporter. Either way they would have to find somewhere else to stay. Somewhere nearby so the Doctor could reach it and where they could keep an eye on the Old Girl. Rose knew just the place; she just hoped those aliens didn’t.

‘Right we need to go,’ she said quietly as she crouched down beside the Doctor. ‘I’m gonna help you up, how can I do that without hurting you more?’ She gazed down at how he was positioned on the ground, collapsed against the wall. He looked like he could have had a few too many and had drunkenly stumbled and toppled over but she knew that was not the case, the reality was far worse than that. When he answered without fighting back about him being fine it really sunk in how bad it was.

‘Left arm, don’t touch the hand and whatever you do don’t touch my right arm,’ he muttered. Rose had just taken hold of his left arm when the Doctor said, ‘wait’. She paused and stared at him worried she had hurt him. ‘The teleporter. Use setting B-57 to disable it,’ he told her and she let go of his arm to retrieve both items from her pockets. ‘They might be able to track it otherwise. Don’t know yet. Keep it with you.’

Rose flicked through the sonic settings, inputting the one he had said, and used it on the teleporter. She pocketed them both then looked back to the Doctor. ‘Ready now?’ He nodded. She gripped his arm firmly and helped heave him upright. He wobbled a bit standing on just his right foot but didn’t complain about the movement too much, she could really only tell he was in pain by his panting. Grabbing him by his left wrist she hooked his arm over her shoulders so she could help him walk then rested her other arm around his back, her hand holding his side.

‘Agh,’ he let out a short cry and Rose froze. ‘Hand,’ he said through gritted teeth. She removed her arm and he nodded as he panted the pain away. ‘Put it on my waist if you’ve got to put it somewhere,’ he bit out, his tone laced with frustration.

She didn’t take it personally because she knew he didn’t mean it, it was just the pain talking. Rose gently rested her hand on his waist and when he didn’t complain again she started them moving. They could see the entrance to her building from where they had teleported and they shouldn’t have to run into any of those aliens unless said aliens wandered away from the Tardis in Rose and the Doctor’s direction. They took slow steady steps towards the doors, the Doctor limping along grunting and grimacing as they went.

‘Tardis?’ He asked a few steps into their walk.

Rose shook her head. ‘There’s three of them camped out in front.’

‘Brilliant,’ he muttered darkly.

When they made it through the door the Doctor groaned at the sight of the stairs. ‘Why doesn’t this place have a lift?’ He complained.

‘It’s a cheap council estate, they didn’t bother spending their money on a lift,’ she said as they took the first step upwards. It was even slower going and Rose was puffing and panting alongside the Doctor when they reached the floor for the flat. He was leaning more heavily on her and she was struggling a bit under his weight but they were so close now. ‘Come on, we’re nearly there,’ she urged and they staggered forward to number forty-eight. Rose was so glad she always carried her house keys in case they ended up at the flat, with his driving who knew where they were going. She unlocked the door before pocketing them, then slid her arm around the Doctor’s back, her hand at his side once more, and tried to help him inside but he was gritting his teeth once again.

‘Hand,’ he hissed at her and she swiftly removed it, placing it back on his waist as she apologised.

They made their way rather clumsily into the dark hallway by performing a weird side shuffle to fit through the door together and they continued this strange manoeuvre as Rose led them to her room. He bumped his right shoulder against the doorframe as they went through and cried out in pain again. She sat him on the edge of the bed then turned on her bedside lamp so they could see in the darkness. The Doctor groaned with both pain and relief as he gingerly leant back, his legs still dangling off the side in his strange diagonal position. As he settled into the mattress he let out a high pitched giggle of disbelief. ‘We made it,’ he said before groaning again. ‘Ow, don’t laugh, it hurts.’

‘Right pain relief,’ Rose stated as she watched the Doctor slowly relax on the bed, her hands wringing together as she worried about him and how to fix him. ‘Erm we’ve probably got paracetamol and aspirin - maybe ibuprofen-’ She stopped her list as the Doctor shook his head. ‘What? You need to take something-’

‘It’ll kill me,’ he said, cutting her off and Rose’s eyes went wide.

‘What the bleedin’ hell’s going on?’ Jackie said as she exited her bedroom tying her pink silk dressing gown around her waist. She followed the light glowing into the hallway from the open door of Rose’s bedroom and gasped at what she saw before her, her hands flying up to her mouth.

Rose didn’t take her eyes off the Doctor and continued on as though her mum hadn’t spoken. ‘Seriously?’

‘Yep,’ he popped the “p” but not with his usual enthusiasm. ‘Different metabolism.’

‘So I can’t give you anything?’ She really hoped his answer would be different but he shook his head. She let out a frustrated sigh because she knew if they were in the Tardis the entire situation would be different. There would be pain relief he could take and there was all the medical equipment they could use to help heal him. It was even worse because the ship was so close but they just couldn’t get to her.

‘What happened?’ Jackie asked, having overcome her shock, as she walked around Rose to the foot of the bed. She was staring at the Time Lord with wide eyes.

‘Long story Jackie,’ he mumbled, shutting his good eye so he didn’t have to see her horrified gaze trail over him.

‘But look at you and - oh my God look at your hand,’ her own hands were back up covering her mouth as she stared at his dislocated fingers somehow unable to tear her eyes away from the sight even though it disgusted her. ‘You need a doctor,’ she said as she drew her hands away again, ‘a proper doctor - a hospital-’

Rose sighed with exasperation. ‘Mum, we’ve been over this, he can’t, they’ll cart him away.’

‘But look at him,’ Jackie begged, gesturing at the Time Lord.

‘Yeah, I know, I’m dealing with it,’ she said, her frustration now creeping into her voice. ‘Just - just - I don’t know - make some tea for us all or something.’

‘Tea duty. Right.’ Jackie nodded, her hands coming to rest on her hips as she looked at her daughter.

Rose knew that warning tone; she’d been on the end of it far too many times before to not know of her displeasure. ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she sighed sadly and admitted, ‘I just - I don’t know what to do…’

Jackie stepped closer and rested her hand on her daughter’s arm comfortingly. She gave her what was meant to be a reassuring smile but it came out rather grim with her worry for the Doctor. ‘I know sweetheart, I know.’ She glanced back at the Doctor and gave Rose’s arm a gentle squeeze before leaving the room to make the tea.

Rose looked over him with a sigh and thought the first thing she could do was help him onto the bed properly. She gently took hold of his legs and started to lift them up. The Doctor opened his eye at the movement though began to help when he realised what was going on. He grimaced as Rose swivelled his body around slightly so he could lie flat across the bed with his feet on the mattress but otherwise didn’t complain. ‘What can I do first?’ She asked him as she wrung her hands together again.

‘Just give me a moment,’ he said softly. He knew what his first priority was but after those stairs he didn’t have it in him to put himself through further pain to fix the problem. Not just yet anyway. He simply needed a little break to try and relax before moving onto it. Even though his eyes were closed again he could feel Rose’s worried gaze trailing over him and he tried to distract her. ‘You did good Rose,’ he mumbled.

She dropped to her knees by the side of the bed and rested her chin on her arms as she folded them on the mattress beside him. It may have appeared to be a pretty laid back position but her whole body was still radiating with frustration at the situation. ‘I just wish we had the Tardis, this would be so much easier.’

He hummed in agreement but didn’t say anything else on the topic. After a moment he said, ‘thank you.’ He opened his eye and tilted his head to the side so he could see her properly. ‘For getting me out.’

She shook her head at him. ‘Of course I was gonna get you out.’ Sitting up a little she unfolded her arms and rested a soothing hand on his left one as she added, ‘you would’ve done the same for me anyway’.

He hummed agreeably again then stated, ‘you risked your life’.

She shrugged. ‘Risk it most days of the week.’

The Doctor shook his head a little. ‘This was different.’

‘Doctor,’ she sighed. She reached out and brushed back his hair that had gotten stuck to his clammy forehead from the exertion of the climb. He closed his eye under the touch. ‘I was never gonna leave you up there. No matter the risk. I couldn’t do that to you.’

‘Your life is worth far more than mine Rose,’ he murmured. He blinked his eye open when Rose paused in her movements, her hand still resting in his hair.

She gave him the most determined look she could as she said, ‘you’re worth it Doctor’.

He never got the chance to reply as Jackie bustled into the room. ‘Right, teas,’ she announced as she came to stand next to where Rose was kneeling. She was carrying two mugs, one for the Doctor and one for Rose. ‘I put a straw in yours Doctor in case it helps,’ she told him and he turned his head to glare at her. ‘I know sweetheart, I’m sorry,’ Jackie continued, trying to appease him, ‘I just don’t know what else we can do’.

Rose reached up to her mum and took the Doctor’s mug. ‘You want yours now?’ She asked him. He rolled his eye at her but nodded. He lifted his head a little off the pillow and she helped him raise it a bit more, so he wouldn’t choke, by cupping her hand around the back of his head. After taking a few long sips he nodded and she removed her hand allowing him to rest his head back on the pillow.

Jackie had placed her daughter’s tea on the bedside table before standing back and watching the pair. She had no idea what had happened except that the outcome had been terrible for the Doctor. Jackie felt so sorry for him; she thought it wasn’t right, him looking like that. There had been the incident of his regeneration of course but after that she had never known him to appear to be so vulnerable and in need of looking after. Rose was caring for him now with such love and affection that it both broke and mended her heart at the same time. The Doctor caught her gaze as he settled his head back. ‘Can I get you anything else, love?’ She asked him.

‘Ice, bags of frozen food?’

She nodded at him and said, ‘I’ll see what I can find,’ as she left the room.

Rose was just finishing off her own tea when the Doctor muttered, ‘you’re going to have to put my shoulder back in’. She spluttered a little with her tea, having not expected him to say that, before giving him a wide eyed look. ‘Well I’m not going to do it.’ He raised his left arm from the bed briefly, showing his hand, before carefully putting it back down.

‘But - without painkillers though?’ She said with a disbelieving frown. ‘That’s gonna kill.’

He shook his head softly. ‘It already hurts and the longer it’s not back in place the harder it’ll be to do so.’ He caught the apprehension in her eyes and gave her a small reassuring smile. ‘I know you don’t want to hurt me and I’m sorry that you’ll have to but you can do it Rose, I’ll walk you through it.’ She nodded a little reluctantly in agreement and got up. He told her to take his legs and twist him to the side like how he was positioned earlier so his arm could be manoeuvred above his head. He grimaced as she did that, which was bad enough for Rose, let alone the pain she knew she was about to cause him. Following his instructions she wrapped both hands around his right wrist and gradually began to move his arm from the side of his body and across the bed until it was at a ninety degree angle, the height of his shoulder, all the while making small pumping motions with the arm. Then, whilst slowly rotating the arm, she continued to raise it above his shoulder until she felt it clunk back into place. All throughout the Doctor was grimacing, groaning and swearing like a Gallifreyan trooper.

Jackie had stepped into the room about halfway through the procedure and had stood cringing as she watched. Once it was over and the Doctor was panting away his pain she commented, ‘I’ve done that for my Uncle Tony before. He did it down at the races once, took me down there a couple of times and this one time it came out and he taught me how to pop it back in again. Did it for him a couple of times after that too…’

‘Poor fitting glenohumeral joint or perhaps Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, that can cause unstable and hyperflexible ligaments,’ he said through gasping breaths. Rose gave him a look and he said, ‘what? It’s distracting’. She rolled her eyes at him but there was a small smile on her face from his words because he was acting more like the Doctor she knew and loved rather than the sad, injured version.

After many adamant refusals from the Time Lord of further help from Jackie she left them to it and headed to bed, as it was about two in the morning at that point. She didn’t leave before telling them to get her if they needed anything and passing Rose three packets of frozen vegetables, an ice pack and a bundle of tea towels to wrap them up in. The Doctor was now sitting up against the pillows in the bed which took a lot of shuffling but between the two of them they managed. After Rose had scanned the right hand side of his chest with the sonic, revealing that he’d cracked five of his ribs including one of the extra pair Gallifreyans had, he popped his fingers and thumb back into place. Rose couldn’t watch him do that, instead she moved to his foot and carefully undid all the laces on his left chuck so she could try and take it off in the least painful way. She scanned it with the screwdriver, when his shoe and sock had finally come off causing him another wave of agony, and he shrugged saying three fractured metatarsals weren’t that bad. He then regretted that shrug as the movement had agitated his shoulder once more. Rose moved on to adding ice to his injuries starting with his foot but he stopped her when she went to apply the next bag of frozen veg to his hand.

‘Should probably - erm take this lot off first so the - the cold will reach my shoulder,’ he said, indicating to his jacket and shirt. His ears went a little red at his suggestion and Rose tried not to notice. Instead she ducked her head and took off his tie before undoing the buttons of the shirt for him, refusing to think of it happening in another situation that had played out in her mind more than once when alone in her room on the Tardis.

When she opened his shirt to see his undershirt she complained, ‘why do you wear so many layers?’ She gently tugged him forwards a little, so he was no longer leaning on his back, so she could carefully lower his shirt and jacket as one over his shoulders.

‘You know why,’ he huffed.

‘Yeah touch telepath,’ she said as she undid his cuffs then pulled the sleeves over his hands. She placed his clothes on the bed next to him and looked up at his face. ‘It was a rhetorical question Doctor,’ she said with a smirk and watched as his unhappy face changed at the realisation. He sniffed and she continued, ‘and what are we doing about this?’ She pointed to his white undershirt. ‘Are we leaving it on or am I cutting it off? Because I don’t want you to move your shoulder anymore than you have to.’

He looked down at the shirt as he considered. ‘Leave it on, it’s only thin, the cold will get through.’

Rose nodded and applied the other bags of frozen veg to his hand and shoulder, now only his face was left. She studied his injuries for a moment then said, ‘I’ll get something to clean you up first’. She got up from the edge of the bed where she was sitting and went to leave but turned back to him when he quietly called her name. He nodded his head at her, beckoning her over, so she stepped back to the side of the bed. He nodded his head again so she leant forward. Only when she was close enough did he whisper in her ear.

‘Hide the gun from Jackie.’

She gasped and reached around her back to where she had tucked the gun. It was still covered up but he must have noticed the shape of it through her clothing. Her face was red as she leant back from him. She hadn’t wanted him to find out about it and with her attention taken up by looking after him she had forgotten it was still there. Standing in her room dithering as she glanced about wondering where to put it, she looked anywhere but in his direction. He would be disappointed with her, she knew how much he hated guns yet she had still taken it. She went around the other side of the bed and knelt down, crawling under it slightly to reach for the old shoe box where she stored a few momentos. Her mum never touched that so it would be safe there. After hiding the gun in the box, and tucking it back under the bed, she quickly left the room. She went through to the kitchen to grab some damp paper towel to clean up the Doctor’s face though when she saw the small first aid box they kept in there she opened it up and found a sling so grabbed that as well. When she returned she still refused to meet his gaze as she knelt on the bed at his side. First she wrapped his right arm up with the sling, thankful that she had taken those paid first aid classes at Henriks, then she moved to cleaning up his face. She placed her left hand on his forehead with her fingers trailing into his hair, tilting his head backwards so she could see him better. Carefully she wiped the blood away from around the wound by his left eyebrow which was now showing signs of bruising.

‘Rose?’ The Doctor said as she cleaned his cheek and the side of his face of blood. He could tell what she was doing, ignoring him as she was, and he didn’t like it one bit because she really didn’t need to. He sighed. ‘Rose stop just - just look at me please,’ he pleaded with her. She finally stopped and looked at him, her gaze full of a shame and sadness that she had no reason to feel. When she dropped her arms he found he could just reach out with his right hand and take her left one. He rubbed the back of it soothingly with his thumb as he softly said, ‘I’m not mad or disappointed or whatever it is you think I am’.

She frowned at him. ‘But it was a gun. You hate guns.’

Nodding, the Doctor said, ‘I know.’ He took in as deep a breath as he could manage as he told her, ‘I’m not particularly happy about it being a gun but it was a means of protecting yourself and I could never want you to not feel protected, especially in a situation like that.’

Her eyes grew wide as his words sank in. ‘Really?’

‘Really,’ he confirmed with a small smile.

A small relieved grin broke over her face after a moment and she glanced down. He was still holding her left hand though it was more like he was absently playing with it rather than the comforting gesture he offered earlier. ‘I didn’t use it,’ Rose explained, ‘well I knocked someone out with it, but I didn’t use it the conventional way’.

He let out a short huffed laugh and, after a grimace with pain, he said, ‘of course you did’. Smiling fondly he too glanced down at their hands. He turned them over and that’s when he noticed the slight skin discoloration of her palm, an oddly shaped patch of it was a minimally paler shade of pink. He frowned at it and lifted their hands higher so he could see it better. ‘This looks like a burn,’ he murmured as he studied it.

Rose was watching him a bit nervously but tried not to let it show. ‘One of them spat at me.’

His head shot up and his brow was even more furrowed. ‘Spat at you?’ His voice was full of disbelief. Rose nodded and he turned his attention back to her hand, rotating it slightly to see it differently under the glow of the bedside lamp. His face was all scrunched up as he asked, ‘what sort of spit does this?’

She shrugged. ‘He was the one I knocked out. He had terribly eggy breath though, some of those rooms stunk with it.’

‘Eggy breath,’ the Doctor said slowly as the puzzle pieces came together. ‘Yes, some I met had eggy breath too…sulphur…’ His tone changed as he said confidently, ‘it’s sulphuric acid’. Then his words hit home and his head shot up to her once more, ‘sulphuric acid!’ His eye darted all over her worriedly looking for more injuries from the acid. ‘Did it get you anywhere else?’ He asked urgently.

‘No Doctor I’m fine,’ she assured him with a squeeze of his hand. His eye stilled as it locked with hers. ‘Really, it’s fine.’ There were pieces of that story that she was forgoing but she did now feel fine. Whatever had happened earlier could wait because he had enough on his plate to deal with already. He didn’t need her adding to his worries and she was absolutely certain that he would worry. It’s just what he did, especially when it came to her.

He nodded and turned her hand over again. ‘It doesn’t look bad,’ he muttered as he studied it once more.

‘It’s not,’ Rose confirmed, her eyes trailing over his face which she still hadn’t finished cleaning yet. ‘Look, I’ll finish cleaning your face and then I think you should lie back down so the ice pack can sit on your black eye, it’ll be easier.’ She picked up the wet paper towel again and finished wiping away the rest of the blood. After chucking the paper away she pulled the duvet cover out from under him, being very mindful of his foot, and then helped him shuffle back down into a lying position. He hissed as the cold hit his black eye but found it soothing once he became accustomed to it. Rose then removed the now unfrozen veg from his other injuries and put them back in the freezer before returning to her room. ‘Do you think you’re gonna sleep?’ She asked as she put the duvet over him leaving his arms and left foot uncovered.

‘Don’t know,’ he mumbled and then sighed, ‘could go into a healing coma but it’s not bad enough for that’. He tilted his head a little to see her and added darkly, ‘and I’m not leaving you alone with them lot out there’.

Rose picked up his clothes and began to fold them. ‘Is that what you did after you regenerated?’ She asked as she folded his shirt. It was a strange juxtaposition to how she treated her own clothes; she’d even kicked a few t-shirts under the bed when they’d first arrived so he wouldn’t see them. He nodded as she glanced up then she cleared some space on the top of her dresser and put the shirt on there before picking up his jacket. She held it up, the back of the jacket facing her, and frowned. ‘Doctor, why does your jacket have…like scorch marks on it?’

‘Oh, electrified whip,’ he said calmly, brushing off the question as though she shouldn’t be worried about it. It didn’t ease Rose’s worries at all. She dropped the jacket onto the other pillow and climbed onto the bed, pulling some of the duvet away from the Doctor so she could lever him onto his left hand side. ‘Oh come on really?’ He whined as she manoeuvred him. ‘I just got comfortable.’ Rose could see the scorch marks on his white undershirt too and hastily lifted it up to see his back. ‘Ow, careful,’ he complained as the movements jostled his ribs. Apart from two red lines across his back where the whip had hit through his layers of clothing he was fine; she had been expecting serious burns but it didn’t look like he had been burnt at all. She traced a gentle finger across the lines and he shivered a little under her touch. The red marks weren't quite gashes but had he been wearing less layers or been hit harder they certainly would have been. ‘Well?’ He asked, his voice a little strained from the position he was being forced to lie in.

‘You’re fine,’ she said with disbelief. She lowered his undershirt and let him rest back on the bed. She shook her head at him. ‘How can you be fine?’

‘Just a bit of electricity,’ he said with a shrug and then grimaced because of it again. She continued to stare at him so he gave her a co*cky smirk and added, ‘Time Lord, remember?’ His words made her roll her eyes at him and helped to quash her previous worry which was exactly the effect he was hoping for. ‘Bit like the whip the Sycorax used, remember that?’ She nodded. ‘Except this was pure electricity, must have been - oooh at least two thousand volts because it really bloody hurt.’ This brought back her worried look. ‘I’m fine now though.’ He gave her a reassuring smile and after a moment she nodded and returned to folding his jacket and putting it with his shirt. She tried to hide her yawn but he spotted it. ‘You should get some sleep.’ She shook her head but yawned again. ‘It’s been around three days since you’ve slept properly, you’ve been running on adrenaline but now it’s wearing off. You need to sleep, Rose.’

She gave in after seeing his stern expression, got up from the bed and walked around to the other side. Spying the ice pack, which had fallen off of his eye and onto the floor when she moved him, she picked it up and grabbed the two mugs from the bedside table. ‘You want the rest of yours?’ She asked and he scrunched his nose up in disgust. ‘Do you want anything else?’

He shook his head. ‘No thank you.’

Rose drained the rest of his tea and left the room to return the mugs to the kitchen and the ice pack to the freezer. It was not an uncommon occurrence that Rose would finish the Doctor’s cold tea. He often became so fixated on something or other that he forgot about them and when he eventually remembered or found the mug sitting beside him it had gone cold and he didn’t like it cold. She didn’t care though, to her tea was tea and these days she regularly found herself being given a half drunk cuppa which she accepted without a qualm.

When Rose returned the Doctor said, ‘do you want me to sleep on the sofa?’

She frowned at him. ‘No. Why?’

‘Well, this is your bed,’ he said quite obviously.

‘Yeah, you’re welcome,’ she said, giving him a look like he was losing it before she added, ‘I’m gonna sleep on the sofa.’ She walked around to her dresser and started rifling through it looking for some pyjamas.

‘What about the spare room?’

She smirked and shook her head. ‘Not a thing anymore. Mum redecorated after the Christmas tree destroyed the place and decided she didn’t want the spare room. It was only Granddad Prentice who stayed there anyway and he’s gone now so…’ she trailed off with a shrug and yanked at an oversized shirt that had gotten trapped at the back of the drawers. When it was free she continued saying, ‘mum’s hobby room now. At the minute its yoga but I dunno how long that’s gonna last’. Rose glanced over at the Doctor and pointed at him threateningly. ‘And don’t you dare tell her I said that.’

He looked affronted that she would ever think such a thing of him. ‘Oh I wouldn’t. Cross my hearts.’

After she’d found a comfy pair of sleep shorts she started chuckling to herself. ‘Did you think that every time mum offered you the sofa that you weren’t worthy of the spare room or something?’

He pulled a bit of a face and said ‘welllllllll…’

As she walked back around, she shook her head fondly and then stopped by his side. ‘She loves you, you know. In her own way. Bit of a rocky start but…’ she shrugged again. The Doctor didn’t know what to say to that and Rose could tell, she just smiled at him warmly. ‘Ooh blankets,’ she said, the thought having just come to mind and she started rooting through her wardrobe looking for one.

‘I don’t want to kick you out of your room Rose,’ the Doctor murmured.

‘Well I’m not dragging you out of there and there’s nowhere else to go unless I join you in the bed.’ She continued rooting through the cupboard but stopped and looked back when he didn’t reply. ‘Do you want me to join you in the bed?’ She asked slowly, her heart hammering away in her chest.

He shrugged with his left shoulder and Rose continued to stare at him nervously. ‘Could be like a - a sleepover,’ he suggested after a moment.

‘A sleepover?’ She chuckled though it was a little nervously. She didn’t say anything else, she simply closed the cupboards and went to the bathroom to change and get ready for bed.

The Doctor was left unsure of her decision until she entered her bedroom and closed the door behind her. Rose then turned off the bedside lamp and walked around the bed to crawl onto the other side next to the Doctor. After she had shuffled around and gotten comfortable she looked over at him at the exact moment he’d turned his head to see her. It took about a second before they started giggling at each other. The Doctor cut his laughter short, grimacing and complaining it hurt again.

Rose shook her head fondly after her own laughter had died down and said, ‘idiot’.

‘Hey,’ he protested, ‘I will kick you out, I was here first’.

‘It’s not finders keepers when it’s my room, that’s not how it works mister,’ she pointed out.

‘Yeah well maybe it should,’ he muttered quietly.

This got another laugh from Rose. ‘Just shut up and try and sleep, Doctor.’

They gazed at each other for a moment until he gave her a soft smile as he said, ‘goodnight Rose’.

‘Goodnight Doctor,’ she whispered back. She turned onto her side, so her back was to him, and closed her eyes trying to get to sleep. She was incredibly tired but her mind was still whirring and half an hour later she was restless. Rose turned over onto her other side and gazed at him in the dim light of the room. She couldn’t tell if his eyes were closed because she couldn’t see his good one, though he wasn’t breathing deeply as though in sleep but that could have been because it was too painful for him to do so. It wasn’t long before she got her answer.

‘What?’ He mumbled, feeling her gaze.

‘Sorry.’ She blushed at having been caught and tore her eyes away, turning over to lie on her back. She heard him shuffle beside her as he tilted his head to look at her.

He sighed. ‘I can hear your brain working from here, what is it?’

She stayed quiet thinking about how to say it because it certainly wasn’t going to be an easy conversation for him. Eventually she slowly whispered, ‘you don’t have to answer I - I get it. I understand it’s just…’ she paused, plucking up the courage to ask and the Doctor swallowed. He tilted his head to look back at the ceiling already knowing what she was about to ask and dreading it. There was only one topic of conversation that would warrant such a build up but he so wanted to be wrong. He wasn’t. ‘What you said up there about Gallifrey,’ she began again, ‘about destroying it…what - what happened?’

He didn’t answer but he didn’t run, mainly because he physically couldn’t, but also because she had already given him some hope. She didn’t know the full story, of course she didn’t, but he’d unintentionally given her a vague gist of it and she had still saved him, still cared for him and even chose to sleep by his side. If that didn’t send a message to his thick head that Rose Tyler didn’t run then he didn’t know what would. It was a few minutes before he spoke. The tale he told in hushed tones easier to speak into the darkness, one could almost believe it was a scary story told to frighten you before bed. A tale to give you nightmares. The Doctor certainly knew about them. But it wasn’t just a tale to him, he’d lived through it and now he was going to relive it once more. ‘The Time War was the war to end all wars,’ he began. He heard Rose take a breath, clearly not expecting him to tell her, and to be honest he still wasn’t sure now but he kept going. ‘The Daleks and their allies versus the Time Lords and theirs. It had been going for over four hundred years linearly. Other worlds were obliterated, races became extinct and billions of galaxies were reduced to ruins. Four hundred years of death and destruction across all of time and space,’ he said bitterly. ‘I didn’t want to join. I even refused to. I was fighting my own battles against the Daleks but to fight against them as part of the war was different. Eventually I felt like I had to. I didn’t believe in it, I just wanted it to stop.’ Images of his previous self were flashing in front of his eyes. Grey, haggard and gun toting. He’d started out that war in a younger looking regeneration but it was certainly true what they say about war: it ages you. His next words came out more like one of his usual rambles though with a more sombre edge. He wanted to pace, to run his hands through his hair, to grip things hard, but he could do none of those things. The best he could do was to jiggle his right leg. It hardly helped. ‘The fight had come to Gallifrey and the Time Lords were losing. The Daleks had broken through the transduction barrier and had gotten past the sky trenches. They’d destroyed the city of Arcadia and their next target was the Capitol. They were going to win and no one wants Daleks with the power of Time, they’d wreak devastation across the rest of the universe until it was only them left. But Rassilon, the founder of the Time Lords and Lord President Eternal, had come up with a last resort to stop the Daleks called the Ultimate Sanction. This would create a paradox so destructive that the resulting spatial-temporal rupture would rip the time vortex apart. All of creation would be destroyed.’ He took as deep a breath as he could manage. He could tell her about the Daleks and the Time Lords, all of what they’d done, all of what they destroyed. They’d become as vengeful as each other in the end. But now it was time for his part, his starring role and his mouth felt very dry. ‘That’s when I made my choice. To save the universe. To save creation.’ He let out a shaky breath and stuttered, ‘I - I stole one of the Doomsday Weapons from the Omega Arsenal in the Time Vaults…and - and - and I-’ His throat was tight and he couldn’t get the words out. He’d revisited the moment in his head so many times and was forced to revisit it in his nightmares but not once had he talked of it out loud, never like this. All the guilt that he had tried to bury away was like a tsunami within him. It had been building and building throughout his tale but the wave was about to break and come crashing down. He heard Rose move beside him and wondered if she was getting up. Leaving him. But she wasn’t. She had turned towards him and shuffled closer, though not close enough to nudge his right arm. It was only when the gentle touch of her warm palm covered his right hand that he realised he was shaking. He swallowed thickly and whispered, ‘I killed them’. His eyes began to burn. ‘I - I used it,’ he choked out, ‘I killed them all’. Tears were trailing down his cheeks as he let out quiet sobs, his breaths coming in heaving gasps. ‘M - my - my family - I k- killed them.’ It was at this point that Rose pulled away. He brought his left arm up over his eyes as he cried, unable to hold back any longer and felt the mattress lift beside him. Rose had gotten out of bed. She was leaving him after all.

Two firm hands were on the left hand side of his body moving him towards the middle of the bed. Beside him the duvet lifted up and the bed sank down as she crawled in, her body already touching his in the small space she’d made for herself. She brought her left hand around the back of his head, her fingers splayed out in his hair stroking it softly. At the touch he lifted his arm from his eyes and rested it on her back. He held tightly onto her, her head resting just beneath his chin on his heaving chest. She shushed him and whispered comfort and apologies to him trying to calm him down. Along with her grounding weight and the strong scent of her vanilla, honey and citrus fragrance, it eventually worked. The pair fell asleep like that, holding onto one another, cherishing the comfort they each found in the embrace.

Chapter 30: Code Blue

Chapter Text

Neither spoke of what occurred overnight the next day which suited the Doctor just fine. He wouldn’t say he felt lighter; because that’s what people said wasn’t it, that you feel lighter after revealing such a heavy, emotional burden. He wasn’t sure what he felt. Perhaps on edge was the best way to describe it. It was as though he was waiting for the penny to drop and for Rose to realise that he was a murderer of billions and probably not worth knowing. Of course he could always hope that it wouldn’t but he wasn’t always a very hopeful man. The universe had taught him that lesson far too many times.

He had managed to sleep for four hours. He hadn’t particularly expected to but he was emotionally drained, healing injuries was tiring and Rose’s calm breathing as she slept was rather soothing. When Rose eventually awoke he’d already been awake for a few hours. They didn’t say much. She extracted herself from his side and mentioned that she was going for a shower after she had asked if he needed anything. Then she grabbed her things and left for the bathroom.

Overall he was feeling better than the previous day. Time Lords could heal a lot quicker than a human due to the temporal platelets within their bloodstream which had regenerative properties. The red lashings had faded from his back making him feel less sore and he was rather pleased that his right eye had begun to open as the swelling lessened. The cut above his eyebrow had faded too; there was just a slight mark where the wound had been and the yellow and greenish tinge to his skin from the bruising. His left hand and right shoulder were improving, by the following day he would probably regain the use of them without too much pain though his shoulder might take an extra day due to the severity. His foot hurt and he would be limping on it for a few days to come but what niggled him the most were his ribs. It was all well and good having a respiratory bypass but that didn’t help when every time his right lung inflated it irritated the cracked bones. Still, as everything healed the tension in his muscles from the pain faded which helped to make things like movement just that little bit easier.

The Doctor pushed himself up off the bed with his left arm and hobbled out into the hallway. This was apparently highly unacceptable behaviour according to Jackie Tyler who had heard him shuffling along. She looked up from the bag she was searching through on the dining table and gave him an unimpressed look.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ She asked, turning to face him with her hands on her hips.

‘Good morning Jackie,’ he sighed. He really didn’t want to be treated like an invalid. He’d let it happen yesterday because he was too exhausted and in pain to do anything else plus it had been Rose looking after him and he knew she wouldn’t have let him refuse her help. But he didn’t need Jackie mothering him. He appreciated her concern but he was still capable of doing things for himself even if they would take a bit longer than he was used to.

‘It’s only just still morning,’ she commented as she followed him as he made his way into the kitchen. ‘You should still be in bed.’

He leant against the counter by the fridge, ducking down so he could find what he was looking for inside. ‘I’m fine,’ he grumbled as he pulled out a jar of jam that was about a quarter full and closed the door again. He was studying it for a moment, wondering how best to open it with just one hand, when Jackie took it from him. She opened it, pulled out a spoon from the cutlery drawer and stuck it in the jar before handing it back to him.

‘You’re lucky I’ve bought more jam,’ she told him before giving him a warning look as she said, ‘and you still owe me a jar for that one I gave you after you stuck your fingers in it’.

He rolled his eyes as he passed her to go back into the living room. ‘Yes. Fine.’ He didn’t think she had caught his eye roll but of course she had.

‘Don’t you roll your eyes at me,’ she threatened, ‘you might be sick but that doesn’t mean you can get away with it’. He lowered himself onto the sofa and Jackie looked down at her watch before crying out, ‘oh now I’m going to be late’. She moved back to the bag on the table and double checked its contents one last time as she explained, ‘I’ve got some hair appointments so I’ll be out for a few hours’. She picked up the bag, which contained her hairdressing equipment, and hauled it over her shoulder. ‘Try not to burn the house down this time,’ she said, giving him a look again.

‘It was only a bit of smoke,’ he complained around a spoon of jam.

Now it was her turn to roll her eyes at him. ‘Right, I’ll see you later,’ she said as she started down the hall.

The Doctor hummed, his mouth full of jam again and then quickly swallowed and called out to her. She reversed back and poked her head through the archway. ‘Don’t go anywhere near the Tardis,’ he warned, eying her seriously. ‘In fact don’t go through the middle of the estate if you can.’

She shook her head at him. ‘What is happening out there?’ She asked softly.

‘It’ll take too long to explain, just be careful and stay away from men in black army uniforms.’

Jackie looked at him for a moment, heeding his words and taking in his stern expression. ‘I want to hear this story when I get back,’ she said determinedly before adding, ‘you will still be here won’t you?’

He nodded. ‘Oh yeah, not getting rid of us that easy.’

It wasn’t long after Jackie left that Rose came out of the bathroom. Her hair was still damp but she had put it up into two French braids and was wearing an oversized purple jumper with a pair of denim shorts over black tights. She wasn’t surprised to see the Doctor in the living room having heard him and her mum arguing as they normally did. He had forgotten about the spoon by the time she entered the room and she shook her head at him fondly as he dove into the jar with his fingers to get the last remnants of jam.

‘What?’ he complained as she shook her head at him.

‘Nothing,’ she said in a chirpy voice and went into the kitchen to search for some breakfast. She had woken up in a rather chipper mood. Of course not everything was good. She was still worried about the Doctor, the Tardis and whoever those aliens were but she wasn’t letting them dampen her spirits too much. Rose’s happiness mainly stemmed from the relief that the Doctor was back and she was rather chuffed that she had a successful rescue mission under her belt to get him back. Things got a little hairy at one point but it was never going to be real straightforward. They never turned out to be so simple when she and the Doctor were involved. Another thing that was buoying her mood was how she had awoken. Of course the reason they were positioned like that wasn’t good but still being wrapped up by him as she lay half on his chest had been a very pleasant way of waking up. She felt like such a teenager with their first crush gushing over him as she was. It was different hugging him lying down, and then waking up the same way, than it was whenever they embraced standing. It was somehow closer and more intimate. And speaking of intimacy she had finally let herself think of what had happened on the Tardis. Or what nearly happened rather. He had been about to kiss her. His movements and then the look in his eyes as he looked back from her lips and into her hazel ones. He had definitely been about to kiss her. Then those damned aliens had ruined it.

After she had eaten breakfast, and gotten some actual food into the Doctor as well, he began discussions on what they knew about the aliens. ‘Did you manage to glean anything about them whilst you were up there? Apart from the sulphuric acid spit, though that does help narrow down who they are by quite a bit anyway.’ He took a breath and Rose opened her mouth to tell him what she knew but he was apparently not finished. ‘All I know is that they steal and illegally trade ships, probably people too and that they can shapeshift.’

He glanced over at her awaiting her input and Rose stopped sipping at her tea. ‘Shapeshifters? I was guessing maybe it was a Shimmer they were using. Why is it shapeshifting?’

‘Because,’ he said with a resigned sigh, ‘one of them turned into you’.

Her eyebrows flew upwards. ‘Me?’ She said, even pointing at herself as though he could’ve gotten confused over such things. He nodded and a small wave of guilt flashed over his features before he hid it away again. ‘That’s why you wanted me to confirm who I was,’ she said slowly as she figured out his strange behaviour up in that cell. Then she frowned and asked, ‘but how could they be me if they hadn't even seen me?’

‘That’s the thing. They had,’ he admitted. Rose continued to stare at him in confusion until the Doctor added, ‘they saw one of the photos I had of you in my jacket’.

Rose nodded in understanding and took another sip of her tea before swallowing it so quickly she nearly choked in her haste to say, ‘one of?’ Her eyebrows were raised suggestively and when he quickly looked away with a faint pink glow on his cheeks a playful smile broke out over her face. He glanced back after a moment and saw the look she wore, he grumpily told her to shut up which made her laugh at him. ‘What? I’m not saying anything,’ she teased as she chuckled.

He rambled on a little flustered, trying to explain himself as Rose looked at him with that glint in her eye. ‘Look, the only reason why I had them was because we’d just taken that one of you on the Tardis and that’s the one they found and used to pretend to be you. And the other…’ he paused for a second before awkwardly saying, ‘well, you know - transdimensional tailoring - put stuff in pockets and forget about it’. When her teasing look still hadn’t ceased his mind thankfully gave him another point of contention. ‘And - and when you went wandering off on Drava-Five,’ he began energetically, raising his eyebrow at her as though he was making an excellent point as to why it was reasonable for him to carry a photo of her, ‘I showed that photo to these people asking “have you seen this woman?” and they said “oh yeah, she’s the one who’s mad enough, no, crazy enough, no, bonkers enough to go jumping into a bloody sinkhole!”’ He put on a funny voice as he did his imitation and he was beaming as she giggled at him. ‘And then I said “oh yeah, that sounds like my Rose Tyler, off her rocker that one”’.

‘Shut up,’ she laughed and hit him gently on his left arm. Once the laughter had faded she quietly asked, ‘can I see it?’

He nodded. ‘If you get my jacket.’ Rose did just that and passed it to him as she returned to her seat by the arm of the sofa. He went into his breast pocket first and said, ‘here’s the one of you in your pink dress’. He passed her the Polaroid and went rooting through his inner pockets until he caught a hold of the other photograph.

Rose took the second proffered photo and drew in a breath at what she saw. Her first Doctor. He was smiling and laughing with her as they sat side by side on a wall somewhere. She couldn’t remember where. They had been to so many different places. She could hear his laughter in her mind as she gazed at him a little longingly. She did miss him. The man sitting beside her was still the same man in the photo but they were also so different. Sometimes though she could see her first Doctor shining through, whether it was something he said or did, and it both saddened and warmed her at the same time. Rose glanced up at the Time Lord beside her who was watching her with a soft gaze. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen this one before,’ she said quietly.

‘No,’ he gently shook his head, ‘Jack gave it to me’.

She looked back at the photo for another moment before saying, ‘we should go and see him again’.

The Doctor swallowed and awkwardly said, ‘yeah...at some point…maybe. Probably busy though - rebuilding and whatnot’. He took a breath and quickly changed the topic. ‘So you never did finish telling me about what you found out up there...’

Withdrawing her gaze from the Polaroid she shook her head a little to get rid of her wistful thoughts and instead turned to her memories of the aliens. ‘I think I saw them in their natural forms because I saw them all still in their uniforms but they weren’t human anymore.’ His eyebrows rose at her words and she could tell what he was thinking so added, ‘I had to go through their sleeping quarters to get to you but don’t worry about it, it turned out fine’. He didn’t look at all pleased about this revelation but she continued on. ‘Anyway they had long tails, real long tails,’ she emphasised, her eyes growing wide as she spoke. ‘And translucent skin, that’s how I dodged most of the spit because I could see it bubbling in him.’ The Doctor had gotten over his worry and was now looking at her with an expression of intrigue. Rose frowned as she tried her best to work out how to describe their looks. ‘They sort of had gecko - lizard heads with little horns…’ she trailed off, wanting to give a better description to him and then a thought came to mind, ‘I could draw them, that would be easier’. She got up in search of paper and pencils before he could say anything about her idea. It wasn’t long before she returned with an old sketchbook and set of HB pencils that she’d stored under her bed. She set the book on the dining table and sat there sketching out an image of the alien as best as she remembered.

The Doctor levered himself off the sofa and limped to the dining table to watch over her shoulder as she drew. ‘I never knew you could draw,’ he said, rather impressed at her ability.

She shrugged. ‘Did GCSE Art, was gonna do it at A Level too but never did them.’

‘Oh you would’ve been top of the class,’ he said with such certainty in his voice that Rose turned round.

She stared at him with wide eyes as she quietly asked, ‘you really think so?’

‘Definitely,’ he said as he nodded fiercely. ‘Just look at this.’ He gestured towards her drawing as he continued complimenting her work. ‘It looks exactly like a - a - well I’m not entirely sure what they are but I’m certain that it captures their exact likeness.’ Rose rolled her eyes at him, not quite believing he wasn’t teasing, and went back to finishing her sketch. He slowly pulled out the chair next to her and sat down. ‘It really is very good, Rose,’ he told her softly and gave her a small smile to go with his words. This time she believed him.

‘Thank you,’ she said, sliding the picture across the table to him.

He looked down at it, nodding as he took in a breath before saying, ‘right’. If he had the Tardis he could go through the libraries searching for aliens who had a similar likeness or at least look for some who could shapeshift and spit acid. Of course that was made impossible by said aliens guarding his police box. So what was the best alternative? Couldn’t go to a regular library they wouldn’t have books on aliens. Well they did, though the ones that actually correctly described a few species were fictional and the authors probably had no idea how close they had gotten to the truth. Most of them didn’t anyway. Then he remembered what Rose had said about finding him on the internet after their initial introduction at Henriks. It was a possibility that someone somewhere had seen them before and uploaded that information online. Though that only gave him a small window, around thirty years of information, and that might not be enough of a time frame. Still, it was the best shot they had. ‘Have you got a computer?’

Rose was absently gazing at him as he thought, her elbow on the table and her cheek resting in her hand. ‘No we don’t,’ she answered with a shake of her head. The Doctor deflated a little. ‘Ooh but Mickey’s got a laptop,’ she said eagerly, sitting up straight once more. ‘I’ve still got the key to his place, I could go get it?’

He studied her for a moment. Jackie could get away with going outside; the aliens should have no interest in her. Rose, on the other hand, could be recognised by all those who had seen her photograph. The laptop would be very helpful though. He sighed and looked at her seriously. ‘Don’t go through the middle of the estate, stick to the outskirts and don’t let any of them see your face.’

Rose gave him a reassuring smile and patted his left arm. ‘I know, Doctor.’ She got up and looked through the bowl of keys that they had on the side to find the one to Mickey’s old flat. After she had found it she went through to her bedroom and stepped back into the living room a minute later. ‘This a good enough disguise for you?’

He turned in his chair to see her tying the laces of her pink chucks. She had accessorised her outfit with a navy baseball cap, which had belonged to her dad, and a pair of aviator sunglasses. The Doctor chuckled softly at her “disguise”. Once she had tied her shoes she straightened up and looked at him expectantly. He frowned at her. ‘Sorry, who are you? I’m the Doctor by the way, nice to meet you,’ he finished with a pleasant smile.

‘Shut up you goon,’ she giggled then turned and headed for the door. ‘Right, won’t be long.’

‘Be careful,’ he warned.

‘I will,’ she called back. The trip didn’t take her long, Mickey’s flat was only in the next building over and she was soon opening up the door to her mum’s flat with the laptop under her arm. ‘Got it,’ she announced as she closed the door behind her. The Doctor had appeared in the hallway as she turned back, his eyes were wide and he was giving her a manic grin.

‘Oh, Rose Tyler, you beautiful human being!’ He proclaimed, taking the laptop with his right hand and hobbling over to the dining table with it.

Her own triumphant smile faded into one of suspicion. ‘What have you done?’ She asked as she followed him, her head darting about to see what damage he had caused or whatever else he could have possibly done in the ten minutes she was gone.

‘Me?’ he cried out. He set the laptop down on the table, opened it and turned it on. Shaking his head he continued, ‘no, no, no, this was all you’. He flashed her another manic grin as he sat down, his right leg bouncing under the table as he impatiently waited for the laptop to boot up.

‘Fine, what have I done then?’ she said with exasperation and sat down beside him having not noticed anything blatantly wrong in the flat.

He was still grinning wildly as he spelled out his thoughts to her. ‘You said laptop. You said Mr. Mickey’s laptop. The same Mickey who has done a bit of hacking in the past. The same Mickey who hacked into UNIT and sent a missile to Downing Street.’ The Doctor watched her eagerly, waiting for her to understand where he was going with this. Rose, however, was giving him a blank look. After a moment he sighed and the manic look lessened a little. ‘Come on Rose keep up,’ he complained before announcing, ‘we’re going to hack into UNIT’.

A look of realisation came over her face and she asked, ‘to find out who those aliens are?’

He beamed at her, pleased she had finally caught up with him. ‘There we go,’ he said triumphantly and began to type away on the laptop with his right hand. He found the UNIT website and used the “buffalo” password whenever the site requested it.

Whilst he searched Rose remembered something that she had wanted to ask him that had come to mind during her brief trip out. ‘You know earlier when you said what they did and you said about trading people, do you think there were more people onboard? People all locked up like you were?’ She watched him, waiting for her answer, and noticed him glance at her out of the corner of his eye but he didn’t give one, choosing to continue searching through the databases on the website instead. She started chewing on her thumbnail as she thought about the possibility because it didn’t cross her mind at the time. Her mind was on one singular thing and that was the Doctor. She could have walked past plenty of rooms with poor, injured people locked up within them, all sitting there hoping for their own rescue that was never going to come. Had she thought about it, maybe she could have helped them too. She wasn’t quite sure how that would have worked; it had been tricky enough trying to stay hidden as she went in search of the Doctor. Plus had they all been badly injured like he had been then that would have made escaping even harder. But if they were all badly injured then there was no way that they would have been able to escape by themselves. They needed someone and it could have been her. Rose’s spiralling thoughts only stopped when the Doctor gently leant his left hand on her arm, lowering her gnawed thumb away from her mouth.

He stared into her hazel eyes as he softly said, ‘I don’t know if there were others on board. It’s a possibility. I’m not the only being out there that would be considered rare and highly lucrative by their standards so we certainly can’t rule it out. But don’t worry about what we don’t know because it again might have just been me. And please don’t beat yourself up about it either.’ He gazed at her imploringly, hoping she would heed his words.

She shook her head and, with a voice full of remorse, said, ‘but I could've helped them. I could’ve gotten them out of there’.

As Rose looked back at him, with an expression filled with sorrow and regret, the Doctor sighed. He put his left arm around her and tugged her into him, her head came to rest beneath his chin and he placed a kiss into her hair as he tried to comfort her. Her own arms came to rest around his waist as she leant into his embrace. ‘I know you Rose Tyler. You’re the most compassionate human I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet,’ he mumbled into her hair. ‘You’re always looking out for others, always trying to help them and always trying to save them no matter what. I love that you continually care so much and that you want to do the right thing but we don’t know if these people exist yet. Don’t feel guilty about what might not be.’ He paused when he heard her sniffle and tugged her even closer, pressing another kiss into her golden hair. ‘And - and,’ he continued, ‘if it turns out that there are people up there, rescuing them was not your responsibility. You had your own priorities which included keeping yourself safe from harm. One of them spotted you in the time it took for you to find me; it could have been more had you spent your time rescuing others as well. That’s not selfish, that’s just common sense because if you got caught then there would be no one left to do all that rescuing that you want to do. And we will find out if there are people on that ship and we will help them. I don’t know how yet but I’m working on it, okay?’ She sniffed again and nodded into his chest. He sighed gently and rested his head on hers for a moment before he murmured, ‘do you want to hear some good news?’ He felt her nod again and he revealed, ‘I think I’ve found them in the database’.

The Doctor let her pull away from him and she looked up at him, her eyes still shiny but now looking hopeful. ‘Really?’

He nodded his head towards the laptop and they both turned their attention to it. ‘The thirteenth of January 1969,’ he began to read, ‘a star fell out of the sky and crashed in a field just outside of Wilmslow, Cheshire. Records state sightings of bipedal lizard people with translucent skin who caused havoc in the market town by imitating and becoming the body double of some who lived there’. He looked over at Rose with a pleased grin. ‘That very much sounds to me like shapeshifting and they’re described just how you’ve drawn them.’

The spark was back in Rose’s eye as she asked, ‘so who are they then? What happened to them afterwards?’

He beamed at her, glad she was cheering up and that her mind was back in the investigation once more. ‘Well let’s scroll down and find out.’ They both looked at the screen eagerly as the Doctor began to dive deeper into the document. Just as he did so the phone rang.

Rose sighed a little but got up to answer it as the Doctor continued reading. ‘Hello,’ she said into the handset.

Hello. Am I speaking to a Miss Rose Tyler?

The voice that replied had an accent that was rather posh compared to Rose’s and sounded to her like an elderly gentleman. ‘Who is this?’ She asked politely.

My name is Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Could you pass me on to the Doctor please? I would rather like a word.

Her heart began to race. The only thought going through her mind was that the aliens had found him because who else would know he was there? The aliens had been wearing army uniforms and a Brigadier was an army title too so it was all adding up in her head. Why they had decided to call instead of bursting into the flat she had no idea but that wasn’t at the forefront of her mind as she panicked about losing the Doctor again. ‘The Doctor?’ she began to question a little defensively. The man himself looked over his shoulder at her with a frown wondering what was going on. ‘Who are you? What do you want with him?’

At the panic in Rose’s voice he got up and took the phone from her, gently holding it in his left hand. He put it up to his ear as Rose stood next to him wearing a worried expression as she chewed at her thumb nail once more. ‘Speaking,’ he said into the handset.

Ah Doctor, it’s the Brigadier.

He was taken aback for a moment. ‘The Brigadier?’ He questioned, his voice full of disbelief. He didn’t give the other man a chance to reply as he quickly carried on, his voice going up a pitch in his shock. ‘Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart? Blimey it’s been years, well more for me than it’s been for you, but it’s been years…’ The Doctor had a wistful smile on his face and at his tone Rose had begun to calm down and looked up at him more with intrigue than worry. The Doctor frowned as a thought came to him. ‘Hang on, how did you get this number? How do you know where I am?’

You’re the only one who uses that buffalo password, Doctor.

The Doctor slowly nodded. ‘Right,’ he breathed as what the Brigadier was inferring sunk in.

After your stunt at Downing Street the security protocols have changed and that password has been monitored.

‘Set off the little Code Blue did it? Sent an alert to my minder?’ He taunted, annoyed that UNIT had purposefully retained the previous password just to keep tabs on him.

Not as such. It was in the best interest of UNIT that a similar situation didn’t arise again.

A huff of laughter escaped him. ‘A similar situation couldn’t arise again,’ he retorted. ‘We’d all be dead and the Slitheen would have taken over the planet if I hadn't stopped them.’

And we are very much in your debt as always…I didn’t call to quarrel with you, Doctor.

‘No?’ he said, his tone still laced with annoyance,

I wanted to inquire as to why you are reading about the 1969 incident involving the Drakkads.

The Doctor sighed and began a hobbled pace around the living room. Truthfully he wasn’t in a position to bargain with these apparent Drakkads and he was certainly not physically fit enough to go on a rampage, making demands to get his ship back. He wasn’t sure what else he could do, not at the moment anyway, but the Brigadier’s call had given him an idea. It would involve UNIT which he wasn’t best pleased about but the Drakkads were clearly very hostile themselves, though he didn’t want the situation to escalate to violence. But he knew the Brigadier wasn’t as gung ho as he was when they first met so perhaps it would work. In any case, it was currently his best shot. ‘Could I ask you a favour?’

Of course.

‘Could you gather a team that would be up for some undercover infiltration?’ He explained the entire situation to the Brigadier, though he excluded the part about his capture. The plan he proposed was for the UNIT officers to dress just as the Drakkads were and to teleport onto the ship. They would quietly round up and capture all of the Drakkads, hopefully causing as little fuss as possible, and also search the ship for other hostages.

I could have a team ready for you by tomorrow.

The Doctor sighed. ‘That’s the earliest you’ve got?’

We can be with you by o-eight-hundred hours.

‘Well I’ll take it I guess,’ he said, disappointed that it wouldn’t all get sorted out until the next day. ‘Probably best not to meet here otherwise the ones on the ground will get suspicious. Erm…’ He trailed off thinking of a possible location where they could convene. He stopped his pacing and turned to Rose. Lowering the phone a little he asked, ‘what’s the name of that nearby park?’

‘Brockwell?’ she answered immediately, having been following the Doctor’s every word and catching most of the conversation from the other end too.

He nodded at her in thanks and relayed the name to the Brigadier. They soon rang off, having finalised their plans, and the Doctor put the phone down on the dining table. He absently gazed at Rose as he went through the plan in his head again and what he would have to do to prepare for it the next day.

Her mind was elsewhere too but when her eyes trailed downwards and saw the dark bruising on the Doctor’s injured foot she came back to reality. She walked towards him and took his left arm, dragging him over to his now usual seat in the middle of the sofa. She gently sat him down and lifted his leg to put his foot on the coffee table with a cushion under it. At his unhappy expression she gave him a stern look back. ‘You’re still healing, you need to rest.’

‘I need to do things for tomorrow,’ he retorted.

‘Well, you can do them sitting down,’ she told him as she leant into her hip, the beginning of her no nonsense pose. When he looked like he was about to complain again she said, ‘if you want to go up there like you said you do then you need to be fit enough to do so. There’s no point in making it worse’. The look on his face changed to one that suggested he was begrudgingly admitting that Rose was right. A small smile crossed her face and she asked, ‘what do you need?’

He sighed in resignation. ‘My screwdriver, glasses and that teleport please.’ She collected and passed him all three items plus a banana. He perked up after that.

Chapter 31: Greyhounds On A Spaceship

Chapter Text

When Jackie returned late afternoon she sat the pair down demanding an explanation as to what was happening. They provided a watered down version of events that somehow came out rather succinctly seeing as they hadn’t conferred beforehand as to what and what shouldn’t be included in the tale. They bounced off one another and both failed to mention the Doctor’s capture and Rose’s rescue mission as those details would worry Jackie too much. She didn’t show signs of not believing them or of knowing that they hadn’t told the whole truth, but the way that she had been constantly pottering around the flat afterwards told them she was certainly worried about the situation. The Doctor felt guilty about her agitation because he was the reason for it. It was his ship that the Drakkads were after and if he hadn’t been fiddling with the shields then they wouldn’t have found her at the Powell Estate. But they had and once again his presence was endangering the Tyler’s.

The Doctor had just finished his project on the teleporter when Jackie had arrived back. He had found a tracking mechanism within the device after he dismantled it so he promptly removed that part even though Rose had disabled its function. It was better to be safe than sorry and he was already putting them through enough danger. He traced the coordinates that were locked onto the weapons locker, as Rose had called it, on the ship, saving them onto his sonic so they could be easily transferred to the teleports the Brigadier and his taskforce were bringing with them the following day as per his request.

Jackie’s agitation eventually wore her out when night fell on the estate and she left for bed after giving both Rose and a highly surprised Doctor a squeeze. His eyes were wide as he glanced at Rose after Jackie had let him go and was retreating to her room. She mouthed “she loves you” at him and gave him a telling look. He rolled his eyes back at her but was secretly pleased. He’d never admit such things to Jackie of course but he had begun to feel a bit like one of the family. She had accepted him and he could never tell her how much that meant for many reasons including simply not knowing how to put it into words. Such a thing was highly unusual for the Doctor, especially with the gob of his current regeneration. Telling her would also be incredibly embarrassing for him and he could imagine her reaction in his mind already. He hadn’t felt feelings like these in such a long, long time.

Rose had briefly returned to her room, after Jackie had gone to bed, and came back with her sketchbook and pencils again. She sat at the dining table drawing away as the Doctor scanned through the UNIT database, something which he had already done a few times over the course of the evening. He was reading up on all the information that they had about the Drakkads. He also found files on alien groups of people traffickers and shipjackers because the Drakkads UNIT had met in 1969 were certainly unlike the ones he and Rose had the misfortune of meeting. He sighed when he’d finished his reading once more. Like Jackie he too was agitated about the situation. He glanced at Rose and set the laptop on the coffee table before getting up to see what she was drawing. Peering over her shoulder he saw her adding the finishing touches to what was a very detailed sketch. His eyes were darting all over the page and growing wide with astonishment at the intricacies of it.

‘It’s a floor plan of the spaceship,’ she told him. She hadn’t looked up at all, she had just felt his presence behind her.

The Doctor could already tell what it was. He hadn’t seen the rest of the ship, having had that black sack shoved over his head, but he had walked some of the corridors and got a brief glimpse of the one outside of his cell during his failed escape attempt. What astonished him was how well Rose could replicate it. ‘I never knew you had an eidetic memory.’ She glanced up from labelling the final rooms that she knew of with a confused look so he rephrased his words. ‘Photographic memory.’

‘Oh,’ she said as his meaning dawned on her, then she chuckled softly. Shaking her head she turned back to finish the labels as she said, ‘I don’t I just looked at the plans so many times in the Tardis that it kind of got stuck and then I was memorising multiple routes to try and get to you in case I couldn’t go one way for whatever reason. I didn’t want to be up there walking around blind. That’s why I thought I’d do this so the UNIT team can see what they’re heading into’.

He rested his left hand on her shoulder, his fingers only aching duly now, and enthusiastically said, ‘you are brilliant Rose, absolutely brilliant’. As she looked back at him with a slightly shy but pleased look he grinned widely at her because she was brilliant. He hadn’t thought about such a thing and had certainly never prompted her to do so. It was pure Rose Tyler genius and he was in awe.

They spent some time afterwards discussing the layout and what Rose remembered of the Drakkads movement patterns on board. She told him of the routes she had memorised, of the deadlocked door, which she had helpfully labelled, and of the route she had finally taken to find him. Rose had been rubbing her eyes and beginning to yawn during the last fifteen minutes of their discussion and the Doctor told her to go and get some sleep so she was well rested for the events of the following day. She could tell that he himself was feeling restless; he hadn’t sat down once as they talked and had paced a little behind her as she spoke about the ship. She knew he would just get back up again if she sat him down on the sofa so instead she told him not to wear through the carpet before bidding him goodnight and heading to bed.

After Rose had departed he took the time to memorise the floor plan himself then began running through the plan once again. He was certainly not heeding Rose’s warning about the carpet when his mind became stuck on running through the possibilities of what could happen if things went wrong. Firstly the Drakkads could somehow already know about the plan to infiltrate the ship. He really wasn’t sure how that would be a possibility but it couldn’t be ruled out. Then they could see through the disguises of the UNIT team, now this was a possibility that could prove incredibly problematic. The Drakkads could have a telepathic hivemind a bit like the Time Lords for all he knew so they would be able to figure it out rather quickly when they were unable to connect telepathically to a UNIT officer in disguise. As he knew they tended to be rather hostile and he really didn’t wish the treatment he had received on any of the officers, even more so because he was the sole reason that they would be boarding the ship and attempting to capture the aliens. If things did get hostile he really didn’t want to be starting a war either. He had no idea what their capabilities were but he was certain that UNIT would react to violence with violence. And if it did come to that he hoped that the estate wouldn’t become mixed up in the mess. He should probably try and send Jackie away somewhere for the day just to ensure she was safe. Really he wanted to clear the estate just in case things did come to a head but a mass evacuation would certainly look suspicious and would blow their cover.

As he was thinking of all these dark possibilities he found himself standing in the doorway of Rose’s bedroom. He had opened the door and had been standing, watching her as she slept. He didn’t remember making the decision to do so or recall changing his pacing steps towards her bedroom. He knew why he was there though. He found her presence soothing and calming and she had long since become the balm to his whirring mind. He should have gone, closed the door again and left her to her slumber. He did close the door but then he walked around her bed to the other side. It was there where he hesitated. There was no need for him to be in her bed like the previous night. Well, need wasn’t the word, Rose had insisted that he stayed and he had invited her to join him. Where that apparent boldness had come from he had no idea but it had worked and she had calmed him after his emotional outburst more quickly than he would have imagined. It wasn’t that same desperation that had brought him to her this time but he still wanted to be by her side to attempt to slow his racing thoughts. It was no use going over everything again and again and the longer he thought about it the more the terrible possibilities ate at him. He took a deep breath and gently pulled back the covers and began to climb in. The mattress lowered beneath him as he moved with slow, careful movements trying not to wake her. Unluckily she had been in her REM cycle so her sleep was light and easily disturbed. He should have thought about that beforehand but his mind was too wrapped up with everything else that he hadn’t taken note.

‘Doctor?’ She asked groggily, her eyes lazily blinking open as she lifted her head from her pillow to see his familiar outline in the dim light of the bedroom.

He was still and a wave of guilt flashed over him. ‘Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you.’

‘S’alright,’ she mumbled. She turned to her side so she could face him as he sat awkwardly in the bed. She rubbed her eye and a thought came to her. ‘Wait, so you were just trying to sneak into my bed without me knowing?’

He could hear the teasing tone in her voice but he read into her words and felt even worse. He fought with the duvet as he tried to leave the bed. ‘Sorry, erm that’s - that’s weird - I shouldn’t have, I - I didn’t think.’ He stumbled through his excuses internally berating himself for being selfish and not considering that this was Rose and it was her bed and her room and he had no place being there. Idiot.

She sighed and sat up, her hair a mess as it always was after sleep. ‘Doctor, stop.’

The duvet finally relinquished its tangling grip around him and he moved it aside, hanging his legs off the edge of the bed preparing to stand. ‘No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-’ He cut off his continued apologies as Rose reached out and grasped his left arm.

‘Stop,’ she pleaded and this time he did. Her grasp loosened before slipping away. ‘You can stay if you want,’ she told him quietly. When he neither moved nor spoke she took a deep breath and shyly said, ‘I - I want you to stay’.

He swallowed. He thought of the doubts that had been slowly dwindling throughout the day. She hadn’t been distant with him since his confession the previous night, though perhaps that was just how he processed things. She hadn’t acted any differently towards him either, their chats were still full of teasing and banter and she’d accepted his earlier offer of comfort. Now here she was asking him to stay. She wanted him to stay. He had confessed his deepest and darkest secret to her, practically laying his soul bare because a lot of himself these days was still haunted by his actions, still guilt ridden and still angry. Yet she had carried on as though it had never happened, as though he had only dreamt about telling her. Only he knew he hadn’t. Adding up all the evidence from the day it looked to him as though she had accepted it. Accepted him. He was the man with the bloodiest hands in the universe and she wanted him to stay.

He took a breath, his back still to her as he said, ‘you aren’t going to leave me are you’. It was a statement rather than a question that quietly left his lips. He couldn’t begin to understand her decision but it was not his decision to make.

‘Leave you?’ She questioned. He silently nodded and Rose stared at the silhouetted Time Lord before her with confusion.

‘Because of what I said,’ he added as an explanation. He took a slightly shaky breath before saying, ‘about Gallifrey’.

Her eyes grew wide. ‘No,’ she said adamantly, ‘I’m not leaving you, Doctor, I’m never gonna leave you, especially not because of that’.

A huff of laughter escaped his lips. ‘I thought it might drive you away,’ he admitted. He heard her sigh behind him before he felt the touch of her warm hand on his arm again. Her thumb brushed through the hair on his arm as she gently caressed him. It was only when his head turned to glance down at her hand that she spoke once more.

‘Come here, get back in,’ she said softly. He shifted slightly and she removed her hand so he could shuffle into a comfortable position beside her. She slid down so she was lying on her back again and he copied her. She spent a moment getting the words right in her head before telling them to the Doctor because it was more important to get them right with the gravitas of the topic of conversation. When she felt like they were the best she could do, she never particularly felt a skill for words, she turned onto her side to face him. His face was half in shadow but the other half was brightened by the moon shining through her pink sheer curtains. She thought it suited him, who he was as a person, a man hidden in shadow brought to life by the wonders of the universe. She gently laid a hand on his shoulder and he tilted his head to her. Rose took a deep breath then began to speak. ‘I can’t begin to imagine anything that you went through in the Time War and I’m sorry that it happened, that it ended the way it did and that you had to be the one to end it,’ she said softly. His face was harder to read now it was shrouded in the darkness of the room as he faced her. He looked almost impassive but she could tell he was listening, hanging off every word she spoke into the quiet of the night. ‘Like you said you did it for the universe, for all of creation but that still didn’t mean it was an easy choice. If there was another way I know you would have found it…but there wasn’t…you did what you had to because no one else was there to do it…’ She trailed off unsure of what else to say, unsure if he had wanted her to talk about it at all and the silence enveloped them.

The Doctor tilted his head down so his cheek rested on the back of Rose’s hand that lay on his shoulder. He didn’t have the words to express how he was feeling because although he could generally talk a mile a minute he struggled with expressing his deeper feelings and his emotions. Rose’s left hand reached out and cupped his other cheek, her thumb gently rubbing over the stubble he hadn’t been able to get rid of since being cooped up at the Tyler’s without his Tardis. He could see her face in the moonlight, her soft smile and that look in her eyes. It wasn’t pity; he didn’t need nor want pity. It was understanding. She understood the reasons and seemed to grasp how he felt about it all too. He lifted his head and raised his left arm across the bed towards her wordlessly inviting her into a hug. She removed her hands from his face and shoulder and shuffled closer. The Doctor pulled her in so that they were in the same position as the previous night, his arm around her back and her head just beneath his chin lying over the top of his left heart. This time her hand came up and instead of it resting in his hair she laid it over his right heart. Both were beating a little too quickly given that he was just lying down but it didn’t take long for them to calm now that Rose had accepted his invitation. He leaned forward to place a kiss into her golden hair and mumbled a word of thanks for which she replied by gently brushing her hand across his chest. They didn’t speak for the rest of the night and it wasn’t long before Rose fell asleep right where she was. This time the Doctor didn’t, he lay there listening to her slow, deep breaths, his mind no longer racing as he focused on her breathing, her grounding weight upon him and her comforting fragrance. For a man who claimed he struggled to sit still he found it remarkably easy to do so when it came to lying down with Rose Tyler by his side.

**********

The next morning he awoke Rose at seven telling her she had an hour before they needed to be at Brockwell Park; she didn’t seem too happy about this arrangement. She shook her head where it lay on his chest and mumbled something about being comfortable. The Doctor smiled to himself and thought that despite having been lying in that position for the last four hours he wouldn’t mind lying as they were for a bit longer too. Sadly he knew he couldn’t and a grumbling Rose was soon in the kitchen getting herself some breakfast whilst he showered and changed back into his shirt and suit jacket. Both bore scorch marks on the back and one side of his jacket was ripped and his shirt collar was a little bloody but they were the best he had. He didn’t bother with the sling and returned it to the first aid box in the kitchen after giving Rose some assurance that he would be fine without it now.

Like daughter like mother Jackie refused to leave when he asked her to for her own safety. She was very adamant about staying in the flat where she could know what was going on and be nearer to her daughter. She wasn’t keen on her going with the Doctor but Rose, of course, didn’t want to hear anything about leaving his side. They were both very stubborn, the Tyler women.

It was five minutes to eight when the time travelling duo came across the group of soldiers in the park’s car park standing near three large, black UNIT vehicles. All were dressed in the full black uniform, including the black beret of the Drakkads they would be impersonating. All except for one. He wore a classic green uniform bearing the accolades of his time in service. As Rose and the Doctor approached, at a slightly slower speed than usual as he was still limping, the soldiers stood to attention and the Brigadier took off his matching green officer’s hat.

‘Doctor,’ the Brigadier greeted with a salute as they came to a stop before him. The Doctor rolled his eyes at the formality and as ever didn’t return the gesture instead choosing to retain his hands in his pockets. ‘You’ve changed your face once again,’ he commented, having lowered his arm back to his side.

‘Yet you haven’t changed a bit,’ he replied with a fond smile before adding, ‘though you’ve altered the whiskers, not just sticking with the moustache anymore’. He ran his left hand over his own face feeling the coarse stubble beneath his fingers. He’d never really gone for facial hair over his regenerations, well he had sideburns but he’d never gone for anything further like a beard or a moustache. He wasn’t too sure about changing his clean shaven look at the moment anyway.

The Brigadier smiled back genially. His eyes flitted over the Doctor’s no longer swollen but still bruised eye and recalled his limping walk as he said, ‘you seem to have been through the wars’.

The Doctor shook his head. ‘Nah, should’ve seen the other guy,’ he said with an air of nonchalance then he glanced over at Rose who had been watching the conversation with interest and he knew he would be getting questioned later on once this was all over. ‘Er Brigadier, this is Rose, Rose Tyler,’ he gestured at the woman by his side and the Brig’s attention fell to her.

‘How wonderful to meet you in person Miss Tyler,’ he smiled and held out his hand towards her which she shook politely.

‘And you, though just Rose is fine,’ she replied with a small and slightly nervous grin.

He chuckled softly. ‘Then you may call me Alistair.’

Glancing back at Rose the Doctor asked, ‘you got the plan?’

She started patting down the pockets of his old leather jacket that she had decided to wear trying to remember which one she had put it in as she absently mumbled, ‘er yeah…yeah’.

‘Rose knows the layout of the ship,’ he told the Brig as she found the plan and unfolded it. ‘Made a diagram so this lot can study it, so they’re not going in blind,’ he added with a nod of his head at the soldiers waiting patiently around them.

She passed the plan to the Brig who studied it with interest. ‘Important intelligence,’ he commented before looking up to Rose and informing her, ‘this could prove invaluable to the operation’. She reddened slightly at the man’s genuine praise. ‘Shall we do a run through?’ At this the Doctor glanced at her expectantly and the Brig followed his lead.

Her eyes grew wide as she looked between them. ‘What, me?’ She was just Rose Tyler, a shop girl from a council estate. She wasn’t some military leader nor was she an all knowing Time Lord. She was just Rose.

‘Wellllll you do know the ship the best,’ the Doctor told her.

Rose glanced up at him, shaking her head with disbelief. ‘But - I’ve never done anything like this before.’

He gave her a warm, reassuring smile. ‘You explained it perfectly last night,’ he said quietly, ‘I’ll help you if you need it and if you don’t want to do it at all then I will...it’s up to you’.

The run through was led by Rose, the Doctor chipped in every now and then when things came to mind but Rose was going through the plan remarkably well and he felt rather proud of how she was handling it. The Brigadier then discussed roles and positions with the twelve soldiers. As he did this the Doctor added the coordinates to the teleporters that UNIT had brought. They had brought three, enough to split their number into three groups of four and it wasn’t long before they were doing so. They wished the first team luck as they vanished with a blue flash. After a brief wait the second team did the same, shortly followed by the third. It was just the Doctor, Rose and the Brigadier that remained where they waited for reports of what was going on in the orbiting spaceship up above.

The Doctor was tense. He wanted to be up there. He was never one to sit back and let others sort his problems out for him but if he showed his face now the entire plan would be scuppered. There seemed to be no other quiet way of stopping the Drakkads apart from this one of infiltration so he had no choice but to wait. He paced as he did so, walking the gap between one of the UNIT vehicles and the next. His hair was not as spiked as it would have been had he not washed the product out of it earlier on, but it was still an unruly, agitated mess atop of his head after the Doctor had run his fingers through it many times. Rose was leaning against one of the bonnets absently watching him as he paced and chewing on her thumbnail as she did so, her own worried thoughts racing through her mind. The Brigadier was the one who looked the calmest of the trio. He was sitting in the front seat of one of the vehicles, his walkie talkie in his hand patiently waiting for news of the mission. After some time had passed antagonisingly slowly it crackled into life.

Greyhound Fifteen to Greyhound Leader.

The young female voice was slightly muffled but it broke through the tension that had settled over the trio. All eyes shot to the walkie talkie. The Doctor stopped pacing, Rose stopped chewing and the Brig lifted it towards his mouth to reply. ‘Go ahead Fifteen.’

Group Charlie have found numerous detained hostages in need of medical assistance.

‘Copy that Fifteen. Begin retrieval once all hostile units have been detained, over.’

Rose inhaled sharply at the words. She had been right. There were others trapped on board and, like the Doctor, they were injured too. The guilt began to trickle back into her mind that she could have done something, she could have helped them in some way but at the time she hadn’t considered the possibility. She glanced up from her wringing hands and saw the Doctor gazing at her with a knowing look in his eyes. He shook his head gently and mouthed “not your fault” as the Brigadier switched the channel on the walkie talkie and began relaying the information he had just received.

‘Colonel Chaudhry. Greyhound Leader mission report. Medical units will be required. I repeat medical units will be required. Number of hostages as of yet unknown. Retrieval will begin once all hostile units have been detained.’

Copy that Greyhound Leader.

It wasn’t long before a couple of large, sleek, black vans housing two of the taskforce’s medical units arrived on scene. The Brigadier moved over to them and conferred what he knew as the teams began to get ready. As he made his way back to the Doctor and Rose the walkie talkie crackled once again.

Greyhound Nine to Greyhound Leader.

‘Go ahead Nine,’ he replied as the Doctor and Rose looked over at him expectantly once more.

All hostile units are detained. Group Charlie is ready to transfer the hostages.

‘Good work Nine. Medical units are on scene awaiting transfer. Group Delta will board the vessel, over.’ He reattached the walkie talkie to his belt and informed the medical units of the imminent arrival of patients before he joined the time travellers. ‘Are we ready?’

The Doctor took the teleport from his pocket and held it out in front of him. He told them both to hold onto him and brace themselves. Then he pressed the button and the trio vanished in a blue flash.

It took mere seconds before their feet thudded on the dark metal flooring as they arrived on the Drakkads spaceship. The others released the Doctor’s arm and he pocketed the teleporter for the return trip. They were in a weapons locker, just like Rose had described. It reminded him that there was still that gun under Rose’s bed; he would have to grab it when they visited Jackie before they left in the Tardis. He slid open the door to the corridor beyond, he must have walked down it when he was forced onto the ship. Going by the amount of walking it took to get to his cell he must have taken the left but now they were heading towards the right to go through the sleeping quarters and into the living quarters where UNIT had detained the Drakkads. He led the way followed by Rose and the Brigadier, his foot was already aching from all the pacing he had done earlier and the previous night’s pacing probably hadn’t done it much good either making his limp a little more pronounced. They passed a couple of doors and then came across the one he knew to be deadlocked as it was the last one before the final door at the end of the corridor. They didn’t speak, only the sound of their footsteps and breathing filled the stale air and he wondered how bad it would be when they were surrounded by the eggy breathed aliens. As he approached the final door Rose’s steps faltered and she urgently called his name. He turned and reacted just in time as the crack sounded around them.

The Doctor trembled uncontrollably under the current of electricity as it ran through his hand and into the rest of his body. His jaw was clenched tight unwilling to verbally show his pain. He stood defiant as it coursed through him, his eyes locked onto the Drakkad ahead. It was the jailer; he had dropped the whip and stood with his eyes wide at the sight of the Doctor whose left arm was outstretched in front of Rose and in his hand was the end of the electrified whip. It had been inches away from Rose’s body when he caught it. He heard her gasp as he was electrocuted and on his other side the Brigadier had unholstered his gun and pointed it at the jailer.

He breathed heavily as the shock subsided. It wasn’t just because of the pain. He hardly felt the warmth trickling over his palm as he pulled the rest of the whip towards him and dropped it to the floor. He hardly felt the spiky tingles that still ran through his muscles from the electricity. He did, however, feel anger. A deep seated rage. His gaze was fierce as he hobbled towards the jailer and his voice was low and eerily calm, filled with the wrath of the oncoming storm. ‘You can threaten my life but don't you dare even think about threatening hers let alone do so, especially not when I’m around.’ The jailer had backed into the wall of the corridor as the Doctor approached. His eyes were still wide as he stared at the Time Lord who stood before him, his face inches away and his teeth bared with an anger that only someone who had lived the life he had could possess. ‘Two thousand volts of electricity. That’s the same as an electric chair on Earth; a device the humans use to kill criminals. Criminals like you,’ he enunciated with a sharp jab at the jailer’s chest before gesturing at Rose as he spat, ‘and you tried to use those two thousand volts on that human right there’. The Doctor stood staring at the jailer, his gaze practically burning him as he cowered. There was hardly a flicker of the man who had brutally attacked the Time Lord days before left within him. ‘I used to have so much mercy,’ he bit, ‘but people like you are the reason why I’m not merciful anymore’. He stepped back from the jailer, his fierce gaze still upon him as he called over the Brig who detained the man and forced him towards the door at the end of the corridor. The Doctor eventually dropped his gaze and it fell on the door that was no longer deadlocked but open; the perfect spot for the jailer to hide before he pounced. He hobbled towards it and made sure there were no other Drakkads hidden inside before he joined Rose. She hadn’t moved, nor had she taken her eyes off the Doctor during the whole ordeal.

‘Are you okay?’ She asked worriedly, her eyes searching his darkened face that still held a barely hidden rage.

He glanced down at his hand and turned it to see the bloody gash that created a circle over his palm and the back of his left hand. ‘I’ll live.’ His gaze turned back to her, as he asked, ‘are you?’

‘Yeah. Just a bit…’ she was about to say shocked but caught herself just in time. The Doctor understood her meaning and nodded at her.

Nodding towards the door where the Brigadier and jailer were waiting he said, ‘let’s get this over with then we can go home’.

They walked side by side, their arms occasionally brushing in their closeness, and joined the Brig who led the group through the sleeping quarters. The Doctor’s face was stony as they entered the living quarters. The room was filled with black uniforms. The Drakkads were kneeling on the ground in front of the UNIT soldiers who had their weapons at the ready for those who were foolish enough to try anything. The Brig forced the jailer down beside one of his fellow detainees then stood back by Rose’s side; one of the soldiers now taking over the guarding of the man.

The Doctor stepped forwards and into the semicircle of kneeling Drakkads. He glanced at them one by one, some had their heads bowed, some he recognised, some he did not but all were just as guilty in his eyes. His voice was deceptively calm once more as he addressed the group. ‘I’m the Doctor. I’m a Time Lord. The last of the Time Lords,’ he began. ‘I travel around the universe, throughout all of time and space and do you know what I do? Hmm?’ His eyebrow was raised as his fierce gaze flitted over them daring them to speak, daring them to tell him. ‘I help,’ he proclaimed proudly, enunciating both words with a jab to his own chest. He began a hobbled pace in front of them as he rambled a little. ‘Find a problem, I solve it. See an injustice, I correct it. Find someone, something, some group, some collective, whatever you want to call them, if they are doing wrong then I stop them.’ The Doctor halted. All eyes were on him as he stood in the centre of the semicircle once more. His voice took on a darker and more dangerous edge as he said, ‘but what happens then when the being who was wronged is me? Me and my ship because oh yeah she’s a sentient being too. Might just look like a wooden blue box but she is so much more. Everytime you lot were trying to break through her doors she felt it,’ he spat, his eyes wide and filled with rage. ‘All of it! Just like I did when you tried to break me to get to her!’ His voice had risen to a shout before he stopped and stood panting. His eyes were flitting over the Drakkads, most of whom were looking suitably admonished or scared by the Time Lord. He lowered his voice again, though his tone was still filled with his anger at what they had done and not just to him and the Tardis. ‘We are not the only ones you’ve wronged and I’m certain we wouldn’t be the last. I normally give out one warning…’ The Doctor paused and looked over them with disgust. He shook his head. ‘You lot aren’t even worth that. We’ll see how much you’re really worth when you’re tried by the Shadow Proclamation.’ He took a couple of steps back before sinisterly adding, ‘I’ll be sure to put in a good word’. He turned and limped to Rose and the Brigadier, the latter of which he quietly spoke to informing him that he would send word to the Shadow Proclamation and give them the coordinates of the ship so they could collect the Drakkads. The Doctor thanked his friend for his help and the Brig nodded before bidding goodbye to the pair who returned to the sleeping quarters before teleporting back down to Earth.

The UNIT vans had departed by the time they returned so they headed straight towards the Tardis which was finally free of Drakkads for the first time in days. His anger had begun to ebb away on the walk to his ship. Rose didn’t speak, she could tell he needed a moment to himself just to let everything that had happened wash over him. As the blue box came into view his remaining anger faded, replaced by the elation that was bubbling within him at the sight of her. The Doctor’s pace quickened, his hand dove into his pocket to find the key as he jogged towards her and Rose jogged after him, pleased to see the Old Girl too. He laid his freshly injured hand on her wooden door as he pushed the key into the lock. The door clicked open and the Tardis hummed joyfully in welcome. He was beaming as he ran up the ramp towards the console, his hand trailing over it as he did a couple of laps and his jubilant laughter filling the air just as much as the Tardis’ happy humming was. Rose had one arm around one of the coral struts, her other hand stroking it a little absently as she watched the Doctor. She wore a grin just as wide as his in seeing his utter elation. She had thought she had seen him madly happy before but this was just another level. He had stroked the time rotor after he had stopped running around and muttered some quiet words to her before his gaze fell upon Rose. He beamed and jogged towards her pulling her away from the coral and into a big hug. She laughed at his exuberance and curled her arms around his waist.

‘We did it, Rose. We did it,’ he breathed into her hair, his voice full of relief and happiness.

**********

The groaning of the Tardis materialising in her living room gave Jackie Tyler a start. She almost dropped the mug she had been washing up but caught herself just before she could do so, quickly putting it on the drying rack before dashing into the next room to await the arrival of her daughter and the Doctor.

The pair hadn’t immediately gone to the flat. There was the contacting of the Shadow Proclamation to do and after Rose insisted that he went to the infirmary to fix himself up properly. The dermal regenerator did wonders on his broken and bruised skin and apart from the limp, which he had briefly forgotten in his joy, he was looking like new. The Doctor wanted to change his clothes as well as shave and when he returned to the console room Rose almost laughed at his near identical appearance. She could tell he had changed his brown suit because it looked fresh and of course wasn’t torn. He’d also put on a dark blue shirt and had chosen to stick with the tie she had gotten him. He beamed at her, unknowing of her near teasing, and sent the ship on the short hop. They could have walked, but he’d just got the Tardis back and he wasn’t walking anywhere.

Jackie immediately pulled Rose into a hug when she stepped out of the ship. She worried about her when she was away but when she knew what was happening and that the danger was so close she couldn’t help that her worries escalated. The Doctor also got a big hug from Jackie when she eventually let her daughter go which surprised him once again. They stopped for a quick cuppa where they explained the gist of what had happened and that the aliens were basically going to be picked up by the space police. He remembered to ask Rose to collect the gun and she grabbed a few bits and pieces that she wanted to bring with her to the Tardis as well such as her sketchbook and pencils. She hadn’t used them in years but after her recent sketches she thought she might try it out again on their lazy days in the ship. Both received hugs before they departed, which the Doctor was finding rather uncomfortable now due to their frequency, and Rose waved to her mum before closing the Tardis door on the flat. The Doctor sent them into the vortex immediately and sighed happily at the feel of time running beneath his feet once again.

Chapter 32: Trading Places

Chapter Text

One of the first things the Doctor did, now back inside of the Tardis, was to restore the shields to full capacity. He was not under any circ*mstances going to tempt fate by lowering them any time soon; they were perfectly functional so there was no point in trying to better them unless he had a particularly good reason to do so. With the guilt still running through him after the recent ordeal even a good reason would be hard to persuade him.

