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rabid1stYes, I know it is late. But it is also...really long. Two chapters in one, almost. Enjoy.
IDLE & BLESSED
by Rabid1st
Doctor Who
Ten/Rose
AU from “The End of Time”
Rating: Mature Eventually
Beta: Keswindhover
Warning: This is not a Ten2 story. He is gone, but, not forgotten, exactly. Basically, in my world, Ten2 was a vessel, created by the TARDIS, to store the Tenth Regeneration of the Doctor. A fleshy pocket watch, if you will, for those who have seen Human Nature or Utopia.
Summary: The Tenth Doctor has been archived into a biometrically identical vessel with a human heart and other human parts. He's worked out everything but the impossible bits, but he hasn't caught Rose up on any of it, yet. Rose is understandably confused.
“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
Part One
Part Two
On the far side of a proper promenade, they located a row of quaint bather's accommodations, changing huts, each fully plumbed with shower and toilet. Rose laid claim to one, guarding the entrance while the Doctor and her mother explored the interior. While she waited, occasionally waving off butterfly people, Rose's leaned against the hut's wooden lattice work. She didn't plan to mention it to her companions, but she felt awful. Her head ached. She rubbed her temples, wondering if she'd been injured when she fell. It could be a concussion. Her stomach felt queasy, too. Of course, she hadn't eaten anything since, when? Since breakfast. Two universes ago? She took a gel-pack of emergency rations from her pocket, pulled open the tab, and sucked down the lemon-lime contents. The quick carbs helped clear her head, but her belly cramped so severely she nearly dropped the packet.
Probably getting an ulcer, she thought, all this stress. Two Doctors. One of them human. Good Lord. Who could have see that coming? And the kiss. So right, and so very wrong. How long had it been since anyone had kissed her like that? Bonfire night? No. That one paled in comparison. His kiss had seemed like something from a dream. An echo of a pleasant shiver zipped up her spine. Rose asked herself the same question she'd been asking for the last five years: How much more of this could she take? Her life seemed to be one impossible event after another, crisis incoming--no waiting. And no time to unwind.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd taken a day off to relax. It had to be before she came to this world. But she did recall something Torchwood Director Suzie Costello had once told her about hope. Mickey had mentioned opening a Pandora's Box during a trade negotiation and, when talk turned to the idea of hope, Costello had said, “Hope belongs in there with all the other evils. Never forget that, Tyler. Hope is the evil thing we cling to, when we should be arming ourselves against it.”
Being a natural optimist, Rose had scoffed, but recent events seemed determined to convince her to, at least, take precautions against entertaining too much hope. She'd kept the little winged beast alive for five years, now, even when she'd had good cause to give it up. While attempting to return to the Doctor, she'd been stymied so many times she'd lost count. She'd held a dying Donna in her arms. She'd watched Jack burn. The Earth had been lost and a million solar systems beyond it. She'd developed Zen-like patience with screwy temporal currents. Her time in the TARDIS served her well. She'd learned to keep her wits about her while traveling with the Doctor. There were tricks she'd mastered. Never use your real name. Keep your sense of humor. Brazen anything out. Silence is your best defense against intrusive questions.
Everywhere she went, people had questions. Who are you? Can you save us? Who are you looking for, again? When are you going to give up on the Doctor and settle down? Alternative Donna's, Torchwood, Mickey, her mum, knowing the fate of worlds was in her hands, always turned to her in times of crisis, asking her what to do—as if she knew. Ever since she'd been sucked into an existence where her father had lived and succeeded, Rose had been trying to work out who she was. Who she wanted to be. She couldn't become Pete's daughter. The Doctor had been right about that. Pete had known Jackie, so they quickly developed an easy rapport.
But unlike her mum, or Mickey, Rose didn't have a place in her new world. She hadn't taken to being pampered and rich. She loved the man who was almost her dad, enjoyed his company, but she couldn't forget that she belonged elsewhere. So, instead of becoming a new Rose Tyler, she'd become the new Doctor. The Bad Wolf. Defender of the Earth. A mysterious stranger. She'd joined Torchwood and found it wanting. With the Doctor as her lodestar, she'd tweaked it into something more humane, less militant. The effort hardened her, but she'd kept her resilience. She'd studied alien technology and diplomacy, accidentally created alternative universes, built a traveling machine or two, and gotten her friends killed several times over. Her goal of returning home always remained elusive, just out her reach.
