rabid1st | FIC: IDLE & BLESSED - Doctor Who AU, Ten/Rose, Mature, Part 1/20

IDLE & BLESSED

by Rabid1st

Doctor Who

Ten/Rose

AU from “The End of Time”

Rating: Mature Eventually

Beta: Not at this time. Eventually.

Warning: This is not a Ten2 story. He is gone, but, not forgotten, exactly.

Author's Notes: Once upon a time, a long time before Journey's End, I wrote a story called “What Wild Geese Know” that featured Ten and Rose starting out to be normal people like...well...everyone has now imagined Ten2 and Rose to be. But then Journey's End happened and I lost all taste for my favorite show. But still, I wanted to finish my Wild Geese 2 story idea. This story is going to take some of those ideas and work them around with a bit of what is happening with the Moffat/Matt series of Doctor Who thrown in to the mix, because I can't ignore that canon, I just can't.

Summary: There are a lot of unanswered questions in New Who. Loopholes in the plot that are shouted out loud. “Why did the TARDIS door close?” for example. Who closed it? Why did all time lines end with Donna? Who was that woman who warned Wilf? What caused that explosion on the TARDIS during the Tenth Doctor's regeneration? And when did the Doctor become such a helpless child, so afraid of endings? Of course, it may never be connected by canon. But I will connect it all here. The explosion on the TARDIS was the start of another story, in another universe. This is that tale.

Disclaimer: I own nothing associated with Doctor Who. This is simply a way to pay homage to characters I love and wish to preserve in my mind.

NOTE:The LJ formatting looks awful to me, but others seem okay with it. Perhaps the fault lies with my browser. If you use Google Chrome and this fic is all squashed together, let me know.

“I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”

~The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

“What is it, my love?” River asked, with tender concern, as she sank down beside him on the blanket they had spread for their picnic.

“This,” he said, waving a hand at creation. “My life in a bottle.”

“It is what it is. All we have is this. But we can go anywhere. And I, for one, have enjoyed every moment.”

He smiled fondly on her, before he tutted and shook his head. “I know, you see. And I can't unknow. The loop is closing. Forever closing. Like a necktie. A noose.”

“I can sense it, yes.”

“You expect to end, but you don't. I won't let that happen.”

“Shhh! Spoilers.”

“No,” he insisted, taking her hand. “Believe me. For you, there is a reality beyond this one. I know what happens to you, River. I've lived it. Or, at least, I remember living it. You--” She wrenched her hand away.

“Don't say. Never say. Knowing changes everything.”

Chin to chest, he peered at her from beneath his fringe. Determination hardened the lines around her mouth. Those dreaded lines were the proper depth, now. They were out of time. He could read her exact age to the second by a thousand signs. This would be their last picnic. He smiled and took her hand again.

“Thank you for this. This picnic. This lifetime. We have lived, haven't we?”

“We have.” She smiled at him. “We will go out together.”

“No,” he denied her once more, but kissed her hand. “If you hadn't been here, I might have fought back, tried to change something. But you made me promise not to change a thing.”

“Did I?” He nodded and after a pause she asked, “When did you know?”

“That I was a remnant? Incomplete?”

“A child, sweetie. Brand new. The TARDIS is sheltering you here.”

“In this culdesac.”

“When did you know?” She asked again.

“When I saved Amy the first time,” his voice trailed off to a cough. Then, he seemed to gather himself again and continued. “I tried to go back to the explosion, you see? I planned to stop it.”

“And they stopped you?”

“Yes. I sensed the other universes. But when we kissed--I read it in your mind. You've known for a long time.” He handed her a sandwich wrapper. “Do you see this?”

She turned it over to read, “Bad Wolf Bakery?”

“And that?” He pointed to a sign.

“The Predator Club?”

“Signs. I mean, of course, but not just signs. They're,” he air quoted, “Signs! She's coming back. The predator. A bad translation. But that's the Daleks for you. This universe can't forget me, because she won't let it. She's coming back and I'm going to die. Truly and forever.”