They had spent two days simply floating in the vortex. Rose was rather insistent that he let himself heal properly and disregarded going out on adventures until he had at least stopped limping. He was still filled with wanderlust as always, though especially so after being cooped up on Earth and briefly on the Drakkad spaceship, but he was content enough to while away the time in the Tardis because he had missed her. They had conversed telepathically, as much as one could with her methods of communication, whilst they had been separated. This had been something the Doctor had found particularly taxing whilst trapped on the spaceship because it was a lot harder to communicate the further away you were. Back on Earth at the estate had been a lot easier to do so but in some ways so much harder because he could look outside of the flat and see the Old Girl, she was so tantalisingly close yet so far away from reach. Still, communicating telepathically wasn’t the same as being inside the Tardis again. Her warm hum filled him delightfully and he could feel her rather excitable nudge in the telepathic centres of his brain when she welcomed him back. Both had been, to steal an Earth phrase, over the moon at the reunion.

After the second day, however, the Doctor was getting itchy feet, something that wasn’t at all helped by a lack of bananas in the galley and his want of some banana bread. He burst into Rose’s room demanding that they go out and get his favourite fruit and was rewarded with a pillow thrown at his face by a grumpy Rose who had still been asleep before he rudely interrupted. Eventually his energetic self annoyed her into getting up, though perhaps it was more the thought of the banana bread, and he set a flight path for Villengard, the planet of the Seven Galaxies that was once home to weapons factories but now had a lovely banana plantation. They landed near the edge of the plantation and the Doctor’s eyes lit up at the ripe fruits he could already see dangling underneath large green leaves. They walked to the banana plants and began picking the best ones from the bunches. When Rose asked if they were allowed to take the bananas he shrugged and said that he had technically planted them with the molecular fruit bomb so by all rights they should be. The shouting of one of the plantation workers behind them suggested otherwise and the pair legged it back into the Tardis with their arms full of their fruity plunder.

That was the first of the many adventures they went on over the following months. They found a planet where their biggest pastime was playing the spoons. When the Doctor offered one of the spoon players a spoon he’d found in his pocket both he and Rose were treated like royalty for the rest of their visit much to their amusem*nt and embarrassment. The duo just so happened to be visiting Kew Gardens when the Tea House was burnt down by the Suffragettes and got caught up with the police when a witness accused Rose of being involved. They visited a beach where the sand was blue and the sea yellow, something which rather put Rose off, and she grew rather disappointed as she had been rather looking forward to the beach trip. The Doctor laughed and took off his chucks and socks, rolled up his trouser legs and dipped his feet in the water saying it was fine before proceeding to get pinched and nipped by a consortium of tiny green crabs that scuttled out of the sand and used their pincers to attack his toes. Rose found this hilarious and the Doctor, after a strop at her reaction, decided that they would explore the rest of the island and skip the beach after all. Somehow they also ended up on the Scottish moors again, this time in the dead of night though thankfully there didn’t seem to be any werewolves around. They did have a run in with an apparent ghost whilst stopping at a lonesome pub they had walked to, drawn in by the light from its lanterns down in the valley. It turned out that the main attraction of the pub was the ghost stories told about it around the vale and the owner had decided to play into that by providing a visible ghost to scare the guests using tricks with mirrors and light that the Doctor found rather ingenious once the pair had realised that there was no real threat.

After a tiring adventure involving a very smelly bog and a very annoyed Rose Tyler covered in said bog water, much to the Doctor’s amusem*nt, Rose had bathed and gone to bed. The Doctor resigned himself to pottering around the Tardis whilst she slept once again; he still really didn’t understand how humans could sleep for that length of time. He had showered and changed because the bog had gotten on him too but he’d managed to wade through it with it only reaching his knees, fortunate enough not to step into the patch that Rose had found that had swallowed her up to her neck. He was chuckling to himself remembering her shocked face as he rolled up his shirt sleeves when he entered the console room afterwards. The Doctor flung himself under the grating and, not going anywhere near the shields, he began tinkering and cleaning some of the ship’s components. He had asked the Tardis to play some music whilst he worked and hadn’t realised how much time had passed until a pair of legs dangling down from the grating above him caught his eye.

‘How long have you been there?’ He asked Rose, getting up from his crouched position and moving to the hole in the grating so he could stand properly. Now that he wasn’t lost in the haze of his mind or singing along to some of his favourite songs as they came on he realised how much his back was aching from being hunched over for so long. When he stood upright in front of Rose he stretched and felt his spine pop back into place again.

She shrugged. ‘Not long. Had some breakfast then came to join the party you and the Old Girl seem to be having,’ she said, she lifted her hands into the air indicating to the music playing in the console room and he chuckled. ‘What you up to?’ She looked past him below the grating, back to where he had been crouched, and he followed her gaze briefly before turning to her.

‘Just greasing some of the couplings, thrilling as that might sound,’ he lightly joked.

Her smirk was far bigger than warranted as she gazed at his face and said, ‘I can tell’. He blinked at her and raised a questioning eyebrow but she didn’t answer, instead she slid off the grating, joining him in the depths below. Her hands came up to his confused face as she gently removed his glasses. She took the rag he was holding limply in his hand and, after finding a clean white spot, she brought it up to the bridge of his nose and rubbed it lightly over his slightly freckled skin. ‘You had grease on your nose from pushing your glasses up,’ she explained and his confusion lessened.

‘Oh,’ was all he dumbly uttered as she passed him back the rag and his glasses. He looked down at his hands and wiped the grease from his index finger before chucking the rag behind him under the grating for later use. When he glanced back at Rose he had a slightly mad glint in his eye, he wiggled his eyebrows at her as he asked, ‘you ready for some fun?’

She saw his look and chewed her lip a bit nervously before uncertainly asking, ‘doing what?’

He took her by the waist and easily lifted her the short distance so she was sitting on the grating once again. She squeaked at the unexpected action from the Time Lord who was saying, ‘come on, we can’t stay down here all day we’ve got things to do,’ as he hopped onto the grating with his usual energetic vigour. The Doctor took her hands and pulled her upright before replacing the panel on the floor with a clunk. Then he grabbed her hands again and dragged her over to the monitor, he stood her in front of it and placed her fingers on the keyboard. Standing just over her right shoulder he softly said, ‘now, Rose Tyler, you have the whole of time and space at your fingertips...where do you want to go?’

A shiver ran through her as his words tickled her ear then their meaning sunk in and she turned on the spot to face the man who stood mere inches behind her. He was actually going through with it. He was going to teach her how to fly the Tardis. The hope in her face was barely contained as she said, ‘are you saying what I think you’re saying?’ A grin was tugging on her lips and she stared at him with wide eyes awaiting her answer. The Doctor couldn’t help but grin at her excitement and she launched herself at him accepting the grin as her answer. She knocked the air out of him as he certainly hadn’t foreseen that Rose would jump into his arms, but he caught her anyway, swinging her body from side to side as he laughed at her jubilation. ‘I knew you’d say yes,’ she beamed as she unlatched her arms from around his neck once he’d put her back down again.

He shook his head at her fondly. ‘It’s just a test run,’ he told her with an arched brow, trying to be serious but how could he really pull that off when she was beaming up at him and swaying from side to side a little in her excitement. ‘Doesn’t mean we’ll carry on with this even if it goes well,’ he continued, warning her of possible future disappointment, though Rose wasn’t fazed one bit by his words. His face softened and he rolled his eyes. She was being too adorable for her own good. No wonder he gave into her request. ‘Now,’ he began, taking her gently by the shoulders and turning her to the monitor once more, ‘where are you going to take us?’

This was where Rose came a little unstuck. Like the Doctor said she had all of time and space at her fingertips, the possibilities were endless. ‘I have no idea,’ she breathed, taken aback by the seemingly limitless amount of places to choose from.

He laughed a little from behind. ‘Alright let’s make this easier.’ He stepped next to her and leant his side on the console, raising his eyebrows at her he said, ‘forwards or backwards?’

There was still that glint in his eye that told her he was having just as much fun doing this as she was. She grinned at him a bit giddily as she announced, ‘backwards’.

‘Backwards. Love backwards. Always things to be learned from backwards,’ the Doctor exclaimed enthusiastically, making Rose giggle at his behaviour. ‘Tell you what,’ he added a little more soberly, ‘let’s stick to the home turf for this one eh?’ She nodded and he continued, ‘So Earth, the past, but where abouts, what era?’

She bit her lip as she pondered his question. The music in the console room had faded out after the Doctor had first noticed her but the thought of it inspired her. She recalled the song he had been listening to at the time, I Don’t Like Mondays by The Boomtown Rats, and an excellent idea came to mind. ‘13th of July 1985,’ Rose said assuredly and the Doctor’s eyebrows rose. ‘Wembley Stadium,’ she added just to be certain he was following her thoughts.

‘Really?’ He said, his voice high pitched with disbelief. She chuckled and nodded. ‘Even after all of this?’ His hand was up in the air, his thumb and fingers snapping together in a talking motion. ‘Complaining about Elvis after Live Aid and Dury went wrong and you want to take us to Live Aid in London?’ His tone was still incredulous and it made her laugh harder. ‘We’ll end up meeting Mary Queen of Scots or in the Jurassic era with some Sauropods,’ he joked, shaking his head amusedly at her destination of choice. He stood up straight before leaning over Rose to press at a few keys on the keyboard. ‘There,’ he announced when he was done, ‘just this once then I’m changing it back’.

She looked at the screen with a frown on her face having no idea what he was talking about but he didn’t bother to answer as he began to tap away again. Numbers were appearing on the screen. Numbers she could read and understand. He had altered the monitor so it no longer displayed just in Gallifreyan but in English. It was a gesture that made her feel all warm inside and a smile grew on her face once more.

‘Earth coordinates,’ he said, pointing at the longest line of numbers on the screen. He ran through the other data that he had inputted too before glancing at her as he said, ‘there will be a pop quiz at the end so I hope you’re remembering all this’.

Rose rolled her eyes and said with a smirk, ‘listen at you, you teach a couple of physics classes and you think you’re all that’.

He raised his eyebrows at her, his eyes twinkling with mischief. ‘Now you do sound like your mother.’

‘Shut up,’ she laughed, hitting him lightly on the chest.

The Doctor reached out and grabbed the attacking hand and used it to drag her around the console getting her to flick switches, pull leavers and twist knobs whilst he muttered about magnitude adjusters, locking down mechanisms and activating the helmic regulator amongst other controls that were going over Rose’s head as she felt like he was throwing her into the deep end with his method of teaching. ‘And press that white button there to turn off the stabilisers,’ he said pointing to what looked like the middle one of a cluster of white buttons. Rose pressed it. He hadn’t been pointing to the middle white button at all.

This is Emergency Program One.

Rose jumped at the sound of the Doctor’s voice but it wasn’t coming from her right hand side where he was standing. Instead his voice was coming from her left and was spoken by a near identical hologram of the Time Lord. The blue hologram glitched a little and the figure took one of his hands from his pinstripe trouser pockets and used it to rub his eye as he sighed.

You know what this means and I’m sorry Rose, I’m so sorry. I really didn’t want to have -

The hologram cut off and faded out of existence. Beside her the real Doctor had sworn in Gallifreyan and lurched over the console hitting the button again to turn it off. The hologram didn’t remain off, however, as another Doctor appeared. A Doctor in a leather jacket who spoke with a northern accent. Rose’s already hammering heart somehow quickened and she gasped at the sight of him.

This is Emergency Program One.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the real Doctor reach over to try and turn it off again but she grabbed his hand in a vice-like grip warning him not to do so as she turned back to the hologram. The same one that had been activated when the Tardis had taken her home. Before Bad Wolf. Before he regenerated.

Rose, now listen, this is important. If this message has activated then it can only mean one thing. We must be in danger, and I mean fatal. I’m dead or about to die at any second with no chance of escape. And that’s okay. I hope it’s a good death. But I promised to look after you and that’s what I’m doing so the Tardis is taking you home…

As she listened her grip on the Doctor lessened and he removed his hand and stepped away from Rose and the console a little warily. She was enraptured by the hologram because, well, there he was her first Doctor just as she remembered. Even though the message brought back bad memories it was so much better seeing him like that than seeing a still image of him in a photograph. Hearing his gruff northern voice. Seeing his little mannerisms. Rose wanted to reach out and touch him, to hold his big calloused hand and be wrapped up by his strong, leather clad arms with her head resting on his jumper as she breathed in his comforting scent once more. She couldn’t do any of those things. All she could do was stand and watch as the hologram of her first Doctor looked directly into her eyes as he finished his message before fading out of existence.

…Have a good life. Do that for me, Rose. Have a fantastic life.

She took a deep shuddering breath. The console room was near silent except for the general hum of the Tardis. Rose stared at the spot where the hologram had just been for some time and the Doctor stared at Rose. He could see that she was upset by the way she was fiddling with her hands and was about to offer her some words of comfort when her voice cut through the quiet.

‘You were there,’ she whispered and turned to face him, pointing at him accusatorially as she said, ‘this you’. Hurt was written all over her features as she raised her voice, angry that he had planned to do that to her again. ‘You made another one? After all I did to get back to you the first time you made another one?!’

‘Rose,’ he sighed and rubbed at his eye, unintentionally imitating the actions of his current self’s hologram that Rose had briefly seen.

‘Why won’t you get it into your head that I won’t leave you?’ She exclaimed, her hands in the air in question.

‘It’s for your own safety.’ He didn’t raise his voice because he really didn’t want it to become a big shouting match. Instead he looked at her imploringly, begging her to understand that he needed her safe no matter what.

It didn’t work. Rose shook her head at him, still incredulous that he could even think about sending her away again. ‘Yeah, you keep saying that but I’m safe by your side.’

‘I can’t always protect you, Rose,’ he pointed out with exasperation at the situation, waving his hands about as he did so. ‘No matter how hard I try.’ His words seemed to leave a mark and when she didn’t retort straight away the Doctor dared to take a step closer. ‘This isn’t about me not wanting you here because I do, I really do,’ he said, trying to put as much sincerity into his voice as possible. ‘But I need you to be safe.’

She frowned at him like she didn’t understand or perhaps like he didn’t understand. ‘And what about you? Your safety?’

A faint smile passed over his lips at her ever present compassion as he shook his head. ‘This isn’t about me.’

Her brow furrowed further and her voice was sharp and harsh again. ‘Not about you? Of course it’s about you. You expect me to just go back? Go and live a normal life fully well knowing you’re either actually dead or you’ve regenerated and trapped yourself because you’ve sent me away with the Tardis?’

He shrugged a little as he quietly stated, ‘at least I’d know you were safe’.

She stared at him in utter astonishment, her voice choked by her anger as she jabbed her finger at him threateningly. ‘Do you not think I care about knowing you’re safe? Do you think it doesn’t matter? Because it does matter, Doctor. It matters to me.’ Her tears were threatening to fall and she turned and raced out of the console room.

‘Rose?’ He called out to her retreating figure, ‘Rose!’ She ran around the corner and didn’t look back. ‘For God’s sake,’ he groaned, his fingers flying through his hair as he decided whether to go after her immediately or not. It didn’t take him long to make his decision. The Doctor exhaled sharply and began an agitated walk through the corridors hoping that he was right in his presumptions as to where she would have gone. As he laid his hand on the door knob of Rose’s bedroom he sighed. He didn’t look at the detailed mural of a rose that had been carved into the wood since the Tardis had created the room for her. Nor did he notice that said mural had now altered to include a wolf. Instead he gently rested his head against the wood whilst he internally berated himself for causing her distress. He could hear her sniffling on the other side directly behind the door. Dropping his hand from the knob he slid down the door and slumped onto the metal floor, his arms resting on his knees and his back against the wood.

On the other side of the door Rose was curled on her side, her damp cheek resting on the cool wood as she released her anger and sorrow for the Time Lord who didn’t seem to understand that his own safety, his own life, was important too. Especially to her.

‘Rose?’

His voice was soft and sad to her ears. She sniffed and wiped the tears from her face with her sleeve. ‘You matter, Doctor,’ she began, her voice still shaky with emotion, ‘you’re important. I just don’t know why you don’t understand that’.

He tipped his head back so it leant against the door as he closed his eyes. ‘I do understand, I do but I put you before me because you’re more important.’

She sniffed again and shook her head. ‘I’m not.’

The Doctor exhaled and rubbed his hands over his face before he shifted onto his side so his cheek was pressed up against the door. He brought his hand up and placed it next to him, his thumb slowly rubbing across the grains of wood. ‘I have two things in the universe,’ he said slowly. ‘The Tardis and…and you. You’re one of the most important things in the universe.’

He said it with such quiet conviction that her breath hitched. But for Rose his words were bittersweet. She loved that she clearly meant so much to him but the way he said it suggested that his priorities and where she may stand within them might not be quite right. That he might put her before saving a group of innocent people or perhaps even something as big as a planet. ‘Would you have done it back in Downing Street if Harriet hadn’t stepped in?’ She asked him after a moment. ‘Would you have sent the missile?’ She sat up a bit straighter, her cheek still pressed against the wood but she placed her hand up against it too. They were now the mirror image of each other, their hands and cheeks connecting with only the door in the way.

He shook his head and mumbled, ‘let’s not do what ifs’.

‘But would you though?’ Rose urged. ‘Because you said you could save the world but lose me.’ She waited but there was no reply. To her the silence spoke volumes. ‘You’ve got to understand that there are other things far more important that I am,’ she told him firmly, ‘it’s never me or the world. It's always gotta be the world’. They were quiet once more until after a while a smirk started to form on Rose’s face, her shoulders began to shake and a quiet breathy laugh escaped her lips.

The Doctor scrunched up his face at the sounds. ‘Are you laughing?’

Suppressing her laughter a little, Rose shuffled away from the door so she could reach up and open it. The Time Lord came crashing down directly in front of her, hitting her bedroom floor with an, ‘oof’. ‘Ow,’ he moaned, sitting up and briefly rubbing the side of his head that had connected with the wooden floorboards whilst Rose knelt next to him unable to stop a giggle having not expected him to come tumbling through her door.

‘Sorry,’ she said softly, an amused smirk still playing on her features as she took over from him and carded her fingers through his hair over the spot he just hit. He was looking at her with confusion, still nonplussed as to why she had been laughing. She easily read him and said, ‘I was thinking that for such a smart man, you really can be an idiot sometimes’. He looked slightly offended and she chuckled some more at his pout that soon altered into a small relieved smile because she no longer seemed to be mad at him nor was she upset anymore. ‘Oh Doctor,’ she sighed, stilling her right hand in his hair and bringing the other round to his neck, leaning both their heads forwards so that their foreheads touched.

His own hands came to her sides, his thumbs rubbing up and down soothingly. ‘Rose, I’m-’ he began in a hushed voice, the puff of his breath as he spoke her name mingling with her own.

She knew that tone. She shook her head gently against his, their noses remaining touching when she stilled, and he stopped speaking at her silent request. Her voice was barely above a whisper as she said, ‘don’t apologise. I love that you want to put me first. It’s not right,’ she added firmly before her voice was soft once more, ‘but I love that you think that much of me’. Her lips ghosted his as she spoke her final words, one or possibly both of them having instinctively moved closer. After a moment of plucking up her courage she tentatively closed the gap. She kissed him gently, if not briefly, and the Doctor’s hands stilled at her sides. Rose was still uncertain in her gesture. She knew previously that it had certainly looked like the Doctor was about to kiss her but about to and actually doing so were completely different things. But then his lips were on hers and he was kissing her back. They were soft against her plumper ones, pressing firmly as they moved against her own. One of his hands stayed at her side, digging in a little, as his other trailed round to her back and drew her closer. Rose’s fingers carded through his hair once more, eliciting a small hum of pleasure from the Time Lord. The sound made her fingers dig in deeper, garnering her with a more guttural noise that she could feel through his chest as he pulled her tightly against him in response. Eventually Rose had to pull away to catch her breath and smugly noted that even the man who bragged about his respiratory bypass was panting too. Her hands slid out of his hair and onto his shoulders before she lifted her forehead from his, leaning back a little into his arms to see his expression. His cheeks were tinged pink, his eyes were dark, his lips were parted and she was quite pleased at how messy his hair looked as well knowing that she was the cause. He blinked at her, his eyes a mixture of wonder, disbelief and a hint of arousal as he licked his lips.

The Doctor’s hearts were pounding. Rose Tyler had kissed him and then, once he had restarted his brain, he’d kissed her back. She tasted like toast and jam and tea, and of course Rose Tyler had tasted of tea, he should never have doubted that. He stared at her, processing what had just happened, his eyes flitting back to her lips more than once as she knelt still wrapped up in his arms. He watched as those lips gently began to pull upwards and he couldn’t help but mirror the gesture, his own smile becoming a little giddy before he leant forwards to capture them again.

‘We should argue more often if that’s what you’re going to do afterwards,’ he mumbled as he leant back.

‘Shut up you goon,’ she giggled, hitting his shoulder lightly and gaining a laugh out of the Doctor. ‘You make it sound like I planned it.’ He raised his brow giving her a teasing look that showed her he thought just that and Rose playfully pushed him backwards. He easily caught himself with one hand and laughed even harder as her cheeks flushed. ‘Shut up. You know I didn’t.’ He sat there beaming a little cheesily at her as the rouge on her cheeks faded. Rose shook her head at him and said with a smirk, ‘God, you’re going to be such a nightmare now’.

His smile instantly faltered and changed into a pout. ‘I’m not a nightmare.’

‘Fine.’ She crossed her arms and gave him a pointed look, her eyes twinkling mischievously as she said, ‘a smug git then’.

He slightly tilted his head from side to side as though considering her words before he raised his eyebrow at her in challenge. ‘A smug git who doesn’t have to teach you to drive the Tardis if you’re not nice to him.’

Her eyes widened. ‘We didn’t finish flying the Tardis,’ she said with disbelief at having forgotten what they had been doing beforehand, though what had occurred had been a pretty momentous distraction. Her eyes lit up and she looked at the Doctor hopefully. ‘Can I finish flying the Tardis?’

Jumping up from the floor he offered her his hand. ‘As long as you press the correct buttons this time.’ He pulled her upright and wiggled his eyebrows at her as he lightly added, ‘or don’t if that’s what will happen.’

Rose sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes at him. ‘I told you, nightmare.’

He simply winked and dragged her on a run back to the console room with Rose laughing at the unexpected turn of pace and him chuckling along too. The Doctor pointed out the other controls very precisely and Rose double checked with him a couple of times when some were more fiddly than others.

‘Now, hand here,’ he said pointing to a smaller lever that was near to the larger dematerialisation lever, the only control that Rose had been entirely certain of beforehand. She placed her hand on the lever and the Doctor continued, ‘this is the throttle, don’t want to get over zealous with that let me tell you, now you’re going to want it about…halfway-ish’ At the final word his voice went high with uncertainty and Rose glanced over at him with a smirk.

‘Sounds very precise,’ she joked.

‘Hey,’ he admonished, ‘sometimes flying the Tardis is more of an art than a science’. She gave him a look but adjusted the throttle and stopped when he said, ‘perfect’. He grinned at her a little madly and took a step back so he stood next to the dematerialisation lever. He leant his hand on it as he said, ‘last one, are you ready?’

She beamed at him. ‘As long as the Old Girl is.’ The lights glowed brightly and her happy hum sounded throughout the console room in answer.

‘Oh I think she’s ready, Rose Tyler,’ he grinned. ‘Hand on the lever and hold on tight.’

Rose took a hold of it as instructed and grabbed onto the console tightly with her other just as the Doctor was doing the same beside her. After one last look, receiving a nod from the Time Lord, she pulled the lever. The Tardis whirred into life. The time rotor bobbed up and down as she groaned rocking her occupants about inside. They landed with a large thump throwing the Doctor and Rose back onto the grating eliciting a large roar of laughter from the both of them

‘I think you need to work on your landing,’ the Doctor chuckled as he bounced back upright.

‘Me?’ She frowned at him but took the proffered hand and let him help her back onto her feet. ‘You’re one to talk.’

He raised his eyebrow at her looking mightily offended. ‘Oi, what’s that you said about not arguing with the designated driver?’

‘Kinda feel like that doesn’t work as well when I did most of the work getting us here,’ she muttered a little smugly. She wasn’t quite sure whether her smugness was entirely warranted yet because she didn’t know where they had landed but they had actually moved and landed. She could officially say that she had piloted a time machine; with a lot of help of course but no one needed to know that part. Her eyes were drawn to the doors wondering where it was she had landed them and half hoping she had taken them to the right place because the Doctor would get real stroppy if that happened and she would think it was hilarious. Her attention was drawn back to him as he clapped his hands together. He bore that mad glint in his eye that made her worry about how he was going to retaliate to her teasing.

‘Okay Rose Tyler, time for that pop quiz seeing as you’re a master pilot.’ His eyes grew wide as he put as much emphasis into the last two words as he could causing Rose to roll hers. ‘Zigzag plotter. Where is it? What does it do?’ He held his arms out in question and watched her eagerly. It was a slightly mean question seeing as they hadn’t even used it because they were already in the time vortex. But Rose had pointed it out and he had told her what it was anyway, just as he had with the rest of the controls they’d used to fly to their destination.

She screwed her face up a little as she thought. ‘Is that the one you got offended at when I said it looks like a funky gear stick?’ Walking around the console, she eyed all the different controls until she found the one she believed was correct. It definitely looked like a funky gear stick to her.

He sighed exasperatedly and followed her, finding Rose with her hand on the correct control. ‘It’s not a gear stick, it’s a highly technical piece of equipment,’ he tried to point out once more to no avail.

After offering him a placating look her eyes flitted to the doors once more. She glanced back at the Doctor eagerly. ‘Can we go see?’

He offered her a soft smile at her excitement. He gestured towards the doors and said, ‘after you’.

Rose ran down the ramp followed by the Doctor who took it at a more leisurely pace, strolling down it with his hands in his pockets wanting to give her the space to really take in the moment of leaving the Tardis for the first time after having been in the hot seat. She gave him a tongue touched grin before opening the door, the noise outside was deafening compared to the low hum of the Tardis, the sound of seventy-two thousand people bubbling with anticipation waiting for the concert to start. Rose was giddy, jumping up in celebration when the door clicked shut behind the Doctor who was grumpily mumbling things about favouritism and beginners luck. She then hugged the side of the wooden blue box thanking her for getting them there receiving a wave of joy and affection back in her mind. Then Rose latched onto the Doctor, who cheered up a little at that, as she thanked him for her first, of hopefully many, flying lessons.

They went off to find a good spot to watch the show leaving the Tardis in the easily memorable location of behind the large white tent that stood in the middle of Wembley’s stadium grounds. It wasn’t long before The Boomtown Rats were on, which the Doctor highly enjoyed as she had anticipated, and they laughed and sang along to all the songs they knew as more and more performers took to the stage one by one. Rose particularly appreciated the latter part of the concert with Queen, Bowie, The Who and Elton and by the end when Band Aid were performing she was feeling both immensely happy and tired.

As the crowd started to depart, and Rose’s legs were aching from standing for so long, she found that the Doctor wasn’t finished with their trip quite yet. He performed one of his cheap tricks with the Tardis so Rose could get autographs from some of her favourite performers of the night. Their past selves were still inside the stadium watching the show whilst their present selves stood meeting the stars. Having a time machine and some psychic paper to get you into places you shouldn’t be was really a boon. He was also rather pleased that they had taken a number of pictures with Rose’s Polaroid camera so they had some other mementos of the fun adventure. He had even managed to snag a Live Aid t-shirt from one of the stalls for her to further remember the day. Having only managed to find a large one, which he was a little disappointed by, he returned with some drinks and snacks for them both but Rose was delighted and didn’t see a problem with it saying she could wear it as a nightshirt if it was a bit big.

When they finally returned to the time vortex they ventured off to their separate rooms where they fell asleep as their heads hit their pillows both perfectly contented after the day’s events.

Chapter 33: Red And Blue

Chapter Text

The Doctor stepped out of the Tardis followed by Rose; he stuck his hands in his pockets as the door clicked shut behind them and eyed his surroundings with an unimpressed and slightly confused look. The pair found themselves at a deserted spot by a body of water, some large river by the looks, and opposite said water was row after row of rundown dockside warehouses. Each building was made of red brick, had that typically angled warehouse roof and sported a large blue door. The Doctor kicked the gravel beneath his foot causing a small cloud of dust a couple of inches off the ground as he gazed around.

Rose was more taken with the view further afield than the ground; her gaze was set over the water and to the high-rise buildings of a large city. She screwed up her brow as she put her hand up to it to block out the sunlight so she could see better. ‘Where are we?’ She asked the Time Lord who stood behind her looking in the opposite direction. ‘Looks a bit like London.’

‘Tastes it too,’ he agreed.

Her head shot round to him with a slightly disgusted look on her face half expecting him to be on the ground licking the floor. She shook her head, ‘I don’t wanna know’.

‘What?’ He said, turning to face her. Rose’s eyes flicked to the ground then back up to him and he got what she was insinuating. ‘No, it’s in the air, I can taste it,’ he explained, a little exasperatedly at her assumptions, and after she gave him a doubtful look he continued, ‘the exhaust fumes, the remnants of the smog that’s stuck to the buildings from the Industrial Revolution, the hint of salt from the Thames, the tang of limestone-’

‘And that special eau de piss,’ she joked, cutting him off.

He shrugged. ‘Wellllll every city has that, your London isn’t exclusive.’

‘Tell that to the underpass near mums.’ She turned her nose up as she remembered the overbearing smell whenever she had to walk that way. Most times she’d go the longer route to dodge it but occasionally she had to hold her breath and bear it as she quickly walked through the underpass. Rose brought herself back to the present again and asked, ‘so why this place?’ She gave the area around them another once over. ‘Doesn’t look like it’s up to much.’

‘No it doesn’t does it,’ he mused, glancing around them as well. ‘I think we might have to dig a little deeper, Holmes, don’t you?’ The Doctor raised his eyebrows at her, his eyes twinkling with the excitement of a new adventure.

Her eyes were just the same as she glanced up at him with a grin. ‘I’d suggest starting with those warehouses over there, Watson,’ she said, nodding her head to the buildings that stood behind the Time Lord.

He beamed at her and they headed over. As they drew closer to the brick buildings a small rusted sign set above one of the doors became readable. The Doctor screwed his face up at the words: Carters of Woolwich. ‘We’re in Woolwich?’ His voice was a little high and laced with disdain. ‘Woolwich? What’s so special about Woolwich?’

Rose shrugged. ‘Well, the Tardis brought us here for a reason.’ A loud clattering noise came from within the building next to them followed by a low growl. She jumped at the sound and the Doctor’s head shot around towards it as though he would be able to see the cause through the brick wall. ‘What was that?’ She asked quietly, her heart racing from the fright.

‘I think that might be our reason,’ he murmured. He glanced back at Rose, his finger pressing to his lips in silent request for quiet. She nodded and followed him to the closest of the large blue doors where there was a smaller wicket gate, nearly the same size as a regular door, which had been purposefully cut out of the main door by the previous owners. It had its own separate padlock firmly attached so the Doctor took out his sonic and unlocked it to gain entrance. He pushed the door open slowly trying not to cause it to creak any louder than it already was. They found themselves stepping into a large, bright multi-storey room in which they stood on a small walkway overlooking the machinery down below. Some of the paintwork had faded and worn away revealing the bricks behind and other parts of the wall were covered in pipe work. They crept down the set of metal stairs that led to the ground floor treading as carefully as they could as to not alert whatever had growled from within. An occasional clunking and groaning sound was heard as they ventured downwards but nothing loud enough to worry them. They crossed the red tiled floor and made their way back up a further set of metal stairs halting halfway when a clatter followed by another growl came from somewhere ahead. When it seemed safe they continued upwards and after turning a corner they found themselves at the start of a corridor. Straight ahead was an old rusted door with a bright, white light pouring out from the bottom. Three doorways stood on both sides of the corridor leading off to further rooms as well. Rose was beginning to think that this warehouse was turning into a bit of a maze.

A small, loose bit of pipe lay unnoticed on the floor as they took a step into the corridor, their eyes wide gazing through the doorways surrounding them rather than on the ground. Rose’s foot knocked into the pipe and it rolled along the floor, the metal clanging loudly in the otherwise quiet warehouse. Her whispered curse was cut off by the roaring of some sort of creature nearby. The Doctor grabbed her and dragged her backwards and around the corner, pressing her against the wall, his own body shielding hers just as running footsteps skidded to a halt in the corridor they had just been in. He engaged his respiratory bypass whilst Rose simply tried to hold her breath not wanting to give the growling creature any reason to head in their direction. She could feel the pounding double rhythm of his hearts through his back, pressed firmly against her as he was, and thought that her own singular one was pounding just as much in her own chest. The creature in the corridor shuffled about peering into the doorways and edging closer and closer as it did so. It reached the final two doorways, the ones closest to the pair, emitting a low growl when there was no sign of those who made the disturbance. The shuffling receded and the Doctor dared to edge closer to the corridor entrance to take a peak. His head poked around the corner to see the back of a humanoid, it was a brown skinned creature wearing armour plating. Going by the almond head shape, the growling and the general look of it the Doctor knew it to be a Hoix, not the best of news for anything that looked like a meal to the creature which unfortunately would include them. He felt Rose lean around his shoulder to have a look too and she caught a glimpse of it just before the creature retreated down the furthest of the doorways, skulking away unable to find its prey. Their hiding place wasn’t the best but Hoix weren’t the smartest of creatures by any means. Once certain the creature wasn’t returning The Doctor led the duo outside, they quietly made their way back the same way they had come and only when they stood beyond the blue door did they feel safe to speak once again.

‘What was that?’ Rose asked as soon as she stepped into the sunlight.

‘A Hoix,’ he replied, his brow furrowed as he turned slowly on the spot to face her. ‘But what’s a Hoix doing on Earth…and in Woolwich of all places?’

She shook her head at him, one hand coming to rest on her hip as she said, ‘what’s your problem with Woolwich?’

Her question drew him out of his thoughts about the creature and he stared at her for a second, baffled by what she had said. ‘What? I don’t have a problem.’

Rose raised her eyebrows in disbelief. ‘Well you keep being snarky about it,’ she pointed out.

‘No I don’t,’ he protested.

‘You do but that doesn’t matter,’ she said, shaking her head again before turning the conversation back to the actual matter at hand. ‘What’s a Hoix?’

The Doctor blinked then nodded his head towards the Tardis and they set off in that direction. He began his ramble about the creature as they walked along side by side, ‘they’re omnivorous creatures from the Castovian Spiral. They’re like babies, all they do is eat, sleep and growl’. Rose’s head shot round to him, her face a mixture of confusion, surprise and a hint of offence at what he had said. He saw her look and put his hands up placatingly as he added, ‘I know human babies don't growl, I didn’t mean it like that, it’s a Hoix’s equivalent of a gurgle though a bit more menacing’. His words seemed to appease her and he lowered his hands again. ‘Anyway they love to eat and when I say eat, I mean eat, they’d go for anything that lot would.’

Her eyes widened at what his words were implicating. ‘Even us?’

He rooted through his pocket as they came to a stop in front of the Tardis doors then glanced back and gave her a look as he said, ‘yup,’ and popped the “p” as he usually did before unlocking the door and letting them inside. For once he didn’t bother to take off his long coat as he knew it wouldn’t take him long to get together what he would need to put his plan into place.

‘So what’s it doing here?’ Rose asked as she followed him through the console room and into the corridor beyond.

‘I don’t know,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘it’s a long way from home. We should take it back.’

‘How we gonna do that?’

After turning down a few more corridors he found the door he was looking for. He opened it up revealing a brightly lit laboratory. The walls and floor matched the metal flooring of the corridors around the rest of the ship and though they looked brighter under the light they didn’t reflect it and dazzle the duo. There were tables that reminded Rose of her science classes in high school, not that her teachers would approve of the state the Doctor had left them in as they were still covered with scientific instruments and what looked like a half complete experiment from the last time he had been in the room. Some of the equipment left lying about she didn’t recognise because they were probably either from the future or alien but she certainly remembered Bunsen burners and those big fancy microscopes from her time in class. Rose followed him inside, her eyes sweeping around the room she never even knew was on board the ship, though it made rather a lot of sense that the Doctor would have a lab, he could be like a mad scientist sometimes. There were probably plenty more rooms that she had no idea existed. Rose wasn’t sure how many the Tardis could hold; perhaps there could be hundreds of them. The Doctor’s voice brought her back from her thoughts and she watched as he searched through the chemical filled cupboards that lined one of the walls rambling on enthusiastically about his plan as he did so.

‘I’m going to make something called Kokoline-7. It’s a poisonous gas but in liquid form can be used to knock out a Hoix instead of killing it. Trouble is I can’t make it as a whole; the two main components are too reactive when compressed in a vessel that is small enough for us to be able to carry and use. It’s only when they are combined that the compound will take effect so I’ll mix up the chemicals in two containers and then you’ll throw them at the Hoix.’ As he finished his explanation he retrieved two buckets from another cupboard, a red and a blue one, and placed them on an empty space on one of the tables. He started grabbing the chemicals he’d already set out and began combining them in the buckets, occasionally pulling out cork stoppers with his teeth in his haste and reminding Rose of their first trip with his new face when he made the medicine to cure the subspecies of humans that the cat nuns had made.

Then his final words sunk in and she raised her brows at him even though he wasn’t looking her way, focusing on his chemical composition. ‘Wait. I’ll throw them? What will you be doing?’

‘I’ll be the distraction,’ he answered as the contents of the blue bucket began to smoke slightly. He didn’t seem concerned that it was doing as such so Rose presumed it was meant to. ‘I’ll show him some food and keep his attention so you can pour the chemicals on him.’ He turned to her as he was fitting one of the stoppers back in a small glass vial and said, ‘actually can you go grab some raw meat from the fridge whilst I finish this? Won’t be long. I’ll meet you in the console room after’. Rose agreed and left him to his chemical compounds, chuckling away after he shouted a belated thank you as the door closed behind her, only just remembering his manners.

The Doctor entered the console room not too long after Rose had sat down on the jump seat, swinging her legs as she waited with a pork chop wrapped in brown paper in her hands. Both the buckets were steaming as the Doctor caught her eye and gave her a slightly manic grin. He nodded towards the door and Rose opened it for him, seeing as his hands were full, and they set off back towards the warehouse.

‘Now I’ve put a fast acting sedative in one of the buckets,’ he began to explain, ‘we’ll use that one first to slow him down and hopefully not antagonise him further than our general presence will before using the other bucket. I don’t think he’ll be impressed if we’re throwing things at him’.

‘Can’t say I’d think much to it,’ she agreed quietly as she followed him through the wicket gate and down the stairs of the warehouse.

They were creeping along again and the Doctor led them through the first doorway on the right, when they reached that same corridor where they saw the Hoix before, only to find that all three doorways led into three shorter corridors that all led to the same big room. Why there were three doorways next to each other that led into the same room both were none the wiser; it was architectural design gone mad. The room they were in seemed to be an old storage space with still quite a few old wooden crates dotted about in stacks of two or three tall at the most. The Doctor set the buckets down on one of the single crates before holding his hand out for the meat Rose had brought.

‘Now what have we got here?’ He said quietly as he unwrapped the brown paper she had just passed him. ‘Chop! Lovely,’ he enthused with a smile, his voice going high pitched in his praise. Glancing back up at her he said. ‘Ready for the Hoix heist?’

Rose gave him a mock salute as she said, ‘yes sir.’ causing him to roll his eyes at her whilst he unwrapped the chop fully and pocketed the paper.

‘Alright, I’ll distract, you bucket.’ He stepped away from Rose and the buckets, holding the chop high in the air and waving it about like a peculiar flag. ‘Come on Hoix-y boy! Let’s be having you!’ He yelled, his voice echoing around the room. ‘Got you some food! Nice bit of pork chop!’ His head swivelled around the room to all the other doors, but there didn’t seem to be any sign of the Hoix at all. After a few more attempts at encouragement he lowered his arm disappointedly. ‘Where’s he gone?’ He questioned with a bit of a whine.

‘Maybe we should split up and have a bit of a search?’ Rose suggested with a shrug.

He hummed thoughtfully then agreed. ‘If you see him just yell and run and we’ll find one another.’

The Doctor set off to the left, still brandishing the chop and Rose went to the right. She didn’t get very far before the Doctor was running back towards her yelling at her to throw the bucket of chemicals at the Hoix that was chasing him. Rose ran back to the buckets but then found herself with a problem: he never told her which bucket. ‘Wait! Which bucket? She yelled. She could hear the echoes of the Doctor’s shouts and the Hoix’s roars around her but couldn't see them. ‘You never said which bucket first!’

‘Erm…not blue!’ He bellowed back, somehow from the left once more.

Rose nodded and grabbed the blue bucket having misheard his instructions. ‘Blue, gotcha,’ she muttered to herself and followed the sounds of the commotion bucket in hand, ready to strike. ‘Doctor! Doctor, look out!’ She yelled as he and the Hoix exited two of the doorways into the main corridor at the same time. The Doctor dodged a swipe from the creature before running back the way he came and the Hoix followed him once more. ‘He’s coming up behind you! Quick move!’ She chased after them though at a slightly slower rate than she normally would not wanting to spill the contents of the steaming bucket.

‘Where’s he gone? Can you see him?’ The Doctor shouted, his voice coming from somewhere behind her now. It really was like a maze as she originally thought.

A flash of brown and the sound of growling spurred her on as the creature passed by the end of the corridor she was running down. ‘There he is! Stop! No!’ She called after the creature as it ran away.

‘Where is he?’ He shouted again as he ran through the crates and back to the main corridor nearly colliding with Rose as he came around another stack of them as she chased the Hoix.

‘Watch out!’ She yelled at him as she rushed by, continuing her chase. ‘There!’

He spun around but could see no sign of the creature and ran back into the maze of crates to try and track him down ‘Where?’

‘There! Over there!’ Rose shouted triumphantly, getting a distant glimpse of the brown skinned creature again.

The Hoix darted past the end of the corridor that the Doctor was down so he bellowed once more so Rose could find them and throw the chemicals on the creature. ‘Look out! There! There!’

Rose was walking through the maze of crates where she thought the Doctor’s voice had come from, hoping to jump the Hoix with the bucket. The Doctor had slowed down too when he lost sight of the creature, having decided the loud chasing approach that they had been going for clearly wasn’t working for them. It was times like these that he wished she was telepathic. Well, not only telepathic because that wouldn’t do much good with him just being a touch telepath, but that she was telepathic and that they were bonded. He was getting a bit ahead of himself he knew, they had only just kissed with both parties being fully present and willing, but if they were bonded fully they would be able to communicate telepathically and it would make a silent chase so much easier as well as many of their other encounters. Not that it would matter either way because Rose wasn’t a telepath and therefore it wouldn’t work. A bond could never be as fulfilling in that sense as it would be if he had chosen to bond with another Time Lord but really the Doctor didn’t care about that part. Given the chance he would still bond with Rose. A bond wasn’t there to be used as a benefit to their adventures, it was a show of commitment, of love, a symbol of being there together and for each other no matter what. One day he might pluck up the courage to ask her but he would have to be absolutely sure that she wanted it, if she did say yes, because a bond was for life just like a marriage, til death do us part, and there was all the rest that it entailed too.

A low growling from nearby drew the Doctor out of his thoughts as he crept along into a brightly lit room. He could see the Hoix up ahead, standing in front of a rusted metal door sniffing and growling at something on the other side. The door was pulled open and the creature roared loudly at whoever was before him. The Doctor presumed it wasn’t Rose because she surely would have chucked the bucket of chemicals at the Hoix by now. He watched as he stepped forwards and out of the brightly lit room and the Time Lord ran as silently as he could towards the door, the chop still in his hand, to try and attract his attention away from whoever was there. He darted to the open doorway and found the Hoix snarling at a startled looking blonde man. Where he had come from or what he was doing was a mystery to the Doctor but that wasn’t his current issue. ‘Here boy. Eat the food. Come on,’ he cooed at the Hoix, holding the pork up and trying to encourage him away from the stranger. ‘Look at that lovely food. Isn’t that nice? Yes it is. Yes it is.’ Turning his attention to the newcomer he sternly instructed him to, ‘get out of here quickly,’ before quickly changing back to his cooing voice to attract the creature’s wavering attention back to him. ‘Atta boy. Who would like a porky-choppy then?’ The man, however, was simply staring at them not understanding the gravity of the situation which was rather understandable given the circ*mstances but was still rather annoying. He shouted at the man instead hoping that would stir some life into him. ‘I said run!’ Finally the stranger followed his orders and began to run away from them just as Rose darted around the corner with the steaming bucket in hand.

‘Aghhhhhhhhh,’ Rose screamed as she ran past the man and towards the distracted Hoix. She threw the contents of the bucket and finally drenched him with the chemicals causing the Hoix to howl and clutch at his eyes.

Rose had splashed the Doctor with the chemicals too but that didn’t matter much, what mattered was the fact that she had been wielding the wrong bucket. ‘Wrong one! You’ve made it worse!’ He complained.

‘You said “blue”!’ She retorted a little hoarsely.

‘I said “not blue”!’ He corrected.

The Hoix had turned his attention to Rose during their brief argument and began snarling at her, unimpressed that she had thrown the chemicals at him. She let out a small whimper before turning and legging it down one of the corridors again swiftly followed by the creature.

The Doctor sighed. ‘Hold on’ he called after her, stepping back into the bright room and pulling the door shut hoping that the man would do the sensible thing and leave whilst the Hoix was otherwise distracted.

What followed was like a scene from Scooby-Doo as the Doctor, Rose and the Hoix either screamed or growled as they ran between the corridors, the Hoix chasing after them as they darted between the different routes alternating from left to right and right to left until Rose managed to get back to the buckets and picked up the red one, turning the tables in the time traveller’s favour and beginning to be the chaser rather than the chased. The Doctor caught up with them and joined the chase only coming to a halt as he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that the blonde man was still watching them from the end of the corridor. In the back of his mind he thought he recognised him from somewhere and one never able to give up on a mystery he stopped himself and stepped back into the main corridor to face the other man.

‘Hold on. Don’t I know you?’ The Doctor asked as he stepped towards the stranger with a furrowed brow as he tried to work out where he did know the man from. He never received his answer as the man decided to leg it out of the building. The Time Lord’s scrutinising gaze followed him as he fled down the metal stairs before he was brought back to the matter at hand by a loud splash, thud and a triumphant yell from Rose saying that she had got him. He shook his head and darted in the direction of her voice finding her standing over the unconscious Hoix between some precariously stacked crates. She looked up at his approaching footsteps and he grinned at her saying, ‘got there in the end, eh?’ This garnered him with a miffed look and an annoyed huff and he chuckled at her reaction as he shoved the meat back in its brown paper wrapper and pocketed it. He gently nudged the creature’s shoulder with his foot ensuring he was really out of it only to receive confirmation with a snore. Satisfied, he bent down, going to grab him by the shoulders. ‘Right, we should probably get a move on before he wakes up. Grab his feet will you?’ Rose did so and they hauled him all the way back to the Tardis.

It didn’t take long, once they’d set him down on the grating, for the Doctor to set a course to drop the Hoix back off home in the Castovian Spiral and soon he was closing the doors to the Old Girl with just him and Rose inside once more.

‘Well done Tyler,’ he praised with a grin as he followed her back up the ramp. ‘Stopped a Hoix and got me soaked in the process.’

She spun around and gave him a once over, shaking her head as she did so. ‘You’re not soaked, I only splashed you. Anyway you could have gotten out of the way, you saw me coming.’

‘Couldn’t miss it,’ he smirked, a playful twinkle in his eyes. ‘You with your war cry…and the wrong bucket,’ he couldn’t help but add, just to rile her up once again. He’d already had an earful on the way to the Tardis but he couldn’t help himself.

‘Who says “not blue”?’ She complained once more, her hands flying up in the air in question. ‘Just say red.’

‘I was busy…doing all that distracting,’ he whined. Rose gave him an unimpressed look. ‘I was.’ She leant into her hip and folded her arms to add to the look. He rolled his eyes. ‘Shut up you,’ he said, finding himself reaching out and booping her on the nose with his finger to draw her out of her complaining. It worked spectacularly as she now looked up at him with a mixture of surprise, confusion and amusem*nt. His own amusem*nt was draining quickly, however, as he found himself becoming more and more uncomfortable in his own skin. The chemicals, though not harmful by any means, were causing him to feel as though hundreds of ants were crawling across him from where he had gotten splashed. He brought his hand up to his cheek, rubbing it to try and rid himself of that feeling. ‘Now, I’m going to take a shower because it’s making me all itchy-’ He began but Rose cut him off before he could finish his thoughts.

‘What? The stuff I threw at you?’ She gazed at him with wide, worried eyes, her voice full of concern that she had caused him harm, and even more so because they had been joking about it mere moments ago. ‘It won’t hurt you will it?’

‘No, it’s just an irritant,’ he assured her with a smile. He squeezed her shoulder as he passed, slowly heading in the direction of the corridor. ‘I’ll be fine once I’ve washed it off.’ The Doctor turned and, continuing to step backwards around the console room, asked, ‘do you want to get some food after?’

‘As long as it’s not that chop,’ she joked, following him with her gaze.

He chuckled. ‘I gave that to our friendly neighbourhood Hoix as a parting gift. No, I’ll take you out somewhere…if you want,’ he added with a little uncertainty at the end, stopping in his tracks as he reached the edge of the console room to wait for her answer.

To Rose that rather sounded like a date, especially when the ever assured Time Lord phrased it as he had. She felt all warm inside and a smile broke out over her face at his suggestion, the Doctor’s expectant look changing to match her own as he happily grinned back at her. ‘Do I need to wear anything in particular?’ She asked him and he shook his head.

‘No, just think mid to late spring London temperatures,’ he answered, watching as she stepped towards him evidently wanting to freshen up as well.

She laughed and shook her head. ‘That could mean anything with the weather in London.’

‘It’s surprisingly similar to where I’m taking you weather wise,’ he mused, ‘though I’m hoping for a good day’.

‘And where are you taking me?’ Rose asked with a hopeful smile as she stopped before him.

The Doctor simply smirked and tapped his nose with his finger before turning and making his way down the corridor followed by Rose and her half hearted complaints that he never let on where he was going to take her.

**********

The Tardis never left the Castovian Spiral, instead she embarked on the short trip to another planet within the star system where there should be no Hoix to interrupt their meal. The Doctor took Rose’s hand and led her out of the Tardis and onto a small planet called Iona. The sky burned bright red and the ground was a dusty orange though it was covered with the green leaves of low lying plants with grand blue flowers that reminded Rose of lilies. The buildings were few and all made up of a red cob-like building material with thatched roofs which they passed on the way to a market where the Doctor couldn’t help but stop to pick up some parts for the Tardis when his eyes fell on a stall covered in bizarre metal contraptions. Then they found the food stalls, their real intention for being there, and the Doctor ordered them some vegetable kebabs and the planet's equivalent of chips which weren’t exactly potato and were star shaped. Since being with him Rose had approached all the food he said was safe for her with an open mind and usually he was right when he said that she would enjoy the food he was suggesting. He pocketed their boxed meals and led her on a walk away from the buildings and up a winding path to the hills above. They chatted and joked the entire time, their joined hands swinging between them, before halting by a fallen tree, near the edge of the cliff which they now found themselves on, that had since been carved into a bench. As they sat, Rose gazed at the view in awe. The bright red sky expanded before her as far as the eye could see, well it would have done was it not appearing to be cut in half by the bluest of oceans that glittered beneath the gradually setting sun. She was so busy taking in the view that she hadn’t noticed the Doctor shuffling about beside her fishing the boxes of food from the pockets of his long coat. He even had to nudge her a couple of times to try and pass her box to her. She found the meal to be just as good as the surrounding view and after they had eaten they relaxed back against the bench as the red sky slowly deepend allowing the first twinkling of distant stars to shine through. The ocean never darkened its blue, forever bright because of the bioluminescent plankton, according to the Doctor. His left arm was resting behind her on the back of the bench as she shuffled from a sitting to a more curled up position on the wooden seat, her body leaning into the Time Lord a little more and her head coming to rest on his shoulder as she did so.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, repeating her previous remark as she continued to admire the ever changing view.

‘Yeah,’ the Doctor agreed softly, his eyes not on the same view at all.

Rose felt his gaze on her and glanced up, giggling slightly at the admiring look he was giving her rather than the scene around them. ‘You’re so cheesy,’ she chuckled, poking his side lightly with her finger. An amused smile grew on his face and he gave her a wink before he slid his arm from the back of the bench and around her shoulders. Rose found herself leaning into his touch. He brought his other hand up and cupped her cheek, his thumb caressing her soft skin. His eyes flicked from her hazel ones to her lips a few times before he leaned in and kissed her gently. It wasn’t as needy as their previous kisses, both feeling more comfortable to take their time and prolong the moment. After they parted Rose sighed happily and relaxed against him once more, her eyes eventually trailing back up to the sky. After a few minutes she finally asked the question that she had been pondering since they had arrived on Iona. ‘Does this planet remind you of Gallifrey at all? I just mean with the red skies and the dusty ground…’ She trailed off, trying to recall other possible similarities from what she could remember.

‘A little bit, yeah,’ he answered with a soft smile, pleased that Rose could make the comparisons even just from listening to him talking about his home planet. He drew a deep breath, his eyes looking up at the appearing stars in the darkening sky, and added, ‘actually if you look over there and squint really hard…’ He pointed up to a small cluster of stars that were barely visible to him let alone a human. ‘...Then you might just be able to see Kasterborous, the constellation where Gallifrey once was.’

‘Really?’ She breathed with awe and a bit of disbelief at finding herself so close to his home world. The Doctor hummed in agreement and they fell into contented silence once more, simply enjoying being together as they gazed at the growing constellations up above.

Chapter 34: A Different Kind Of Storm

Chapter Text

‘Cor, smell that air, that fresh sea breeze blowing up the Delaware River,’ crowed the Doctor as he stood on a short dock over the water just beyond the Tardis doors. His long coat billowed out behind him threatening to whack anyone who attempted to step too close to the Time Lord. The entire stretch of the river was rather busy with trade and passenger transport which was more than common given that colonial Philadelphia was quite the commercial hub in the Americas at the time. The water was awash with the old boats, mostly a mixture of schooners and sloops, their sails catching the healthy breeze and helping them on their journey downriver.

‘Breeze? More like gale force winds,’ Rose complained, her hands on her hair trying to ensure it stayed in place. Her blonde locks were pulled flat against her head and were braided at the back where they were pinned there by blue flower clips that matched the sky blue shade of her dress. She had put in a request for a destination where she could dress up in a fancy, old dress having visited the wardrobe room previously and found some that she would like to try. The Doctor told her she could go out wearing whatever she wanted from the wardrobe room no matter where they went but Rose wanted to fit in with the period they were visiting. After a word with the Tardis and a push of the randomiser button she headed to the wardrobe room and the Old Girl pointed out a few outfits from her vast collection. Rose settled on a sky blue, low necked gown worn over a white petticoat that was visible through the opening of the skirts. The sleeves on the gown were close fitting; they stopped just past the elbow and were trimmed with frills. She wore matching silk shoes on her feet, which were in keeping with the era, though her heels were not as tall as they would have been. Rose never picked out particularly big heels when there was an occasion to wear them just in case she had to run. The Doctor’s face had been a picture when she had returned to the console room where he was waiting for her after the Tardis had landed. He told her she was very eighteenth century and Rococo inspired, then he’d kissed her and called her beautiful. There had been a lot more of that happening since their kiss just before Wembley, though there had been nothing too heated and neither had attempted to take things any further but Rose didn’t mind. There was no need to rush anything and she was enjoying the slow pace they had fallen into. Being able to kiss the Doctor was still quite an achievement in itself in her mind. If she told her past self she would think she’d inhaled some strange alien gas and had gone barmy but no, that one kiss had unlocked the doors and they had passed through them, hand in hand, on their new adventure. They hadn’t spoken about it, what they were or what they wanted. She wasn’t even sure the Doctor did want more but she would be content with whatever he did want because he was the one for her as sappy as that sounds. She didn’t particularly believe that there was “the one” out there nor really believe in soulmates but no one else could even try to compare to the Time Lord, not in her eyes. And the life they led together, there was nothing else like it and there was certainly no going back to a normal life after what they had experienced. She had told him a few times that she wasn’t leaving him and she really meant it. She was going to stay with him forever.

The Doctor’s hair was blowing wildly in the wind as he stood on the dock overlooking the Delaware River. He glanced over at Rose, watching as she worried about her own hair, and commented on the wind saying, ‘oh it’s not that bad’.

She lowered her hands, happy that the pins were keeping her hair in place and turned her attention to her billowing skirt. ‘Kinda regretting dressing up now,’ she said, trying her best to tame it, ‘feel like this skirt will act like a parachute if the wind catches it right’.

A smirk grew on his face at her attempts and he stuck out his arm to her and arched his brow as he said, ‘well, let me tether you to the ground’. She stopped her fussing and grinned up at him, taking his arm as she did so. ‘Come on, let’s go exploring.’ They turned their back on the river and walked towards the buildings of the young city of Philadelphia. He wasn’t sure why the Old Girl had chosen Philadelphia again, it certainly wasn’t long ago from his Time Lord perspective since they had been there last but the eighteenth and the twentieth century version were certainly unique enough to prevent him from feeling as though he was repeating their past adventure. He wouldn’t be happy if they had to deal with some Silurians again though and he was sure Rose would feel the same, especially in her dress. Her chances of outrunning that slug-like creature were definitely lowered by the confines of women’s fashion in the time period. Speaking of time periods he was intrigued as to when they had exactly ended up. He’d worked out the century by Rose’s outfit and knew they were in Philadelphia by a couple of signs down at the docks but when within that century he couldn’t be certain. Spying a boy selling newspapers on one of the street corners he removed his arm from Rose’s and rifled through his pockets until he found some loose change and picked out a slightly beaten up silver shilling, exchanging it with the boy for one of the papers. The boy thanked him wholeheartedly, asking if the Doctor wanted change. He simply smiled and declined and began walking away with Rose at his side hoping that the young lad would spend the frankly excessive amount of money he had paid for a single newspaper on something useful.

‘The Pennsylvania Gazette,’ Rose read as they stopped by the side of one of the red brick buildings. She pointed to the date at the top of the page as she said, ‘and look we’re in 1752’.

The Doctor hummed. ‘Wellllll could be worse, ten years back and we would've gotten caught up in some riots.’

‘We don’t want that, sounds a bit dangerous for us Doctor,’ she commented. Slowly she tilted her head up to meet his. They looked at one another, their eyes filled with mirth, only able to hold it back for about a second before their laughter burst out at their inside joke. A few passersby gave the pair odd looks but they didn’t care even if they did notice the stares they were garnering. Once they had calmed they set out on a wander around the other streets. Most were paved and lined with unlit oil lamps which the Doctor pointed out were very modern for the era and becoming of the young city. Philadelphia was more the size of a town in present day America with only around fifteen thousand inhabitants but it was becoming a major city in colonial times. Most of the buildings they passed were either brick or stone and they passed by many of them including schools, libraries, theatres and Christ Church, the church of which would become the tallest building in the United States once the steeple was added in a couple of years.

The pair hadn’t noticed the gales as much as they had on the dock because the surrounding buildings protected them but it was still a dramatic difference when they stepped into a tavern they had been passing as they reached near the waterfront once more. The establishment’s signage named it as The Tun Tavern and beneath that name a subtitle had been added: Peggy Mullan’s Red Hot Beef Steak Club. It was getting late and they were hungry so they thought they would give it a try. The last meal they had eaten on their previous trip to Philadelphia had gone well so they were hoping for a repeat of that experience though it was the eighteenth century so they weren’t getting their hopes up too high. They found the large, red brick tavern to be quite a popular restaurant destination so much so there wasn’t a table to spare. The Doctor could easily gaze around the room over the heads of the people as he looked for a free space, being quite tall as he was, and had to do a double take when his eyes settled on one man who was sitting alone at the far end of the room.

‘Ha,’ he cried out gleefully, an excited smile growing on his face. He turned to Rose’s questioning gaze and he added, ‘you’ll never guess who I just saw’.

‘No, I probably won’t,’ she said looking up at him fondly, ‘who did you see?’

He took her by the shoulders and stood her in front of him so she was facing in the correct direction. Leaning close, he pointed in the direction of the table and mumbled into her ear, ‘that man sitting alone over there with the light brown hair, yeah?’ She nodded as she found who he was talking about. ‘He is none other than Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States of America. Welllll not yet anyway that’s still in his future,’ he added a bit louder as he leaned back and Rose turned around to face him again. ‘Prodigious inventor he is, you've got the lightning rod, the Franklin stove and bifocal glasses, just to name a few, plus,’ he tapped his pocket and continued fervently, ‘he was even the publisher of The Pennsylvania Gazette that paper we got earlier. Well, until he gave it up and moved into his more political endeavours. Oooh and Franklin’s Bucket Brigade! Brilliant name for a group of firefighters’.

His enthusiasm never failed to make Rose smile, she always thought he was rather adorable when he was like this. ‘Come on then fanboy,’ she said, taking his hand, ‘let’s go meet him’.

He beamed at her and gave her a wink before pulling her along past the other patrons and their tables towards the one where Benjamin Franklin was sitting. He was scribbling something in a notebook, a half drunk glass of wine by his side, when he felt their presence and glanced up at the pair. His eyes darted over them inquisitively as he was met by their pleasantly smiling faces.

Before he had a chance to ask who they were and what they wanted the Doctor spoke up and said, ‘you’re not by any chance Benjamin Franklin are you?’ There were many ways he could have started that conversation but he didn’t think that the man before him would appreciate his highly energetic self, at least not immediately so he went for a more straightforward approach.

Benjamin wasn’t shocked that he was recognised as he was already a rather prominent figure in Philadelphia. He smiled at them congenially, ‘by a matter of fact I am. Who’s asking?’

The Time Lord held out his hand and the other man shook it. ‘I’m the Doctor, this is Rose Tyler,’ he said as he released Benjamin and glanced towards his companion.

She offered her own hand and Benjamin took it gently. ‘An honour,’ he told her with a soft smile.

Rose smiled back at him. ‘Nice to meet you.’

He looked between the newcomers briefly before making his decision. ‘Please sit. Sit,’ he told them, his arms open wide welcoming them to the table. He closed his note book as they thanked him and pulled out the two wooden chairs that sat tucked under the table opposite him. ‘A doctor you say,’ Benjamin began once the Doctor had shrugged off his coat and they had both settled in their seats, ‘a doctor of medicine?’

‘Of many things,’ he answered, leaning forwards and resting his elbows on the table.

The man frowned in thought. ‘I don’t recall hearing of a Doctor Tyler in the area, are you here because of the Pennsylvania Hospital?’

‘Oh it’s just the Doctor,’ he brushed off the man’s confusion. ‘But yes I heard, first hospital in the colonies, an excellent feat,’ he enthused, then raised his brow as he added, ‘no thanks to a helping hand from yours truly I gather’.

Benjamin was pleased with the recognition but accepted the praise rather humbly. ‘Thank you. It is only small at present but we hope to expand over time.’

‘Well you gotta start somewhere,’ Rose piped up with an encouraging smile.

‘Indeed,’ he agreed with a small nod. He glanced between the pair again. ‘You’re from England,’ he stated, referring to their accents, ‘have you been in Philadelphia long?’

Rose shook her head. ‘No, we arrived today.’

Benjamin raised his eyebrows at her answer. ‘If you are in need of a room I would highly recommend the ones upstairs, Mrs. Mullan offers the most comfortable of quarters.’ A slightly sly grin fell across his lips as he glanced at the Doctor and said, ‘I would probably be able to get a discount for you and your wife seeing as you are a fellow man of science’.

A slight blush grew on Rose’s cheeks and the Doctor’s eyebrows shot upwards. ‘My wife…yes…right…’ he breathed, startled by the man’s words as he leant back into his chair.

Benjamin clearly misread his reaction and upon noticing Mrs. Mullan dropping off plates of food to some customers a couple of tables over he called out to her and summoned her to their table. ‘Ah Peggy,’ he began as she stood by the table expectantly. ‘Do you have a room to spare for Doctor and Mrs. Tyler?’

‘A doctor?’ Peggy commented, raising her eyebrows as she studied the Doctor, impressed by him. ‘This place gets fancier by the day with the folk your new hospital brings in Mr. Franklin. I’m sure I can get you one made up nice and comfortable for you sir.’ She smiled down at him and the Doctor looked back at her a little awkwardly. He tugged his ear as he turned and glanced at Rose with a question in his eyes that she soon read and answered with a small shrug.

He took in a deep breath and looked back at Peggy, giving her a nod as he said, ‘right. Yes, thank you…Mrs. Mullan was it?’ His voice went high as it does when he’s uncertain and she flashed him a slightly sultry smile.

She placed her hand on his shoulder as she said, ‘please, call me Peggy sir. Come by the bar later to collect your key, I shall get the room ready now’.

The woman’s behaviour went over his head but it didn’t get past Rose who found herself slightly glaring at Peggy as her touch on the Doctor’s shoulder lingered suggestively.

‘Not sir, just the Doctor really but thank you,’ he said politely. She lifted her hand, about to leave them to it, when a thought came to mind. ‘Er, we couldn’t get some food could we? We saw the sign outside on our way past, that's why we popped in.’

A bright smile grew on her lips. ‘Of course, two sandwiches coming up,’ she turned her gaze to Benjamin, ‘what about you Mr. Franklin?’

‘Oh, no thank you,’ he answered with a shake of the head. ‘I have eaten. A bottle of the wine for the table would do nicely though.’

‘I’ll get all that for you, it won’t be long,’ she said to the group before leaving. As promised it didn’t take long for her to return with the wine and a couple more glasses for the Doctor and Rose. Benjamin topped up his own glass and filled their empty ones before excusing himself from their company needing to relieve himself.

The Doctor glanced at Rose with humour in his eyes and a smirk on his face. ‘Mrs. Tyler.’

She matched his look as she said, ‘Doctor Tyler’. They gazed at each other a moment more before laughing heartily at the situation they found themselves in. ‘You should’ve seen your face,’ she said, still chuckling away, ‘I wish I had my camera on me, your look was priceless’.

‘Oh yeah, introduce the Polaroid to 1750’s America, that wouldn’t cause a commotion,’ he joked.

She giggled and shook her head at him as she imagined the moment. ‘It would’ve been worth it.’

Soon Benjamin returned and their food arrived. Over the next couple of hours the trio chatted about their lives. Benjamin was most intrigued when they mentioned they travelled and they tried their best to talk about their adventures without giving too much away as to what they really did and encountered. The Doctor even dared to talk of meeting Madame de Pompadour seeing as her name was well known since having been the chief mistress of King Louis XV for the past few years. This topic didn’t best please Rose but her mood had been waning over the evening anyway. “Please, call me Peggy” had visited the table on far more occasions than warranted taking her time in removing their finished plates from their primitive but still rather enjoyable Cheesesteaks and the further plates from the bread pudding they had opted for as dessert. She had even returned to top up the wine glasses and brought out another bottle for the table. Then she had come over and made a whole to-do out of passing the room key to him so that their hands touched far longer than necessary. It was those lingering touches plus the gazes and suggestive comments she made to the Doctor at each of her visits that got to Rose the most. He was rather polite with her and even chatted and brought her into some of their conversations, seemingly unaware of her intentions but Rose was getting a little more jealous with each interaction they had, growing quieter as the night went on as she simmered with her feelings.

‘So what about this lightning rod I’ve heard about eh?’ The Doctor asked, leaning forwards and resting his elbows on the table after finishing his glass of wine. He was gazing at Benjamin with an eager look of intrigue. They had been on the topic of the man’s inventions, which the Doctor had been engaging with rather enthusiastically, pleasing Benjamin as he felt that he had found a kindred spirit in the Time Lord.

‘Ah you’ve heard about that one have you? What are your thoughts on it?’ the man enquired.

‘Wellllll,’ he said, rubbing his hand over the lower half of his face, ‘it depends if you’re after an opinion on its means of protection or as a device to prove that lightning is electricity’.

His response garnered an interested smile from Benjamin. ‘You’ve done your research.’

The Doctor arched his brow. ‘Clearly so have you.’ He leant back again, crossing his arms as he did so. ‘I’ve always wondered, Ben, what gave you the idea of the lightning rod?’

He was a little taken aback by the nickname but let it slide as he had found the Doctor to be quite an amicable conversationalist and was especially delighted in his interest in his current passion of electricity. He smiled at the Time Lord a little sheepishly as he said, ‘I must confess that I have become rather taken by the concept of electricity, even going as far as turning my home into quite the laboratory to conduct experiments’. The Doctor beamed at him and Benjamin relaxed once more, thankful that he did not appear to have scared off this fellow scientist with his obsessionist ways.

‘Oh well there’s no harm in that,’ he assured Benjamin, ‘I’ve got one of them myself haven’t I Rose?’ He turned his happy face to her and his grin waned a little. She was smiling too, nodding along to what he had just said and was telling Benjamin that the Doctor leaves his lab like a pig sty, full of incomplete experiments, garnering a chuckle out of the other man. But the smile wasn’t reaching her eyes. He had noticed her withdrawing over the evening. She would still join in with the conversations but her input had become less frequent even with him nudging her with questions and references she would understand. He had also noticed that her quietness coincided with visits to the table by Peggy. Rose was quite content with doing her best to ignore the other woman even though he thought she had been pleasant during their time in the tavern. He wasn’t sure what she had done to garner such a reaction out of Rose but a few barely breathed comments about her that only he could pick up being a Time Lord and he knew something wasn’t right. Even now, when Peggy hadn’t been to the table for quite some time, Rose’s usual spark had still not returned. Reaching out he placed his right hand on both of hers where they were resting on her lap, picking at her nails like she did when she was uncomfortable. He raised his brow in silent question when she glanced at him and she simply replied with what he felt was a weak smile. The Doctor squeezed her hands and tuned back into what Benjamin had been saying about his electrical experiments thinking he would wrap the conversation up soon so he could find out what was wrong.

‘...and I observed that the sharp iron needle would conduct electricity away from the charged metal sphere. Then I thought if one were to enlarge the needle, to say an iron rod of about eight or ten feet in length with a sharpened point at the end, and fix it atop of the highest parts of a building then it might be able to draw out the electrical fire from the clouds before it could come near enough to strike.’ Benjamin lowered his hands, which he had been frantically waving in the air to help with his explanations, and looked at the Doctor expectantly awaiting his input on his theories.

Once again the Doctor was beaming at him. Oh how he loved humans, especially when they had such a genius mind like Benjamin clearly did. ‘Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant,’ he enthused before continuing on eagerly, ‘and have you tested this theory? Gone out there into the big, bad world and waved that metal rod around?’

Benjamin had been looking rather proud at the Time Lord’s praise but his look became rather more sheepish with the further questions. He glanced away from the other man as he replied, wringing his hands together as he did so. ‘Not as such, no.’ Raising his gaze to the Doctor once more he told him of his current idea with a little more determination in his tone, not wishing to be a disappointment to him. ‘I hear Christ Church is erecting a steeple with a spire affixed to the top, that would work very much the same as the lightning rod and would be able to prove my theories on both the protection of the building and if lightning is electricity.’

The Doctor was disheartened by this idea. ‘Oh come on Benny-boy that could take years to build,’ he whined, causing Rose to let out a soft chuckle at his tone. She took her right hand out from under his, placing it on top instead, and stroked the back of his hand soothingly with her thumb as she entwined their fingers together with her other hand.

‘Doctor, if you do so insist on shortening my name, at least call me Ben,’ he told him firmly. ‘And I believe they are meant to start work on it any day now.’

‘But still, Ben,’ he said, enunciating the preferred nickname clearly before he continued with his complaint with the beginnings of a manic glint in his eye. ‘Surely you don’t want to wait. Where’s that fire gone eh? That urge. That desire to discover, to learn, to prove you’re right.’

He dismissed the Time Lord’s enthusiasm immediately, shaking his head as he said, ‘Philadelphia is a rather flat land, Doctor, I would need a tall building to prove anything.’

He raised his eyebrow at Benjamin in challenge as he slowly said, ‘perhaps you’re going about it all wrong…perhaps you don’t need a tall building at all, not to prove your point that lightning is electricity at least’.

Benjamin frowned in confusion. ‘What are you saying?’

The Doctor leant forward once more, his left elbow on the table whilst his other arm was still stretched out to Rose. He began his explanation in his usual rambling ways, full of energy and a little bit of madness. ‘You’re waiting to go up and reach the lightning but maybe you need the lightning to reach out to you. If the lightning wants to touch something metal then you’ll just have to wave something metal in its face. Doesn’t have to be big, as you well know you’ve drawn electricity to a needle, but big enough to get its attention.’ He paused looking for recognition in the other man’s face but he was still met with confusion. The Doctor’s eyes were wide and fully manic as he continued to try and get him to reach the conclusion on his own. He already knew what Benjamin would do but as a time traveller he was only there to influence and to inspire. He would never instruct a person to do anything unless it was absolutely necessary for the future. ‘There’s a storm brewing out there, Ben. A beautiful storm full of clouds and rain, thunder and lightning and gusts strong enough to knock you off your feet. Perfect weather for an experiment don’t you think?’ He stared at Benjamin with his wide eyes and his eyebrow raised watching as the cogs turned in the other man’s head, very much hoping he had gotten the hint by now.

After a few moments a look of understanding washed over Benjamin’s face and he slowly mumbled, ‘a kite…I could attach a metal rod to a kite…’

‘Atta boy,’ the Doctor praised with a huge grin on his face as he leant back into his chair.

‘Now you’re getting it,’ Rose cheered too and the Doctor looked over at her delighted by her clear joy. The smile he saw was reaching her eyes and it comforted him a little knowing she was feeling a bit more herself. She glanced over at him, feeling his gaze, the smile she wore was still on her lips and his eyes softened. He squeezed her hand and she squeezed back.

‘I must go,’ Benjamin began, rising up from his seat in a rush and collecting his notebook from the table. The duo’s attention turned back to him as he continued to talk in an urgent manner. ‘I must make this kite in time for the storm. Would you conduct this experiment with me, Doctor?’ He stared at the Time Lord, his eyes filled with the fire that the Doctor had tried to instil in him earlier.

He nodded. ‘Of course,’ he replied as though such things should never have been in doubt. ‘It would be a privilege Ben, of course we’ll be there.’

Benjamin raised his brows and turned to Rose. ‘You too, Mrs. Tyler?’

She smiled at him. ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

‘Good. Good…’ he said a little absently, his mind at work with the ideas of the experiment before he brought himself back to the present and said, ‘I shall collect all the equipment and pick you up here when the storm begins’. The pair agreed and bid him goodnight as he left the now nearly empty tavern.

The Doctor knew it would be a good few hours yet before the storm would be rolling in; it would probably arrive over the city early the next morning which would leave Rose with a reasonable number of hours to sleep in the room upstairs. He tugged on her hand as he stood up and slung his coat over his arm. She stood too and he led her towards the stairs, nodding to presumably Mr. Mullans behind the bar, and steering clear of a couple of loud drunks who looked as though they might start a fight at any moment. The stairs were rather narrow, as was the upstairs landing but it made finding their room a lot easier. He pulled out the key of room four and unlocked it. There were three gas lamps lighting up the small but very much liveable space. Two sat on the bedside tables on either side of the narrow double bed and the third sat atop a chest of drawers that stood on the other side of the room. There was a single window opposite the door though the night time view was covered by a set of thick drapes. By the small unlit fireplace was a single wooden chair that he chucked his coat at and was quite pleased when it landed on top of it and didn’t slide off and onto the squeaky wooden floorboards.

‘Well this is quaint,’ Rose said as she eyed the room after closing the door. She let go of his hand and stepped over to the bed pressing both of her hands down onto it and testing out the feel of the mattress. It wasn’t the best but it would have to do. ‘Certainly not the Tardis but we’ve had worse.’ She glanced back up at him and frowned slightly at his expression. ‘What?’ Rose asked as she stepped back over to him.

He had been staring at her trying to figure her out but he wasn’t quite managing it. ‘What’s wrong?’ He asked softly.

Her frown deepened and she repeated herself, ‘what?’

Raising his eyebrows at her he said, ‘you make friends all across the universe but you’ve been nothing but snarky with Peggy. What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ she said with a shrug, trying to dismiss him but she wouldn’t even reach his eyes anymore.

‘Rose,’ he warned.

She sighed, looking down at her hands as she picked at her nails. ‘She just - she reminds me of Lynda with a Y and she just sort of rubbed me up the wrong way I guess.’

Now he was confused. ‘But Lynda was nice.’

Rose glanced up at him, a flicker of that unnamed emotion in her eyes. ‘Yeah I know you liked her.’

He frowned and his voice went up a pitch as he questioned her. ‘What’s that tone for?’

She shook her head and took a step back towards the bed. ‘Look, I’ll be nicer if we see her tomorrow alright?’

That was when it hit him. Oh he was slow, slow and stupid. A small smile appeared on his lips in triumph at finally working out the problem. ‘Rose Tyler, are you jealous?’

Glancing away as her cheeks deepened from the already pink tinge she had acquired from the wine she simply said, ‘no’.

He smirked and stepped closer to her, a teasing glint in his eyes. ‘You are, aren’t you?’

‘I’m not,’ she mumbled, still rather embarrassed by him finding out the truth. ‘Shut up.’

The Doctor placed his hands on her arms, his thumbs rubbing them comfortingly. He ducked his head down, trying to get her to look at him as he said, ‘you, Mrs. Tyler, have nothing to be jealous about, okay?’ The use of that name got a little chuckle out of her, which was exactly the reaction he was hoping for, and she looked up at him again and read the truth in his assured gaze.

Rose shook her head, feeling a bit silly about her reaction but still tried to justify herself as she pointed out, ‘she was trying to come on to you’.

He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. ‘Quite frankly I didn’t notice.’ He gazed at her for a moment before exhaling deeply. ‘Let’s not do this again,’ he told her and she nodded knowing that he was referring to the incident with Madame de Pompadour. ‘It’s okay to feel these things Rose,’ he assured her. ‘It’s good to feel them; it’s what makes you human.’ He continued to gaze at her, giving her an imploring look, hoping that she would believe him.

Her eyes flitted across his face for a moment before she spoke. ‘I’m sorry that I got jealous,’ she began rather shyly. He started to shake his head and would have said something had she not continued. ‘I - I just didn’t like the way she was touching you and - and how she…what?’ She was staring at him with a small crease in her brow wondering why he was looking at her in the way that he was with his soft, adoring eyes.

A small grin tugged on his lips but he shook his head and tried to dismiss her. ‘Nothing.’

Rose continued to stare at him still filled with confusion by his continued look but unable to hide a small smirk finding herself amused by it as well. ‘What?’

‘You’re just…’ he began and trailed off with a shrug. He took a breath and tried again. ‘You’re cute when you’re like this,’ he admitted.

Her cheeks reddened once more and she glanced downwards. ‘I am not,’ she told him with certainty.

He brought his hand up to her chin and gently lifted it so she would look at him again. Raising his eyebrows he said, ‘I don’t think you get to determine how cute I find you’. His voice had unexpectedly gone deeper as he had spoken, having an effect on Rose and making her shudder slightly. He moved his hand from her chin and cupped her cheek as she inched closer, her own hands coming to rest over his pounding hearts. Her eyes darted to his lips a couple of times before she leaned in and captured them with her own. His hand slipped from her cheek and to the back of her head as the kiss continued whilst his other made a fist at the back of her dress when she dug her fingers delightfully into his scalp again, tugging on his hair as she did so and eliciting small moans from the Time Lord that were caught in her own mouth. They were both panting when they broke away for breath. After a moment the Doctor swallowed and nodded to himself. ‘You should - erm - you should probably get some sleep - before the er - the experiment tomorrow.’

Rose looked slightly disappointed with this prospect but agreed anyway. ‘Yeah. Yeah,’ she breathed, stepping back and glancing over to the bed in question. When she looked back at him she rather innocently asked, ‘will you be sleeping in the bed as well?’

That question didn’t help the already tight feeling of his trousers. He thought about it before he answered, ‘I don’t know yet’. She gave him a small smile and started to tug back the covers before she sat on the bed a little solidly and reached down to take off her silk shoes. The Doctor turned his back to her and walked to the window, poking his head through the curtains to gaze out into the night.

It wasn’t long before he was turning his attention back to the room when she called out his name. When he glanced over to her she was slowly stepping around the bed into the middle of the room. A little shyly she asked, ‘do you think you could help me out of my dress?’

Well questions like that would certainly not help his current situation. He nodded anyway and she offered him a smile before turning so he could see the fastenings. It was rather tedious loosening the strings enough so it could be pulled over her head. Then he helped her out of the petticoat and the more modern corset that the Tardis had provided her with; it was a lot more comfortable and didn’t feel compressing yet still managed to create the same look as the original kinds. He draped the items, particularly the dress, as flat as he could manage over the chair once he’d knocked his coat to the floor. Rose was just down to the long white underclothes of the period as she tucked herself up into the bed with a yawn. He snuffed out the oil lamp on the dresser then moved to the one by the left hand side of the bed where Rose had decided to sleep.

‘You don’t have to put them out if you’re going to be up,’ she told him as he reached out for the lamp.

He shook his head having made his mind up and having gotten his body under control too. ‘No, it’s alright I’ll join you.’

‘Okay,’ she said quietly and he snuffed out that light too.

Standing by the dresser he took off his jacket, tie and shirt and laid them on top of it. Rose could just see him in the dim light; she tried not to watch him undress but couldn’t help herself even if he wasn’t taking off that damn undershirt. Then he stepped out of her view and around to the other side of the bed. She felt it lower beneath him as he sat on the edge unlacing his chucks. He took his socks off too before lying down and getting under the covers. It really was a narrow bed, he was already accidentally rubbing up against Rose as he got comfortable and she was on her side. He apologised, especially because his hand had touched her bottom a few times as he wrestled with the covers, but she told him it was alright. After the room was engulfed with darkness, when the final lamp was extinguished, he turned onto his side facing her back. He could reach out and lay his arm over her side, in fact he would very much like to. He enjoyed the feel of her body next to his and the way they slotted together just so. After hesitating a little while he reached out and tentatively placed his hand on the dip above her hip.

‘Is this okay?’ he whispered. Rose’s answer was to bring her arm over his, resting her right hand on the back of his and entwining their fingers together before she gently tugged, silently asking him to move closer. He chuckled softly and obliged, shuffling across the bed until there was only a couple of inches between them. ‘Better?’ he mumbled into her ear, a trace of amusem*nt in his tone at her actions. She wasn’t done quite yet, she moved their conjoined hands upwards to her chest letting his hand rest there over her heart.

‘Now it is, yeah,’ she murmured and a soft smile tugged on his lips.

Her hair was still up so he leaned forwards a little and placed a kiss on the back of her neck. ‘Goodnight Rose,’ he whispered.

She let out a happy sigh. ‘Goodnight Doctor.’

Just before her breathing evened out into the deep calming breaths of sleep she shuffled backwards a little, her bottom brushing up against him. He took in a breath and closed his eyes tightly, willing himself not to stir up any of those barely dampened feelings once again. His body may seem eager and more than ready to take the next step but he just needed a little longer. It had been a very long time since he had last had such kinds of relations. It wasn’t exactly the Time Lord way, especially since looming was introduced, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t. He had dabbled in a previous regeneration or two and he sorted out his needs by himself when required. But this was different. This was Rose. If they were to take their relationship to the next level then he wanted it to be perfect. Or as near damn perfect as it could be and there was certainly no perfection to be found in a hard and lumpy eighteenth century bed. Perhaps he could take her away somewhere, somewhere nice and relaxing with a room they could rent or something. His mind wandered through lists of possible destinations until he drifted off, relaxed by the warmth and the feel of Rose in his arms and her soothing breaths as she slept.

Chapter 35: Thunder And Lightning Very Very Frightening

Chapter Text

The bed may have not been the most comfortable but that didn’t stop Rose from feeling so as she gradually pulled away from the realm of sleep. She was wrapped up in the Doctor’s arms, his body pressed against hers and their legs tangled together in such a way that they could appear to be one with how entwined they were. His hot breath gently tickled the back of her neck and going by the evenness of his breathing he was still asleep. She had never been around the Doctor when he was asleep before, not consciously anyway. When they shared her bed back at the flat she knew he had slept for a bit because she had questioned him about it the next day whilst asking after his injuries and how he was generally feeling. It was strange to know that the man who practically bounced off the walls most days was lying there peacefully behind her. She wanted to turn, to look at his face and see his features when they were at their most calm but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to wake him up. He shifted slightly, his cool foot brushing up against the bottom of hers; she jolted a little at the tickling sensation and then stilled immediately hoping that she hadn’t woken him. He let out a short sigh but didn’t seem to rouse any further so Rose relaxed once more and allowed herself to drift off again. She had no idea what the time was, but it was still very dark in the room so it must have been the early hours of the morning, and apart from the wind rattling the window there didn’t seem to be any sign of the storm so she hoped she might be able to get another hour or two of sleep.