Even when the dimension cannon started working, the Doctor evaded her. She'd called to him in a panic a hundred times, only to have him slip away into oblivion. He'd die under the Thames or fall victim to an invisible entity on a world made of crystal and diamonds, even as she rushed to save him. Rose couldn't help feeling that, despite today's apparent success, she'd somehow arrived too late, again. When that Dalek shot the Doctor and he'd started to regenerate, she'd begged him not to die. Rose shuddered, remembering. She didn't want to think about how close she'd come to losing him. She had found him three times, now. The first time, he'd been half-mad following the Time War. The second, he'd been a childish future self in a cul-de-sac universe. Had she ended up in a fatal time line, again? One where the Doctor split in two? Finding two Doctors turned out to be just as frustrating as finding none. And she'd lost her link to Torchwood One. On all of her previous journeys, the Superphone had helped her coordinate her travels and return to a reset point. This time she was stuck, unless the Albatross found her. Would they think to wake it?
She hadn't told the Doctor about her secret helper in this world. Confessions were the last thing on her mind during those few stolen moments surrounding his aborted regeneration. All she'd wanted was to hold him. Now, she wasn't sure what she should share with him. He certainly wouldn't approve of the Albatross. And she wasn't sure she could trust him completely, despite the reassurances of her heart. He felt right to her now. He hadn't before she'd passed out. But she couldn't shake her nagging doubts about this doppleganger with one heart. How could it be her Doctor? He would have to explain what had happened after their kiss. Why she'd blacked out. Or better yet, why he had left her behind in the first place. Would her Doctor, the real Doctor, have tossed her back into this prison?
Perhaps. She had to admit the possibility. If, as he'd said, he believed it was their only choice, the only way to contain a dangerous being. If it were the only way to save others from harm. He'd certainly looked heartbroken. He'd said they saved the universe, but at a cost, and that cost was a human Doctor. He'd called his double dangerous, full of hate. But then, the human Doctor had somehow—changed. She couldn't explain exactly how she knew, but he was better now. Or maybe she hoped he was.
Rose tried to put it all out of her mind. She opened the back of her mobile and grimaced. The phone's interior had melted into a gooey mess of metal and plastic. It looked beyond help. She was on her own. After waving off another alien couple, Rose closed her eyes and, groaning, let her chin fall toward her chest. God, she felt awful. There'd been a flu going around Torchwood last week. But, she couldn't afford to be sick. She had a world to save and a possibly psycho Doctor to contain. She heard the unmistakable tread of those trainers, closing on her, and opened her eyes. But she didn't dare look over at him. If she met his gaze, she'd be swept up an emotional maelstrom and abandon all sense of a separate, reasonable self. And, until she knew what she was dealing with, she must not fall under his spell.
“Better?” she asked, pretending to study her phone.
“Much! Thank you!”
Even with her attention fixed on business, she noted his beaming smile in her peripheral vision. As always, it punctuated his exclamations, and made her want to turn toward him, like a sunflower toward the dawn. She needed them to be right again, to be content and happy together. She needed to rest, to stop being him. Rose knew it would be hard to resist the pull of their synchronicity. The mere sight of him acted like a tonic in her veins, or a shot of whiskey. He made her warm all over. Just yesterday, or earlier today, they'd run toward one another like the worst cliché of reunited lovers, both of them wearing grins so wide and bright. Her face still ached. She'd practically floated down that deserted street. And then, somehow, without even realizing when, she'd lost everything. He'd been him, at first, before the TARDIS fell into Dalek hands. She'd have sworn it.
“Although,” he amended, sobering as he failed to connect with her, “in future, perhaps it would be better if you explained biological processes rather than your mother. She's a little too hands on.”
“That's gratitude for you,” Jackie said, crowding close behind him. “You're the one who had questions.”
“Leave him alone, mum.” Rose ordered, pushing out of her slouch. She had to bite her lip to keep her stern composure when her mum give the Doctor's rump a small pat.
“Nothing I haven't seen before, ducks,” Jackie said, sucking in her breath to squeeze past him.
The changing huts were little more than two cupboards stuck together. There were no doors. A dog-legged portico of white lattice sheltered those using the facility from passing eyes. Three people strained the limits of the space, which had an alien configuration, awkward for humans. The entrances were tall, but not wide, designed to accommodate folded wings. The hut appeared to be designed for couples, rather than families. Rose had already noticed there were no children in evidence on the beach or along nearby streets. No family style facilities. Maybe butterfly people had caterpillar young. The Doctor would know.
“Lucky we found this place in time,” Jackie went on. “Near to bursting, you were.” She maneuvered around to face Rose. “You should go while you have the chance, Sweetheart.”