“No. You won't. The TARDIS has a plan. It is time to be reborn.”

“Remade. There's not enough of me to save. We both know it.”

“You are stronger now. You needed time to grow into yourself. We've given you that.”

“This is Emo Boy's fault. All his moping about gave her ideas. And he never should have kept that hand.”

“I wonder did you have a choice?”

“I am not a pet,” he said, surging to his feet. “I am not a goldfish in a bowl. I am the Lord of Time.”

“Gallifrey is gone. All of it. She just wants to keep you safe.”

“Am I safe? Trapped here? There will be another Doctor. And you will go on, out there, to meet me again. I'll be left here, treading water, treading time. Is this a life? But, I promise you, before I go, I will find a way to set you free from this,” he waved a hand at the world, once again, “prison.”

“Not a prison, my love, a womb. She has a plan.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I don't want to go,” he said, speaking the wish aloud for the first time. He wasn't afraid of death. He just wanted to go on, do more. Be him.

Clinging to a particular ego self was an unthinkable arrogance for a Time Lord. And yet, there was so much he still wanted to experience with this body. Most of it impossible for him, now. He could never be happy without...all that he'd lost. But he hadn't lost hope, not until this very last moment. Against all odds, in the back of his mind, he'd still believed in her.

As if in response to his distress, the TARDIS began to quake and shudder. A brace crashed down from the side as flames licked up her walls. Panic caught his dying breath. Something was happening to the TARDIS and he was helpless. What could cause such destruction within his ship? What the hell was happening to her? To him?

This wasn't just a regeneration. Or if it was, certainly, it wasn't like any of the one's he'd endured since Gallifrey was lost to him. Truly, they'd become a blur of burning pain and grasping for memories. What comes after regeneration? Nothing, he would have said, now that the Matrix no longer existed. In the past, of course, there was a virtual existence waiting for each facet of a Time Lord's ego. But with Gallifrey gone, he would be gone as well, snuffed out like a candle when the new man arrived. There was no place to preserve his bio-data. He'd had a plan to survive, but his ticket to independent life had been lost, along with everything else that mattered.

At best, he might live on as a shadow-self. He might be tucked into the new man, folded over into the emerging ego of the Next Doctor. There would be remnants of him, but no clear soul or voice. He would cease to matter. And, yet, he wanted nothing more than to live independently. To have a sense of himself, as a unique being. His ego longed to be in charge of its own destiny. But that wasn't possible, not without the Matrix and all it represented of eternal life for each regeneration. He had managed to keep the echoes of his Eighth and Ninth selves around, at the back of his mind, but they were no longer individuals. They were part of his three-fold consciousness.

He'd played fast and loose with this regeneration, damaging his continuity by splintering his personality, squandering bursts of energy, but none of that explained what could be destroying his ship. How could anything violate the TARDIS like this? Perhaps the damage was self-inflicted. But what could she be doing that would tax her so severely? Even as he had the thought, hope sparked again in his mind. His ship could be cracking the universe, trying to reach across the Void. Such an attempt would short out her systems and create a devastating power surge. He dismissed the thought. She would never do such a thing on her own, without instructions. Unless... There was one person who could command the heart of his ship, because she had already created a link through the Time Vortex.

Rose? The TARDIS spoke for him, like an exhalation of angels. He hadn't the breath or bodily control to say the name. But it appeared to conjure her image. She was with him, glowing pink and gold, eyes burning hot as the sun. A last illusion. Or a portent, like the Watcher. It couldn't truly be her.

Wish fulfillment was part and parcel of a virtual existence. Had the TARDIS found some alternative to the Matrix? Was she downloading his dying self? He thought, of Rassilon's nearly infinite power. He'd managed to retain an ego self eternally. Rassilon had returned from death and had nearly broken free from his time-locked bubble. The Matrix had been close to Earth, for a moment or two, nearly parallel. Perhaps, the TARDIS had synchronized with it, somehow. Or perhaps she had tapped into the great Library computer and found a way to keep him safe during such a transition. But no, even the Great Library could not accommodate a Time Lord with a three-fold consciousness. He would fragment into madness. If there had been just one part of him in the body, perhaps, it would have worked. But he was complex and, just like Rassilon and the other resurrected Time Lords, he would need a biometrically exact vessel to contain his mind. He'd had one, but he'd given it away.