She woke up again to the Doctor nuzzling her neck. Sighing happily, she blinked open her eyes to find the room gently lit by a dull morning light. He pulled back a little, his voice rough from sleep as he murmured, ‘good morning Rose Tyler’.

‘Morning,’ she said as she stretched, her arms reaching up to the headboard and her legs untangling themselves from his. She let out a yawn as she settled back into his arms and he leant closer and kissed the back of her neck.

‘Did you sleep well?’ He asked, his quiet words tickling just behind her ear.

‘Was comfier than I expected,’ she replied as he continued to kiss her there. ‘You?’ Her only answer was a short affirmative hum as his mouth sucked on the skin behind her ear. This was certainly new and she would be lying if she said she wasn’t enjoying it. Butterflies were fluttering in her stomach and her breath hitched when she felt his tongue on the spot where his lips had just been. Actions like these could lead somewhere and she needed to know what it all meant before it did go any further. ‘Doctor, what is this?’ she whispered.

He leant back a little, his voice still delightfully low as he asked, ‘what do you mean?’

‘What are we? With all the kissing and everything. I mean…are we together?’ Her heart was pounding a little faster as she awaited his response though she wasn’t left waiting long.

She felt his short huff of laughter on the back of her neck and could hear the smirk in his voice as he answered, ‘apparently we already are, Mrs. Tyler’.

Giggling softly she turned in his arms so she could see him, see his expressions, and was greeted by a small smile that matched her own. She rolled her eyes at him but then her humour faded and she looked at him a little more sombrely as she said, ‘yeah but seriously’.

He took in a deep breath. Together. Perhaps it would help her to label it, to know it was just Rose and the Doctor even if he did find her jealousy a little adorable. He totally understood that feeling, he could hardly deny he never got jealous when it came to others and Rose. He was starting to recognise it in himself now, how he had acted previously. Acted with Jack and even with Mickey though he thought the latter was probably unjustified as they had been together when the Doctor first met the pair. He really had no right to feel jealous when they were a couple. Then he had whisked her away from him and at some point they had broken up. He was very vague on the details of the breakup; he recalled Rose saying that she and Mickey hadn’t been together for a while when they were at that party for her friend but what a while meant was a mystery. Did he cause their break up? It would be hard to be together when time and space stood between you. He should probably feel bad about that, if he was the cause, but he struggled to particularly feel so because here was Rose asking if they, Rose and the Doctor, were together. Of course it was what he wanted, he would go as far as bonding with her if that was what she wanted as well, but still the idea of being together, quite frankly, made him a bit nervous. He hadn’t been part of a together since he was bonded with his wife and even then they may have been bonded for hundreds of years but that didn’t really mean that they were together as such. They hadn’t been since their relationship broke down during his first regeneration even if the bond was still there until she died. They were very different people when it came down to it. She didn’t share his wanderlust and he didn’t share her opinions on Gallifrey and those things were just the beginning of their problems. His relationship with Rose was already extremely different. So far he had been more intimate with her; even if their relationship might be considered lacking by human standards by Gallifreyan he was already breaking at least a handful of rules. But then again he always was a renegade. They also shared a love of travelling, adventure, the unknown and they had great fun whilst doing so but it wasn’t as though that was all they constantly did. The quiet, relaxing moments in the Tardis were very much enjoyable too. He tried his best to teach her to cook, so far unsuccessful but she was getting there slowly, and she introduced him to crappy television, honestly the amount he knew about EastEnders now was embarrassing. She had taught him to draw after the incident with the Drakkads whilst he was gradually increasing her interest in more scientific concepts, even the other day they had what he found to be a rather enjoyable conversation on the nature of black holes. It’s not like they had to be doing everything together either, sometimes they would find themselves in companionable silence simply focusing on their own things. They were with one another nearly constantly yet they never grew tired of it. When he thought about it really he had nothing to be nervous about because label or not they already were together and if that thought didn’t make him happy he didn’t know what would.

All his thoughts only took mere seconds to compute and when he had he found a soft smile tugging on his lips. He gazed into Rose’s uncertain eyes, his own bright and happy, as he said, ‘we can be whatever you want’.

Her uncertainty faded to be replaced by the gleam of excitement, a smile growing on her face as she asked, ‘so you could be my boyfriend?’

He tilted his head a little from side to side considering it but ultimately wasn’t taken with the idea. ‘If you insist but I’m not sure about boyfriend, feel a bit old for that title.’

She shook her head, giggling softly. ‘You’re not that old,’ she said as she brought her left hand up to his cheek. Instead of cupping it she traced her finger delicately over the side of his face that wasn’t pressed into the pillow, tracing over his eyebrow and under his eye, down his nose and across his slightly stubbled jaw.

His eyebrows shot up. ‘Really?’ He asked incredulously. ‘Need I remind you of the age gap?’

‘I don’t care about that, Doctor.’ Her finger stilled in her path over his sideburn as she looked at him seriously. ‘Do you care about that?’

‘Right now,’ he began, lightly grabbing the wrist of her left hand and moving it so he could place a kiss on her palm. ‘Not as much as I should.’ Rose relaxed and he kissed her palm again. ‘What about partner?’

A smile grew on her lips. ‘Partner,’ she repeated, testing out the word. ‘I like it.’

The Doctor grinned back. He released her hand, which came to rest on his cheek, and leant forwards a little so that their noses rubbed together. ‘Good,’ he mumbled, pecking her lips before he continued, ‘I like it too’.

Their lips came together once more, kissing lazily in the early morning light. Rose’s hand slipped into his hair at the back of his head playing with the soft brown strands and tugging them gently in the way she already knew he loved. As the kiss deepened he used the hand he had on her back to close the last couple of inches and pull her body up against his. Her nightwear did not leave much to the imagination. As his hand trailed over her back he could feel every contour, every dip, every muscle and now, pressed up against him as she was, he fully took notice of the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. He felt something stir within him and drew his hips back a little. He knew he should probably pull back from the kiss too, he didn’t want things to get too heated after all, especially because then he may not be able to stop himself. The thing was he was finding it increasingly hard to stop it. Rose’s tongue was doing something delightful and her right hand had snaked its way under the back of his undershirt, her warm fingers dancing across his cooler skin.

It was Rose who was the first to break the kiss, sometimes she hated needing to breathe, but the Doctor didn’t stop. His lips trailed downwards and onto her neck and she tilted her head back, gasping at the sensation and offering him more skin to continue. And continue he did. He drew a path of kisses across her neck to her ear before changing direction and moving down towards her collarbone. Her fingers dug into the taut muscles of his lower back when he nipped at her gently and she pulled his hair in retaliation eliciting a growl from the Time Lord that she felt vibrating from his chest. The sound made a warmth pool within her which only grew as he continued kissing and nipping and lathing any mark he left with his tongue. Rose loved the sensations of it all. She hadn’t particularly experienced them before in her previous relationships as they had only wanted one thing. Well, Jimmy in particular did and that shouldn’t have been unexpected looking back. At least Mickey had tried more to find out what she liked before getting down to what he wanted. But with the Doctor it was like he already knew her likes and if he didn’t then he was doing a mighty fine job of discovering them.

‘Doctor,’ she breathed. He hummed into her neck as he slowly tasted his way upwards with his tongue. Such an action didn’t surprise her one bit as he was always using that tongue to taste other things on their adventures, her skin wouldn’t be an exception. ‘Don’t stop,’ she gasped as he reached her ear and gently pulled on the lobe with his teeth. He moved back to her lips briefly before continuing his explorations of her neck when she needed to breathe once more. Eventually he did stop, resting his head on her shoulder as he breathed deeply, one hand drawing circles on her back. As their breathing settled Rose began to notice a pattering against the window.

‘We have to get up,’ he mumbled, his lips brushing against her skin and his voice a little husky.

‘The rain?’ She asked and she felt him nod as he hummed again.

‘The storm’s here and we need to be ready,’ his dark eyes twinkled as he lifted his head to look at her, ‘and you’ll need about seven hours to get dressed again’.

She withdrew her hand from his hair and used it to push his shoulder so he ended up lying on his back chuckling at her actions. ‘Shut up, I’m not that bad,’ she laughed then she poked him in the chest and added, ‘anyway you can help mister and we might get it done in under three’. He huffed a little and she gave him her tongue touched grin before rolling over and getting out of the bed. He continued to lie there watching as she extracted the petticoat from the pile of clothing on the chair and slipped it on. Then she moved to the front fastening corset and yanked at the ties until it came together how she wanted it to. After tying the corset she glanced over at him. ‘Well it’s no use lying about all day,’ she told him sternly, her eyebrows raised. She picked up the gown and held it out for him.

The whole effect would have probably worked on others but the Doctor knew her too well for that, he could easily read the humour that glinted in her eyes. He sighed dramatically as he pulled the covers off and got out of the bed and received a cheeky smile as she thanked him when he’d walked over and taken the gown from her. Raising her arms when he asked, the gown was soon covering the rest of her clothing. He carefully tied the fiddly strings then stepped around to the front of her when he was done. That was when he spied the mark he had left on her collarbone, the edge of the fresh bruising was just visible, poking out of the gown. He brushed his thumb over it gently, moving the fabric away slightly to see it better. ‘Nasty mark you’ve got there,’ he mumbled, eyes still focused on the darker skin, ‘should probably see a doctor about it’.

Rose had casted her gaze downwards after he’d first touched the area and watched as his thumb delicately traced it. ‘I think my last doctor gave it to me,’ she said quietly, ‘won’t be going back there again. Any recommendations?’ She glanced up at him through her eyelashes to see him wearing a smirk.

‘Just one.’ He leant down and placed a gentle kiss over the area before covering it again with the gown. The rain outside was no longer just pattering on the window, now it sounded like it was hammering on it trying to get in. A distant thunderclap seemed to bring the Doctor back to himself. His eyes widened and, after pecking Rose on the cheek, he dashed around her and quickly pulled his shirt on, his fingers flying across the front doing up the buttons as fast as he could.

Once Rose had put on her shoes and the Doctor his, plus the rest of his clothes, they headed downstairs. She headed to one of the windows at the front of the building to gaze out at the storm whilst he spoke to Mr. Mullan at the bar and settled their debts with more old money he found in his pockets. Through the rain she could see two men on horseback approaching the tavern, she couldn’t recognise the younger of the two as they neared but the older one was recognisable as the man she met yesterday, Benjamin Franklin. The horses came to a stop outside just as she felt a presence behind her. ‘He’s here, though he’s brought someone else with him.’

‘Yes that’ll be his eldest William,’ the Doctor told her, ‘historians don’t know too much about the experiment, Ben doesn’t seem to document it, but they do place him there with Ben. Come on, we’ve got some storm chasing to do.’ He placed his hand on the small of her back and moved her away from the window. She glanced up at him and saw that mad gleam in his eyes as he opened the door for them and followed her outside.

Benjamin was still on his horse, his eyes on the sky watching the clouds. He had a bag with him filled with equipment and his handmade kite was attached to the rear of the horse's saddle. William was standing by his horse’s head, petting the dripping mane and stroking them under the chin, his back to the Doctor and Rose when they stepped out into the rain. He was a man in his early twenties, hardly older than Rose, and when he did turn she thought that he looked a lot like his father with his pale brown hair and his large dark eyes.

‘Perfect weather for it eh Ben?’ The Doctor called out to the older man who turned immediately upon hearing the Doctor’s voice.

He smiled at the pair; he looked absolutely soaked but acted as though he hadn’t noticed, rather similar to the Time Lord’s own behaviour. ‘Doctor and Mrs. Tyler, excellent timing, I was about to send William inside to get you.’ He nodded towards the other man who had turned to face the newcomers and then gave brief introductions before suggesting they set off.

William left his horse in the hands of the Doctor and jumped onto the one with his father. Rose was a little nervous about this. She had never ridden a horse before as it wasn’t like she had much opportunity to do so growing up on a council estate in the middle of a city. The Doctor took her by the waist and lifted her up so she sat on the horse’s back in a side saddle position, her gown not allowing her the option of riding as one would normally. He seemed to lift her with ease, his strength always managing to surprise her because one would never have guessed he’d be as strong as he was by the looks of his lean form. It would probably be another Time Lord biological greatness thing for him to brag about if she brought it up. He assured her she would be fine riding side saddle, after he hauled himself up in front of her, just telling her to hold onto him tight. She did so as they set off, wrapping her arms around him, uncaring about pressing up against the back of his dampening long coat because she hadn’t escaped the rain herself. They soon found themselves following the sound of the thunder outside of the city, the horses galloping along side by side and Rose clinging to the Doctor for dear life. The whole experience would have probably been better if she wasn’t absolutely soaked and could sit properly on the horse so she wasn’t constantly worrying about sliding off, but for her first time on the back of such a creature she thought it wasn’t all that bad. She enjoyed the rush of the breeze as they hurtled along and thought she wouldn’t mind having another go at some point and maybe even try being in charge of the reins though hopefully not at the speed they were going at.

The horses came to a halt outside of a barn at the edge of some fields and it was here that they decided to conduct the experiment. The Doctor had announced that the height of the storm would be upon them in the next ten minutes or so as they were all dismounting so Benjamin opened the doors to the barn quickly to let them inside so he could set up his experiments on time. William led the horses in and tied their reins to a wooden railing offering them each an apple from his satchel whilst the time travellers followed Benjamin who set down his bag in the dry and began taking objects out of it. He removed a bundle of rope and what the Doctor described as a Leyden jar. The jar was around thirty centimetres tall and was half coated in a metal foil both inside and outside from the bottom upwards. Benjamin then pulled out a stopper for the jar; this had a metal rod attached that ran through the centre of the stopper. He affixed it to the jar so most of the rod remained inside of the glass but the part of the rod that had a metal ball on top was left open to the air.

‘And what’s this Leyden jar got to do with flying a kite?’ Rose asked when the Doctor bent down and picked it up. He stood back up straight, flicking back his dripping hair with one hand whilst holding the jar up so he could inspect it with his other. He beamed at Rose and her interesting question then rushed into his rambling explanation. ‘The jar acts as the capacitor because glass is a dielectric with a…’ he pulled a face and shrugged, ‘...welllllll it depends on the thickness, height and diameter of the glass to work out the relative permittivity but when you’ve done that you can measure the factor by which the electric field between the charges, the foil on either side of the glass which acts as two electrodes, decreases relative to the vacuum. And if the experiment works it will hopefully prove that lightning is in fact static electricity.’

This was one of the times where Rose felt like she was dribbling on her shirt, or in this case her gown. His smile lessened a bit at the incomprehension written over her features whilst she tried to translate what the hell he’d just waffled on about. ‘And in layman’s terms does that mean a battery?’ She asked with a thoughtful frown on her face.

He tilted his head from side to side and pulled another face as he quickly considered. ‘Well batteries store and distribute energy linearly whilst capacitors are really just good at storing and distributing the energy in short bursts.’

She nodded slowly. ‘I’m just gonna call it a battery.’ He rolled his eyes at her fondly and she gave him a cheeky smile in return.

‘Where on Earth is it?’ Muttered Benjamin who was still on the floor rifling through his bag evidently looking for something.

William had wandered over with the kite, which he’d untied from the saddle of Benjamin’s horse, and was attaching one end of the rope to the tail end of the wood. The kite was made up of two light strips of cedar and put together to form a cross and tied to the extremities of said cross were the four corners of a large, thin, silk handkerchief. At the top a very sharp, pointed wire protruded about a foot from the wood. This would draw in the static electricity which would then travel down the rope William was attaching and eventually feed into the jar. He glanced up from his knot tying to his father. ‘What have you lost?’

Everyone was looking down at Ben as his annoyed muttering became louder. ‘The chain,’ he cried out, ‘was the chain attached when you packed it boy?’ He didn’t bother looking up at his son, still searching every nook and cranny of the bag for this chain.

‘Yes,’ his son assured him, ‘everything was just as you requested’.

‘The stopper was detached when I opened the bag, it could have fallen out on the way,’ continued Benjamin, now muttering his disgruntled thoughts aloud.

Rose was watching all this with confusion and saw the Doctor’s face was lined with concern, she sidled up to him and quietly muttered, ‘what’s this chain for?’

He answered just as quietly, ‘it attaches to the centre rod electrode and allows the charge to connect to the inner layer of foil.’

She nodded with vague understanding. ‘So it’s kinda crucial then?’

‘Just a smidge,’ he agreed, his voice all high. He began rooting through his pockets for something that would work until what Rose was doing next to him caught his eye. He stared at her with wide eyes not knowing what was going on as she lifted up her gown at the parting of the skirts revealing more of her petticoat. She had her arm up the inside of the gown and was…well he wasn’t sure what was going on. He didn’t know if she had a very persistent itch or was perhaps afflicted with some sort of bug or insect. He was considering stretching his coat out and standing before her to protect her dignity in case she was undressing for whatever mad reason; not that the other men in the barn were looking in their direction. Ben was still fiercely searching his belongings and William had even begun to look in his own bag in case the chain was in there.

‘Wha - what - what are you doing?’ The Doctor stuttered, his voice all high again but this time or a completely different reason.

She grunted then made a sound of triumph as she removed her hand and lowered the gown again. In her hand was her Tardis key attached to the chain she normally wore around her neck. ‘Chain,’ she announced happily, holding it up with a smile. He blinked at her dumbly and she rolled her eyes understanding his still confused look as she must have looked weird as she reached for it. ‘I didn’t really want to wear it with the dress being so low cut, it wouldn’t look right, so I was going to tie it to my corset or something but found that the Old Girl had given me a little pocket on the inside of the dress just big enough for my key.’

He continued staring for a moment before he shook his head slowly at her, his face lighting up. ‘You’re mad,’ he enthused with a big grin. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her a little into his side as he placed a kiss into her hair. ‘Brilliant and mad,’ he finished before turning his attention to Benjamin and calling out to him.

‘Pot kettle,’ Rose muttered to the Time Lord before Benjamin turned his head to the pair, annoyance written all over his features. She smiled at him and waved the chain as she held it out again. ‘Will this do ya?’

The man scrambled up to his feet, his annoyance lessening immediately as Rose dropped the chain and key into his hands. ‘Mrs. Tyler this is excellent,’ he pronounced jubilantly, ‘I shall return it after the experiment’. He turned and rushed back to continue setting up the experiment.

Rose was beaming when she looked up at the Doctor; he winked at her before joining Benjamin and William in helping them with the final touches. He knew they didn’t have long, he could feel the static making his hairs stand on end on the back of his hands.

When everything was set up just how it should be the kite was finally sent out into the stormy sky. William and the Doctor stood just inside of the barn doors both holding onto the rope, their hands below the silk ribbon where the key was attached which would draw the electricity to it rather than to their hands. Rose was holding up a wooden box which held the Leyden jar within and this was attached to the key to store the electricity. The strong winds were really fighting against the kite and threatening to drag them all outside which would be completely detrimental to the experiment as it was vital that the silk string downwards remained dry. Benjamin was scouring the barn looking for something heavy to attach to the end of the rope to prevent that from happening. The thunder boomed directly overhead as Benjamin knotted further rope he had found within the barn so that the kite’s rope would be extended and able to tether to one of the wooden columns holding up the barn itself. Everything was going to plan as Benjamin finished tying the rope around the column and came to stand next to the trio to watch the clouds. That was until a part of the gently frayed rope decided to snap.

‘No, no, no, no, no!’ The Doctor shouted as he leapt forwards into the rain, instinctively grasping for the rope that had parted not far from where he was holding it. He managed to lunge for it with his long arms and caught it at the same time as a gust of wind did which blew the kite to the left of the doorway and into a tree that stood next to the barn. The rope had started to fly out of his grasp once more when that gust hit it, but he held tighter, burning his hands as he did so until he managed to grip it enough to stop the rope from getting away once more. He hauled on it, pulling it back to the barn and shouting for William to grab it too as the young man stood frozen watching the disaster unfold. He came to life at the Doctor’s words and grabbed a hold of the rope, along with his father, and they heaved it back inside but the kite was not coming unstuck. ‘Tie this together,’ ordered the Doctor, giving control of the rope to the other men who nodded and began doing as they were told. ‘I’m going to get that kite.’ He rushed off out of the barn and to the base of the large white oak tree. He grabbed the lowest of the branches and hauled himself upwards, his shoes slipping a little on the bark in the rain and his great coat catching not just the gales but on the smaller branches too as he climbed higher. He didn’t take notice of his stinging hands as he pulled himself up the tree, his hair was plastered to his forehead and his clothes were sticking to him too, but he had a singular thought in his mind and that was to get the kite. He was quite high in the tree when he reached it. The rope had become entwined with some of the branches and the kite itself was well wedged in a tight gap where the trunk split off into two. Balancing on one of the thicker branches he reached out to the rope and began unwinding it. Then he moved to the kite and yanked at it pulling it out of the tree with a triumphant, ‘ha!’ Of course this was when the lightning decided to strike. The electricity surged through the metal rod of the kite and through the Doctor before continuing down the rope towards the Leyden jar. He hadn’t been expecting the lightning, even if he was in a tree holding a kite with a metal rod attached to it in the middle of a storm. He cried out as the electricity hit him, the shock of it making him lose his footing causing him to fall to the ground, landing with a squelchy thud. The kite flew back up into the sky now happily released from the tree unaware of the chaos it had caused.

‘Doctor!’ Rose yelled as she heard his cry through the howling winds, immediately shoving the now charged Leyden jar into the unsuspecting arms of Benjamin and running out into the rain. He was splayed out face down on the wet ground at the base of the tree, Rose’s panic doubled by the very least and she ran faster calling his name once more. She flung herself down at his side, uncaring about ruining her dress with mud, and rolled him over. His eyes were closed and she held her breath as she buried her hands beneath his jacket and onto his sodden shirt feeling for the thrum of his double heartbeats.

Thump thump thump thump. Thump thump thump thump.

Rose released her breath. He was alive. ‘Doctor?’ She tried again, shaking him by his shoulders but there was no response, his head dimply lolled in the dirt. Leaning closer as she knelt over him she cupped his cheeks with her hands. ‘Come on Doctor. Wake up, you gotta wake up. Please Doctor,’ her continued words tumbled out of her in a panicked rush, her own heart pounding as she asked him, no, begged him to come back to her.

He groaned when he finally stirred, squeezing his eyes tightly and rolling his head to the side a little as he dealt with the pain. ‘Ow,’ he grunted, slowly blinking open his eyes only to be pelted by the raindrops.

She leant so her head was full over his, not on account of the raindrops though did help him to open his eyes, and stared at him with her own wide, worried ones. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Oh just peachy,’ he grumbled with a faint smirk on his lips.

Letting out a huff of laughter in relief at his humorous tone she gently chastised him, ‘you frightened me half to death you idiot’.

‘Hey,’ he whined, ‘you can’t call me an idiot, I just got struck by lightning, you have to be nice to me’. Rose was about to come back with some sort of retort when a realisation hit him. ‘Lightning,’ he repeated, sitting bolt upright and causing Rose to release his cheeks and fall back so she was sitting on her heels instead. ‘The experiment.’ His eyes were wide, alight with that manic energy of his once more. A split second later he was on his feet and Rose was staring at him like he had really lost the plot this time. He could feel the after effects of the strike in his system; it was as though someone had attached a couple of batteries to him or he’d downed a few energy drinks and some coffee. His nerves were firing off electrical signals at such a rate that he wanted to jump, to shout, and to run around the field for half an hour just because he was so full of energy. ‘Whoo-hoo,’ he cried out jumping up and down twice, ‘oh now we’re cooking’. He saw the look Rose was giving him from her position still on the ground and enthused, ‘nothing like a lightning strike to get you energised in the morning’. He shook his head like a dog, trying to dispel some of said energy, before pushing his still soaked hair back. ‘Ha!’ He cried out before giving her his biggest and maddest grin.

Rose shook her head at him with a mixture of disbelief, wonder and a hint of amusem*nt. ‘You’re mad, you’re absolutely mad,’ she told him as he grabbed her hands and pulled her to her feet.

‘Oh yes,’ he confirmed, giving her another manic grin before dragging her back to the barn at a run.

Benjamin was overjoyed with the results of his experiment. He had proven that the lightning, or the electrical fire as he called it, was indeed made up of the same electric discharge as electricity. When the time travelling duo returned neither he nor William seemed aware of what had gone on outside or were simply too engrossed with the further small experiments they were now conducting that Benjamin had also brought with him in his bag with the hopes of success. When they did notice the Doctor and Rose standing over them they brought them into their celebrations and all four of them helped to conduct the other experiments until the storm had passed and the Leyden jar was out of charge.

The rain was still coming down as they rode back into the city following the thunderstorm at a distance as it continued on its journey to the Atlantic. Benjamin was a little bemused as to why the pair wanted to part ways at the docks rather than at the tavern, especially as he knew that they had only just arrived in Philadelphia the day prior. ‘Where will you go now?’ he asked as William mounted his own horse again. He looked down at the pair with intrigue as they stood side by side at the edge of a dock with a large blue box near the end of it.

The Time Lord shrugged and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘Oh onwards and upwards,’ he answered vaguely with a smile.

The other man had been hoping for more, a hint of what adventures they had planned, but accepted the answer with a nod. Changing the topic instead of prying further he said, ‘I can’t thank you both enough for your help’.

Rose grinned as the Doctor bowed his head in silent acknowledgment. ‘Don’t mention it,’ she told Benjamin, linking her arm with the Doctor’s, ‘it’s what we do’.

‘Ah, Mrs. Tyler,’ he began as he rooted through his trouser pocket. ‘I believe this was yours’. He pulled out the Tardis key, attached once more to its chain and held it out for her to take.

‘Oh thank you.’ She stepped away from the Doctor and up to Benjamin to retrieve it. ‘Can’t lose this or I’ll never get home,’ she joked as she clutched it tightly in her hand and went to stand back by the Time Lord’s side.

After a few more words and a few farewells the father and son galloped off and Rose and the Doctor finally got into the dry and welcoming Tardis. She headed off for a long hot bath and he a shower. They eventually met back up in the library where they sat by the warmth of the fire with tea and toast as they completed the second of The Lord Of The Rings books that they had been reading together. They sat on the rug, wrapped in a navy tartan blanket whilst the Doctor read the story out loud and Rose rested her head on his shoulder imagining the scenes as he described them as she watched the flickering flames before her.

Chapter 36: Her Impossible Doctor

Chapter Text

It was dark and Rose felt immeasurably groggy. She felt like she had been on a night out with Keisha and Shareen and after having far too many drinks she was struggling to wake up properly. Though she knew she hadn’t, she hadn’t seen those pair in months, hadn’t been back to Earth in months. Well, not in her time period anyway, at least she didn’t think so although their short trip to Woolwich put that into question as it did look a lot like her London.

Rose thought back to earlier on in the day trying to remember just what had happened before her groggy state.

They had landed in a cupboard. This wasn’t their planned destination and even when they did plan those trips didn’t always go, well, to plan either. It was all part of the fun of the adventure for the Doctor and Rose though. The cupboard was within a Sanctuary Base on an impossible planet called Krop Tor. It was impossible because it orbited a black hole which was something that not even the Doctor could understand. The explorers who they found themselves with had arrived on the planet through a gravity funnel and had set up base to dig down into the planet following the signals of a power source.

The explorers weren’t the first they met on the base, however, first they met a group of creatures called the Ood. They were humanoid beings though they didn’t seem to have mouths and if they did they were hidden by the tentacles that covered the area where the mouth should be. They could still speak. They communicated through a translator ball which was all well and good when it was working correctly. It had really freaked her out when a mass of Ood were walking towards her and the Doctor chanting, “we must feed”. She’d grabbed a stool and he’d gotten his screwdriver out, though what he was going to do with that she had no idea, because they were getting backed into a wall by the hoard of Ood. Then they suddenly stopped and the closest one explained that they were actually offering her and the Doctor food and that the electromagnetics had interfered with their speech systems causing them to start chanting at them like a sci-fi horror film. Her fears of the Ood eased after that and then her feelings changed once more as she learned more about them. The Ood, all of the Ood race, were slaves and, according to Danny of the Ethics Committee on the base, it was a common occurrence: “everyone’s got one”. She couldn’t believe her ears. She had naively hoped that the human race would have learnt and grown as a people but clearly not. They might have all this new technology so they could live amongst the stars but in other ways they had regressed. That view was apparently in the minority but at least there were others out there that apparently shared it when Scooti, a trainee in maintenance, claimed her to be with Friends of the Ood. Rose thought she’d much rather be with Friends of the Ood if that meant wanting an entire race to be freed from slavery.

It was at that point, after their initial meeting with the chanting Ood, that they met the first of the explorers. Head of Security Mr. Jefferson was baffled by their appearance and was relaying it via a com device when the beginning tremors of a large quake hit. They were hastily led to the control room and both she and the Doctor held onto some railings for dear life as they were thrown about fiercely. Zach, the acting Captain, explained that he had deflected the damage of the quake onto storage five through to eight. The time travelling pair hadn’t realised what that meant at the time, what it would mean to them, because the cupboard where the Tardis was parked was apparently storage six. The Tardis had gone. The ground had given way and she had fallen down to the heart of the planet. She could see the panic in the Doctor as they ran along the corridors. He slammed his body into the last door, the door that had once led to the corridor outside of storage six, and he peered through the glass. Now on the other side of that glass was a gaping hole below the base with no end in sight. To Rose he looked absolutely terrified when he stepped back from the door. He was in shock; he couldn’t believe that the Tardis was gone. Neither could Rose. She wanted to comfort him. To tell him it would be alright and that they would find her. The thing was she wasn’t even sure she would believe herself. She never got the chance anyway because he darted back to the control room demanding that they divert their drilling and find his ship but Zach told him there was nothing to be done. The one thing he did do was offer them a lift if they made it off the planet. So they were stuck. Actually stuck. She had seen that the Tardis was gone but that’s when it really hit her, once the others on the base knew and agreed that the Old Girl would be unreachable, it truly hit her and it truly hit him too.

The Doctor came up to her side once the others had left the room. He leant back against the circular control panel and spoke quietly, if not mournfully to her. ‘I’ve trapped you here.’

Rose looked up from picking at her nails and shook her head at him because of course he was doing what he always did and was blaming himself even though it wasn’t his fault. ‘No, don’t worry about me.’ She didn’t get the chance to add anymore before the base began to shake again. They both glanced up as the room around them rattled. Luckily it was nothing as grand as the last quake, it was a mere tremor in comparison, and it didn’t last long. But seeing that black hole again and feeling the tremor really brought it home that where they were wasn’t right and it was certainly not safe so she decided to retract her previous statement. ‘Okay, we’re on a planet that shouldn’t exist, under a black hole…and no way out.’ She looked back down to find the Doctor already eyeing her. ‘Yeah, I’ve changed my mind. Start worrying about me.’ She let out a nervous laugh and he wrapped his arms around her tightly, placing a kiss into her hair before he gazed back up at the black hole with a dark expression on his face. ‘I’m sorry,’ Rose mumbled into his shoulder after a few moments of silence.

He frowned and gazed down at her only to be met by the blonde hair on the top of her head so aimed his frown there instead. ‘What are you sorry for?’

‘The Tardis,’ she answered quietly.

The frown was wiped from his face at her words and his look became more vacant, impassive even. Really it was just a mask, a façade to hide his true feelings and it was a feeling he already knew so well. He let out a breath and rested his head atop of Rose’s. She held him a little tighter.

‘She’s been that one constant in your life,’ Rose continued softly, simply stating her thoughts out loud, in awe of their relationship and unable to even start to imagine what it would be like to know someone for such a length of time. ‘Just you and her travelling around the universe for - for…’

‘For hundreds of years,’ he agreed wistfully, completing her sentence. ‘Probably around seven hundred,’ he specified and then sighed. He lifted his head back up and looked ahead, though not at anything particular. His gaze was more introspective, going through thoughts and memories in his mind as his hand absently ran through Rose’s hair which was soothing both for him and for her. ‘I stole her, you know,’ he said after a while. ‘In my first regeneration I stole her. Didn’t like what was happening on Gallifrey-’ he paused and pulled a face before correcting himself, ‘welllll was sort of getting chased. There was a - a slight - a minor disagreement…’ He took a breath then continued back at his usual fast pace, ‘anyway guards were coming after me and the doors were unlocked so off we went…never looking back’.

A soft chuckle escaped from Rose’s lips. She leant back into the Doctor’s arms and gazed up at him, a warm smile on her face. ‘You haven’t changed one bit.’

He glanced down at her. Here she was comforting him when she was losing just as much getting trapped here as he was, if not more. He truly didn’t deserve her and he offered her a small smile of his own in a wordless thanks. Looking back up the Doctor sniffed then said, ‘anyway - um - should probably find where the others went...and that writing,’ he changed the topic of conversation as the thought came to him, frowning as he did so. ‘I want to see if I can translate it at all, though I really don’t like that the Tardis can’t.’

They walked down the corridors back to Habitation Area Three. Quite a few of the crew members they had just been introduced to were there and it appeared to be meal time going by the school dinner set up they had with serving hatches and trays for your food. Rose mentioned that she had been a dinner lady to the Ood that was serving her but they didn’t appear to be one for conversation. It did say something weird though before correcting itself and moving on quickly. She shrugged it off and sat opposite the Doctor who had decided to go without food, too busy copying the symbols from the wall into a notebook he had in his pockets. Ida opened the metal shutters on the large domed window overhead after a while offering an impressive view of the black hole and the Scarlet System being sucked into it.

‘That’s a real proper black hole,’ Rose said to the Doctor after the system had disappeared, they both continued to stare upwards rather fascinated by the sight. She wasn’t pointing it out like she had just found out its existence. It was more about being in awe of its power after seeing it consume an entire star system whilst they were sitting there eating dinner of all things like it wasn’t mad that they were still alive. ‘It’s not gonna be like one of those films is it,’ she started to ask, glancing at the Time Lord who was still watching the sky darkly, his elbows on the beaten up metal table and his arms crossed, ‘where the black hole is a gateway to another universe?’

‘No, not that one,’ he agreed resignedly, ‘it just eats’.

She fiddled a bit with her hooped earring, staring upwards once more. ‘Long way from home…’

The Doctor’s gaze fell on Rose at her subdued tone. He had trapped her here and he had far too much experience to know that she wouldn’t hear of him apologising for it even though it was his fault. He pointed upwards to the black hole, the pencil he had been using to transcribe the untranslatable language still in his hand. If he couldn’t take her there he could at least show her the way. ‘Go that way, turn right, keep going for - erm - about er - five hundred years, then you’ll reach the Earth.’ He lowered her hand and watched as she dove into her pocket and pulled out her mobile phone.

She sighed when she saw the screen. ‘No signal. That’s the first time we’ve gone out of range. Mind you, even if I could…’ Rose trailed off with a shake of her head, her eyes back on the black hole again. ‘What would I tell her?’ She spun on her stool to face the Doctor, putting her phone down on the table and taking in a breath before she asked, ‘can you build another Tardis?’ She chuckled a little at herself, already believing it to be a foolish idea.

The Doctor’s slightly sombre reply only agreed. ‘They were grown, not built and with my home planet gone…we’re kind of stuck.’

Rose, ever the optimist, tried to find some good in the situation they had found themselves in. ‘Well, it could be worse. This lot said they’d give us a lift.’

Immediately he turned to her, his brows deeply furrowed at her idea. ‘And then what?’

‘I dunno,’ she replied with a shrug. ‘Find a planet, get a job, live a life, same as the rest of the universe.’

The idea repulsed him. It was so domestic. His aversion to domesticity may have lessened since his previous regeneration but that didn’t mean he was now best of friends with the concept. ‘Pffft…I’d have to settle down. In a house or something. A proper house with - with - with - with doors and things. Carpets.’ He glanced up at Rose as he explained how preposterous the idea was, his voice going all high as he exclaimed, ‘me! Living in a house!’ She laughed at him and he nodded as he finished his thoughts on the matter. ‘Now that - that - that is terrifying.’

‘You’d have to get a mortgage,’ she teased in a sing-song voice.

He stared at her once more, horrified about the idea of such a thing. ‘No.’

‘Oh yes,’ she confirmed.

He shook his head, refusing to even consider it. ‘I am dying. That’s it. I am dying, it’s all over.’

Rose laughed again as she said, ‘what about me? I’d have to get one too’. Her humour dwindled as she continued on with her thoughts a little more nervously. ‘I dunno, could - could be the same one…’

His brow furrowed once more. ‘You’d want to live with me?’ He asked as though it was just as preposterous as him in a domestic setting in the first place.

She glanced at him and shrugged, frowning a little too at her lack of understanding his reaction to the idea as she pointed out, ‘we live on the Tardis it’s not that different’.

‘Oh but the Tardis is - is - is huge, massive, we wouldn’t have to be near each other,’ he explained.

A flash of hurt flitted across her eyes at his easy dismissal; it passed by so quickly it would have been easily missed if you weren't looking for it. ‘Alright so we won’t then,’ she said with a nonchalant shrug then glanced down at her hands where they rested on the table as she began picking at her nails.

He took in a breath and shook his head as he unfolded his arms, reaching out with his own hand to still hers. He was glad she didn’t pull away even if she didn’t look up at him. ‘That - that’s not what I meant, it came out wrong. It’s just…’ He trailed off with a sigh and finally she met his eyes. ‘I can’t sit still…’

‘Yup,’ Rose interrupted.

He ignored her and continued on, wanting to complete his thoughts. ‘…And I’ve got far too much energy.’

‘Yup,’ she repeated.

‘Alright,’ he complained, feigning offence at her comments, ‘you don’t have to agree with everything I’m saying’. She smirked at that and that made him relax a little. He relaxed further when she turned her hand in his and she held it properly. ‘What I’m really trying to say is I’m not the easiest person to live with. Out on adventures across the stars I burn off that energy, I quench my thirst for knowledge but if that’s all gone…’ He finished with a shrug and waited for her opinion on the matter.

‘Well, I can always kick you out if you get too annoying,’ she deadpanned.

‘Oh nice.’ He nodded, pretending to be hurt as she giggled at his tone. ‘Real nice, Tyler, real nice.’ He let go of her hand and crossed his arms again to add to his performance and she rolled her eyes at him. Once her humour had faded he changed the topic to a more sombre one when he quietly said, ‘I always promised Jackie I’d take you back home’.

She was looking back out at the black hole fiddling with her earring again. ‘Everyone leaves home in the end,’ she simply stated.

He eyed the room. ‘Not to end up stuck here.’

‘Yeah, but stuck with you, that’s not so bad,’ She told him.

His gaze fell back onto her, hopeful that she really meant it. ‘Yeah?’

‘Yes,’ she confirmed immediately with as much sincerity as she could muster.

He smiled a little at that. They might have been in a relationship but it was still early days and it was one thing being with him when he had a Tardis and they could gallivant across the whole of time and space doing whatever they pleased but it was quite another being with him when they were confined to a single planet. Of course, they hadn’t had the chance to test themselves within this confinement just yet but the finality in her tone helped him to believe that they would be alright in the end. It would take one heck of an adjustment period, particularly for him, but they would get there. They would take whatever life threw at them and they would do it together.

It was then that Rose’s phone rang. The pair immediately glanced down at the table where it lay and she picked it up and slid the mobile open to answer it. She never even got the chance to say anything before a deep, unsettling voice spoke into her ear.

He is awake.

Startled by the voice she flung the phone across the room.

The Doctor followed her movement then stared at her, his eyebrow fiercely arched in question. ‘What?’

Rose was looking at the phone where it now lay still intact on the metal floor of the habitation area. ‘There was a - a - a voice,’ she stuttered.

He frowned deeply at her words and at the scared tone behind them. ‘Who was it? What did they say?’ He questioned. ‘Rose?’ He urged when she didn’t reply, her gaze still on the mobile. He got to his feet and dashed over to it, snatching it from the floor before returning to his seat. His actions seemed to draw her out of her reverie.

Her eyes were on his hands once he’d put his glasses on and slid open the phone to begin looking at it. ‘He is awake,’ she stated a little monotonously.

The Doctor glanced up at her, now even more concerned and perplexed by the phone call. ‘Who’s awake? Who said it? Was that all they said? Did they say anything else?’ He demanded rapidly.

The sudden onslaught of questions helped her to regain her handle on the situation and she held out her hand to stop him from adding more. ‘Whoah just easy on the questions.’ She took a breath and then answered him but really there wasn’t much to go on. ‘It was a real deep voice and that’s all they said.’ She frowned as she thought about what had happened and how it shouldn’t have actually been able to happen. ‘But how did they call me? I was out of range.’

His gaze had turned to the phone as she had been speaking. His brow was still furrowed as he replied, ‘I don’t know. I’m trying to get it to redial but it won’t work’. He withdrew his sonic from his inner jacket pocket and started using it on the mobile.

‘When I was getting food earlier one of the Ood said something to me,’ she began, thinking back to the odd moment.

He glanced up at her, concern still lining his features. ‘What?’

She shook her head, not really understanding it and struggling to remember what they had said exactly as she’d pushed it to the side in her mind. ‘Something about a beast and a pit.’

The Doctor stared at her fiercely taking in her words then he slid the phone closed and placed it on the table in front of her. ‘Come on,’ he said as he got up and put his sonic and glasses away in his pockets.

Rose pocketed her phone and stood up too. ‘Where are we going?’

After turning the locking wheel and opening the door he led the way out of the habitation area and through the corridors replying to Rose over his shoulder. ‘A rogue transmission? A creepy cold caller? Electronic devices can be tampered with, interfered with, that’s easy enough, but an Ood, an Ood is alive and that’s a whole other story. We need to find out what’s behind it, who’s behind it and where better to start than Ood Habitation.’

Danny was in Ood Habitation when they arrived. He was standing on a mezzanine area overlooking the ground floor where a lot of Ood were gathered, all sitting rather orderly on benches not doing anything, just simply sitting. He told them that the Ood were a race of empaths who communicate using a low-level telepathic field that connected them and that field should register as basic-5 on their monitors. When the Doctor glanced at the screen, however, that wasn’t the case. Basic-5 turned into basic-30 and Danny said that it meant that the Ood were practically shouting inside their heads. Not only that but the Ood were no longer sitting peacefully, they had all turned and were staring up at the trio on the mezzanine. It only got stranger when Rose repeated the message she had received on her phone and they chanted again, answering back, “and you will worship him”. The Doctor repeated Rose’s words and fired off questions to the Ood but received no answers.

The pair were down on the ground floor with the Ood when there was a hull breach on the base. They raced with Danny through the corridors until they met up with all the other members of the crew. All except Zach and Scooti. Zach was still in the control room and traced the missing Scooti’s biochip to Habitation Area Three but there was no sign of her when the group gathered there. That was until the Doctor looked up at the still visible view of the black hole through the overhead window. There she was floating in space just above the glass. The group didn’t get long to mourn her before the room suddenly fell silent. The drill had stopped. They had reached Point Zero.

The Doctor and Rose stood to the side watching as the room filled with a buzz of activity as the crew discussed their duties and began to break away to perform them. Ida was to go down the mine shaft alone. Zach was meant to go with her but since he was now Captain he couldn’t leave his post no matter how much he wanted to. The Doctor saw his opening and quietly told Rose that he was going to join Ida on the expedition. He could have blamed it on the fact that the crew were a man down and it was always best to send two people instead of one in case of emergency but really he was too bloody curious for his own good. He needed to know what this power source was. What could be so great as to draw in this group of explorers and to convince them to pull off such an insane feat to get to it. He was also hoping to get some answers as to how this impossible planet could orbit a black hole. Whatever that power source was had to be contributing to it and he simply needed to understand how it was at all possible. Rose understood his reasoning as he explained it to her. She didn’t like it but she understood why he had to go.

They met up again before he got into the capsule with Ida to begin the descent. He was wearing an orange spacesuit with his helmet under his arm. It was weird seeing him like that. Yes they travelled around space and visited distant planets but they’d never had to dress up like an astronaut. It brought the reality of it home for Rose, that it was a dangerous mission and one that he’d better return from. She told him as much as he put on the helmet then she pulled his head down to place a kiss onto his visor. He gave her a wink then entered the capsule. They waved goodbye to one another as it started its descent and that was the last she saw of him. Just before things started to go really wrong.

Toby, the archaeologist, became possessed by something and that something turned out to be the Devil of all things as they found out later on. His skin was littered with that untranslatable language that they had found earlier, his eyes glowed red and when he spoke his voice was the same as the one that had spoken to Rose on her mobile and freaked her out. He passed on his possession to the Ood and soon their eyes were glowing red and they were using their translator balls to kill the crew members. Mr. Jefferson had no choice but to use his gun to kill the three Ood that were with them at the entry of the mine shaft. Then Danny burst through the door being followed by more Ood and he locked it behind him, their only way out now blocked. It was just Rose, Mr. Jefferson, Danny, a very shaken Toby and Zach who was still in the control room but used the coms to speak to them. The coms were down between them and the Doctor and Ida in the cavern deep below them which was worrying Rose. A lot. The Doctor didn’t appreciate the choice words she had for him when the coms came back on and he explained that the seal on the trapdoor, as he had been calling it, had opened up when the planet shifted a little closer to the black hole in the most recent quake that they had experienced. What she did appreciate was when he told her that he and Ida were going to come back up to the base instead of exploring the cavern further. They never got the chance. The possessed Ood started speaking to them through the monitors and the coms, stating unwanted truths about each of the crew members including Rose. They called her “the valiant child who will die in battle so very soon”. If that wasn’t ominous Rose didn’t know what was. It scared her, of course it did, but she didn’t particularly get the chance to think about it too much. When the Doctor took control and started to calm the distressed crew telling them not to listen to the taunts, the cable that pulled the capsule snapped. He and Ida became trapped ten miles below the surface and, just to make it even worse, the coms went down. Rose knew they were alive because Zach could read their life signs in the control room but they couldn’t survive down there forever; there was only so much oxygen left in the canisters attached to their suits.

She didn’t have a clue how they were going to do it. It wasn’t like they had another length of cable long enough to reach the capsule. But they had to try. There had to be a way. She wasn’t losing the Doctor. Rose took command of the situation and began ordering the others about. She’d seen the Doctor do it many times so it all sort of came naturally to her. She got them to think outside of the box, to consider options that they hadn’t even thought about because that’s what they always had to do on their adventures to solve whatever the problem was and she was certainly not giving up. They would solve it and she would get her Doctor back.

The Ood were breaking through the door and Danny was working on a program to broadcast a flare that would distrust the Ood’s telepathy and cause a brainstorm. He wouldn’t be able to broadcast it from their position at the mineshaft entrance though; he would only be able to do so from Ood Habitation. Mr. Jefferson came up with a plan to use the maintenance tunnels to bypass the Ood at the door and Danny finished the program just in time to escape into the tunnels as the door finally opened. Their crawl through the tunnels wasn’t easy, they had to wait to be fed oxygen by Zach in the control room at each sector of the tunnel and then of course there was the fact that the Ood were chasing them. Mr. Jefferson opted to stand his ground to give the other three a chance to escape but he never made it out again. Luckily the others did and Danny was able to broadcast the flare causing all the Ood to collapse to the ground allowing the trio to race back to the mineshaft entrance where they met up with Zach. He managed to fix the coms and they got in touch with Ida but she wasn’t with the Doctor anymore. She told them that he had fallen through the trapdoor. Rose couldn’t believe that. Wouldn’t believe that. He didn’t do things like that, her Doctor. He did idiotic things sometimes yes, well quite a lot of the time, but he wouldn’t have just fallen. No, she adamantly refused to believe it. He was fine. The Doctor could do impossible things so he was fine and they would get back together again. Those were some of the final things she remembered when she was being held down by Danny and Toby whilst Zach drugged her. He was making her go to sleep after she refused his order to go with them onto the spaceship and leave the planet. Leave the Doctor. He would never have left her if the roles were reversed. He would find a way to reunite them and so would she if she had been given the chance.

So here was Rose, feeling immeasurably groggy, strapped into a spaceship that was about to leave both the planet and the Doctor behind. She battled with her seatbelt when she came to, having realised that they were taking her away, but it was no use. They were taking off and as they cheered she screamed letting out her frustration. As they pulled further away from the planet she noticed a gun within her reach. Under any other situation she would have never have reached for it but she was feeling desperate. She grabbed the gun and aimed it at Zach in the pilot's seat demanding that he take her back but it was too late. There was no going back. It was final. She was leaving the Doctor. She would never see him again.

The escape seemed suspiciously easy to Rose that was until they were nearly out of the black hole’s reach. That was when the gravity funnel collapsed and they were no longer flying away from the black hole, they were being sucked into it. She looked out of the window as the ship turned and sailed towards their doom and saw that it wasn’t just them, the planet was falling too. Even if she could make it back to the Doctor they were both going to die when the black hole had its way. She sat back and glanced to her left at Toby only to jump out of her skin when she saw him. He was possessed once more, though perhaps he always was, he had just hidden it from the group so he could escape the planet. He started shouting in that same deep voice again and then he breathed fire. Rose edged away from him as far as she could, being strapped down to her seat, but then her eyes fell on the gun once more. She grabbed it and shot at the front window hoping it had the ability to repair or replace itself like the glass on Platform One, not that it would do them much good anyway as they fell ever closer towards the black hole. She unbuckled Toby’s seatbelt and he was sucked into the vacuum of space. Zach was able to activate the emergency shield but it wouldn’t be long either way before their ever pressing demise. The planet fell in first and they would shortly follow. Rose clenched her eyes shut as the ship rattled and shook but then it stopped. The ship was still. The trio looked around in shock and just as Rose was asking what had happened the ship tilted to the right sending them sliding in their seats. They were turning away from the black hole.

Sorry about the hijack, Captain. This is the good ship Tardis.

The Doctor’s voice was loud on the ship’s communicator as he spoke and Rose could not believe her ears. She let out a laugh in disbelief as he continued speaking asking if she was onboard. She shouted out jubilantly, even waving her arms about in case he could see her. She had never felt so happy to hear that man’s voice in her life. He explained that he was going to tow the ship into clear space and then Rose could join him on the Tardis and Ida would be able to rejoin her crew.

The Tardis’ wheezing and groaning as the ship materialised on board filled her ears. It was a beautiful sound. Rose immediately unstrapped herself ready to go. She bid farewell to Zach and Danny said he’d go with her to help her find the Old Girl. Ida was stepping out of the wooden blue doors when Rose and Danny entered the hold. The two crew members shared an awkward hug that was only brought on by the life and death situation and their lucky escapes. The pair said goodbye to Rose and she stepped up to the Tardis doors and patted them, feeling the warm hum of the Old Girl in her hand and in her mind before opening them and stepping inside. There he was still in his orange spacesuit standing beside the console. They both beamed at each other. Rose ran up the ramp towards him and the Doctor met her halfway, wrapping their arms around one another tightly. He even lifted her up and swung her from side to side in his jubilation as they enjoyed the celebration of being back together again.

‘I thought I might never see you again,’ she said as he put her down.

He grinned at her. ‘Oh you can’t get rid of me so easily, Rose Tyler,’ he finished with a wink and Rose rolled her eyes at his co*ckiness. ‘Help me get this off will you?’ He turned around and she undid the back of the spacesuit and held it as still as she could as he awkwardly extracted himself from its confines. His pinstripes were a bit crumpled and his hair got a bit mussed up in the process but he didn’t care. He took the suit from Rose and chucked it to the side of the console to deal with later. ‘That’s better,’ he said with a smile as he stood before her once more. He brushed a loose strand of hair from her face as he thanked her then cupped her cheek, his thumb caressing her soft skin.

That wasn’t quite enough contact for Rose. She grabbed his lapels and pulled him towards her, meeting his lips with her own. The Doctor let out a sound of surprise but joined in with the kiss immediately, his hand moving into her hair from her cheek and the other coming up to rest on her back. ‘Hello,’ she breathed happily as she pulled away enough to look into his eyes.

‘Hello,’ he replied, wearing very much the same expression as she was.

‘I missed you,’ she told him.

His smile grew even larger. ‘I missed you too.’ They stood like that for a moment, both grinning at each other pressed together as they were; content to stay like that for a long time if the Doctor’s mind wasn’t still whirring away after the adventure. ‘Should probably head off otherwise those lot will come knocking at the doors.’ Rose nodded and they let one another go and the Doctor got back on the coms again to communicate with the remaining explorers of their plans before they dematerialised from their spaceship. ‘What do you want to do now then?’ He began, turning to Rose as they entered the vortex. ‘Stay in? Go out? Personally I’d like a shower. Feel a bit,’ he pulled a face, waving one hand about as he made a noise like he’d just a seen a big creepy crawly on himself to explain how he was feeling and then continued on saying, ‘and I’ve probably still got glass in my hair so…’ he shrugged like that explained everything but it really didn’t.

Rose frowned at him. ‘Why would you have glass in your hair?’

‘Right,’ he said awkwardly and pulled on his ear. ‘Erm…well-’

She saw his evasiveness and tried again because he wasn’t getting out of this. She had too many questions that she needed answering ‘What happened down there, Doctor?’

He cringed a little and his voice went high. ‘Do we have to do this now?’ Rose gave him a look and he quickly blurted out, ‘it’s not that I won’t tell you what happened, it's just it’s - it’s - it’s a long story is all’.

Rose believed him. She was certain that he never told her everything, sometimes he probably just told her what was essential, but he had been getting better at topics he would rather ignore. It was clear from how he was acting that he would rather ignore this one too but there was one thing that she couldn’t let slide. One thing that had been bothering her ever since she knew of it. ‘Ida. We got back in touch before the ship left. She said - she said you said my name and then you fell.’ The Doctor deflated at her words but Rose wasn’t done. She gazed up at him imploringly. ‘But I don’t understand it, Doctor, you don’t just fall. Not you. What happened?’

He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked directly into her hazel eyes. ‘Ten minutes. Just give me ten minutes and I will meet you…’

‘In the media room,’ Rose completed for him, recognising his pause for what it was.

He nodded in confirmation as he repeated, ‘in the media room’.

His shower seemed to pass immeasurably quickly yet slowly at the same time. He didn’t want them to fight but he could feel that they were about to because of his questionable life preservation skills. It wasn’t that long ago since they had a discussion on the matter after he had purposefully placed himself in danger to distract a rather bloodthirsty group of Volansion. It had turned out alright in the end as Rose had managed to find the correct frequency on his sonic after she had gotten the caravan of travelling merchants that the Volansion had been tailing to safety. The frequency had disrupted the Volansion’s mechanics rendering them temporarily paralysed granting her enough time to break into their lair and rescue the Doctor who had been slightly starting to worry about how long his arm would still be attached to the rest of him after the way his captors had been talking about it. He knew she’d come and find him though even if he didn’t want her risking herself with the Volansions about.

The Doctor pulled on a deep blue shirt after his shower and decided to wear the tie she had given him in the hopes of making her more amenable. His hair was still damp and floppy by the time he walked into the media room. Rose was sitting in her usual spot in the corner part of the corner sofa. She was sitting crossed legged and with her back against the side of the sofa that would allow her to face the door. In her hands she was holding her mug which was mostly still filled with tea. As he took the cushion beside her she leant forwards to the coffee table and picked up his mug, silently passing it to him as he settled onto the sofa.

‘Oh thank you,’ he said as he took the mug, a tone of surprise in his voice. The tea was delightful as it always was, in his experience, when made by a Tyler. They sat quietly sipping their drinks until they were done, then he placed their mugs on the coffee table and shuffled in his seat so he too sat cross legged opposite her. He began to explain about the cavern from when he and Ida first stepped foot in it. He described the sights, the vastness, the size and look of the seal. How the planet had shaken and the seal had opened up. Then he got to the part he had been dreading, the part after the cable had snapped and they had become trapped. ‘We realised we could repurpose the cable to allow one of us to be winched down into the darkness through the seal,’ he explained. ‘I offered to go, which I’m glad I did because the Tardis was down there as I found out.’

Rose had been commenting and asking questions as the Doctor had been talking about the cavern but this time she felt herself frowning as she asked, ‘so if you went down there how come Ida said you fell?’

He swallowed. ‘The cable wasn’t long enough.’

She raised her eyebrows in surprise and stated, ‘you had ten miles of cable’.

He grimaced slightly and shook his head. ‘It didn’t cut it.’ He saw Rose grimace too and he took a breath before his expression changed to a faint smile. He looked rather thoughtful as he said, ‘you’d like Ida. She wanted to pull me up when I reached the end’. His expression faded as he continued, ‘I stopped her though. We were trapped underground with no other way of getting out and we only had a limited amount of oxygen. We were going to die, Rose, either way.’ He stared into her eyes hoping that she would understand his reasoning.

‘So you unhooked yourself and let yourself fall.’ It wasn’t a question but the Doctor nodded anyway. ‘How far down was it?’

He sniffed and scratched the back of his neck, his words awkward and clunky. ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t - I wasn’t exactly conscious.’ Upon seeing her worried look he quickly added on, ‘the landing was softened by an air cushion. My helmet was still smashed, that’s where the glass came from, but luckily there was oxygen down there so I could breathe anyway. I was alright’.

She nodded silently, her eyes flitting across his face as he awaited her next words. She shook her head and had a small smirk on her lips as she said, ‘you don’t have to look so worried I’m not mad at you’.

His eyebrows flew upwards. ‘You’re not?’

Rose tilted her head to the side a little as she considered and amended her statement. ‘Well, yeah I am a bit but that’s always gonna happen when you do something idiotic and life threatening but if you hadn’t you wouldn’t have found the Tardis and we would probably all be dead.’ He shrugged a little in agreement; he couldn’t fault her logic at all. ‘And you saw no way of getting out of it and like you said you are too curious for your own good.’ He couldn’t help the little smirk that tugged on his lips at that comment. Her hazel eyes caught his darker ones, he read the serious look in them and he swallowed as she began to speak. ‘Doctor, I know you and you’re not gonna stop putting your life in danger and I might not like it when you do but I’m not gonna stop you. It’s who you are and I don’t wanna change that. You wouldn’t be the Doctor, you’d just be some mad bloke, not that you aren’t some mad bloke but you know what I mean, you wouldn’t be you.’

He stared at her. For once in his life the Doctor was speechless. He had no idea what to say. He knew of her disapproval of him risking his life, not that he could really say much on that because he felt the same about Rose, and they had spoken about it a few times after some of his more reckless moves. This disapproval, of course, came because they cared about each other. But Rose’s words told him of so much more than care. It was acceptance. A full acceptance of who he was as a person. She might have just been talking about his recklessness with his life but in her tone and from the look in her eyes he knew this acceptance ran far deeper. He’d only felt that once before, once in over nine hundred years, and that was with Susan. Throughout his life others had always tried to change him. And yes over his time with Rose he was changing, as was she because everyone changes over time, but he wasn’t being forced to, or told to. The changes in himself had happened naturally with him hardly noticing it was happening. She influenced him to do better and be better and he’d only changed because he had wanted to.

At the continued look of shock on the Time Lord’s face and the slight creepiness in his non blinking stare, Rose gave him a soft smile and reached out, gently grasping his hands. ‘Come here,’ she said and lightly pulled him towards her.

The Doctor blinked at what was happening then, upon realising, he leant forwards into her embrace which turned out to be a rather awkward manoeuvre seeing as they were both sitting cross legged. She unfolded her legs and he ended up stretching out beside her with his head on her shoulder and his arms draped around her waist. Rose had one arm around his back and the other stretched out before her, her hand absently playing with one of his rolled up shirt sleeves. He shifted and glanced up at her only speaking when she too was looking at him. ‘Thank you,’ he murmured, his tone lightly filled with awe at her words. She gave him a small smile then closed the gap and kissed him. It didn’t last long and soon he shuffled so his head nestled comfortably on her shoulder once more then Rose placed a kiss into his now dry hair and leant her head gently atop of his. In the position that they were he felt as though in some ways their roles had reversed. He was usually the one holding her but now she was holding him and he rather liked it. Not that he didn’t enjoy holding her, but it was a rather different feeling of comfort when the positions were switched. He supposed they hadn’t been together long enough to have experienced what normal was for them. Previously they would sit next to one another and lean into each other but it was rare for them to hug sitting down or partly sitting and partly lying as they were now. They were in a discovery phase where nothing was expected and everything was new and he found that quite intriguing.

‘Are you hungry?’ Rose asked quietly, lifting her head so she could see him again and bringing him out of his thoughts.

He shrugged. ‘I can eat, why?’

‘Well you didn’t eat once when we were on that base but I did and if I’m hungry now then you must be starving. No wonder you’re so thin.’ She took her hand from his sleeve and used it to poke him in the stomach to prove her point.

His body automatically jerked at the poke and he swatted her hand away. ‘I’m not that thin,’ he retorted.

‘You are a beanpole.’ She emphasised every word with more light jabs to his gut, dodging the Doctor’s flailing hand as he tried to catch her, whilst his body continued to flinch at every poke giving away valuable data that Rose could and most definitely would use against him. A smirk appeared on her face as she added, ‘and I think you’re ticklish’.

He shot upright into a sitting position and stared at her. Her eyes were glinting playfully and her smirk had grown at his reaction to her words. ‘Rose Tyler,’ he warned.

‘Yeah?’ She asked innocently as she raised her eyebrows.

He caught the slight movement of her hands out of the corner of his eye. ‘Don’t.’ She bit her lip and her hands crept a little closer to him once again. ‘Stop it.’ One of her hands darted to his waist and he half laughed and half cried out as her fingers attacked him, ‘oi!’ She giggled as he pushed her hand away and jumped off the sofa. ‘Stop it you,’ he said, pointing a threatening finger at her.

She feigned her innocence again and put on a confused expression. ‘Stop what?’

He arched his eyebrow. ‘Don’t you go all acting innocent with me, you know exactly what.’

One second there was a mischievous glint in her eye and the next she had leapt upright, her fingers going for his waist once more. He managed to wiggle free and run out of the room, closely followed by a laughing Rose. They ended up racing to the console room where they circled around the controls both giggling like school children until he managed to catch her and got his own back. She had tears of laughter in her eyes by the time he allowed her free.

Once they had calmed they went to the galley where they made pizzas and the Doctor tried to teach her how to toss the dough to stretch it out into the usual round pizza shape. The dough was extremely well worked by the time Rose managed to produce a roundish shape of a near even thickness with no holes in it but that didn’t matter; they had a lot of fun making it and would have a lot of fun eating it too. It didn’t take long to cook and soon they were back in the media room ready to settle down and watch something with their food. They couldn’t decide on what they wanted to watch and ended up channel surfing until they both found themselves intrigued by what was happening in an episode of Inspector Morse. The channel was having a marathon of the show over the next few hours and they continued watching until Rose fell asleep curled up next to the Doctor. He turned off the television once her breathing had evened out for a little while then carefully scooped her up into his arms and took her to her bedroom. He awkwardly pushed back the covers and laid her in her bed before tucking her in. When he reached the doorway he heard her shuffle and groan. He glanced back and saw her squinting open her eyes, struggling with the light that was pouring into her dark room from the corridor.

‘Doctor?’ She mumbled sleepily, only able to see his silhouette in the brightness.

A soft smile tugged on his lips. ‘Yeah?’ He quietly replied.

‘Thank you.’

Her eyes were already closing again but he couldn’t help himself, she looked adorable. He stepped back to her bedside and cupped her cheek, caressing it gently as he leant down and placed a kiss on her forehead. ‘Go back to sleep, Rose,’ he whispered before he stood back upright. He noticed a faint smile on her lips before he turned and left the room, shutting the door softly behind him.

Chapter 37: London Investigation ‘N’ Detective Agency

Chapter Text

‘And did you see that discus throw I did?’ The Doctor enthused as he stepped into the Tardis, followed by Rose. ‘Never thought I’d be much good at discus with the weakness in the dorsal tubercle in this body, I’m much better-’

‘At darts,’ Rose finished for him. ‘I know, you kept saying.’

He ignored her mild exasperation with him and continued on eagerly as they walked up the ramp. ‘But that shot. Ohhhh what a beauty!’ He spun round as he reached the console, gazing at her with humour glinting in his eyes and a matching smirk as he said, ‘and do you know where it went?’

‘Back of the neck,’ they crowed at the same time before bursting into laughter at their newfound joke from the day’s adventure.

They had found themselves landing in the British Academy of Sporting Excellence, or BASE for short, where gifted athletes were training for the Globe Games. Unbeknownst to them one of the swimmers, Emma, was actually a Rutan who had killed the poor student and had taken her place intent on starting a war on Earth after causing an incident at the Games. They had been killing the other students who had discovered the Rutan’s true identity which explained why Rose and the Doctor discovered that the three deceased students were all purposely electrocuted. They didn’t know that was the reason for the deaths at the time of course. Just as they were relaying that information to Emma and Sid, a javelin thrower, they heard a loud marching sound and found that the Twelfth Sontaran Battle Fleet had arrived looking for the Rutan. After being forced to compete in the newly coined Sontaran Games by Major Stenx, or Major Stinks as the Doctor humorously named him, he, Rose and the other students managed to knock out and defeat the Sontarans by throwing sporting equipment at their probic vents. When the Rutan shed its disguise as Emma, after finding out that the Doctor had discovered the truth, Major Stenx appeared still with a javelin tip stuck in his probic vent. In the ensuing scuffle the Rutan electrocuted Stenx and he shot at them resulting in them both dying from their injuries. The Doctor and Rose then managed to get to safety just in time before BASE exploded due to the power surge caused by the Rutan.

‘We should go to the Olympics,’ the Doctor suggested after their laughter died down.

Rose raised her eyebrows and offered him a cheeky smile. ‘What, so you can show off your new discus skills?’

He scoffed. ‘No…not unless they need me,’ he added with a wink causing Rose to roll her eyes at his co*ckiness before he continued, ‘but I mean to watch. That’d be good wouldn’t it?’ Crossing his arms he leant against the console and looked at Rose as she stood before him nodding in agreement at his idea.

‘As long as I can change first because I’ve been doing sports all day and I probably stink.’ She turned her nose up a bit at the thought.

The Doctor nodded along, his eyes twinkling with mischief as he thoughtfully said, ‘yes I thought there was a certain aroma following me around…’

‘Oi!’ She smacked him on the arm and he laughed heartily. ‘You’re such a knob,’ she retorted and he only laughed harder. She glared at him trying to look fierce and annoyed but there was no real malice in it, in fact she was trying her hardest to contain a smirk at his reaction.

He was glad he was already leaning against the console so he had something to hold onto to keep himself upright. Rose’s rebuttal and accompanying huff only made it that much worse. Then she had crossed her arms, leant into her hip and raised her eyebrows at him and at that point he was clinging onto the edge of the console with one hand and wiping his streaming eyes with the other. ‘I know. I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he said as he came down from his laughter, the mirth of it still in his voice. ‘It was just a joke,’ he tried but only received another glare. ‘Come here.’ He smiled and reached out to her but she took a step back still looking at him sternly. That only made his grin wider.

‘No, you can piss off,’ Rose said with a frown but didn’t shrug him off as he stepped closer and gently cupped her cheeks, his thumbs brushing over them soothingly. She rested her hands on his hips as he gazed down at her with those big, brown eyes of his.

‘You, Rose Tyler,’ he said softly, ‘smell of vanilla and honey and citrus’. He punctuated each smell he listed with a peck on her lips, easing her frown away. ‘And just a tiny hint of sweat.’ At this her brow creased a little again and he quickly added on, ‘but that’s okay everyone does’. She rolled her eyes at that and he smirked before kissing her once again, her arms wrapping around his waist as he did so. They were interrupted when her text message alert sound went off from her phone in her jeans pocket. The Doctor gave her one last peck before pulling back and dropping his arms to his sides again allowing her to look at the message.

She sighed when she read it. ‘It’s just a load of rubbish,’ she complained then glanced up at him as she said, ‘I’d hoped your jiggery-pokery would filter out the crap but it never does’.

He huffed. ‘Are you slanting my skills in jiggery-pokery, Tyler,’ he challenged, arching his eyebrow at her.

‘I’m just saying, maybe you’ve lost your touch.’ He gaped in mock outrage and her eyes glinted teasingly as she continued on, ‘looks to me like they’re outsmarting you’.

‘Outsmarting?’ He exclaimed incredulously. ‘Outsmarting?’

She giggled and glanced down at her phone again, going to put it away but then her face fell as she noticed the date on the screen and realised how long it had been since she had last spoken to her mother. ‘Oh God I need to call mum,’ she murmured as she went into her contacts and found the number.

The Doctor was still grumbling to himself about Rose’s earlier dig as she brought the mobile to her ear when it rang. ‘I’ll give it to them that telemarketers can be an overly persistent lot,’ he began a little louder so she would notice his complaint, ‘but I’d like to see them make a call across five hun-’ He was cut off by Rose’s hand covering his mouth. He arched his eyebrow again when she told him to shut up. Unfortunately her words coincided with her mum answering the phone.

‘No, not you mum sorry,’ she tried to placate her mother, ‘no, I was just talking to the Doctor’. She glanced up at the man, who was still standing in the same position wearing an unimpressed look, as her mother spoke. This look soured further when Rose said, ‘yeah, still being annoying as ever’. After giving him a cheeky grin, as she listened to what her mum had been up to, her smile became gentler. Her hand moved to his cheek instead and her thumb caressed his cheekbone when she gave her mum a quick rundown of what they’d done recently. He rolled his eyes at her trying to appease him and she gave him a wink whilst she tried to explain into the phone that yes Sontarans did have potato like heads but they didn’t actually look like Mr. Potato Head. The call wasn’t unbearably long for the Doctor and by the end of it Rose was absently playing with his brown tie which was dotted with blue squares. ‘Yep…we will yeah…bye,’ she said as the call ended.

Rose looked up at the Doctor after hanging up and he raised his eyebrows at her as he asked, ‘you done?’

‘Yeah.’ She nodded then followed his gaze that was flitting between her face and his tie that was still between her fingers. A hint of pink tinged her cheeks as she dropped her hand and said, ‘yeah, sorry’.

He watched as she hurriedly glanced away and pocketed the phone and he shook his head fondly. ‘So anything interesting to report?’ He asked as he straightened his tie and tucked it back behind his suit jacket.

‘Erm,’ she pondered as her mind went back through her mother’s part of the conversation then recalled, ‘I think she’s found a new fella’.

His eyebrows rose once more and he put his hands into his pockets as he rocked back on his heels. ‘Well I know there’s been a sailor and a grocer so who’s it this time? Milkman? Postman? Fireman?’ He only stopped his listing because Rose giggled and hit him lightly in the chest.

‘Stop it you,’ she warned and he smirked. ‘I think she said she met him in the laundrette.’

‘A bloke who works at the laundrette,’ he said slowly as he considered it and then shrugged.

Rose shook her head at him. ‘No I don’t think he works there, he just happened to be there and then he fixed mum’s washing machine that was on the blink again. Anyway, apparently the bloke’s called Elton and-’

‘I thought he was happy with David Furnish?’ The Doctor butted in with a frown and a playful look in his eyes.

This got a good laugh out of Rose. ‘Shut up you goon, not Elton John,’ she chuckled.

He smirked again, scratching the back of his head. ‘Yes I did wonder why he’d be in the laundrette down the street from your mother’s,’ he said, continuing on with his joke. ‘His wardrobe is probably bigger than the Tardis’ anyway, it’s not like he wouldn’t have anything else if something did need washing.’ The lights in the console room flickered and a brief low hum filled the air. The Doctor turned to the controls next to him and patted the edge placatingly as he cooed at the Old Girl, ‘oh I’m not having a dig at you dear. Of course you’ve got the biggest wardrobe, biggest in the universe’. The lights brightened a little at his words and soothing touch.

Rose looked on at this moment of open affection between the Doctor and the Tardis with a soft smile on her lips. It wasn’t often that she got to see this side of their relationship but she didn’t need to see it to know that they cared deeply for one another. After he’d said a few more quiet words to the Old Girl he turned back to Rose and she told him she was going to get ready for their trip. He sighed at her a little dramatically, exaggerating his annoyance at having to wait even longer before they could go, but she appeased him with her tongue touched grin before dashing out of the console room.

Whilst Rose was gone he’d taken off his jacket, rolled up his shirt sleeves and ducked under the grating looking for a faulty part because the Old Girl had been a bit too clunky earlier for his liking. Knowing Rose as he did he reckoned he had enough time to have a quick glance around for the problem because she would probably shower as well as change outfits. That probably had turned into a definitely after his earlier remarks but he couldn’t help his teasing when she had lined it up so perfectly for him. What else was he supposed to do? She knew he was joking but it still would have tilted the scales in her decision so he couldn’t really moan about her taking her time when it was partly his doing. Ah well, at least he might be able to solve the issue with the Tardis, or so he’d thought.

The cloister bell went off causing him to jump and whack his head on the floor panel above him. He swore but before he could say anymore, like ask what was going on, an image of Rose flickered in his mind from the Tardis. His eyes went wide and he scrambled out from under the grating and darted through the corridors as fast as he could, slamming into her door whilst he called out her name. His hearts were pounding hard as the door swung open not knowing what awaited him on the other side.

Rose was sitting at her dressing table finishing off her second French braid, her fingers moving with extraordinary haste. Her hair was still wet and her towel was discarded on the wooden flooring near her wardrobes where the doors and drawers were left open, some clothes spilling out onto the floor below. Across her bed a few coat hangers were scattered all holding a few jackets and tops. Evidently she was rushing to get ready but that didn’t explain the urgency of the cloister bell that now looked to have panicked him for no reason. He stared at her, his eyes still wide but now his look was one of deep confusion rather than worry.

‘Can we detour to mums first?’ She asked as she tied the end of her braid.

‘What?’ His voice was a mixture of disbelief and annoyance. She got up and quickly moved to her bed to grab the purple hoodie from its hanger and pull it on over her t-shirt. ‘That - that,’ he stuttered, so baffled by what was going on he wasn’t able to get his words out so he tried again. ‘A cloister bell is for emergencies, life and death, not “can we go to mum’s!”’ He reprimanded.

Her head shot round as his sharp tone. ‘Oi, don’t have a go at me I didn’t ask for that,’ she retorted, ‘I only asked her to get you because mum was on the phone again sounding hysterical cus of something to do with Elton’.

He stared at her then his gaze shot up to the ceiling, his arms out in question. ‘Boyfriend trouble, really?’ He asked his ship incredulously before sighing and leaning back heavily against the doorframe, his hands scrubbing over his face.

Rose slipped on a black jacket over the top of her hoodie before walking over to him. ‘I’m sorry she panicked you with the cloister bell, I never meant for that to happen. I just wanted her to get you because I was worried about mum,’ she said quietly as she stopped by his side.

He shook her head as he lowered his hands and gazed down at her. ‘No, it’s alright it’s not your fault,’ he murmured, ‘I’m sorry I shouted’.

She shrugged. ‘You rushed in here all panicked expecting the worst.’

‘I was trying not to have a hearts attack,’ he agreed. She gave him a soft smile and placed her hand on his left arm, rubbing it soothingly. With his right hand the Doctor pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled deeply before glancing back at Rose. ‘So what’s up with Jackie?’

Rose dropped her hand from his arm and moved it to her ear as she fiddled with her hooped earring, telling him of what she knew. ‘I don’t think it’s exactly boyfriend trouble, all I really got from it was something about pizza and you and me. She wasn’t really making sense,’ she added at his raised eyebrow.

‘Right,’ he breathed as he nodded, though still feeling none the wiser. ‘Guess we’d better go see what that’s about.’

She smiled at him gratefully. ‘Thank you.’

Shaking his head he pulled her into his side for a brief hug. He mumbled, ‘of course,’ into her hair before placing a kiss there then separating to go to the console room. He re-covered the hole in the grating then dashed about the controls, setting a course for Jackie Tyler’s living room whilst Rose waited a little impatiently on the ramp.

‘Mum?’ She called as she opened the blue wooden doors, her eyes immediately landing on the woman in question who was sitting on the armchair near the window just lowering the phone after her last call to her daughter.

‘Rose?’ Jackie breathed, a bit in disbelief at the Tardis’ prompt appearance. In one hand she clutched the phone and in the other a tissue she had been using to dab her eyes. The thicker eyeliner that she’d applied to look nice for Elton had run a little and she’d been trying to mop at it but only ended up smudging it and making it worse.

‘What happened mum? What is it?’ Rose asked, moving over to the chair and perching on the arm of it so she could comfort her. Jackie's attention was distracted away from her daughter, however, when the Doctor exited the Tardis.

He in turn eyed Jackie, dropping his suit jacket onto the sofa before perching on the coffee table, the closest position to the Tyler women. He rested his arms on his legs looking up at the pair with a small sympathetic smile. ‘Hello Jackie,’ he said softly.

Rose pushed some loose strands of hair that had gotten stuck to her mum’s cheek with the tears before putting her arm around the older woman and holding her close. This seemed to bring Jackie back to the present and she sniffed, wiping her nose with the tissue. Rose eyed the tissue box on the table beside the Doctor and after following her gaze he passed it over to her and she grabbed a few more tissues for her mum. Their silent communication came rather easily to them these days. ‘What happened?’ Rose tried again as she gave her the new tissues.

Jackie shook her head and sniffed once more. ‘It’s silly really. I don’t know why it got to me so much.’

‘Rose said it’s got something to do with us,’ the Doctor gently prompted, mostly intrigued by what that meant.

The older Tyler nodded. ‘It’s Elton,’ she began, her voice a little shaky, ‘he had a picture. A picture of you Rose’. Her gaze flitted to her daughter and the Doctor’s gaze darkened at the implications.

‘What was the picture?’ He asked. Rose could tell from the change in his previously soothing tone that he was already not liking where her mum’s tale was going, though she certainly wasn’t liking it much either. Jackie reached down to the small side table where the phone cradle lived. She replaced the phone then picked up the photograph she’d rested next to it and passed it to the Doctor. He stared at it, his brow furrowing. Rose was standing in the foreground, her blonde hair swept back by the breeze and her gaze off somewhere in the distance. She was wearing her burgundy hoodie with grey sleeves and in the background of the photo stood the Tardis. His brow creased further in recognition. ‘But that was - that was the second time we met,’ he stated, his voice full of confusion and disbelief. He glanced up at Rose and added, ‘I’d come to the flat and found you with the Auton arm’. He passed the photo to her when Rose reached for it and she studied it closely, her face filling with disgust.

‘What a creep,’ she declared, continuing to stare at the photograph before asking, ‘has he been following us? Since all the way back then?’ The Doctor never got the chance to reply as she turned back to her mother and directed a final question at her, ‘was he using you to get to us?’

‘I thought he liked me,’ Jackie admitted quietly before sniffing and wiping at her nose again. She glanced up at the Doctor. ‘Turned out he just wanted to meet you.’ Rose hugged her mother a bit closer and placed a kiss into her hair. ‘I told him where he could shove that idea though,’ she stated with a bit more of her usual Jackie Tyler gusto, ‘I wasn’t going to let him get near either of you’.

He clenched his jaw, his face dark. Not only had this Elton apparently been stalking him and Rose, which was already bad enough, but now he had crossed the line by hurting Jackie to get to him. The only good thing about it was that he had a sneaking suspicion of what was going on and would probably be able to get the problem under wraps promptly. ‘You got Mickey’s laptop?’ He asked Rose and she nodded, sliding off the arm of the chair to go to her room to get it. He took a breath and looked at the older Tyler. ‘I’m sorry that this has happened Jackie,’ he said sincerely, ‘it’s my fault that you’re wrapped up in this’.

She shook her head adamantly, now with even more of that fierceness she normally possessed. ‘I’m not worried about me; I’m worried about you pair. Are you safe? Is Rose safe?’ She pleaded with the Doctor and he tried his best to ease her worries.

‘We’re perfectly safe,’ he promised, ‘they just seem to be getting a bit eager, a bit ahead of themselves’.

‘They?’ Questioned Rose as she entered the living room and passed him the laptop.

He hummed in agreement and he opened it out on his knees, booting it up. ‘Yes, LINDA.’

She sat back down on the armrest placing her arm around her mum again as she scrunched up her face in confusion. ‘Who’s she?’

‘Not she, it,’ he corrected, tapping away at the keyboard. ‘An acronym for the organisation.’ He’d known about LINDA since his fifth regeneration but hadn’t paid them much mind. It wasn’t like he asked for a fan club and he didn’t particularly appreciate being forced into taking part in this ultimate game of Where’s Wally? with its members. Really he found the whole thing a bit embarrassing.

‘An organisation for what?’ Rose said, continuing her line of questioning.

The Doctor sighed and muttered darkly, ‘for me. They like to try and find me, spot me and I don’t know, follow what I’ve been up to I guess’.

Her eyebrows shot up. ‘A fan club?’

He glanced up at her with a glare. ‘Don’t start.’ He turned his attention back to the screen and continued trying to pin down the group's meeting place.

Rose stood up, too agitated to sit still anymore so she paced a little next to the armchair. ‘So these people try to track you down every time we come to Earth?’ She asked, completely unimpressed with the idea. He didn’t get the chance to answer as she continued on with her tirade, working herself up as she did so. ‘What right do they have to think they can stalk you like that? And then they go and use my mum. Try and worm their way into her life-’

‘Rose sweetheart it’s alright,’ Jackie interrupted trying to calm her daughter but it was no use.

‘No, it’s not alright mum, it’s far from alright’ she ranted, her head shooting towards her mother so she could impress her point better. ‘They hurt you. Just look at yourself, look at what that bastard did. He used you mum, he used you and I’m not gonna stand for that.’

The Doctor stood after closing the laptop and putting it on the coffee table. He started rolling down his sleeves and buttoning his cuffs. ‘I’ve found them,’ he announced, silencing Rose, her angry gaze immediately settling on him. He grabbed his jacket, put it on and nodded his head to the Tardis. ‘Come on then Rocky, let’s have a word.’

She stepped around the coffee table towards the blue box, a hint of confusion briefly crossing her features. ‘Rocky?’

He shrugged as he pushed the door and held it open for her. ‘Yeah, you look like you’re about to greet the man with your mean right hook.’ Rose walked through the doors muttering darkly about what it was that she would like to do with him given the chance. He followed her then leant out of the door, gave a small salute to Jackie saying, ‘we’ll be back in a mo,’ before ducking back inside and sending the Tardis to the street at the back of the library building where the LINDA group usually met in its basem*nt.

The Doctor stepped out of the blue doors first. He’d swooped his long brown coat on before going out and eyed the two beings who stood before him at the end of the street. He recognised the one that must be Elton; he was the blonde man they’d met in Woolwich when dealing with the Hoix. It came to him now, as he saw the kneeling man, where he had seen him even prior to that meeting. Elton was the young boy he met when he’d dealt with the Elemental Shade months ago. His mother had died at the hands of the creature as he’d arrived too late to save her.

Standing over Elton was a rather peculiar looking creature, chubby and green in colour with horribly long yellow nails and a walking cane in one hand. He had scruffy black hair that trailed from his head like an extended mohawk as it continued to his back. The most disturbing thing about him were the faces that looked to be poking out of his skin as though people were lying there just beneath the surface.

The Time Lord’s gaze turned back to Elton and he gave the man an unimpressed look as he slipped his hands into his pockets and announced, ‘someone wants a word with you’.

At that moment the Tardis doors squeaked open and he turned his head to watch as Rose stepped out, immediately glaring daggers at the kneeling man and taking a few powerful strides towards him. ‘You’ve upset my mum,’ she told him, her tone full of an aggression that seemed to baffle the blonde man.

He glanced at the green creature standing next to him and then back at Rose with confusion. ‘Great big absorbing creature from outer space and you’re having a go at me?’

She dismissed his words completely, carrying on with her tirade. ‘No one upsets my mum,’ she stated sternly.

The creature never even glanced at Rose, he only had eyes for one being and that was the Doctor. His voice was full of glee as he said, ‘at last. The greatest feast of all: the Doctor’. His tongue stretched out slathering his bottom lip with his saliva already imagining what the Time Lord would taste like.

The words didn’t faze him in the slightest as he considered the green creature before him. ‘Interesting,’ he began as he stepped up next to Rose and tried to work out the creature’s name. ‘Some sort of Absorbatrix, Absorba…klon, Absorbaloff.’

Raising his green hand he pointed at the Doctor when he gave his correct name. ‘Absorbaloff, yes.’

Rose stared at this Absorbaloff and upon noticing the similarities she quietly said to the Doctor, ‘is it me or is he a bit…Slitheen?’