Rose nodded and, handing her ruined phone to the Doctor, ducked into the facilities. Away from the crowds, in a cool, dimly lit space, she felt marginally better. The live crabs in her stomach stopped churning and pummeling her. She took a deep breath, praying the worst was over. Certain she looked frightful; she'd planned to avoid the full length mirror. But the suggestion of something alien at the corner of her sight caused her to glance up into her own eyes. She looked older, thirty at least, and careworn. A memory of something her Mum once said came back to her. “There will be a woman in a marketplace on some alien world, but she's not Rose Tyler. She's not even human.” It had happened at last, and quite suddenly. Like a curse falling on her. Rose hardly recognized herself. How could she have changed so much in just two days?
As she took a step toward the mirror, a wave of dizziness hit. The world tilted around her. The floor slithered under her feet, like sand sucked away by an undertow. Rose grabbed at the edges of the mirror, suddenly afraid it was a portal, pulling her through to another realm. Disoriented, she thought she might faint or vomit. Luckily, before she did either, her mother's voice snapped her out of the weird head-space. The strident, but familiar, sound splashed into her like a refreshing spray of water.
“It will just be a minute or two more,” Jackie yelled in response to an alien inquiry, as if shouting could surmount the language barrier. Then, she directed a question toward the bathroom. “Rose? Why do the butterfly people have toilets?”
“Paplioo'zue,” the Doctor said, entering the conversation in that oh, so familiar way of his. “They are called Paplioo'zue or -kun, if they are mothier, less...decorative.”
“I suppose they need them, same as us,” Rose answered, glad for the distraction. Both she and her mother ignored the Doctor's interjection.
Rose took a shaky breath and looked again at her reflection. Same old, same old. Rose Tyler, age 24, a little worse for wear. She wore her traveling uniform of jeans, a pink shirt and a short purple jacket. She glanced around the now stabilized room. A bench. A sink. A toilet and shower. Nothing seemed amiss. This was ridiculous. She'd dimension hopped a dozen times or more. You expected a little disorientation. It was perfectly normal. This sensation of displacement was new, though. For a second or two there, it had seemed as if the whole universe had upped anchor, drifting and bobbing over time waves like an inflatable lifeboat.
A lifeboat universe. Why did that sound right to her? Rose shook her head, but gently. She couldn't allow a few odd sensations to distract her. Her mum needed her. And the human Doctor was her responsibility, too. Even if, somehow, he'd become her Doctor. Even if she didn't understand how that particular miracle had happened. She realized that she had no choice but to trust her instincts about him. He'd once promised never to leave her for more than five and a half hours. So, he'd come back. While she was unconscious, he'd come back.
He'd explain himself soon enough. And, she mentally insisted, there was nothing wrong with her that twelve hours of sleep wouldn't put right. No sense becoming a time hopping hypochondriac. She considered her reflection with new resolve and felt better about her haggard appearance. The mirror didn't lie. It, also, didn't try to swallow her. She looked tired, but human enough, her face make-up smeared and slightly freckled. Her hair was full of sand. She combed through it with her fingers, wishing she had time for a shower. Outside the Doctor nattered on about bathrooms. Rose used the loo and washed her face in the basin. Light years away from her lipstick and foundation, she reckoned the Paplioo'zue would just have to take her au natural.
“They have relatively similar biology...You'll find it all over the universe. Human physiology...well...essentially...” The Doctor's voice faded to background music as Rose puttered, a comforting drone. She admired the change in her mother. Jackie used to lose patience with him quite quickly. But she seemed to be following his rambling, and even contributed questions. “Their parts, equipment, elimination—erhm, organs have a humanoid design.”
When he stammered his way through the thesaurus, Rose imagined his thin fingers curling in the air. She thought her insides might melt from years of pent up longing. Just to see him, to hear him go on about nothing at all. She knew every nuance of his mannerisms. He would lift his brow while drawing out the word “well.” She'd seen it a thousand times.
“Well, all humanoid creatures have similar adaptations. Some of it is cross-breeding, of course. You lot did get out there and mingle in the later ages of Earth. But some of it is completely coincidental. There is an efficiency to upright quadrupeds, two arms, two legs. Faces. Bipedal.” He would be nodding about now, hitting his flow in the stream of consciousness. “Run longer. See further. Of course, some species are nothing like yours. Insectoids. Plasmaoids proliferate...do nicely. But most sentient species are relatively human-shaped. Lucky, that, or Rose would have had a very hard time of it in our travels. My people took on a human-like form during the Death Zone Days. Though, that was strictly cosmetic, a matter of fashion. Time Lords don't need bathrooms.”
Jackie snorted her disbelief. “I've seen your parts. They're not so different.”