Yet, he appeared to be continuing in some formless fashion. His self awareness remained clear, even as something infinitely powerful hooked into his chest and jerked him away from his morphing body. The sense of motion dragged him up and out of his flesh. Vaguely, he recognized this feeling. It reminded him of his time within the pocket watch. His Time Lord Essence had been preserved within the watch, while his body was converted to a human form. As he departed, he became aware of his body being converted into something, someone else. He wondered if it would remember him. And then he became aware of the universe, as a bubble with a crack in it. He watched the TARDIS shatter.

Before he could work out what was happening, the dragging force plunged him into a scalding sea of white-gold light. He would have screamed if he'd had some idea how to do it. Waves of energy tossed him high and pulled him low. Luckily, the disorienting pain lasted only a moment. It left him drifting lazily along as the sweetest sense of welcome enveloped him. He was no longer alone. For the first time in his life, he belonged somewhere. It struck him suddenly that this could be true death at long last. He'd never experienced true death before, but didn't the lore suggest a bright light and greetings from lost loved ones? The ambient glow became pinkish, again, surrounding and penetrating him. It felt warm and inviting. It pulsed reassurance, like a heartbeat. He was home and safe. Everything would be fine now. The sense of joyful reunion continued, bathing him in contentment for what seemed like hours.

His peace evaporated without warning. The lights clicked off and he fell head-over-tea-kettle into breathless, absolute darkness. Horrified, he struggled to draw in air. And it worked. He could breathe. The first gasp tore at his lungs. It felt like a sword through the chest. The world jerked sideways and cracked into his head.

Rose had taken his hand. A moment after his attention divided, Rose Tyler took his hand.

She was holding it again, when he returned to himself, two halves clicking back into a whole.

That couldn't be a coincidence, could it? No! There was too much coincidence in this.

Donna. Donna's grandfather. Donna's car. Davros, the only mind capable of destroying the walls between parallel worlds had been resurrected. Resurrected? Saved! By Dalek Ka'an? How much power had that taken? Enough to nearly release Rassilon from his temporal prison. The meddling of Dalek Ka'an had to be what cracked those walls! Oh, yes! Dalek Ka'an another being that looked into the heart of time and went mad.

Anyone would. Anyone but her.

What had Davros said, again, “He saw time...and...he saw you. Both of you.”

The Doctor and Rose. As it should be.

She'd been silent. Strangely silent in the face Davros taunting him.

And then there was Ka'an. He had foretold her coming. She'd met him just before leaving this universe. She'd told him the truth.

“Do you get that? The God of all Daleks and I destroyed him.”

The endless fire. Everything.“Why does it burn?”

How had she remembered defeating the Dalek Emperor? He'd wiped it from her mind. And yet...he had heard her tell Ka'an the truth.

Who closed the TARDIS door? Not Ka'an. No. The TARDIS itself. Perhaps. Or the Wolf, reaching across time and space? Rose with the power of the TARDIS time vortex at her command.

She said to tell you, two words. Bad Wolf! Not gone at all. Not locked away, but everywhere. Too dangerous to let roam freely, but far too powerful to be contained by him.

All those banners, declaring her return. “Rose is coming back. Isn't that good?”

Oh, yes! It was very good. And completely terrifying. Because he was powerless against her.

“I have seen it,” Ka'an said, “At the time of ending, the Doctor's soul will be revealed.”

Who revealed more of his soul than her?

“And one of them will die.”

That made sense, of course, because that was how a meta crisis worked. A life for a life. You couldn't create an exact copy of a person from a hand, and then just walk off whistling. One of them, the new him, the old him, or Donna would have to die to break the connection. Donna. It would be her, because she was human. There couldn't be a meta crisis with a human, because they had only one life to give. She would burn up as his mind passed through her. Unless he interfered. He could block the link, if he took away all of her memories of him, and sealed the walls of the universe against the inevitable end.