He rather thought it could be a possibility. There were some similarities in the creatures and it wasn’t like the Slitheen were a race, they were a family so it was certainly viable that the creature could be from the same planet. ‘Not from Raxacoricofallapatorious are you?’ He asked the Absorbaloff.

‘No, I’m not, they’re swine! I spit on them!’ He snapped, insulted that they could even consider such a thing. ‘I was born on their twin planet.’

‘Really?’ The Doctor said, surprised by this new information. ‘What’s the twin planet of Raxacoricofallapatorious?’

‘Clom,’ the creature stated and The Time Lord raised his eyebrows and repeated the name back at him. ‘Clom, yes,’ the Absorbaloff confirmed with a nod. ‘And I’ll return there victorious once I possess your travelling machine.’ He pointed at the Tardis and the Doctor gave him a sceptical look.

‘Wellllll, that’s never gonna happen,’ he scoffed, dismissing the idea completely.

‘Oh it will,’ the Absorbaloff said determinedly. ‘You’ll surrender yourself to me, Doctor, or this one dies.’ He gestured at Elton and gave a malicious grin as he continued with his speech believing that he had one upped the Time Lord. ‘You see, I’ve read about you, Doctor. I’ve studied you. So passionate, so sweet. You wouldn’t let an innocent man die. And I’ll absorb him unless you give yourself to me’.

Rose smirked at the man next to her who scrunched up his face and scratched the back of his neck as he considered the creature’s words. ‘Sweet…maybe. Passionate…I suppose.’ He shook his head as he lowered his hand and continued, ‘but don’t ever mistake that for nice. Do what you want’. Glancing between the Absorbaloff and Elton indifferently, he awaited to see what would happen next.

The creature stared at him, clearly not anticipating such a reply. ‘He’ll die, Doctor,’ he warned him, ensuring that he understood his very real threat to the human.

‘Go on then.’ He nodded to Elton, taunting the creature to do it.

There is clear hesitation from the Absorbaloff and even Rose glanced up at the Doctor a little worried about this plan of his. ‘So be it,’ the creature pronounced and he turned to Elton, his hand stretched out, ready to absorb the man.

Just as he was about to place a chubby green finger on the man the Doctor said, ‘mind you, the others might have something to say’.

Now it was time for the second part of the plan. The time for the absorbed members of LINDA to work together one final time. And work together they did. One of the members, who was called Ursula, took charge of the others commanding them to pull, their faces in the creature’s green body straining as they stretched the skin, stretching the Absorbaloff apart. He wailed at their pulling in both pain and panic and Ursula encouraged the group further until finally the cane dropped out of his chubby hand to the floor near to Elton. The man did as Ursula commanded and snapped the cane over his knee where it emitted a shower of blue sparks. The handle on the cane, a pair of clasped hands, opened up to reveal a glowing light. The light faded away and the Absorbaloff let out a final roar as his body seemingly began to melt into the paving slabs below.

Elton stared at the splatter of green goo that was the creature as it seeped into the slabs, shocked at what had happened. He turned to the Doctor. ‘What did I do?’

His eyebrow was arched as he observed the dissolving goo before him. ‘The cane created a limitation field. Now it’s broken he can’t be stopped. The absorber is being absorbed.’

‘By what?’ The blonde man asked.

The Time Lord eyed the other man. ‘By the Earth.’

For a fleeting moment one of the paving slabs rose up revealing the shape of Ursula’s face. Elton immediately leant forwards onto his hands to get closer to her as she bid her farewell before her face sank back into the concrete. A tear ran down his cheek as he deflated, all hope of ever being with Ursula gone.

Rose watched him. Her anger towards him having since faded, she now felt sorry for the man. He may have hurt her mum but at least she still had her, she was still alive. Whoever the woman in the slab was obviously meant a lot to him and now she had faded away into the Earth. ‘Who was she?’ She asked with full sincerity in her voice.

He glanced away from the slab and up at Rose, his emotions barely contained and his voice choked. ‘That was Ursula.’

She studied him before stepping forwards and crouching down next to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as he wept quietly. Placing comforting kisses on his shoulder, Rose glanced up at the Doctor, their eyes locking and communicating silently as they let Elton have a moment. Eventually they got up and moved to a set of steps at the side of the street. Rose still clung to his side trying to sooth him, her arms wrapped around his and then the Doctor joined them.

He sat on the other side of the man, resting his elbows upon his legs as he looked at him consideringly until Elton composed himself. ‘You recognised me that day in Woolwich but you don’t remember do you?’ He started quietly. Elton shook his head, looking at the Doctor expectantly. ‘1977, there was a shadow in your house. A living shadow in the darkness. An Elemental Shade had escaped from the Howling Halls. I stopped it, but…I wasn’t in time to save her - your mother,’ he stated regretfully as he glanced at the man who was understandably looking rather upset again. He noticed Rose was too. She was probably thinking of her dad, easily relating to Elton having gone through that loss and grown up in a single parent household herself. ‘I’m sorry,’ he added sincerely, his eyes locking with the other man’s. As the man started to cry once more, the Doctor got this niggling feeling in the back of his mind. He found his gaze drawn to the paving slab where Ursula disappeared. Perhaps…just perhaps… He jumped up and darted to the paving slab, reaching into his jacket pocket for his sonic screwdriver as he did so. Crouching on the concrete he pointed the sonic at the slab where Ursula last appeared muttering to himself about his idea. ‘If I can key into the absorption matrix and separate the last victim. It’s too late for total reconstruction but…’ He stood up, still staring at the slab that had started to bubble. His head shot up to the pair still sitting on the steps though they were now watching the Time Lord with interest. ‘Elton! Fetch a spade!’ The Doctor bellowed.

Elton frowned, bewildered by the other man’s request. ‘What?’

‘A spade!’ He repeated a little exasperatedly, enunciating the words with force. They didn’t have all the time in the world, if they didn’t pry the slab out from the ground the Earth might just try to absorb Ursula’s gradually appearing face again.

‘Where am I going to ge-’ The blonde man started to retort before Rose squeezed his arm and spoke to him quietly.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll get one,’ she said as she stood up then dashed inside the doors of the time machine.

Elton watched her go and continued to stare at the blue doors even after they had clicked shut. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Doctor crouch down again. Rising from his perch on the steps he moved closer, his eyes drawn to the paving slab the Doctor was watching. The concrete was moving, growing and turning into Ursula’s face. ‘That - that - that’s Ursula,’ he stuttered in disbelief, pointing at her features forming in the slab.

The Doctor glanced up at him and quietly stated, ‘it’s the best I could do’. A weak but grateful smile appeared on Elton’s lips just as the blue door squeaked open behind him.

‘Spade,’ Rose announced when she exited the Tardis with said item.

The Doctor stood up and took it from her then ordered Elton to grab the paving slab once he had lifted up an edge of it with the spade. The slab was rather well attached but they managed and soon Elton was holding up the concrete that now bore Ursula’s face. Ursula smiled and Elton matched it with a watery one of his own.

The time travellers didn’t spend too much more time with the newly reunited Elton and Ursula after Rose made certain that the man would be alright. The Doctor did question them about the Absorbaloff though and they explained about Victor Kennedy and how he took over the group whose membership had then slowly dwindled as, unbeknownst to them, he was absorbing the other members one by one. They described the man’s obsession with the Time Lord and Rose even got a small apology from Elton about his treatment of her mum.

Soon the Tardis was rematerialising at the Powell estate. The pair ran inside of the building and out of the evening rain having travelled back to about an hour after they had left Jackie to deal with LINDA. As soon as Rose opened the door to the flat she called out to her mother and hugged her tightly. Once they had explained to Jackie what had happened, the Doctor was also drawn into a reluctant, on his behalf, hug as she thanked him for dealing with the situation. Rose smirked at him over her mother’s shoulder and he gave her a glare back.

‘Can we do the Olympics tomorrow?’ Rose asked through a yawn as they stepped into the Tardis. They had stayed in the flat for a few hours longer even having tea with Jackie after Rose coaxed him into making the lasagne he had made for them the previous week which they had both thoroughly enjoyed. He’d had to go out to the Tardis to grab the ingredients from her fridge as Jackie hadn’t got the ones he needed. When he returned to the flat, his arms full of produce, Rose laughed as she compared him to a drowned rat because the light spotting of rain on his walk to the Old Girl had turned into a downpour by his return. She was at least kind enough to offer him a towel after receiving a rather unimpressed look by the Time Lord who was telling her that she could cook her own bloody food. He shrugged off his coat and jacket, after towelling his face and hair, and let the rest of himself air dry in the heat of the kitchen whilst he prepared the meal. He roped Rose into helping because she was certainly not getting away without. She was in charge of chopping whilst he dealt with the cooking on the hob. It may have just been frying off the mincemeat before adding the vegetables to it but somehow food nearly always got burnt if she was in charge of it. He did let her build the lasagne layers before sticking it into the oven to cook as there wasn’t that much that could go wrong in the construction. Jackie was rather impressed when they sat around the television to eat and said he could come again after she’d had a few bites. After washing up they left the now cheerier Jackie to her bedtime routine and made their way back in the now dry night to the Tardis.

‘Yes. Fine,’ he sighed, answering her question about the Olympics with a tone laced with an exasperation that was more for show rather than actually intended.

‘What you gonna do now?’

They walked up the ramp and he slung his coat over the coral strut before answering her. ‘Whilst you sleep half your life away,’ he began and Rose rolled her eyes at his usual complaint, ‘I’m going to fix the source of the clunking I’d found earlier before I was rudely interrupted’. His final words were spoken with fierce glare that was aimed up at the ceiling and he received a sheepish hum from the Tardis in return.

‘If you’re gonna have a go at her,’ Rose said as she placed a comforting hand on his arm, ‘try not to be too loud otherwise I'm gonna have to get involved and I don’t wanna do that’.

His gaze had fallen back on Rose as she was speaking and his body had turned to face her. ‘I don’t want you to get involved either because I know which side you’ll be on.’ He arched his eyebrow challenging her to convince him otherwise.

She simply smirked at the Time Lord. ‘Well, us girls have to stick together.’

‘Us Gallifreyans have to stick together too,’ he pointed out.

Rose frowned. ‘Hey, what are you two ganging up against me about?’

‘Don’t know yet,’ the Doctor answered with a shrug, pretending to consider his options. ‘You go to bed and we’ll discuss it before getting back to you.’

‘Within seven working days?’ She chuckled.

‘Oh, of course,’ he agreed adamantly with humour written all over his face. She chuckled again but the Doctor raised his eyebrows at her when she tried to stifle a yawn. ‘Go on, go get some sleep,’ he said softly, placing his hands on her shoulders and a kiss on her forehead.

She hummed in agreement as she leant into him wrapping her arms around his waist and in turn becoming enveloped in his arms as they curled around her. Leaning her head against his shoulder, she closed her eyes and let out a small, happy sigh as he lightly traced circles on her back with one of his fingers. For a man who was colder than the average human to the touch he gave off a surprising amount of heat which didn’t help her sleepy state at all. Nor did the fact that his hugs were always incredibly comforting, something which she had always thought about the Time Lord, even when he was still wearing his leather jacket. There was something a little sad about that, for someone who could provide some of the best hugs to have spent so much time alone and to have become someone who really needed that comfort himself given what she knew of his past. She hoped that she was making up for that even if it was only a little.

‘You’re impossible you are,’ the Doctor mumbled, his voice rumbling through his chest and into hers.

Rose shifted a little on his shoulder. His scent of sweet tea with a hint of cinnamon, the scent that she had long begun to think of when she thought of home, was strong as she nestled near his neck. She sounded sleepy as her lips brushed against his skin when she asked, ‘why?’

He leant his head lightly on hers and placed a kiss into her hair near her ear. ‘Because now you need to go to sleep but I don’t want to stop holding you,’ he whispered, his breath tickling her ear. ‘I guess I could put that repair off for the mo,’ he continued with a bit of a sigh before adding, ‘if that’s alright with you of course’.

‘Which bit?’ She asked with a small smirk tugging on her lips. ‘The bit about you joining me or the bit about the Tardis repairs?’

A smile grew on his face as he let out a huffed laugh. ‘Oh yes, I’m dying to know your opinion on the maintenance around here’.

‘I’m only getting involved when you annoy her,’ she mumbled before another yawn overtook her. Rose groaned as the Doctor began to pull back from the embrace and he chuckled at her reaction.

‘Come on sleepyhead,’ he said with a soft smile upon receiving a glare for letting her go. She really was very adorable when she was tired, he thought. He let one hand trail down her arm until he could hold her hand in his and started them walking around the console. After making a few adjustments he sent them into the vortex before they headed into the corridor and towards Rose’s bedroom.

‘You know being my partner means you shouldn’t have to ask to join me in bed,’ she said as they neared her door.

The Doctor scratched the back of his neck with his free hand. ‘Wellllll, didn’t want to assume or make you uncomfortable…’ he trailed off as he reached for the door knob but Rose’s hand found his first. With his brow creasing slightly he glanced down at her where she now stood before him, both of their joined hands hanging in between them.

‘Thank you,’ she began, squeezing his hands a little, ‘that’s very considerate but you really don’t have to worry about me feeling uncomfortable when it’s you, Doctor’.

Her smile and the look in her hazel eyes were full of sincerity and he couldn’t help but smile back. Internally, however, he wasn’t feeling so composed. As much as he appreciated Rose’s assurances he wondered if it was something that occurred in a human relationship. Was this something that should just be known between partners or was this him being an awkward alien, who grew up in a radically different culture, trying to blunder his way through a relationship with a human hoping he wouldn’t make a mess of things before they really started? Perhaps he should consider doing some research. He was certainly not going to find a guide on Human/Time Lord relationships but he might be able to find some general tips on dating humans, the do’s and don'ts etc. Maybe this wasn’t as big of a deal as it felt in his mind, him joining her in her room. On the occasions where they have shared a bed there was only one of them so it was reasonable to share it if it was big enough. But there were plenty of beds on the Tardis; she could even create the epitome of a bedroom and make a room simply filled with them. This felt rather different though. Yes they had shared in Rose’s room at the flat but that wasn’t the place where she regularly slept, now she slept here, just beyond that wooden door. It felt momentous that he was allowed to stay there.

‘And skipping over the fact that there are no days and nights in the vortex,’ Rose continued. He smirked thinking back to their early days in the Tardis where he’d jibed her a little about her wishings of good morning and goodnight when those concepts weren’t really viable. He let that go these days. Most of the time anyway. ‘I wanna make it clear that I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night when you join me or if you get up when I’m still asleep. You can stay for as long or as little as you like, or not at all. Okay?’ She asked.

‘Yes sir.’ His words may have been flippant but really hers meant a lot. She knew him so well and it made him feel incredibly warm inside.

She rolled her eyes then dropped his hands as she turned to open the door. The Old Girl had been hard at work fixing the mess Rose had made earlier when she was panicked and rushing to get ready after the phone call with her mum. Her bed was cleared of clothes, her cupboards and drawers were neatly closed again and the towel had disappeared from the floor. Brushing her hand on the wall she thanked the Tardis before stepping over to her side of the bed and pulling the duvet back to get her pyjamas. There weren’t just a single set of pyjamas hidden under the covers, folded on the other side of the bed was a pair of black plaid pj bottoms and a maroon t-shirt. ‘I think the Old Girl wants you to stay,’ she said with a chuckle as he closed the door behind him.

His eyes trailed past her to the sleepwear that he recognised as his own, he then directed a glare towards the ceiling and his meddling ship whose hum was rather indicative of an indifferent shrug.

‘Be nice.’ Rose prodded him lightly in the chest on her way to her ensuite, her own pj’s, a light pink pair of joggers and a white camisole, under her arm. ‘She’s only trying to be.’ He huffed a little which made her chuckle at him. ‘I’m gonna take the bathroom first if that’s alright?’

She was already inside the doorway at this point so he thought he didn’t really have much say in the matter but he sent her a grin anyway and she closed the door between them. He walked around the bed and picked up his sleepwear before he began undressing by the blue armchair in the corner of the room, folding and setting his suit upon it and pulling on the t-shirt and bottoms with ease. The free standing mirror beside the chair caught his eyes after he’d pulled his t-shirt on. Stuck to the edge of it were a few photos, mostly photos of him. He spotted the one’s she had taken with her new camera on her birthday; he hadn’t had a chance to see them yet. He was pulling a funny face on one when he was lying outstretched on his side by the edge of her bed. If he thought about it he could still hear her laughter as she snapped the picture. Then in the other one, well he looked like a right sappy bastard didn’t he. His eyes trailed over the other pictures which were a mixture of his current and previous regeneration. He spotted one when he was pouting after she’d mocked him about the way he pronounced something in his northern accent. In another he was absolutely soaked with slime but still grinning that big smile he used to have, he could see the mischievous glint in his blue eyes because that was just before he pulled her into a hug to ensure she was covered in slime too. She had protested but he thought it was only fair after her cackles when he got drenched in the first place. There were some from their time at Wembley which had the both of them in and there were a couple more that Jack had taken of just the pair of them too. Then there was one he didn’t even know existed. His back was to the camera and he stood next to the Tardis in a field of pale green grass that came up to his shins. His long brown coat billowed out behind him and to the left in the breeze as he stood on the cliff top watching the sunrise over the top of the gorge down below. He didn’t get the chance to study the photograph any further as he stood back up straight after hearing the door ease open.

‘All yours,’ Rose announced when she spied him.

He thanked her then went inside the ensuite. He wasn’t surprised to find that the Tardis had brought in his toothbrush and paste after the discovery of his pyjamas. As a Time Lord he didn’t need to brush his teeth but after discovering the concept he had fallen into the habit of doing so as he rather liked the taste. It wasn’t long before he stepped out into her now darkened bedroom. The main lights were off but the table lamps on either side of the bed still lit his way. Rose had crawled into bed and as he came around the other side he saw that her eyes were already closed. She wasn’t asleep yet, her breathing wasn’t deep enough for that, but he knew it wouldn’t be long before she would be. He lifted up the duvet and climbed in trying not to jostle her too much but as he settled down and turned onto his left hand side to face her he saw her looking back at him with a small smile.

‘Hello,’ she whispered.

The Doctor smiled back. ‘Hello.’ She’d taken her hair out of the braids she’d put it in earlier and he reached out to brush one of the wavy strands from her face. He stroked her cheek gently with the back of his fingers before resting his hand on the nape of her neck as he shifted closer a little bit so he could kiss her. Rose melted into the kiss and her arms reached out to wrap around him. It was short and sweet and contained a promise that there was more to come. Her brow creased when he untangled her fingers from the back of his shirt and hair and squeaked when he turned her with ease onto her opposite side. He shuffled so his chest was pressed against her back and wrapped his arms around her middle. ‘I said I’d hold you,’ he mumbled before placing a kiss on a patch of skin on the back of her neck left exposed by her hair as it fell to the side. ‘So I’m going to hold you.’ He kissed that spot again as she hummed and rested her right arm over his, entwining their fingers together perfectly as they always did.

Rose tilted her head towards him as far as she could and softly said, ‘goodnight Doctor’.

‘Goodnight Rose.’ He leant over and kissed her before settling back down as the bedside lamps dimmed and turned off. Rose sighed happily as he snuggled up against her and their legs began to comfortably entwine. ‘Sleep tight,’ he whispered and let his own eyes drift shut.

Chapter 38: Let The Games Begin

Chapter Text

Rose had told him that she didn’t mind if he left her in the middle of the night. It was something that she completely meant because he was the Doctor and he didn’t do sitting still nor did he sleep as long or as regularly as she did. He wasn’t human so it was unfair to even think about wanting him to confine himself to a human’s ways especially as it wasn’t like he purposefully prevented her from sleeping for days on end, sometimes their adventures didn’t allow for such frivolities. He gave her a hard time about her sleeping habits but it was all good natured really.

She didn’t need to open her eyes to know that he had stayed anyway. His left hand was combing through the ends of her hair in a rather relaxing motion. Somehow they had shifted in the night so now she was on her right hand side pressed up against him with one arm lowly draped over his stomach and her leg hooked over his. Rose’s fingers twitched and she realised she was touching his bare skin. Her hand had crawled under his shirt or perhaps his shirt had ridden up, either way she found herself gently brushing against the slightly cooler skin, not particularly considering the man it was connected to.

‘If you start tickling me again I will throw this book at you,’ the Doctor lightly threatened.

Frowning a little Rose blinked open her eyes and tilted her head upwards to the Time Lord. He was slouching against the pillows he’d set against the headboard with one hand in her hair and the other was indeed holding a book. Perhaps he had left the bed after all unless the Tardis had grabbed what he wanted as she tried to make up for the cloister bell incident. Whatever had happened he was still there and it made her incredibly happy even if he was currently threatening to use a book as a weapon against her.

Feeling her movement he glanced down at her over the top of his glasses with a raised brow. ‘And I don’t think you’ll like it because it really is a very hard book.’ He angled said book so she could see the front cover as he added, ‘rock hard one might say’. His eyes twinkled playfully as Rose read the title.

She groaned. It was a book about rocks. ‘God, it is far too early for that,’ she complained, garnering a good laugh out of the man who personally thought it was an excellent joke. After jabbing him in the side anyway, which got another laugh out of him, she shuffled more upright so she could rest her head against his chest, his hand falling out of her hair as she did so and finding itself on her bare shoulder instead. His thumb gently rubbed over her skin and he leant down placing a kiss into her hair. She hummed happily before asking, ‘so what you looking at this rock book for, bit of light reading?’

He could hear the hint of teasing in her voice as she brushed her fingers over the edge of the hundreds of pages he’d already read and he watched as they fluttered before coming back together in a satisfying movement. It was quite a thick book and from where he’d left it lying open on his lap, his other hand ensuring that he kept his page, he could see he was well over halfway through its six hundred odd pages. Even if he wasn’t skimming a book in a few seconds and actually taking the time to read it properly he was still a quick reader. ‘I was thinking about where I wanted to take you after the Olympics and thought about the planet Maku. Gorgeous world, as you shall see, and extremely rocky…’ He became caught up in a ramble about the types of rocks found on the planet and how they had formed over the millennia. He didn’t go into great detailed descriptions of the sights, however, as he wanted Rose to see them for herself first hand. It was always better that way in his opinion and he didn’t think he could do them justice with his descriptions anyway.

As he was rambling Rose had pushed herself back up so she could watch the Time Lord. The words were flowing out of him quickly as they always did when he was so enthused by a topic. His eyes were lit up behind his glasses and there was a happy smile on his face as he spoke about erosion, planet-wide storms, sediments and vast cave networks. She thought he looked adorable and couldn’t help but grab his t-shirt and pull him into a kiss. His lips were always very kissable but she was drawn to them even more when he was going off on one about something or other.

A surprised squeak left the Doctor’s lips when she tugged him closer, her soft mouth swallowing his words about the creation of fissures in the rock formations on Maku. ‘What was that for?’ He asked a little breathlessly when she released him.

Rose shrugged, her hand still resting over his right heart where she had grabbed his shirt. It was beating a little faster than it usually did and she also noted the faint tinge of pink on his cheeks that her actions had caused as well. ‘I just thought you looked adorable.’

His brow creased. ‘Adorable?’ He asked like she had lost her mind. ‘I’m certainly not adorable.’ She giggled and he shook his head as he thought about it further. ‘I’m over nine hundred years old, it should be impossible for me to be even considered as adorable.’

‘Well I’m looking at you right now and all I’m seeing is adorable,’ she said with a grin.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘You need to get your eyes checked.’ Rose laughed and he took his hand from her shoulder and brought it up to his face to take off his glasses before offering them to her. ‘Here, put these on and see if they help.’ She took the glasses and put them on. He couldn’t help but stare at her. He found that he rather liked Rose Tyler wearing his glasses.

She scrunched her nose up as she squinted at him through the lenses. ‘Now you’re just an adorable blur.’

He let out an exasperated huff. It was a losing battle. ‘I am not adorable Tyler,’ he growled as he used his hand, now cradling the back of her head, to draw her into another kiss. He felt her smile against his lips as they parted.

‘And what was that for?’ She asked, repeating his earlier question.

The Doctor rolled his eyes at her teasing before admitting, ‘you look nice in my glasses’.

‘Nice?’ She raised her eyebrows.

‘Very nice,’ he amended.

‘Very nice?’

He rolled his eyes again and then swallowed. ‘Alright, you look a little bit…sexy.’

Rose was quite proud of how she managed to control herself when he called her sexy. She had never even heard him say the word before let alone use it to describe her. The butterflies may have been fluttering in her stomach once more and her heart may have pounded a little harder but on the outside she had managed to keep her composure and was able to continue with her teasing a bit more too. ‘Just a little?’

He raised his eyebrow. ‘You, Rose Tyler, are incorrigible.’ His voice was deep and this time Rose couldn’t help but shiver at his words. He let go of his book and slowly plucked the glasses from her nose then twisted his arm back and dropped them off the side of the bed. Going by the slightly more distant clatter he’d missed the bedside table he’d been aiming for and they’d landed on the floor. He didn’t care though. He’d just have to remember to look out for them when he got up. Nor did he care when the book slid off his lap and joined the glasses with a thump on the floorboards when he shifted his body towards Rose. He felt her grip his shirt where her hand had come to rest on his waist as he leant in and kissed her neck. His lips moved upwards to her ear and her breath hitched at his low rumbling words when he murmured, ‘and you always look very sexy’.

**********

Warmth pooled in her stomach. She pulled the Time Lord away from her neck and sent her lips crashing into his and he kissed her back just as hungrily. His hand on the small of her back drew her even closer and her tongue tasted his after he’d opened his mouth to let out a moan when she’d tugged at his hair. That was when she felt the growing bulge in his pyjama bottoms up against her leg as their bodies pressed against each other. At that moment she wanted nothing more than to rip his clothes off because there were far too many layers between them for her liking. The hand fisted in his shirt began to tug the fabric upwards and he got the message. They parted long enough for her to pull it over his head and she threw it towards the ever growing pile of things on the floor by his side of the bed. Their lips came back together and he leant into her further, wordlessly asking for her to lie on the bed. Rose’s arms curled around his lightly muscled back as she did so, his body towering over hers and his hands on either side of her head holding him up. She dug into those muscles when their lips parted and he began pressing kisses on her neck, gasping when his teeth grazed her skin as the path trailed lower. He sucked, nipped and licked at that same spot on her collarbone that he had found in Philadelphia before he leant back and turned his attention elsewhere.

The Doctor shuffled lower on the bed and traced his finger over the hint of skin that was peeking out between her joggers and camisole causing Rose to shiver, then her breath hitched as he gently lifted it up a little to place a kiss onto her hipbone. It was taking every ounce of his waning control not to press himself against her to gain some much needed friction but he wanted to appreciate her first and going by Rose’s responses she was enjoying the attention as much as he was enjoying giving it to her. His hand slipped under her top and he pressed a kiss onto every bit of skin he revealed as he slowly drew it upwards. With his finger tips he felt the curve of her breast and made her whimper when he brushed his thumb over her nipple. After pulling her camisole over her head, his mouth and hands turned their attention to her breasts making her moan and squirm beneath his touch. She rocked up against his leg that was compressed between her thighs and in turn her fingers found his hair and pulled on it hard making him moan just as much.

She couldn’t take it any longer. She loved the teasing touches but she needed more. ‘Doctor,’ she breathed and he hummed against her chest, the vibrations making her squirm further. Her hand trailed lower to his waistband, the tips of her fingers toying with the fabric and slipping just beneath it in search of more skin. ‘I need you.’ It seemed her words depleted his last resolve. He groaned a little as he raised his head from her chest, his pupils blown wide and his eyes hooded; Rose found herself biting her lip at that obvious look of want. His body delightfully pressed against hers as he leant closer to catch her lips once more before he pulled back and slid his hand towards her own waistband, his eyes catching hers and asking for permission before her lowered her joggers and underwear as one. Part of her felt like she should be embarrassed when his gaze raked over her body but there was no hint of it because he was radiating so much desire for her, Rose Tyler, and she still couldn’t believe it. She watched as he swallowed as he studied what he had just uncovered before he licked his swollen lips. His lightly haired chest was heaving a little and when she dropped her own gaze she couldn’t help but notice how much he was straining against his pyjamas.

If he wasn’t hard before, he certainly was now with Rose lying naked on the bed beneath him. He couldn’t get undressed quick enough. When he crawled back on top of her he saw that her eyes were so dark they no longer appeared hazel, they were simply filled with need. He growled when she tugged on his hair pulling his face back to hers so that their lips came crashing together once more. Her hands trailed from his hair and down his back, one hand continuing lower and grabbing his bum eliciting another growl from the Time Lord whilst the other lost contact with his skin completely. That was until he felt her take a hold of him in her hand. He hissed at the touch and couldn’t help but buck when she squeezed him gently. Rose swallowed her own name as it fell from his lips when she rubbed up his length a couple of times. It was the friction he needed but he wanted more. Putting all his weight on one elbow his right hand soon found her wet warmth and she moaned as he slowly slipped a finger inside. He added another and watched as Rose keened and panted and nearly came undone by his touch. He knew she was close and when she gasped out his name again he withdrew his fingers and brought them up to his mouth licking her off of them and savouring the taste with his tongue. A wolfish grin tugged on his lips as she stared at him with her mouth parted, entranced by his actions. He didn’t know about Rose but he had not come prepared for this encounter. He needn’t have worried though because when he finally answered the Tardis’ persistent knocking in his mind he found her nudging him to look at the bedside table where she had placed a condom. He never really appreciated her previous teasing and attempts to be a wing woman before he and Rose had kissed but he was sure appreciating them now as he wrapped himself up.

When his fingers left her she had felt bereft but soon they both moaned as the Doctor gently pressed inside and filled her. He swore at the feeling then stilled to let her adjust before withdrawing and pushing back in again, beginning a tantalisingly slow movement that soon quickened when she rocked her hips in time with his pace. Her nails dug into his back and she drew up one of her legs, the heel of her foot pressing into his bum. The change of angle allowed him to thrust deeper and harder and faster. The warmth that had been building up inside her eventually burst and she moaned out his name. The tensing of her muscles around him tipped him over the edge too and he groaned into her neck, her name coming out in heavy pants as he stilled. As they caught their breath she lowered her leg and ran her hands over his now sweaty back. She could feel the slight tremble in his muscles as he held himself up so pulled him down on top of her, or tried to at least before he started to resist.

‘Are you sure?’ His husky voice rumbled next to her ear from where his face was pressed into her neck.

A smirk played on her lips as she ran a hand through his hair, the ends of which were damp too. ‘You’re a beanpole, remember?’

He huffed his disagreement but relaxed against her anyway. ‘Okay?’ He asked just to be certain.

She hummed. ‘Perfect.’

He smiled and placed a kiss onto her skin as she continued to gently play with his hair.

**********

‘We should get up.’ She felt the Time Lord jolt beneath her from where her head lay on his chest covering his left heart whilst her hand covered his right. He grunted and mumbled something incoherent in a voice that was gravelly from his unexpected nap which Rose had unintentionally woken him from. Smirking, she leant up a little so she could see him. He yawned and scrubbed his hands over his face and she couldn’t help but let out a little chuckle. ‘You’re just like any other bloke aren’t you?’ He lowered his hands to reveal his sulky looking face. Rose raised her eyebrows, her eyes twinkling playfully as she said, ‘enjoy your little catnap then?’

‘I haven’t slept in days,’ he pointed out before waving his hand in her general direction as he added, ‘and you’re very tiring’.

‘Just the compliment every girl wants to hear, Doctor,’ she quipped. A huff of laughter escaped from him at her comment and he rolled his eyes. She smiled cheekily before going back to her original plan. ‘Alright, now I’m gonna get up.’ She sat up fully, the covers still wrapped around her protecting her modesty, and shuffled to the edge of the bed where she then paused.

The Doctor eyed her when she didn’t move. ‘You seem to have gotten stuck in your quest,’ he commented lightly but then frowned when he saw the blush rising on the side of her cheek that he could see from his position. ‘What?’ He asked, confused by her behaviour. Then he took in the way she was covering herself up with the duvet and it hit him. ‘You don’t want me to look? I have seen you naked; don’t you remember me seeing you naked?’ He still didn’t understand it but he knew that he’d found the reasoning for her behaviour.

She shrugged and glanced down at the duvet as she mumbled, ‘yeah but…it’s different’.

‘How is it?’ His question garnered another shrug from Rose. ‘See you don’t even know,’ he said with a hint of exasperation in his tone. He let out a sigh and began to ramble, ‘what the human race has done to the concept of body perception and self worth astounds me. One day in your time there won’t be this big thing about impossible beauty standards that everyone has to live up to just to be accepted in society and that day can’t come soon enough in my opinion’. Rose had finally looked up at him just as he began to wave his arms about to help with his explanation. ‘You’re human beings, a race of diverse and unique people. There isn’t a right or wrong way to look; there isn’t a standard that should be expected of you. Everyone is different and that’s good, brilliant even. And the only comment that someone should ever make about your body is a compliment,’ he told her, locking eyes with her as he did so before his face darkened a little and he quickly added on, ‘and I don’t mean that it should be coming from some weird, randy bloke out on the street’.

Rose was taking the Doctor’s words on board. She never thought she’d get a speech about body positivity from the man but he was right though. She had been indoctrinated into a society where constraints and thoughts about body image were all too common. It was everywhere; you couldn’t help but be affected by it even on a subconscious level. It would be hard to alter her brain and the way she thought after being brought up that way but she would try because she did want to feel more confident about herself. It was her body after all, it shouldn’t matter what others thought, though that didn’t mean she couldn’t still enjoy the nice comments the Doctor made about her from time to time.

Even though it was a more serious topic she couldn’t help but chime in with a little teasing. ‘Just some weird, randy alien in my bed then?’ She said with a smirk.

‘Oi,’ he protested before his voice softened. He looked at her with a small smile and such admiration in his eyes as he said, ‘my point is you’re beautiful, Rose, and you should never feel self conscious about your body. You’re beautiful no matter what. No matter what you’re wearing or - or not wearing as the case may be’. He arched his eyebrow and this time her blush wasn’t one of embarrassment.

She bit her lip and glanced down, turning her body towards the Doctor. As she did so she let the covers fall to her waist revealing her torso. Rose looked up at him through her lashes and saw his warm smile.

He held his arms open to her. ‘Come here my gorgeous girl.’

Rose laughed and she could feel her cheeks colouring again at his words as she crawled closer. He pulled her against him and kissed her gently. Cupping his cheek as she leant back her voice was a little playful as she said, ‘and just so you know you don’t look half bad yourself’. A co*cky grin grew on his face and he winked at her. She rolled her eyes before giving him a final peck and climbing over him and out of his side of the bed. After dodging the mess on the floor she stepped to her wardrobes and picked out a black pair of jeans and a yellow v neck t-shirt, then moved to her drawers and grabbed a bra, socks, a pair of underwear and a brown belt for the jeans. As she bundled all the clothing items in her arms she glanced back to the Doctor who was half leaning out of the bed stretching to pick up his glasses after already retrieving the book and the rest of the clothes that had ended up down there. ‘So do you ever feel self conscious?’ She voiced. She hadn’t really thought about the Time Lord feeling so but guessed that as someone whose entire body changed when needed he would have rather differing views to a human.

‘About my body?’ He said with a grunt as he just reached the glasses and sat back up, putting the spectacles on the duvet next to him with the other items. He ran a hand through his hair ruffling up the already messy look of it as he eyed her like she had gone mad. ‘Why would I be when I look like this?’

Shaking her head at him fondly she couldn’t help but grin at his reply. It was so very him. ‘Right, somehow forgot what an arrogant sod you are for a moment.’

The Doctor sniffed a little indignantly but brightened up at the tongue touched grin she gave him because how could he not, he did so love that grin. He waved her off when she said she was going for a shower and then he relaxed against the bed, alone with his thoughts. He’d had sex with Rose Tyler. It wasn’t how he’d planned it, he had still been hoping to take her away somewhere nice and had finally settled on Barcelona - the planet obviously. They still hadn’t been and it could be a rather romantic destination if you visited the right parts. And of course there were the dogs with no noses. Rose would love those. Perhaps they’d go anyway, a little getaway where they might or might not run into trouble. Both would be fun either way. He supposed it didn’t really matter in the end that his plan had not come to fruition. It was still a special moment. He chuckled as he thought of what his previous self would think of him now. He’d be jealous, he was certain of that and he’d give him a right bollocking for a number of different reasons that would seem very valid to the man he was at the time. He was a different man now. A man whose survivor's guilt was less raw. A man who couldn't give a damn about adhering to the rules of a Time Lord. A man who had chucked his own self imposed metaphorical rulebook out of the Tardis doors. And he was a man who was so much happier for it. He’d nearly missed out on all of this that day at Henriks. He’d be forever thankful for that pink and yellow human trapped in the basem*nt. His Rose Tyler. His partner.

The ensuite door opened and Rose stepped out dressed in the clothes she had chosen and her wet hair wrapped up in a towel on top of her head. The Time Lord still in her bed surprised her. She’d half expected him to be in the console room tapping his foot and wanting to go before they’d even had breakfast but that energetic and impatient man was certainly not the one before her now. She eyed him with a smirk. ‘Not getting up today?’ His eyes were glazed over as he looked at the wall opposite with a soft smile on his face. She knew he’d heard her because he had hummed but it took him another moment to draw himself back to the present. Rose watched as he blinked and focused his eyes, then his gaze turned to her and she smiled at him. ‘You were miles away.’

He took a second to understand what she had said to him before he took a breath and said, ‘right, getting up, yes’. The Doctor nodded his head, swooping the covers away in one easy movement and getting out of bed without a care in the world about his naked form. Then he pulled the covers back and leant over to extract his pjs and underwear from the clothes pile he’d made.

She didn’t mean to stare, she really didn’t, but she had always wondered what was kept hidden beneath those well fitting suits of his. She’d gotten a good view earlier but not of all of him. There was a light dusting of freckles over his shoulders and that mole between his shoulder blades that he’d spoken about so joyfully after he’d regenerated. Why Rose had retained that bit of information about the man of all the mad things that happened that day she didn’t know. As her eyes trailed lower the rest of him was suddenly covered up by black plaid as he’d pulled on his pyjama bottoms. She blinked and looked back up. He’d shoved the rest of his clothes under his arm as well as the book and had put on his glasses with a lack of anywhere else to store them except in his hands. Then her gaze fell on his face and to that co*cky grin he was wearing once again.

‘Enjoying the view?’ He teased, his grin only growing wider as a pink tinge appeared on her cheeks. Stepping before her and cupping one of them he brushed his thumb over it soothingly. ‘You are the adorable one Tyler.’ He pecked the corner of her mouth then started for the door. ‘You know what I fancy?’ He mused aloud, his mind already moving onto the next thing. ‘Bacon. Bacon butties to be more precise. That sound good?’ With his hand on the doorknob he turned back to Rose who had finally brought herself back to the moment and was removing the towel from her head.

‘Yeah. Ta,’ she replied, already knowing he would be the one to make them after the last time she had attempted bacon. It had ended up burnt on one side and stuck to the pan because she’d gotten distracted and left it for too long. That was where quite a bit of her cooking troubles originated from, her getting distracted and forgetting to stir or flip or take something out of the oven. The Doctor liked to tease her about knowing when she was cooking because he could smell smoke down the corridor outside of the galley. He was very good natured about it, eating whatever she offered when she did try to cook for him. Only once did he agree with her on the horribleness of what she had created after Rose had started choking after one bite. That time it turned out that she’d read the instructions wrong and added far too much black pepper to the meal that was, for once, not burnt.

**********

The Doctor had showered and was back in his suit just dishing up their breakfast by the time she entered the galley. She’d blow dried her hair before putting it up in a side ponytail and letting her fringe flow freely hugging the contours of her cheeks. Then she’d decided on her pink chucks and a denim jacket to complete her outfit before heading out of her room and following the tantalising smell of bacon wafting through the corridors.

‘Perfect timing,’ he told her, sensing her presence behind him. He turned with two plates of bacon butties in hand and set them down at the table, taking his usual seat as Rose went over to the counter to make tea. ‘Thanks,’ he said when she passed him his mug.

‘And cheers for the butty, smells gorgeous,’ Rose said as she sat. Her eyes fell upon the Doctor who was digging in heartily though she couldn’t help but stare at the way he was dressed. Beneath his pinstriped jacket he was simply wearing a navy Henley. No shirt and undershirt layers as he sometimes wore when he decided against his usual shirt and tie combo. Just his jacket and the Henley. To Rose it kind of felt like he was still undressed especially as she could see his chest hair behind the minimally buttoned top.

He saw her staring and, following her gaze, he glanced down at himself confused when he couldn’t find a spill or a stain on his clothing believing that to be the issue. ‘What?’ He asked his mouth half full of his breakfast.

‘Oh, nothing.’ She shook the thoughts out of her head and looked back at his face where he was studying her with an arched eyebrow. ‘Just not your usual style of dress is all,’ she said with a shrug and began to sip at her tea.

After finishing chewing and swallowing his food a smirk grew on his lips. He’d just caught Rose glancing at his chest again and this time he thought he knew why. ‘If a bit of chest hair is going to be too distracting for you I can go and put on a shirt.’

Rose quickly swallowed her tea and set it back down as she shook her head at the Time Lord opposite her. ‘No, no, not distracting, not distracting at all. It’s - it’s a good look on you - the clothes I mean not the - well and the…’ She trailed off at the Doctor’s chuckling at her flustered words. Her face was warm again too she could tell. God she could not stop getting all flustered around him today, she had to pull herself together.

The Doctor stood up grabbing his empty plate and mug and leant down by her ear where he practically purred as he said, ‘I know you like it, you were very complimentary about it earlier’. He pressed a kiss into her hair before he stood back up straight. ‘Eat up before your bacon goes cold,’ he said, his voice back to normal, before taking his dishes to the sink and laughing loudly when he heard Rose mumbling about him being a smug git.

**********

The Tardis arrived in 2012 for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London. It was late July and when they entered Dame Kelly Holmes Close, nearby to where the ship had parked, they found it to be strangely cold, cold enough that they could see their breath. They had only gone to that street because the Olympic Torch would be passing at the end of it and they soon found themselves in a mystery involving missing children who seemed to vanish from the street. The duo split off in search of clues with Rose discovering that a number of vehicles over the past week had been cutting out and the Doctor finding a residual energy that he could feel tickling his hand and could be smelt in the air as it gave off an iron residue. Whilst wandering the area Rose heard a banging coming from one of the garages. When she opened the door a large scribble creature attacked and she fell to the floor as it rushed at her out of the garage. Luckily the Doctor was near and came to the rescue, using his sonic screwdriver to deactivate and shrink it to the size of a rubber band ball. They set off back to the Tardis to set up a scan on the creature to find out its origins which were rather unexpected. It turned out to be made from graphite, the same substance as a pencil lead. Rose managed to trace the source of the creature to a young girl called Chloe Webber. They went to her house and, whilst pretending to visit the bathroom, Rose snuck into the girl’s empty bedroom where she discovered an amass of drawings stuck on the walls, the figures of which were able to move, and a drawing of Chloe’s abusive but deceased father in the back of her cupboard. Using his telepathy the Doctor sent Chloe to sleep so he was able to speak to the creature that was inhibiting her. It was an Isolus child, a tiny empathic being who travelled through space in mass groups of around four billion for thousands of years until they reached adulthood. They needed the constant companionship and love of their siblings to survive but this Isolus had crashed to Earth in its heat-powered pod after a solar flare. It had found another lonely child in Chloe and inhibited her, granting her the ionic powers of the Isolus so she could trap the other children from the street in her drawings in an attempt to feel less lonely. The Doctor decided he needed to find the heat-powered pod so he could send the Isolus back into space to join their family. He set a scan in the Tardis to look for its energy signature whilst he puts together a device. When the scan showed it was in the middle of the street the pair left the ship once more only for the Doctor and the Old Girl to disappear a moment later leaving Rose alone. Rushing back to the Webber house she found that Chloe has drawn the Time Lord and his ship so took it upon herself to find the pod. After digging up a freshly tarmaced section of road, thinking the heat-powered pod would be drawn in by the hot tar, she found it but it still wasn’t usable because it needed more than heat, it needed love too and the Isolus was still feeling so lonely. Eventually Rose threw the pod into the passing Olympic Torch: a heat source and a beacon of hope and love for all. Rose panicked when the Doctor hadn’t returned after the Isolus left for the pod and released all of those trapped in Chloe’s drawings. The missing Time Lord, however, had picked up the flame for the struggling torch bearer and taken it to the stadium, sending the Isolus on its way back to the stars.

**********

Night had fallen by the time Rose and the Doctor reunited. The street was alive with children playing happily once more and Rose spotted the Time Lord in his long brown coat wandering down the middle of it from the front window of the Webber house. After seeing him on the television, she had stayed there whilst she waited for his return because Trish, Chloe’s mum, wanted to thank her with tea and cake and Rose guessed she had enough time for that with the trek between the stadium and the street that the Doctor would have to do to get back. Picking up the cake that she had saved for him because it had tiny edible ball bearings on top, after his enthused ramblings about them earlier she knew he’d love it, she stepped out onto the street and crept up behind the Time Lord. Outstretching her hand with the cake in it she called out to him, ‘cake?’

He turned to see Rose’s beaming smile and the cake in her hand and began to laugh as he stepped towards her with Rose soon joining in. ‘Top banana!’ He exclaimed as he took it, beginning to unwrap it straight away so he could take a bite. Humming with enjoyment he relished the taste. ‘I can’t stress this enough,’ he began to say, his mouth still filled with cake, ‘ball bearings you can eat. Masterpiece!’ His final word was higher in pitch with his enthusiasm and Rose couldn’t stop grinning at him, so happy he was back. The Doctor never got the chance to take another bite as she wrapped him up in a tight hug. ‘Hello you,’ he said, holding her just as tightly.

‘I thought I’d lost you,’ she admitted when she released him.

‘Nahhhh. Not on a night like this. This is a night for lost things being found. Come on.’ He started leading them down the street with Rose immediately by his side.

‘What now?’ She asked as he took another bite and shoved his free hand in his coat pocket.

‘I want to go to the games,’ he exclaimed, his voice going all high again. ‘It’s what we came for.’

She nudged into his arm, egging him on. ‘Go on, give us a clue. Which events do we do well in?’

‘I will tell you this,’ the Doctor began, completely straight faced. ‘Papua New-Guinea surprise everyone in the shot put.’

Rose pulled a face at this, unsure of whether to believe him. ‘Really? You’re joking aren’t you?’ He turned to her with a smug look of being in the know when she was not before spinning back round to face the direction they were walking in. She giggled, nudging him again. ‘Doctor, are you serious or are you joking?’

He grinned at her insistence but didn't give in. ‘Wait and see.’ She sighed with feigned exasperation at his answer but that only made him chuckle as he removed his hand from his pocket and took hers placing a sloppy, cakey kiss on the back of it.

‘Ugh.’ She pulled a face at their entwined hands and wiped the back of hers on his coat. ‘I don’t want your cake crumbs,’ she complained.

His grin only grew wider and his eyes twinkled playfully as he drawled, ‘yes you do’.

Rose didn’t get the chance to complain any further before the fireworks started, they slowed and tilted their heads up to watch both looking at them with delight. ‘You know what?’ she mused as the sky lit up with the colourful explosions. ‘They keep on trying to split us up but they never ever will.’

He turned to her, his happy expression fading at her words as he brought them to a halt. ‘Never say “never ever”,’ he warned.

‘Nah,’ Rose dismissed him, glancing back up at the night sky once more. ‘We’ll always be okay, you and me.’ Her self assuredness faded when he didn’t reply. She turned to look at him; he was back watching the sky too. ‘Don’t you reckon Doctor?’ She urged hugging his arm a little. His reply wasn’t exactly the one she was after.

‘Something in the air,’ he murmured, never once taking his eyes away from the darkness above, ‘something coming’.

‘What?’ She asked, her voice timid and small, worried by the tone and the seriousness of the man by her side.

His reply was almost a whisper. ‘A storm’s approaching.’

Rose stared at him, really not sure what to make of his words. It was like he was sensing something and for a man who was right nearly all of the time it scared her. He had told her once about being able to see timelines, he wouldn’t look at them and some he couldn’t look at like his own, but perhaps that was what he was sensing. He could tell that danger was on the way and Rose didn’t like the sound of that one bit because this wasn’t the type of danger that they faced normally, that much was easy to guess, this danger was so much bigger. It made her shiver.

The Doctor shook himself out of his eerie trance and bounced back to his normal self, though he did it with an eagerness that suggested he was trying to compensate for what had just happened. ‘Well there’s no need to dwell on that,’ he remarked looking back down the street and dragging Rose along with him. ‘We’ve got places to be and sports to see and all that.’

Rose, however, was still caught up in the dark turn the conversation had taken. ‘You know you don’t half sound ominous sometimes.’ She tried to make light of her words by adding a chuckle when she felt his grip tighten just a little around her hand, but it came out as more of a nervous laugh than anything.

‘I reckon we should go back to the Tardis, skip ahead and pop back for the first day of the games,’ he told her, completely dismissing what she had said and continuing on his new line of thought brightly. ‘They’ve got fencing on tomorrow: women’s foil. That should be fun...I’d be alright at fencing, well I’m alright at sword fighting and they’re pretty similar disciplines.’ He nudged her, a big grin on his face, gesturing at the sky with his half eaten cake as he said, ‘remember me? Up there, Christmas Day, in the sword fight with the Sycorax…’

The Doctor continued to ramble on as they made their way back to the time machine, happily ignoring what he had sensed. Rose understood his dismissal, he did it quite often when it was a topic he didn’t particularly want to talk about, but it reminded her of something that had happened earlier in the Tardis when they were scanning for the Ionos’ pod. They were disagreeing about the alien, the Doctor was sympathising with it about what it had done because it was lonely and scared and Rose thought it sounded more like it was having a temper tantrum because it wasn’t getting its own way. It may have been hurting because it was away from its family but there was no reason for it to go around hurting others too in her opinion. That was when the Doctor dropped a bombshell on her. He said “I was a dad once”. Rose had not seen that coming, not one bit. He was over nine hundred years old so he’d lived a life, a long life, really it made sense that he’d settled down and had a family. When she’d first met him she might have laughed because of how anti-domestic he was but with the side she was allowed to see of him these days she could imagine it. He would have been a very fun dad especially if he was as energetic and bouncy as he was now.

‘I’ll give you a fiver if you can beat me back to the Tardis.’ His words drew Rose out of her thoughts. They were near the ship now, she could see her wedged between the two blue shipping containers, her windows and light lit up in the darkness as well as her Police Box wording. ‘We’re about sixty steps from the Old Girl, that’s the hundred metre sprint. Come on!’ He enthused trying to egg her on.

She turned to the Time Lord and frowned at him. ‘What? No.’

‘A tenner then. What do you say?’ He was smiling at her, his eyes wide and eager as he practically bounced on his toes wanting to start this race he was trying to create.

Rose shook her head, untangling her hand from his to gesture at him. ‘No, you’ll beat me easy with your long, lanky legs.’

He put on a big dramatic sigh and she smirked at him. ‘Fine, a tenner and a ten second head start for Tyler. Deal?’

‘Nope,’ she said lightly, stepping towards the Tardis a little. The Doctor thankfully stayed put to pout at her as she glanced back at him over her shoulder. She gave him a cheeky grin before legging towards the blue doors with the sounds of his shouted protests and hurried steps following in her wake. Rose reached the Old Girl first with the Doctor colliding into her wooden panels a second later.

‘That was cheating,’ he complained as she turned to see him. He stood over her, his hands placed on either side of her head against the Tardis which was holding him up. ‘You’re not getting any money out of me for that behaviour.’

She looked up at him innocently. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

He leant in a little closer, his eyes glistening playfully once more. ‘You should be disqualified.’

Rose leant closer too, her hands coming up to his chest and smoothing out his coat lapels. ‘It wasn’t a proper race, there aren’t any official sanctions,’ she challenged.

The Doctor smirked believing he had the upper hand as he inched closer still, his breath mingling with Rose’s as he said, ‘ah but we had a deal and a deal’s a deal Tyler’.

‘Not when you didn’t shake on it.’

Instead of closing the gap and kissing him as he had hoped she gave him a cheeky smile and the Tardis door swung open allowing her to quickly reverse inside and leave him hanging. ‘Rose Tyler,’ he called out to her in complaint before following her giggles into the ship, the door clicking shut behind him.

Rose had been having a brief conversation with the Old Girl whilst she was outside of her doors. She had gotten a lot better with communicating with her just in her mind and it had really come to her advantage then as she teased the Time Lord. The Old Girl had timed it just right too so she was really going to have to thank her for that later. She stopped at the top of the ramp, watching as he walked up it slowly towards her, his eyebrow arching when she gave him her tongue touched grin. She didn’t give him a chance to do or say anything when he stopped in front of her, immediately grabbing him by the lapels and pressing her lips against his. His hands came to her waist then slid onto her lower back as she wrapped hers around his shoulders, Rose could taste the cake she’d given him and thought that the ball bearings did add something to it.

When they parted, the happier Time Lord began to set the date and time so they could skip ahead to the following days sporting events. That was when it came back to her, the topic that she had wanted to discuss. ‘Doctor?’ She said as she stepped around the console towards him, her hand trailing over the edge of the controls soothingly.

‘That’s me.’

‘Can I ask you something about what you said earlier in the Tardis?’ She said as she stopped next to him.

He didn’t look up from the screen, still concentrating on what he was doing. ‘You’re going to have to be more specific, Rose, I do a lot of talking, me.’

She reached out and gently covered his closest hand with hers. He stopped what he was doing and looked at her, his eyebrow arching in question. ‘Earlier you said - you said you were a dad once,’ Rose stated softly. She felt the hand beneath hers tense a little.

He swallowed. He hadn’t been expecting that. Well he had but it still surprised him. He was still surprised the words had slipped out earlier and they had probably surprised Rose too. The Doctor nodded faintly as the word, ‘right,’ left him like a breath.

She was glad he hadn’t immediately shut her down but she could see that his face had closed off a little so asked her question tentatively. ‘So you have a kid - kids?’

Glancing away he stared at the time rotor in front of him before answering her quietly. ‘Had. Had’s the operative word,’ he corrected before taking a deep breath. ‘They’re gone now - like the rest of them.’

Rose was kicking herself internally; she really should have phrased that better. She held his hand a little tighter and brought her other up to his neck, gently playing with the hairs on his nape in what was hopefully a comforting gesture. ‘I’m sorry.’ He hummed and when he looked back at her all Rose could see were those big sad eyes of his. She hated that she had caused them.

‘I’m a grandfather too,’ he added then paused before he continued, ‘I will tell you about Susan, my granddaughter, but I’d rather not talk about the rest of my family. Not yet anyway’.

Leaning her head against his shoulder she nodded as she softly said, ‘yeah, of course’.

He was silent for a while. Rose’s hand had moved from his and was now rubbing soothingly over his chest, over his hearts, like she could tell where his pain was and was trying to make it better. Strangely it did. Of course it wasn’t taking away the pain of his loss but in that moment he did feel better about it because he had Rose by his side. Well, he hoped he still had her. ‘Is it okay?’ Going by her reaction he thought it was but he had to check. ‘That I’ve had a wife, kids, grandkids. The whole…shebang,’ he explained.

Rose kissed his shoulder before leaning her head back against it. ‘You did sort of surprise me with it earlier if I’m honest but of course it’s okay Doctor. It would never not be okay.’ She paused, wondering whether to speak her next thought aloud or not but she thought he might like it and that it might cheer him up. There was a slight hint of teasing in her tone as she said, ‘it’s probably something you bring up second or third date if not sooner but we’re time travellers, we don’t do things in order’.

A huffed laugh passed his lips and he shook his head a little. Turning his body he wrapped his arms around her in a proper hug and they stayed like that for a while before finally skipping ahead in time to see the games. They went to the fencing first where the Italian’s took all three medals and the Doctor wasn’t lying about Papua New Guinea when the shot put competition was on a couple of days later. Rose never knew that the sport could be so thrilling; it was quite the performance. The entire games lasted sixteen days but of course it didn’t take them nearly that long to watch all the sports they wanted to with the ability to skip ahead in the Tardis. They watched the closing ceremony on the last day and, after hearing about a performance from Mr. Bean and something about the Queen skydiving into the stadium with James Bond, they then went back to watch the opening ceremony because they needed to know what the hell that was about. But it was like Rose had said, they were time travellers and they didn’t do things in order, even if that included watching the end of something before it had even begun.

Chapter 39: The Singing Caves Of Anzrathon

Chapter Text

‘Roo-oose,’ the Doctor moaned through the door once more.

From the other side Rose sighed. ‘Just be patient Doctor.’

‘But you said you’d be finished by now,’ he whined as he leant his back against the wood. He rested his head on it too, a little bit harder than intended but he didn’t care, he was bored and waiting around in the Tardis corridor wasn’t very stimulating. ‘Thirty minutes you told me,’ he said carrying on his complaint, ‘and we’re on fifty-three minutes and fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine. Fifty-four minutes now, Rose’.

‘Yeah, cheers. I know how to tell the time.’

He pushed off from the door and jumped a couple of times trying to disperse his excess energy. ‘Come on, I want to go.’

‘I thought you said you wanted to see,’ she patiently pointed out.

‘I want to see as well,’ he explained, now pacing outside the door. ‘Of course I do - you know I do. So can I come in and see?’ Halting his pacing he took hold of the doorknob ready to open it the instant she said yes. Rose said no. ‘Agh,’ he cried out in frustration, tearing his hand away like he had been burnt. He hadn’t, in fact the Tardis was finding the whole scenario rather amusing and was enjoying the show. ‘Come on, I’m bored,’ he whined again.

Her sing-song voice called through the door. ‘Just give me a second.’

He folded his arms and counted to one. ‘I’m still bored,’ he announced, scuffing his chuck on the metal floor.

‘Didn’t mean it literally, Doctor,’ she said with exasperation.

‘Like you didn’t mean thirty minutes literally either,’ he sulked.

‘Stop your muttering.’

He huffed at her remark and began wandering outside the door once more; starting up a song that consisted of the words “I’m so bored” repeated in different voices and pitches. When he heard her soft chuckling he struck up another verse which added the line “I’m still really bored, Rose” to his very imaginative song.

Rose had an amused grin on her face when she poked her head out into the corridor. The Doctor spun around eagerly the moment he heard the door open, his eyes wide and bright at her appearance. ‘I think I’m done,’ she said and he stepped in front of her immediately.

‘Took you long enough,’ he commented lightly.

She raised her brows. ‘Rude.’

He nodded his head conceding that she was probably right. ‘Sorry.’

After shaking her head at him affectionately she grinned again as she told him to, ‘close your eyes’. He scoffed and rolled them instead. She looked at him sternly but her eyes were still playful as she repeated herself. ‘Close your eyes.’ She poked him in his chest lightly to impress each word and he sighed and followed her order. ‘And don’t open them until I tell you to.’

‘Yes ma’am.’

Rose laughed and he smirked. ‘Shut up,’ she told him, taking his hand and finally leading him into the room.

It had been commandeered by Rose to be her art studio after they had visited a city on a planet a few months ago where they stumbled upon a grand art shop filled with absolutely everything one could want as an artist. They bought all the supplies she needed to begin a project and then the Tardis led them to a room filled with lots of natural looking light and the space she would need to set up an easel. She didn’t start painting straight away as she was unsure of what would be her muse. That was until they visited Kastarion 3. The Doctor had never visited the planet before, he’d been to the first and second iterations of its namesake but never to the third so when they happened to be in the area he set a course for it to see what was there. Stepping out of the Tardis they found themselves on the temperate planet at the edge of a forest of trees similar to fir. The light breeze whistled through the trees though other than that it was surprisingly quiet. As they were soon to discover, if you were looking for humanoid life forms or large mammal-like creatures you would be disappointed because there were no such things. There were small creatures similar to mice, however, which had humongous eyes and purple striped fur like a zebra. But the main population of the planet were the insects with the, particularly fascinating but a little bit scary when up close, massive dragonfly-like creatures being their personal highlight. Through the forest they found a clearing with an immaculately clear lake filled with surprisingly warm water. The Doctor called it a geothermal spring and said it was caused by groundwater emerging to the surface which had been heated in the slow process of thermal conduction beneath the crust and, after giving it a scan with his sonic, deemed it perfectly safe for them. It was only right for them to take off their socks and shoes, and in the Doctor’s case roll up his trousers because Rose was fine wearing her skirt, and dip their toes in. After the day they’d had, which involved a surprisingly high amount of running for what turned out to be a rather Romeo and Juliet situation between two tribes on Kastarian 1, the warmth of the water was delightful and relaxing. Their break also gave them the time to really take note of the surrounding scenery and see the glint of rainbow crystals in the nearby outcrop of shale which they set off to explore next. Rose thought they were absolutely beautiful and, unbeknownst to her, the Doctor managed to separate a small chunk with his sonic and pocket it. Dawn was approaching when they made it back to the Tardis, as the planet had a rather fast day and night cycle, and it was this dawn that Rose had decided to paint.

She stood the Doctor, still dutifully with his eyes closed, in front of the easel with her now completed canvas resting upon it. Squeezing his hand she said, ‘open your eyes,’ before stepping back and allowing him to look at her artwork. She stood to the side nervously watching him awaiting his feedback but Rose needn’t have been worried at all.

What the Doctor saw before him was a masterpiece. He recognised it from their time on Kastarian 3 instantly and thought that Rose had captured the scene wonderfully; portraying it with such detail and accuracy that it astonished him. Putting his glasses on he stepped closer to really study it. The foreground was dark as the morning light hadn’t hit it yet. There were the silhouettes of the forest at the edges and to the left the boxy shape of the Tardis with her light glowing on top which casted just enough light onto the two figures who stood side by side, their hands clasped together perfectly, in the centre of the foreground. They too were mostly silhouettes but they were easily recognisable as himself and Rose. His figure, being on the left of hers, caught the glow of the Tardis the most so he could see the faint brown colours of his hair and coat with only just the hint of Rose’s blonde next to him. They were standing just how they had on that day to look at the view and what a view she had recreated. From their vantage on a hill, tree after tree grew down the slope far off into the distance where the mountains stood tall against the sky. Their light brown peaks, mixed with hints of snow, were warm in the early light and, leaning even closer, the Doctor noticed the glitter of a few rainbow crystal clusters on one or two of the rock faces. The paint they had bought really enabled Rose to capture their sparkle. It was her portrayal of the sky that really took his breath away. An orange glow surrounded the mountains, hinting at the morning sun, this faded into the lighter and then deeper blues of the night. A couple of stripes of a turquoise light cut through the sky caused by a geomagnetic storm. It had rather the same look as an aurora would on Earth as it danced past the stars leaving its trail of light behind. Beyond that were the five other planets in the Kastaria System. The largest of them all, Kastarian 1, was so large it ran off the edge of the canvas. It had giant golden rings surrounding it that covered most of the sky though the planet itself was hardly visible in the darkness. That was the same for Kastarian 2 which stood on the left of the painting, its spherical shape fully visible being a much smaller planet than the first. In the centre was 6, the smallest in the system. It was mostly hidden by the burning rings of 1 but you could still make it out. Kastarian 5 was the hardest to spot as it was nearly blocked from sight by a mountain on the right. And at the top of that mountain was 4, the clearest of the planets from their viewpoint, so clear you could just about see the dark spot in the centre of its near side. The Doctor honestly thought what Rose had created was amazing. He’d even put it up there with the best artwork he had ever seen.

Stepping back, he stood upright once again and glanced over at Rose who had begun chewing on her thumbnail whilst she waited. The tension in her face fell away when he beamed at her. He quickly closed the space between them and lifted her up into a bone crushing hug, turning them in a circle on the spot he was standing on as Rose giggled at his actions. ‘You are brilliant!’ He enthused as he put her down. ‘Absolutely brilliant!’ She laughed again at his words and he took her hand, pulling her towards a spot in front of the easel, spinning her around as he did so, enabling her to see her artwork whilst he held her. His arms were draped over her shoulders with her back leaning against his front, his gaze admiring the canvas once more.

‘Does that mean you like it?’ She asked as she rested her hands over his where they lay on her stomach.

He squeezed her a little tighter and pressed a kiss into her hair before leaning his chin gently atop of her head. ‘It means, Rose Tyler, that I think it’s fantastic,’ he said softly.

Rose could still hear the smile in his voice and it made her smile too. ‘Really?’

‘Really,’ he confirmed before kissing her in the same spot once more. ‘Honestly, it’s one of the best pieces of art I have ever seen.’

She laughed at that, not believing him one bit. ‘Shut up, no it’s not.’

‘It is,’ he retorted, his voice going high.

‘It’s not.’

He leant next to her ear and lightly growled, ‘yes it is,’ which made her giggle and squirm a little in his hold. Once she had settled he leant back up as he mused, ‘one day you will just accept a compliment for what it is and not fight me about it’.

‘What would be the fun in that?’ She quipped.

‘Oh, well when you put it like that,’ the Doctor began, an amused tone in his voice, ‘then no you wouldn’t. You’d hate it because that’s where you get your kicks isn’t it? From annoying me’.

Tilting her head back on his chest she glanced up at him. ‘I don’t annoy you,’ she drawled with a smirk playing on her lips.

His eyes were warm as he gazed down at her. ‘I’m in a state of perpetual annoyance around you.’

Pulling her hands upwards she held them firmly over her heart to add to her playful response. ‘Aww, you’re such a sweetheart, Doctor.’

He hummed and gave her a wink. ‘Only for you darling.’

She knew they were just messing around but she still found that the Doctor calling her “darling” made her stomach flutter a little. Her insides felt all warm but so was the rest of her too, wrapped up in his arms with his hands resting on her stomach, one of them gently tracing circles near her belly button. As she looked back at the painting again he rested his head against hers and let out a small happy sigh. They stood content for a few moments until Rose quietly asked, ‘so was it worth the wait?’ There was a teasing tone in her voice that made him huff and lift his head back up. ‘Can’t rush art,’ she continued, ‘just ask - ask Da Vinci or-’

‘Ooh that would be someone to meet,’ he enthused, cutting her off. Then a frown grew on his face and he lifted up an arm to gesture at the painting. ‘And hang on, you won’t accept I think this is brilliant but you go comparing yourself to Da Vinci?’

‘I’m not comparing myself to him,’ she said with a giggle as the Doctor unwrapped himself from her body and came round to her side so he could look at her with his eyebrows raised. ‘I’m not,’ she insisted, ‘I was just trying to think of someone who does art and he was the first in my mind’.

He crossed his arms trying to look serious but his eyes were alight with mirth. ‘Just so happens that he’s one of the Earth’s most famous polymaths?’

She raised her eyebrows too as she pointed out, ‘well, I wasn't gonna come up with someone who wasn’t famous because then I wouldn’t have heard of them would I?’

A smirk grew on the Doctor’s lips. ‘Touché, Tyler, touché.’ She gave him a big grin and he rolled his eyes. ‘Come on,’ he took her hand and led her out of her art studio. ‘We can get a move on now you’re done.’

The pair walked through the corridors with Rose gaining a spring in her step because he was allowing her to drive the Tardis again. This would be her fifth time in charge of the controls and she was getting better and better at it each time. The Doctor was rather impressed with her progress and told her she was picking it up like a natural. He’d even pressed his hands over her chest to ensure she hadn’t got two hearts, joking that she must be Gallifreyan with the speed at which she was understanding the controls. His praise made Rose feel guilty because she really didn’t deserve it. The thing was the Old Girl was helping her out every time she got to man the controls. Images of what button or switch or lever or whatever it was would flicker in her mind and all Rose had to do was walk around the console to find it before either remembering what to do or be told it by the Doctor. Rose still hadn’t mentioned her Bad Wolf awakening to him. Part of her really wanted to but a bigger part was stopping her. She knew how scared and worried he got every time it was even vaguely mentioned let alone if she described what had happened. And it was months ago now, it felt far too late to only just be telling him, and it wasn’t like anything bad had come of it. In fact Rose rather enjoyed being able to communicate with the Tardis like this. There was that weird thing about her hand and the Drakkad spit that had happened soon after but that might not have been a Bad Wolf thing. Or a permanent thing either. She couldn’t tell because she hadn’t been injured over the past few months. She’d expected to see some scrapes and bruises a few times when returning to the Tardis but clearly she hadn’t caught or banged herself up enough to cause them because there were never any signs when she looked, just a couple of tears in her clothing at the most. Really she thought it was nothing to be worried about but she was certain that the Doctor would not think the same.

He wasn’t following her around the console as he usually did. His eyes were fixed on her from his position on the jumpseat where he sat still directing her as she moved through the controls. ‘Leftmost.’ She flicked a switch. ‘Three quarters.’ She pushed a lever. ‘Spin it counter clockwise twice, second blue button, then clockwise once.’ She followed his instructions then moved to the small white knob the Tardis was showing her in her mind. ‘Ten fifthteenths.’

Rose raised her eyebrows and glanced at him around the time rotor. ‘Ten fifthteenths?’

‘Yes, it’s got fifteen notches and you want to set it to the tenth,’ he explained waving his hand about before returning it to its prior position of being draped over the back of the jumpseat looking the picture of relaxation as he sat there with one of his legs crossed over the other.

She nodded and set the knob then went through a few more controls before moving to the dematerialisation lever. ‘Hold on tight,’ she called out, grabbing onto the console with a white knuckle grip herself before pulling the lever. The ship rocked and jolted and Rose laughed as they travelled to their destination, the planet of Maku. The Old Girl juddered to a halt and her wheezing quietened. Rose loosened her grip, a big smile on her face as she skipped around the console. She paused when she saw the Doctor still sitting there, his eyes locked on her, his expression indiscernible. ‘Doctor?’ She asked quietly. He swallowed and stood up closing the gap between them swiftly then his lips were crashing into hers. He kissed her deeply and hungrily and Rose could feel that need beginning to press into her as he held her tightly against him. They were both panting when they pulled back and Rose opened her mouth to ask where that had come from but he told her before she got the chance.

‘That was the single hottest thing anyone has ever done.’ His voice was husky and his eyes dark and Rose could feel the warmth pooling in her stomach from just the look of the Time Lord let alone his words.

She stroked a hand over the lapel of his jacket, glancing up at him through her lashes. ‘And you didn’t want me to pilot the Tardis previously.’

He scoffed, his hands on her waist as he slowly guided her backwards. ‘What did he know? Clearly the man was an idiot.’

They kissed again before Rose added, ‘kind of a hot idiot though’. Her back came to rest against a coral strut and her hands trailed up his arms to his shoulders keeping him close.

‘Oh really?’ The Doctor raised his eyebrow, his voice low and rumbling near her ear as he placed kisses along her jaw line. ‘Do tell.’

Her fingers brushed against the hair at the nape of his neck as she said, ‘well, he’s got this hair, this really great hair and-’ Her breath caught as he found the bottom of her skirt and she swallowed. His hand slipped under it and brushed up her leg towards her knickers then he slid his fingers past the fabric, the tips of them teasing her folds. ‘Doctor,’ she breathed, holding onto him tighter before one of his fingers gained entrance and began a delightful massage. When she was ready he added a second just as Rose’s lips found his again. She moaned into the kiss which sent another wave of need straight into the pit of his stomach. Curling his fingers further Rose was gasping as he rubbed his thumb over her cl*t, the circling motion making her legs feel a little weak. ‘Are we - are we gonna do it here?’ She panted.

He pulled away her neck just enough so he could talk, his lips still brushing the skin that he’d been kissing. ‘Would you rather not?’

She leant her head back against the coral and shook it. ‘No here’s great.’ Her eyes squeezed shut and she bit her lip as her org*sm built; she was close and couldn’t have moved anyway even if she wanted to. ‘Doctor.’

Rose didn’t have to say anymore, he could already tell by that frankly mesmerising look on her face, let alone the slickness of his fingers. ‘I know, sweetheart, I know,’ he whispered near her ear then felt her involuntarily clench around his fingers. He wanted to see what would happen if he used a pet name and he let out a deep chuckle at the results. ‘You liked that.’ His grin was wolfish as he teased her. The Doctor kissed her briefly before removing his fingers and sliding down her legs, lowering her knickers as he did so. Pocketing them as he stood back up he saw the slight look of confusion on Rose’s face. ‘Would you rather I chuck them on the grating?’ He raised an eyebrow at her as she glanced at said grating and then back at him with a small crease in between her brow. He smirked and said ‘there we go then,’ before she could even answer his question with words. Lowering his hands from where they were back resting on her hips he moved to undo his trousers before Rose’s hands slid from his shoulders and batted them away, her fingers deftly undoing the button and zipper herself. He let out a low moan when she touched him and when her other hand came into play and cradled him he tilted his head back with a groan, his fingers digging into her sides a little tighter.

‘Have you got-’ She never got to the end of her question before the Doctor grunted out his response.

‘Pocket. Right.’ He felt Rose reach for his jacket pocket and he shook his head. ‘No. Trouser.’ He managed to get a hold of himself a bit more as she searched the correct pocket but he was still struggling with full sentences whilst she continued to stroke him with her other hand. The effect Rose Tyler had on him. ‘Meant to ask. Birth control. You happy?’

‘Was gonna get something for me when we’re next at mums,’ she muttered a little distractedly as she finally pulled a condom from his pocket.

He nodded and panted out, ‘can do better. No side effects. Fifty-first century’.

Rose kissed him before unwrapping it and sliding it on his length. ‘Love how you’re losing your words,’ she said with a smirk and he smiled back at her lazily.

‘Your fault.’ He pecked her lips then moved his hands onto her bum and the back of her upper thighs so he could lift her up. ‘Jump.’ She did so and he held her up against the coral strut, her legs coming to wrap around his waist and one arm around his neck whilst her other she used to help guide him inside. ‘God, Rose,’ he groaned when she was fully seated and then cried out when she clenched around him. She caught his mouth with hers before he could say anymore and then they started to move.

It was rougher because of their position and Rose was sure she would get some bruises on her back from the uneven coral but she couldn’t care less. The Doctor’s thrusts were hitting just the right spot and she moaned and panted as her org*sm grew and grew once more. His breath was hot and heavy on her neck, he was gasping out something but she couldn’t make out what it was and it didn’t sound like it was in English anyway. The Tardis translated everything so she assumed it must be Gallifreyan. Her fingers had worked their way past his shirt and had thankfully found only his bare chest behind it and none of those infuriating layers. She brushed through his light chest hair and over his nipples which she played with a little when he groaned and sucked on her neck after she had flicked one. Then her hands clung onto his sides, her nails digging in as the org*sm rocked through her. Her spasms tipped him over the edge too and they moaned in ecstasy, their movements now sloppy until they stilled. They clutched each other as they panted with their hearts thudding away in their chests as they tried to calm themselves.

He pulled out and gently set her feet back on the grating once she’d unwrapped her legs from around his waist. ‘You good?’ He asked, enquiring if she was feeling steady enough on her feet for him to let go of her. Really she might be holding him up more than anything; he certainly wasn’t feeling the steadiest after that. Her answer wasn’t exactly what he was expecting. She grinned and tugged on his tie so she could capture his lips and soon her tongue was doing something delightful that was beginning to get that warm feeling stirring within him again. She pulled back before it could take a hold of him and he muttered, ‘tease,’ which earned him a tongue touched grin. ‘So was that a yes?’ He said with a smile back at her.

‘Never better,’ she agreed, her hands moving to his chest where she laid them over his hearts, her thumbs gently brushing over his skin.

He let his hands slip from her waist and chuckled softly as he adjusted himself and did up his trousers. ‘You’re very skilled at getting in there you know, I didn’t even realise until…yes until you were doing that,’ he added when she began to touch his nipples instead. Glancing down he watched her movements until his eyes caught something else or a lack of something else rather. He frowned and grabbed the sides of his shirt, covering her hands as he brought the fabric together. It would never stay together now though. He smirked. ‘Rose Tyler, where are my buttons?’

Composing herself to act all innocent she caught his arched eyebrow look and shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ The eyebrow rose impossibly higher and her fingers trailed up and down his sides still hidden behind the shirt.

The Doctor hummed, releasing his shirt in favour of having Rose in his arms again. ‘Funny thing is I clearly remember doing up those buttons when I put this shirt on earlier.’

‘Clearly you were mistaken,’ she countered.

He tilted his head back and let out a laugh, his eyes filled with mirth as he said, ‘oh I’m not mistaking your insatiable need to see my chest, that’s for certain. I had those marks for days’. His voice grew higher in pitch at his final words as he exaggerated and Rose shook her head at him, digging her fingers in at his sides so he tightened his hold on her in response.

‘That had nothing to do with your chest and you know it.’ He looked rather smug as he remembered the moment and Rose covered that smug grin with her lips as she leant up to kiss him. ‘Shower with me Doctor.’ The words caressed his lips as she broke away from the kiss just enough to whisper them. She heard his agreeing hum, which had an edge of a growl to it, before all of a sudden she was being lifted up and thrown over his shoulder. Her laughter filled the corridors as he swiftly took her out of the console room.

**********

‘Hoohoohoo,’ the Doctor cried after he had gone to take a step out of the doors and caught himself just in time. ‘Precarious parking Tyler,’ he called over his shoulder. She had just walked back into the console room and was shrugging on her black coat that the Doctor suggested she wore as it might be a little nippy. He looked back out of the doors. The Tardis was on the edge of what seemed to be a rocky cliff with about a foot, if that, of ground outside of the ship before the drop. He stepped out just enough so that he could poke his head around the side of the Tardis and saw that there was much more walking room around there compared to the tiny ledge their current parking allowed for. He hummed and popped back inside. ‘Might just turn us around,’ he said, jogging past her on the ramp and over to the controls to do just that.

She chuckled and leant against the railing whilst she waited. ‘What, like you had to when we went to the Olympics?’

He frowned and glanced up at her as the Tardis’ groans quietened once more. ‘We landed in the wrong century the last time, I told you.’

Raising her eyebrows, the teasing in her eyes was evident as she watched him walk over to her. ‘Then why was there a blue shipping container right outside the door? The same shipping container that we were parked between when we could actually step outside.’

‘Nooo,’ he drawled in unconvincing denial, opening the door and leading them outside. ‘It was a thick blue gas, highly toxic to humans, which is why I said we should get out of there pronto.’ He stood near the edge and slipped his hands in his pockets to study the view.

The Tardis door clicked shut behind Rose who was rolling her eyes at the Time Lord’s back. ‘Looked like a pretty solid metal sort of gas to me,’ she muttered before joining him at his side. She pushed back her hair that was blowing a little in the breeze then slipped her arm through his.

‘I heard that, you know.’ He eyed her with an arched eyebrow when she glanced up at him and she gave his arm a little squeeze.

‘You were meant to.’ Rose offered him a cheeky grin and he rolled his eyes fondly. They then both turned their attention to the world around them. When the Doctor mentioned it was a rocky planet he hadn’t been exaggerating, perhaps under exaggerating might be a better way to put it Rose thought. There was nothing but warm brown rock as far as her eyes could see, though the shapes of the formations, however, were rather spectacular. Great beige plateaus grew from the surface of the planet, a few rising up into the pale blue sky even higher than the one they were on. Some smaller formations looked like bridges with large holes beneath them where the rock had eroded away. Rose wasn’t sure she’d trust standing on them, especially not when there were other half bridges nearby that had probably looked like the whole ones once upon a time. Other formations grew from the ground like totem poles, some defying gravity impossibly with their precariously top heavy appearance. It really was an alien world out there to her and as usual she thought it was brilliant. She hugged his arm to her chest and gestured at the landscape with her other arm. ‘So go on then, here we are on Maku. What’s there to know? What’s the gossip?’ His head shot round to stare at her but Rose didn’t catch his gaze, already looking in another direction as she eyed their surroundings further, brushing her hair out of her eyes to do so. When he didn’t reply she disappointedly said, ‘not Maku?’ She looked back up at him and saw his expression. Thinking it confirmed her question she sighed. Rose had, until now clearly, managed to land at all planned destinations which she was rather proud of, plus she had been using that fact to brag when the Doctor got too co*cky about something or other. He was such an easy tease when it came to his piloting ability of the Old Girl. Of course that wouldn’t work half as well now which was almost as disappointing as screwing up her clean record of landings.

He shook his head. ‘Oh it’s Maku alright. But gossip?’ His voice went high with his final word and he pulled a face. Rose was gazing at him with confusion as he added, ‘you’re a few millenia out if you’re looking for another life form to gossip with on this planet’.

‘Oh I see,’ she said with a frown before continuing on a little more happily as she added, ‘but I landed us on the right planet though’.

‘Yes you did…again.’ He shot a glare back at the ship and Rose giggled.

Rubbing his arm soothingly she said, ‘be nice to her, she’s probably just going easy on me, new driver and all’.

The Doctor huffed. ‘No she just likes you better.’

He was pouting and Rose brought a hand up to his cheek to wipe it away. ‘Well maybe someone shouldn’t hit her with a mallet.’ She raised her eyebrows at him pointedly and he sniffed indignantly. Then his look changed and his eyes gleamed with triumph.

‘Ahh but if that was the case then she wouldn’t have built that interface with those controls.’ Now it was his turn to raise his eyebrows at her. ‘See, it’s meant to be used.’ Rose sighed at his conclusion and he smirked. He took her hand from his cheek, kissed her palm before entwining their fingers perfectly. After gently tugging on it, she loosened her hold on his arm and came to stand by his other side. ‘Now, just look at that Rose,’ he gestured to the rock formations around them. ‘There’s a great big hunk of world down there with no fence around it. Where two-’ he cut himself off with a frown and scratched his side burn. ‘No hang on - no - no that’s Lady and the Tramp.’ Rose giggled at him and he smiled as he continued, ‘but anyway the point still stands. The world’s our oyster as they say because we’re the only ones here. We can do what we like, say what we like and don’t have to be back home in time for curfew’. The grin he was giving her now was a big giddy one and she couldn’t help but chuckle and join in because she did so love it when he was acting all happy and silly. He nodded his head to the left and said, ‘come on,’ before leading them in that direction.

They found themselves near a gentle slope that led off towards the planet’s surface. It made Rose wonder if they were on one of those half bridges that she could see in the distance. If they were then it felt a lot more secure than it looked. ‘I still don’t advocate beating up the Old Girl,’ she told him as they set off down the rocky slope.

He sighed. ‘It’s not beating up,’ he drawled, ‘it's - it’s…percussive persuasion’.

She chuckled. ‘You just made that up.’

‘Nope.’ He popped the “p” and Rose watched as he adamantly looked at anywhere else but at her. That only made her laugh further. She jabbed him the ribs and he batted her hand away, the pair of them laughing as their feet hit the crusty surface.

They wandered around a bit, their path seemingly aimless to Rose, but the Doctor knew where they were going. They walked under a few of those rocky bridges and up onto one of the plateaus before they rejoined the surface after another easy decline on a rocky slope. Then he made a triumphant sound before leading them down and through a winding gorge where the great rocky towers precariously rose high above them threatening to block out all light but the sliver piercing through at the top where there was a thin strip of blue sky. Their feet kicked up dust and left a trail of footsteps behind them as they walked along the dried up riverbed in the centre of the gorge. According to the Doctor it was summer on the planet which was why there was no surface water to be seen. Rose’s eyebrows flew upwards at that because to her the temperature felt like early winter in London. This was something that the Time Lord found rather amusing and he said, ‘why do you think I set the date for now before letting you loose on the controls? Couldn’t have you complaining about the cold all day. Going on and on and on…’ He laughed harder when he dodged Rose’s attacking arm, seeing it coming a mile off with the tell tale look in her eyes, and she muttered away about him being a git.

Eventually the gorge opened up into a near circular area about one hundred feet wide. The rock faces still towered above them surrounding this opening though their rocky walls were not complete. There were four other breaks in the surrounding faces that led to other gorges all winding away to other areas of Maku. The rest of the opening looked rather man-made. A six foot high ledge trailed around the entirety of the walls except for where it broke away at the gorge entrances. Each of the five ledges led to both an entrance to a cave built into the surrounding wall and a small stone bridge that connected to a large domed building sitting in the centre of the open area which was carved out of the same light brown stone as they’d seen on the rest of the planet. It was a little peculiar with windows and arches of varying sizes and shapes dotted about in its walls though rather artistic in its own way.

‘What is this place?’ Rose asked, her voice had a hint of awe as she eyed their surroundings.