“Only on the outside,” he told her. “The inside is another story. My people don't waste energy through elimination. We are highly efficient organisms. Had to be with the state of our planet. We look like you. But we are not you. My people were morphadaptive from the earliest stages of our evolution. We adapt to threats, circumstances, fashion, by changing our form, our bodies. An endless variety of shapes are possible. Granted some are more practical, than others. But I could look like any species, fish, fowl, fibrous slug, anything. Two heads. No head. I happen to prefer this configuration, but it is all cosmetic, a fancy dress outfit. Or pair of glasses. Useful. But not an essential part of me. Or it wasn't...before I was archived. Now, I'm stuck in what is, frankly, a less than ideal body. One that will age and die. Like it or not. Which means, I have to eat and sleep and manage...well...everything. I hope my heart is sound.”
“At least you're still young,” Jackie said. “Wait until your prostate goes. Pete's had problems with his for the last year, but he won't see about it. That's men for you. I remember my old Dad...”
Rose stopped listening. She sank down onto a wooden bench, the only furnishing in the hut. All this talk about the Doctor's half-human body made her curious. She wondered if it could be as simple as he indicated, slipping into new flesh. He always talked about seeing things with new eyes. But it was difficult to imagine him looking out from the inside of his body, like a person in a diving bell. Could he leave his body entirely? He seemed to be saying he could, had. Who was this hybrid Doctor? After the regeneration he'd been the same Doctor. Same man, new face. Only this time it wasn't a new face. If he'd looked different, she would have been more comfortable with him. But the Doctor had stayed, and gone. And possibly returned. Was this man an impostor, a clone, a copy? Before she'd passed out, he'd claimed he would grow old at the same time as her. That's seemed to be the bargain on the table. But she'd never asked for that.
Before the light in her head, before she'd passed out, before he'd changed again, she'd pulled away from the offer. She hadn't been able to resist the suggestion of the kiss. “Kiss me and you will know,” he'd said. It could have been the right answer. She'd been intrigued for a moment by the thought of...well...physical compatibility, sex. And the human Doctor had delivered. That kiss sparked up a fire inside her and, for a second or ten, Rose had given herself to the flame. But even under the influence of her hormones, she hadn't forgotten her Doctor was still waiting for an answer. “Does it need saying?” No, it didn't. It never had. But, they shouldn't have needed a test. He'd already changed or he never would have thought of leaving her behind. Rose didn't want passionate kisses or a house or a Doctor who would age with her. She'd never asked him to settle down. It had been his idea from the start. He'd suggested a house with doors and carpets.
She only wanted him. When she'd tried to picture the two of them aging together, side by side in rocking chairs, she couldn't manage it. That ridiculous image, as much as the sound of the TARDIS leaving, had made her pull away from the kiss. The thought of her Doctor, feeble and helpless, made her heartsick, not happy. A fair trade Rose supposed, because it was probably what he'd always envisioned for her, whenever she'd talked about “forever.” He'd thought of her decaying, wasting away. Maybe that's why he couldn't bear to stay. But, as Rose told him, many times, either of them dying of old age wasn't a very plausible scenario. Death on the run seemed a far more likely outcome for the pair of them. Rose had always assumed she would meet her maker after drinking a poisonous tea, which the Doctor had previously assured her was perfectly safe and delicious.
He'd lost a lot of people in his life, but it had never occurred to her that he would be so afraid of facing another loss that he would abandon her. How could he be so childish? So selfish. Adults didn't hide from things by covering their eyes and humming. His leaving wouldn't make her immortal. She would still die one day. She lived a dangerous life, with or without him. Did he imagine her puttering around Torchwood doing paperwork, before heading home on the five o'clock train with a take away curry? Was that how he wanted to live in this forced retirement? No. Rose couldn't believe it of him. Even if they settled down a bit, bought a real house with doors or what have you, they wouldn't become stodgy office workers. They would still be explorers, adventurers. Look at Sarah Jane, she'd never stopped looking for trouble. Old age wasn't crippling in this era. Grannies ran marathons. Seventy year old men started families.
“Yes, well, that's enough biology for now,” Rose heard the Doctor say, evidently hoping to cut off Jackie's story about Uncle Ted's trip to the hospital with appendicitis. “Besides, I don't think I have an appendix or a prostate.”
He backpedaled into the room, just as Rose stood up to leave. She could see the concentration on his face as he mentally probed about in his abdomen for organs. Jackie followed him in, over stuffing the small space, forcing the Doctor to retreat into Rose or the shower. He opted for her.
“Nope. No prostate. That's a relief. I hear they are nothing but trouble.” To emphasize the joke, he prodded Rose with an elbow. Then, he exclaimed, “Ooh! I've a womb. That's new. And interesting. Do I like the womb? Maybe. Vestigial. No ovaries, thank goodness. Imagine me with Premenstrual Syndrome. Or pregnant?”
“A womb?” Jackie squeaked. “Where did you get that?”