But they just kept popping back into his life. Donna and Wilf. Wilf and Donna. Pieces on a chessboard. "One question Doctor," Wilf had asked, apropos of nothing.“Who was that woman?”

The realization twisted cold in his gut. Wilf had seen her, too. She'd covered her face, but he'd recognized her aura. Rose. Older. No longer blond. The Bad Wolf. Had there been a plan all along between Rose and the TARDIS? Could it be the same as his plan to create another vessel for his consciousness? He'd failed. But perhaps they had succeeded.

“I want you safe, my Doctor.”

The thought would have made him laugh out loud if his body hadn't been burning. All his suffering, the torturous decisions he'd made to preserve both Rose and Donna, to give them some semblance of a normal life, did none of it matter? How deluded had he been, to imagine himself in charge?

He was nothing more than a passenger. A flea on the back of a woolly mammoth, pretending he steered the beast.

“You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence. And I divide them.”

She had divided him.

And then, she put him back together again.

Awake. Whole. Alive. He was alive. Good. But unexpected, somehow. Why? Unable to open his eyes, he took inventory in the dark. There was something cold and damp and gritty under him. His fingers dug into it. Almost definitely not an afterlife, he thought. Heaven, if it existed, had to be more comfortable than this. And quieter.

A horrendous screeching sounded in his ears. A fire alarm? An air raid siren? Perhaps a cacophony of separate sounds? There seemed to be words, but he could make no sense of them. After a moment, he identified one of the noises as gulls. Gulls screaming on the wind. And was that the rumble and swish of surf? There was a salt tang to the air. But no temporal positions teased at his tongue, no time or place. His tongue felt rubbery. His breath came in short gasps, grating along his throat. He could sense a sluggish and erratic heartbeat. Respiratory by-pass had failed to kick-in, but his distress went deeper than lack of air. This could be nothing but life, but it was alien, strangely altered. And quite impossible. He'd been dying for days.

Maybe he'd only been alive for a day. Two sets of memories had been pushed into a pile of vague impressions. He had understood something about all of this, before waking up here. The memory of a memory teased at him. And regeneration loomed out of the car wreck of his recollections. Dying was hard to forget. He'd died. And fallen. Saved Wilf. There was some radiation poisoning, and a final tour of goodbyes. And Rose. So young. Looking fresh as springtime. Her smile lit up the night. It warmed him inside as she ran toward him.

No, she was running away from him. Up the stairs toward her flat. No. Toward the vanishing TARDIS. The TARDIS was leaving without him. Because Rose had kissed someone. Him? No. Not him, but like him. Someone else. There were two of him. She'd wrenched away from him, breaking the embrace, and run toward the other. He felt bereft and happy at the same time. But he was already gone, then. He was betrayed and betrayed again.

It wasn't fair. Everyone had someone. He'd made sure of it. And so what if they weren't happy? They were getting by, making something out of their lives. And he had nothing. Nothing. An arrogant fury burned in him, alongside his sadness. Of course he'd refused to let go of life, of hope. He'd fought against the inevitable change for as long as possible.

Had there been an explosion? A voice calling to him? Eyes burning like a beacon as he moved away from his body? Was that normal? No, it wasn't.

So, that settled it then. All of this discomfort was an illusion. He couldn't be alive. He waited for reality to catch up with this realization. Any moment now he would die. Any second. But, if anything, signs of life intruded more than ever. His perceptions grew sharper. In fact, speaking of sharp, there was a very sharp something stabbing into his right shoulder. And someone was definitely speaking, shouting, some words. It sounded like English. As he translated the noise, he became rather alarmed, not only by the words, but by the implication of a voice he was sure he recognized.

“Rose? Sweetheart? Can you hear me? Don't be dead. My God, please! Open your eyes, Rose. Rose? Come back to me, sweetheart. Please.”

“Rose?”