The Doctor led them around on the dusty surface, ducking under the bridges as he did so, until he found a set of stone steps which took them onto one of the ledges. Only when they were standing up on the ledge did he speak. ‘This is called The Singing Caves of Anzrathon.’ He opened up his arms widely as he announced the name with his usual spirit then began to ramble on as enthusiastically as ever. ‘Around ten, or possibly up to twenty depending on how big these caves are, families lived here in a tribe thousands of years ago. The Anzrathon people if you haven’t guessed by the name their settlement has since garnered. There are a few other similar ones dotted about on Maku but this is the best preserved.’

Rose looked around the area in a new light as he told her about it but frowned up at him as she asked, ‘what happened to the people? Why aren’t they here anymore?’

The look he gave her was a little sorrowful. ‘Colonists,’ he stated darkly as though that explained everything. Luckily for Rose he spoke further, glancing around at the settlement as he did so, his hands resting in his pockets. ‘Early space explorers. They didn’t take the necessary precautions for meeting a new civilisation. They meant well I’m sure, there’s no knowledge they were purposefully malicious and the Anzrathon’s welcomed them with open arms. But with the explorers came disease and the people of Maku had no way of dealing with it, their bodies had never encountered the pathogens before and what was a simple cold for the colonists ended up being fatal.’ At this point Rose’s eyes were wide and her hand had come up to her mouth at the tragic tale the Doctor was telling. His words took on a bitter edge as he added, ‘it only took a couple of months before the Anzrathon’s were wiped out. The entire population decimated. Gone. Poof’. He turned his head to look at her with his eyebrow raised. ‘That’s why I gave you those shots when you first travelled with me. Stops you from catching some of the big ones, though it can’t stop everything because disease is ever evolving, but it works the other way round too. Prevents you from being a carrier and from spreading whatever it is you have, if you did ever have something, and keeps the poor innocent folk around the universe safe.’

She nodded in understanding but she was still taking in his dark tale. ‘That’s awful,’ she breathed after a moment. ‘And there’s nothing they could have done? Nothing the colonists could have done?’

He shook his head sadly. ‘The Anzrathon medicine would have been too primitive for such an advanced disease for their people and the colonists…wellllll that’s up for debate,’ he said with a bit of a shrug

‘What do you mean?’ She said with a frown. ‘What happened with the colonists afterwards?’

Tugging at his ear, he sniffed. ‘Unknown…either they ran knowing exactly what they had done and were too cowardly to ever own up or they left before the disease took over and they were truly none the wiser. It wasn’t until another lot came by for a visit and discovered settlements of the dead.’ He gestured at the caves around them and Rose couldn’t help shiver a little at his words imagining what that must have been like to turn up here and be faced with skeleton after skeleton. ‘They did some testing and worked out what had happened,’ he continued with a scratch of his eyebrow, ‘but by that time the original colonists had passed on themselves. It’s only that initial group that visited that gives us all the knowledge we’ve got about the Maku people today, the rest is all just speculation’. He gave the area another glance around before eyeing Rose. ‘Can I show you the central building now?’ He nodded his head towards it and watched eagerly as he awaited his answer.

‘Yeah course, it’s got real funky windows,’ she commented as she stepped behind him and followed him over the nearest bridge to the central platform. ‘What is it?’

‘Ah, its funky windows are very purposeful.’ He gave her a grin over his shoulder and then continued, ‘and it’s the reason for the name of this settlement’. They crossed the bridge and he led them inside the round room. The wind whistled through the open windows and archways but other than that there was no furniture or anything, not even something carved of stone. It was empty. The Doctor took her gently by the shoulders and moved them into the centre of the room. ‘Now if we stand here quietly you should see what I mean - or hear what I mean really,’ he amended before his voice softened and he said, ‘because you should hear the song of the Anzrathon’. He stood behind her his arms draped over her shoulders, a repeat of his position earlier on in the Tardis, as they stood in silent vigil.

The wind no longer sounded like a whistle from where they stood in the centre. The varying sizes and positions of the windows allowed the wind to blow through at different pitches which all came together in an eerie, lamenting song. Rose felt like she was standing in the middle of a choir especially when she closed her eyes. Notes of song would start to blow through one window and stop at another, this pattern repeating constantly through all of the holes in the building as though choir members were taking breaths before continuing with their mournful tune.

The Doctor eventually broke their silence. He leant close to Rose, his voice low so she could still hear the song in one ear whilst he spoke about it in the other. ‘You see the people may be long gone but they’re still here in their own way. You can see the impact they’ve had on the landscape, read about them in the history books but standing right here is where they are alive the most. Their voices. Their songs. Living on forever through the howling of the wind. Never forgotten.’

Rose’s eyes had already begun to prickle the longer she had listened to the song but with the Doctor’s words a tear trickled down her cheek and then another. She wiped them away and thought she had sniffed quietly enough to get away with it with the wind still singing around them but of course his Time Lord ears had picked up on her distress.

‘Rose?’ The worry was evident enough in his voice before he appeared in front of her, his brows furrowed in concern. ‘Oh Rose I’m sorry,’ he cupped her cheeks and wiped away her tears with his thumbs. ‘I didn’t mean to make you cry.’

She shook her head. ‘No it’s not you, it’s just - just the singing,’ She sniffed again as she gestured at the room around them.

His eyes grew wide and sad. ‘We can leave if you want?’ He asked quickly, already preparing to go the moment she agreed.

‘No I’m fine, really.’ The Doctor gave her a look and she answered with a weak smile. His arms wrapped around her then and she leant her head on his shoulder, her own arms around his waist as she breathed in his calming scent of sweet tea with a hint of cinnamon. The scent of home. His hands were soothingly rubbing up and down her back as they stood there swaying a little to an unheard beat in the song. ‘It’s beautiful in the same way as Woman Wept,’ she whispered after a few moments. ‘It’s sorrowful but beautiful at the same time’. Rose felt and heard the Time Lord’s agreeing hum before he placed a kiss into her hair.

‘Are you okay?’ He asked softly.

‘Yeah.’ Rose lifted her head and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you.’

He twisted his head round to kiss her lips. ‘Of course.’ They kissed again briefly before he asked, ‘do you want to leave or do you want me to show you something else?’

She cupped his cheek and smiled at him warmly, her thumb caressing his cheekbone. ‘I wanna see more.’ The grin she received was beautifully bright and he pecked her lips before loosening his hold and taking her hand instead to lead her to one of the walls.

‘The Anzrathon’s weren’t writers,’ he began to eagerly explain, ‘but, like your Palaeolithic ancestors, they did love a good cave painting. They depicted the world around them, what they got up to, who they were, even what they’d had for tea. A diary of their lives through art’. He grinned at her again as they stood next to the wall adorned with artwork. The drawings were painted in a faint red colour and wound between the windows and the arches, filling up every spot they could.

Rose’s eyes widened with awe as she took it in. ‘How did I miss this?’ She breathed.

The Doctor shrugged, gazing at the paintings too. ‘Well, the paint’s rather faded but you can still see it up close.’

She crouched down to a darker red section where the light hadn’t caught it as much. There were stick figures of humanoid people, their arms up in the air as though they were cheering, and next to them was what appeared to be water and above them raindrops. They looked to be celebrating the end of the dry season. There were depictions of similar landscapes to the ones they had seen on their journey here, especially of the tall totem-like structures that seemed too top heavy to be standing. Then there were more people, some smaller like children. Next to them were a couple of small handprints with no thumbs but seven fingers, the middle of the fingers being the shortest. Above that were a group of what looked like manta rays, there must have been about thirty of them, clearly they must have been important to the Anzrathon people to take up so much wall space. But behind the furthest of the rays the red paint was rather erratic and wispy like clouds in a storm and within that storm, its eyes golden, was a wolf.

She heard the Doctor crouch down beside her and start muttering about the manta rays and how it was strange that they hadn’t seen any yet but Rose wasn’t really taking that in. She was staring at the wolf and it felt like the wolf was staring back. It was only when the Time Lord abruptly cut off his confused rambles about the manta rays that she came back to reality. The wind was only a whistle to them now and beyond that whistle there were voices and footsteps approaching. The Doctor shuffled and peered out of one of the windows with impeccably bad timing.

‘There! In the centre!’ One of them shouted from outside and the Doctor ducked back down with a groan. ‘Stand up! Hands above your heads!’

The time travellers eyed each other.

‘One day we’ll just have a nice day out without running into trouble,’ Rose quietly quipped.

The Doctor smirked. ‘Oh, that’s worth at least a twenty that bet is.’

‘Deal.’

They grinned then raised their hands in unison as they slowly stood up.

Chapter 40: Frondescence

Chapter Text

‘Slowly step out of the building!’ The woman shouted. ‘And don’t try anything!’

With their hands raised above their heads the time travellers glanced at each other once again before the Doctor stepped ahead of Rose and led the way through the archway that was closest to where the shouting voice was coming from. As he stepped out onto the thin ledge that surrounded the central building he looked around and eyed the group of six and their guns that were being pointed at the pair with disinterest. What was it with the universe and guns? There was hardly a week that went by when he wasn’t being threatened with one.

‘Stop where you are!’ The closest one shouted. It was the same voice, that woman again, though apart from her voice it was hard to distinguish any other defining features with their attire and the distance away. They were all dressed identically in their beige camouflage that was a rather good match to the surrounding rocks. Covering their faces were breathing masks with one large panel of glass and a small nozzle at the front that attached to two tubes which wound around them and onto their backs where they kept their air supply. The woman rattled her gun at them shouting, ‘state your intention,’ whilst the others slowly edged closer to her now the pair were seemingly showing signs of willingness to obey the orders that were shouted at them.

The Doctor co*cked his head to the side and pulled a face as he thought. ‘Errrrrm - knowledge I guess,’ he began, his voice going high in his uncertainty. ‘Education? I’d usually go for fun but it doesn’t really set the right tone for the area…although what can be more fun than learning and knowledge? Alight scratch that. Fun, that’s why we’re here, fun.’

His babble seemed to baffle them for a moment or at least it did the leading woman as she took a second to gather herself afterwards before her next question. ‘Who are you?’

‘Ah ah ah.’ He shook his head. ‘An eye for an eye and all that. My turn. What’s your intention? Why are you here hmm?’ He arched his eyebrow at the woman but she wasn’t the one to answer.

‘I don’t think you have the upper hand here sir,’ one of the soldiers drawled on their right. They both turned to look at him. Rose already knew that she didn’t like him. He was a co*cky, arrogant sod who thought much too highly of himself. That much was clear by his tone and his laid back stance like he thought she and the Doctor were pushovers. Yes she would use many of those qualities to describe the Time Lord beside her too but there was a key difference between a co*cky, arrogant sod who thought he was better than everyone else and a co*cky, arrogant sod who actually was. Well, ninety-five percent of the time. Or possibly ninety-four. It really depended on if he was being an idiot which he was also prone to do.

The Doctor looked like he’d just swallowed something horrible as he stared at the man. ‘Oh don’t call me sir,’ he complained, ‘no, really don’t. But upper hand? What, because you’ve got your shooty guns?’ He scoffed. ‘I think you’ll find I’ve got the upper hand, arm and even the upper leg too. Not that I have an upper leg…though if I was an-’

The co*cky sod cut him off. He altered his stance and thrusted his gun towards them trying to be more menacing. ‘Is that a threat?’

Rose wasn’t scared of him but she didn’t like the way he was pointing his gun. She’d met far too many who had a shoot first and ask questions later policy. ‘No!’ She called out loudly and all eyes turned to her. ‘No, he’s not threatening you, he just doesn’t like guns. We don’t have any on us either, we’re clean, so you can stop pointing yours at us.’

‘We do not take orders from some silly little Earth girl,’ the sod sneered.

She was taken aback and her eyebrows flew up into her hairline. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Don’t antagonise them, Mamire,’ the woman in the centre sighed like co*cky Mamire always got up to this sort of behaviour. ‘You know what their kind can be like.’

Rose’s head shot round to the woman. ‘And what can my kind be like?’

From beside her the Doctor watched on with a barely contained smirk on his lips. As Rose leant into her hip, quite an obvious warning sign to him, he had to remind himself that they were currently being held at gunpoint. He should probably step in before she did get too carried away with defending her home planet, rightly so in his opinion. But for now he was quite content to watch for a bit longer.

‘Destructive, hateful, murderous polluters,’ Mamire drawled like he had better places to be.

She turned back to him. ‘That might apply to some,’ countered Rose with a bit of bite to her voice, ‘but that don’t mean that everyone’s like that. Most humans aren’t or try not to be at least. I’m sure you’ve got some bad eggs in your lot too so you can’t go around picking on some human’s flaws and go putting it on the entire race. That isn’t fair.’

‘How dare you even insinuate we are alike in any way,’ he spat, his hold on his gun tightening dangerously. ‘We do not have bad eggs as none of us are flawed whereas your kind has flaws in abundance. You’re so flawed you don’t even see the problems you’re causing and if you do see them then you clearly don’t care and keep on causing them anyway…’

Mamire continued ranting on but the Doctor spoke over him with a bit of exasperation in his tone. ‘Alright, alright a little hush.’ Everyone else heard him and looked between the Time Lord and Mamire yet the co*cky man didn’t heed his warnings and continued anyway.

‘And we would certainly not-’

‘I said hush,’ the Doctor bellowed and finally there was silence. He exhaled and his voice returned to its normal calm manner as he glanced around at all the soldiers. ‘There, that’s better. Every race is not without fault an-’ Mamire opened his mouth and began to speak but the Doctor immediately cut him off. ‘I said zip it, lippy,’ he scolded, pointing his finger threateningly in Mamire’s direction and raising his eyebrow in warning. The man’s lips snapped shut and the Doctor, after a final stern look, lowered his hands and looked contemplative as he said, ‘now, where was I? Ah yes that was it, yes-‘ now he cut himself off as the realisation dawned on him. He narrowed his gaze and stared at the woman in the middle; the closest of the soldiers to them. ‘Polluters, you said polluters…’ he muttered slowly to himself. He absently took a step forwards and all the soldiers jolted their guns upwards, aiming back at him again and Rose automatically grabbed his arm to stop him. Realising what he’d done, and their fierce reaction to it, he raised his hands a little again placatingly but didn’t take a step back. Instead he eyed the leader. ‘Can I step closer…or - or can you step closer to me?’ He asked a little tentatively. ‘I just want to see you. Hard to see much of anything behind that mask.’ He offered her a small warm smile as all eyes turned to her. Everyone stared at the woman whilst she simply stared at him as she contemplated his question. Then she faintly nodded to herself and strode forwards ten paces before stopping. The Doctor now tilted his head down a little to see her better with his eye line being near seven feet above her with the ledge he and Rose were on plus his own height. He studied her, his face lighting up a little as he did so. ‘You are, aren’t you?’ He stated, his voice with a hint of awe. ‘You’re Frondescence. Oh, I’ve always wanted to meet the Frondescence,’ he enthused whilst the woman gave him a bemused look. ‘As meetings go I wouldn’t put it up there in my top five, bit too much gun waving for that but - ha! Frondescence, Rose!’ He exclaimed, turning back to her with a big grin as he waved his arm in the general direction of the group of Frondescence soldiers who stood before them.

She was looking at the woman in the forefront and, now that she was close enough, Rose could see behind her mask too. The woman may be a humanoid but she was certainly not human. Her skin was green like grass and, well, the best thing Rose could think of to describe the texture and look of her skin was leafy. It was still pretty hard to tell behind the mask but she would definitely say she looked leafy in her appearance. Rose pulled her gaze away and glanced at the expectant Doctor giving him a placating smile. ‘Yeah, you said.’

The Doctor spun back round eagerly. ‘Boy you’re hard to find, not that I’ve been directly looking mind, but I’ve been around a bit, travelled to a fair few systems in my time and never came across your lot. Where do you stem from?’

The woman was eyeing him like he was mad, which was fair enough because most people didn’t know what to think when he got all excited, but she still answered his question. ‘Chariandra.’

‘Oh, beautiful planet,’ he enthused. ‘Visited there once and still managed to miss you. Ah well. Had tea with some Flos humanoids: a floral woman and her son, Flower.’ He turned to Rose with an amused grin plastered across his face and started nudging her with his elbow, egging her on to laugh at his joke. She smirked but shook her head at him fondly causing him to pout at her reaction. ‘Oh you’re no fun,’ he complained.

This time she did chuckle. ‘That was a terrible joke Doctor.’ He was about to retort but Rose wasn’t done. She lowered her voice a little and said, ‘so, who are these Frondescence?’

He immediately dropped his retort in favour of giving an answer because like he said earlier: knowledge is fun. ‘You remember Jabe and the Trees of Cheem?’ He asked, his voice now quieter too. Rose nodded so he continued. ‘Well like them this lot also have their ancestry rooted in the Earth. No one is quite sure what plant they originate from but some suspect its ivy which I wouldn’t frown upon because I have heard some rumours that would corroborate a strand of poison ivy in their DNA.’

Rose nodded again as she listened and opened her mouth to say something else when the Frondescence woman butted in. ‘Are you two done?’ She was staring at them pointedly as the time travellers turned back to her.

‘Quite.’ The Doctor answered with a small smile.

She wasn’t shouting now that she was closer at least but her tone was still commanding as she said, ‘I will once again ask why you are here’.

He arched his eyebrow. ‘I’ve already answered that and I will once again ask of you the same. This planet was empty the last time I checked, except for the Mobulaer of course...and speaking of,’ he continued, scratching the back of his head with a look of puzzlement on his face, ‘where are they exactly? Came here before when I was a lot younger and there were hundreds of them all flying about in the sky, it was spectacular. Now we haven’t seen a single one’. The Time Lord sounded a little disappointed about that fact and the woman before them studied him intently. She looked as though she was trying to figure him out and after a moment she came up with her conclusion.

‘They’re the reason we’re here,’ she stated and at that the Doctor turned his wandering gaze back to her looking highly interested. ‘We are a task force positioned here on Maku to protect the Mobulaer from extinction.’

‘Extinction,’ gasped Rose.

At the same time the Doctor said, ‘why are they going extinct?’

‘Poachers of course. The bane of animal kind.’ She sounded exasperated at the mere thought of them.

‘So that’s why you’re threatening us, you thought we were poachers,’ Rose stated.

The woman nodded. ‘We found your tracks in the gorge,’ she told them as she pointed in the general direction of said gorge behind her, ‘and like you said no one comes here, no one except for the poachers’.

At least the less than warm welcome was making more sense now. The Doctor then began to make assurances that he and Rose were certainly not poachers and were just travellers simply looking for fun as he had explained multiple times earlier. As he was explaining this, what sounded like a walkie talkie crackled into life. The sound came from the Frondescence on the far left. All eyes turned to him and the Doctor cut himself off as he looked over too. He hadn’t paid particular attention to soldiers as individuals so now as he looked at him he noticed the headphones that were hanging around his neck which he was pulling over his ears to hear the communicator. The headphones had wires that were connected to a box which was kept attached to his side via an over shoulder strap.

‘Iphos here,’ the Frondescence stated and listened intently to the reply. The Doctor didn’t need to clearly see their face to garner their reaction to what he was being told over the communicator, Iphos wilted a little where he stood, something which was never a good thing in the Time Lord’s experience. There was trouble. ‘Thanks Morel, relaying,’ Iphos replied before turning to the woman near the time travellers. ‘We’ve got a Mobulaer down not far from camp; it’s gotten caught in a poacher’s trap. Shall I tell them we’re on our way Klezzie?’

The woman known as Klezzie sighed deeply and nodded. ‘Yes do that. This is the last thing we need now they’ll be sitting Onry.’ Iphos turned their attention back to the communicator and Klezzie looked up at the travellers wearily. ‘You two should leave the planet, it’s not safe.’

‘Oh hardly anywhere’s safe wherever we go,’ the Doctor said with a grin as he tucked his hands in his pockets.

Rose quickly butted in before his words could be interpreted incorrectly. ‘And he doesn’t mean that like a threat or anything,’ she told Klezzie, really trying to impress that point so there wouldn’t be further gun threats to them. ‘We just keep running into trouble when we’re travelling and then we try to help.’

He nodded. ‘Do you think we could come with you and see the Mobulaer? Would be rather disappointing to come all this way and not see them. Plus I am a doctor; I might be able to help.’

Klezzie looked at them consideringly before she answered. ‘Okay, because you may be of some help.’ The duo shared a grin and Mamire made some sort of disgruntled noise from where he stood to their right. ‘But it will not be our duty to protect you if the poachers arrive; you will have to protect yourselves.’ They nodded and thanked Klezzie as Mamire made his way over to the leader and began complaining about how they might still be poachers and shouldn’t be trusted. Luckily Klezzie didn’t want to hear his complaints and quickly gathered her soldiers and began leading the way out of the opening where The Singing Caves of Anzrathon sat and back to their encampment. The Doctor and Rose dropped down from the ledge and followed the group of Frondescence through the gorge they had come through originally.

The group never went near the Tardis, turning in the opposite direction when they left the gorge. The Frondescence were silent as they marched along past grand beige plateaus, towering rocky totems and beneath rickety looking rock bridges though the time travellers chatted quietly as they followed along. Currently they were talking about the Doctor’s trip to Chariandra as they climbed upon one of the plateaus.

Rose frowned at what he was saying about the time he spent with the Flos humanoids. ‘But wait a minute you said you were drinking tea but how does that work? They’re flower people right, like these lot are plant people?’ He nodded and Rose continued, pointing out that, ‘tea’s made of leaves. Surely that would be like drinking yourself?’

He chuckled. ‘Oh their tea isn’t made out of leaves.’

‘What is it made out of then?’

They had reached the top of the plateau and the Doctor eyed her as he said a little darkly, ‘I’m not sure you want to know’.

Rose saw his look and scrunched her face up in disgust as her brain ran through all the horrible possibilities it could think of that this tea could be made from. ‘Right, no I probably don’t,’ she told him and he chuckled again.

‘If it’s any consolation it still tastes excellent.’

‘Yeah that don’t help,’ she said with a shake of her head.

He shrugged. ‘Well, just thought I’d put it out there in case we’re offered any.’

‘Hello!’ The pair glanced up from their own little bubble to see that the Frondescence at the rear of the group had dropped back a little to talk to them. She smiled at them brightly and spoke in a chirpy voice. ‘I’m Fyafrina but most just call me Frina. What are your names again?’ She looked between them eagerly and Rose smiled back.

‘I’m Rose, this is the Doctor,’ she told her, nodding her head to the left when she introduced the man beside her.

‘Hello,’ he said with a small smile but Frina’s attention was on Rose. She was staring at her with a small crease in her brow.

‘Your name is a flower,’ she stated slowly and then she grinned excitedly, ‘I’ve never met a human looking flower before’.

‘Oh no,’ Rose smiled gently and shook her head. ‘I’m just a human not a flower, just named after one that’s all.’

Frina frowned again. ‘Oh.’ She sounded a little disappointed before perking up once more. ‘I’ve never met a human named after a flower before.’

‘Well, now you can say you have,’ the Doctor said, a little amused by the young Frondescence’s excitable manner. Frina grinned at him. ‘So why are the Frondescence protecting the Mobulaer? It’s not like they’re from your home world, we’re a galaxy over from Chariandra.’

She turned to him. ‘Wouldn’t you, if you knew you could help?’ The pair smiled at her answer. ‘No one else was going to do it and all creatures are worthy of protection from unwarranted torment.’

‘That’s very noble of you Frina, very admirable,’ he said genuinely.

Frina beamed at his praise. The conversation then turned to what they did and he and Rose began to explain a bit about their adventures and their travels across the universe. As Rose was telling her a story about when they saved a pack of Apoxi, something she thought Frina would like because it involved animal protection and rescue which seemed to be a cause close to her heart, the Doctor was eying Mamire darkly. The man kept shooting glares over his shoulder at the chatting trio, particularly focusing his looks on Rose which was something the Time Lord didn’t appreciate at all. She was none the wiser, however, as she relayed the story with minimal additional input from him.

The tale was nearly over when the world around them shook. They were climbing back down to the planet surface at that point and were around halfway down the rocky slope. The rock beneath their feet shook so violently it began to crack and the Doctor and Rose immediately reached out to one another, grabbing hold of each other’s arms tightly. Luckily he reached out to Frina as well who was on his left hand side near the edge of the slope. She had lost her balance completely with the dramatic shaking and was about to topple over the edge when he grabbed the back of her beige jacket. Her scream was loud but the cracking, crashing and tumbling of rocks around them was louder. Small shards of debris were sliding down the slope towards them from the plateau and even smaller bits were raining down on them from tall columns of rock on either side of the slope. Then there was another scream up ahead. Rose and the Doctor’s head’s shot in that direction just as one of the Frondescence lost their battle with gravity and disappeared over the edge of the slope.

Just as suddenly as it began the shaking stopped. The Doctor dragged Frina into a more central position on the slope, told Rose to make sure the others were alright and then ran to the edge where the Frondescence had fallen from, pushing past some of the others to do so. It must have been about a twelve foot drop to where they were splayed out on the ground. He could easily survive twelve feet so he dropped down just as he could hear Rose shouting and asking after the group's well-being as well as trying to bring order to them and calm them down.

He didn’t know the fallen woman before him. They’d done brief introductions after they had begun their walk to the campsite but apart from that none of the others, except for Frina of course, had spoken to them. He wasn’t the best with names at any rate, well, he could be if he decided to take note and put the effort in but he hadn’t deemed it important enough to remember at the time. He rather wished he had now so he could better comfort the poor woman who was gasping for breath as she lay on her back on the rocky surface.

The Doctor lay a hand on her shoulder, his voice soft yet still urgent as he said, ‘calm down, it’s alright, just talk to me. Are you hurt?’ He looked intently into her panicked eyes and she shook her head.

‘I can’t breathe,’ she gasped out, ‘my pack’. She tilted onto her side a little so he could have access to her back where her air was stored in a small canister.

‘Shh shh,’ he soothed, ‘don’t speak. Save your breath’. Glancing over the tank he could easily see the problem with it. A sharp rock, which would have caused the poor woman quite a serious injury had she landed on it, had pierced through the canister dispensing all of the air. He leant close and sniffed it. ‘Carbon dioxide,’ he mumbled to himself more than anything, ‘we’re at a higher oxygen percentage here than we are on Earth, it’s about twenty-six percent here. That won’t do at all’. He gently returned the woman onto her back again so he could see her face. Her green skin was pale and her eyes were so wide and worried as she gasped but didn’t take in any air. She needed CO2 now. ‘Breathe in, okay, just breathe in.’ He took the mask off her face allowing him to fully appreciate how leaf-like her appearance was, not that he took it in at the time. Her skin was covered in thin faint lines that looked like the veins on a leaf and at the top of her head was not hair. Instead her head came together in a small point where the very top appeared to be like a leaf that hadn’t unfurled yet. After taking a huge gulp of air and pinching her nose, he exhaled through her mouth dispensing as much of the life saving CO2 as he could. The Doctor could feel the tension in her lessen immediately as she breathed it into her lungs, the panic dwindling just a little as suffocation was staved off for the time being.

Behind the pair that were kneeling and lying on the surface of the planet the rest of the group thundered down the remainder of the slope to gather round at their side. Rose questioned him asking if everything was alright or if she could do anything to help but he didn’t have time to answer. The woman still needed his air. Whilst the Doctor repeated his actions a couple more times until he felt that she was calm enough, the others watched on mostly in confusion at what he was doing, though of course there was always one ready to speak out and voice their complaint.

Mamire was shouting at him, telling him to get away and back off. It was when he made a move to physically stop the Doctor, as he continued giving the woman air, that Rose stepped in. She grabbed hold of one of his arms with one hand whilst her other pushed on his shoulder shoving him back.

‘Don’t you dare touch him. He’s the Doctor and he’s a doctor. He’s helping you idiot,’ she snapped, her tone offering him no room for further complaints. Frina was good enough to grab his other arm too just in case he felt like being more of an idiot than he already was in Rose’s opinion.

After one more life saving exhale, and an inhale for the Time Lord afterwards, he quietly spoke to the woman telling her to hold her breath for as long as she could before he turned his head to the rest of the group. ‘Her canister is broken. Do any of you have a spare?’ He looked between the group and the group all looked between each other each one of them shaking their heads as they did so. ‘She will die if she doesn’t get enough carbon dioxide,’ he impressed, the look on his face stern. ‘Will any of you share?’

As the group looked between themselves again Klezzie, the leader, spoke up. ‘We hardly have enough air to get us back to camp ourselves and that’s without sharing. We’ve already spent longer out here than intended.’ She didn’t sound very apologetic about it at all. The Doctor briefly stared at her before turning to the woman on the ground, who was gently tapping on his leg for attention, and breathed for her once again. Klezzie decided now was the time for her to take charge of the situation and she announced her plan to the group. ‘Frina give Dower your pack.’

Both Frina and Rose’s head’s shot round to Klezzie. The former looked more scared than anything but Rose looked outraged. ‘Then what is she gonna breathe?’ Rose asked sharply.

‘She won’t.’ Her reply was succinct and final and Rose’s mouth dropped open at the brutality. Klezzie eyed Frina sternly and held out her hands. ‘Frina, your pack,’ she demanded. The poor Frondescence stared at her leader for a few moments before nodding sullenly. She released her hold on Mamire and began to remove and untangle herself from the pack’s confines.

‘No Frina don’t,’ begged Rose and the young woman hesitated. Rose didn’t know what the solution to their situation was but this sure wasn’t it. This was wrong on so many levels and Frina was just going along with it, unwillingly so but she was still accepting of her fate. Of her certain death.

Klezzie didn’t like that Rose was trying to undermine her one bit. ‘These are my people and they take my-’ Her angry retort was cut off by the Doctor who, after taking in another big lungful of air for himself, finally joined in the conversation which was quickly getting out of hand.

The Time Lord’s gaze was fierce as his head shot round to Klezzie once more. ‘I’m sorry, what?’ He exclaimed, absolutely perplexed by the notion. ‘Who made you a God? What - what right do you have to choose who lives and who dies?’

‘As I was saying this is my team and-’ began Klezzie exasperatedly but the Doctor butted in once more.

‘A team I’m sure you took a vow to lead and protect not to isolate and kill off,’ he spat.

She scoffed at his words. ‘It is not like I chose for this to happen. I don’t want any of my team to die.’

‘Then why offer up Frina?’ Countered Rose. ‘You seemed pretty quick to send her to her death.’ By now she had released Mamire too and was leaning into her hip looking at the leader with almost as fierce an intensity as the Doctor was.

‘It is the way of our people, if need be the young shoots shall die so the old and experienced may prosper.’

‘Nobody is dying here today,’ the Doctor stated with finality before turning and giving more air to the woman he finally knew as Dower.

Once again Klezzie scoffed at the man. ‘Are you going to keep breathing for her all the way back to the encampment?’ She asked as though the idea was completely prosperous. ‘A human could never manage such a feat, we’ve still got half an hour of walking left before we reach there and that is if you set a fast pace.’

He briefly came up for air and snidely remarked, ‘hadn’t you lot better get going then? Don’t want you to run out of air and end up in the same boat’.

Klezzie huffed a little at his comment, as did Mamire and one of the others, but after a moment the leader nodded and ordered her soldiers to follow as she led the way back to the camp. Rose of course stayed with the Doctor and Frina didn’t hesitate to remain behind either but one of the other unnamed Frondescence looked on at him and Dower a little longer before hurrying after the rest of the group. Klezzie didn’t look back once seemingly uncaring that she had left Frina as well as Dower behind.

Rose knelt down at his side as he continued breathing for Dower. ‘Doctor, what are we gonna do?’

He answered Rose’s question but directed his answers to Dower as she began to hold her breath once more. ‘I’m going to carry you back to camp; we don’t need you requiring more air than you already do without exerting yourself. I will continue to breathe for you all the way, okay?’ Dower nodded in agreement.

‘She can have my pack if she wants,’ Frina offered a little timidly.

Beside the Time Lord, Dower adamantly shook her head and he refused the idea too. ‘Frina, that is your air. I don’t care if there is some sort of rule of your people that makes you feel like you don’t deserve it because you are the youngest. That is your air so keep it for yourself. Everyone is equally deserving of air.’ His words were firm and Frina nodded at him even though he could not see her behind him. Then she began to put all the tubing of the canister securely back in place again.

‘Are you gonna be alright to do this though?’ Rose asked, placing a hand on his back and rubbing it gently. ‘I mean it’s not like it’s just round the corner. I can take over if you need me to, you know.’ He glanced at her with a knowing look and a small smirk tugging on his lips and she offered him back an unimpressed one. ‘Don’t get all co*cky with me mister, I know you’ve got your respiratory bypass but I don’t know how well that works do I?’

He smiled at her, seeing both her worry for him and for Dower. ‘Don’t worry about me Rose, I’ll be fine,’ he told her softly before letting some of that previously mentioned co*ckiness shine through again as he continued, ‘and my respiratory bypass works brilliantly. I’ve survived airless caverns and the vacuum of space, even strangulation multiple times’. Rose’s eyes grew wide and a bit more worrisome at his list but he gave her a smug grin and a wink before turning his attention back to Dower. ‘Right, a couple of breaths for the road and then we’ll be off eh?’ The Doctor did just that and, after taking off her pack and handing all the breathing apparatus to Frina so she would be easier to carry, he scooped Dower up into his arms with ease and started to go in the direction that the rest of the Frondescence went. ‘I’ll need you to hold her nose when I breathe for her,’ he started to explain to Rose, ‘I can’t be doing that and carrying her, it would be impractical’.

‘And I’m not having you drop her when you’re doing some weird balancing act holding her in one arm. Don’t worry he’s not gonna drop you,’ she quickly added when she saw the concern on Dower’s face. ‘He’s a lot stronger than he looks anyway, you’re in safe hands.’

‘Oi,’ the Doctor complained, a little offended by her remarks. ‘What do you mean I don’t look strong?’

She raised her eyebrows at him. ‘Beanpole remember?’ He huffed and she chuckled gently at his response.

‘I think I’m more of a stallion: lean but muscled,’ the Time Lord mused.

‘A stallion?’ Rose laughed. ‘Doctor, Shareen loved everything to do with horses when we were growing up so I couldn’t help but learn a lot about them too. I don’t think calling yourself a stallion in this situation means what you think it does.’

After giving Dower some more air he raised his eyebrow at Rose in question before he understood her insinuations. When he did he frowned at her. ‘Get your head out of the gutter, Tyler,’ he lightly scolded, causing Rose to cackle. ‘You very well know I wasn’t meaning that particular part of being a stallion at all. That’s just you and your dirty mind.’ As she continued to laugh, the Doctor glanced down at Dower who was looking amused herself. Her eyes were flitting between the time travellers rather intrigued by them. ‘Sorry about her,’ he began jokingly as he nodded his head in Rose’s direction, ‘should’ve left her at home, can’t take her out anywhere these days.’

‘Shut up you goon.’

He grinned over at Rose, his eyes twinkling playfully and started chuckling himself.

The rest of the journey continued with much of the same, it was a much more light-hearted affair than one might have imagined seeing as one of their company was in constant danger of suffocation. But they found that it was nicer not to dwell on that fact and focus on other matters instead. Frina, knowing the patrol route, easily led the group to the encampment. She strode ahead of the time travellers and Dower, keeping to herself for most of the return journey unless the Doctor or Rose tried hard to include her in their conversations but even then she did not seem keen to be included. They didn’t push the matter, however, they simply let her be as she seemed to want to do so.

After travelling through another dry gorge they came across the encampment. It was in a wide, dusty opening on the edge of a desert and at first glance it seemed rather primitive. There was a fire pit with flame dancing merrily inside surrounded by three foldable metal benches set around it in a circle. Nearby to the fire was a collection of what looked to be regular tepees but were actually more advanced than that. They had an inner lining made out of a fabric that retained air unlike the breathable but heavy duty fabric on the outside. This allowed the occupants to sleep without the aid of masks as their breathable air could be pumped into the chamber and filtered away again with ease. There was another more sturdy structure a little like two conjoined shipping containers in size where they kept their storage, shower, CO2 production chambers and medical unit. Finally, but not unimportantly, at the edge of the camp was a small portable toilet that looked rather like a modern but tiny shed with just enough space to do your business in.

There wasn’t much of a buzz at the camp. Most of the group who had arrived back before them had changed their tanks and headed out again in search of the Mobulaer, the main reason for returning back to camp in the first place, apart from the fact that they would run out of air if they didn’t anyway. Frina waved them towards the small building and showed them to the single bed set up against one of the walls in the cramped room upon which he gently lowered Dower onto. She quickly grabbed a spare mask and tank and covered the other Frondescence’s face with it. Dower took a big gasping breath of relief when the air started filtering in. Even though he had fully put her down on the bed she still hadn’t let go of the Doctor. She had one hand firmly gripping around the man’s wrist preventing him from going anywhere unless he really wanted to.

The Time Lord patted that hand gently. ‘You’re alright now Dower, just breathe, that’s it.’

‘You saved my life,’ she told him after a couple more breaths, her voice full of awe. ‘How can I repay you?’

He shook his head with a smile. ‘Oh, what’s a little life saving between friends eh?’

Dower smiled too but went on rather insistently. ‘But I must repay your kindness, I-’

‘Dower just go out there in the universe and be…be magnificent.’ He gave her a final big grin as he patted her hand again. Once she released him he then turned to leave the building. Outside Klezzie was approaching and immediately his smile fell.

‘You’ve arrived and with Dower alive, well done,’ she said as she stopped before him. She didn’t say it like she cared especially about the outcome of the journey back for Dower which irked him a little more; she simply stated it like a fact. And a surprising fact at that given her tone of voice. She most definitely had not believed in him. ‘You’re a lot less idiotic than you sounded, plus you must have very good lungs for a human.’ It was an attempt at a compliment, backhanded as it was, but he didn’t smile at her words like she did. When he didn’t return that smile her own was dropped, she nodded, mumbled her final words of, ‘thank you for bringing her back,’ before walking away. He was happily surprised that she walked into the building behind him but she spoke to Dower so briefly before she left again that his surprise faded.

Rose was still inside the building with Frina. She hadn’t been herself since Dower’s accident, not that Rose knew her well of course but there was a striking difference between this excitable and eager young woman who introduced herself and the quiet and withdrawn woman she was now. Frina was sitting off to the side on a crate dismantling the broken breathing apparatus when she approached her, her voice soft so as not to startle the Frondescence who looked lost in thought. ‘Frina are you alright?’ Her answer was a nod; she didn’t even look up from her work. ‘Are you sure?’ Rose tried again only to receive another nod. She sighed a little and crouched down beside Frina. Gently placing a comforting hand on her knee, Rose quietly said, ‘I don’t think you are but that’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. I’m here though if you change your mind yeah?’ A further nod from the Frondescence. It was something at least. She crouched there silently for a few moments watching Frina methodically dismantle the apparatus then to Rose’s surprise she slowly began to mumble as she worked telling her of the different parts, what they did and describing what she was doing and would change to fix the apparatus. Rose was more than used to listening to such a ramble from the Doctor so lowered herself fully to the floor and sat down cross legged listening to Frina.

It was only when she was unscrewing the final screws that Frina spoke up about what was really bothering her. ‘I shouldn’t be alive,’ she stated quietly, ‘I should still be out there dead from asphyxiation’.

The hand Rose had on her knee tightened briefly before she rubbed it soothingly. ‘No you shouldn’t. It was wrong what Klezzie said. You shouldn’t be ordered to give up your life like that.’

‘It was a direct order, I should have followed it.’

Rose sighed. ‘So you’d just go along following her orders mindlessly would you? No matter what?’

‘I should do. I’m not a very good soldier.’ Frina sounded rather disappointed in herself.

‘You are. I’m sure. Plus you have a great passion for the cause and that’s just the sort of thing your line of work needs. I’d put my faith in you to protect those Mobulaer.’

Frina smiled at the reassurances but it was only brief. She shook her head gloomily as she said, ‘still, I shouldn’t be here’.

She squeezed the Frondescence’s knee once again. ‘The Doctor would have saved you instead if you had given up your pack you know.’

‘He can’t save everyone. He won’t be there all the time,’ Frina mumbled.

‘No he can’t and won’t. You’re right,’ Rose said with certainty. ‘The universe is massive and he can’t be everywhere at once. But today he was there and now both of you are alive. Just be happy that you are, that you get a second chance, I know I am.’

Now Frina looked up, her brow creased a little. ‘He’s saved you from death?’

Rose grinned at her. ‘Oh, all the time and I’ve saved him a bit too. That’s how we met. He saved my life.’ She smiled happily for a moment picturing their meeting in her mind. When she glanced up at Frina and saw her look of intrigue she decided to tell the tale out loud. ‘There was this creature called the Nestene Consciousness that was controlling all these shop dummies called Autons. Living plastic he called them. And I was trapped in the shop basem*nt where I worked at the time, surrounded by these Autons and he got me out of there. Took my hand and we ran. I haven’t looked back.’

Frina sat quietly for a moment after Rose’s brief retelling of the moment she first met the Doctor but then she frowned once more. ‘So how did you repay him for saving your life?’

‘He doesn’t want repaying Frina, trust me,’ she said softly before she chuckled to herself. ‘He can be quite an arrogant sod at times but he doesn’t save people to get rewards or rack up debts or anything, he just does it because it’s the right thing to do. I mean, do you expect the Mobulaer to repay you for helping them out?’

Rose was glad Frina giggled a little at that suggestion, her words were slowly putting the young woman at ease. ‘No of course not,’ she replied as if such a thing would be absurd.

‘Exactly! And it’s just the same with the Doctor,’ Rose assured her, ‘he doesn’t want anything. He’s just happy you’re both alive’. It didn’t take much more convincing for Frina to believe Rose and when the Frondescence had finished replacing the broken tank and reconstructing the breathing apparatus they both left the building before parting ways outside.

Rose spotted the Doctor sitting alone in front of the fire on one of the benches and made her way over to him. He was staring into the flames absently, his chin leaning on his knuckles as he sat with his arms resting on his legs. She joined him sitting right beside him, her hand coming to rest on his back where she rubbed it soothingly. When he didn’t stir her hand gradually moved upwards and ended up in his hair, her fingers gently massaging his scalp. Eventually he hummed quietly and Rose took that to mean he had drawn himself out of his thoughts. ‘You okay?’ She asked quietly and felt him nod beneath her touch. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

The Time Lord sat up and stretched and Rose’s hand dropped from his hair as he did so. He chose not to answer the question in favour of moving the topic of conversation along. ‘Should be able to go see the Mobulaer once the group has returned. Don’t think they’ll be too much longer now.’ Rose nodded and didn’t say anything about the change in conversation. The Doctor placed his hand on her thigh, just above the knee, and squeezed it gently in thanks.

It wasn’t long before their quiet moment was interrupted. Frina arrived with two small cups of tea, offering them to the two travellers before leaving again soon after. The pair blew on their tea before taking a sip, the Doctor only taking a small one as he watched Rose out of the corner of his eye curious as to what her reaction would be. Going by the healthy swig she took she had clearly forgotten their previous conversation. He burst out laughing when she spat the tea out in disgust. It went everywhere. It covered her black jeans and the dusty ground in front of her, the spray even reached the fire which crackled a little under the wet onslaught. His laughter only got worse when he saw the disgruntled look she gave him, her face still contorted with disgust.

‘What is that?’ She asked, staring into her cup greatly offended by the flavour of the so called tea either just as a British person or as a tea lover or perhaps a bit of both. He couldn’t answer yet though, still too caught up in his amusem*nt. Rose looked down and saw the mess that she had made of her jeans. ‘Oh sh*t,’ she mumbled, trying to wipe them dry.

‘Well, it’s not quite sh*t but close enough,’ he commented, having controlled himself. That didn’t last long. The look Rose gave him at that made him lose it once again and he laughed heartily at his partner’s expense.

Chapter 41: Looking Up

Chapter Text

It was another half an hour before the group of Frondescence, who had gone out looking for the Mobulaer, returned. Rose was befriending Frina and Dower. They had joined her and the Doctor around the campfire though he had since left the cosiness of the flames for a snoop around the camp. He studied the ingenious tepees, had a nosy at their medical supplies and was still currently inside the multipurpose building. Now, however, he was crouched down at an awkward angle with his glasses on so he could see behind a control panel of their CO2 production unit. The machine was quite efficient and he’d worked out that it would be able to produce around another two months of air for the group before they would need to restock their resources. He didn’t need to work this out of course; he’d just gotten a little bit bored whilst he was waiting. The two months of air was only a rough estimate too so he was trying to narrow it down further and produce something a little more accurate. The thing was he didn't know how long the Frondescence usually slept for so it was just a guess about how much air would need to be pumped into the tepees and his calculations about their canister use were rather vague as well. Knowing how much air Dower required on their journey to the camp was useful but that wasn’t a usual circ*mstance so the results there couldn’t be considered reliable. He was about to go outside of the building and around the back where they retained their empty tanks that stored the resources for carbon dioxide production to work out how many they had used to better aid his calculations when he heard new voices within the camp.

The Doctor looked around and saw that the group had arrived back and were gathering nearby, just outside of the building he was in as Klezzie had been walking past at the time. He stayed put where he was to listen in. From his position, lying on his side with his body tucked around the production unit, they could only see his head poking out on the ground at the edge of it. He was hardly noticeable really. There was a lot of head shaking and disappointed and saddened looks from the group and he wasn’t best pleased with what he was hearing either. He was soon squeezing out of the gap he’d lodged himself in to confront Klezzie.

By the fire Rose was listening to Frina and Dower tell her of their time growing up on Chariandra. It was rather interesting and she could see the occasional similarity between her own upbringing and theirs too. The longer she sat and listened though the colder she became, even whilst sitting by the fire. Beside her on the bench the Doctor had dumped his coat when he’d gone off for a look around so she picked it up and used it rather like a blanket, throwing it over her legs and tucking it around herself. The Frondescence were recounting how they had joined the task force by the time she was warming back up but their words were soon drowned out by the loud arguing voices of Klezzie and the Doctor who were approaching the fireside.

‘I told you nobody is dying today and that doesn’t just mean any of us lot, that means the Mobulaer too,’ the Doctor was telling her. ‘I’m going to do my best to keep my word.’ Rose turned in her seat to see him striding towards her with Klezzie in his wake, his face dark and a little stormy. Behind them the rest of the returned Frondescence were watching the quarrelling pair from their position outside of the multipurpose building, they seemed rooted to the spot unable to do anything more than simply watch the altercation unfold. He walked past Rose to the next bench over where he took his sonic out of his inner jacket pocket and began using it on the metal screws that held it together. By this point Frina and Dower had stopped talking and were staring, along with Rose, at the Time Lord in intrigue and confusion.

‘It is too much of a risk. You know the others won’t survive either if-‘

He cut Klezzie off as he moved to the other side of the bench and sonicked those screws too. ‘Humour me. Let me try. I’ve already proven that I’m not as idiotic as you seem to think I am.’ His words were sharp and anyone could read that he was more than a little annoyed with the situation.

‘That isn’t the same,’ she protested, coming to a stop behind him. ‘The death of an entire species will be on our hands if this doesn’t work. You don’t make these decisions. We are the ones meant to be protecting them. Not you.’ Her voice was commanding and final but the Doctor didn’t give up, he finished the unscrewing then spun round to face her. He didn’t expect her to be so close behind him but he didn’t flinch, instead he impressed on her his full stony look complete with fierce burning eyes and a dangerously arched brow.

‘Then protect them better,’ he bit. He stared at her daring her to contradict, to retort but such a thing never came. He sniffed and turned back to the bench, picking out all the screws from their holes before removing the thin metal slats that came together to make the seat. What he was doing Rose had no idea but she wasn’t going to interrupt him to ask, especially not when he began an angry ramble. His voice was mainly laced with venomous sarcasm, the kind he brought out on the occasions when he thought someone was being incredibly stupid. ‘You lot you don’t come up with solutions do you? Well except for one measly solution. See a problem you think: oh I know what this needs; this needs a bit more death. There’s a Mobulaer out there with a broken wing and your solution is to shoot it?! Would you have shot Frina when she gave up her pack to save her from the pain of asphyxiation hmm? Kindest thing to do when you’re offering no more solutions. What if your CO2 unit had a fault would you shoot it too because bullets just fix all the problems in the universe don’t they?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Klezzie scoffed, disrupting his ramble.

‘Ridiculous?’ He shot over his shoulder, his voice going high as he repeated her. ‘I’m being ridiculous now am I? It’s your solution to everything so why wouldn’t it be feasible?’

The Doctor had just gathered the slats together in a pile and was about to pick them up when the ground shook violently again. From his crouched position he fell to the rocky surface, his eyes wide as he scrambled around in the dust to see Rose clinging to the bench she was sitting on with a white knuckle grip as the world continued to shake. Klezzie remained standing though stumbled with the wobbling of the ground underfoot just like the rest of the group further behind them. It was soon over once more.

As soon as it was he raised his eyebrows at Rose who nodded back at him answering his silent question. Then his gaze moved over all of the Frondescence that he could see and he concluded that they all seemed fine too. This quake hadn’t been as rough as the last one but it was certainly unsettling that there had been two in the last couple of hours. He didn’t remember feeling any quakes when he visited before but that was hundreds of years ago. It was actually in his first regeneration, one of his early trips with Susan before they settled on Earth. She had found the Mobulaer to be one of the most fascinating of creatures and she loved how peaceful they were simply gliding through the sky in their packs of at least a hundred strong. They had sat for hours on a rock looking at them as they dived, twirled and even looped through the air showing off and putting on a performance for them. It was the first time that they had stopped after running away from Gallifrey, stopped and truly breathed. They had finally felt free, as free as the Mobulaer looked, away from the confines of their home planet and its sanctions and laws. The world was their oyster now, the universe even; they could do what they liked and say what they liked and no Time Lord Council was going to stop them.

This wasn’t anything like the trip he’d planned to Maku in his head. He was meant to be sitting on a rock watching the Mobulaer with Rose by his side about now not battling to save one of the last Mobulaer in the universe. He had even been thinking of talking about Susan with Rose. He liked to imagine that she and Susan would have gotten along well had they had the chance to meet, they were both so inquisitive and curious about the universe and he loved being able to show it off to them. Before they had left for the planet he’d gone into his room and retrieved one of his photographs of his granddaughter from her time travelling days alongside him in the Tardis so Rose could see her. Susan did so have her mother’s eyes and they had a certain twinkle in them in the photograph he had chosen that he knew was hinting at that teasing attitude she could have on occasion. A bit like Rose really although Rose teased him on a daily basis and he wouldn’t have it any other way. He might act all huffy or tease her back just as much but he loved it. It certainly helped keep him on his toes and feeling young by any means.

‘Doctor?’

Rose’s voice brought him out of his thoughts. He must have looked mad, well, madder than he usually looked. He knew there was this general appearance of madness that he gave off no matter the regeneration but simply staring at a metal slat in your hand as you knelt on the ground halfway through picking them up was certainly up there on the looks of madness scale. After shaking himself out of his reverie, and picking up the rest of the slats, the Doctor bundled them into his arms and stood up. Rose’s face was lined with concern when he turned to her; he’d already anticipated such a look from the tone of voice she had used when she’d called out to him. Now wasn’t the time to answer the questions that were practically seeping out of her pores as she studied him intently when he came to stand before her offering her the metal slats. She frowned a little but still held out her arms to take them. With his hands now free he took his coat from her legs and swooped it on. ‘Come on,’ he said gently, nodding his head at her.

‘Where are we going?’ Rose asked as she stood, still watching the Time Lord closely but thankfully keeping her questions about him to herself.

He looked over at Frina and Dower on the bench to Rose’s left. ‘You pair can come too if you like. You might be able to help with the assembly, especially you Frina, Rose said you were handy, fixing that broken pack.’ The pair looked between themselves before shrugging and standing up, readying themselves to join. ‘Excellent,’ commented the Doctor with a small smile that grew bigger and more manic as he turned back to Rose. ‘We’re going to save the Mobulaer.’ There was an exasperated sigh from Klezzie at his words but the Doctor didn’t bother to look at her in question, there was really no need. Instead he bent down and scooped up all of the screws and put them in one of his coat pockets.

‘Nothing I say will stop you will it?’

‘Nope,’ he confirmed, popping the “p” as he stood back up. He gave Klezzie a determined look that emphasised his refusal to budge on the matter and finally saw her resolve slip away a little.

‘Fine, but I am coming with you.’ She turned to Frina and Dower and ordered them to get their gear before heading over to the larger group of Frondescence and telling Iphos to bring them spare canisters in three hours if they have not yet returned. Mamire was, as usual, making his disapproval known about trusting Rose and the Doctor but Klezzie was at least still not interested in hearing it. That was one of the few things she had going for her in the Doctor’s opinion.

Rose sidled up to him as they waited for the others to get ready. He was rooting through his pockets looking for something useful for his contraption and could feel her gaze on him again thoroughly expecting her to ask after him as she normally did. But this time she didn’t. Instead she kissed his shoulder before leaning her head against it. It was like she had read him and knew he wasn’t going to answer even if she did ask so she chose to show she was there for him instead. If she asked again later when they were alone then yes he probably would answer but at the moment she let him be and for that he was grateful. He pulled out a roll of pink bandages, the same kind he’d used on Rose’s cast when she was injured in the cave in back on Drava-Five, and a small reel of rope and put both items on top of the metal slats in her arms. He then turned to her and Rose lifted her head and looked up at him. Cupping her cheeks the Doctor leant down just enough so he could place a kiss on her forehead. Rose was smiling at him warmly when he pulled back and he couldn’t help but return it. His thumbs brushed gently over her cheeks for a moment before he dropped his hands, glancing down at the bundle of items in her arms. ‘Do you want me to take those?’ He pointed to what she was carrying and she looked down at them too.

Shaking her head she said, ‘no it’s alright I’ve got them’. She glanced back up and her eyes twinkled. ‘Anyway don’t need you showing off your strength, you’ll start getting all co*cky again.’ He arched his eyebrow and she grinned up at him.

‘If I remember rightly, which I do by the way, brilliant memory up here.’ He smiled a little smugly and tapped the side of his head with his index finger before lowering it again and leaning a little closer as he quietly said, ‘you were the one who thought it was rather impressive that I could carry Dower, breathe for her and walk the fifty-three minutes and twenty-seven seconds it took before I put her down on that bed’.

She chuckled softly. ‘No comment, I’m not rubbing your ego anymore.’

He chose not to outwardly react to her words but instead leant down to her ear and murmured, ‘I’m glad you said ego there, I was a little worried for a moment’.

‘Doctor!’ She gasped and pushed him away as much as she could with her arms full. He looked down at her reddened cheeks and the scandalised look on her face and tilted his head back as he laughed at her reaction. ‘You dirty man,’ she hissed and he laughed louder.

At the sound of approaching footsteps behind his laughter eased. He looked back at Rose and gave her a cheeky grin and wink for which he received an affectionate roll of her eyes. Clapping his hands together and eyeing the Frondescence who were joining them he said, ‘right then, let’s go save the Mobulaer.’

**********

“Not far from camp” apparently meant a thirty minute trek through the desert to the location of the injured creature and the rest of its squadron. There wasn’t technically a name for a group of Mobulaer, none that the Doctor knew of anyway, so he was thinking of adopting the word squadron from their Earthly sea-faring doppelgängers the Manta Rays. But that was the thing with the creatures, they constantly travelled in packs, or perhaps in squadrons, and were never alone for a second. It was a lovely sentiment that no Mobulaer would be left behind but at the moment that sentiment wasn’t doing them any favours. The creatures came down to the ground to rest and according to the Frondescence’s monitoring they had been on the ground for around eight hours. That was now around four hours longer than they usually stayed on the ground to sleep, and the initial reason why the Frondescence called Morel left camp to check on them and soon after sent word to Iphos on the coms who then relayed it to Klezzie. Their scans showed that the whole of the Mobulaer population was there and it was only in their nature that none of them left the poor injured individual behind. Not even to get food. This was the main issue that the species was facing. They were filter feeders like their doppelgängers and ate as they glided through the sky collecting Maku’s equivalent of plankton in their gaping mouths. Plankton, being tiny creatures, were hardly sustaining which is why they needed to feed near constantly, only stopping for those four hours whilst they slept. Currently the squadron were slowly starving and would eventually die putting them in quite the predicament and causing the conflict of interest between the Doctor and Klezzie. They were arguing between risking the starvation of them all to help the injured or killing the injured so the rest would leave and feed, ensuring the survival of the majority.

‘We did not think this through did we?’ Voiced Rose. She and the Doctor were at the rear of their quintet with Klezzie leading the way across the desert, followed by Frina and Dower and then the time travellers. The world of rocks was far behind them now and there was nothing but the sight of light beige sand as far as her eyes could see ahead of them.

‘What?’ The Doctor asked, confused. He glanced at Rose beside him who was wincing a little as she walked rather awkwardly across the rippled sands.

‘Well, Converse have those two breathing holes on the side don’t they? But they’re just letting all the sand in now. Feel like I’m walking around with two scratchy weights attached to my feet,’ she said, her final words a little grumbly with her discomfort. She was very good at not caring about getting filthy or trekking through who knows what on their adventures but there was one thing about Rose Tyler that he had learnt pretty early on after their first visit to a beach. She absolutely hated sand in her shoes. She was fine walking on sand or finding it in her clothing, where it inevitably ended up because sand was prone to getting everywhere, but sand in her shoes was a no go. It was just one of those things like nails on a chalkboard, wet socks on your feet or some slimy chunk of food in the washing up water. There were things that irked people and sandy shoes were hers.

‘Do you want to take them off?’

She slowed to a stop and he followed suit, offering up his arms to take the collection of items from hers whilst she sorted herself out. Her chucks were soon off, as were her socks and she rolled up her jeans just a little so they wouldn’t trail in the sand. After tipping her shoes upside down and shaking her socks off she tucked them inside the chucks and was ready to go once more.

‘Put them in my pocket if you want,’ he offered, ‘it’ll save you having to carry them’.

‘Oh, ta.’ She pulled open his left pocket on his coat and tucked her shoes inside one after the other. ‘You’d do a roaring trade in fashion Doctor,’ she told him as they set off again after his refusal to let her take back the items now in his arms. It was only fair as they were about halfway there now so the carrying duties were being split equally. ‘Especially if you made jeans for women, those pockets are always ridiculous, some you can’t even fit your hands in properly let alone anything else.’

His brow creased. ‘Then where do you put your stuff?’

‘That’s the thing, it’s not like they can’t make bigger pockets because if you check out a pair of blokes jeans then the pocket goes up to your wrist,’ she exclaimed, waving her arms about to make her point. They were walking at a quicker pace to catch up with the rest of their quintet who hadn’t noticed they’d lagged behind with the impromptu stop. Their fast pace wasn’t affecting Rose one bit though. She wasn’t even panting as she went on with her explanation, something attributed to all the running they did together on their travels. ‘And I mean your wrist with your big hands, not just mine. So I’m thinking they’re doing it on purpose to sell more bags.’ To the Doctor she sounded just like she did when she was trying to work something out on their adventures and he found it rather amusing when it was just about jeans not having big enough pockets rather than a big mystery they were trying to solve.

‘Oh it’s all kicking off in the early twenty-first century fashion industry isn’t it?’ He chuckled.

‘Yeah it is,’ she giggled. ‘But I can’t be doing with a bag; it’s just impractical on our adventures. It’s gonna get in the way and be noisy when I run with it banging against my back and I’ll get it caught on stuff or someone could grab it…’

As she paused to come up with more reasons why having a bag would not be suitable, something he highly agreed with anyway, a new thought popped into his mind and he glanced down at Rose with his eyebrows raised. ‘Is this your way of making me take you shopping?’

‘No!’ She adamantly shook her head at him and laughed at the thought that hadn’t even crossed her mind. ‘Not at all. I wasn’t even thinking of it, I just…I needed to get that off my chest apparently,’ she told him, finishing with a shrug.

‘I can tell.’ He was still sounding rather amused by it all. They took a few more steps before the Doctor spoke again. ‘You know there’s an asteroid nearby, K1-3P it’s called and it has a bazaar,’ he mused. ‘You never know quite what you’ll find there but you might be in luck. Quite often has a few clothing stalls-’

‘And a few that’ll have parts for the Tardis, I’ll bet.’ She butted in, giving him a knowing look as her eyes twinkled the way they did when she teased him.

If his hands were free he would have scratched the back of his neck or tugged on his ear a little as he was so want to do but this time he had to settle for a nonchalant shrug. ‘Welllllll it would be wrong not to look, like I said you never know what you can find and there could be something there that I’ve been wanting for ages.’

She grinned at him and slipped her hand over the crook of his arm as they slowed, having caught up with the rest of the group. ‘Whatever you say Doctor.’

After a couple of further minutes of walking the shapes that, at first, appeared to be dunes became clearer. It was their first sighting of the Mobulaer. As they approached the shapes grew even clearer. They could see the individuals at the front of the group lying on the sand, flapping their wings occasionally or swinging their long tails, sending grains of sand up into the air as they did so. Their bodies were dark in colour, like a dark matte brown or black in shade though when their wings flapped they could see the pale grey and white underbelly that helped them blend in with the sky when in flight. Some of the Mobulaer had buried themselves in the sand with only their head poking out or a rogue tail or edge of wing. A couple had even gone so far as to disappear completely beneath the grains. Only the Mobulaer shaped gap between the others suggested that they were missing as the squadron had settled on the ground in a rather tight knit group with not much space between them as they rested.

‘They’re so big,’ Rose commented with awe as they approached. The creatures were rather large. Their bodies were around the same length as she was but then with the addition of the tail they were quite a few feet taller than the Doctor. In total they were around nine feet in length and their wingspan was a couple of feet longer still.

The Doctor hummed then added his own excited comment. ‘I’ve never seen them this close before. Only ever seen them in the sky. This is brilliant.’

He didn’t notice the look Klezzie gave him as the group stopped about six feet away from the creatures. It was a mixture of amusem*nt at his enthusiasm and something darker. Something that said that now wasn’t the time to be so pleased about seeing the Mobulaer, not given the circ*mstances that led them here, but for once she refrained from giving him a piece of her mind, at least for the second, whilst she turned her gaze back to the squadron looking for the injured one. There was row after row of them stretched out before the quintet. Morel had told her it was near the front of the group so they at least had that to go on and with the five of them looking it shouldn’t take too long to spot them.

‘Are we alright to be this close? Are they dangerous?’ Rose asked.

Klezzie shook her head. ‘They don’t mind people at all which is all part of the trouble with the poachers.’ Her voice then took on a commanding tone as she continued. ‘The injured one should be near the front of the group. Spread out and search for it. It’s the right wing that is injured, that’s what should help you identify it. And be careful not to step on any part of them; we don't need more injuries.’

They did just that and parted ways to conduct a methodical search. Klezzie walked along the top row of Mobulaer, Dower the next and Rose, the Doctor and Frina walked along the following three rows all being careful to keep an eye out for tails and wings as they stepped between the creatures looking for the injured one. It was Rose who found them about a third of the way through her search.

‘Here, I found them!’ She called out and crouched down beside the Mobulaer whilst she waited for the others to make their way over. The creature lifted their head a little, their black eyes seemingly connecting with Rose’s. There was something about them that screamed sadness, it was like she could feel it radiating off them in her mind and she couldn’t help but reach out to soothe the poor creature. Tentatively she placed a hand on the soft patch of skin between their eyes. That feeling only got stronger then, but it wasn’t just that which she felt, now swirls of comfort and calm mixed in with that sadness. Rose realised that her touch had caused those new emotions and brushed her hand over their skin gently hoping to increase those new feelings further. The high pitched clinking of metal dropping to the sand told her the Doctor was behind her putting down the items from his arms. Then his hand was near hers on the Mobulaer and he made a noise of surprise.

‘She likes you,’ he said, rather impressed with the connection he could feel between her and the creature. He knew Mobulaer were low level telepaths, it was how they communicated with one another, but those feelings were all aimed at Rose now and not its own kind.

‘She?’

He hummed in agreement and pointed towards the base of her tail with his free hand. ‘Two ridges near the tail, they are only found on female Mobulaer.’

Rose nodded in understanding but the Doctor’s face scrunched up and he gave a few big sniffs. She glanced at him with a furrowed brow. ‘What you smelling this time?’

‘Amniotic fluid,’ he mumbled when he worked it out.

‘Really? Does that mean she’s pregnant? What does that smell like?’

He shook his head and answered a little distractedly as he rooted through his inner jacket pocket. ‘Doesn’t matter, humans can’t smell it.’ He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and stethoscope. ‘Setting 23,’ he said, offering the screwdriver to Rose, ‘scan her and check’.

She took the screwdriver and altered the settings as he plugged the earpieces into his ears and leant over the creature placing the chest piece on her underside, near the base of the right wing before stepping around the Mobulaer to repeat his movement on the opposite side.

‘What are you doing?’ Klezzie asked as she came to stand watching over the pair with Frina and Dower by her side. The Doctor made a high pitched shushing sound and held his hand out, gesturing for quiet as he listened to the sounds he was hearing through the earpieces. Klezzie crossed her arms, a little unimpressed but didn’t speak again. Only the noise of the sonic buzzing, as Rose traced it through the air over the creature’s body, broke the silence but the Doctor didn’t seem to mind that.

Once the scan was complete she held the screwdriver out to the Time Lord who glanced up upon seeing her movement and took it from her. He read the results and nodded faintly as they confirmed his theory. After taking the earpieces from his ears he hooked the stethoscope around his neck and looked up at the group. ‘She’s in pup,’ he announced much to the shock of the Frondescence who started muttering between themselves. ‘And it’s still alive.’ Rose smiled at the Mobulaer and tenderly stroked her head but a moment later that smile fell and she frowned as a feeling of pain came from the creature. The Doctor frowned too, also noticing that pain with his hand resting on the Mobulaer’s back. He swiftly plugged the earpieces back in and replaced the chest piece on the underside of her body. His eyes grew wide. ‘She’s contracting. That’s why the scent is strong. She’s giving birth.’ He listened further until the pain passed, then took the earpieces back out and draped the stethoscope around his neck once more. He gently rubbed her back and softly spoke to the creature, ‘oh sweetheart, you really do have quite impeccable timing don’t you’. It would have been quite a sweet, joyful moment if there wasn’t the overhanging dread and urgency of the situation as a whole.

‘But Mobulaer give birth in the air,’ Dower said, a little panicked at that fact. ‘She can’t even take off.’

He tugged on his ear as he glanced up at her, working everything out in his mind. ‘Err right, new plan.’ The Doctor bounced up onto his feet with a clap of his hands. His gaze fell across each person he came to as he gave out tasks with haste. ‘Rose, do exactly as you are, keep comforting her. Dower and Klezzie. Around the back, either side of the tail. I need you to dig down from just before the base of it, create a nice burrow. Now, Frina,’ he stepped around the Mobulaer as the other two Frondescence got on with their tasks without question. He stopped by the pile of items he’d dropped behind Rose and nodded his head for Frina to join him which she swiftly did. ‘I need you to create a splint for the wing.’ He gestured at the pile as he continued. ‘The metal is lightweight but should be sturdy enough to hold her weight. Now you’ll need these.’ He paused and reached into his pocket pulling out the screws which he poured into a slightly baffled Frina’s hands. ‘And one of these which is…’ he extended his final word as he plucked his sonic from his pocket and flicked through the settings, ‘…a sonic screwdriver. Press the button and it’ll unscrew and screw to your heart's content.’ The Doctor passed it over before he and Frina went through the creation of this splint and where it would be needed compared to where the break was. Then he left her to it and swooped off his coat, dropping it down next to Rose who was mumbling words of reassurance to the Mobulaer mother.

The burrow that Dower and Klezzie were digging was coming along well when the Doctor came over to have a look as he put on his glasses. He knelt in the sand and joined in, digging in a new spot to create a shallow pit under the length of the tail.

‘Why are we digging?’ Klezzie asked. Since having discovered that the Mobulaer was pregnant she had pushed her own ideas, which she had previously been arguing with the Doctor about, aside. A new baby in the population would really help and for that there needed to be a mother. She was still worried about the rest of the creatures of course, so was trying to get whatever was asked of her done to the best of her ability simply hoping that the Doctor's plan would work.

‘Birthing pit,’ he announced happily. Yes there was that bad overhanging feeling but he was still excited about the birth. New life was always exciting. ‘We won’t be able to get her into the sky quick enough if she does take to the splint so we’ll have to bring the sky to her.’ Pleased with his low pit, he plugged the earpieces in and listened to the Mobulaer once more. After his check he draped the stethoscope around his neck and hopped back up. ‘Okay that’ll do with the digging,’ he told them and they stopped and began smoothing down the edges instead. ‘Rose,’ he called out as he dashed back over to her, hopping over the creature’s left wing to do so. ‘If I lift her up can you shove a load of sand under the front of her body? We’re going to need to lift the back end up a little and I don’t think she’ll appreciate face planting the sand and that extra bit of height will help gravity do the trick as well.’

‘Alright, sure.’ she agreed, nodding as she did so, ‘where do you want me?’

‘Um - lying down? That’ll be the easiest for me so I can lift her.’ She gathered a mound of sand before the creature then laid down on her front and the Doctor stood over her, his feet on either side of her body, as he reached down to grip the mother the best that he could. Rose also put her hands under the creature ready to push upwards when he was ready. ‘Okay, three, two, one and lift.’ The Doctor did so with a grunt and Rose pushed upwards before moving the sand mound underneath and shoving more and more as quickly as she could until there was a nice sandy platform beneath the Mobulaer.

‘Done,’ she announced and the Doctor lowered the creature onto the sand once more. ‘Yeah?’ she asked as he stepped back and looked at what they had done.

He nodded. ‘Perfect. Thank you, nurse,’ he gave her a bright grin and a wink as she sat up and looked at him whilst he began to unbutton his jacket and take it off.

She took the jacket from him and put it on his coat as he rolled up his shirt sleeves preparing himself for the birth. ‘No problem, Doctor.’ She gave him a cheeky smile then nodded her head to the rear of the creature. ‘Go on then, go down the business end and show off your doctorate.’

‘I don’t think it said a thing about Mobulaer birthing on any of my doctorates but I’ll do my best.’ He beamed at her and Rose chuckled softly. ‘Mobulaer birthing! Ha!’ He enthused before rushing back down to the “business end” as Rose called it.

Rose could hear a lot of sonic buzzing from behind her whilst Frina worked. ‘How you doing Frina?’

There were a couple of grunts before she replied. ‘Think I’m nearly done.’ Every so often she had gone wing-side to measure up or compare angles so the fit would be just right. What she had built would fit snugly around the wing and hold it steady rather like a cast would though her construction had an appearance more alike to scaffolding as she had used as little material as she could so it was light enough, yet still supportive enough, for the soon-to-be-mother to fly with. ‘Just need to wrap it in the bandages to soften it now.’

‘Nice one,’ she praised then raised her voice a little, ‘what about you, Doctor, how’s it looking?’

He was lying on his front as Dower and Klezzie gently lifted the rear end of the Mobulaer so he could see her underside. Currently he was listening to the stethoscope again, holding it against her skin with one hand as he lightly stroked her with the other. Once he’d unplugged his ears he said, ‘contractions are thick and fast now but still no sign’.

‘Well, she’s looking pretty calm on this end,’ Rose commented.

‘Good…oooh hang on…’ The Doctor trailed off as he caught sight of the pup’s tail. ‘Oh, we’re in business now,’ he exclaimed. ‘Keep her calm Rose she’s pushing.’ He sounded thrilled at the turn in events and Rose couldn’t help but smile to herself as she soothed and encouraged the mother.

She was thrilled at the prospect too of course. She’d only seen one birth and that was at a city farm she visited when she was at junior school. They’d wandered off from the rest of their class at Jericho Street because Keisha was insistent on seeing the rabbits. She claimed to know a shortcut to get to them before all of their classmates who still had the small reptile section to see first. Keisha could not stand snakes so she wasn’t going in there and Rose wasn’t too bothered either way but agreed that she would rather hold and cuddle the fluffy bunnies whilst they waited for their classmates to catch up than see a few snakes, frogs and creepy crawlies. The short cut, however, didn’t pan out. They ended up in a barn which they weren't supposed to be in where the expectant ewes resided. They’d seen and stroked and even had a go at feeding some lambs in another barn earlier on in the trip but seeing one being born was a whole other story. They found themselves rooted to the spot as the poor mother pushed and bleated as the lamb was slowly born all covered in blood and amniotic fluid. Not even the bunnies could draw them out of their shock when they eventually reached the rest of the class who were already in the rabbit section and luckily they returned before their teachers had realised their absence. So overall yes she was thrilled about the Mobulaer birth but she was also glad to be on the opposite end of all the action in case it was a bit too similar to her traumatic childhood experience.

The Doctor would tell her it was nothing alike. The pup was finally pushed out into his awaiting arms in the burrow Klezzie and Dower had dug. Its small wings were folded over its back and its body was slimy from the egg sac it had just been released from. He laughed joyfully as he reversed out of his position and sat up on his knees with the baby still in his arms. Klezzie and Dower lowered the new mum once he had gotten out of the way of the tail, still staring at the young creature in fascination as it lay worrying still. Suddenly its wings unfurled and they flapped a little, not enough to take off but more than enough to ease the growing tension. ‘We have a pup!’ He announced, holding it in the air for the group to see and they all cheered as it wiggled a little in his hands. After a few checks of the little one the Doctor bounced upright and walked around to Rose. He crouched down beside her beaming and watched too as her face lit up.

She stuck out two fingers and softly stroked the same spot on the baby as she was on the mother. It too seemed to enjoy the gentle touch. ‘You are just adorable.’

‘Isn’t she the cutest?’ The Doctor agreed, his voice going high as he cooed at the pup. He lowered the baby a little so it was within the mother’s eye line. ‘You’ve got a little baby girl, Mrs. Well done,’ he told the Mobulaer quietly. ‘Just what you need to keep you on your toes - or - well, wings I suppose - keep you on your wings?’ He questioned, his face scrunched up and his voice high. He shook his head and dislodged that thought. There wasn’t really time to think up an alternative phrase right now. ‘Welllll you know what I mean. Anyway, time to fix that wing and then you can be off.’

Klezzie, Dower and Frina had already made a head start on that task. The splint was on the wing and it fit perfectly. The only awkward part was ensuring it stayed there by wrapping the rope around her body. Rose was on babysitting duty whilst the other four lifted and manoeuvred the mother so they could pass it underneath. It was a troublesome task but it was soon done.

The Doctor stood back and looked at their accomplishment alongside the others though his gaze was soon drawn to Rose who, after playing aeroplanes with the pup, had managed to get her flying a little. Rose ducked and giggled as she flew in circles around her head and the Time Lord wore a warm smile at the sight. Yes, the pup might be adorable but so was she. When the pup twirled and began to show off the phrase finally hit the Doctor. ‘To keep you flying high!’ He exclaimed seemingly out of nowhere startling the Frondescence beside him. He bounded over to Rose and the pup and scooped the young out of the air. ‘Just what she needs to keep her flying high,’ he mumbled with a smile to the creature. He released her again in front of the mother and the young swooped into the air a few feet above him. ‘Go on! She needs you,’ he encouraged the new mother. ‘It’ll be like a whole new world out there with her by your side. Show her the sights. Show her the wonders. And just you watch her grow.’ At that she gave a tentative flap of her wings and then another and the Doctor’s face impossibly lit up more. ‘Everyone down and eyes closed!’ He bellowed just before she gave an almighty flap that sent her up into the air. As she slowly rose, sand sprinkling down on her cowering helpers, the other Mobulaer also began to take flight. The sand wafted about, hitting them with the wind caused by all the pairs of flapping wings. Once he could feel the breeze no more the Doctor glanced up tentatively. ‘It’s alright,’ he announced and the others joined him in watching as the squadron of Mobulaer flew higher and higher, immediately going towards the smell of food that they couldn’t possibly hope to see from the planet’s surface.

Rose came over by the Doctor’s side and sat down next to him. ‘Where is she? I’ve lost her,’ she asked, still staring up in the sky.

Having already found the new mother and her pup he stuck out his arm and pointed towards a tight-knit collection of Mobulaer who were a cluster of wings at different heights making it rather hard to tell one apart from another. ‘Look in the middle of that group of them there,’ he said softly, but then his voice changed and became rather eager. ‘Oooh look there’s the baby just flying above them, do you see?’

She nodded, spotting her immediately and there was the mother flying just below her as well. ‘Yeah I’ve got them,’ she told him with a smile. ‘It’s really beautiful to see them up there.’ He hummed in agreement as he lowered his arm and rested his hand on her thigh. Rose leant into him and placed her head on his shoulder, her gaze still upwards following the squadron on their flight path. Her voice was gentle as she said, ‘well done. I knew you’d be able to save her. And you birthed a Mobulaer baby; it’s not every day you get to say that’.

He laughed a little. ‘Can’t say I’ve done such a thing in my life and don’t think I will ever again.’ The Doctor glanced at Rose as he continued. ‘But that was a team effort, couldn’t have done it without you or the others so don’t count yourself out yet Tyler.’ Tilting his head down just a little he placed a kiss into her hair and she giggled softly at his words and following action. ‘And don’t count those Mobulaer out either,’ he said, looking at them once more. ‘They’re not lost yet. A few more pups and they’ll be, quite literally, soaring away from the brink of extinction.’ He chuckled as he felt Rose shake her head against his shoulder at his joke as he tried to make light of what could still be a species hanging in the balance. After seeing that birth though he had hope, hope that they would survive far into the future.

Chapter 42: Camping Trips

Chapter Text

After the earlier incident Rose decided not to ask what it was that she was eating and just ate it instead. At least the lumpy stew tasted alright, it wasn’t the best but it was certainly not horrible like that tea was, though knowing what it was made of meant it didn’t surprise her that the taste was so bad.

The quintet had arrived back at the camp with time to spare in Klezzie’s initial three hour time limit. Now all but two of the Frondescence were around the fire with the Doctor and Rose as the remaining two were on guard duty and would eat later once they had swapped with the next pair who had that role. A few of the empty barrels from around the back of the multipurpose building had been rolled out to use as extra seating, something that was desperately needed with their time travelling guests and one particular guest’s need to dismantle one of the benches. It was for a good cause though. His plan had worked and everyone was feeling happy and in a celebratory mood as the sun began to set on the eventful day. This wasn’t to last.

Two things happened one after the other. The first was another quake.

Once they had all finished eating the Frondescence were rather eager to hear more about their guests and the Doctor and Rose were more than happy to oblige and recount a few of their tales. When the world around them shook once again Rose was partway through a description of a forest of humongous trees, akin to the Baobab found in many African countries, which they had gotten lost in when attempting to help locate a missing child. She and the Time Lord were already pressed up against each other as they sat side by side on the bench making enough room for Frina to join them too. Though really they would have been sitting that close anyway knowing them. He grabbed hold of Rose’s hand as the quake hit and with their others they clung to the bench as they were rocked about along with the rest of the group.

Something really wasn’t right. The Doctor wasn’t sure what it was but a planet really shouldn’t have altered that much in a few hundred years to be producing this many earthquakes. Such things happened over thousands of years, hundreds of thousands of years even, not just mere hundreds.

‘Since when does this place have so many earthquakes?’ He asked the group as a whole when the ground finally stilled. There was a general noise of discontent from them as though he had touched on a sore topic.

‘Since TAS started blowing sh*t up,’ was Klezzie’s disgruntled reply. For once he knew that her annoyance was not aimed at him but at whoever or whatever this TAS was. Since the success with the Mobulaer the pair had clashed less. He wouldn’t exactly describe their change in relationship to be friendly but they at least tolerated each other a lot better now.

From beside him Rose spoke up. ‘And what’s TAS?’

Mamire scoffed at her from around the other side of the campfire garnering him a fierce glare from the Doctor. Rose stared at him just as fiercely as he mocked her, repeating her words and laughing at his own joke. ‘What’s TAS?’ He said again, even going as far as slapping his knee at his continued laughter. No one else laughed, though the other Frondescence did look a little confused at how they didn’t know what it was.

‘You got a problem with silly little Earth girls Mamire?’ Rose’s voice was harsh and everyone, except for the Doctor, looked stunned. Even Mamire had stopped mid laugh to stare at her. ‘Cos you ain’t half acting like some of them with all your jeering and bitchy little comments and for what? You trying to get a rise out of me? Wanna feel the full force of a Tyler slap?’ From beside her the Doctor shuffled a little uncomfortably, wincing slightly as though he could still feel the full brunt of the one he was dealt by her mother. Rose didn’t seem to notice him, nor did any of the others, as she continued with her angry tirade. ‘Cos you’ll get what’s coming to you if you continue. What are you, xenophobic or something? Or just sexist because you don’t seem to be pulling this sort of crap with the Doctor.’ She gestured at the man beside her with her thumb and watched as Mamire’s shocked gaze fell upon him. His eyes looked pleading as he looked at the Doctor who crossed his arms and returned a stormy glare at the Frondescence. Rose caught Mamire’s look and scoffed. ‘Don’t look to him for support, he sure as hell ain’t gonna give it. And he can deal you so much worse than a slap,’ she promised darkly. Mamire gulped as his eyes flitted between the duo seeing nothing but absolute disdain aimed at him. ‘You don’t treat people like they’re sh*t. You don’t mock them until they’re ground down like dirt under your boot. You don’t mock them at all. You sure wouldn’t like it if I did the same to you so you can just f*ck off with your silly little words cos I’m not taking your sh*t anymore.’

God he was in trouble. Yes Mamire was in trouble too, there was no doubt about that, but the Doctor he was in at the deep end. There was just something about Rose when she was using that sharp tone and laying into someone that stirred something deep within him. It always had, even back when he was in his previous body. It was the passion, the ferocity and oh he really had to stop thinking about it he was only making it worse. It was just plain ridiculous now. They’d already had sex twice today and he still wasn’t sated and everyone else would know that too soon enough if he continued down that line of thought. It really didn’t help that he didn’t just have to use his imagination anymore, he could use his memories and wow did that make it so much harder. Now her hand was on his thigh, well it was already there but it had been in a fist that was digging into his leg absently the angrier she got. He didn’t mind though, but now she was splaying out her fingers. Why was she splaying out her fingers on his thigh? Did she not know what she was doing to him because right now it was like he was some randy teenager or something not a nine hundred year old Time Lord. He could control himself and he knew better but still you have sex with the woman you love once and you are done for. Absolutely doomed. Maybe he should recite pi, yes that would help. Three point one four one five nine two six five three five nine…

At the same time as the Doctor’s thoughts ran rampant Rose let out a breath trying to allow her anger to ebb away. She found that her hands were still shaking a little as she flexed them from the fists she had balled them into. She felt hot too, her face was probably a bit red but there was nothing she could do about that but blame it on the fire. Still, it felt great having a go at Mamire. He’d been nothing but a prick to her since they’d met him so he got what was coming to him and now he was looking thoroughly admonished. He hadn’t even fought back which meant he was either too shocked and she’d be hearing about it later, he’d accepted his fate or she’d laid it on a little bit thick and he was scarred. She hoped it wasn’t the former, that wouldn’t be fun. All Rose wanted to do was teach him a lesson, teach him about respect and just plain common decency so he wouldn’t be such a jerk and a bully to her or to anyone else who was unfortunate enough to come across him.

The rest of the group didn’t seem to know what to do with themselves after her outburst. They were silent and fidgety and the Doctor was mumbling numbers under his breath for whatever reason. The overall silence was growing awkward and Rose knew she had to be the one to break it.

‘So what is TAS?’ She cautiously asked the group.

A few faces looked up at her but Frina leapt on her words like a lifeline. She’d been one of the heavy fidgeters. ‘Trident Air Support,’ Frina supplied, her voice bright and kind as it usually was.

‘Right,’ Rose breathed, nodding her head vaguely because the answer didn’t really help her one bit. She eyed the Doctor, who’d stopped his mumbling, and recognised the hint of confusion in his eyes as he looked at Frina which told Rose that he was just as clueless as she was.

Klezzie’s remark was slightly more judgemental but it was only to be expected. ‘You’ve seriously never heard of them?’ The time traveller's gazes landed on her as they shook their heads. Her eyebrows rose at their denial but she went on to explain it to them a little exasperatedly. ‘They decided that Maku, because it is uninhabited by people and is a fairly empty planet with not many species living here, would be the perfect place to be their weapons testing ground. Being air support they just drop a load of bombs or whatever and blow the place to pieces.’ The pair of them frowned deeply at this new information; neither liked the sound of this TAS nor what they were doing.

‘Do you not count as inhabitants?’ Rose asked.

Klezzie shook her head. ‘No, not to them.’