“Half-female on my Donna's side,” he said, by way of explanation. Then, because Jackie had sounded a tad accusatory, he added, “I didn't steal it. It's a what-do-you-call-it? Side effect,” He gulped down the remaining words in the sentence, “of the Meta-Crisis.”
“Rose?” Jackie said, “Did you hear that?”
“I heard,” Rose said.
“He's got Donna's womb,” Jackie told her and Rose wondered why she had bothered answering.
“Do you?” she said, lifting a weary brow at the Doctor. “That's different.”
“It's all different from...” He turned his head slightly and stood transfixed.
They both fell into a dumbfounded trance as their eyes locked. The universe shifted again, far more pleasantly this time, rocking like a hammock under her. Rose momentarily lost track of her worries, her breathing, everything. It was an endearing trait, this habit he had of losing himself in her, drawing her into their private world. Again, a slight smile tugged at the corners of Rose's mouth. She couldn't help herself. His evident devotion always made her feel effervescent. And she empathized with his bemused expression. She felt much the same, being this close to him after so long apart. But even as she allowed herself to lean into his pull, Rose smacked down her elation. She couldn’t afford to be lulled into a false sense of security. He might have the same old sappy ways and great hair, but he didn't deserve to be encouraged. Not this time.
He'd caused her no end of grief. He'd lied to her about never leaving. He’d left. And she wasn't convinced he'd intended to return. Even if he'd come back, or meant to all along, she couldn't forget how devastated she’d been when she saw the TARDIS fading. And he’d expected her to act as a jailer or nurse for his duplicate. After she'd risked her life to return to home, he might as well have slammed the door in her face. To have all of her hopes crushed, not by circumstance, but by the person she trusted most, was just too much to immediately forgive.
Resolute, Rose broke their connection by looking away. Her malaise returned like a punishment. A pulse of pain shot through her gut. Nausea made her mouth water and she would have laid down right there if she didn’t have her mum to worry about. She opted for a slight grimace. No one seemed to notice her distress. Her mum peered up at the Doctor. The Doctor stared at his shoes.
They were lost on an alien world, one about to be destroyed by ravenous insects. The story of their lives, really. Rose wasn't even the least bit amused by this situation. No, she was furious. The Doctor owed her quite a few apologies, but there was slim chance she'd get more than the generic “sorry” out of him. And she was fair-minded enough to realize he, also, had some adjusting to do. It couldn't be easy waking up human. So, she wouldn't hound him for answers to all of her questions. Not yet. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said of her mother.
“It's not natural,” Jackie said. “I'm as open-minded as the next person, but if he's got a womb, how can you be sure he's a him? Not that I'd say a thing about it, if you didn't mind, sweetheart. You know, I'm not one to judge. Remember when Gladys' eldest boy started wearing those evening gowns to Tesco, I'm the one who did his hair up for him. And told those gossiping cows at the laundromat to sod off, too.”
“Mum, leave off,” Rose sighed, angling behind the Doctor to look out the door. “We can't stay here. We need supplies and a hotel room, somewhere to set up a command center.”
“And it's vestigial,” the Doctor huffed, following Rose as she stepped out into the bright sunshine, “A minor whatsit—glitch, that's all it is, just a glitch in the XY chromosomes. I was made from Donna. Or this vessel was. She had the double X, parthenogenesis leads to girls on Earth, but I used my handy spare hand. Everything I needed for this body's coding, all on file in the hand.” He wiggled his fingers in front of his nose. “The end result is something completely new, unique, the perfect vessel. Weeelll, I say perfect...”
Rose nodded toward the distant space port spires, but let him take the lead, heading into the city. She was content to shepherd her mom in his wake. He'd, no doubt, been here before and she trusted him to know more than she did about the culture. As they weaved through an exponentially increasing crowd, he kept talking.
“Most of Donna’s genes have been neutralized by my...? Innate avatar patterns. But some things, like the second heart and the respiratory bypass, couldn’t be duplicated. Regeneration? That’s complicated. Obviously any femininity is completely off-line. This is me,” he tapped his temple, “stored up here. Where it counts. I've been archived. Although, human flesh is more assertive than I would have imagined. Not what I'm used to, I must say. All of this,” his upper lip lifted into a sneer, “...breathing and, and...leaking. I wasn't even a tiny bit human before the Meta-Crisis.”
“And I never said a word about it,” Jackie said primly.
Rose snorted. “You said plenty.” She air quoted as she did a sing-song impersonation of her mother. “'Has he got two of anything else? Can he even...you know? What if he eats you straight after? What if his...you know...has spines on it, like a hedgehog?'”
“Spines?” The Doctor stopped suddenly, forcing them all to break stride or risk losing touch. “Spines?”