He'd intended to project the question, but choked on it instead. He sputtered so violently that he was forced to sit up, coughing. His mouth flooded with saliva. It dribbled over his lower lip and down his chin. That was new and different. He'd never dribbled. Someone clutched at him, first his arm, and then his shirt front.

“Oh, thank God! You're alive! You have to help her.”

His eyes would not open. He tried to force one eyelid up with a sandy hand and fell back onto the ground. Coordination off a bit. Navigating his fingers to his face took concentration. He poked his cheek and brow and some grit fell into his mouth. But he finally managed to peer out at the world from one eye. Something monstrously blue loomed over him. He winced as it grabbed at him again.

“Don't you dare pass out again. Do you hear me? Rose needs help.” He recognized that strident note of command.

“Jackie?”

“Oh! Not again. Come on, now. Stay with me.”

He'd expected her to call him useless. He thought himself remarkably useless, at the moment. But she sounded heartbroken. And he knew a rush of affection for her. Bracing himself on an elbow, he levered toward what he hoped was up. Forcing teeth and tongue and lips to form speech took a tremendous effort, so he left his eyes closed to compensate.

“Yes. Right. Here. How? Wha-what's happened?”

“Don't ask me, you useless lump. I don't know. Just move. Do something. Help her!”

Now that was the Jackie Tyler he knew. The world seemed right to him. He threw far too much energy into opening his eyes and just managed it. “I—oh, dizzy,” he said, surprised by it. And he vomited.

Involuntary retching? No. It was inconceivable. Undignified. Disgusting. And pointless as there was nothing but watery bile in his stomach. Knees curled to his chest, he lay on his side on the sand, far too close to the mess. The world tipped and spun. What in the name of Rassilon was happening to him? Time Lords do not get vertigo. Ever.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Jackie said, petting his shoulder. “Please don't die. Not in the back of beyond in bloody Norway.”

“Norway?” he croaked. Definitely not Heaven.

“Tha's right,” she said in the same tone she might use to a backward child. “We are still where the other you dropped us. The heartless sod. No phone signal. No roads. And I need you. So,snap out of it. Please.”

He fixed his gaze on a crab shell, half-buried in the sand a few yards from his nose. This encouraged the world to stabilize slightly. Keeping his eyes focused straight ahead, he lifted his head again. A large part of his disorientation came from the dual memories assaulting him. He seemed to be two people. But he put that aside.

“Jackie. You must tell me what you saw. What happened just before Rose and I collapsed?”

“Can't you just...?”

“Tell me," he commanded, then softened his tone. "It's important.”

“All right, then. You were kissing. You and Rose. And the other you took that badly and swanned off. Then, Rose broke away from you and ran after him. But he was gone. And you went after Rose.”

He remembered it. “And I took her hand.”

“That's right. And she'd just turned her head to look at you, when, there was this—I don't know—an explosion.”

“An Explosion?” He remembered that, too. But it had happened on the TARDIS as he regenerated. The TARDIS collapsed around him, and he was pulled free. And the universe became a cracked bubble.

“I saw the sky break open and I swear the world fell through the hole. We were all toss off our feet. And there was this--this, I don't know what. A wave of fire, washing over us, so bright I couldn't see. I was so scared, I called to Rose and I...I closed my eyes. And I didn't open them until it was over. When it stopped, I sat up and saw the two of you. I shouted, but you didn't move. And Rose is so cold, Doctor. You have to do something.”

“Yes. Alright. In my right trouser pocket? There is a medical kit. Smelling salts. A red bottle.” He watched her fumble down his front. She patted and prodded him until she found the kit and the vial. Pulling it free, she turned toward Rose, but he stopped her with a put upon sigh. “For me, Jackie.”

"And then you will help her?"

"Then, we will see if I can move."

TO BE CONTINUED

Part Two: http://rabid1st.livejournal.com/384327.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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astitchintime-9.livejournal.com

New fic: Yay!

The formatting is fine.

Q: How does the Doctor have a "three-fold consciousness"? Seeing Past/Present/Future?

It's really good. Gave-me-shivers good.

I'm glad that you're feeling motivated to write again! :)

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