‘At least they stick to a designated area,’ Dower mumbled, sounding rather put out about the whole thing. She was slouching forward on her seat on one of the barrels with her chin resting in her hand.

‘And the Mobulaer have learnt not to go anywhere near it,’ Frina added in her still bright tone, seeing the positive in a situation that didn’t look to have many.

The Doctor nodded as he listened. ‘So we’re feeling the impact of whatever weapon they’re testing all the way from…’

‘A thousand miles, give or take,’ Klezzie said.

His eyebrows shot upwards. ‘Blimey, that’s some fire power!’ He exclaimed. ‘That’s like - like - like feeling the effects in London when what’s happened is in Rome. Now that - that is impressive,’ he nodded to himself as he briefly thought about it and then his brow furrowed as he continued, ‘frighteningly so. What could they possibly want with that sort of strength?’

Before Klezzie or any of the other Frondescence around the fire could answer they were interrupted by one of the guards who was shouting what vaguely sounded like the leader’s name as he ran towards them.

This was the beginning of the second thing. And this was the poachers.

‘Two of them. Saw them. On the cameras,’ this new Frondescence panted out as he skidded to a halt at the edge of the group. All heads had shot in his direction to stare at the newcomer but it was Dower who reacted first. She looked exasperated at the man.

‘Aathin! For Hedera’s sake!’ Dower scolded, getting up from her seat on the barrel and striding over to him, fiddling with her pack as she did so. ‘How many times? Change your pack before guard duty.’ Walking around the back of Aathin she took a large breath before removing her pack and exchanging it with his, giving him a canister which was three quarters full of carbon dioxide.

He looked around at what she was doing but didn’t stop her. His attention was soon drawn away from Dower to Klezzie who was demanding to know which camera was triggered. The pack beeped as it connected and he breathed in the new air, his panting lessening rather quickly, allowing him to answer her a lot easier than he would have been. ‘Camera six. Though I believe they were walking west.’ Klezzie gave him a look at that information, a look like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing and he quickly explained himself. ‘Yes, I know we can’t see west on that camera but it must have been dislodged in a rock fall from one of the quakes. The feed is near enough upside down and the camera’s facing a different angle but I think they were headed west. Iphos thought so too,’ he added on as though Iphos’ opinion would make all the difference. Perhaps it would. The Doctor and Rose weren’t really aware of each of the Frondescence’s roles in the task force.

As Klezzie considered what she had been told for a moment, Rose leant into the Doctor and whispered in his ear. ‘Two of what?’

‘Poachers I assume,’ he whispered back. He heard her noise of acknowledgment and hummed back. ‘And you know what’s even better?’ Rose shook her head. ‘Guess what’s parked in a westerly direction?’ She sighed heavily and he chuckled a little at her reaction though there wasn’t any real humour in it. ‘Yup, couldn’t make it up if you tried.’

‘West will take them towards The Singing Caves,’ stated Klezzie. ‘That is away from the Mobulaer for now.’ She turned to Dower. ‘Change your pack, you are on duty next. You too Morel. And Ecequin,’ she continued, turning to the final unnamed Frondescence who was sitting beside Mamire. ‘Perhaps you should guard with Dower and Morel as well with the poachers being here. Then at sunrise Mamire and Frina will take over. I only hope they’re gone by then.’ The Frondescence nodded as their orders were given and Dower, Morel and Ecequin left the campfire to change their packs and begin their guard duty of the camp. Aathin left too, speaking quietly to Dower as they moved away. Klezzie turned her attention to the time travellers next. ‘We found you at The Singing Caves, is the vessel you arrived in near there?’

The Doctor smiled and replied with a false brightness. ‘Oh yeah, didn’t park too far away really.’

Klezzie almost looked at them sympathetically which was a rather peculiar look on her. ‘I know you wanted to return tonight but I wouldn’t, not whilst the poachers are here. It’s too dangerous out there, especially at night.’

‘Well, there’s only two of them and what are the chances we’d run into them? It’s a big world out there,’ he suggested and Klezzie frowned.

‘You can’t!’

They turned to Frina who was still sitting on the bench next to the Time Lord. Her eyes were wide and pleading as she begged them to stay. ‘Why do you think there are only the eight of us here?’ She asked before answering the question herself. ‘The poachers attack, they fight back. We’ve already sent four back to Chariandra because of their injuries.’

‘They know the land far better than you do. I can promise you that,’ Klezzie added to Frina’s argument. ‘It’s not safe out there. I will allow you to stay in the camp. You can leave in the morning.’

He titled his head to Rose to see her reaction to the new information on the poachers and to gage her interest in the offer. If she was being honest she didn’t much fancy the few hours of walking they’d have to do to reach the Tardis, especially not after the walking they’d done to The Singing Caves and then to get to the camp. Plus going to and from the Mobulaer in the desert. Really the whole day had just been a lot of walking with a brief look at planet history and a spot of seeing nature at her best. Now with the news of the poachers, who sounded especially friendly, she was even more deterred from wanting to walk back. Rose’s eyes flicked to his for a moment before going back to Klezzie to whom she nodded faintly. ‘Have you got anywhere we could stay?’ She asked tentatively as though unsure that they would have.

Frina was nodding in adamant agreement before Rose had finished her question. ‘With the others gone we have spare tepees. Shall I make sure one is comfortable?’ At that she turned to her leader who approved of her plan and sent her off to do so.

‘So,’ the Doctor began, resting his chin on his fists as he leant his elbows on his knees whilst Rose thanked the departing Frina and asked if she needed help. Frina refused and left alone. ‘So how do you deal with these poachers then? More bullets?’ He suggested his distaste shining through once more though he dampened its full effect.

She didn’t take the bait to start another argument and answered him plainly. ‘We have traps laid out across Maku, really you’re lucky you didn’t run into one earlier when you arrived,’ Klezzie added as she thought about it. Then she sighed. ‘We are not a large enough group anymore and even then our people got hurt. These days we leave them unless they get too close to the Mobulaer, only then will we intervene.’

Rose frowned. ‘So what, they just get bored and leave if they don’t find any?’

‘That’s what they seem to do, yes,’ Klezzie said with a shrug. ‘They get bored when they don’t find them and come back another day. It is a lot of distance to travel on foot, half the reason we move camp all the time. When the Mobulaer move so do we then we can protect them better.’

**********

They spoke longer of the poachers, TAS and of life protecting the Mobulaer in general. Frina returned and joined in the conversation for a bit before pointing them to their tepee before leaving for her own. Mamire had already left the campfire to go to his, getting an early night because of his guard duty at dawn alongside Frina. Plus he was probably still feeling awkward after Rose put him in his place earlier.

When the Doctor heard Rose try to stifle yet another yawn he decided that they would call it a night. According to their information the poachers were still heading away to the west and there really wasn’t much that could be done at this point. They bid Klezzie goodnight and walked to their accommodation for the night.

‘This looks a lot comfier than I was expecting,’ Rose commented, the surprise evident in her voice as she led the way through the tepee flaps.

Inside was an array of blankets and pillows set on two padded bed spreads that would keep them off the ground if not by much. They were set up on either side of the tepee and in the middle was a small orb big enough to be cupped in your hands. Its glow was warm from where it sat on the fluffy rug that covered the entire floor, lighting up the space enough for them to see in the darkness.

The Doctor followed in after her humming his agreement. ‘That’s exactly what I was thinking when I had a nosy round earlier.’

‘Doctor,’ she scolded, gesturing around her as she explained, ‘this is like their home, you can’t just go wandering in’.

‘I didn’t wander in,’ he complained. ‘I - I peeked. The flap was open a bit,’ he told her, waving his arms about. ‘It wasn’t like I was breaking in with my sonic or anything.’ She turned and raised her eyebrows at him and after a moment he sighed, running a hand through his hair as he did so. ‘Fine. Yes. It was rude. Yadda yadda yadda.’

After taking his long coat off and dumping it at one side he turned back to the flap and began to close it properly, though he didn’t touch the inner seal that would retain the air inside. There didn’t need to be any accidental gassing overnight if someone turned on their tepee’s CO2 supply.

Rose shook her head at him fondly. ‘Can’t leave you alone for five minutes.’

‘Hey! You’re the one who wanders off,’ he retorted, bending down to finish closing it.

She stared at him and stretched her arms out in question when he stood back up and faced her once more. ‘What was all this then? To me it looks like wandering off.’

‘Exploring,’ he tried, sounding uncertain about it himself as he tugged on his ear.

Rose rolled her eyes at that. ‘It’s like how Snickers used to be called Marathon. You can give it a new name but it’s still the same thing,’ she finished telling him in a sing-song voice. He pulled a mocking face and she grinned at him having won the argument.

She sat down on the makeshift bed on the right and began to take her chucks off as the Doctor went to the other. He chucked a couple of cushions behind him then moved the light to the other side of the bed before he started to pick said bed up.

‘Redecorating?’ Rose asked over her shoulder as she moved to her other foot. The bed manoeuvring wasn’t going to plan for him which made her smirk when she took a quick glance at his efforts. That smirk was soon wiped off her face when a pile of blankets, the offenders in the Doctor’s scheme, landed on top of her. ‘Oi!’ She complained as she fought her way back out of them. By the time she did he had managed to complete his task and had pushed the beds together. She glared at the Time Lord who simply grinned at her whilst replacing the blankets on his bed.

The pair finished getting ready for bed. Rose took off her coat and the jumper she’d worn beneath it, opting to just sleep in her t-shirt, before crawling into bed. She wasn’t best pleased at having to sleep in her jeans, they certainly weren’t the comfiest piece of clothing for sleepwear but she didn’t have much of a choice.

The Doctor removed his chucks and his jacket; he reached into the inner pocket to retrieve his sonic screwdriver which he slipped in his trouser pocket before rooting around in another one for some mouthwash cubes. Brilliant invention the mouthwash cube does exactly what it says on the tin; or packet in this case. Just pop it in your mouth and chew it and the cube does its bubbly, minty magic before dissolving. No need for water or to spit either so it was very convenient. He found the packet and removed two from it before tucking the packet away once more. Turning from where he was crouched on the floor he called out a warning, ‘head’s up,’ before chucking one of them in her direction. She momentarily looked startled at his warning but reached up with one hand from where she was lying down and caught the cube, amazing both herself and him. He made an impressed sound. ‘Very nice catch Tyler,’ he praised. She smiled before putting the mouthwash cube in her mouth and chewing on it. The Doctor then stood up and proceeded to toss the other cube into the air and catch it in his mouth.

Rose’s sense of achievement diminished instantly. ‘Now you’re just showing off,’ she complained as the cube finished dissolving leaving her mouth feeling minty and refreshed.

The smug git winked before chewing and speaking as he crossed the short distance to the bed. ‘Now, I’m down to my last two so we will have to pick up some more. Might have some on the Tardis but that’d be a bit pointless having them in there when I need them with me.’ He bent down, flicking the covers back before crawling into the bed beside her. After tucking himself in he shuffled onto his left hand side, facing her with a slightly uncertain look on his face as his body pressed down on the padding below him. Or lack of padding rather. ‘Well, we’re not quite on the floor but I definitely know it’s there.’

‘Not quite the Tardis.’

‘No,’ he agreed with absolute certainty. ‘Still,’ he began with a shrug, his voice lighter and more optimistic, ‘we’ve had worse’.

Rose began to chuckle before she could even get her words out as she recalled one of their previous trips where they had to stay the night. ‘Oh God do you remember in the theatre district on er - on…’

‘...On Gravra B!’ His eyes lit up as he finished off her sentence, then his face fell as he too remembered and he scrunched his nose up at the thought of their stay. ‘Oh, that was awful, absolutely awful, couldn’t even hear myself think.’

She laughed at his complaints and added her own. ‘Felt like I had to shout to talk to you and we were in the same room.’

‘Exactly!’ He exclaimed.

‘I was like yeah I get it mate, you have to practise, but seriously just do one note in key, please,’ she drew out the word and he nodded along adamantly.

‘I’m just glad we got caught up with finding that gemstone and couldn’t make it to the show if the performance was going to be anything like our overnight preview.’

Rose bit her lip, shaking her head as she imagined how bad that would have been. ‘I’d walk out,’ she stated plainly and he raised his eyebrows so she added, ‘it’s either that or get thrown out for acting disorderly because I’d be laughing too much’.

He chuckled as he said, ‘oh no, neither of us would have stood a chance,’ and Rose giggled in agreement.

Once their humour had receded she reached out to the Time Lord, her left hand brushing over his chest and up onto his shoulder where she fiddled with the fabric a little. ‘You’re sleeping in your shirt?’

He shrugged and Rose’s hand moved back down to his chest, towards his tie. ‘Well, we are kind of in a tent, doesn’t really feel right to take it off. Feels a bit exposed in a way.’ He didn’t get the chance to say anymore on the topic as she tugged on his tie, pulling him towards her, their lips crashing together like one. His hand moved up into her hair, somehow drawing her impossibly closer. As the kiss deepened her fingers deftly worked to remove the tie. She slid it off from around his neck and dropped it on the floor behind him. It was only when she started on the buttons that he began to complain. He growled into the kiss and felt her smirk against his lips as she undid another one. He pulled back a little. ‘Rose, no,’ he drew out the words, gently taking her hands and prying them away from their target. She giggled a little as he did so and half heartedly tried to fight back making it easy for him to hold her at bay. She’d only undone three or four of the buttons, revealing his undershirt hidden beneath, but he was certain she would have continued if he hadn’t stopped her. ‘Stop it you.’ He sent her a playful glare and she laughed some more. ‘This is sleep time not undress the Doctor time.’

‘Why can’t it be both?’ She cheekily suggested.

The Doctor arched his brow and kept his voice low. ‘You know why…maybe later,’ he promised with a kiss.

**********

A pleasant warmth was encompassing her as she awoke though she didn’t feel particularly well rested. It had taken her a long while to drift off to sleep even with the Doctor there beside her. That only really happened when she had nightmares which luckily enough didn’t plague her very often which was perhaps a little surprising given the life they led. She did get some pretty crazy dreams though but her day to day was pretty crazy too. Once they had settled down for the night her mind started to race with the day's events and then came the thought of the poachers. The lack of information on them didn’t help because her mind could go wild imagining what they could have done to have those Frondescence sent home due to their injuries. It didn’t feel particularly secure sleeping in a tepee when she knew they were out there either. She supposed it was better that they were in the camp and the pair of them hadn’t just pitched a tent on the planet somewhere but then again they were in a camp. There weren’t any walls or fences to keep anything out. Her mind kept going and going, disappearing down a rabbit hole where such a thing as sleep did not exist.

The Doctor had noticed her discomfort and began to quietly talk to her in Gallifreyan to try and soothe her to sleep. This wasn’t something he’d done since her nightmares after their trip to 1987 where Stuart Hoskins and Sarah Clark got married on the seventh of November that year. That was the day her father died. It wasn’t like they were sharing a room at that point or anything, she was still getting “beautiful considering you’re a human” and “stupid ape” back then, but he’d heard her distress and wanted to help. The Doctor was always a kind man. She had told him of her nightmares. They had been about her father dying of course, but they were intermingled by realities where the Doctor didn’t return because her actions had killed him, or he did return but never forgave her for causing the paradox, and then there was the one where everyone got taken by the Reapers. Everyone except for Rose. Then he told her to lie back down, close her eyes and to try and get back to sleep. He sat by her bedside quietly for a moment before soft words that sounded like a song left his lips. Gallifreyan always sounded like such a beautiful language to her ears. He hadn’t used it much at that point in their time together and as fascinating as it was for her to hear him speak his mother tongue it did soothe her and sent her off to sleep. She’d asked him what he had been talking about the next day but he simply smirked and didn’t answer until she wore him down and when he did tell her she didn’t believe him at first. He’d simply been gazing around her room listing everything that he could see. It was hilarious looking back on it now that she had fallen asleep to the sounds of him saying cupboard, chair, mirror, bed etc. But when said in Gallifreyan the words were really magical and clearly that magic had worked and sent her to sleep. Or perhaps he’d bored her to sleep, there was always that to consider.

His words had still sounded just as soothing and lyrical as he mumbled them in her ear overnight. He could have been doing his listing thing again but she didn’t think so. There really wasn’t much to see in the tepee and with her on her side facing the tepee wall and him holding her from behind there was even less to see. Still the trick had worked once again and he’d soothed her into sleep. A sleep he was still in now. She turned to see him. He’d rolled onto his back and had one arm stretched out under her neck still whilst his other lay across the blankets on his stomach, his screwdriver loosely clutched in his fingers. What he was doing with that she had no idea. Perhaps he’d gotten bored and had started to scan things just because he could. Rose loved seeing the Doctor asleep. It was one of the few times when he truly looked peaceful, looked calm, looked more like the age of his body rather than the nine hundred year old who had experienced so much, both good but also devastatingly bad. She could have stared at him forever but she was soon reminded of the reason why her body had awoken her. She needed the toilet. It really was nice and cosy under the blankets with him by her side. Really she would have loved to snuggle into him and fall back to sleep but her bladder was quite adamant on that not happening. Maybe if she was quick enough he would still be asleep when she got back. Hoping for that outcome Rose shuffled out of bed as quietly as she could manage and slipped her feet into her chucks, not bothering to actually tie the laces instead she simply tucked them in. She could already feel the coldness in the air within the tepee so grabbed her coat, slipping it on before she moved to the flap to undo it.

Outside the world was just starting to lighten, the dark blues of the night’s sky slowly fading away for the lighter shades to take their place. It didn’t matter where they were, Rose always found the sky to be quite beautiful and, on a clear night with the Doctor by her side, a very educational and fascinating beauty at that. She hadn’t bothered to undo the flap fully because that would just mean spending ages doing it back up again but she undid it enough so she could get through then headed off towards the toilet. It sat before one of the great rocky plateaus right at the edge of the camp beyond the campfire. Her feet sounded loud on the dusty ground as she walked seeing no other soul in sight. They’d be switching guards about now, or perhaps they already had, it all depended on your definition of sunrise. Her steps quickened as she neared her goal, her bladder preparing itself knowing that she could soon relieve herself. Thankfully it wasn’t occupied and she soon closed the door of the portable toilet behind her and locked it. Then she stumbled across her first problem: no lights. At least she’d visited it previously so knew the basic layout because apparently Frondescence don’t wee at night. Then there was the second problem: the toilet seat. She’d forgotten it was rather loose; it wasn’t attached on one side and the other wasn’t much better. In her haste she sat down and soon found herself skidding sideways as the seat moved beneath her. There was one good thing about practically doing your business in a tiny shed; the walls were close so you could easily catch yourself. Rose righted both herself and the seat and finally did what she came here to do.

A whistling sound, coming from not far beyond the loo walls, began as she washed her hands in the tiny sink. She didn’t know the tune but assumed it must have been one of the guards on duty or perhaps the start of a queue for the loo. She tried to hurry herself up in case it was the latter but had to spend a minute feeling the walls trying to find the fancy futuristic dryer they had in there. Then there was the sound of a scuffle and the whistling came to an abrupt end. She gave up on her task of locating the dryer as she stood still and silent, listening for further sounds. It was probably nothing but her guard was always up no matter where they went and she couldn’t help but notice that prickly feeling you get on the back of your neck when something wasn’t right. It was just the abruptness of the whistle ending that made her get a bad feeling. Carefully she felt for the lock and twisted it before slowly pushing the door open.

She peered around the door to the left, the direction the whistling had been coming from. There was someone facing away from her dressed in brown a few feet away near the rocky wall of the plateau. The Frondescence wore a brown camouflage too but what they didn’t have was hair and this person had short platinum blonde hair. As she stared she could hear him hissing something but she couldn’t make out what. Then there was a slightly louder voice from the same direction. A voice refusing whatever the hissing said. The figure shuffled to the side just a little and Rose realised it wasn’t just one person having a weird Gollum moment, it was two. There were a second pair of feet on the ground and the blonde guy was gripping whoever the other person was tightly and had one hand possibly holding a knife. It looked the wrong angle for a gun but she wasn’t at the correct angle herself to see properly. Whatever it was, it was unmistakably threatening. Rose quickly glanced to her right, back to the camp but saw no one around. It was up to her to save them.

The blonde guy looked pretty burly and she didn’t feel like she had much hope of taking him down with her hands and she didn’t have anything on her that would help. Really she didn’t want to draw attention to herself, the Doctor may have a way with words and might be able to convince the bloke otherwise or distract him well enough so she could rush and get help from the Frondescence but he wasn’t here. Think Rose! What else would he do? Some other sort of distraction perhaps? Maybe she could throw something. Some rocks. Or one bigger rock and she could knock him out, her speciality apparently. She glanced around but there wasn’t a single loose rock nearby which for a planet this rocky was simply a joke.

Okay new plan. Maybe there was something from the toilet she could use. At this point she’d take anything because the person being threatened was sounding a little desperate now. With the door open as it was she could see inside a little better now. She found the dryer straight opposite her above the toilet and not next to the sink on the wall to the left where she would have put it. There was spare toilet paper but that would not help one bit. Then her gaze dropped again and fell on the toilet seat. If people could get knocked out from a frying pan to the head then maybe they could get knocked out from a metal toilet seat too. They’d at least get distracted from their target and she’d have some sort of weapon to defend herself and hopefully the threatened Frondescence would help out at that point. Reaching underneath to where it was connected to the rest of the toilet she found it was attached by a single loose bolt which she easily unscrewed before picking up her weapon. It was weightier than expected which was hopefully a good sign for her plan.

Stepping back outside nothing much seemed to have changed with the threatening situation which was good in a way. Quietly she tiptoed towards the pair, poising it in her hands so she could whack the assailant around the head with the solid lid part. Thankfully he didn’t hear her coming. He did however hear the whooshing of wind as the toilet seat was rapidly swung through the air. He turned ever so slightly towards her but by then it was already too late for him to do anything. The seat collided with his head with a satisfactory thump. His eyes rolled back and he slumped to the ground. The Frondescence let out a gasp as they were released from the man’s grasp; they too fell to the floor with the unexpectedness of it. They scrambled around in the dust to see their saviour. Just as Rose recognised them to be Mamire two strong hands grabbed her roughly making her jump. Rose screamed in shock but was quickly silenced by a hand pressed none too gently over her mouth.

Chapter 43: Airstrike

Chapter Text

The Doctor awoke with a start. There was a scream. A definite scream. It had stopped now but he had definitely heard it. He hastily pushed the covers away and glanced to the side to see if it had also awoken…

f*ck.

His eyes darted around the tepee just to ensure he wasn’t being a sleepy idiot and not noticing Rose in the tiny space that a child could hardly hide in before he leapt out of bed and squeezed through the small gap she had made in the flap to get outside.

**********

‘You better not have killed my Milo you little brat,’ her attacker breathed harshly in her ear.

Rose told herself to stay calm. She had been threatened before and, if this all worked out, would be threatened again in the future. That wasn't exactly the most calming of thoughts but it gave her a little morsel of hope that she did still have a future. She was on a knife edge, quite literally with the knife now being held by her neck, but it could still swing either way. She had a chance. It all depended on how the next few moments panned out. There would be no Doctor swooping in to rescue her. He probably didn’t even know that she was out of bed though now would be a great time for him to start noticing that fact because he was great in sticky situations like these. She half hoped and half didn’t hope that some of the other Frondescence would appear. Rose wasn’t exactly sure how they would take this kind of situation and though their gun toting might scare her attacker off it also might not and she really didn’t want things to escalate any further. With the shared history between the Frondescence and the poachers, whom she assumed these two new people were, she didn’t have much hope for the former outcome. Mamire, still on his knees on the ground, was simply staring at them with wide scared eyes. He wouldn’t be any help either. It was down to her and her alone.

As her attacker lifted their hand away from her mouth Rose knew she had to speak and answer the question hidden in their words. She’d only get one chance at this though. To choose the right words. One slip and that knife might be slipping too. She couldn’t antagonise them, enrage them, she had to keep them calm as much as she could herself.

Glancing down at her attacker’s partner Milo, who was still slumped to the ground, Rose thought that he appeared human enough but she knew better than to simply believe that was the case. She lived with a man who looked human too and he was anything but. There wasn’t any visible head wound that she could see on this Milo and his chest was still rising and falling as he laid there. He was hopefully just unconscious then.

‘He’s - he’s not dead,’ Rose tentatively voiced. She felt their body tense against hers as she spoke. ‘He’s just knocked out. Unconscious.’

They made an uncertain sound before hissing in her ear, ‘he better be or you’ll be deader than he looks’.

To Rose this didn’t seem like the best start to this confrontation, she had to make them understand that Milo was still alive so she would remain that way too. ‘Just look he’s breathing, his chest-’ Their grip on her tightened and the blade pressed against her neck making her lose her speech, her breath hitching as she did so.

‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ they snapped.

She felt their angry words vibrating in their chest behind her even over the rapid pounding of her heart. They pushed out a breath that tickled her ear and sent some of her blonde strands of hair flying with the force before they settled back on her cheek.

‘Now,’ they began with a bite in their voice, ‘tell me where the Mobulaer are or I will kill you’. Their words were filled with intent, a promise that this was anything but an empty threat. Her death would happen if she didn’t comply.

Rose gulped at those words. She had to stall for time at the very least for her to think up a plan let alone in the hopes of someone coming to her rescue. ‘Why do you want to know where they are?’ It was as good a start as any in her mind and she was actually curious as to why the Mobulaer were hunted so. Was it perhaps a medical thing like with a few species on Earth or was it just for money? No matter where you went across the universe money was usually still a big deal

‘Just. Tell. Me,’ they ground out.

**********

The Doctor didn’t feel the cold rocky ground under his bare feet as he ducked out of the tepee. He was a Time Lord, external temperatures hardly bothered him as he could easily regulate his own and even if he couldn’t, with his rising panic, he probably wouldn’t have noticed the coldness anyway. Really he should be trying not to panic. It might not even have been Rose that had screamed. She could have just wanted to step out and stretch her legs, these days she needed a run as much as he did, but they had done a lot of walking the day before so that option was hardly the most likely. Plus the sky was only just beginning to gain a golden glow on the horizon. Rose usually slept for around eight hours a night and with her struggle to fall asleep in the first place he would have expected her to wake well after sunrise. Going by the length of time he knew she had slept and allowing some leeway for the one hour and seventeen minutes he had accidentally gotten, she had only had between four and five hours. Oh she was going to be a grumpy Rose today especially as she wouldn’t be having her usual morning tea on the Tardis. Well, she could have tea here at the camp but if her previous reaction was anything to go by that eventually wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. Anyway there was only going to be a grumpy Rose if he could find her.

There was no one else in sight in the tepee section of the camp; all but a couple of the tepee flaps were still tightly closed so it looked like no one else had awoken because of the scream. He didn’t like to doubt his senses as they were usually incredibly reliable but perhaps he had imagined it. There was the Rose voice that popped up in his mind from time to time when he wasn’t by her side, warning him that he was being rude or telling him off for something he knew he shouldn’t be doing. But she never screamed and he didn’t think he heard this imaginary Rose in his sleep so it was unlikely to have been a part of his dream. He’d been having a rather good dream. They were on Barcelona, the planet, and he was showing Rose the noseless dogs for the first time. She was laughing as one of them licked her whilst she stroked their fluffy fur. Her face was beautiful and bright, full of joy and life. Occasionally possible timelines would allow themselves to be visible within his dreams. He never chose to look at his own possible futures nor any of his companions if he could help it but sometimes they would force their way into his head when he was asleep and at his most vulnerable. He was going to ask her on a trip to Barcelona soon so he hoped that was what he had seen, their future in Barcelona. Such a future looked very happy.

Whilst these thoughts were racing around his head he had darted around all the tepees looking for any sign of his partner but there wasn’t a trace. He raced to the multipurpose building next, dashing through the empty front where the medical section was and then between the storage inside in case she was within the depths of the building for whatever reason. However there was still no sign. Once outside again he ran to the right and nearly knocked Frina to the ground as he collided with her. She was just leaving the portable CCTV set up they had stored under a tent attached to the side of the building. They stumbled together but he managed to steady her in his arms. She was immediately apologising to him, even though he was the one who had barrelled into her, and at the same time he was asking if she had seen Rose. They both halted their speech, unable to understand the other whilst their words jumbled together, and Frina was the first to speak again.

‘What?’ Her brow was slightly creased both at the frantic look on the face of the man gripping her arms as though he still needed to hold her up and because she only caught part of what he had been saying.

His stare was intense as he asked his question again. ‘Have you seen Rose?’ He held his breath and hoped that he could soon let it out in relief but going by the further furrowing of her brow that wouldn’t be happening.

‘Not since last night,’ she answered, ‘why, is she missing?’

He groaned internally. No he was just asking for fun. Of course he didn’t know where she was. He needn’t waste his breath to answer such a pointless question so asked his own in return instead. ‘Did you hear a scream not long ago?’

Frina blinked at him then shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she replied thoughtfully. She was trying to recall any sound that she had heard recently wondering if any could have been a scream because the Doctor sounded so certain that there had been one. ‘Do you think something bad has happened to Rose?’

Oh he was about to get snarky if she continued with questions like this and he didn’t want to get snarky with her because he liked Frina he really did.

Luckily she saw the look of disdain on the Time Lord’s face and changed her line of questioning. ‘She probably hasn’t gone far. Where have you looked?’

‘Just here and around the tepees,’ he answered immediately.

She nodded and gave him a determined look. ‘Then let’s check the campfire next.’

**********

Their breath was hot against the right side of her face as Rose’s attacker asked her where the Mobulaer were once again. She couldn’t answer such a question though for two reasons. One: she certainly didn’t want to lead the poachers to the poor creatures, there were so few left out there. Two: she didn’t know where they were exactly. Yes she had been with the group the previous day but that was hours ago and they could fly. They could be anywhere right now.

Instead of answering the question she continued to try and stall for time. She hoped that her words would perhaps convince them and have some sort of impact to influence them against threatening her life and the lives of the Mobulaer. ‘You’re one of the poachers right?’ Rose tried. She was glad her voice was sounding a little stronger now even if internally she was still feeling just as scared. Or perhaps even more scared with the knife pressed up against her as it was now, not quite deep enough to cut but it could easily do so with a little more pressure. ‘I just wanna know what you want with the Mobulaer. Why you’re killing such a beautiful creature.’ They let out a menacing growl. This really wasn’t going to plan but she had to keep trying because what other choice did she have. ‘You’re making them go extinct, you know. There are no others in the universe and there will be no more if you keep killing them.’

‘This sounds like you telling me what to do again,’ they hissed.

‘No,’ she said immediately, automatically shaking her head to refuse the suggestion. The movement of her head also moved her neck and the knife pressed against it nicked her skin. She abruptly stilled, wincing slightly at the sharp scratch but otherwise not showing any other outward signs of pain. ‘No I’m - I’m not,’ she continued her voice briefly a little shakier before she strengthened it once more. ‘I’m just trying to warn you that they’re dying out and when they’re gone they’re gone.’

They growled into her ear, ‘I don’t need your warnings. I just need their location’.

Rose felt a warm trickle trace a slow path downwards from the stinging cut on her neck and only just heard the intake of breath from Mamire in front of her. She glanced downwards at his wide eyes that were zoned in just below her face watching the trickle on its journey. Then his eyes caught hers. He still appeared panicked but now there was something else in his look. A look of purpose. She may not like Mamire but that look still gave her a glimmer of hope.

‘I know.’ His voice was more of a croak but it still got the attacker’s attention away from Rose. She felt them lift their head a little to see the Frondescence kneeling before them. Their voice was harsh and questioning, not having caught what he had said so Mamire cleared his throat and repeated himself. ‘I know the location of the Mobulaer. Not her,’ he lifted an arm and pointed at Rose. ‘She doesn’t know anything, but I do.’

Clearly the attacker had seen this sort of ploy before and wasn’t falling for it easily. ‘Then tell me or I’ll kill her,’ they demanded. There was such venom in their voice that Rose believed them.

A bark of laughter came from Mamire. ‘Kill her?’ He asked, scoffing at the idea. ‘I don’t care if you kill her. You can do what you like. She’s just some stuck up Earth girl who thinks she’s better than everyone else. Who thinks she can order you about by telling you what you can and can’t do.’ He shook his head lightly as he took a breath. ‘No, you’ll have to do better than that if you want their location.’

As sure as Rose felt about believing her attacker and their intent she wasn’t sure what to believe when it came to Mamire. His words were said with such conviction and knowing him they probably were the truth especially as he was clearly speaking of her having a go at him by the campfire the night before. But, as the back of her mind kept pointing out, he had only stepped in when he saw her get hurt which suggested that he didn’t actually want harm to come to her. Then again he still might not care for her safety as there was another good reason why it was only then that he spoke up. The Doctor. She’d seen some of the glares Mamire had been on the receiving end of and, depending on what the Frondescence had said, a few had even been the type that the Doctor would face down an army of aliens with so it was understandable if he was scared of the Time Lord. Whatever reason had caused Mamire to speak she hoped that he was convincing the attacker, maybe not currently into not killing her because that clearly hadn’t been voiced, but at least it was buying her valuable time at the moment.

‘What do you want then?’ The attacker snarled, their distaste in Mamire’s reaction to the threat of killing Rose easily heard by her as the words passed her ear.

‘Money,’ he stated with certainty. ‘I want in on this scheme of yours. I’ll stay here undercover and give you the Mobulaer’s location whenever you turn up on Maku. You cut me in and you’ll get what you want and I’ll get what I want.’

She still wasn’t sure of his intentions but either way she was going to try and make this seem as convincing as she could so she decided to play along. ‘You can’t,’ Rose protested, her voice louder than it had been during this entire situation. Had there not been a knife to her neck, and especially not one that had already cut into her skin, then she might have wriggled about in her attacker's hold at this point to add to it but she didn’t want to risk it. It only took one slip and she would be done for.

‘Shut it,’ they hissed, tightening their grip on her with their non knife wielding hand. Then their attention turned back to Mamire. ‘How can I trust you? How will I know you won’t go telling all your little plant friends and turn us in?’

A flicker of darkness flashed over his eyes for a mere second but he never got the chance to retort.

**********

It was as the Doctor and Frina rounded the corner to the campfire that his hearts missed a few beats. He’d recognise that golden hair anywhere. ‘Rose.’ Her name left his lips like a breath as he slowed to a stop, his hand reaching out to the Frondescence running by his side to stop her too. They hadn’t been noticed yet and as much as he wanted to, he knew they couldn’t simply go barging into a delicate situation like the one set out before them. Especially not once he caught the glint of metal by Rose’s neck when the early rays of the sun bounced off it.

‘You can’t,’ he heard Rose protest, causing another stutter of his hearts.

He only just caught the quieter words of the others, the one threatening his partner and the Frondescence on the ground, the slight breeze sending their voices in the opposite direction making them even harder to hear. Beside him he could hear Frina readying the gun she had slung around her back. It clicked and clunked as she ensured it was loaded and then she nudged his arm with something cold and metal that he could feel through his shirt sleeve. He looked down and then at Frina, his gaze fierce and his jaw clenched. In her right hand she was holding her gun but in her left she was offering him a small handgun that she must have had stored on her person too. She held it out a bit further for him to take but he never got the chance to either take it or refuse it.

A loud whooshing sounded overhead seconds before a gust of wind hit them immediately drawing them from their silent conversation. Their heads shot upwards to see what was going on because that wasn’t a naturally occurring gale. It was produced by a Mobulaer, in fact around fifty Mobulaer, as they flew through the air with ease. Their flight path was a lot closer to the ground than it usually was for the creatures and it looked as though they were heading straight over to the small group ahead of the Doctor and Frina where Rose was being held hostage. As the pair starred, the group seemingly still unaware of the squadron heading their way, he caught a glimpse of a familiar Mobulaer between the flaps of wings above him. There was no mistaking them with the addition of the bright pink bandages that had been wrapped around the splint on their injured wing. She looked to be at the front of the squadron, leading the way. It was only when the new mum swooped down, seemingly aiming for Rose and her attacker, that they noticed the Mobulaer in the sky. A small smile grew on the Doctor’s face as he heard their shouts of surprise. The attacker let go of Rose in their shock of the sudden appearance of a large flying creature diving towards them and she stumbled forwards a little but managed to catch herself from falling. The single Mobulaer appeared to aim for the attacker and began dive bombing them causing them to have to dodge and duck, forcing them further away from Rose. She had stepped to the side of the still kneeling Frondescence, both of them watching the unexpected scene before them. When the Mobulaer starting flicking her tail about and whipping the attacker with it the Doctor drew his eyes back to Rose and then he was running. Running as fast as he could towards her. His bare feet slapping against the rocky ground before being joined by Frina’s much heavier sounding boots as she followed.

Rose caught sight of the Time Lord just before he barrelled into her. She laughed as he picked her up, holding her tightly against him and she hugged him back just as fiercely. He was mumbling her name into her hair like a chant whilst she finally began to calm down after the ordeal. Her heart slowed to its usual thumping rate and the adrenaline rush began to ebb away as she found herself comforted, as ever, by the Doctor’s embrace.

The pair didn’t notice what was going on around them as they held one another. They didn’t notice the Mobulaer flying away to join her squadron and her little pup who had stayed higher in the sky with the others. Nor did they notice Frina restraining the beaten up attacker and Mamire getting up to help. They didn’t even notice the gradual appearance of a few of the other Frondescence who had exited their tepees with confusion having heard the sounds from beyond the campfire and had made their way over.

‘You alright?’ The Doctor asked as he set Rose down on the dusty ground. He saw her nodding as he leant back, keeping her in his arms but enabling himself to see her face.

‘Yeah, I am now,’ she answered, smiling at him brightly.

It was a smile that warmed his hearts. He matched it with his own as he simply looked at her, both happy and relieved to have her back with him and safe once more. His eyes dropped a little and he caught sight of a thin red line that had trailed its way down Rose’s neck and had left a stain on the neckline of her pale violet t-shirt. The line wasn’t complete. It was a little smudged in places, probably having been rubbed off by him in their embrace, but it was still easily identifiable as blood. Rose’s blood. His gaze darkened and his smile slipped away. He lifted one hand to her chin and gently tilted it up a little, just enough so he could see the source of the dried blood. She didn’t resist his study but he could feel her eyes upon him as he examined her. It was a small cut, wouldn’t even scar, but still the intention had clearly been there from her attacker if they had started to draw blood as they threatened her. His mind had started to go to dark places when Rose interrupted him.

‘Doctor,’ she sighed with exasperation because it really was such a tiny cut and from the growing look on his face he was being dramatic about it. ‘I know what you’re thinking right now but don’t, it’s not worth it.’ She paused when he didn’t glance back at her and then added, ‘it’s my fault anyway, they didn’t mean to’. At this his head shot up but he didn’t look any happier about it as his fierce gaze locked with hers.

‘What do you mean your fault?’ He asked incredulously. ‘They were holding you hostage with a knife.’

‘They didn’t intend to cut me then though, it was just an accident cos I moved and-’

He cut her off, his words were firm as he stated, ‘their knife being held against your throat wasn’t an accident, Rose. The intent was fully there’.

She sighed again, her hands beginning to gently smooth over his shirt covered shoulders. ‘It’s only a tiny cut, Doctor; it really isn’t worth getting worked up about’.

‘I’m not worked up,’ he argued with a frown.

‘You’re getting there,’ she retorted. ‘You only get like this when something real bad has happened but it’s only a tiny cut, I don’t get-’ She stopped when he spoke over her.

‘Because this was your neck Rose and one -’

‘I know.’ Now it was her turn to butt in as she finished off his own words, ‘one slip is all it takes. I know. You told me that the last time it happened but I’m fine, yeah? Absolutely fine’. She gazed into his eyes really trying to get that message across to the Time Lord. ‘Don’t do what ifs because that’s not what happened. This is what happened,’ she said, pointing to her neck, ‘and the outcome is that I’m fine’. She watched as he continued to stare at her for a moment before nodding faintly. A soft smile grew on her lips and she relaxed a little in his hold. Then she leant forwards, her arms curling around him once more as she embraced him. One hand brushed up into the hair at the back of the Doctor’s head whilst her other remained on his back, slowly rubbing up and down soothingly. He placed a kiss into her hair as he accepted her touch, his hands moving onto her back too from where they were resting on her waist. He buried his head in the crook of her neck and sighed a little as he breathed in her calming scent of vanilla, honey and citrus, allowing his anger to ebb away.

A small cough interrupted them a few moments later. They both looked round and saw Mamire standing nearby looking rather awkward. He didn’t speak until the Doctor raised his eyebrow at him pointedly, his gaze fierce as he stared at the other man. Mamire shuffled a little awkwardly and then looked at Rose as he finally acted on the reason he was there. ‘I er - I just wanted to say thank you.’ He nodded then, before the shocked looks on the time traveller’s faces had even started to form, he scurried away again. They stood staring at the spot where Mamire had been before glancing back at one another, both bemused at what had occurred, but the Doctor was even more so.

‘What the hell was that?’ He asked her. The last he knew Rose had told him to f*ck off and now the man was thanking her. It was bizarre.

Rose smirked a little, happily surprised at Mamire’s response. ‘I should probably start from the beginning, then you’ll get where that came from.’ A small shiver ran through her as her body reminded her it was cold outside with the adrenaline now wearing off. She stepped out of the Doctor’s hold and took his hand instead. ‘Come on, I’ll explain on the way back to the tepee. I wanna put my jumper on. And you should probably get dressed,’ she added as she started them walking, eying the Time Lord and his half buttoned sleep rumpled shirt that was partly untucked from his pinstriped trousers. Then her eyes lowered and she caught his bare feet and a surprised laugh escaped her lips. ‘You’re not even wearing shoes,’ she exclaimed.

‘What do you expect?’ He asked of her, his tone turning sarcastic as he said, ‘my partner has been taken hostage but “oh can you pause your dastardly plans for a sec? Just need to put some shoes on”’.

‘Shut up,’ she giggled, knocking into him lightly with her shoulder.

He chuckled at her. ‘Go on then, spill the beans,’ he said with a slight nudge from his elbow. And she did. She explained what had happened right from her getting up all the way to when the Mobulaer mother intervened. By the end of it they were back in the tepee, Rose had her jumper on and her chucks tied up and the Doctor was just slipping his coat on to complete his outfit whilst he beamed at her. ‘Oh Rose Tyler,’ he said, shaking his head in awe of the woman before him. ‘Got to let people know to watch their heads around you eh? That’s three for three isn’t it? What was it? A cricket bat, butt of a gun and a toilet seat. Ha! The range of your ingenuity,’ he enthused.

She was smiling at his response but simply shrugged her shoulders as she explained, ‘it was all I had to hand and I wasn’t gonna let the poachers get anyone even if it was Mamire’.

His eyes still darkened at the Frondescence’s name. ‘He better think twice before he speaks to you now.’

‘I’ll bring that loo seat out of retirement if he don’t,’ Rose replied with a smirk.

He threw his head back as he laughed, stepping towards her and wrapping his arms around her waist. ‘That’s my girl. Brilliant you are,’ he praised, a big beaming smile on his lips once more. ‘Absolutely one hundred percent brilliant.’

‘Well, someone had to be. Fat lot of good you were,’ her eyes twinkled as she teased him but the Doctor didn’t retort back as he usually would. She watched as his smile slipped a little and something dark flashed over his face before he quickly wiped that look away, catching himself and, knowing him, hoping she hadn’t seen it. But she had and she cut him off before he could brighten up again and tease her back as though nothing had happened, as though he wasn’t fighting this internal battle of his. Rose cupped his cheeks gently, her thumbs rubbing over the light stubble that had grown there over their time on Maku. ‘Don’t,’ she told him, her voice soft, and he frowned. He opened his mouth but Rose spoke again. ‘Don’t start doing your guilt thing. None of this was your fault.’ Her eyes flitted between his trying to read him further, hoping her words would have the intended effect.

Now he’d gotten over the joy of having Rose back and the anger of her injury, the guilt was seeping in just as she suspected. None of this should have happened and that all started with him falling asleep. He hadn’t intended to by any means but he had. He should have resisted more, resisted that pull, that lure. He was a Time Lord for God’s sake he didn’t need sleep, not like Rose did. But he’d stayed with her, as much for her comfort as for himself, and had obviously fallen for that temptation and joined her in slumber. If he was awake he would have gone with her when she left the tepee, just as a precaution, and clearly that would’ve been the right decision. It would have annoyed her, the Doctor knew, him following her around like an overprotective parent or something. Some celebrity bodyguard. But after hearing what had been said about those poachers he knew he couldn’t be too careful and this incident proved that.

There was one thing, however, that didn’t stop niggling him now as his mind raced through what had happened. He’d told himself he wouldn’t do it because of some benefit to their adventures and he wouldn’t, his other reasons, his real reasons, overruled that a thousand fold, but if he had bonded with Rose he would have known. It wasn’t like she could have communicated with words because she would have to be telepathic for that but with a bond he could have at least sensed her danger and distress. He would have felt it as if it was his own. It would have awoken him and he could’ve come to her aid. The situation had been handled this time, she was very capable herself he knew and she’d proven that so many times but…it was hardly bearable to think about, but things didn’t always go to plan. There could and, in reality, would be a time when the outcome wasn’t so great. Devastating even. It was just another one of those reasons why he hadn’t taken that step into a relationship sooner. Of course being with her now didn’t stop that possibility, or probability as his mind helpfully supplied, from happening. They led a dangerous life together and they both knew of the consequences. It was a life they both loved though and he knew she wouldn’t have it any other way and neither would he. Roaming across the universe and having their adventures together he absolutely adored it but like a few of his companions the adventures would take her from him in the end. He would do his best to prevent that even if he had to be the overbearing protector he knew she didn’t like. He refused to lose her to them. He would lose her when she was old and grey and he’d be damned if it was any sooner. Only time could take her, he’d battle time and beg for more of it of course, but he’d take as much as he was given. That was what he had resigned himself to do.

Rose sighed. She gently pulled his head down so their foreheads came together and let her hands slide from his cheeks and into his hair at the nape of his neck. He relaxed into her touch and she watched as he closed his eyes before closing hers too. ‘Doctor,’ she said in a whisper but quiet words left his lips before she could say any more.

‘You didn’t need me there and you did brilliantly on your own, you always do. I just wish I could’ve been there to help instead of bloody sleeping.’ His soft words became bitter at the end with his annoyance at himself.

‘I know you do.’ She pecked his lips before continuing. ‘And don’t kick yourself because you fell asleep. We all need to sleep, Doctor, even you.’

He huffed and started his complaint, ‘but I’m a Time Lord I don’t-’

‘Yes, superior biology, don’t need much sleep, I know,’ Rose butted in, slightly exasperated. ‘But when was the last time you slept?’ He opened his mouth to answer but she wasn’t finished. ‘And I mean a straight four to five hours, not just a little nap.’ He closed his mouth and thought about it, as he did so she leant back a little and looked at him with a concerned crease forming in her brow. ‘If you’ve gotta think about it this long then that’s not a good sign.’

‘Maybe two or three weeks…or a little more,’ the Doctor murmured, opening his eyes in time to catch her eyebrows rising. ‘More likely the latter,’ he admitted. Rose gave him an unimpressed look and he offered her a sheepish grin.

She locked her eyes with his, a serious expression on her face. ‘When we get back home you are going to sleep in that bed tonight.’ He rolled his eyes at her mothering which she took as a complaint about her caring for him. ‘I don’t wanna hear anything about it; you’re sleeping in that bed even if I have to tie you to it to keep you there.’

At that he arched his brow. ‘Rose Tyler, you do surprise me,’ he said in a low voice. He smirked at her whilst waiting for his words to click and when they did his smirk turned into a full on grin combined with a little silent laughter.

Her cheeks reddened at the implication of his words. ‘Stop it, you’re absolutely terrible.’

He winked at her, the sound of his laughter now escaping his lips. ‘Oh you saw it coming. First time we properly kissed you called me a nightmare. Yet here you are still coming back for more.’ He grinned at her a little smugly.

Rose rolled her eyes at his expression, before a hint of mischief glinted in them. ‘Oh, no I’m not actually in this for you. I just thought if I kept this up you’d keep teaching me how to fly the Tardis, which you have,’ she said with a shrug and as much nonchalance as she could muster making the Time Lord pout.

The Doctor placed a hand between his hearts as he said, ‘you wound me, Rose Tyler,’ before dramatically cringing and acting as though he was in actual pain from her words making her cackle at him. He gave up the act when he couldn’t help but join in with her infectious laughter.

**********

It wasn’t too much longer before they were making their way back to the Old Girl. The Frondescence had arranged a ship from Chariandra to pick up the two poachers so they could be put on trial. They had enough camera footage to use as evidence of their previous misdeeds in relation to the Mobulaer which should put them away for some time. The time travellers gave them their thanks and a fond farewell when they left the camp and, after just over two hours of walking later, they entered the Tardis.

‘The library,’ the Doctor stated as he slung his coat over the coral strut and continued walking up the ramp.

His out of the blue statement completely baffled Rose who frowned at his back as she followed him. ‘What?’

He spun round and continued his path backwards around the console. ‘Kastarian 3,’ he said as though it was obvious where the conversation was leading. He stopped by the side of the dematerialisation lever and sent them off into the vortex. ‘That’s where I’m going to put it, above the fireplace in the library’.

Rose shook her head at him. ‘Right, of course, my painting. Cos that was obvious when you just said library,’ she told him, her tone laced with sarcasm as she trailed a finger around the edge of the controls until she reached the side by the jump seat. He didn’t get the chance to retort before she continued on saying, ‘you really wanna put it up?’ The sarcasm had faded and now she sounded more uncertain than anything as she studied the switches and knobs before her, not catching the Doctor’s gaze until he scoffed.

‘Of course I want to put it up. You can’t keep something as good as that hidden in your studio,’ he said as he walked around the console to her. ‘I was going to put it up after - ah ah ah,’ he suddenly stopped what he was saying and cried out, reaching for Rose as she started to sit on the jump seat. ‘No time for that now. Come on.’

She pouted up at him as he took her hand and started to gently tug her away from the seat. ‘But I just wanted to sit for five minutes,’ she complained.

‘Well you can sit in the infirmary.’ Rose’s pout increased at his words and he smirked a little at her adorable face. ‘I know it’s just a small cut,’ he began to explain as he slowly led the reluctant Rose out of the console room and towards their new destination, ‘but I don’t think that knife was exactly sterile so I want to disinfect the wound’.

Rose diligently sat on the metal examination bed making no more complaints whilst the Doctor cleaned and disinfected her wound. He’d taken off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves as he usually did when in the infirmary and was studying her cut through his glasses as he carefully wiped around it, waffling on about the lack of sterilisation of medical instruments in early operating theatres on Earth. She wasn’t sure if he thought it was an interesting topic that she would like to hear about or whether he was telling her of the horrible consequences of those early surgeries to keep her compliant so he could clean her wound. Either way it was working until he came back to the bed with a syringe that he was filling with the correct dosage from a small vial. Her eyebrows were raised at the Time Lord in question when he glanced back up at her.

‘Immunoglobulin booster,’ he said as he sat back down on the stool by her side. He placed the vial on the metal table that he’d wheeled next to the bed previously which was stocked with a multitude of items. These items ranged from a kidney dish filled with an orange cleaning solution from the future and cotton wool swabs to the dermal regenerator and a tourniquet. ‘This will aid your natural antibodies and help them neutralise any possible antigens they find.’

‘And that still counts as wound disinfecting does it?’ She asked, eying the needle. It wasn’t that she exactly hated needles, she could deal with them, but she didn’t like them. Then again did anyone actually like them?

He sniffed. ‘Well it’s helping to disinfect you internally and the requirement for that stems from said wound so I’d say yes.’ He finished with a smile and Rose rolled her eyes. ‘Jumper please.’ She took it off and put it beside her on the bed and held out her arms for him to study her veins. His eyes caught the stain on her t-shirt first and he pointed it out to her saying, ‘you’ve got blood on your shirt by the way so you might want to change’. He then ducked down and examined both of her arms before deciding on her left one, grabbing the tourniquet from the metal table and wrapping it around her upper arm. Whilst he did that Rose tried to stretch out the neck of her t-shirt enough so she could see the blood stain and sighed when she caught sight of it because she did really like this shirt. ‘Don’t worry about it, the Old Girl can do wonders,’ he told her softly, holding a cotton swab to her arm having completed the injection without Rose even noticing. ‘And whilst you get changed, do you remember where you put the forcefield we tried to use on the teleporting slug from Arrokoth?’

Her brow creased a little in confusion as to why he wanted to know this now. ‘Er, storage six I think? It’s whatever one we got it out of when we did hit the correct storage room. Why?’

‘I was going to give it to the Frondescence for the poachers,’ he began to explain as he removed the swab and picked up the dermal regenerator from the table. ‘Be a lot easier for them to contain them with that.’ He gently tilted up her chin, set the regenerator to work and then concluded his reasons for his plan, ‘especially as it’s quite a way in their ships from Chariandra to Maku; it’s the next system over so it’ll be a couple of weeks I bet’.

**********

The Frondescence were delighted at the time traveller’s unexpected return and gift. The Tardis had parked one rocky plateau away from the encampment and the duo walked in from the south of the camp about fifteen minutes after their previous selves had left walking off to the west. This confused the hell out of the Frondescence, their reactions amusing Rose and the Doctor quite a bit. After a lesson on how to set up and use the forcefield from the Doctor, plus another farewell from them both, they left the camp for the final time and walked back to the Tardis.

The sun which they had already seen rising once that day on the planet was rising once again as they neared the Old Girl. The rays were making the beige world glow warmly as they bounced between the rocky totems and shone underneath the bridge like formations that grew from the ground like shark teeth. They both halted by the side of the blue box when the first of the Mobulaer passed through the sky in front of them. Then there was another and another. They stared in awe as the whole squadron danced between the sunbeams, diving and swirling, swooping and twirling as they showed off in the sky.

‘Look, there she is,’ Rose said, pointing up into the sky at the most notable Mobulaer with her pink bandaged wing. ‘And there’s her baby too.’

The Doctor followed her finger and found the pair, humming happily when he did so. They continued to watch them before he voiced something that had been niggling him since that morning. ‘It’s a funny thing though with the Mobulaer,’ he began as he tucked his hands in his trouser pockets, his long coat billowing out behind him just a little in the light breeze.

Drawing her eyes from the spectacle above Rose glanced at him as she asked, ‘how come?’

‘Well, it’s as if they knew. Or at least she did; new mum leading the way,’ he said, nodding to the sky and towards said Mobulaer who was currently drawing a figure of eight, fully embracing her freedom to fly once more. ‘It wasn’t like they just so happened to be passing and saw trouble, no they were on a warpath.’ He tilted his head to Rose who shrugged at him because she was none the wiser as to why the Mobulaer arrived when they did. His brow creased as he looked at her. ‘I know you bonded with her at the birth which would explain her protective behaviour but to draw her and the rest of them over here...the only thing I can think of to explain it is telepathy but unlike them you’re not telepathic.’ He continued to study her, his gaze a little intense making Rose feel the need to squirm but suddenly his expression lightened and the Doctor shrugged. ‘Ah well, got to leave some mysteries in the universe unsolved. Be a boring old life if there was nothing left to discover and learn.’ He hummed at his conclusion to this Mobulaer mystery then turned his gaze back to the sky to watch them once more. Rose followed his lead a moment later.

Whatever reason there was for the Mobulaer’s arrival and defence of Rose he was very glad about it. It was probably a quicker solution than the one he had been planning which involved Frina doing some gun pointing and him running his gob off until they let Rose go. She got out of it pretty lightly too which he was also thankful for. It could have been a lot worse; there was no refuting that even if she didn’t want him getting lost down the path of what ifs. Though his mind wasn’t going into that rabbit hole, it was travelling down another.

Instead of wanting to push her away because he could have lost her he now wanted to do the exact opposite. All he wanted to do was to hold her close and not let her go. It was a complete one eighty on how he reacted months ago but that was before they had taken that leap into a relationship. Before he knew what he would be missing if he did push her away. And no that wasn’t about the physical side of the relationship that they had now, as great as that was. It was so much more than that. There weren’t the words to explain how Rose made him feel, which was a rather strange thing considering it’s him, but words didn’t seem big enough nor grand enough. They didn’t have the right emphasis to express his true feelings for her because they all seemed to pale in comparison. Perhaps the only way to prove them was through a gesture. Well, prove probably wasn’t the right word but he wanted to demonstrate his unwavering commitment, his undying love and wow did he sound like a sappy sod right now. He couldn’t help it though. He’d never felt this way before in all his lives. All his selves, barring his previous regeneration, would never have even considered the possibility of him giving his hearts to someone let alone have it actually happen. He hadn’t thought he ever would until he met a pink and yellow human in a shop basem*nt. Then when he regenerated and was born into a man already loving Rose Tyler it was only a matter of time before he’d let himself show that love. He’d gone through quite a bit of internal conflict before he got to that stage for various reasons but he’d gotten there. Now he never wanted to let her go and to demonstrate that, he was going to ask her to marry him. Rose was always saying she was never leaving him and he wanted to show her that he felt the same. He would never leave her and marriage was an excellent way of proving that.

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye with a soft smile on his lips at his conclusion to his thoughts. Then his gaze travelled back to the sky and to the Mobulaer swooping above them. He felt about as high as they looked right now.

‘Rose?’ He asked, his voice delightfully calm considering his current want to bounce and jump with his giddiness.

‘Yes, Doctor?’

He kept his eyes on the sky as he said, ‘how long are you going to stay with me?’ It was only when he felt Rose’s gaze on him that he turned to look at her.

‘Forever.’

Her answer was definitive and unwavering. There was never a moment of doubt or a need to think about it. Her answer was final. She smiled at him, that oh so gorgeous smile, and he smiled right back before offering her his hand, wiggling his fingers as he held it out to her just like he did when he first got this body. Her smile grew even more and she took it, entwining their fingers together perfectly. Then he brought their hands up to his lips, placing a kiss on the back of hers. ‘Good,’ he told her, because it was good, more than good, brilliant in fact. Or, in the words of his past self, it was fantastic.

Chapter 44: Memories Of A Young Time Lord

Chapter Text

As much as the Doctor wanted to immediately whisk Rose away and ask her, he knew that would have to wait. First of all he still had to get a ring. It wasn’t a custom that Gallifreyans took part in but Rose wasn’t Gallifreyan and humans very much did. He wanted to partake in her customs just as he hoped she would want to partake in some of his.

He would have to talk about bonding when he did ask her. It was quite possible that she wouldn’t want to have a bond with him even if she did agree to marry him. As much as he wanted a bond with Rose it would be fine if she didn’t. It would be a lot to take on as a human, a completely new experience that hardly any humans would ever have or have had. He could still recall her dislike of the Tardis being in her mind when she first started travelling with him and was quite relieved later on when she explained that it wasn’t so much the Old Girl being there as much as it was that she hadn’t agreed to it beforehand. He’d never put much thought into his ship’s telepathy before or seen it from Rose’s point of view. His bond with the Tardis was a constant in his life so he didn’t think how strange it must be for her to suddenly be there and able to see your thoughts, feelings and memories etc. It made perfect sense though when Rose had pointed it out to him. As a telepathic being himself he was always very conscious of using his abilities preferring to mostly block out all but his touch telepathy and only using that if he had to. To be allowed into someone else’s mind was a privilege because the mind was a delicate and private thing and the Tardis had betrayed that. They’d had an argument about it later, him and the Old Girl, though as much as he liked to say he was because she was his ship, he wasn’t in control of her. She was very much her own colourful character.

There was a further reason why he and Rose couldn’t leave Maku just yet. He didn’t get around to it earlier because they met the Frondescence and the trip took an unexpected turn before he had a chance to say anything. He wanted to tell her about Susan and doing so whilst they were still on Maku seemed like the right thing, especially as there was a nice looking rock nearby where they could sit and watch the Mobulaer whilst they spoke. They would be just like he and Susan when they visited all those years ago.

Still with her hand in his, he tugged it gently and wordlessly led them over to that rock. He could feel Rose eyeing him curiously as they sat side by side but his gaze was on their interlocked hands that rested between them. ‘There was another reason I brought you here. It wasn’t just to visit the sights and see the Mobulaer as good as they were,’ he quietly began. Then he glanced up and saw the encouraging look on her features so began his convoluted ramble that eventually got to the point he was trying to make. As he spoke he waved both his free hand and their conjoined ones around to aid him in his speech. ‘I said I’d been here before. It was in my first regeneration. I was an old man back then - well, young but looked old - well, young compared to me now but within that body I was certainly looking and starting to feel my age. I - I do age in my regenerations. Of course you've got to, that’s how you grow up, can’t just be a Time Tot for your whole life, got to get bigger and become an adult. But yes I do age, just very, very slowly. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is I came here after leaving Gallifrey with Susan.’

When the Doctor finally paused for breath, and Rose had taken a second to process his whirlwind of a speech, she said, ‘your granddaughter?’ She hadn’t seen the topic of conversation turning to her but was pleased it had because the Doctor had said he would speak of her at some point and it looked like that time had come. Rose was intrigued and wanted to learn all about Susan because she clearly meant a lot to the man before her who was now wearing a soft smile after she’d asked if they were one in the same.

He was smiling at the fact that Rose had remembered and because he was talking about Susan. He couldn’t help but feel warm when he was speaking of her. ‘The very same.’

Then Rose’s brow creased a little. ‘And this was after you left Gallifrey properly?’ He nodded as she affixed the puzzle pieces together in her mind. ‘So you ran away with her,’ she continued slowly as she worked it out, ‘but you said you were on the run, like from the guards, it wasn’t planned or anything. Did her parents know she was going with you? Did your - your…’ She trailed off knowing nothing about his children and unable to fill in the blanks but the Doctor got the gist of what she was trying to say.

‘My daughter,’ he supplied then scratched the back of his head with his free hand as he scrunched up his face a little in thought. ‘Erm…well there had been - been discussions I suppose - of a sort. The moment of our departure wasn’t exactly planned, it was as hasty a getaway as you can imagine, though she had a bag packed with her at least. In the end we got out of there safely enough in the Tardis,’ he finished with a shrug.

Rose gave him a knowing look, her eyes twinkling a little playfully. ‘So were the guards chasing after you or Susan?’

He couldn’t help but grin at that as he remembered. ‘Oh, bit of both I imagine. They weren’t exactly pleased with either of us.’

‘You two sound like a right pair,’ she commented with a smirk. ‘Pair of trouble makers I bet, like two peas in a pod.’

His nod of agreement was faint as he thought about Susan. ‘She was the only one I saw myself in,’ he mused wistfully. ‘Saw a little of my looks in my children from my first body and my future ones, not that I knew it at the time of course, but personality wise…’ he shrugged half-heartedly before he continued, ‘…nah that was all their mother. Susan was different though. Clicked with me like none of my kids ever did which surprised everyone, me most of all’. He paused for a moment then cleared his throat. He extracted his hand from Rose’s and began rooting around in his inner jacket pocket. ‘Anyway erm - I er - well, you can see what it is,’ he said as he pulled out a photograph. He held it out to Rose who took it gently.

She smiled as her eyes traced the young girl's features. Her short, dark hair. Her pale, round, elfin face with finely boned cheeks. Her dark, almond eyes and her infectious smile. She really did look young, perhaps just a few years younger than Rose but Susan’s eyes, like the Doctor's, betrayed that knowledge, that experience of having lived a longer life. ‘She’s beautiful, Doctor,’ she stated quietly and he hummed in agreement. ‘She looks so young. What regeneration was this?’ Rose glanced up at the man beside her who was gazing at the photograph in her hand with such adoration in his eyes.

‘She was very young,’ he began, ‘still what you’d call a teenager when we left. And uh - it was her first body. She never did regenerate’. His final words were quiet and a bit mournful.

Moving the photograph so she could hold it in just one hand, she placed her left one on the Doctor’s thigh, her thumb brushing gently over his pinstriped trousers in a comforting gesture. They both continued to look at Susan’s portrait until Rose murmured, ‘kinda wish this was in colour’.

The Doctor’s head shot to her, a frown etched into his brow as he complained, ‘it was the sixties. It wasn’t all colour photography back then’.

Rose’s eyes grew wide as she quickly turned to him, trying to explain what she actually meant before he took offence. ‘No, no I’m not saying it’s a bad photo or anything. I’m just saying it would be nice to see the colour of her hair and her eyes and not have to imagine it you know?’

The frown faded. ‘Oh, I see,’ he breathed then glanced back at the photo with a sniff. ‘Well, her hair was darker than mine by a few shades at least but our eyes were near enough the same colour.’ He looked up at Rose who was studying the photo with a smile on her face and he found one growing on his lips too.

‘I can picture that,’ she said with a nod. She pointed at the upper half of Susan’s likeness as she explained, ‘she sort of has your eyes. Big and round. And there’s that depth to them like you’ve got where you can see you’ve lived a lot longer than you look’. Rose grinned as she turned and gazed at him. ‘She’s definitely got your chin though. Got that same small dimple you’ve got depending on your expression.’ She reached up and cupped his chin, her thumb finding and softly rubbing over said dimple. Her eyes roamed his face and she thoughtfully said, ‘not quite your jaw bone though, maybe more like the last you’.

He stared at her, a little bemused by this statement. ‘Did you come into my room and stare at me whilst I was asleep or something because I don’t recall you studying my face that much back then.’

She laughed and shook her head at him. ‘No, of course not. But it’s you Doctor and we spent every day together, how could I not remember your face? Especially when some parts were particularly memorable...’ Her hand grazed across his cheek from his chin, her fingers reaching out to his ear.

‘Oi!’ He protested, batting her hand away whilst she cackled. ‘You should meet the Otrallan then we’ll see who’s got big ears,’ he grumbled, crossing his arms as he pouted which only made her laugh harder.

When she had calmed enough Rose attempted to appease him. Nudging his shoulder with hers she said, ‘you know I still fancied you back then right? Even if you did have…’ She trailed off when she caught his arching eyebrow.

‘Careful,’ he warned, though there was no real threat in it.

‘...reasonably sized ears,’ she finished, her eyes still shining with mirth. This earned her a grumpy huff from the Time Lord but she knew it was all for show; the smirk he was struggling to smother was a dead giveaway. Her eyes fell back to her hand and to the photograph of Susan. ‘Anyway this isn’t meant to be about you and your vanity issues...’ At that the Doctor huffed again but Rose ignored him and continued on saying, ‘...this is meant to be about Susan. Would you tell me more about her and what you got up to?’ She glanced up at him with an eager look and watched the smile grow on his face as he began to tell her tales of his time with his granddaughter in the Tardis.

He told her of some of their more memorable travels including their first visit to Earth which just so happened to be in the middle of the French Revolution. He explained that the real reason why he didn’t want to go to Pall Mall with Rose at the Queen’s Coronation was because he and Susan were in attendance before they found themselves being pursued by a creature who could fire lasers out of it’s singular eye. He spoke of stopping the Slarvians, a snail-like species, from conquering the Earth by hatching their eggs all over the planet and described how they were chased by a golem on a murderous rampage in Prague. There were also calmer trips which he told her of such as visiting the markets of Akhaten and sailing around the Caribbean on board a pirate galleon. He didn’t go into much detail about them. Then he told her about the junkyard that they took residence in and that Susan had enrolled at the nearby school before two of her teachers, Ian and Barbara, got curious about his granddaughter’s peculiarities and followed her to the Tardis one night. They became his first two human travelling companions after that and he recalled a few of his trips with them as well for Rose.

The sun had fully risen, the Mobulaer had flown off elsewhere and her bum was numb from sitting on a hard rock for so long. The rest of her body also felt quite numb with being still in the cool air but she tried not to show that because listening to the Doctor recount his time with Susan was fascinating. After he told her a tale of a visit to an Aztec temple in Mexico the Doctor paused his fervent rambling for a breath and Rose finally took the chance to ask the question she had been pondering. ‘So did she stay with you the whole time travelling?’ She left it unsaid that she was wondering if Susan had been with him during the Time War but what she didn’t know was that thoughts of the war weren’t having to be stirred in the Doctor’s mind as she had stopped travelling with him whilst he was still in his first regeneration.

‘Oh no,’ he answered with a shake of his head. ‘She would have but she - she met someone. We were fighting the Daleks at the time, they’d invaded Earth and she met a freedom fighter called David. David Campbell, Scottish bloke, he was er, good, yeah good. And well, you know, they fell in love and she stayed with him and helped rebuild the Earth,’ he said this in such a way that it sounded like an everyday occurrence. It made Rose smile as she looked at the Time Lord. Then he added, ‘they had a kid as well. Alex’.

Her eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘You’re a great-grandfather?’

‘Was, yes,’ the Doctor answered a little solemnly before he lightened up again. ‘He dropped the “great” though and just called me granddad which was good because I looked too young to be a grandfather at that point, let alone a great-grandfather.’ He pulled a face at the thought of himself looking how he had back then and being referred to as a great-grandfather. That had been a rather vain regeneration or another vain regeneration if he considered himself now. He was all long wavy hair and sporting his Wild Bill Hickok look at the time, a look that had a bit too much ponciness for his tastes these days.

‘So was he a Time Lord too?’ She asked, curious to know more about the members in the Doctor’s family.

He shook his head again. ‘No. One heart. No telepathic or regenerative capabilities.’ He looked thoughtful for a moment before he said, ‘he only had about seven percent Gallifreyan in his genome if I remember rightly’.

Rose rolled her eyes at the thought of the Doctor doing tests on his great-grandson because it really was so very him. She didn’t get the chance to continue those thoughts, however, as the photograph of Susan nearly slipped through her numb fingers. She’d been holding it between her thumb and forefinger since he had passed her the photo. He’d entrusted her with it and then she’d almost dropped it. The key word there being almost because luckily her numb fingers still registered the photo’s movement as it tried to escape her grasp and she tightened her grip on it before securing its safety by also holding it with her other hand. Once she had adjusted her hold on the photograph Rose found a single word scribbled in pencil at the bottom within the thin white border. She hadn’t noticed it previously because that’s where her thumb had been positioned. She brought the photo closer to her face so she could read it better, an action that drew the Doctor out of his thoughts as he watched her study the photograph once more. The word wasn’t written in the swirls of Gallifreyan but it still certainly didn’t look English to Rose. She slowly sounded it out loud as she read it. ‘Ark - y - ti - or.’ She glanced at the Doctor expecting something from him, some sort of response, but all she found was a soft smile aimed at her. Clearly whatever that writing was wasn’t going to be getting any further comments from him for one reason or another so she let it be. Rose flipped the photograph over, not particularly expecting to find anything there. She always tried to put a little note for her future self to go along with the image so she could remember the moment it captured better but she was surprised to see it wasn’t just her who did such a thing. Here was the swirl of Gallifreyan, the circular writing she had expected to see if any, though the longer she looked at it the deeper her frown became. Rose knew that circular writing. She saw it every day near enough. She stared at the Time Lord beside her. ‘Doctor, that says Rose doesn’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ he answered, his voice soft.

Her brow furrowed. She just couldn’t understand why her name would be there of all places nor why the Doctor was looking at her with such reverence. ‘But why does it say Rose on the back of Susan’s photograph?’

‘It also says it on the front,’ he told her, gently turning the photo in her hands so they could see Susan’s portrait once again. He pointed to the writing she had sounded out. ‘Arkytior. It means Rose in High Gallifreyan. Susan, like the Doctor, was a chosen name. Her true name was Arkytior.’ He looked at Rose beside him and caught her gaze with the warm look of his own. ‘In my language you, Rose, are Arkytior.’

‘She has the same name as me?’ She whispered, shocked by this revelation. He nodded. ‘And my name is Arkytior?’ He nodded once again and she repeated it a few times trying to perfect the pronunciation.

He watched as Rose spoke her name in Gallifreyan, her first tentative word in his native tongue. It was strange hearing those unearthly syllables spoken from another’s lips after so long; he didn’t know how much he would miss it until it was gone but wasn’t that the same with anything in life? True appreciation couldn’t be had until the moment was over, until that time had passed, until something was gone. Perhaps it was just nostalgia, altering and twisting your memories, changing them into something that was not quite true but was close enough so that you don’t realise the change until it is too late and by then you can’t remember the truth. Or you chose not to. Nostalgia made him miss Gallifrey more than he ever really did; he certainly didn’t miss it when it was still there but that was the point he was making. The one thing he did know was that he missed his language. He spoke it occasionally but as much as he spent his time speaking to himself it wasn’t the same when there was no one left to reply or to understand. But here was Rose taking her first steps down an extremely complicated path that he was now wanting to guide her down. He hadn’t considered teaching her some Gallifreyan but he would if she wanted to learn.

The Doctor listened as she repeated her name once more before turning to him expectantly, perhaps wanting feedback from him. He smiled at her. ‘Perfect,’ he praised quietly and he saw a grin reflected back at him. He swallowed and ducked his head a little nervously. ‘Do you like it?’ He never saw the affectionate look she gave him at his sheepish question.

‘Well it sounds a lot better when you say it, all melodic and…’ Rose trailed off as a new thought struck her. She frowned slightly and he glanced back up at her unexpected pause. ‘Hang on. I knew it sounded familiar. You were mumbling it yesterday when we were in the Tardis and - um - doing it,’ she said with a slight blush glowing on her cheeks.

His nerves faded at the mention of their activities, instead a sly grin and an arched eyebrow appeared on his face. ‘When I held you up against that coral strut you mean?’ She rolled her eyes at his words and the look of his face before nodding in agreement. ‘How is your back by the way?’ He added, his brow furrowing a little in concern and a hand starting to reach out to her.

Rose shrugged him off. ‘Fine. Don’t change the subject,’ she said a little shortly, causing the Doctor to smirk as he retracted his hand. Then her tone softened. ‘You said it then, kept saying it too, what were you saying?’ The look her question garnered from the Time Lord was one that she had seen only a few times before. It was a look that she only saw out of the corner of her eye or caught a glimpse of before he smoothed it away. A look that only grew on his face when he was watching her when he thought she didn’t know. A look seemingly only secretly reserved for her because she’d never seen it at any other time. A look that only now was he allowing her to see in its full glory for the first time. It was a look that made her mouth go dry and her stomach flutter. They might not have said those three momentous words to one another yet but no one in the universe could deny that was what he felt if they saw the way he was looking at her, Rose Tyler.

‘That you’re my Rose. My precious Rose. My beautiful Rose. My gorgeous Rose…’ As he spoke he found that she was looking at him so lovingly but when her hand cupped his cheek he frowned at the gesture and altered his list accordingly. ‘…my freezing cold Rose.’ He took that hand from his cheek and, after removing Susan’s photograph and returning it to his pocket, he took her other hand in his too, attempting to warm them up. ‘Come on, let’s get you in the Tardis before you start losing body parts.’

‘It’s not that bad Doctor,’ she said through a laugh that still passed her lips even though the moment had been ruined and ruined by the Doctor himself of course. It was so very him. Rose allowed him to pull her off the rock and lead the way to the Tardis with one of her hands still in his. It was a bit of a struggle to keep up because he was taking long strides in an effort to get her back inside and warm her up which was rather sweet except for the fact her legs felt like they had gone to sleep with the cold and the prolonged sitting on a rock hard surface.

‘Still, you should have said something,’ he called out over his shoulder. ‘You know how I am; once you get me talking I don’t stop. Don’t have an off switch, just keep on and on and on and only stopping when I have to breathe. Not that I have to do that as much as you lot and you see that’s the trouble with the respiratory bypass, it lets me keep talking for longer because…’ He caught her amused expression as he halted outside the blue wooden doors. ‘I’m doing it again aren’t I?’ He said with a sigh.

‘Yeah. Little bit,’ she confirmed with a nod, grinning up at him fondly as he removed his key from his trouser pocket and unlocked the Tardis.

He held the door open for her, ‘right, in and warm yourself up so we can go off to K1-3P’. The Doctor followed Rose inside, shrugged off his coat, which he then flung on the coral strut, before dashing to the console to take them into the vortex.

Rose watched him as she walked up the ramp with a crease in her brow before the answer to her question came to her. ‘Pockets!’ She exclaimed jubilantly.

He threw her a grin. ‘That’s the one.’

The pair went their separate ways when they left the console room. Rose fancied some porridge, not only to warm her up but also because it was filling. They hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning and at this point it felt like her stomach was about to eat itself. The Doctor, rather adorably in her opinion, requested chopped bananas on his when she asked if he wanted some too and he told her he’d meet her in the galley after checking for some oil for the Tardis that one of the stall holders on the asteroid usually supplied him with.

The Doctor wasn’t lying when he told her of the oil supplier on K1-3P. It was his usual destination for the gloopy blue liquid because the Old Girl was very specific in her choice of oil these days. What Rose didn’t know was that he still had a stock of the stuff, about five litres worth stashed in one of the storage rooms. The storage rooms he was walking past on his way to the laboratory. He’d been studying a sample of the rainbow crystal he’d taken from Kastarian 3 under his microscope trying to understand how it could possibly produce such amazing colours. He hadn’t gotten too far in his side project but the crystal had a much bigger purpose now than something to keep him occupied. He sectioned off another piece of it with his sonic and put it in one of the small glass jars he kept in his pocket to keep it safe.

His next port of call was his bedroom. It had been a while since he’d used that room for its intended purpose, only really visiting it now for some of his Gallifreyan literature, small projects he’d been working on, or to change clothes, though the Tardis had begun to leave him a couple of options in one end of Rose’s wardrobe. It had been just over three weeks since he’d first stayed in her bedroom. Well, the Doctor knew exactly how long it had been. It had been three weeks, two days, sixteen hours, forty-seven minutes and fifty-one seconds and that was from the moment that he shut her bedroom door behind him. Already the Tardis was subtly rearranging it so it wasn’t just Rose’s room but theirs. He’d laughed when Rose had dragged him into the bedroom to ask him why there was now a brown leather armchair next to her plush blue one the day before their trip to Maku. She wanted to know how they hell he’d managed it without waking her. He explained that it was the chair from his room and that the Tardis must have done it because it certainly hadn’t been him. Thankfully she’d believed him and continued that conversation with the Old Girl who’s humming replies were so guiltless he’d had to have a sit down in said chair from laughing so much. Going by the grin tugging on Rose’s lips she hadn’t minded this alteration to her room and he wasn’t complaining about it either. Oh how far they’d come from him being so tentative to originally even cross the threshold in his last body and now here he was sharing it with her.

The reason why the Doctor was in his room was because of his mother. Each of them, he and his brother and sisters, had received a gift once they graduated from the Academy. As a precious stone native to Gallifrey, the White Point Star was a gift that was both rather valuable and would tie them to their roots. Their four diamonds were each cut from one larger stone and split equally between them as a reminder that they were as one. Brax made his into a matching tie pin and cufflinks set whilst his sisters favoured necklaces and earrings. The Doctor, however, never made his diamond into anything. He’d kept it of course; it was one of the few things of his home he had left and it was probably one of the last, if not the last, White Point Star in the universe. It wasn’t like Gallifrey didn’t trade with others because there were extensive trade routes between their allies but the diamonds were a commodity only available for the Gallifreyans due to their many traditional purposes such as graduation gifts.

Now the Doctor felt like he knew what he’d retained that unaltered diamond for. In his mind he could see no better purpose than to have it be a part of the ring for Rose. He could just buy a ring from a shop but a custom made one would be so much more personal and with the ideas he’d got it would be a very meaningful creation. He knew Rose adored the rainbow crystal from Kastarian 3, which was why he’d sectioned off a piece for the ring, plus he felt it matched Rose rather well. A rainbow was a symbol of hope. A beautiful display telling all who came across it that there was light after the storm, there was joy and life, and if Rose wasn’t a symbol of that, for him especially, then he didn’t know what was. She was the light that guided him from the storm and she’d given him his life back, a life that was so much better and was now full of that joy and hope.

Along with the rainbow crystal, the White Point Star was also symbolic, though this was more symbolic of him. He couldn’t show her Gallifrey nor take her to meet his parents, siblings or the rest of his family. The one thing he could do was give her this. It was a piece of that life and a very old piece at that, something that could only ever be his as the last remaining Time Lord and he wanted her to carry it with her. Always.

He rooted around inside the wooden box that sat tucked away within his wardrobe. Engraved upon the lid of the box was the Prydonian Seal and inside he kept numerous keepsakes. It was a box he knew was there but not a box he looked in often, not unless he wanted to dredge up memories that would more often than not leave him feeling terrible afterwards. He tried not to focus on what was in there during his search hoping to simply pick out the diamond though he couldn’t help but notice a few things. There was the Hypercube he’d received from Susan in his eighth regeneration before he’d joined the war. That was when he’d learnt of Alex, his great-grandson, and soon after met him for the first time. He recognised the white folded card that contained a pressed Arkytior flower. It had been his favourite bloom on Gallifrey. It was strange how an Arkytior in some form or another was always a part of his life whether it was the flower of his home world, Susan or Rose. Under that card was more paper though upon these was the swirling Gallifreyan writings of two children passing notes in class. He wasn’t sure why he’d kept these mischievous correspondences between himself and Koschei but a much younger him would never have dreamed of getting rid of them. Koschei had once been his best friend but over time they’d become rivals. Enemies he supposed because what else would you call someone who tried to kill you on multiple occasions? Even so the Doctor still tried to see the good in his childhood friend who had grown into a man called the Master. He found he could never give up on him because he knew that his friend Koschei was still in there deep down. But it was too late now, he was gone too. Lastly within the box was an old diary of sorts from his childhood. He hadn’t exclusively used it as a diary; it was mainly filled with diagrams and notes on possible inventions and projects he’d been working on with the intermittent ramblings of a young boy who’d always had his head in the stars.

A glimmer caught his eye, shining out from under the edge of that diary and he picked the White Point Star from the box. A skilled jeweller would be able to make it into something suitable for the ring. He only hoped that Rose would like it.

Quickly tucking the box away, after adding the diamond to the glass jar where he’d stored the crystal, he then moved to his desk. It was cluttered and he didn’t recall a time when it hadn’t been. There were stacks of books, one tower of which looked particularly precarious, and a couple of books lay open with pieces of paper nearby, notes hastily scrawled on them as he’d worked through a problem he had been trying to solve. An empty photo frame sat near the back of the desk and next to that was a cup of half drunk tea from a couple of nights previous. He should really take that back to the galley when he joined Rose for breakfast. He picked up the frame and replaced the picture of Susan from his pocket, putting it back in its rightful place on his desk with a wistful smile on his lips. Then the Doctor edged the wooden chair he was sitting on to the side so he could open one of the drawers to retrieve a blank sheet of paper though found there was nowhere to put it. That was because scattered on the centre of the desk was a dismantled fob watch. Well, it looked like any other silver fob watch with some fancy swirly engraving on the casing but it was actually a biodata module, or it would be if he could restore it. He’d found it in the Tardis the other day and set to work taking it apart soon after. He carefully slid the cogs, screws and other watch parts to the side a little so he’d just have enough room to place his paper. He rooted around in a few more drawers until he found a pen and then got to work on drawing out his design for the ring. He wasn’t a jewellery maker by any means but he tried his best to draw up something that he thought looked good. He would confer with the jewellers in the shop and get their advice for the final design. The one thing he was certain of was the engraving. He’d not particularly thought about it. Vague ideas had been going through his mind but none seemed right or were too big and long winded to even fit on a ring, just like most of his explanations. It had to be right. It wasn’t like you could simply rub it out and start again when it was etched into the metal. Thankfully it was Rose herself who gave him the idea, an idea that would be perfect. He scrawled out his message in his native circular Gallifreyan below his sketches of the ring design then sat back to look at it. A warm smile grew as he thought about asking Rose, his brown eyes shining happily, though they soon grew wide with panic.

‘Doctor?’ Rose called out from the corridor.

Hastily folding the paper and stashing it in his inner jacket pocket he listened out for her movements. He heard the nearest door to his own, Rose’s bedroom, click as she opened it and ducked her head in, shutting it again when there was no sign of him. Then she moved to his door. Rose knocked and called his name once again.

‘Yeah.’

At the sound of his voice she eased the door open. The Doctor’s bedroom was an unfamiliar space to her, all dark wood and deep colours and a contrast to her own pale and bright room. She’d only stepped inside a couple or so times before, quite literally just a few steps through the door, so she’d never had the chance to look around really. Her eyes fell upon the Time Lord sitting at his desk so she walked over to him, speaking as she did so. ‘I was looking for you, gonna tell you your porridge is going cold. Went through all the storages and you were in none of them so had to branch out a bit.’ She stopped by his side. The Doctor had turned in his chair as she wandered over and was watching her with a small smile. ‘What you up to?’