“On your little Doctor, like a cat,” Jackie said, as Rose took her arm to steer keep her close. “Or a bed bug.”
“Ah, traumatic insemination. No. No. None of that.”
“And what would you say if your only daughter was dating a 900 year old alien? Tell me you wouldn't worry about him sticking his embryo implants in her head.”
“Mum, can we stop talking about…”
“Hand to heart, Jackie,” the Doctor said solemnly, “I promise to never implant embryos in Rose's head. Besides, I'm 98% sure we can’t reproduce. But if we did they would be the three sexes and no tentacles, or spines, 95%...92, that is, let's say, 90% sure. Although...stranger things have happened.”
“What are you two on about?” Rose asked, snatched out of contemplating her physical distress by this possibly relevant information. She strained to hear him over the ambient din.
“Potential offspring,” he shouted over the blare of a passing radio. “Unlikely as that eventuality is at the moment. Probably no tentacles.” Rose cut her eyes to the side to indicate the staring people. He moved closer, tucking her and Jackie to him, one under each arm. “We wouldn't devolve. My people did have gelatinous limbs once upon a time. Oh, so long ago. Did I ever mention that? We were originally sort of jellyfish. Well, I say jellyfish. What I mean is squidish. Well, I say squidish.” He paused to consider, allowing Rose to duck his hold, and then announced, “Octopi! Energy octopi! Gaseous and adaptomorphic. This was eons ago, of course, when we first crawled out of the seas. But then, you lot were once more fish than fowl, too. And you had penis spines, come to that.”
“I knew it,” Jackie exclaimed. “He's a gassy squid.”
“Octopi,” he bristled, taking sudden umbrage. “And it is more of an energy matrix. Than a...gas.” He darted abruptly to the right, almost losing them. They ran to catch up. “And I wouldn't remark on ancestors at all, if I were descended from hairless apes. Octopi, by comparison, are amazing, even on Earth. Multiple hearts, carry their own oxygen supply with them. Very intelligent.” The rhythm of his speech and pace slowed. He glanced over his shoulder, back the way they'd come. “Change shape or color at will. Escape from any trap. You'd be proud to be tentacled...if you were.”
Nothing set the Doctor off like the origins of species. He would do twenty minutes before breakfast, if the toaster malfunctioned. But, instead of launching into the expected rant, he spun about, so suddenly her mum nearly toppled him. He took Jackie by the elbows and scooted her out of the way of a burly alien with meter long horns. They had crossed into a square and now faced a confusing tangle of claustrophobic pathways. Each meandered through the crowd toward diverging streets. When she glanced up, Rose could barely see the sky. Hovering platforms supported open air shops, floating above the buildings. The people climbed up ropes or flew to reach them. Bits of confetti and trash showered down on her.
“Before you continue on about how superior your species is,” she said, gesturing at the choice of directions before them, “which way to the spaceport?”
The Doctor breathed raggedly beside her. He didn't seem to be enjoying the carnival atmosphere. In fact, he looked confused, blanked out, like her grandmother used to get from the Alzheimer’s. Generally enthralled by busy marketplaces, he definitely was having some issues with this one. He cocked his head to one side, and then pivoted in a slow circle. Rose wondered if the human body had failed him somehow. He appeared to be listening, perhaps trying to sort out the Paplioozese from the many other languages being spoken simultaneously.
Rose had given up on discerning individual words from the cacophony around them. Everyone seemed to be talking at once. There were no cars or lorries, but a number of elephant-sized, burden-laden creatures had lumbered past. Harness bells jangled. The animals bellowed. Street musicians played odd hooting instruments. Vendors called out their wares. To their left, what looked like a snake-charmer clapped and capered. From time to time, his “snakes” blew out clouds of multi-colored dust. Off-world visitors used translator pendants to communicate. They spoke their own language with an echo of the native tongue. She should find one of those for her mum. Understanding alien languages was yet another thing she would have to discuss with the Doctor.
She watched a Papiloo'zue couple climb the side of a building across the way. Others were clinging to tiny ledges. The city had a Mumbai bazaar meets monarch butterfly migration vibe to it. There were too many different species to count on the ground. Buyers and sellers, pets and pet owners, draft animals and drivers, natives and tourists pushed through the narrow roads. Rose had the distinct impression that the city planners hadn't envisioned more than a handful of people on these streets at one time. And the din hammered against her ear drums.
Paplioo'zue chirped stridently as they dickered for goods, and buzzed as they took wing into the sky. Flying machines hummed. Bird-like beasts in cages cawed. There were fewer of the drabber, quieter Paplioo'kun on hand. Rose wondered if they came out at night like the moths they resembled. Once the hot sun set would they swarm the city the way the colorful Papiloo'zue did now?