‘Oh, just putting Susan back,’ he answered, nodding his head in the general direction of the frame. He saw Rose’s eyes flit to it and then back to him as he corrected himself. ‘Well, Susan’s photograph back, not - not actually Susan.’ There must have been something that Rose had seen in his features because her eyes softened.

‘You alright?’ She asked quietly, placing a hand on his shoulder and rubbing it soothingly.

‘Yeah,’ he said, drawing out the word. ‘Always alright me.’ There was a flicker in her expression that told him she didn’t fully believe him but he simply gave her a little grin. He was alright. There was the cacophony of emotions he felt when he thought of Susan which were there just beneath the surface after their long talk earlier but he wasn’t trying to look into the past now. He was looking to the future. A future with Rose and that thought made his grin just that bit brighter. The Doctor stood from his chair, Rose’s hand falling from his shoulder as he did so. He caught it with his own and pressed a kiss onto the back of hers. ‘Come on then you, porridge awaits.’ He led the way out of his room and into the corridor.

‘Cold porridge more like,’ she told him, a hint of complaint in her tone.

He glanced down at her with a smirk. ‘There are some species out there that actually prefer it that way. Well, their equivalents of porridge in some cases, but quite a few do still have porridge as you know it. For instance…’

The Doctor rambled on about porridge across the universe all the way to the galley where his own, adorned with chopped bananas, was sitting across from Rose’s syrupy bowl. Both still steamed as the pair sat for breakfast and they reached out in unison to pat the coral wall in thanks before laughing at one another and their matching movements.

Chapter 45: K1-3P

Chapter Text

The asteroid was warmer than Maku so Rose dumped the coat she'd put back on over the railing before exiting the Tardis. The Time Lord, of course, wouldn’t have dreamt of leaving the ship without his.

They were parked down an alley just off the high street, as the Doctor called it, so he led her in the complete opposite direction through the twisty alleyway until they popped out into the sunlight. Rose had to blink her eyes for a second to adjust to the brightness but to go alongside the brightness there was the sudden loudness too, the hustle and bustle of a large bazaar.

‘See,’ the Doctor said, his voice chirpy, ‘told you they had a bazaar. Yeah they’ve got the posh snob section back that way’. He nodded his head back the way they’d come whilst he began a stroll past the first of the stands, his hands in his pockets and his eyes roaming all over the wares with interest as he continued talking. ‘But this…’ he paused for dramatic effect, taking one hand out of his pocket to gesture around them as he looked further afield to the other stalls approvingly. ‘...this is where you want to be, where the real shopping action - ooh clothes!’ And with that exclamation he took Rose’s hand and dragged her through the market taking a right turn and then a left and walking past a few further stalls until they reached the clothing section the Doctor had somehow managed to spot through the colourful chaos of the bazaar.

‘Do you really think they’d have something with, what was it, interdimensional pockets?’ Rose asked him when they’d stopped by the first rack of clothing.

‘Transdimensional,’ he said, his eyes raking over the clothing before them. ‘And, wellllll, you never know, might get lucky. Even if we don’t, they’ve still got nice stuff. See.’ Grabbing a hanger at random he held it out to Rose who crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows at him unimpressed with his choice.

‘If you think I’m wearing that you’ve got another thing coming.’ She watched as he glanced down at the gaudiest cardigan she had ever seen. The colours, the patterns, it made her head hurt just looking at it. Thankfully his eyes grew wide and he began to screw his nose up in disgust so Rose let her unimpressed look slip to one of amusem*nt. ‘You didn’t even look at it did you? You just picked it up.’

He shook his head as he put the hangar back. ‘I’m sure they will have some nice stuff, we just haven’t found that rack yet.’

A pointed cough sounded from behind making Rose jump. They both looked over their shoulders to catch the stallholder giving them a dirty look as she walked by, her arms full of clothes on hangers ready to restock a nearby rack.

‘Yes, as I was saying,’ the Doctor began loudly, turning away from the stallholder, ‘such a shame they didn’t have that in your mother’s size, it would have suited her lovely’.

Rose snorted and accidentally caught the stallholder’s glaring gaze again. She hastily turned back to the Doctor, trying to hold in her laughter, and dragged him away from that market stand muttering to him as she did so, ‘come on let’s go to another one before she gives us more than just the evils’.

They meandered by other market stalls selling clothes, stopping every so often when something caught their eyes whether that was with approval for the item or to simply show off whatever fashion disaster they had spotted to one another. The hunt for transdimensional pockets was so far fruitless but there were still plenty more clothes stalls to see.

The Doctor bent down to pick up a pair of black boots that he’d spotted. They were made from some sort of leather and would go up to the knee of the wearer. The reason they’d caught his eye was the numerous zips that covered the leather. He tugged one of the zips down and stuck his fingers inside, his eyes going wide as he felt the small pocket. He repeated this motion a couple more times, finding yet more pockets. It was bizarre in his opinion and he just had to show them to Rose. ‘Oh, now this is what we came here for, look at these!’ He exclaimed over his shoulder before turning and finding there was no Rose to be seen. She’d been at the rack just behind him when he’d bent down to look at the boots. ‘Now where’s she gone?’ The Doctor muttered to himself as he stood back up and looked around, the boots still in his hands. ‘Rose?’ He called out just before he spotted her golden hair a couple of market stands over looking at a yellow dress and holding it up to herself to see how it would fit. He rushed over to her. ‘There you are!’ He said to announce his presence. ‘Look what I found.’ Grinning as he held the boots out to her he watched as her eyes trailed over them, a puzzled look growing on her features.

‘Boots?’ She questioned, glancing up at the Time Lord in confusion. ‘But I’m not after boots.’

‘Nor did I think you were after dresses,’ he countered with a smirk before he excitedly moved on, ‘but these aren’t any old boots, Rose Tyler, these boots have pockets!’

She stared at the boots and then she stared at the Doctor, absolutely dumbfounded. ‘Why on…’ Over his shoulder there was a man running in their direction looking rather furious about something or other. She looked back at the Time Lord, who was still looking at her expectantly, rather pleased with his strange find. Well she wouldn’t put it past him. ‘Doctor, are you being chased by an angry looking man?’

His face dropped and he frowned. ‘No.’ Before he could ask what she was talking about a shout sounded out from behind.

‘Stop that thief!’

The Doctor glanced over his shoulder at the angry man who was pointing at him threateningly as he neared. He turned back to Rose, tugging on his ear as he said, ‘ah. Yes. Quite possibly’.

Rose sighed and grabbed the boots from him and held them out to the man who’d come skidding to a halt by their side at that moment. His eyes were fierce as he panted and snatched the boots from her grasp. Unable, as of yet, to get any more words out he threw glares between the pair.

Why she was getting a glare she didn’t know. The man must have thought she was some sort of co-conspirator of the Doctor, which in a way she was, though not normally in this sort of venture even if this wasn’t her first apology to a vendor on the Time Lord’s behalf. ‘Sorry about him,’ she began with a smile, nodding her head to the Doctor at her side who could at least look a bit more sorry for his actions, intentional or not. ‘He didn’t mean to steal your boots, he was just showing me them.’

‘Yes. Sorry. Didn’t think how that would look.’ He put on his best placating smile but only received an annoyed look from the man whose eyes flitted back to Rose as she continued their apology.

‘He was going to bring them back. Honestly.’ She was saying everything with such sincerity but the man was not easy to appease. This was made exceptionally clear when the stall holder said something so foul to the Doctor that the Tardis didn’t even bother to translate it. Well, that’s what Rose assumed had happened because what came out of his mouth sure didn’t sound like Gallifreyan and it wasn’t an unknown ancient language if the shocked look on the Time Lord’s face was anything to go by. He still seemed to have understood what the man had said even without the translation. When it looked like the Doctor was about to fire back a biting retort she butted in, laying a hand on his arm as she said. ‘Doctor, how about you go off and look for those parts you wanted and I’ll continue looking round here, yeah?’ Her tone had an edge to it that drew his attention to her. He caught the no nonsense look in her eye and read her lips as she mouthed “drop it”.

With a sigh he relented. He leant a little closer to Rose and murmured, ‘stay around the markets, I’ll come find you later’. Then, after throwing his own dark look at the vendor, he turned and stalked off, his long brown coat getting lost amongst the thrall of shoppers soon after.

The stall holder muttered something under his breath as he stared at the back of the departing Time Lord before he left to head back to his stall, not bothering to acknowledge Rose before he did so.

**********

Instead of heading in the direction that would take him to the stalls that might have some parts for the Tardis as Rose had suggested he backtracked to the alley they had parked in, passing the Old Girl on his way towards the posh and snobby high street as he had called it earlier. He would go to the market stalls to have a look for some parts later but first he had other matters to attend to.

The high street was vastly different to the bazaar section of the asteroid. Every shop had its rightful place and the whole street, including the few people walking down it, looked so ordered and pristine it was rather jarring. He turned to the right and walked past a luxury furniture showroom, an emporium of exotic goods and a tailors until he stopped outside of the jewellers.

The red awning jutted out into the street to protect the store’s potential customers whilst they viewed its enticing display through the shop window. It was a dazzling display of gold, silver and other precious metals both available on Earth and some only available off world. Shining gems glistened under the lighting too trying to attract an audience.

He might not have visited the establishment before but he knew of them. It was a family business, Brayer and Brooks, who were known for their quality over the nearly two centuries they had been in business. They weren’t quite the best name out there, though he wouldn’t feel comfortable visiting them as the planets they had set up on didn't fit with the Doctor’s ideals at all, so instead he settled for second best. Going by the selection of custom made rings in the window he believed he had made the right choice so walked up the four steps to the door and pushed it open.

A bell tinkled as he stepped inside. There was that slight musty smell that old buildings have and a general old fashioned feel to the shop with its dark wood and red and gold accents on the glass cabinets displaying more of their wares within the store. There was a humanoid at the front desk who looked up from the book he was making notes in at the sound of the bell. He had magnificent blue plumage, big round yellow eyes and a hooked beak that had a small round pair of glasses set atop of it.

He gazed at the Doctor over the top of his lenses and welcomed him to the shop with a posh voice that whistled a little every fourth word or so. ‘Good day sir, how may I be of assistance?’

‘Hello, err…’ The Doctor greeted the man brightly but trailed off as his hands dug through first his pockets on the outside of his jacket, then with a frown he went through his left inner pocket before eventually pulling out what he was looking for from his right. ‘Knew I’d got them here somewhere,’ he said with a grin, stepping up to the desk where the feathered man’s eyes had a little amusem*nt shining in them at the Time Lord’s antics. ‘I was hoping you could make me a ring.’

He let out a small whistle before he said, ‘very good sir, do you have a design in mind?’

The pair went through the sketches the Doctor had brought with him in a vast amount of detail. At one point he had slipped on his own pair of glasses and was leaning against the desk with his elbow on the top as he pointed at the drawings with a pen he’d picked up from somewhere. Then they were passing the pen between each other as they made corrections, alterations and notes according to ring and jewel size as well as the positioning of the engraving. The writing quite baffled Mr. Brooks, descendant of the original Ms. Brooks as the Doctor found out; he had never seen such a thing before and was concerned with the intricacies of the scripture hence the numerous re-drawings and note taking. By the end of the consultation the desk was covered with pieces of paper with scribbles and sketches all over them. The sizing and weighing of the crystals the Time Lord had brought in had been completed along with the measurements of the band itself and the size the jewels should be when attached to it. A few open ring boxes with the rings inside were on the desk as well having been used as guides and inspiration and there was a tray that had been procured containing bands in many different metals and styles for the Doctor to choose from. As they ran through their finished design once more a rather elderly Mr. Brayer turned up and gave it his approval.

When the Doctor left the store quite some time later his credit stick may have been feeling a bit lighter, with the initial payment for the ring, but his hearts were feeling rather full. Brayer and Brooks might have given him a month’s time frame for its completion but he had a time machine and could collect the ring in mere minutes if he wanted to. It was an option but he was going to wait, not the full length of time, he’d probably pop out when Rose was asleep, but he wasn’t going to nip into the Tardis to do it now. He didn’t trust her to land back at the correct point in time to pick Rose up from her shopping and didn’t want her to think he’d abandoned her on the asteroid if he turned up hours later to see her standing unhappily in the alley waiting for him. He didn’t expect nor wanted her to wait around for him in the alley; it was just that she’d got a record after doing such a thing on the Madame de Pompadour trip. Five and a half hours she’d waited. Yes he supposed there wasn’t much for her to do on the ship, it was in ruins anyway, but she had the Tardis at her disposal. Probably the entirety of it too seeing how those two got on; the Old Girl would let her go and do what she liked as long as it wasn’t dangerous. Instead Rose had waited outside her doors for him and then he’d gone and messed it all up, well, he already had by that point but he certainly hadn’t made it any better. That was months ago now. So much had changed in that short amount of time. It was a short amount of time for a human let alone a Time Lord. To him it was just a mere speck of his existence. He began to wonder if he was moving a bit too quickly with the whole marriage thing as he walked back past the Tardis and towards an area that might have some parts for her. They hadn’t been partners for all that long in the scheme of things. He did know that some got married in an even shorter time and that there were arranged marriages where you didn’t know your other half until the day. They weren’t just an Earth thing either Gallifrey was fond of them to bring the Houses together. But what they had wasn’t a whirlwind romance nor were they together for some alliance. Well, he was getting the ring now either way. It was just whether or not he would ask her soon or wait a bit longer. He rushed into everything else in life, he didn’t want to rush into this and ruin it.

**********

The stalls he was looking for weren’t too far away and he was soon picking up things he knew he’d need or parts that just caught his eye because they might come in handy some day. The Doctor had two boxes and a small carrier bag on the floor by his feet and was just finishing haggling with the old lady in charge of the four stands he’d been collecting pieces from when Rose sidled up to him.

‘This makes a change,’ she said as she stood by his shoulder whilst he fished his credit stick from his pocket to pass it to the vendor. ‘Normally it’s you waiting on me, not the other way round.’ She glanced down and saw the amount he was buying and commented on it saying, ‘well, I can see why it’s taken you so long, have you bought their entire stock?’ Her eyes twinkled in amusem*nt when he briefly caught her gaze before the old lady wanted his attention again to return the credit stick.

‘It’s just a couple of bits and bobs,’ he told her as he pocketed it again before bending down to pick up the boxes. He awkwardly tried to pick up the bag too but Rose grabbed it and held it for him alongside a slightly larger one of her own. After mumbling a word of thanks he addressed the old lady saying, ‘grazie Nonna,’ before turning and walking off, talking over the woman’s mutterings about not being Celtic as he asked Rose if she was ready to head back to the Tardis.

She was, though a few steps later she was questioning what he’d said to the vendor. ‘Hang on “grazie Nonna”? That’s Italian isn’t it?’ Her brow was furrowed as she glanced up at the Doctor whilst they walked side by side past the closing stalls.

He nodded. ‘Yeah and she’s Italian. Your Earth, your time, standard Italian old lady.’

To Rose this just didn’t make sense, especially not when he said the lady was from her time. Human space travel wasn’t capable of too much compared to what she’d seen travelling across the universe. ‘But how? We’ve only been to the moon.’

‘Alright, put it this way: would you have called me out for being non-human?’ He eyed Rose and had an idea of what she was about to say so just as she opened her mouth he clarified, ‘based on looks alone’.

She shut her mouth again at that then briefly trailed her eyes up and down his body. ‘Just on looks, no...except for the hair,’ she corrected when she caught sight of the brown gravity defying spikes. ‘No one’s hair is like - like - well, that.’ With her free hand she gestured, trying to pull the words from the air but unable to come up with anything better because really how could you describe it? It was just great hair. Really great hair.

‘So, apart from the hair,’ he began with a smirk, ‘I could blend in with you lot and I’m just one of millions of races out there in the universe. There are others that look like you and me and some are probably on Earth right now blending in. I suspect her partner whisked her off her feet and into space and here they are living a life together running a market on an asteroid light years away from where she grew up’.

At his words a warm smile grew on her lips. ‘That story sounds a bit familiar,’ Rose said, giving him a light nudge with her elbow, ‘getting whisked off into space by an alien. Feel like I got the better deal though’.

‘Yeah?’ He glanced down as she nudged him. At the fond look she was giving him he couldn’t help his own tugging on his lips.

‘Going from being a shop girl from Earth to being a shop girl on an asteroid isn’t really that different in the end. Be a bit more exciting than Henriks at first but I’d much rather be doing what we’re doing.’ She was wearing a bright grin as they stopped outside the Tardis. When the Doctor looked like he was toying between putting the boxes down or performing some sort of balancing act with them so he could get his key, Rose reached for the chain around her neck and pulled her own out from where it was hidden beneath her top. ‘I’ve got it.’

He flashed her a grateful smile as she unlocked and pushed the door open for him. ‘Ta. What happened to that dress by the way? The yellow one,’ he asked as the door swung shut behind them. They walked up the ramp where the Doctor set his boxes on the grating by the console so he could send them into the vortex.

‘Well, I was undecided and that guy you upset kept glancing over and glaring so I moved away to another bit and when I went back that way the stall was closed.’ She did like the dress, she thought it was pretty and it hopefully would have fitted nicely but that was the thing with buying stuff from a market, it wasn’t like there were any changing rooms around to check.

‘Lucky thing we’ve got a time machine then eh?’ They were floating in the vortex now but his hands were poised over the controls ready to take them back if she wanted. ‘Could go back and get it if you want?’

Rose shrugged; there’d be other dresses out there. ‘Nah it’s alright.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah, anyway I didn’t come back empty handed.’ She put down the Doctor’s bag and started going through her own as he stepped around the console to be by her side. ‘Got this new tea I thought we could try.’

He took the proffered cylindrical container painted with images of the plants used to make the tea leaves. They had a nice collection going in one of the galley’s cupboards of teas they had bought from all over the universe. Most were rather pleasant, some they had picked up again when they spied the familiar packaging because it was so good and others were not to their tastes at all. One container of tea had somehow “fallen” into a black hole after the Doctor had spat out his first sip because it tasted too much like pears. He’d been a bit more hesitant with his drinking of new teas since then so he plucked out his glasses and eyed the back of the container reading the ingredients. He hummed approvingly. ‘Oooh, I bet this’ll taste a bit Christmassy this one.’

‘Found that fruit, what did you call it assa-something?’ Rose continued as she struggled with removing the container of fruit, having wedged them together so it would fit in the bag.

‘Oh the blue strawberry looking one? Assabarra,’ he told her and grinned when she freed the container full of the bright blue fruit. ‘Yes there they are. Gorgeous fruit.’ He took the container and threw one of the berries up into the air catching it in his mouth with practised ease. ‘Could make crumble, or pie, or jam…’ At that thought his eyes lit up and he glanced down at the container and returned the handful of assabarra berries he’d picked out for eating so they would have enough fruit. It wouldn’t be a lot of jam but they could get some out of this at least. ‘How much did you buy?’ He asked tentatively, hoping that this wasn’t all the fruit they had.

Rose grinned at him, a fond, knowing look in her eyes. ‘I bought four cartons.’

‘Oh Rose Tyler.’ He beamed at her and she gave him her tongue touched grin at his joy. They could make jam and a pudding if not two. He was delighted. ‘Sod the Tardis maintenance we are making jam,’ he announced happily. The Old Girl seemed less enthused by his words and let out a low groan that almost sounded like a growl. The Doctor chuckled and patted the console. ‘You know that’s not what I meant. Don’t be like that,’ he told her then jerked his hand back, letting out a cry of pain as he recoiled from the sparking interface. ‘Oi,’ he complained before sticking the burnt fingers in his mouth to take away the sting.

Rose shook her head at the pair of them, chuckling softly. She wasn’t put off by the couple of sparks still popping up from the console where the Doctor had previously rested his hand. She reached out and placed her own down rubbing across the edge of the panel she was next to in a soothing motion. ‘He didn’t mean it, Old Girl.’ The lights in the room glowed a gentle golden colour as a faint purring hum filled the air. Rose smiled at the ship’s reaction. The Doctor huffed.

‘Oh believe her, why don’t you,’ he grumbled.

‘You’re only gonna make it worse, Doctor,’ Rose told him in a soft sing-song voice.

‘She started it.’ He flung his hand out to the side and gestured at the time rotor. At this the lights altered from gold to red.

‘I’m not taking sides, this is between you and her but before you get all stroppy could you take a look at this please?’ The Time Lord was pouting and mumbling about how he doesn’t throw strops though Rose smirked when she caught him eying the bag curiously as she reached inside to pull out the trinket. It looked a bit like a golden spinning top though it was nothing of the sort. ‘Got this for mum,’ she began to explain as she held it out in her palm for him. ‘Dunno if it’ll actually work or if it’s a con but thought it could be a nice ornament either way. They said it should accurately predict the weather which I thought could be good for unpredictable England.’

‘Bazoolium. That’ll do the trick alright.’ He took it and tossed it into the air before catching it again, his pout seemingly put behind him as he spoke about the trinket. ‘Hot if it’s sunny and cold if it’s rainy. What more could you want from a lump of metal?’

She took it back. It wasn’t just a lump of metal, it was a nice trinket. ‘Oi, it’s a fancy looking lump of metal and a gift for mum.’

‘I’m not saying it’s not nice,’ he said, his voice a little high as he tried to appease her, ‘it’s good, impressive for a metal even. You don’t get weather predictions from steel or lead or copper do you?’ The Doctor gave her a big grin when she glanced up at him which only grew bigger when she rolled her eyes. ‘Come on let’s get these into the galley and see what we can muddle together.’

They ended up making jam, crumble and pie with all the assabarra berries except for the handful the Doctor nicked as they made their baked creations. Once the jam was cool enough to eat they made some toast and lathered a rather healthy amount on top of their slices, digging in with moans of delight as the flavourful fruit hit their tongues. Then they set off to the library with their baked goods and had a little picnic on the floor in front of the fire. Rose set a few cushions down on the rug and they sat on them with their backs against the sofa and their legs stretched out under the coffee table that they’d pulled in close so they could have the crumble and pie within easy reach. They hadn’t bothered with dishing out servings; they’d just brought a couple of spoons with them to dig straight in because it wasn’t like they were sharing with anyone else. As hoped they both tasted as delicious as the jam and after they’d spent some time tasting them to work out which was better, it was the pie because of the melt in the mouth pastry, they settled back against the sofa. Rose cuddled into the Doctor’s side and with one arm over her shoulder and the other one holding up the third and final The Lord of the Rings book they relaxed into a quiet evening in the Tardis. The Doctor read aloud as Rose rested her head on his shoulder whilst she enjoyed the book alongside him, though every so often one or the other would stop to have another mouthful of pie or crumble because it was just too tempting to resist.

**********

The bedroom was dark and Rose was asleep. She had been for the last twenty-seven minutes and eleven seconds. As the Doctor carefully extracted himself from her embrace and crawled out of bed the bedside lamp on his side began to glow dimly as it always did when he got up in the night. He mentally thanked his ship as he picked out a fresh suit and shirt from the end cupboard and crept into the ensuite to change. He really didn’t want to risk waking Rose. She was usually quite a heavy sleeper which was lucky for a Time Lord who didn’t sleep much and quite often crept in and out of bed during the night. But after her strict warnings on his lack of quality sleep recently, plus the fact that she didn’t get a great amount of sleep the previous night herself so would be particularly grumpy if awoken, he really didn’t want to accidentally wake her. She needn’t know about this night time excursion, especially not with his plans for said excursion, even though as loath as he was to admit it a full four to five hours of sleep did sound good. When he returned to the Tardis he planned on curling up around Rose and doing just that but first he had some time travelling to do.

He’d slipped the shirt and jacket over his pyjama top and exchanged his flannel bottoms for his suit trousers before exiting the ensuite, grabbing his chucks by the bedroom door and making his way to the console room. After sitting on the jump seat to put them on the Doctor inputted the most recent coordinates and altered the date so they would land a month after they had last been on the asteroid K1-3P. Then he set off on his usual mad dash around the console flicking switches, pushing leavers, pressing buttons and twisting dials before he sent them on the way.

‘Be gentle with this one Girl, don’t want to wake Rose, it’s a surprise.’

The ship let out a soft agreeable hum to the Doctor’s murmurings and thankfully did just that. It was as smooth a landing as you could hope for and he patted her coral strut as he picked up his long coat, pulling it on before setting out through the doors.

The Doctor found they had parked in near enough the same spot in the alleyway, though if the Old Girl had edged an inch to the right and was five millimetres closer to the wall behind her it would have been the exact same spot. It was a more overcast day than their last visit and he felt the occasional spot of rain on the short walk to Brayer and Brooks’ jewellery shop. There were only a couple of people walking down the high street but it was early in the day. Perhaps too early. He walked up to the shop and took the steps to the door and found that the opening times were shown in the door’s window. There was fifteen minutes to go before opening. That wasn’t too bad the Doctor supposed and he went back down the steps to have a nosy at their window display whilst he waited in case there was anything nice for Rose. He wasn’t much of a jewellery man himself. He’d branch out into cufflinks if he had to but that was only if he had to wear a tux and after the incident with the Cybermen in the parallel world he didn’t fancy wearing a tux much. He didn’t even wear a watch in this body nor carry a pocket watch with him. He’d always worn one before. A nice watch on a chain or one strapped around his wrist, he was a Lord of Time after all, it was only right that he carried a recognizable form of it with him. Perhaps that was what it was about, him feeling a disconnect from being a Time Lord, maybe he was trying to be more human. He certainly felt more human than he ever had before; he was acting like it too even getting into a relationship with one. He could never be human though. In some ways he wished he could just so his and Rose’s life spans could match. They could grow old together, live a life at the same pace as one another and wasn’t that such a human want? It was a life he could never have and a life he would be taking away from Rose. Did she really want forever with a guy like him? Could he really give her the life she deserved?

The Doctor never got to answer his questions as a voice called out to him from just a little down the street, a voice that whistled every fourth word or so.

‘My, my, you’re incredibly eager aren’t you?’ Mr. Brooks called out to him as he approached. He wore a grey chequered three piece suit and carried an umbrella which he was using more like a cane. It clicked on the stone path every other step. ‘Still have ten minutes before we open up shop.’

‘Well, you know what they say the early bird catches the worm,’ the Doctor replied as he turned to the blue plumed man. His tone was filled with feigned cheer after the thoughts that had been working their way into his mind. Perhaps, he considered, it was just nerves that were making his doubts so rampant, nerves about popping the question as they called it. Whatever it was, he didn’t like it. Sometimes his big brain was too big for his own good with the amount of thoughts that could whirl around it.

Mr. Brooks raised his feathery brows, peering at the Doctor over the top of his little round glasses. ‘Do they now? Who is they?’

‘Uh.’ He scratched the back of his head rather awkwardly and made a few more sounds that weren’t quite fully formed words.

His reaction apparently tickled the other man very much. He let out a hearty laugh and a high pitched whistle before he said, ‘I’m pulling your tail feathers, there is no falling fowl after that sort of joke’. He laughed once more at his own play on words and the Time Lord chuckled along a little weakly. ‘Doctor, was it?’ He asked once he had calmed himself.

‘Er, yes the Doctor,’ he agreed, taking the proffered hand and shaking it.

‘Well, your order is ready and seeing as you’re so eager, why don’t you step inside.’ Mr. Brooks walked around the Doctor and up the steps to unlock the door. ‘What’s ten minutes anyway?’ He called out over his shoulder as he pushed the door and held it open for the Time Lord. ‘Time waits for no man as they say.’

‘Oh and don’t I just know it,’ the Doctor murmured to himself before going inside.

**********

The black velvet ring box was safely stored in the Doctor’s jacket pocket. He hung it back in the wardrobe along with his trousers and shirt before sliding the door shut being careful not to dislodge the hanger he’d hooked around the handle which bore a familiar yellow dress. He couldn’t help but have a search for it once he’d finished at the jewellers. Rose may have declined his offer to go back and look for it but he’d recognised her disappointment. If he hadn’t already got a plan in his mind to be going back to the asteroid for the ring he might have taken her there anyway. It would be a nice surprise for her when she awoke.

Lifting up the covers the Doctor crawled back into bed, the lights dimming almost immediately. He shuffled close to Rose and gently wrapped an arm around her whilst she peacefully slept with her back to him. Well, she had been sleeping peacefully. She roused a little under his touch and made a questioning humming sound. Then her hand found his where it rested on her stomach and she rubbed the back of it gently, letting out a murmur that was probably his name in her sleep-addled mind though left much to the imagination in the waking world if it wasn’t for the definite “or” sound at the end.

It brought a grin to his lips. ‘Go back to sleep, Rose,’ he whispered, placing a kiss into her hair.

Rose apparently wasn’t ready to do such a thing quite yet though. With her eyes still closed she turned to her opposite side so she now faced him then clumsily wrapped her arms around his middle, a gesture he soon returned with a happy sigh. He didn’t have a favourite Rose mood. How could he when there were so many good ones to choose from? But if he had to pick, sleepy Rose would be one of his favourites. She was absolutely adorable, sleepy and not grumpy Rose that was, just to specify. Not that she wasn’t adorable when she was grumpy, the Doctor very much thought that she was though had learnt not to point out such things to said grumpy Rose as grumpy Rose didn’t appreciate it. Still, the way she snuggled into him like she couldn’t bear to be a millimetre apart truly was one of the most adorable sleepy Rose actions.

He ended up on his back in the end with Rose’s head resting over his left heart, her golden hair splaying out over her shoulder where one of the Doctor’s arms was wrapped around her. His other lay across himself, his hand over Rose’s arm that reached across his body so her hand could rest over his right heart. They both felt rather full right now and very much owned by the woman who rested on top of them. He heard her mumbled goodnight and felt the kiss she pressed onto his t-shirt covered chest just as the realm of sleep took him.

Chapter 46: The Runaways

Chapter Text

Soft puffs of air were released from his slightly parted lips whilst he slept.

Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump.
Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump.Thump thump.
Puff.

She could feel the steady rhythm of his hearts beneath her palm. Feel the rising of his chest as he took another slow breath before letting it out as a small puff of air as his chest fell again. Rose could watch the sleeping Doctor all day; in fact she’d crawled back into bed, after a brief trip to the loo and a brush of her unruly morning hair, with every intention of doing so. Well, all day was rather an exaggeration but she would watch until he woke up at least because him being asleep certainly wouldn’t be an all day affair.

When Rose had awoken, the Tardis had not long begun her morning light cycle. It wasn’t like being on Earth where light would brighten her bedroom through her pink sheer curtains. There weren’t any windows in her room in the Tardis to brighten but the ship was as wonderful as ever and emulated that early glow through her lighting around the room. Rose found it to be a very nice and soothing thing to wake up to. Just like it was when she’d found the Doctor asleep beside her. He really did look incredibly peaceful. The creases so often formed on his brow had faded into near non-existence just like the faint lines etched onto his forehead, particularly around that eyebrow he so loved to raise. The occasional freckle dotted his skin there too leading a scattered path to the more prominent ones that dusted his nose and cheeks. The same cheeks that gained those immensely cute dimples when he grinned. Rose couldn’t see those dimples now though, not when his face was as relaxed as it was. His hair was looking as relaxed as ever too, the brown strands all ruffled and misplaced from when he turned in his sleep. She wanted to card her fingers through it, whether to neaten it or to make it messier she didn’t know. Her eyes dropped from his hair to the hand resting on the pillow next to it. His palm was tilted upwards and she could see the mole he had near the bottom of it not far from his wrist. It was a strange place for a mole; she didn’t know of anyone else who had a mole on their palm but then again she didn’t go around staring at people’s hands all day. She found her own hand sliding from his chest and gently settling into his, their palms pressing together in a way like they were made to fit as one. The Doctor moved at the touch, his long, thin fingers lightly curling around the back of her hand. She smiled at the gesture and glanced back at his face that was still relaxed in sleep though she noticed the trace of a smile on his own lips.

She continued watching him for another five minutes, she would have continued on longer but it was the Doctor’s voice that interrupted her.

‘Why are you staring at me?’ He asked in that deliciously deep, in Rose’s opinion, morning voice he had. He sounded amused and if it wasn’t for the faint smirk that had replaced those slightly parted lips which released his sleepy breaths she might have thought she’d imagined his voice. His eyes were still shut and his face looked as peaceful as ever, he really looked like he could have been sleeping.

When the Doctor’s thumb gently brushed over the back of her hand she realised that he’d asked a question and she hadn’t answered, instead she’d continued to stare at him which was the reason for his question in the first place. ‘Because you look so calm and relaxed,’ she said softly, ‘it’s not something I often get to see’.

‘I’m always calm and relaxed, I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he mumbled back.

She let out a little laugh and saw the hint of a dimple on his cheek. Rose lifted her hand from his and cupped that cheek instead, her thumb lightly rubbing over the dimple that was still formed there. Then his eyelids fluttered open revealing the ever emotive brown eyes that shone with such warmth and affection towards her.

‘Hello beautiful.’

The smile on Rose’s lips grew into her tongue-touched grin. ‘Right back at you mister.’

His dimple faded as he pouted at her words. ‘I’m not beautiful, handsome, yes, but not beautiful.’

‘Oh I do apologise Mr. Manly Man,’ she said, putting on a deep voice as she joked around. ‘I didn’t mean to upset your manly ideals.’

He reached out and rested a hand on her hip. ‘As you should. I’m the manliest man to have ever manned.’ He said it with a completely straight face so Rose continued on with her part of the act.

‘Of course you are, never doubted that.’ Then she saw the smirk he was trying to hide from his lips and knew she wasn’t doing much better as she bit her bottom lip in an attempt to bury her own. Neither lasted much longer before they were laughing.

‘Did you notice the dress by the way?’ The Doctor asked once their amusem*nt had subsided. He nodded his head backwards towards the wardrobes where the yellow dress still hung on its hanger.

She smiled at him warmly, her fingers now brushing through the hair at the nape of his neck. ‘Yeah I did. You didn’t have to go back and get it though.’

‘But I wanted to,’ he countered, ‘you looked disappointed when you told me you hadn’t got it’.

‘I was a bit yeah.’ Rose leant forwards and pressed a brief kiss to his lips. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, her lips still brushing against his.

He kissed her again. ‘No problem.’

Rose soon pulled back though with a crease in her brow. ‘But I haven’t gotten you anything.’

Smiling gently he moved his hand from her hip to her cheek, his thumb smoothing out that crease that had no reason to reside there. ‘I have everything I could want right here.’ It was the truth and his voice portrayed that sincerity just as much as the look in his eyes did when he locked them with her hazel ones.

With anyone else she might have scoffed and not believed them, just thinking of it as a cheesy line, but not with the Doctor. She pulled him closer with the hand on his neck and kissed him once more, trying to impart that same feeling into him. He hummed in contentment, his hand falling from her cheek and cradling her head instead, getting his fingers tangled in her hair as he did so. After her tongue trailed across his bottom lip he opened his mouth to allow her entrance. Their tongues brushed up against each other, performing a dance that caused one of them to moan or perhaps it was both of them, Rose wasn’t sure. Her fingers carded through his hair just like how she had wanted to earlier; she tugged on the strands a little when he gently bit her lip as she’d pulled back for air. He groaned, his hand dropping to her back to tug her body closer, then his lips began to press kisses down her neck drawing a path towards her collarbone. She tilted her head back to grant him easier access and he sucked, nipped and licked at the skin there. When his trailing hand found no other fabric, when he’d slipped it underneath her baggy Live Aid t-shirt, he pulled back and looked at her through dark, hooded eyes.

‘Rose Tyler, you appear to be wearing just a shirt,’ his low voice commented as his hand grazed over the curvature of her bottom. She caught his gaze and he raised his eyebrows. ‘Did someone have certain plans for this morning?’ He asked suggestively.

She brushed her foot up his calf and his hand stopped where it was, lightly squeezing the flesh there. ‘What sort of plans are you talking about, Doctor?’ Her tone was light and innocent though her eyes betrayed her as they twinkled mischievously. He tugged her even closer with the hand on her bum so now they were pressed up against each other with only a couple of layers of thin fabric separating them. She trailed her foot even higher up his leg and the Doctor’s fingers skimmed over her thigh before holding her leg in place so it was hooked around his hip. Rose could feel him then, the bulge hardly hidden behind his flannel pyjamas.

‘I have one or two ideas in mind.’

His voice sent a shiver down Rose’s spine and he arched his brow at the effect it had on her. Once she had composed herself she asked, ‘just one or two?’

At that his look darkened. He leant closer and practically growled in her ear, ‘I’m just warming up’.

With that promise he nipped at her ear until she pulled him away and kissed him so thoroughly that even he was gasping for breath. Using the leg already wrapped around him she pushed him onto his back leaving Rose straddling his hips which bucked as she settled against him. Her fingers found the hem on his shirt and tugged it upwards pulling it over the Doctor’s outstretched arms and head before she dropped it off the side of the bed. His hands resettled on her hips whilst hers explored his stomach and chest, her fingers gently brushing over his skin until her thumbs came to play with his nipples. All the while her mouth dotted kisses and her teeth gave gentle nips to where her fingers had just been. When she shifted, her mouth moving to his neck, he couldn’t help but buck again. He slid his fingers beneath her shirt then drew the fabric upwards causing Rose to lean back up so he could take it off.

She was now fully naked and the Doctor had one thought on his mind. As she leant back down he rolled them so he was on top of her. Rose let out a surprised squeak at the movement which he soon captured in his mouth when he kissed her once more. Using one elbow to hold himself up he put his free hand to good use and teased her breast with his fingers. He couldn’t help but grind into her a little when she hooked her legs around his hips, her heels digging into his bum. He was still wearing his pyjama bottoms at this point but was too wrapped up in her to take them off with her legs around his waist as one of her hands trailed its nails down his back whilst the other dug into his scalp eliciting a low groan from the Time Lord. When her heavy pants were hot on his skin as she pulled away for air he said, ‘Rose, can I taste you?’

‘I think you already have, Doctor,’ she answered a little breathlessly with a smirk.

He shook his head. ‘No. I mean really taste you?’

The Doctor’s voice was exceptionally husky and when his eyes caught hers to impress his meaning she saw his pupils were blown wide. He hovered over her as he awaited the answer but Rose hardly hesitated because that man loved to use his tongue and she could already imagine how good it would feel. She swallowed and let out a shaky breath nodding as she did so. Rose didn’t think she’d been more turned on in her life. His eyes somehow darkened further at her answer and his lips crashed into hers once again. She felt his hand trail down her body and she let out a small moan as his fingers brushed over her folds.

‘You’re already so wet. I haven’t even done anything yet,’ he mumbled against her lips.

‘Stop smirking.’

‘I’m not smirking.’ He pressed deeper and Rose gasped.

Once she’d caught herself she replied a little breathlessly, ‘smirking smugly, I can feel it’. She felt his soft chuckle against her lips too at her comment. Then his thumb brushed over her cl*t and her back arched up. As good as that felt it wasn’t what he’d said he was going to do. ‘Are you going to put that tongue to good use or what?’ Her voice was filled with a need that only made his smirk grow wider though luckily after another peck to her lips he moved away.

‘Oh yes sir, sorry sir,’ he teased as he slowly crawled backwards.

‘Shut up.’

‘Right away sir.’

Before she could fire back a retort she was gasping. His head was between her legs and his tongue was circling her cl*t sending a wave of pleasure through her. She was right, his tongue did feel fantastic. She felt the heat grow over her tingling body as her org*sm built. His hands were on her thighs which were hooked over his shoulders, his tongue darting in and out of her folds before he moved back to her cl*t. He sucked on the sensitive bundle of nerves and Rose let out a loud moan that had her gripping the bed sheets and tightening her legs around his head. He didn’t seem to mind though; in fact he hummed, perhaps with approval or amusem*nt as Rose’s loud reaction, sending a further wave through her. She could really feel it now, she was so close. Her hands moved to the Doctor's hair and she let out a breathy warning which only seemed to egg him on. Soon her back was arching, her legs were squeezing his head and her fingers were pulling on his hair as he worked her through the spasms.

That wasn’t her only org*sm of the morning. Their activities continued until they were both hot, sweaty and spent messes lying naked on the bed catching their breath.

**********

The time travellers went on many adventures over the following weeks. First they stopped an assassination attempt of the entire royal family on a distant planet in the Velu Minor System. Rose was certain their luxurious home was the inspiration for the Disney castle because they were so similar; it really did look like the beginning of the Disney films she had on VHS as a kid. What she didn’t remember in those films were bombs in any of the royal carriages and luckily with the Doctor’s quick thinking the bomb was disarmed before it could explode. It was a bit of a close call though. The culprit was eventually found when their next attempt on the royals went even worse. It ended up with him drinking the poisoned wine he’d intended to be given just to the royals before any of them took a sip. It turned out that the younger brother of the King really wanted the throne and all the evidence of his creation of the poisoned wine plus the hatred filled scribbles in his journals were all too evident in his chambers.

After their couple of days at the castle they ended up in 1908 solving a mystery on a train in Switzerland. Strangely enough it turned out that a Capuchin monkey was to blame for all the jewellery thefts that occurred on the journey. Rose and the Doctor were only on the train to see the sights and to try out the dining car but then one old lady was shrieking so much they’d rushed into her compartment the next carriage over thinking she was being attacked. Yes the diamond ring that had been stolen was worth an eye watering amount when the Doctor translated the few thousand francs the lady had estimated it to be into the amount it would be worth in Rose’s time in pounds, but still, those screams signalled murder not thievery. After that the other passengers noticed some of their shiny or glittery pieces of jewellery were gone too. Using the silver comb Rose had in her hair, to create the up-do she had decided on to go with the early twentieth century dress she wore, the pair set a trap and were surprised that it was not a human passenger they caught but the monkey. Rather like a magpie, it seemed the Capuchin had a penchant for shiny things and, after escaping from the cage in the luggage department, took it upon themselves to gather quite the collection which they then took back to their cage for safe keeping. What the plans were for all those jewels afterwards they couldn’t suss out but the Doctor and Rose spent the returning train ride joking about what the monkey could spend their small fortune on.

The following days weren’t quite as joyful or exhilarating. They weren’t much of anything really. There was only so much you could do stuck in a jail cell in modern day France. Getting stuck in a jail cell with a certain Time Lord wasn’t too bad all things considered. Yes he could get a bit whiny and you most certainly knew he was bored but the thing was they weren’t in the same cell. They hadn’t even seen each other since they were caught and that was three days ago. It had started out fine, well, they were in jail so clearly something wasn’t fine. Landing inside the Louvre wasn’t part of the plan nor was landing inside there after dark. Security had found them before they could make it back to the Tardis and none of the Doctor’s speeches or even whatever he showed them on his psychic paper seemed to be able to get them out of being arrested for breaking and entering and attempted burglary. They ended up getting carted to a nearby police station near Saint-Eustache Church where they were locked up in two separate holding cells. There were only two good things about this situation in Rose’s opinion. It was the present day so there weren't any damp, rats or other problems like that to contend with and secondly she was at least next door to the Doctor so they could talk to each other if they weren’t too loud about it. They both kept getting taken for questioning each day. The police weren’t happy with the Doctor’s “alias” and they were very insistent on finding out how they managed to get into the building with the amount of security measures they had installed there but no matter what the pair told them the police wouldn’t accept the answers as the truth. She supposed that when the truth was as farfetched and mad as it was then it was unlikely to be believed anyway. That didn’t mean it didn’t annoy her. By the time they brought her back to her cell on the third day and the Doctor, through the wall, had asked how it had gone she was rather pissed off and ranted to him about it. Thankfully that was their final day being locked up.

Rose was rather bewildered when the officer came and told her she was free to go. She stepped out of the cell and found herself soon under the watchful gaze of the Doctor who was standing waiting for her at the end of the corridor next to his own guard.

‘Alright?’ He asked when she walked up to him.

‘Better now yeah. What did you do?’

He shook his head, the concern in his eyes for her altered to something darker. ‘Wasn’t me.’

The pair were shown out of the building and they stepped out onto the drizzly Parisian street. Across the road was a large black SUV with what Rose recognised as a UNIT officer stood next to the passenger door. But before them was a woman with shoulder length blonde hair standing under an umbrella. She smiled a little when she saw them exit the building and Rose looked over to the Doctor in question and noticed the tension that had been in his shoulders fade away as he recognised the other woman.

‘Sorry it took us that long, the paperwork was a nightmare,’ the woman said in lieu of a greeting.

The Doctor stepped closer and Rose followed by his side. ‘How did you know?’

‘The public. It’s not a common occurrence for a picture of the Mona Lisa to be posted online with a blue police box standing beside it.’ The woman glanced over to Rose at that point and must have seen the confused look in her eyes. ‘My apologies. Kate Stewart,’ she extended her hand to Rose, ‘Scientific Officer at UNIT’.

She took the hand and shook it, returning the smile Kate was offering her. ‘Rose Tyler.’

‘Yes, companion of the Doctor since 2005.’ With Kate’s words Rose’s smile fell though Kate was soon trying to remedy that. ‘Sorry, I’m sure that sounded rather strange,’ she said with a little humour in her voice. ‘UNIT keeps tabs on all his known associates for security reasons.’

‘Not that I agree with it,’ the Doctor grumbled from beside her, crossing his arms. Before Rose had a chance to ask what exactly “keeping tabs” meant the Time Lord had moved onto other matters. ‘But what’s the Chief Scientific Officer doing out in Paris freeing us from jail? That’s what I want to know.’ He raised a challenging eyebrow at Kate who raised both of hers in return because of his misspoken words.

‘Chief Scientific Officer?’

At first the Doctor looked confused and then he understood. ‘Agh, time travel,’ he complained, running a hand through his hair in annoyance at his blunder, ‘forget I said anything’.

She chuckled lightly. ‘Hargrave is retiring next year. I shall assume the recommendation for me to take his place goes well then?’

‘My lips are sealed.’ He made the gesture of zipping his mouth shut and throwing away an invisible key over his shoulder which garnered him an amused look from Rose.

Kate simply smiled at him gently and decided to move the conversation on. ‘We’ve recovered the Tardis though I wouldn’t recommend another visit to the Louvre for a while; there are only so many times we can do this before it’s classed as a waste of resources.’ With her words came the slightly indignant huff of the Time Lord though Kate paid him no mind. ‘What I can offer you is a lift to the Seine where the Tardis is parked and there’s something there I’d like you to meet.’

His demeanour altered to one of intrigue immediately. ‘What is it?’

‘We were hoping you could tell us that.’ She gestured to the car behind her and the trio stepped towards it, the UNIT officer standing outside the passenger door opening the one at the back for the Doctor and Rose whilst Kate walked around to the other rear door and got in. As soon as they were settled, including the officer who jumped into the passenger seat after shutting the door once the Doctor had sat down, they were off on the short drive through Paris. Kate flipped down what could have been a tray attached to the back of the seat in front of her but it was actually a hidden computer keyboard with an inbuilt mouse. As soon as the keyboard was visible the two small screens in the back of the headrests turned on and she logged in and ran through a few pages until she found the couple of images she was searching for. ‘They’re not the best of quality I know,’ she began to explain as the Doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out his glasses. He and Rose both leant forwards to study the screen. There was a photograph taken underwater showing a creature that looked rather like a hybrid of a mermaid and an octopus. Going by the pixel size the image was enhanced quite a bit and the fact that it was taken underwater wasn’t in their benefit either. Kate flicked to the next picture, a headshot of the creature, it was hardly any better. ‘We can’t get anywhere near it, not even with the dive team, it just swims further away every time we try. We’re cross referencing the images through our systems at the moment though your opinion would be greatly appreciated.’

The Doctor sat back with a sigh, running his fingers through his hair as he said, ‘can’t say I particularly recognise it. Send the images to Rose’s mobile. I’ll send it through the Tardis database and see if there’s a match there’.

Rose didn’t even blink at the Doctor requisitioning her mobile once again; she was still focused on the image of the creature with a growing frown on her features as Kate’s words went through her mind. ‘Have you tried communicating with it?’ She asked and both the Doctor and Kate turned to where she sat in the middle of the car. Previously that might have made her a little overwhelmed but she was more than used to the Time Lord’s intense gaze and she’d helped direct a group of UNIT officers before their mission to capture the Drakkads so one UNIT science officer didn’t faze her. Instead she continued explaining her line of thinking, ‘every time you try to get close it moves further away yeah? To me that sounds like it’s scared.’ The Doctor hummed approvingly and Kate nodded.

‘We haven’t been able to make contact yet but that’s not for lack of trying,’ she told them just as the car pulled up.

They’d crossed a bridge over the river on the way to Île Saint-Louis where they now stepped out of the car and onto a thin street packed with other UNIT vehicles. They were overlooking the water and, as the Doctor pointed out to her, they were also overlooking Notre-Dame Cathedral. It sat over the water on the next island looking rather astute with the roof of the curved building at the rear just poking over the top of the weeping willow and the other trees that were losing their leaves in the autumnal weather. The spire and the two towers at the front of the cathedral were clearly visible and Rose vaguely recalled seeing them before during the trip to France with her school when she was around thirteen. The bus had done a driving tour of many of Paris’ landmarks before ending up at the Louvre where again they were meant to be seeing the Mona Lisa. Rose and Shareen had skived off and caught a train to a theme park so she didn’t see the artwork on that trip either. Perhaps she was never destined to see it in person.

The Tardis was parked at the top of a cobbled ramp which used to be used to take boats in and out of the water but was now left derelict which was lucky because the UNIT officers were making good use of it. The one’s in lab coats had set up science equipment and were conducting tests or were gazing out into the water with binoculars whilst the others, in their black uniforms and red berets, just looked to be standing around seeming important but not doing much, in Rose’s opinion.

The Doctor shot off into his ship after Rose passed him her mobile, ignoring the number of “Sir’s” and salutes the uniformed officers were trying to give him, whilst Kate walked with Rose down the slope to the water’s edge.

‘Anything?’ She asked one of the scientists as they passed.

They lowered their binoculars as they spoke. ‘Nothing for the last ten minutes, Ma’am.’ Kate nodded and thanked them and they went back to looking through the binoculars once more.

‘I hope the Doctor will be able to help, we’ve had to halt the river traffic in this area and the government isn't best pleased. We’ll have to contain it if this can’t be wrapped up soon,’ Kate said as they stopped and looked over the Seine.

‘He’ll find a way to help, he always does,’ Rose said assuredly.

Kate glanced at Rose, eyeing her approvingly. ‘My father said you’re rather good too which is high praise coming from him.’

‘Your father?’

She smiled kindly at the younger woman. ‘Yes, I use the surname Stewart professionally but I’m actually a Lethbridge-Stewart.’

Rose’s face brightened in realisation. ‘Oh the Brigadier. Alistair.’

‘How is he?’

Both women turned at the voice of the Doctor who was a couple of feet away, strolling towards them with his hands in his pockets.

‘Thinking of retirement again,’ Kate answered.

The Doctor scoffed. ‘I give him three months.’

‘You’re braver than me, I gave him six,’ she said with a smirk that soon fell as she moved back to business. ‘What of the creature?’

‘Aunafaun,’ he announced with a grin. ‘From the planet Flydon Maxima in the Flydon Agglomeration. What it’s doing all the way out here I haven’t the foggiest but I do know why you haven’t been successful in communication.’

‘Why?’ Rose and Kate asked at the same time, both eager to get to the end of this mystery.

He rocked on his heels happily. ‘They only communicate telepathically. What luck to have UNIT’s best resident telepath on the scene.’ He straightened his tie with a co*cky look on his face that Rose raised her eyebrows at. Kate seemed to ignore his attitude and got straight into the business of what should be done next.

The Doctor ended up alone on a boat in the middle of the Seine whilst everyone else watched from the shore with bated breath. He looked a little mad: a man sat on a boat in a suit with his eyes closed as he concentrated on connecting with the Aunafaun. He wasn’t the best telepath, touch telepathy was much more his forte but Rose was right, the creature was scared and wouldn’t go near a soul because of it so regular telepathy would have to do.

Finally he felt the faint tugging in his mind of the Aunafaun tentatively reaching out to the connection he was offering, allowing him to begin the telepathic conversation on their terms.

Hello, my name is the Doctor. I want to help you. I understand you’re from Flydon Maxima, but you’re a long way from home now; how come you’re here on Earth?

You look like them but you understand me. How?

Even telepathically their voice sounded timid and scared to the Doctor.

I’m not from Earth either.

Do you trust them?

Wellll they’re not too bad when you get used to them. Rather interesting really. And this lot here specialise in alien contact with beings like you and me. They only want to help. Can you tell me what happened?

There was a pause before the Aunafaun’s reply.

An asteroid hit my ship and I crashed. I only just made it to the water in time.

I can have a look at your ship and try to repair it for you if you want. Then you can go back home.

There was a nearby splash in the water and the Doctor opened his eyes at the sound. Before him was the Aunafaun. Their small head, about the size of a human toddler, was poking out of the water, their dark almond eyes blinking at him. Their face was a pale blue and completely flat with dots for the nose and a thin line for the mouth. Two of their octopus looking tentacles protruded out from either side of their round head like thick fleshy pigtails mostly hiding the gills on either side of their neck whilst their other tentacles floated atop of the slightly bobbing river in the same way that a skirt would. They tilted their head to either side as they eyed the Doctor inquisitively. He was eyeing them with just as much curiosity.

I would be most honoured if you would help me Doctor though I do not have much to offer in return.

He smiled at them.

I don’t want anything but to help you.

The Aunafaun explained how their ship had crashed in a bush in the grounds of the nearby hospital and was wearing a cloaking device so it at least should not have been accidentally found by any humans. After a quick hop in the Tardis, and a search of the grounds with Rose, Kate and a couple of UNIT officers, the ship was located. It was about four feet long and only two feet wide; it was more like a pod more than anything and certainly not a ship you’d want to be stuck in for a long haul flight. There was a bit of a dent in the side from the asteroid impact and the front end of the ship looked even more worse for wear but that was all just cosmetic. The real issue was the loss of engine power from what the Doctor presumed was caused by the tailspin the ship was sent into after the unexpected impact as they orbited the planet. Luckily with his sonic, plus some of the new parts he’d brought from K1-3P, he was able to get it running once more. The Aunafaun was delighted and welcomed the Doctor to visit if he was ever in the Flydon Agglomeration.

Rose, who had been by the Time Lord’s side as he fixed the ship, passing and holding and turning on the engines when he asked, also received an invite. She gasped at the sound of the unexpected voice in her mind and found the Aunafaun looking at her curiously. None of the others noticed the brief interaction, the officers were standing guard keeping prying eyes away and the Doctor was speaking to Kate.

You can hear me?

Rose tentatively thought as she stared at the creature with wide eyes.

Of course, you are telepathic; you are not like the other humans, as the Doctor called them.

She swallowed nervously. She didn’t know what to think. Being able to communicate with the Tardis in her mind was one thing but this was completely different. She’d just assumed she’d got some sort of bond with the Tardis like the Doctor did that enabled her to understand the Old Girl a lot better than when she’d first come on board but now she was wondering if that understanding was something completely different. But how could she be telepathic? You can’t just learn telepathy, you had to be born with it and she was human so that shouldn’t be possible. Plus the Doctor would have known if she was telepathic surely? The scans he’d done of her would have picked it up at least, though if he wasn’t looking for it perhaps he never scanned for it…

The Doctor stepped beside her, his hands in his pockets as he nodded to the Aunafaun, clearly having a telepathic conversation with the creature who had turned their large black eyes towards him. Soon they were waving the ship off as it shot upwards through the cloudy skies and it wasn’t long before they were bidding their farewell to Kate and UNIT as the time travellers entered the Tardis once again.

She hardly had time to think about her apparent telepathy because they were off on one adventure after another and Rose found that she was too exhausted when they did stop to bring up what would be quite a taxing conversation with the Doctor so kept putting it off.

Over the next few days they nearly got mauled by a big cat in a jungle, went ice skating on Woman Wept, got stuck in a swamp in the middle of nowhere, went to the opening night at the Sydney Opera House, cured a village of Typhoid and visited Pluto. The latter was just because they could, plus Rose wanted to see how big it really was compared to the other planets in the Solar System. From where she stood on the surface, within the gravity bubble the Tardis was providing for her, she claimed it looked big enough to her to still be considered a full planet. The Doctor didn’t contradict her; she’d actually visited other planets and seen them up close unlike the scientists on Earth who made the decisions on what size a planet had to be before it was considered one. Plus she was the first human to walk on Pluto and that had to count for something.

**********

After a visit to a very icy planet where they may or may not have met a yeti the duo were back in the Tardis. Rose was making some pho in the galley to warm up her human self whilst the Doctor had ducked under the console to do some maintenance. He’d hardly made a start for the Old Girl on the boxes he’d brought from the bazaar on K1-3P because they’d been out and about everywhere and everywhen and had hardly stopped for a breath. Rose didn’t seem to mind and hadn’t commented on the lack of downtime between adventures though it wasn’t like all of their trips were high intensity or life and death; those were still just the bits in between.

He knew what he was doing though. He was running. At least this time he wasn’t running away from Rose, she was a near constant by his side, no, what he was running away from was asking Rose. Once a coward always a coward so it seemed. At some point he had to stop though. Stop to actually think about what he wanted and what Rose wanted too. Well, he already knew what he wanted, he’d gone out and bought a ring, had one made even, so that much was obvious. It was just what Rose wanted. She loved the life that she had now. She loved the freedom of it, the adventure and even the danger, but would she still want this life in the future? She was still so young. She could have a beautifully ordinary human life with a job, house, partner, kids and pets. But Rose had promised him forever. And who was he to say she wouldn’t want this life in the future? He’d been at it for hundreds of years and he still loved it so why couldn’t she? In the end it wasn’t the Doctor’s choice what Rose wanted. It was her own choice and would always be her own choice and whatever decision she came to he would respect it. All he could do was ask and let her make that call.

Perhaps it still was too soon. But were they ever really just friends? There was always something there between them or at least the Doctor thought so and clearly others did too. Jack was a menace and a tease when he was onboard. He saw straight through his and Rose’s friendship and called them out on it many a time, but this was Jack Harkness and he saw relationships in anything with a pulse so his thoughts had to be taken with a heap of salt. Jack was thinking there was more to their relationship and he’d travelled with them but a few they met on their travels, whether that was before, with or after Jack’s time in the Tardis, also made similar assumptions. Most notably Medrek thought they were mates and Benjamin Franklin took one look at them and thought husband and wife. He and Rose had stopped correcting people’s assumptions after a while because it had become repetitive and if that didn’t tell him something about their clearly more than friendly behaviour around one another then he didn’t know what would. Even Rose herself had made comments about them. She’d called him a rubbish date because he didn’t have enough money for chips and again when they were on New Earth reminiscing she’d called that first adventure in the Tardis their first date. Was that the sort of thing friends did? Were there such things as friend dates?

They’d been dancing around what they were for a long time and now they had finally reached there. Reached a point that many had thought they were already at some time ago. He was going to ask Rose because she was always so much more. He was never blind to see it, he just could never let them be more or have more, but he’d given into that temptation eventually. Now he never wanted to be without it, be without her, and this was his way of letting her know that the Doctor would always love Rose Tyler. Forever.

As though her ears were burning Rose entered the console room and hopped up onto the jump seat to eat her bowl of pho. The Doctor hadn’t noticed her at this point, too wrapped up in his thoughts and he didn’t hear her steps on the grating due to the music, she didn’t mind though and sat there happily slurping at the noodles. Her feet swung in time with the fast pace of the chorus of The Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go, he was very much into seventies and eighties music this regeneration, before slowing to a more noodle-eating-friendly pace during the verses. After a few more songs she was finished with her meal and set her empty bowl on the jump seat before hopping down and jumping through the hole in the grating much to the Doctor’s surprise.

‘Blimey!’ He cried out at her boisterous appearance. He jolted away from the spark plug he’d been about to remove at the loud bang as she landed under the console, his head shooting around to discover it was just Rose and not some explosion on the ship behind him. ‘You’re like a ninja.’

Rose considered that he could have been being sarcastic by calling her a ninja after her loud entrance but she took it to be a complement in her ability to appear unnoticed until she chose not to be and told him just as much. ‘Or you’re as deaf as a bat when you’ve got music on.’ She stooped down and walked towards where he was sat cross legged on the floor with Tardis parts scattered around him.

‘I know for a fact that that was very rude, Rose Tyler,’ the Doctor told her, pointing his sonic screwdriver at her threateningly though there was no real malice in it. Rose simply stuck her tongue out at him. ‘Rude,’ he admonished once more.

She settled down on the metal floor too, careful not to displace anything in case there was some order in the chaos he had created. ‘There’s more pho if you fancy some later.’

He turned back to finish removing the spark plug and spoke to her over his shoulder. ‘Ta. You’ve really gotten into that, haven't you, since we’ve been to Vietnam?’

Rose shrugged and picked up a piece of metal that sort of looked like a hand crank though she doubted that was actually what it was. ‘What’s not to love?’ She began to fiddle with the metal in her hands then quickly amended her statement, scrunching her nose up a little as she remembered. ‘Except for the lemongrass. Felt like they put a bit much in mine, overpowered the other herbs, so I added less.’

‘And?’ He raised his eyebrows and looked back at her and was greeted with a beaming smile.

‘It was brill,’ she enthused, happy with both the flavour and her ability to recreate the recipe.

The Doctor’s smile at her was just as bright. ‘Look at you, Chef Tyler.’ His voice portrayed how proud he was and how brilliant he thought she was but Rose shied away from his praise a little.

‘Well, I can do soup.’

‘Oh, but it’s a fancy soup,’ he told her assuredly.

‘Yeah, suppose.’ She wasn’t fully convinced but gave him a small smile.

He shook his head fondly as he scoured the floor for the new spark plug he’d bought. One day she might just take the compliments he gave her because he really did think that she was brilliant. ‘So did the timer help?’

She nodded. ‘It’s not like we all have clocks in our brains.’

‘I can tape it to your forehead, then it’ll be close enough,’ he mumbled but Rose still heard him and nudged him in the back with her shoe. ‘Hey!’ He cried out in complaint, looking over his shoulder to see her shoe and hitting it away with his hand. ‘You’ll get mud on my shirt.’

Giggling as she drew her foot back she then gave the Doctor a look as she began her list, counting her thoughts out on her fingers as she went through it. ‘One: we’ve basically just been to planet Antarctica where it was nothing but snow and ice, no mud in sight. Two: you’re wearing a dark blue shirt, it’s not gonna show even if they were muddy, which they’re not. And three: no touching Fred. He’s got a proper little place in the galley now sitting next to the orange fern near the kettle.’

He scrunched his face up. ‘Fred?’ He asked incredulously, shuffling around so he could face her properly. His voice was high before he continued on slowly, his words full of disbelief, ‘you’ve named the timer? An inanimate object…’

‘He’s a yellow duck, he needed a name,’ she said as though it was a reasonable thing to do and to Rose it was. Humans named lots of inanimate things like cars and toys. If it was a regular timer then she wouldn’t have thought to name it but this one looked like a cartoon duck and had a cute face, it seemed only right to give it a name.

‘Fred?’

Rose shrugged. ‘Looked like one.’

‘Oh, of course,’ he said, his sarcasm evident in his tone, his wide eyes and his slowly nodding head.

‘Shut up,’ Rose retorted with a laugh and the Doctor smiled warmly at her. ‘What you doing anyway?’ She asked, gesturing at the mess around them.

‘Losing my marbles. I’m sure I brought a replacement spark plug down here.’ He scratched his head as he frowned at all the other parts on the floor as though they had hatched a plan and had purposely hidden it from him.

‘Looks like the one in your hand?’ The Doctor nodded in answer and she started looking around for it too. She soon spotted it next to her leg and out of sight of the Time Lord. ‘Oh, sorry, got it,’ she said as she picked it up and handed it to him.

He took the spark plug with a disapproving shake of his head. ‘You little thief.’

Rose laughed. ‘Oh yeah, because I was gonna, I dunno, spark some plugs elsewhere.’ That got the Doctor laughing too. ‘Well I dunno what it does do I?’

Once his laughter had faded he asked, ‘Mickey was a mechanic wasn’t he? Did he never talk about what he was fixing in the cars?’

‘No, he didn’t really talk about what he was up to, just about the people.’ The Doctor nodded at her answer and was about to shuffle back around when Rose spoke. ‘Will you tell me?’

‘What?’

‘What it does, where you’re putting it, you know…’ she started to trail off with a bit of uncertainty as he stared at her in disbelief.

Then the Doctor shook himself mentally. He might not have been able to believe that she actually wanted to know but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be delighted to tell her. ‘Do you really want to know?’ He asked just to make sure. He hardly hid the glimmer of hope and the hint of excitement from his eyes as he waited and was rewarded with a grin.

‘Yeah,’ she said brightly, hoping that her voice sounded sincere because she was interested to learn.

The Doctor beamed. ‘Alright then Rose Tyler, scoot on over and don’t steal anything else on the way.’ He raised an eyebrow in warning, which Rose saw through instantly with a scoff, before turning the opposite way.

‘Go on then, spark plug 101,’ she encouraged him to start once she had settled next to him after clearing enough room for herself.

He didn’t immediately talk about spark plugs, however, instead his mind had trailed off to the thoughts he’d been having before she had joined him under the grating. ‘Do you want to go away?’ He asked quietly. The spark plug twisted in his fingers as he waited for the answer. He didn’t look at Rose, simply watching the plug, but when he felt her gaze burning into his cheek he glanced up and saw confusion written on her features which was reasonable because it was a rather random question. What he didn’t understand was the shock and disbelief that was starting to mingle in her expression aimed towards him. But still he went on because he had to know her answer. This was the start of his plan and he didn’t want it falling off the rails before he’d even begun. If Rose didn’t want to go away then he’d have to have a big rethink of his ideas. ‘I’ll get onto spark plugs in a minute but do you want to go away for a couple of days or so?’ Then before she’d even had a second to process his repeated question he quickly blundered on and added, ‘with me I mean. Go away with me. Together’. It had dawned on him that his meaning could be easily misinterpreted and that was probably why Rose was giving him such a look.

With the amount of times the Doctor had asked if she wanted to go back or go home and now go away it was pretty easy not to understand what he was inferring when he didn’t explain himself. It normally happened after he’d done something wrong or something particularly bad had happened and she was upset but neither of those things had happened. Plus they were partners now so Rose had thought they’d put all that sort of stuff past them. She was with him for the long haul, the good and the bad and nothing was going to drive her away. Of course the idiot just needed to explain what was going on in that big head instead of assuming she’d understood his vague words of “go away”. But now Rose knew he wasn’t chucking her out of the Tardis for some unknown reason she was still just as confused. ‘What, like a holiday?’

‘Yeah a holiday.’ The Doctor answered with a nod, grateful that she understood what he was trying to get at.

‘But you,’ she began tentatively, ‘on a…holiday’.

‘What?’ He asked, mildly offended by her tone. ‘I can do holidays.’

‘No aliens we’re fighting…no running for our lives?’

He felt a little awkward under her scrutinising gaze and scratched his neck as he said, ‘well that’s the plan’. Rose looked at him sceptically and he huffed at her evident doubt in him. ‘Do you want to go or not?’

A smile grew on her lips and she stopped her teasing before the Time Lord could really take offence to it. ‘Where to?’

At her words the Doctor’s eyes lit up. ‘I was thinking Barcelona,’ he said with a hopeful grin.

‘Really? You’re actually gonna take me there?’

Rose sounded excited by the prospect and that buoyed him further. His plan was well on its way now. All that was left to do was to not say anymore and spoil the surprise and to get them there of course. ‘Well it was always on the cards just got a bit distracted is all. Anyway, good. Now that’s all sorted back to spark plugs. The first thing you want to…’

He went through a rather fervent explanation of the spark plug, including the history and invention of it which somehow led him onto the topic of reindeers until Rose brought his ramblings back to the matter at hand. As he was installing said spark plug, something which should have been a rather easy thing if it wasn’t for the positioning forcing him to bend his wrist at a rather awkward angle to affix it, Rose was watching from beside him absently mumbling the words to Bennie and the Jets which was quietly playing in the console room. He found himself joining in and mumbling along with her. Upon hearing her light chuckle he glanced back to see her smiling at him, he grinned back and sung a bit louder.

‘Sure, Candy and Ronnie, have you seen them yet? But they’re so spaced out. B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets.’

Rose laughed at his mad singing and goofy facial expressions, particularly enjoying his enthusiasm when he sang the name of the song. When she joined in and sang just as energetically as he did the Doctor ditched the spark plug and focused on enjoying and putting his all into their playful rendition.

‘Oh yeah but they’re weird and they’re wonderful. Oh Bennie, she’s really keen. She’s got electric boots, a mohair suit. You know I read it in a magazine ooooh B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets.’

Their smiles were rather giddy and they were both laughing a little though they didn’t get a long break as soon they were into the call and response part of the song with the Doctor taking the first, and unfortunately for him higher, “Bennie” whilst Rose shouted the second.

He cringed and swallowed rather dryly when they reached the end of the first lot of call and response saying, ‘blimey I’m going to need a glass of water after this. Why does he go so high?’ The Doctor only just managed to reach the end of his sentence before he was shouting out once again. ‘Bennie!’

‘Bennie!’

‘Bennie!’

‘Bennie…’

Chapter 47: Mother Knows Best

Chapter Text

He’d told Rose that they would head to Barcelona tomorrow and tomorrow had now technically arrived although he certainly hoped it hadn’t for Rose. Today of all days was not the one for her to be awake extremely early and unable to sleep. Luckily he’d only ever seen that in Rose when they’d had a particularly harrowing adventure which he didn’t believe they had recently so he was reasonably unconcerned with her waking before he was done with all of his pre-Barcelona tasks.

After lying in bed with her for just over an hour the Doctor had slipped out and had dressed in his customary brown pinstripe suit and a tie. He’d chosen the tie Rose had gotten him, the navy blue one with the twisting pattern of vines, leaves and flowers in a pale pink and a slightly paler shade of blue, it only felt right wearing it today of all days.

First he booked them into some accommodation for a couple of nights and got them a fancy dinner reservation for their first evening there. It was kind of cheating that he could use the Tardis to make both bookings in advance but he didn’t care, he wanted everything to be perfect for Rose and if he had to use some Time Lord tricks to do that then he would.

The one thing no Time Lord trick would help him with was his final pit stop. In fact it rather might be a hindrance.

Jackie Tyler was on the phone when the Tardis groaned and materialised in her kitchen. ‘Oh it’s alright Bev,’ she spoke into the handset from her seat on the sofa. ‘I just sat down on the remote and the sound started blasting,’ Jackie told her friend to explain away the strange sound of the ship that Bev could hear through her end of the phone. She paused as she listened to what Bev had to say, eying the doorway into the kitchen as the Tardis door squeaked then clicked shut a moment later. ‘Oh yeah, I know it sounds awful. I’ll have to get a man in.’ The Doctor’s lean frame appeared in the doorway and Jackie rushed to end the call. ‘Listen Bev, I’ve got to go. Rose has just turned up…yes I know but I take what I can get with her these days…I will yeah, speak to you later.’ She took the phone from her ear and ended the call before placing it on the sofa cushion beside her. Then she looked back at the Doctor again who was leaning on the doorframe, his legs crossed at the ankles and his hands tucked in his trouser pockets looking the epitome of cool and calm. Internally he was feeling anything but.

‘Decided to grace me with your presence have you?’ Jackie voiced, getting up and peering around the Time Lord trying to catch a glimpse of her daughter, a panic starting within her that she hadn’t seen her yet. It was today. Today was the day when he returned to tell her Rose was hurt or… ‘Where’s Rose?’ She demanded, needing to be certain before she started to go down that route in her mind.

‘Oh, she’s in bed,’ he said, his voice light as though he hadn’t even considered that she would start worrying when her daughter didn’t leave the Tardis. Jackie eyed him fiercely and made a noncommittal sound. ‘She is,’ he exclaimed, his voice going high at her evident doubt in him. He pushed himself off the doorframe and withdrew his hands from his pockets, holding them out in question. ‘Why would I ever lie about that? What purpose would I have to lie about that?’

‘Well I don’t know, do I?’ She retorted. ‘You pair are practically joined at the hip and you don’t just turn up here on your own, you get dragged here by my daughter.’ He snorted at her final words and shook his head at her. Jackie crossed her arms and eyed the Doctor suspiciously. ‘Why are you here then? What are you up to?’

‘Erm.’ He paused, a hand coming up to scratch the back of his head. ‘I er - I…’ Jackie frowned at the stuttering Time Lord who usually had quite the opposite problem to not being able to get his words out. He swallowed and tried again. ‘I wanted to ask you a question,’ he finally managed. He stepped forwards, stopping by the coffee table, one hand rooting around in his jacket pocket whilst the other wafted towards the sofa asking her to sit back down again.

She frowned but returned to her seat waiting for this question of his as she regarded him still rather suspiciously.

The Doctor ducked his head down as he clasped the small black velvet box he had drawn from his pocket, covering it from sight within his hand before looking back up to Jackie. His ears burnt red under her stare and he swallowed again. ‘Um…Jackie,’ he began, turning the box to face her before he carefully opened it, holding it out and allowing her to see what was inside. ‘Will you-’

Jackie caught a glimpse of the ring, heard the start of his question and cut off his words with her sharp intake of breath as her hands flew up to her mouth. ‘Are you asking me to marry you?’ She shrieked, her tone incredulous.

He winced at her high pitched outburst. Then her words hit him and he was absolutely baffled and repulsed by the prospect. ‘What?! No!’ He exclaimed. ‘Why - why on Earth would I be doing that?’ His brow was painfully furrowed as he stared at the woman before him as though she had grown two heads. Well she could certainly scream loud enough so he wouldn’t put it past her.

‘I should bleeding well hope not and I don’t know, you’re the mad alien,’ she fired back, both annoyed for her daughter’s sake, as she was the one infatuated with the man, and offended by his reaction. It wasn’t that she did want to marry him of course, she could never see herself doing that, but he didn’t have to be so rude in his rejection and it was nice to feel wanted. ‘You don’t just come in here and open up a ring box…’ She began, waving her arms around as she made her point.

The Doctor glanced down at said box, which he had instinctively drawn back towards himself when she’d shrieked, and said rather weakly, ‘I - I was just showing you’.

She didn’t appear to hear him and continued with her argument, ‘...and what’s a woman supposed to think if you don’t go explaining yourself?’

He looked back up at her, regaining a bit of his fight as she ranted. ‘I would if you’d let me get a word in edgewise,’ he grumbled but yet again Jackie just carried on regardless.

‘You might not have got down on one knee but you started off your question saying “will you.”’ She tutted a little at the Time Lord and his misleading behaviour. ‘I mean seriously-’

He groaned. Oh he could not be dealing with this right now, today was supposed to be a good day and he didn’t need to start it off with a headache. ‘And you’d have heard the rest of the question if you’d have kept your mouth shut and didn’t go jumping to conclusions,’ he explained. His voice was slightly raised so she would stop complaining and actually listen to what he was trying to say. Finally Jackie was quiet.

She stared at him and then huffed. ‘You weren’t as rude as this in your last body.’

‘Yeah, well rude and not ginger that’s me,’ he said with an exasperated sigh, absently running a hand through his hair.

Jackie’s stare gained a confused edge to it. ‘What?’

He shook his head and mumbled, ‘doesn’t matter’. After glancing down at the ring box he held it back out and eyed her pointedly. ‘Can I get on with this now?’

‘Fine,’ she said with a bit of a huff again as she crossed her arms once more.

The Doctor nodded to himself and took a deep breath. ‘Jackie...will you consent to me asking Rose for her hand in marriage?’

Jackie gasped again but thankfully, for the Doctor’s sanity and eardrums, this time she did not shriek. Her arms loosened from where they were grumpily crossed over her chest as she stared between the ring and the Time Lord. Her voice was quiet for once as she asked, ‘you’re going to ask Rose to marry you?’

He gave her a demeaning look for asking pointless questions. ‘Yes,’ he said definitively. ‘And just so we’re clear I’m going to ask Rose Marion Tyler, your daughter, to marry me. Not you. Not anyone else. Just her.’ He really didn’t think it was that hard to understand but he wanted to cover all bases after that disastrous start.

She nodded up at him wordlessly before her gaze fell to the box in his hand once more. ‘Can I see?’ She asked, indicating to the ring. He passed the velvet box to her and she took it, cradling it in her hands as though it was the most precious thing. The ring really was beautiful, she thought. Its gemstone, inset into the band so it hardly stuck out on top, was glinting like a rainbow in the light of her living room whilst the small white diamonds set around it glistened just as brightly.

‘You can take it out if you like,’ he suggested as he watched her. Jackie glanced up at him with uncertainty but his small smile and affirming nod put her at ease and she gently did so.

Now out of the box she could study the band, though she’d never seen a band quite like this. It was flatter than a usual ring and didn’t follow a straight line either; instead it curved the entire length like a wiggly line from one diamond until it reached the diamond on the opposite side. It was as though it was made by connecting tiny circles together until they formed a band. Within each of those circles patterns were engraved into the gold. Jackie thought they looked pretty but didn’t understand the symbolism of them because they weren't just patterns. It was the swirling, circular writing of Gallifrey hiding a message to Rose from the Doctor.

Said Doctor now felt safe enough with Jackie’s reaction to take a seat on the sofa as well, picking up the phone on the cushion and moving it to the coffee table so he could sit down beside her. He watched as she continued to study the ring, then she shook her head a little and brought one slightly shaky hand to her mouth.

‘My little girl’s getting married,’ she whispered, the shock of it hitting her now.

He scratched his sideburn. ‘Well, she hopefully will if you say yes.’

Jackie turned to him, her shock dissipating and being replaced by an all too knowing look. ‘You’ll ask her to marry you anyway even if I don’t.’

Tilting his head to the side he thought about it briefly but ultimately came up with the same conclusion. ‘Yeah, I probably will.’

A faint smirk tugged at her lips at his agreement. ‘Then why bother to ask?’

‘It’s what you do isn’t it? Ask the parents to marry their child.’ He was beginning to wonder if his information on human marriages was wrong or outdated but it was too late for that now, he’d already asked, so he decided to explain himself in another way. ‘On Gallifrey,’ he began, then saw her blank look and quickly added, ‘my home planet, have I never told you that?’ He looked rather perplexed at the idea then shook his head. ‘Anyway. Doesn’t matter. On Gallifrey marriages were used to strengthen alliances between the Great Houses and the Chapters so it was all very formal with a lot of approval needed from all concerned.’

‘Did they never marry for love?’ Jackie asked, a little saddened by the prospect.

He smiled gently at her sentiment as he shook his head. ‘No. It’s heard of but it’s rare, very rare. Time Lords considered themselves above such emotions. They tried to be as emotionless as possible in fact.’

‘But you’re not.’

His smile grew at her quiet statement. ‘No. Never was good at being emotionless, me. I make for quite a rubbish Time Lord in that respect.’

She briefly placed her hand over the back of his where it idly rested on his leg. ‘You are a good man though and that’s what matters,’ she told him with certainty. Her words made him feel warm inside but he simply gave a little shrug. Then her expression changed and became rather thoughtful. ‘But is this what you really want, Doctor?’ He eyed her with confusion and she carefully continued as she explained herself. ‘Rose isn’t like you, she’s going to age and grow old. She won’t be able to continue on your trips all the time; she’ll want to slow down at some point because she won’t be able to keep up.’ The Doctor opened his mouth to answer but Jackie apparently wasn’t done as she quickly moved onto a new thought that had come to mind. ‘And what about children? You can’t be running off into danger when you’ve got them to consider. And can you even have kids? Are you compatible?’

He held his hands up to try and halt her incessant questions and it clearly worked as she quietened at his movement. If only he’d thought of that tactic earlier. He looked into her eyes, trying to impress the truth and certainty in his statements. ‘Jackie. I love Rose now and I will continue to love Rose in the future. It doesn’t matter to me what she looks like or can and can’t do, we’ll get into the details of that when we get there, but I don’t think I could ever stop loving her. Even - even after. Even if I somehow make it another thousand years, she’ll always be with me…and children,’ he said with a shrug as he changed the topic to her follow up questions. ‘Well we haven’t even discussed this yet so that subject certainly hasn’t been broached. But yes thank you for your concern about my reproductive system,’ he told her, his voice gaining a bit of an edge. ‘I can assure you that I am quite capable and we are compatible should we want to take that route. And of course things would change if we did have a baby to care for. We wouldn’t be ignorant parents uncaring of any dangers.’ His tone was a little sharp that she might consider his ability to care for a child lacking. His own child at that. A child that was made from a bit of him and a bit of Rose. He would scoff at the idea of such neglect if Jackie wasn’t already looking at him a little apologetically.

‘You know what I mean though. This will be a whole new adventure for you pair. Just getting married will be let alone anything else. And about getting married, how’s that going to work?’ At his confused look she added, ‘the ceremony I mean’.

‘Oh,’ he breathed. ‘Well I suppose your customs aren’t that different. Some parts are and there’s some parts I’d like to add like the hand fasting and then there’s the...well I’d have to discuss it with Rose first but the general idea won’t be too dissimilar to those you’re accustomed to I’d imagine.’

‘Have you even been to a human wedding?’ She asked sceptically.

He smirked as he countered with, ‘been to yours’. He chuckled as her eyes widened. ‘Back in my old body with Rose,’ he added as explanation, ‘sat near the back, though even if you had noticed us you wouldn’t have recognised us’. In his mind he felt the Tardis nudge him, warning him that Rose was going to be waking up soon. ‘Well best be getting back before she notices I’m gone,’ he said, slapping his hands on his thighs before rising from the sofa. He’d taken a few steps towards the kitchen before Jackie’s words made him quickly return back to her.

‘Forgetting something?’ She called out after the Doctor. She’d been watching him walk away before realising she was absently fiddling with the ring box he’d given her in one hand. She held it out to him as he whirled around at her words, his eyes comically wide making Jackie smile at the man before her.

‘Right. Yes. Blimey. That would’ve been embarrassing wouldn’t it?’ He strode back to her, snatching the proffered box from her palm, then eyeing the box now in his hand as he said, ‘I’d have been tearing the Tardis apart looking for this’. There was a low groan of complaint from the Old Girl in the kitchen causing a smirk to tug on the Time Lord’s lips. ‘No need to take that tone with me,’ he shot back over his shoulder, ‘I’ve got it now so you needn’t worry’. He held the ring box up as though she could see it then focused back on Jackie who was staring at him like it was actually him of the pair who had grown the two heads.

Jackie thought he had lost it until he waffled something about the Tardis being sentient and that he was communicating with her. Well, she still thought he’d lost it even after his confusing explanation but she decided to move past that point. She shook her head at him and changed the subject. ‘So when are you asking Rose?’

The Doctor beamed at her. ‘Today,’ he told her, his voice jubilant. ‘Going to take her to Barcelona. The planet that is, not the country.’ Then the look fell a little and he became more contemplative. ‘Well that’s the plan anyway,’ he said with a sniff as he tucked his hands and the ring box in his pockets. ‘But as Rose says we might not always end up where we want to be but we’ll end up where we need to be.’ He shrugged and turned but before he could wander off into the kitchen Jackie spoke up once again.

‘Get me a picture when you do ask her won’t you. Last I’ve got of you pair was when you dropped by for my birthday…two weeks late mind,’ she added in a grumble as he glanced back at her.

He rolled his eyes; he’d gotten an earful at the time. ‘You weren’t complaining by the end of your impromptu party,’ he reminded her, ‘you were saying you felt like the Queen having multiple birthdays’. He tilted his head to the side for a moment before he added, ‘though you didn’t appreciate it when I said you didn’t look a day over eighty’.

‘And I still don’t,’ she scolded, firing daggers at him with her eyes.

He grinned at her cheekily, feeling a safe enough distance away to jibe her and knowing he was about to head off in the Tardis and not see her for a while. ‘Yes ma’am.’ He gave a little bow then turned and quickly headed into the kitchen before she could throw anything at him after catching her murderous glare. Calling out over his shoulder he said, ‘anyway. I’ll be off’. Then his words became a mumble as he continued thoughtfully, ‘maybe I should let her drive. You always seem to take us where we want when she’s in charge, don’t you dear?’ He patted the blue painted woodwork of the Old Girl. She hummed as though shrugging at the Time Lord who huffed back at her nonchalance. As he got out his key a new thought hit him. He whirled round and poked his head back into the living room, one of his hands holding onto the door frame as he eyed Jackie. ‘And one last thing Jackie. Don’t mention any of this to Rose.’ As a dangerous look started to grow on her face once more and he quickly added, ‘not that I think you would but time travel and all that. Just - I’ll let you know when the topic is safe to broach. Or Rose probably will actually’. He gave her a little smile. ‘Anyway, ta-ra.’ And with that he ducked back into the kitchen and finally stepped into the Tardis.