Jewels and clothing and food and other goods tempted from displays behind glass or on trays in the hands of vocal salespeople. Rose's stomach cramped. She thought of her mother, going hungry, and felt a stab of guilt. She should have shared the rations before they set off on this quest. They all needed food, water, rest and safety. The Doctor wasn't immortal anymore. He wasn't looking well.
He'd paled to chalky white. His dark eyes seemed almost kohl-rimmed. Sweat stained the back of his suit. He appeared to be searching for some landmark, but there was nothing to see but smoke, people, wings, shops and fluttering confetti. The buildings around the square were generic, mud-daubed brick, all between three and five stories high. The streets had narrowed, until the sun cast only a sliver of light along them. The Doctor circled Rose, taking intimate liberties, his palms sliding along her waist. She stiffened, but before she could react, he'd let go. He held out his hand. She jammed both of hers into her jacket pockets.
“Right,” he said, in a mournful tone. “I think,” he swallowed hard, “we're lost.” He mirrored her body language by tucking his own hands into his trouser pockets. Then, he dipped his head in the direction they'd come. When she grimaced, he said, “No?”
“Can't you feel the world moving?”
“I can't feel my lips. I believe that snake dust is an intoxicant. Do you feel...strange?”
Rose did feel a little unsteady and quite sick. But she didn't think I was the snake dust. For the first time, she noticed how slender the Doctor was, and thought about how fragile he might be. He could be injured so easily, fatally injured.
“What kind of strange?”
“My chest hurts. Nothing smells right. I can’t sense anything. No gravitational pull. No planetary tilt. How do you people find your way home from the market? There's nothing but noise in my head. I’ve never been lost before. Well, I have, but not like this. It's like going blind and deaf...while wearing a spacesuit. I suppose—we could, we could ask for directions.” He glanced up and down the street again. “Or a taxi, perhaps, or...a train.”
“Just relax. Think. Where are we?” she asked, placing a hand on his arm.
“I told you, we're lost.”
“No,” Rose laughed, in spite of his distress and her worry. “What planet? What time? Have you been here before?”
“I said, didn't I?” He frowned as he sorted out his short term memory. “Did I? No, perhaps not. Could I be having a cerebral hemorrhage?”
“Let’s find out, tell me what you remember about all of this.”
“Cignus Minor Three, Circa 2875.” He gestured broadly, a measure of his breezy confidence returning. “The year of the Great Ceremony. This is definitely not business as usual. We are here to bear witness to the blessed union of the young queen of the Paplioo'zue to a prince of the Paplioo'kun. Butterfly people all, well, butterflies and moths. The Paplioo'kun are more like moths.”
“Oh, I miss those,” Jackie said. “Having a President means no royal weddings. Sarah Jane told me young prince William is married, Rose. So, you've lost your chance.”
The aside confused him for a second. “What? Oh, yes, no monarchy in your England. But this, this is a royal wedding multiplied by a million Diamond Jubilees. Two vast empires have been at war for a few thousand years. Civilized war, mind you, for the last couple of centuries, more like competitive business dealings and aggressive colonization. But any day now, all of that changes. There will be peace in this corner of the galaxy. And 10,000 commitment ceremonies in this system alone. Love is in the air.” He waved a hand at the multitudes milling around them. “An unprecedented boon to the economy, everyone cashing in on the fairytale romance. I had always intended to bring you here one day.”
“One day when the world needed saving,” Rose said, softly. He had to lean very close to hear her.
She struggled to hold her place while being repeatedly jostled. The Doctor noticed, took her elbow and edged sideways until she had her back against a wall. It was quieter there, between two vendors. Rose hoped they wouldn’t be pinned to the wall by the increasing crowd. What had looked like a reasonably bustling city had turned into the tubes at rush hour. And was well on the way to resembling a standing-room-only concert. It was hard to imagine all of it gone in less than a month.
Rose gulped against the lump of bile in her throat. A street magician, or priest, confronted them and conjured a shower of flaming sparks from a bowl. Rose ducked left to avoid the fiery spray and nearly brought down a tent over a kabob seller. Jackie started apologizing to the vendor, a Jadoon trader with a translator pendant.
Personal flying machines darted and weaved around the kites and banners and hover-shops overhead. Rose supposed flying was like walking, you wanted a vehicle every now and again. The Doctor could probably fly one on of those, if they could find one for rent. She hadn't seen any buses or taxis. And surely every spare room had been let. Turning to ask the Doctor, if he knew of any way they might navigate the city quicker, she saw Jackie receiving three steaming kabobs from the food vendor. What had she used for money? The vendor looked pleased with the deal, waving as Jackie pushed her way back to Rose to present the food with a flourish.