**********

Rose was feeling rather excited when she awoke so much so that she’d even gotten up a little bit earlier than usual. They were going on holiday today. An actual holiday with sun, sand, sea and a planned hotel stay and everything. She hoped that this would work out for them. As much as she loved the adventures this would be a nice change of pace. Plus finally she’d get to meet the noseless dogs! The Doctor said that she would find them adorable but wouldn’t let her get one because she didn’t let him keep Arthur the horse. Rose thought it was a rather weak counter argument but wasn’t going to fight him about it until she saw the dogs. Then if one somehow happened to find its way onto the Tardis she certainly wouldn’t complain about it.

He wasn’t in bed when she got up and going by the coolness of the mattress beside her he’d been up a while. Not that she minded. She was loving the still rather new sensation of falling asleep in his arms. She sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes on the small pink suitcase that the Doctor had procured for her from somewhere last night. It looked like it would make do for an overnight bag but it wasn’t just an ordinary suitcase it was bigger on the inside so would have plenty of room for everything she wanted to take plus whatever he wanted too. Though invariably he wouldn’t take much. Rose stood up and went to the chest of drawers and opened one of them expecting to see her bras but instead found a rather neat and ordered collection of plain and thinly striped socks belonging to the Doctor. She’d forgotten about the change in layout after the Tardis had moved their things around the other day, continuing her gradual merging of their stuff. She shut it and opened the drawer below and took off her sleep shirt before slipping one of the bras on. Then she grabbed a few and chucked them into the suitcase lying open on the Doctor’s leather chair. She left the drawer open, still needing to pack her underwear and swimwear, and moved onto the wardrobe with her tops in. After picking out the purple shirt she’d worn on their trip to New Earth and sliding it on, she was just doing up the final button when something caught her eye. It was the yellow dress which was neatly hung up with the other few dresses that she retained in her room. Rose hadn’t had the chance to wear it yet because it wouldn’t have suited any of their adventures but now would be a perfect chance. She briefly considered packing it in the suitcase but thought better of it. It might be bigger on the inside but that didn’t mean her clothes wouldn’t crease any less. She would have to wear it and probably wait to put it on until just before they left so she didn’t crease it whilst she packed. Rooting through her drawer to find a bra that would work with the thinly strapped dress, the blue colour of one of them reminded her of a bikini she’d bought. Her eyes roamed over the swimwear in the drawer but it wasn’t there. She’d bought it before she’d met the Doctor, before she’d seen the Tardis and how her paintwork perfectly matched the shade of the bikini. She would have to get it. The Doctor would love it.

Rose wandered through the ship’s corridors in her purple shirt and a pair of sleep shorts, a strange combination she knew, but she just had to find the Doctor and ask him. She was drawn to the console room by the sound of…Kate Bush? Yes, Rose thought it was Kate Bush; she had quite a unique voice so you couldn’t really mistake her songs for anyone else’s. It wasn’t a surprise to find one of the floor panels missing and the Doctor tinkering away under the console. She knew he hadn’t gotten as much done as he had planned to the day before, what with him teaching Rose about different parts of Tardis maintenance plus their impromptu renditions of the songs that were playing whilst they worked, so he was probably trying to finish up some bits before their trip. He must have seen her through the grating because he stuck his head out of the hole as soon as she stepped up to it. He had a big goofy grin on his face and a smudge of grease on his nose. Rose thought he looked adorable.

‘I'm glad you didn’t come in any earlier,’ he said as the music faded from the room. He wiped his greasy hands on the rag as he continued, ‘that would have been embarrassing, having you hear me try to reach the lofty notes of Kate Bush. Surprisingly, with my manly man voice,’ at these words he lowered said manly man voice so he could demonstrate how manly his voice could be before he concluded his sentence saying, ‘I can’t do it’. Rose was smirking at him as he hopped up onto the grating. ‘Oh and have you seen her music video for Wuthering Heights?’ He asked her eagerly though didn’t give her the chance to even try to answer. Wrapping his arms loosely around Rose he excitedly rambled on about said video talking about how he was convinced that either Kate was an alien, someone on the video editing team was, if not the whole lot of them, or that they had used alien technology because it was entirely too mesmerising for it to be just a regular music video. ‘She’s only spinning, twirling, whatever you want to call it,’ the Doctor was telling her, his eyes bright and happy as he did so. ‘It just doesn’t make sense - why are you looking at me like that?’ His sentence changed halfway through as he noticed the look on Rose’s face whilst she listened to him.

Rose shook her head, still smiling up at him, her hands resting on his chest over his hearts. ‘Nothing. You just seem exceptionally chipper today.’

He shrugged and raised his eyebrow. ‘And is that a bad thing?’

‘No, not at all,’ she answered, her hands sliding up his chest and to the nape of his neck.

‘Anyway, can you blame me?’ He was sporting a big smile again because he really couldn’t help it. If only Rose knew. Well, she could tell something was up due to his giddiness but he was trying to convince her it was just because of the holiday. He was pleased to see she was looking equally happy about it.

‘I still can’t believe you suggested it,’ she said with a grin that slipped into a more teasing expression as she added, ‘and you’re sure you won’t get bored with it being just a holiday? No aliens to chase or mysteries to solve...’

He gave her an admonishing look but his eyes still twinkled as he said, ‘with you by my side, Rose Tyler, how could I ever be bored?’ Rose smirked and opened her mouth about to start listing those exact times when he had been bored around her but he silenced her with a kiss. ‘Shush you.’ He had pulled back just enough to speak though Rose leant closer and chased his lips uncaring about his retort. Considering the circ*mstances, kissing Rose Tyler, the Doctor thought it was rather reasonable to just let it lie. There were better things he could be doing with his mouth.

A frown marred his brow when she pulled back for air. He wasn’t frowning at her actions, more the couple of dark smudges across her cheek. ‘What is that?’ He murmured.

Rose’s eyes widened at his words in concern at what he’d seen then she rolled them when he leant closer and gave a cursory sniff before lightly trailing the tip of his tongue across whatever it was that was on her cheek. A soft giggle left her lips when he recoiled, screwing his nose up in disgust.

‘Grease.’ He looked both puzzled and disgusted now as he aired his tongue trying to remove the taste. ‘How have you got grease on your face?’ Still in one another’s arms, he lifted up his hands on either side of her head so he could inspect them. ‘But my hands are clean,’ he complained before dropping his gaze back to Rose. ‘How?’

With a smirk she gave him the answer to his mystery. ‘Probably from the grease on your nose, Doctor.’

He blinked and the word, ‘oh,’ left him like a breath. The Doctor then gave her a small sheepish smile as he apologised but Rose simply shook her head at him.

‘No matter, should probably take a shower before we leave anyway…and speaking of leaving,’ she said, tentatively starting a new topic of conversation that she was certain the Time Lord wouldn’t approve of. ‘Can we go to mum’s first?’ Rose was right. The instant she mentioned it the look on his face soured. ‘Don’t look at me like that, it’ll be quick I promise. And I can take her that gift we picked up at the bazaar and I should probably take some wash for her…’ she trailed off as she tried to remember if there was anything else she was forgetting.

‘And what’s wrong with the Tardis laundry?’

‘Nothing,’ she told him and gave him the same answer as she always did when this discussion cropped up. ‘I just like to save a few bits for her to do. She likes to feel useful, you know.’

He looked like he was in pain. ‘Can’t this wait until after we get back?’ He complained.

Rose didn’t want to tell him everything but she had to give him at least a vague reason why this detour couldn’t wait. ‘I wanted to pick something up for the trip.’ At the look he gave her that reason was far from good enough. ‘You’ll like it I promise,’ she tried next, really not wanting to give him any more than that because he was a smart man and could probably have a good guess if he thought about her words. Clearly he wasn’t in a thinking mood because he was still looking unimpressed. This called for another tactic. Rose’s hands slid from his shoulders to his neck, her fingers slipping beneath his shirt collar and brushing over his skin making his breath catch. ‘How about I let you help me out first then?’ She asked in a voice with a seductive quality to it.

He swallowed as Rose’s fingers moved to his tie and undid the knot. ‘Help you out how?’

She smiled at his response. ‘Well it’s not exactly like I can see my face in the shower is it? How will I know I’ve cleaned all the grease off?’

‘Rose Tyler,’ he said, arching his brow in warning. The Doctor could see through this game of hers but he was powerless to stop it. Denying Rose of something she wanted was exceptionally hard to do.

‘If you don’t want to join me then that’s fine. Not a problem,’ she said with as much nonchalance as she could muster, leaning back into his arms as though she was about to leave. Those arms tightened around her and she tried her best to hide her smirk.

‘No, there is a problem.’ He walked her backwards three steps until her back connected with the railing then his arms loosened from around her waist and his hands found the front of her shirt instead. ‘Because you’re wearing far too many clothes and there isn’t a shower in sight.’ As his fingers worked on unbuttoning the shirt he kissed her and felt the top two buttons on his own shirt being undone before her delightfully warm hands were on his cooler skin. His hands were soon caressing her body once he’d undone all the buttons and had slid it off her shoulders leaving the shirt on the railing to pick up later. His fingers danced across her back roaming all over her pale flesh until he reached her bra strap which he couldn’t help but ping with one of his fingers, the elastic snapping onto her back. She bit his lip in retaliation but that only made him groan. When Rose pulled back for air his hands slipped lower, brushing over the soft fabric of her sleep shorts until he reached the skin where her bum connected with her upper thighs. He grabbed her there and picked her up making her squeak in surprise. Still, Rose’s arms automatically locked around his neck and her legs hooked around his hips and then he began the walk out of the console room as he looked for the nearest shower on the ship. Luckily being in a sentient ship that could move the rooms around at will meant one wasn’t far away.

**********

Instead of parking in her usual place at the estate the Tardis had parked within the children’s play area in the nearby Brockwell Park. It was a beautifully sunny early November day as Rose stepped out of the ship swiftly followed by the Doctor. She swung her big rucksack of laundry over her shoulders whilst he shut the door and then they set off with a spring in their step towards her mother’s. They were both exceptionally clean after their joint shower. The Doctor had put the same clothes back on but Rose, having hardly been dressed before the shower in the first place and knowing that she was going to put on her yellow dress when she did finish packing, just grabbed some clothes she wouldn’t be taking on the trip and put them on. Her outfit now consisted of a black vest top, a black pair of trousers and a light blue knitted zip up hoodie. She was just going to her mum’s, it would do.

‘Mum! It’s us! We’re back!’ She called out as she let herself and the Doctor in through the door of the flat.

Jackie was in the kitchen but bustled out immediately upon hearing Rose’s voice. ‘Oh, I don’t know why you bother with that phone, you never use it,’ Jackie scolded, but there was no real malice in her words. She was overjoyed to see her daughter especially after first the scare and then the happy news following the Doctor’s unexpected visit a couple of hours earlier.

Rose simply beamed at her. ‘Shut up, come here.’ The two Tyler women wrapped their arms around one another tightly, both professing their love to the other.

The Doctor watched their interaction with a smile and tried to squeeze past them in the hallway to get to the living room but Jackie spotted him before he had the chance.

She immediately released Rose and grabbed the Doctor instead. ‘Oh no you don’t. Come here.’ First she kissed him then she wrapped her arms around him, ignoring his ongoing protestations and lack of reciprocation in the hug. ‘Ooh you lovely big fella. Oh you’re all mine. Yes you are.’ She relinquished him from her tight hold but, much to the Doctor’s chagrin, she planted another kiss on his lips before letting go of him fully.

Rose watched the whole thing with amusem*nt and giggled softly at the look of disgust on the Time Lord’s face as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Now she could get by, she moved past the pair to the door to her room. ‘I’ll just be a sec,’ she called over her shoulder then glanced at the Doctor, her eyes twinkling with mischief, as she added, ‘you two can just…continue or whatever’. His eyes widened at her words and she grinned at him cheekily as she stepped into her room, just catching his glare before she shut the door behind her.

He was still mid glare when all of a sudden Jackie was dragging him into her room and shutting the door. His eyes widened again, not knowing what was going on, but Jackie’s quiet question quickly cleared that up.

‘Well?’ She asked, her eyebrows rising insistently. The moment he shook his head she hardly looked disappointed with the answer and quickly moved over to her dresser and the jewellery box that stood upon it.

‘No, she wanted to stop here first,’ he replied just as quietly, watching her movements with intrigue because clearly this secret meeting in her bedroom wasn’t just so she could ask that. She acted as though she already knew the answer.

After rifling through the box she was soon facing the Doctor again with a gold wedding ring in her hand looking uncharacteristically nervous as she began to explain herself, ‘you might have already got something planned and that’s alright it was just an idea. You might not like it anyway. But this was Pete’s’. She looked down at the ring in her palm, as did the Doctor who was starting to see where this speech was going. ‘I thought about it after you left earlier and thought if you wanted you could size it down for Rose but it’s just a silly idea really-’

Before she could start to talk herself out of it he rested his hand over hers, the ring stuck between their two palms, and Jackie looked up at him. ‘You would let me do that?’

Jackie had looked a little apprehensive, not certain how the Time Lord would feel about the gesture, but this faded away at his words and the awed tone of his voice. ‘Of course I would. I just didn’t know if you would like it.’

He smiled at her warmly. ‘I like it and I think Rose would love it.’ Jackie beamed and squeezed his hand. ‘Only if you’re absolutely certain though.’

She sighed at him exasperatedly. ‘Yes you daft alien,’ she told him firmly before releasing his hand and pushing him back towards her door. ‘Now let's get back out there before herself does.’

Jackie had just followed the Doctor into the living room when they heard Rose’s bedroom door opening. He reached down and grabbed one of Jackie’s magazines from the coffee table to see what rubbish they were putting in them these days whilst she turned to her daughter who smiled but walked past her mum and over to the Time Lord. She had a plastic bag in her hand which she slipped into his coat pocket.

‘Oi,’ he protested lightly, looking over the magazine to see what she was up to. Rose grinned up at him cheekily.

‘Now, no peeking,’ she warned him, poking her threatening finger into his side. He pouted but Rose saw the mischievous glint in his eyes and raised her eyebrows at him. ‘I mean it mister, you’ll ruin it.’

He huffed. ‘You do know you’re not helping your case at all, that’s only making me want to look more.’ She gave him a look. ‘Fine,’ he said with a sigh and was rewarded with a tongue touched grin for relenting.

Happy enough that he wasn’t going to look, Rose turned to her mother, who was watching the pair with a fond smile on her face, and took her backpack off with a groan. She dumped it into her mum’s arms as she said, ‘I’ve got loads of washing for you and I got you this’. Holding up the golden metal, shaped a little like a spinning top, that she’d pulled out from her pocket, she turned it over in her hands as she explained, ‘it’s from this market on this asteroid bazaar. It’s made of - um…’ She trailed off and tapped her head as she tried to remember but soon gave up and turned to the Doctor. ‘What’s it called?’

‘Bazoolium,’ he announced, briefly glancing up from the third magazine he had looked at. It wasn’t much better than the other two.

‘Bazoolium,’ she repeated, then looked back at her mum and excitedly explained how it worked, ‘when it gets cold, yeah? It means it’s gonna rain. When it’s hot, it’s gonna be sunny. You can use it to tell the weather!’ She smiled brightly at her mum but that soon faded at Jackie’s words.

‘I’ve got a surprise for you and all.’

Rose sighed. ‘Oh I get her bazoolium and she doesn’t even say “thanks.”’ She looked away from her mother unimpressed but Jackie didn’t bat an eyelid.

‘Guess who’s coming to visit?’ She went on insistently. ‘You’re just in time; he’ll be here at ten past. Who do you think it is?’

‘I dunno,’ Rose answered, shaking her head at her mum.

‘Go on guess,’ she pressed but Rose wasn’t having it.

‘No, I hate guessing, just tell me.’

‘It’s your granddad. Granddad Prentice,’ she announced, delighted at the prospect. ‘He’s on his way. Any minute!’ Rose simply stared at her mother with disbelief. Even the Doctor glanced up from the magazine and looked at Jackie with a puzzled expression on his face. Jackie on the other hand didn’t seem to notice the impact of her words and carried on happily. ‘Right, cup of tea,’ she said before turning, still with Rose’s bag in her arms, and going into the kitchen to put the kettle on.

She continued to stare at her, absolutely stunned by her mum. Behind her the Doctor dropped the magazine back onto the coffee table before joining Rose by her side. ‘She’s gone mad,’ she stated quietly.

‘Tell me something new.’

‘Granddad Prentice-’ she began but the Doctor cut her off.

‘Didn’t he…?’ He waved his hand in the direction of the previously spare bedroom of the flat and Rose nodded. His brow creased further. ‘But isn’t he…?’

‘About ten years ago,’ Rose confirmed the answer to his question that he didn’t need to finish asking.

‘So how can he…?’ Apparently he was so baffled that he could no longer complete his sentences.

‘Oh my God, she’s lost it,’ she breathed and started towards the kitchen calling out, ‘Mum?’ Jackie had just turned on the kettle when Rose entered the kitchen shortly followed by the Doctor who stood in the doorway behind her. Rose looked at her, fiddling with the bazoolium a little awkwardly as she gently said, ‘what you just said about granddad…’

‘Any second now,’ Jackie announced, still happy about the prospect.

Rose smiled back at her a little gingerly. ‘But he passed away. His heart gave out. Do you remember that?’

‘Course I do,’ Jackie replied lightly.

This only confused Rose and the Doctor further. She stared at her mum, shaking her head lightly as though she was missing something that should be obvious but her mum just wasn’t making sense. She’d actually lost it. ‘Then how can he come back?’

‘Why don’t you ask him yourself?’ She checked her watch and said, ‘ten past. Here he comes’. Right on cue a humanoid figure appeared from nowhere. It stepped out of the kitchen counter next to the fridge, seemingly able to walk through solid objects like a ghost, and walked around Jackie coming to stand by her right hand side. Also like a ghost its shadow-like body was partially translucent though it had an ethereal white glow around it. Even though it looked nothing like the granddad Rose remembered Jackie looked delighted at the new arrival whilst they stared at it completely dumbstruck. ‘Here we are then,’ she began happily, looking between the figure and the time travellers, ‘Dad, say hello to Rose. Ain’t she grown?’

Chapter 48: The Ghost Shift

Chapter Text

The Doctor and Rose rushed out into the courtyard of the estate only to see more of these apparent ghosts intermingling with adults and children alike. What baffled the Time Lord the most was that no one was bothered by their appearance. No one was running or screaming or freaking out. Then Jackie exited the building and joined them, informing the time travellers that the ghosts wouldn’t be there much longer as the midday shift only lasted a couple of minutes. Now that only added to his confusion. Ghosts didn’t have shifts. None of this was making sense. None of it at all. Then, just as Jackie had said, the ghosts vanished and everyone around them carried on as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

The trio went back into the flat where the Doctor sat down on the carpet right in front of the television. He put on his glasses and flicked through channel after channel with all of them talking about the ghosts. There was a programme called Ghostwatch. The weather report included ghost sightings. The Trisha chat show featured a woman who had married one of the ghosts. They were even all over the news and not just in the UK, these ghosts were all over the world!

Having seen enough the Doctor turned off the television, cutting short an episode of Eastenders, also featuring a ghost of course, before turning to Jackie and Rose who were sitting on the sofa behind him. He tossed the remote onto the coffee table and directed his question to the former, ‘when did it start?’ Jackie began what was going to be a detailed recollection of that episode’s storyline in Eastenders before he cut her off, ‘no, I mean worldwide’.

‘Oh,’ Jackie said in realisation and Rose smirked. They both eagerly listened as Jackie recounted the first appearance of the ghosts. ‘That was about two months ago. Just happened. Woke up one morning and there they all were. Ghosts. Everywhere. We all ran round screaming and that. Whole planet was panicking. No sign of you, thank you very much!’ She said, aiming her jab at the Doctor but swiftly carrying on with her tale though her voice took on a softer and more wistful quality to it. ‘Then it sort of sank in. Took us time to realise that…we’re lucky.’

Rose was watching her mum with a slightly sombre look on her face and gently asked, ‘what makes you think its granddad?’

‘It just feels like him.’ The Doctor frowned at her answer as Jackie went on to further explain herself, ‘there’s that smell, those old cigarettes. Can’t you smell it?’

Rose shook her head sadly. ‘I wish I could mum but I can’t.’

‘Well, you’ve got to make an effort,’ she insisted, ‘you’ve got to want it, sweetheart’.

‘And the more you want it the stronger it gets?’ He asked, though it was more of a statement, he already had a vague idea of how these ghosts were working.

‘Sort of, yeah.’

He ran a hand through his hair as he said, ‘like a psychic link. Of course you want your old dad to be alive but you’re wishing him into existence. The ghosts are using that to pull themselves in’.

‘You’re spoiling it,’ she complained.

Shaking his head he said, ‘I’m sorry Jackie but there’s no smell, there’s no cigarettes, just the memory’.

‘But if they’re not ghosts what are they then?’ Rose asked. Unsure of the answer the Doctor looked away and brought his fist to his mouth as he thought about the problem. Jackie, however, was absolutely adamant in her beliefs that they were.

‘Yeah, but they’re human! You can see them, they look human!’ She stressed stubbornly.

Rose understood where her mother was coming from and said to him, ‘she’s got a point. I mean they’re all sort of blurred but they’re definitely people’.

‘Maybe not.’ He glanced back over at the Tyler’s. ‘They’re pressing themselves into the surface of the world…but a footprint doesn’t look like a boot.’ And with that he got up and sprinted to the Tardis with a plan. He was going to trap a ghost. He was slightly annoyed that he’d given his forcefield away to the Frondescence, though they would have made good use out of it he was certain, enabling them to detain the captive poachers until they could be transported to Chariandra with greater ease than without the device. Still, it was no bother, he didn’t need a large forcefield as he didn’t need to trap them all to figure out their point of origin. He just needed to trap one and he was sure there would be something in the Tardis he could use to do that. In fact he had just the thing.

Back at the flat Rose got up from the sofa as the front door slammed behind the Doctor. She looked at her mum and said, ‘I guess I’ll see you later then’.

Jackie frowned up at her. ‘What do you mean? Where are you off to?’

‘Going with the Doctor,’ she stated as though it was obvious, even pointing with her thumb in the direction of the door to further make her point. ‘Gonna find out what these ghosts are.’ Her eyes dropped to the coffee table, as she began to edge around it to leave, where she spotted a paper. She picked it up and flicked through it just as Jackie stood up.

‘Well I’m coming too…’ she said firmly and went onto explain herself though Rose wasn’t really listening.

She didn’t know what these ghosts were, and more worryingly neither did the Doctor, but she had a feeling that they weren’t good. She’d met plenty of good aliens in her time but none were like these figures. There was something not right about these ghosts and the way they were integrating themselves into society. According to the paper they had elected a ghost as MP for Leeds. She wasn’t even sure the ghosts could talk let alone help run a city. ‘Can I take this?’ She asked her mum, wanting to show it to the Doctor.

‘...and I want to see what himself’s up to.’ Jackie finished her point and walked around the coffee table and into the hallway.

Rose finally processed what her mum was saying and called after her, ‘mum! No, you can’t’. She found her pulling on a denim jacket by the door and double checking she had her house keys. ‘Mum…’ she began but Jackie gave her a no nonsense look and she relented. ‘Fine,’ she sighed, ‘but just whilst we’re round here’. Rose felt rather conflicted about her mother seeing them, in a way, at work. Of course she wanted her mum to see all the amazing things that the Doctor could do, that she could do even. Show her all that she had learnt and how much she had grown as a person whilst she’d been away. But the protective side of her didn’t want her mum involved one bit, especially as she didn’t know what they were walking into with these ghosts. She and the Doctor got dragged into danger more often than not and she didn’t want her mum pulled into that too. It was hard enough with the Drakkads when they were at the estate. In a way it was lucky that they were so focused on the Doctor, herself and the Tardis; not that she liked what the Drakkads did to either of them when they hurt them as they did. Sometimes she would still have dreams or images flash through her mind of the Doctor when he was all chained up and injured on their ship. She could still clearly visualise how small and vulnerable he had looked, how weak. Him, weak! A man who cured people, saved people and stopped wars. A man who would fight for what was right even when it was the hardest thing to do. A man who still got excited and giddy, who would throw her beaming grins and tell her of all the good in the universe even though he had experienced it at its worst. Even though he had been through so much pain himself. The Doctor was anything but a weak man, in fact he was the strongest she had ever met and she was so glad that she had.

‘So is this what he does then?’ Jackie asked as they walked across the park towards the Tardis. ‘Just dashes off and leaves you behind.’

She shook her head and fiddled with the newspaper in her hands. ‘It all depends on the situation I guess. Sometimes he explains, and sometimes that doesn’t help a bit,’ she added with a laugh before continuing on saying, ‘but others he gets carried away and goes and does what he has to. He’s helping mum and that’s all that matters.’

Jackie hummed noncommittally. ‘He’s helping by laying out traffic cones in the kid’s park by the looks,’ she said, opening the gate and stepping through it before her daughter followed on behind, rolling her eyes at the back of her mum’s head.

‘They’re obviously not traffic cones.’ Though even Rose could admit they did look a bit like them set up as they were in a triangle on a patch of grass near the Tardis. ‘I’ll go see what he’s up to,’ she said before running the rest of the way to the ship. She strode in through the doors immediately telling the Time Lord about what she’d read in the paper as she made her way up the ramp to the console. It didn’t take a detective to tell her where the man himself was. There was a floor panel missing and she’d heard something clatter beneath the grating when she entered. The moment Rose stood beside the hole out the Doctor popped wearing a strange backpack and holding some sort of - well it wasn’t a gun because the Doctor didn’t do guns but it did look a bit like some sort of futuristic blaster that was connected to the backpack with a wire. Whatever it was she did think he looked a bit like a Ghostbuster, which was very fitting given that was what they were probably about to do, and going by his words as he climbed up onto the grating so did he.

‘Who you gonna call?’

‘Ghostbusters!’ She shouted back with a laugh.

‘I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!’

She giggled at him being his goofy self and raced after him and out of the Tardis.

He finished setting up his ghost trap as Jackie and Rose watched on, the former ranting on at him about not causing trouble and how she didn’t want him to spoil it because she wanted it to be real. The thought of this being real, ghosts of loved ones, of friends and family coming back, didn’t give him joy as it did Jackie. To the man who had lost so much and had tried his hardest to move on every single time, he found it horrific. With that part of the trap completed he grabbed a wheel of wire from the grass and started unwinding it as he walked backwards to the Tardis where he would connect it to give the trap power. ‘Rose, give us a hand,’ he called to her and she followed him inside. As he connected the end of the wire into the console Jackie entered the ship. She watched the pair of them from near the doors as the Doctor directed Rose about what to do. ‘Soon as the cone’s activated, if that line goes into the red press that button.’ He briefly paused his break-neck speed explanation as he pointed to said nearby button next to the monitor. ‘If it doesn’t stop…’ Now he reached into his pocket and pulled out the sonic screwdriver, holding it out in front of Rose’s face as he continued saying, ‘...setting 15-B. Hold it against the port, eight seconds and stop’.

‘15-B, eight seconds,’ Rose repeated with a nod as she took the screwdriver.

‘If it goes into the blue, activate the deep scan on the left.’

‘Hang on a minute, I know…’ she breathed as she leant over to the collection of buttons, the Doctor watching her avidly. Her finger was hovering over one button and she was about to ask if that was the right one when the Tardis nudged her to the next one over. She corrected herself and glanced back to the Time Lord who was beaming at her.

His voice was full of pride as he said, ‘oh, look at you. Yep that’s the one’. It didn’t last long as he quickly moved back to the task at hand because they were up against the clock and according to the ticking timer in his mind they had two minutes to go and he hadn’t quite finished all the set up for his trap yet. He dived back outside, Jackie only just dodging out of the way of him on the ramp as they passed one another, and then he began to activate the cones.

Rose’s eyes were on the monitor. The line was going into the red so she pressed the button the Doctor told her to. However that didn’t stop the pesky line from still wobbling over into the red so she moved onto step two: the sonic. She was fiddling with the settings of it as her mum walked around the console towards her, then Rose held the screwdriver against the port where it buzzed as she counted to eight.

‘What’s that line doing?’ The Doctor shouted through the open doors as he moved to the second cone, using that strange blaster-like device to activate and synchronise them.

She had just finished her counting and finally the line was stable. ‘It’s all right, its holding!’ She yelled back.

‘You even look like him,’ Jackie stated. She had been watching Rose, watching how she worked and moved and found it rather bittersweet really. Her daughter was no longer the Rose Tyler who had left home that night in 2005. Before her stood a whole other woman. It wasn’t that she wasn’t proud of what her daughter was doing or what she had become. Her Rose had saved the world, saved others too, how could she not be proud of that? It was bittersweet because she’d missed those changes. When your child is growing up alongside you they still grow and change of course but those changes creep up on you, they’re gradual and have happened before you’ve even realised that they have. But seeing Rose looking so natural, so at home in this spaceship really brought it home how different she was now. This was Rose’s life and Rose was happy so Jackie would be happy for her too.

Rose was still studying the monitor when her mum spoke and absently said, ‘how do you mean?’ Then she thought about her mum’s words and smiled because why wouldn’t she want to be like the Doctor? ‘I suppose I do, yeah,’ she agreed.

‘You’ve changed so much.’

‘For the better,’ Rose said without a shadow of a doubt.

Jackie continued to watch her daughter as she contemplated her next thought. ‘Will you ever come back home after I’m gone?’ She asked quietly.

Her head shot round to her mother in shock. ‘Don’t talk like that.’

‘But will you though?’ Jackie insisted. ‘Because you won’t have any reason to when I’m dead and buried. You’ll be off in the stars with him,’ she said, nodding to the doors where the Doctor was in the park just beyond them. ‘Never settling down, always travelling, always changing.’

She frowned at her mum with concern. ‘What’s brought this on?’

‘Just these ghosts I suppose,’ Jackie answered with a shrug.

She sighed and laid her hands on her mum’s arms in comfort. ‘Mum, you know I love you, and so does he, we both do. We’re never gonna stop visiting you and staying round and driving you nuts I’m sure,’ she added with a giggle and watched as a small smile crossed Jackie’s face. ‘And then you’ll be wishing we were off up there.’ The amused grin on Rose’s lips began to fade as her mother began to look at her wistfully.

Jackie reached up and brushed a hand through Rose’s hair before cupping her cheek and quietly stating, ‘you’ve just changed so much’.

She leant into the touch. ‘I’m growing up Mum.’

‘I’m happy for you sweetheart, I really am,’ she said and gave her daughter a soft smile because she really was happy for her. ‘I just miss you.’

Rose smiled back a little sadly. ‘I miss you too.’

The Doctor didn’t realise he was interrupting a moment between the mother and daughter when he shouted, ‘here we go,’ to announce that he had finished activating the cones. He was just standing up from the final cone when Rose yelled about the scanner working and that it said “delta one six”. That was excellent news. He was about to catch himself a ghost and he was a little giddy with anticipation because he would finally find out, or at least he hoped he would find out, what these ghosts were. They were certainly not human. ‘Come on then you beauty!’ He cried out and watched his triangle of cones fervently. The moment the ghost began to form his cones did the trick. They shot out the electric blue retaining lines that made up the forcefield, trapping it in place and enabling him to both study it and hopefully get a reading from it so he could triangulate the point of origin. The Doctor reached into a pocket and pulled out a pair of cardboard 3D glasses which he then put on. They gave a rather interesting reading. He wasn’t quite sure what it meant yet but the ghost had some sort of, well, stuff around it. It was green and floating in the air like particles, surrounding its entire being, but was only visible when he wore the 3D glasses. Peculiar. Still, he had to start tracking the origins whilst he had it trapped so bent down and fiddled with the controls he’d set up allowing him to get some readings. The controls whirred a little squeakily and then the ghost started to writhe about within its confines. A laugh escaped the Time Lord. ‘Don’t like that much do you?’ He commented. ‘Who are you? Where are you coming from?’ The ghost lunged at him and the Doctor scampered back and out of reach with a yelp. ‘That’s more like it!’ He cried out with triumph as he took the glasses off. ‘Not so friendly now are you?’ Oh he was getting somewhere now. He stood there until the ghost vanished, only moments later, then rushed to gather up his equipment and hauled it into the Tardis.

The hole in the grating was still as he left it so he shoved it all under the console before closing it off. He shucked off his coat and threw it onto the coral strut talking at a million miles per hour as he excitedly explained his findings to Rose. ‘I said so! Those ghosts are being forced into existence from one specific point and I can track down the source!’ He dashed around the console to where she stood grinning at him by the monitor and pulled the dematerialisation lever as he yelled, ‘allons-y!’ The Old Girl made a peculiar sound and jolted about throwing both the Doctor and Rose onto the jump seat which luckily was just behind them and was much softer than the grating that they had been flung onto far too many times than he wanted to mention. Then the console room was filled with her usual whirring and groaning as she took them to their unknown destination: the source of the ghosts. The Doctor jumped back up and made his way around the controls, adjusting things that needed it whilst they were in flight and muttering to himself as he did so. ‘I like that, “allons-y”. I should say “allons-y” more often. Allons-y.’ He carried on to another part of the interface as he tried out his new phrase, ‘look sharp, Rose Tyler, allons-y!’ By this point he’d made a lap of the console and was back in front of Rose. He enthusiastically finished off his thoughts on his new phrase as he stood before her, ‘and then it would be really brilliant if I met someone called Alonzo because then I could say “allons-y Alonzo” every time! You’re staring at me’. His happy tone had faded when he spoke his final words. There was amusem*nt in Rose’s expression but there was something else there too that he couldn’t quite comprehend.

‘My mum’s still on board,’ she whispered and indicated behind her with her eyes.

He glanced over in that direction with a frown. Sure enough there was Jackie Tyler, sat up in the gallery for whatever reason he did not know, but she didn’t look at all pleased with him, that much was for certain.

‘If we end up on Mars I’m gonna kill you,’ she threatened and crossed her arms grumpily just to reinforce her displeasure.

The Doctor continued staring at her, a bit horrified to find her there if he was honest, though he still caught Rose’s smirk out of the corner of his eye. They were about to go out into the unknown, extremely soon going by the fact that they had just landed, and he didn’t know what to do about Jackie. He flicked on the monitor and what he saw helped him to make up his mind. ‘Oh well there goes the advantage of surprise,’ he commented with a sigh, his arms crossed as he looked at the screen as he was joined by the Tyler women at his side. He’d set it up so they could see the live feed of the exterior of the ship. By the looks of it they were in some sort of storage area and there were quite a few gun toting soldiers surrounding the doors. A lovely warm welcome. He didn’t want to take Jackie out there into that but he couldn’t very well leave her in the Tardis on her own; she might, no she was a Tyler, she would go wandering off and then end up getting lost in the infinite rooms of the Old Girl. Then there was the console and he knew more than most the pull of a button, they could be so damn tempting, but what if she pressed the wrong one? She could end up somewhere in the universe getting sucked into a black hole or something.

Well there was only one thing for it.

‘Stay in here and look after Jackie,’ he said and started towards the doors. And three, two, one…

‘I’m not looking after my mum!’

There was the complaint he was expecting. He heard her tailing him and glanced back to say, ‘well you brought her’.

Jackie didn’t quite see the situation this way. ‘I was kidnapped!’ She complained indignantly.

Then Rose ran past him on the ramp and blocked the doors. ‘Doctor, they’ve got guns,’ she warned him. It wasn’t just the fact that they had guns that was worrying her. That group of soldiers may not have knocked on the doors but they were out there waiting for his appearance. It was a little too similar to their dealings with the Drakkads for her liking and she did not want to be facing another situation like that again.

He came to a halt in front of her and calmly said, ‘and I don't, which makes me the better person don’t you think? They can shoot me dead but the moral high ground is mine’. Putting his hands on her waist he went to move her out of the way but she resisted. He raised his eyebrows at her but Rose only met his look with a worried one of her own.

‘But what if it’s like last time?’ She asked quietly, resting her hands on his forearms.

‘Last time?’ He said with a frown. The Doctor went through the information before him to work out what Rose meant. Soldiers with guns outside of the Tardis, they had viewed them on the live feed and Jackie had just mentioned kidnap. Oh. His look softened and he said, ‘it’s not them. They wouldn’t even know where to start with these ghosts anyway,’ he added with an amused grin.

She didn’t smile back. ‘Doesn’t mean that they won’t-’

‘Rose,’ he cut her off. He locked his eyes with her hazel ones as he quietly said, ‘that’s not going to happen, not again, I promise’. He gazed at her for a moment longer. Her worry was still there but she trusted him and that was enough. Stepping back he returned to his usual demeanour and said, ‘now I would tell you not to wander off but I’ve been there and tried that’. Finally a hint of her smirk grew on Rose’s face and it buoyed him a little as he continued, ‘so if you do insist on doing some Holmes sleuthing whilst I’m out there, at least give her a colouring book and some crayons to keep her occupied’. He jabbed his thumb behind him at Jackie who complained immediately.

‘Oi, I'm not some kid!’

Spinning round to face her he explained his point, ‘still, I don’t need you getting curious about what’s further in the Tardis nor do I need you pressing some buttons and sending yourself off to…’ He waved a hand in the air as though trying to pluck a situation from it for Jackie to land in and clearly it worked as he then said, ‘…I don’t know a war of independence from the British or something because you wouldn’t go down well out there let me tell you’. He arched his brow, daring her to challenge him but thankfully Jackie didn’t have a retort other than to huff and cross her arms again. He nodded his head then turned back to Rose. ‘Right, see you later.’

She stepped to the side to let him through but as he placed a hand on the door she stopped him once again. This time Rose grabbed his tie and pulled him towards her then leant up and kissed him. ‘Be careful,’ she said softly as she pulled back.

The Time Lord smirked. ‘I’m always careful,’ he told her and Rose gave him a look that suggested she thought he was anything but. He simply winked at her then leant in for another brief kiss. His hand came up to cup her cheek and he gazed at her for a moment with a smile, his thumb rubbing over her soft skin before he finally stepped back and slipped through the door alone.

It was then, once the Doctor had left the Tardis, that the most peculiar thing happened. There were the soldiers with guns so he of course raised his arms in surrender. He didn’t just want to step outside and get shot, that would have been, well, depressing really. If he had to regenerate he wanted it to be grander than that although he was hoping that wouldn’t be happening for a long time. He rather liked this body and from what he could tell so did Rose. He’d been burning through his regenerations recently as though he had an unlimited supply which he knew he very much didn’t. Anyway, the peculiar thing wasn’t the guns pointing at him, as that was pretty common, no it was the blonde lady who appeared to be in charge. One: she seemed to know him and called him the reason that they were there, the they being the company or corporation or group or whatever. Secondly, or two: she was strangely pleased to see him, even going as far as applauding him multiple times and she got the soldiers joining in with that as well. It was most bizarre and a bit embarrassing. And thirdly or three or III: she wouldn’t give away who they were, again the company, corporation, group or whatever. That immediately got his hackles raised even more than they already were.

The mystery woman asked him to bring out his companion next because she knew he didn’t travel alone. Well there went that previous plan. He hadn’t closed the Tardis door fully behind him so he pushed it open just enough so that he could blindly reach inside. His fingers connected with a face. He knew Rose’s face, had memorised every inch of it beneath his finger tips. This was not Rose’s face. The Doctor made a split second decision to take Jackie anyway; she wouldn’t be able to get into trouble in the Tardis by his side and although there were the soldiers he didn’t currently feel like they were about to be using their guns on him which was a good sign. Plus Rose would be useful. She knew how to fly the Old Girl and the Doctor trusted her to leave the ship and do some undercover investigation by herself if it came to that. It was better this way.

‘Here she is: Rose Tyler,’ he announced as he pulled Jackie out of the Tardis. If they knew about him they may well know about Rose so he’d have to keep up the pretence. He hummed in consideration as he eyed Jackie up and down whilst she looked on at the woman and the soldiers. ‘She’s not the best I’ve ever had. Bit too blonde. Not too steady on her pins. A lot of that.’ He brought his hand up into the air, his thumb and fingers snapping together in a talking motion. Jackie did not look impressed with him but the mysterious blonde lady laughed a little which encouraged him. ‘And just last week she stared into the heart of the time vortex and aged fifty-seven years but she’ll do.’ And that explained away the difference in age if they did have photographs of the real Rose. Oh he was good. He wasn’t just insulting Jackie for the fun of it, though it was pretty fun and she knew better than to fight back in present company so he could get away with it, it was purposeful too.

‘I’m forty!’ Jackie complained.

‘Deluded. Bless,’ he said, continuing on immediately as he glanced back at the blonde woman feeling Jackie’s burning stare aimed at him as he spoke. ‘I’ll have to trade her in. Do you need anyone? She’s very good at tea.’ He pulled a face and retracted that statement. ‘Well, I say very good, I mean not bad. Well, I say not bad…’ Suddenly he brightened up and moved the conversation on before Jackie forgot who they were with and decided to show him what she thought of his remarks. ‘Anyway! Lead on. Allons-y.’ Oh he so nearly left it there but he couldn’t help but add on one last dig as he set off behind the illusive woman. ‘But not too fast, her ankle’s going.’

Jackie followed and hissed her threat at the Time Lord’s back, ‘I’ll show you where my ankle’s going’.

They were led through a corridor and into a large warehouse full of scientists and other workers moving crates and boxes filled with alien artefacts. Speaking of alien artefacts, that was a Jathaa Sunglider. The Doctor stared at the massive ship that took up most of the space in the warehouse. It stood high above the ground on four metal legs so even the space underneath it was used for storage. The woman explained that the company, Torchwood as she called it, shot it down ten years ago off the Shetland Islands because it violated the airspace. If that wasn’t bad enough she then told him that they were the ones responsible for destroying the Sycorax ship on Christmas Day. She smiled at him like it was impressive, as though it was a brag. He didn’t think it was either. These were the people that Harriet Jones went to when she didn’t allow their retreating ship to leave. This lot! Clearly the government knew about them or at least the Prime Minister and their inner circle did. It also got him wondering why he didn’t know of them. He’d been to Earth often enough and this lot dealt with everything alien by the looks of things so surely they should have come up on his radar. The name Torchwood was vaguely ringing bells but he couldn’t quite place it yet.

She led them further into the warehouse and told him of Torchwood’s motto: “if it’s alien, it’s ours”. She then went on to prove that motto by taking a gun from a nearby soldier and showing it to him. It was a particle gun. A particle gun in the twenty-first century! It should be impossible. The Doctor then looked in another box and found a set of Magna-Clamps. They were a bit like curling stones in shape, though the metal was completely black and a little bigger in size. If one was to attach a Magna-Clamp to an object it would cancel out the mass and could carry two tonnes with ease. He wondered how they had all of these alien items and found that according to Yvonne, Yvonne Hartman as he found out her name was, anything alien that came down, Torchwood shot down more like, they stripped bare and used it. The words “anything alien” gave him a bad feeling and that was soon confirmed by the Tardis being moved on the back of a truck. The doors eased open just a crack and he caught a glimpse of Rose. He nodded at her, hoping that he was portraying both reassurance and encouragement because at the moment even though he might find out about the ghosts and what them being a “side effect” meant, he was doubtful he was getting out of there easily. He was very much an alien and going by Torchwood’s motto he was probably a prisoner. Yvonne confirmed that moments later, as well as telling him that he was an “enemy of the crown” because it was Queen Victoria who had created Torchwood after the werewolf incident. That’s why the name rang a bell: the house where the attack happened was called Torchwood House! Well, if he was an “enemy of the crown” that may well mean that Rose, or in this case Jackie pretending to be Rose, was a prisoner too because they both got banished that day. He liked that idea even less.

Flanked by soldiers Yvonne walked them through the warehouse and a few corridors until they reached a secure looking metal door. She used an I.D. card to gain entrance and the door slid open to reveal a reasonably large and rather bare room. There was one thing of note in the room. One rather large and perfectly spherical thing of note. The deep bronze coloured metal sphere hovered above the ground, not connected to anything, merely floating in the air as though weightless. The Doctor stared at it, his gaze fierce. One of the scientists tried to introduce himself but he barely registered his words because that sphere wasn’t just any old alien artefact. That sphere was wrong. Impossible.

He strode to the moveable stairs they had set up in front of it and climbed them to get a closer look. Then he plucked the 3D glasses from his pocket again and put them on. There it was, that green stuff surrounding the sphere, just like how it had surrounded that ghost he captured earlier. Well it was starting to make sense now. He may not have liked it but at least he could understand it though that didn’t mean it didn’t raise a lot of questions too. That was because the sphere was a Void Ship. It was a vessel designed to exist outside of time and space, travelling through the void in the space between dimensions, between the billions of parallel universes. The void was nothing, contained nothing, nothing at all. No light, no dark, no up, no down, no life, no time and no end. Inside the void you’d exist outside the whole of creation and inside the ship you’d do just the same.

The Doctor explained all of this to Yvonne and the scientist bloke, possibly called Rajesh though he hadn’t been really listening at the time, but they didn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation and were rather excited about there being something inside and wanted to open it up. The Doctor, on the other hand, thought that was a terrible idea. No, not thought, knew it was a terrible idea. Of course why listen to the guy who actually knew what the sphere was? Who had a pretty good grasp on dangerous things from all across the universe and if that wasn’t dangerous, well, he’d eat his chucks. No, better still, he’d eat a pear and a few pears at that, a whole tree of them.

He demanded to be taken to the place where the sphere entered this world and thankfully Yvonne complied and led the way. They took a lift upwards and from there she led them to another large but barely furnished room. It rather looked like a blank canvas filled with white walls as it was. There were a few desks and a couple of levers stood on either side of the room nearer the large blank wall at the end which she led him towards. Jackie stayed behind in Yvonne’s office at the back of the room and waited there as Yvonne began to talk him through their discovery of the sphere.

‘The sphere came through here. A hole in the world,’ she told him as they neared. The Doctor stepped up closer and pressed a hand against it, only to find it was solid. By all intents and purposes it could have been just any old wall that had been painted white but Yvonne went on to tell him it was anything but. ‘Not active at the moment but when we fire particle engines at that exact spot the breech opens up.’

‘How did you even find it?’ He asked as he stepped back a little to gain a wider perspective of the wall.

‘Well, we were getting warning signs for years. A radar black spot. So we built this place. Torchwood Tower. The breach was six hundred feet above sea level. It was the only way to reach it,’ she finished with a shrug.

The Doctor grabbed his 3D glasses and put them on again. He frowned and turned to Yvonne, his tone a little incredulous as he said, ‘you built a skyscraper just to reach a spatial disturbance? How much money have you got?’

She smirked. ‘Enough.’

Yvonne walked away from him after that, leaving the Doctor to study the wall. He slipped his 3D glasses off because he’d learnt all he could from them. He’d seen it again. Those green particles, the stuff, floating in the air near the centre of the wall. The sphere had definitely entered through it from the void and everything that was connected with it was covered in the stuff, this void stuff. He didn’t like it. Didn’t like it one bit. This wasn’t just a natural disaster or a war on a planet, a war across the universe even. This was so much worse because it was the entire universe cracking and breaking down. And it wasn’t just this universe either because those ghosts, that void ship, well they had to have come from somewhere.

Inside Yvonne’s office Jackie was looking out of the window. She could see the Thames and the familiar looking skyscrapers. Jackie knew that view. ‘Hold on a minute…we’re in Canary Wharf. Must be. This building, it’s Canary Wharf.’ She looked back at Yvonne who had joined her in the office looking a little sheepish at Jackie having realised their location, as though a giant skyscraper in the centre of London wasn’t obvious.

‘Well, that is the public name for it. But to those in the know, it’s Torchwood.’ She didn’t get the chance to say anymore because the Doctor strode over, immediately making his thoughts known.

‘So you find the breach. Probe it. The sphere comes through, six hundred feet above London. Bam!’ He leant against the doorframe, his hand waving about as he explained himself as though he was talking to a group of idiots which he very much thought he was. ‘It leaves a hole in the fabric of reality. And that hole, you think, “oh, shall we leave it alone? Shall we back off? Shall we play it safe?” Nah, you think, “let’s make it bigger!”’ He pulled some exaggerated expressions as he mocked and chastised Torchwood and their involvement with the wall but Yvonne took it all in her stride.

She didn’t even blink an eyelid at the annoyed Time Lord as she explained Torchwood’s reasoning behind their probing of the breach, ‘it’s a massive source of energy. If we can harness that power, we need never depend on the Middle East again. Britain will become truly independent’. Then she glanced down at her watch before adding, ‘look, you can see for yourself. Next Ghost Shift’s in two minutes’.

She made to leave the room and the Doctor stepped out of the way but not without ordering her to, ‘cancel it’.

‘I don’t think so,’ she replied, her stride never faltering.

He raised his voice angrily as he tailed after her. ‘I’m warning you, cancel it!’

Spinning around to him she stopped and smiled as though having expected his reaction but clearly thinking that she knew better than to listen. ‘Oh, exactly as the legends would have it. The Doctor, lording it over us. Assuming alien authority over the rights of Man.’

Why did nobody listen to him? He raised a warning finger and lowered his voice a little as he said, ‘let me show you’. Reaching into his inner pocket, he moved back into her office and the windows that separated it from the rest of the room. He raised his sonic screwdriver at it as he began his explanation. ‘Sphere comes through.’ The buzz of the screwdriver was soon joined by the cracking of glass as it fractured within the frame from the point that the sonic was aimed at. The Doctor glanced at Yvonne and was quietly pleased that he had gained her attention from the way her face had fallen. And that was just part one of his demonstration. ‘But when it made the hole, it cracked the world around it. The entire surface of this dimension splintered. And that’s how the ghosts get through. That’s how they get everywhere. They’re bleeding through the fault lines,’ he explained eagerly whilst the cracking lines in the glass only grew and grew only demonstrating his point further. ‘Walking from their world, across the void, and into yours. With the Human Race hoping and wishing and helping them along! But too many ghosts and…’ He looked her in the eyes as he delicately placed a finger to the glass. Instantly it smashed and dramatically fell to the floor in front of Jackie and Yvonne, the latter of which still stubbornly refused to heed his words.

‘Well, in that case we’ll have to be more careful.’ She turned and called out to the other staff members in the room, ‘positions! Ghost Shift in one minute’.

The Doctor pursued her. How idiotically stubborn can you get? ‘Ms Hartman, I am asking you, please, don’t do it.’

‘We have done this a thousand times,’ she told him with exasperation as she turned to the Time Lord who was standing right behind her eyeing her sternly.

‘Then stop at a thousand!’ He yelled.

‘We are in control of the ghosts. The levers can open the breach but equally they can close it.’ She spoke to him as though she was addressing a child who still hadn’t understood what had been explained to them ten times already.

He stared at her incredulously and she stared right back awaiting his next retort. Clearly his tactic wasn’t working, she wasn’t going to listen to him no matter how many different ways he put it. His annoyed expression vanished in an instant as he lightly said, ‘okay,’ and turned his back on the stunned woman.

‘Sorry?’

‘Never mind. As you were.’ He continued in this fake light voice of his as he grabbed a chair from her office and wheeled it out to the centre of the space between the desks creating a prime viewing spot for watching this Ghost Shift.

Yvonne was still extremely confused about his change in demeanour. ‘What, is that it?’

He sat down in the chair. ‘No. Fair enough. Said my bit. Don’t mind me,’ he told her, then glanced to his left at one of the other staff members and said, ‘any chance of a cup of tea?’

‘Ghost Shift in twenty seconds.’ announced a female staff member to the left.

The Doctor shrugged his shoulders and grinned manically, his eyes wide and mad with fake excitement. ‘Mmm. Can’t wait to see it.’

‘You can’t stop us, Doctor,’ Yvonne stated with suspicion laced in her tone but he adamantly shook his head.

‘No, absolutely not.’ He crossed his arms and rested one leg on the knee of the other getting comfortable before looking over at Jackie and saying, ‘pull up a chair, Rose. Come and watch the fireworks’. Jackie didn’t grab a chair but joined him by his side anyway, resting a hand on his shoulder as he grinned back at Yvonne with forced manic joy. Yvonne stared at him unimpressed.

‘Ghost Shift in ten seconds,’ the female staff member stated. ‘Nine…eight…seven…’

Yvonne was still staring at him and he stared right on back playing this dangerous game of chicken. He raised his eyebrows daring her to go through with it as the countdown continued.

‘...six…five…four…three…two…’

Chapter 49: Old Friends And Even Older Enemies

Chapter Text

‘Stop the shift. I said stop.’ With barely a second to spare Yvonne succumbed to the Doctor’s game of chicken and the Ghost Shift was called off much to his relief. He thanked her but she barely registered it, going on to say, ‘I suppose it makes sense to get as much intelligence as possible. But the programme will recommence as soon as you’ve explained everything’. She spoke grandly, as though the idea of stopping the shift was her own and that she wasn’t just doing it to appease the Time Lord because he managed to put doubt into her mind.

‘I’m glad to be of help,’ the Doctor told her.

Yvonne quickly brushed over that too. ‘And someone clear up this glass,’ she ordered to the room knowing that one of her staff would get to it. Then her eyes fell back on him as she said, ‘they did warn me, Doctor. They said you like to make a mess’.

He and Jackie shared a look as Yvonne walked off into her office. Jackie and the Doctor followed, the latter wheeling his chair back into the room and slouching down into it enabling himself to get comfortable and put his feet up on Yvonne’s glass desk. Jackie chose to stand by the window and leave them to their conversation, not feeling like she’d have much to add to it.

Yvonne sat around the other side of her desk with her laptop out in front of her and began her questioning straight away. ‘So these ghosts, whatever they are, did they build the sphere?’ She gave the Doctor’s chucks a slightly filthy look for daring to be on her desk but didn’t call him out on his relaxed posture as he answered.

‘Must have. Aimed it at this dimension like a cannonball.’

Then a male voice came from the laptop, the voice of Rajesh, the scientist from the room with the sphere. Everyone’s eyes in the office went to the laptop as he spoke, ‘Yvonne? I think you should see this. We’ve got a visitor. We don’t know who she is but funnily enough she arrived at the same time as the Doctor’.

Yvonne didn’t look best pleased as she lifted the laptop and turned it around so the Time Lord could see the screen. ‘She one of yours?’

**********

Meanwhile in the Tardis…

The door shut behind Jackie as the Doctor pulled her outside to face whoever that woman was and the soldiers. Rose had a bad feeling about this. It sort of felt like a trap. They, the Doctor and her mum, were walking in blind, straight into their territory with no knowledge about who these people were whilst they seemed to know everything about the Doctor. Or at least that lady made it sound like she did. Rose didn’t like her, she sounded far too full of fake cheer and a bit of a stuck up person who thought they were better and knew more than everyone else. That didn’t bode well if she was the one in charge of these ghosts, Rose thought.

She listened as best as she could to the rest of the conversation through the doors; the Doctor having digs at her mum and her mum not retorting until they started to walk away from the Old Girl. She only just caught Jackie’s hissed retort, her word’s making Rose smirk. They were always having little quarrels and jabs at one another, the Doctor and her mum, but there was no real dislike or offence intended in what they said. It was just how their relationship worked on the surface. Underneath there was a love and appreciation of each other but that side was rarer to see, especially from a certain Time Lord.

As they left the room with the soldiers and that lady, Rose moved back to the console. The monitor was showing a live feed of the exterior of the ship again, allowing her to see the retreating backs of the soldiers.

‘Alright Old Girl, just you and me now,’ she said quietly to the Tardis whose hums grew a little at Rose’s words. ‘Dunno if the Doctor’s asked you this already but have you got anything on ghosts or ghost like species in your database?’ Rose directed her question at the time rotor in front of her but her eyes were soon back on the monitor when the lights around the console room brightened as though delighted by the question. The Tardis presented her with pages of information on different creatures that could in some way be referred to as a ghost whether or not it actually was one. She flicked through them, thanking the ship for having translated all of the writing into English for her and receiving a warm hum in reply. Although there weren’t many, the few pictures that were attached to some of the pages helped her skip past them because they looked nothing like the ghosts she was looking for. She skipped past the Gelth too when she came to a page on them, the creatures already having been dismissed by the Doctor earlier. Rose did take her time reading through the information on Cloister Wraiths and the Eyeless and was just reading about Spyrillites, creatures of the Void who fed on the artron energy given off by dying space-time vessels, something she didn’t like the sound of at all, when the Tardis shuddered around her. Her head shot up, her eyes wide and the ship rocked again. ‘What’s going on?’ Rose asked the Old Girl. ‘We’re not flying but we’re moving.’ She answered by showing the external live feed once more resulting in a deep frown from the human on board. ‘They’ve got us on the back of a truck,’ Rose stated upon seeing the monitor. ‘What are they up to? Are they trying to steal you?’ The lights around her dimmed and images were sent through Rose’s mind involving chains, prison cells, the Doctor and the Tardis. She didn’t find the Old Girl’s reply comforting in any shape or form, the only comforting thing about it was the lack of worry coming from the ship. Well, of course there was still worry but this worry was nothing like the one Rose had felt pressing into her mind from the ship when they faced the Drakkads. The situations seemed to be getting rather too similar in Rose’s opinion but she wouldn’t panic yet, even if her mum had managed to get herself involved in it too.

The Tardis jolted a little when the truck set off and Rose watched their journey through the corridors of the building until she saw a familiar brown pinstripe suit as they began to be driven through a warehouse. She rushed to the doors and opened them just in time to see the Doctor looking over at her. He gave her a vague enough nod so that he wouldn’t look suspicious and give away Rose’s position. The gesture calmed her a little. He might have been a prisoner, going by what the Old Girl was saying, but he certainly wasn’t looking like your typical one at the moment which gave Rose hope. He might still be able to find out what the ghosts were seeing as he was with the big boss lady but that didn’t mean he would be able to stop them under her and the soldier’s watchful gazes. That might be up to Rose.

The Doctor’s long brown coat was still slung over the coral strut where he usually flung it so she rooted through the pockets. Her fingers skimmed across small metal parts, a ball of string, a banana and a spare pair of Rose’s trainers until she finally pulled out what she was looking for: the psychic paper, an essential companion for undercover work. Rose grinned as she opened it up, wondering who she could pretend to be when she went out there.

It wasn’t too long a wait before she could venture outside. Rose had gone back to the monitor to continue her research in the hopes of finding something of importance whilst she waited for the shaking of the truck journey to stop. Her efforts were in vain. When the ship jolted, as they removed her from the truck bed and placed her on the ground, Rose decided it was probably best to get out there sooner rather than later, especially when she saw on the live feed that the soldiers had left the Tardis alone. It was the unknown of how long she would be alone for that really pushed Rose towards the doors. She was feeling like it would be a weird déjà vu situation of her being unable to leave the Tardis but wanting to help the Doctor whilst those soldiers tried to break in if she didn’t leave now.

Cringing as the door creaked, Rose eased it shut behind her as softly as she could. They were still inside the warehouse going by the amount of stuff there was around them, including a sarcophagus standing just to the right of the Tardis which only added more questions to her growing list of who these people were and what they did. There were two workers chatting around the corner to the right and Rose just moved out of sight as two soldiers walked past on the left. What she saw just before she dodged out of their eye line was what could be the perfect disguise. As soon as they had passed she dashed back out of the cover of the Tardis and grabbed the white lab coat from the table before ducking back into that cover to put it on. There were plenty of scientists wandering about with lab coats on; Rose had noticed them when she had been watching the monitor on their journey on the back of the truck. She could blend in with them. She could be Rose Tyler the worker at…some place or other, she wasn’t quite sure but hopefully, seeing as she was already in the building, no one would question her on its name. As the Doctor had told her before on previous undercover missions, you just had to walk around with purpose, as though you knew where you were going and had somewhere to be. You could have the most perfect disguise but it was how you acted that could make or break your undercover persona.

Rose walked around the side of the Tardis and into the open and found herself able to blend in and not raise any suspicions immediately. She glanced around at a few of the metal contraptions some of the scientists were working on but when the movement of one caught her eye, as he strode through the warehouse and through a wooden door with purpose, Rose decided to follow him. He at least looked like he had somewhere important to be and that might involve the ghosts. It of course might not but she wouldn’t know that without following him.

The door led into a corridor which soon came to a junction. There were a couple of men carrying an object under a white sheet to the left and no sight of the scientist she was following so she turned to the right and acted as though that had always been her intention so as to not look suspicious. She just caught sight of the man she was looking for before he took a left turn. Having heard the workers turn off down the corridor towards the warehouse behind her, she turned her strides into a run and took after the man before she could lose him. At the junction where he made a left turn, she came to a halt and pushed her back against the wall, peering around the corner only to find the corridor ahead empty. There was a door though. A solid metal looking door with no handles to get in. The only way to gain entrance was an I.D. scanner at the side. The door looked important in Rose’s books and the man would have still been ahead of her in the corridor if he hadn't gone through the door so there was a small chance she might find some answers lying on the other side. She kissed the psychic paper, hoping it would work, before pressing it up against the scanner. The door slid open.

Rose stepped into the room, hardly looking anywhere but up at the giant sphere that hovered unsupported at the far end of the room. She continued walking closer to it, never taking her eyes away and unknowing that her appearance had attracted the attention of another.

‘Can I help you?’ The scientist asked. It was Rajesh who the Doctor and Jackie met earlier in the sphere room, not that Rose knew such things, in fact she hadn’t yet taken a glance at him, her eyes still drawn to the sphere because it simply felt wrong.

She pointed up at it and vaguely said, ‘I was just…’

Rajesh glanced around at the sphere, then back at Rose, simply stating, ‘try not to look. It does that to everyone’. Finally Rose looked at him and he eyed her pointedly. ‘What do you want?’

‘Sorry um…they sent me from personnel. They said some man had been taken prisoner, some sort of Doctor.’ At her words the Rajesh nodded which Rose found encouraging and it spurred her on with her undercover persona. ‘I’m just checking the lines of communication. Did they tell you anything?’ She brought a hand up to her face and rubbed it. It wasn’t necessarily a nervous gesture, like a need to be doing something with her hands, but she was trying to act as though she wasn’t too bothered personally about the possible answers the man might give her, like she was just there doing her job.

‘Can I see your authorization?’ Rose blinked at him but soon found herself agreeing to it and passing the psychic paper over with a small smile. He opened up the wallet and smirked a little before glancing back up at her. ‘Well that’s lucky,’ he said and Rose’s smile grew before he continued on saying, ‘you see everyone in Torchwood has at least a basic level of psychic training’. Her smile faded away whilst he took off his glasses and held the wallet open so she could see it. ‘This paper is blank and you’re a fake.’ He reached up to his earpiece as he put an order out to seal the room and call security. Around them the loud clunking of the room being sealed echoed a little. ‘Samuel? Can you check the door locks? She just walked right in,’ he asked the scientist behind him, standing with his back to them.

Samuel turned with a smirk on his face as he replied with, ‘doing it now sir’. Only it wasn’t a random scientist called Samuel. Rose’s eyes bulged as she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It should be impossible, yet before her was Mickey Smith. He put a finger up to his lips then gave her a grin and a thumbs up as he moved to follow the orders of the scientist standing before her.

Her gaze was soon drawn back to that scientist as he told her to take a seat. She rather felt like a kid again being taken to the head teacher’s office and told to wait outside before getting given her punishment. That was something she’d been through before, most memorably when she was given an exclusion for leading a strike of the choir of her school. She wasn’t even in the choir but she’d heard about the way the pupils were being treated which is why she’d encouraged them to strike in the first place.

Rose felt a bit too stunned by Mickey’s appearance to do anything but follow the scientist’s orders and obediently sat at the desk near the door which she’d walked past on the way in. He sat next to her and tapped away at a laptop before he spoke once more into the earpiece, ‘Yvonne? I think you should see this’. With those words the blank box that had been on the screen was suddenly filled with the face of that blonde boss lady. Beside Rose the scientist continued to speak, ‘we’ve got a visitor. We don’t know who she is but funnily enough she arrived at the same time as the Doctor’.

This Yvonne didn’t look best pleased as she eyed Rose for a moment before turning her screen round. As the screen turned she caught a brief glimpse of her mother before the camera fell on the Doctor.

‘She one of yours?’ Rose heard Yvonne ask him.

He was looking as though he didn’t have a care in the world with his feet up on a table somewhere. It was so very him that it made Rose want to smirk but she held back, especially when he shook his head in answer and said, ‘never seen her before in my life’. Rose got the message to keep up the pretence loud and clear and would have done so if the Doctor hadn’t given the game up when Yvonne rather too happily, in Rose’s opinion, announced that they could shoot her. ‘Oh all right then, it was worth a try,’ he said with a groan and he shifted upright in his chair. ‘That’s…’ The Time Lord nodded towards the screen with a small grimace. ‘...that’s Rose Tyler.’

Rose leant forwards a little in her seat with a guilty expression on her face as she apologised to him. ‘Hello,’ she added and gave a weak wave which he returned with a funny, crooked grin.

Once Yvonne had been brought up to speed about who the fake Rose Tyler was, and the Doctor had complained about his reputation and made it known that he didn’t actually travel with Rose’s mother whilst Jackie insisted that he had kidnapped her once again, things started to go wrong. Soon Rose and the scientist beside her were seeing nothing but an empty office as Yvonne, the Doctor and Jackie left the room because another Ghost Shift had begun. But this one hadn’t been instigated by Yvonne.

‘Yvonne, I thought you said the next Ghost Shift was cancelled,’ he said into his earpiece, trying to get a hold of her but it was to no avail. ‘What’s going on?’ He tried again as he stood up. ‘Yvonne?’

Then the room shook. The shudder didn’t last for long but it was still dramatic enough to be unnerving. What made it even worse was that it seemed to be the sphere that was causing it. The scientist ran up to the sphere pursued by Rose and Mickey and then the room shook again. He raced back to the laptop in a panic and tried to reach Yvonne once more to tell her the sphere had activated. Looking at the readings as he did so, he tried to tell her that instead of the readings saying that the sphere was nothing, they now acknowledged the sphere as existing, giving it weight, mass and an electromagnetic field.

Rose’s eyes were torn away from the vibrating sphere when a loud banging came from the metal door behind her. The scientist answered what that banging noise was immediately as he frantically tried to report to Yvonne that the door had sealed due to the automatic quarantine meaning they couldn’t get out. They were trapped in the room with whatever was inside that sphere.

Mickey spoke up from beside her, still eying the sphere as he did so, ‘it’s alright babe, we’ve beaten them before, we can beat them again. That’s why I’m here. The fight goes on’.

Rose looked at him. There was something different about him. This wasn’t the Mickey Smith who cowered before the Tardis the first time he saw it, this wasn’t the Mickey Smith who screamed when vacuum packed rats fell on him from a school cupboard, this was a Mickey Smith who she had caught a glimpse of in that parallel world before he chose to stay behind there. He was a Mickey who had grown, who had gained confidence and who looked sure in himself. It was strange because it was a far cry from how he had held himself in the years she had known him, in the time when they were together, but it suited him. That still didn’t mean that he was making a lot of sense to Rose though. She stared at him confused as to what he was talking about. ‘The fight against what?’

‘What do you think?’ He replied with a hint of a smirk before the room shook some more. They found themselves clinging onto one another for stability and support. ‘We had them beaten, but then they escaped,’ Mickey told her, ‘the Cybermen just vanished’. The room shook again; every shake was getting alarmingly more frequent and a bit more violent. ‘They found their way through to this world but so did we.’

She stared at him again. ‘The Doctor said that was impossible.’

‘Yeah it’s not the first time he’s been wrong.’

Rose wanted to know more about how he had come through, come back, but now wasn’t the time. Instead she followed Mickey’s gaze back to the sphere and directed her question to be about it. ‘What’s inside that sphere?’

The room violently rattled again before he answered. ‘No one knows. Cyber leader. Cyber King. Emperor of the Cybermen. Whatever it is…’ He turned to her and gave her a determined and slightly co*cky grin before staring back at the sphere once more. ‘...he’s dead meat.’

His assured attitude made her smile, his presence a slight comfort to her in the light of what was to come. She nudged his arm. ‘It’s good to see you,’ she told him because it really was and it certainly wasn’t just because he seemed to be the only one around here who had some sort of clue as to what was going on. Rose had missed her best friend, had missed their laughs together and their random chats. It really was nice that he was here.

Mickey smiled back as he briefly glanced back at her saying, ‘yeah. It’s good to see you too’.

Behind them the scientist was trying to get through to anyone else at this point but it was no use, no one was answering at all. Around them the banging hardly stopped for a second now and then a screeching sound joined it. It was coming from the sphere. As the sphere stopped vibrating the scientist joined them and Mickey took off his lab coat and earpiece; all part of his Samuel disguise. He dumped them on the floor so he was ready to fight the Cybemen when they left the sphere. It hissed as the seemingly solid and whole surface separated into segments that slowly opened up, a glow of bright white light radiating from the sliver that had opened which only grew more prominent the further along the process the sphere got.

‘I know what’s in there and I’m ready for them. I’ve got just the thing,’ Mickey determinedly said as the sphere reached the halfway mark. He rushed off to the side, to a platform section at the front of the room and reached underneath it to retrieve a rather large and powerful looking gun. Both Rose and the scientist eyed him curiously and with surprise. ‘This is going to blast them into hell,’ he assured them as he pointed the gun upwards at the sphere after re-joining Rose’s side.

‘Samuel? What are you doing?’ Asked the shocked scientist who clearly hadn’t seen through Mickey’s disguise at all.

‘The name’s Mickey,’ he told the scientist. He adjusted his stance and readied the gun, prepared to shoot at any moment. ‘Mickey Smith. Defending the Earth!’ Except as prepared he thought he was Mickey found that he wasn’t prepared at all. ‘That’s not Cybermen,’ he said as the trio huddled together and shuffled backwards, all staring in shock at what was appearing from the sphere.

‘Oh my God,’ breathed Rose. She knew exactly who those creatures were. She’d faced them before, faced them as the Bad Wolf and destroyed whole fleets of them, entire ships, to save her Doctor. Those metal plated creatures weren’t Cybermen. They were Daleks.

The group of four were led by a black painted Dalek, the rest of them were the bronze Rose was familiar with, and they hovered lower and lower until they touched the ground. The leader spoke in that spine chilling voice of the Dalek race, their lights on the top of the metallic body flashing white as they did so, ‘location: Earth. Lifeforms detected. Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!’ The other Daleks joined in with that murderous chant whilst the huddling humans stared at them in disbelief.

Rose soon caught herself because she wasn’t just going to lie down and die to a bunch of Daleks. The Doctor sure as hell wouldn’t. He’d been in so many near death situations and he’d wangled his way out of them some way or another. She didn’t quite know what to do about stopping the Daleks, as it wasn’t like she still had the power of Bad Wolf, but they didn’t know that. The Doctor would run his gob off to try and stall them at the very least whilst he thought of a plan so maybe Rose could do the same. It wasn’t the first time she’d tried such a thing and she’d learnt a lot since she’d faced the Sycorax and it wasn’t like she was going in blind, she knew a lot about the Daleks, about what made them tick, about how they worked. She could do it; she just hoped that what she had to say would catch their attention enough to stop them from exterminating the three of them.

‘Daleks!’ She yelled. Her voice was commanding as she stared them down. It caught her a little off guard at how well just naming the creatures got them to stop and stare back at her through their glowing blue eyestalks. Seeing how well that went Rose thought she’d continue down that route because they clearly didn’t expect to be recognised and that intrigued them. ‘You’re called the Daleks,’ she reiterated, gaining confidence the longer the group stayed silent. Rose stepped forwards, closer to that front black Dalek as she said, ‘I know your name. Think about it…’ She stripped off her disguise of the white lab coat before she continued. ‘…how can I know that? A human who knows about the Daleks and the Time War. If you want to know how, then keep us alive. That’s all I’m asking. Me and my friends.’

Mickey piped up then, confirming that he knew about them and the war, as did the scientist.

The lead Dalek turned to look at them and then back at Rose. ‘You will be necessary,’ it stated and Rose gulped a little. She wanted them to not kill her and the others but what the Dalek said made her think it had a plan of its own and clearly they could be beneficial to the Dalek’s to fulfil whatever that plan was. Rose let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding as the black Dalek spun around to talk to the others saying, ‘report: what is the status of the Genesis Ark?’

‘Status: hibernation,’ the bronze one on the left replied.

‘Commence awakening,’ the black Dalek ordered. ‘The Genesis Ark must be protected above all else.’

Rose watched as that Dalek on the left turned and moved to the metal object that sat in the centre of the group of Daleks. She had noticed it when they had first hovered out of the sphere but hadn’t paid it too much attention because she’d focused her gaze more on the Daleks already knowing what a threat they were. She knew nothing of this Genesis Ark though and seeing as the Daleks were using it and were guarding it fiercely, Rose didn’t like it one bit. Like a Dalek, the Ark had metal balls attached to its outer metal shell, though these balls were a lot fewer in number. The bronze Dalek placed it’s plunger like arm on one of the balls whilst Rose stared at it enraptured, wondering what it would do because Daleks on their own were bad enough. The single good thing about the situation was that there were only four of them but even one was an extreme threat. She'd seen that much first hand when they found one in that bunker in Utah.

‘But Daleks,’ Mickey voiced quietly, glancing at her whilst still pointing his gun at the creatures. ‘You said they were all dead.’

She turned to him; they had far greater problems than wondering how the Daleks had survived once again, though the Doctor was certainly not going to be happy about that when he found out. ‘Never mind that, what the hell’s a Genesis Ark?’

Mickey never got the chance to answer, not that he did know in the first place. The black Dalek turned to the humans once more and asked, ‘which one of you is least important?’

Rose frowned at it. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Which one of you is least important?’ It repeated.

‘No, we don’t work like that, none of us,’ she answered with a shake of her head.

The Dalek didn’t like that answer, its metal body shaking more violently as it made demands of them to designate the least important once more. The scientist decided not to designate himself as least important as such but to offer himself up to them because he felt as though they were his responsibility. He was in charge of the sphere and the Daleks had appeared from within it so they were his to deal with even if he knew the least about them of the three humans in the room. Rose tried to stop him but he didn’t take notice and stood before the black Dalek, and in the centre of the trio of Daleks, naming himself as a representative of the Torchwood Institute. He was ordered to kneel and, after a brief moment of questioning why, he did so and the Dalek explained that they were after information on current Earth history. Instead of allowing him to talk they encroached on the scientist with their plungers and attached them to his head to extract his brainwaves. He screamed as the plungers stretched over his face and Mickey went to stop them somehow but Rose pulled him back, already knowing it was too late for the poor man. By the time they had finished the extraction his head was nothing more than a skull and he fell to the floor as the Daleks spoke of what they had learnt.

‘His mind spoke of a second species invading Earth. Infected by the superstition of ghosts,’ the black one stated.

‘You didn’t need to kill him!’ Rose shouted at the Dalek, hating the injustice of it all.

As ever the Daleks did not care about the murder they had just committed. ‘Neither did we need him alive,’ stated one of the bronze ones.

‘Dalek Thay, investigate outside,’ the black Dalek ordered.

‘I obey!’ The bronze Dalek Thay left through the sliding metal door and the leader demanded a visual connection to be established so they too could see what that Dalek could without venturing outside of the room, presumably wanting to stand guard over the Genesis Ark and the humans who knew so much about them. A large screen was projected onto the wall where the sphere once hovered before it. It showed the view that Dalek Thay could see of the corridor just outside, even down to the circular shape of the lens and the blue colour of it making the picture they received on the screen blue too.

First Rose heard those familiar metallic stamping footsteps and then two Cybermen rounded the corner. Both species demanded that the other identified itself and this went back and forth until the Dalek slipped up and gave up their identity first. As they continued speaking Rose’s mobile quietly started to ring. She surreptitiously took it from her pocket and clicked the answer button but didn’t bring it up to her ear, not wanting to be caught out by the Daleks. Glancing down at the screen she saw the caller I.D. was her mum though, knowing who was with her, Rose presumed it was actually the Doctor who was on the other end. At least if she couldn’t speak to him right now, he might be able to hear the Daleks in the room with her and could hopefully work out their plan if not just gain some intel on them.

Dalek Thay ended up exterminating the two Cybermen after the Cybermen wanted to form an alliance but the Daleks, thinking they were better than everything else in the universe, would never do such a thing.

What must have been the leader of the Cybermen appeared on the big screen next telling the Daleks, ‘you have declared war on the Cybermen’.

‘This is not war,’ the black Dalek replied, ‘this is pest control!’

‘We have five million Cybermen. How many are you?’

Well that was a lot of Cybermen. Far more than Rose had faced before and they were all apparently on Earth. To make things even worse, when the Cybermen had been appearing as ghosts all over the world the people had gotten used to them and had learnt to live with them. They would never expect the ghosts to turn into metal men who would either kill or try to upgrade the entire population Rose was sure. The Dalek didn’t sound fazed by the fact that they were only four in number and would be facing millions in this war that was just beginning between the two races.

‘You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks?’

‘We would destroy the Cybermen with one Dalek!’ The leader stated and Rose, knowing what they were capable of and having just seen that performance of strength over the two Cybermen in the corridor, thought that yes the Daleks probably did have a good chance even with the difference in numbers. ‘You are superior in only one respect,’ the Dalek continued.

‘What is that?’

‘You are better at dying. Raise communications barrier.’ With that the visual on the screen turned to static but not before Rose saw something that made her breath catch. There was the Doctor on the screen, just walking around in the background with a phone to his ear as though he was casually on a call with someone and the world didn’t feel like it was about to end. Well, he was on a call, a call with Rose and going by his appearance on the screen he might have been able to see her and Mickey through the visual the black Dalek had with the lead Cyberman. Why else would he make himself known to the Daleks unless he was silently communicating his presence to Rose? Although perhaps he thought his appearance might buy her more time. With him being with the Cybermen, and stuck on their side of the war, she didn’t think he’d be able to get to where she was and swoop in and get her out of there. The Daleks did catch sight of him too but the screen faded to static as the black one said, ‘wait!’ It was too late, the link was gone. This didn’t seem to be a problem though as they didn’t need a live link to confirm whether or not that was the Doctor. They rewound the video and zoomed in so they could see his image fully. There he was, most definitely the Doctor. The Daleks identified him as the enemy and then the lead one turned to Rose and stated, ‘the female’s heartbeat has increased’. Her smile at seeing her partner on the screen faded away. Mickey chirped in with a sarcastic comment but her focus was fully on the Dalek who stood rather close before her and demanded she identified him.

She let out a slightly shaky breath. ‘Alright then…if you really wanna know.’ Indicating to the screen with her eyes she said, ‘that’s the Doctor’. With those words all the Daleks moved back from her, because of course they may have realised that he was an enemy but without having faced him in his new body they didn’t know it was their worst enemy. Their reaction made Rose’s confidence soar as she looked around at them with a faint smirk on her lips. ‘Five million Cybermen, easy. One Doctor. Now you’re scared,’ she said with complete belief in her words.

Dalek Thay re-entered the room at that point telling the others to concrete on the Genesis Ark rather than the Cybermen threat and the next thing Rose knew she and Mickey were herded into a corner by one of the other bronze Daleks before it too used its plunger on the machine. Then they all did. All the Daleks were connected to the Ark. Whatever they were doing, it wouldn’t be good, that was for certain.

‘Why are we being kept alive?’ Mickey asked her quietly.

She didn’t know, not really, but there was just one thought running through her mind. A thought about her first time meeting a Dalek ‘They might need me.’

‘What?’ He took his eyes off the Daleks and glanced at her. ‘What is it? She shook her head because what could she say? It was just a feeling she had within her because Daleks didn’t take prisoners, they just killed, but clearly they were being kept alive for a reason. Mickey dove into his pocket then and pulled a round disk with a yellow button in the centre and going by his words it was a transporter of some sort which would explain some of how he managed to get back into his original universe. ‘I could transport us out of here but it only carries one and I’m not leaving you.’

Rose stared at him in disbelief. ‘You’d follow me anywhere,’ she stated, certain of her words, ‘what did I do to you all those years ago?’

He smirked and put it back in his pocket. ‘Guess I’m just stupid.’

She grabbed his hand and clasped it in her own. ‘You’re the bravest man that I’ve ever met.’

‘What about the Doctor?’ Mickey asked, already knowing she was going to change her words.

Rose leant her head back as she took in a breath. ‘Oh alright. Bravest human,’ she amended and he smirked.

‘Well, I can’t think what the Daleks need with me, I’m nothing to them.’

Glancing back over to the Daleks and the Ark, Rose suggested otherwise. ‘You could be…whatever’s inside that Ark is waking up. I’ve seen this happen before. First time I saw a Dalek, it was broken, it was dying. But I touched it. The moment I did that, I brought it 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.’

‘I love it when you talk technical,’ Mickey said with a smirk as Rose paused for breath in her explanation.

‘Shut up,’ she retorted seriously because now really wasn’t the time for that. ‘But if the Daleks have got something inside that thing, and it needs waking up…’

‘They need you,’ he stated.

Rose glanced back at him. ‘You’ve travelled in time, either one of us would do.’

‘But why would they build something that they can’t open themselves?’

She thought that was an excellent question and one that she had been pondering herself because it didn’t make sense at all. The Daleks gave them their answer before Rose could even reply to Mickey when the black one said that the technology was stolen and wasn’t of Dalek design. That just created another question for Rose. ‘Then who built it?’ She asked.

‘The Time Lords,’ it told her, shocking Rose completely. ‘This is all that survives of their homeworld.’ Staring at the Ark with a completely new feeling of confusion and disbelief, she demanded they told her what was inside but the Dalek’s answer of “the future” was as vague as it was unhelpful. Clearly the Time Lord she knew wasn’t the only one who liked to make big, dramatic reveals of their plans. The Dalek’s attention was brought back to the Ark when another announced it was the final stage of awakening. All the Daleks moved away from it and circled around it a little as the black one returned their attention to Rose to demand that her handprint would be used to open it.

‘Well, tough cos I’m not doing it,’ she replied rather calmly in her opinion, as though they weren’t a race of mass murderers who could easily kill her with one shot. Still, she had some leverage because they did need her or Mickey.

Clearly the Daleks also saw that they just needed one of the humans because the leader said, ‘obey or the male will die!’

Those words changed Rose’s defiance immediately. She wasn’t just going to let them kill Mickey; that was never an option in her book. They’d defeated the Daleks before and they could do it again, even with whatever was in that Ark looming over them. What they couldn’t do was bring Mickey back from the dead, that wasn’t possible. ‘I can’t let them,’ she said as she strode towards the Ark. Mickey called after, trying to get her to stop but she didn’t listen.

‘Place your hand upon the casket,’ the black Dalek ordered.

‘Alright!’ She shot back, giving them a stern look for being so impatient. Then she looked back at the Ark and said to herself, ‘you’re gonna kill us anyway, so what the hell’. From the outside it may have looked as though Rose had given in to their demands, surrendered to the Daleks if you will, but she hadn’t. Rose was far from ready to surrender just yet. Being with the Doctor you learnt a thing or two. Such as how to play for time, when to run, when to fight and boy could that man talk himself out of a tight spot. He somehow always had just the right thing to say, well most of the time, but Rose was focusing on the positives because now it was her turn and it was against the Daleks of all creatures so it had to be perfect. But she was pretty confident of her trump card and pretty confident that the Daleks would find it bad. She took a deep breath and turned back to the lead Dalek, a frown growing on her face as she drew her hand up to her chin as though in thought. ‘If you - erm - escaped the Time War, don’t you wanna know what happened…?’ Rose had taken a couple of steps towards the Dalek and was now face to face with it, her gaze directly pointed at the blue glow of the eyestalk.

‘Place your hand-’ The Dalek began to demand of her once more but Rose cut it off, she was far from finished.

‘...what happened to the Emperor?’ She said, putting extra emphasis on the “p” like the Doctor did.

The Dalek’s authoritative tone lessened as it said, ‘the Emperor survived?’ It sounded like it had hope which was strange to hear from a Dalek, not that it lasted long. Not with what Rose had to say next.

‘Until he met me.’ Her voice was full of determination and warning as she continued on saying, ‘cos if these are gonna be my last words then you’re gonna listen. I met the Emperor. And I took the time vortex and poured it into his head and turned him into dust. Do you get that?’ Rose gave it a challenging look as she finished her threat. ‘The God of all Daleks…and I destroyed him!’ At those words she let out a laugh though the humour was short lived.

‘You will be exterminated!’ The Dalek practically screamed.

It could have gone one of two ways in Rose’s mind and this was the most likely, but at least she had tried, there was a little comfort in that when you were about to be killed by a Dalek.