“Have a bite to eat,” Jackie said. “It will help you think. The world's not ending today.”
“It could be,” Rose said.
But she and the Doctor took the offered skewers of meat and fruit. He sniffed his. Her stomach did a slow roll, and refused to even entertain the idea of food. One bite would have her retching.
“You can have mine,” she said, handing the greasy thing to the Doctor, who had already gobbled his down. “It might help clear your head.”
“You have to keep up your strength, too, Rose,” Jackie said. “Who knows when we will find another friendly alien in this madhouse?”
“I had a gel-pack earlier,” Rose said. “I’m not hungry.”
The Doctor made short work of her kabob. She'd never seen him eat like that, as if he were literally starving. Between ravenous gulps, he panted for air. The sea generally resided at sea level, so his breathing distress wasn't due to altitude. It couldn't be exertion. They had been walking quickly, but hadn't moved for several minutes. He might be asthmatic or allergic to something. Or he could be having trouble adjusting to his human lungs. The air on this world was thinner than on Earth. If he wasn't careful, his hyperventilation would trigger a panic attack...or a fainting spell.
“Breath through your nose,” she told him. “Count seven as you breathe in. Eleven out. Gasping makes it worse.”
“Hyperventilation,” he said. And she nodded, even though it hadn’t been a question. He was the Doctor, after all. He held out a trembling hand. “I'm shaking.”
“It’s the oxygen mix,” she said. “Torchwood keeps me fit with high altitude training, mountain obstacle courses. You'll have to start working out.”
“Your mother seems fine.”
“I teach Zumba,” Jackie said.
“I never thought I’d out run you,” Rose said, pleased. “Take that Suzie Costello.”
“Torchwood!” the Doctor declared, snapping his fingers. “Do they have anything to offer in this emergency? A compass would do.”
“We use RPN, Relative Positioning Navigation. Useless now I've lost contact with my base. Without the mobile we're cut off. And I don't have your extra deep pockets,” she added with a grin. “I have five energy gel-packs, and some detox tablets for water purification, two nearly perfect Hyperlicon diamonds for trading. Flint, steel, matches and some psychic paper. A sonic cutting tool and a few broad spectrum antibiotics. And you.”
“And me,” the Doctor agreed. “Even in this body, I'm much handier than a sonic lipstick.”
“I've got tissues, lip balm and my credit cards,” Jackie added, checking her pockets. “And a second bloody useless mobile.”
Inspired, Rose smacked the Doctor's arm lightly. “Did you bring the universal credit card?”
He shook his head. “Wouldn't work here, different universe, different currencies. It's the niggling details that get you, reversed portraits on the coins, odd colors for the paper money.”
Rose nodded, having faced this problem in her dimension travels. “Names of the dynasties. I know. Maybe you could fix my mum's mobile. Jiggery poke it into finding Torchwood?”
“Unlikely, without the TARDIS to help with temporal shunts. We are a long way from Earth's satellite system...” He broke off and squinted at Rose. “How did you manage it?”
“What?” she asked.
“How did you boost the signal of your mobile to contact Torchwood? You didn't have a TARDIS.”
“She's got a sort of...” Jackie began, but Rose cut her off quickly.
“It's the same one you fixed for me,” Rose said. “It worked here, remember? It linked to the cybernet to help us find my dad?”
“Yes, but I was here, then. The TARDIS was contemporary to you. How did you get it to work once the crack in the universe closed and you were stranded?”
“Mickey thought it was the Albatross,” Jackie said.
“It never stopped working,” Rose said, glaring at her mum. “Look, if everyone is feeling better we should be moving along. I think the crowd is thinning.”
“The sun is setting,” he said.
“It was like finding you on the beach,” Jackie went on, not taking the meaning of Rose's pointed stare and head shake. “Or hearing English. She can just do things. I told her it wasn’t natural, but she never listens to me.”
“Mum,” Rose said, a warning in her tone. “Now is not the time.”
“The beach? What about the beach?” he asked.
“He needs to know, sweetheart,” Jackie said, “If he's going to help us go home.”
Rose sighed. There was almost no chance they would ever see home or Pete or Tony again. Without a TARDIS or a jump cannon, they were stranded. She thought of little Tony growing up without Jackie and almost wept. Her nausea returned with a vengeance and she doubled over.
The Doctor took her by the elbows, applying a light shake. “Rose, are you in pain or…?”
“She means when you called to me,” Rose said, through gritted teeth. She straightened, attempting to pull away from his grip. “All those years ago, at Bad Wolf Bay. I knew how to find you. Like you found me back on Earth, when I called you.”
“You called me?” he repeated, peering into her face. Then, his eyes lit with the realization. “Of course, you called me on the mobile. And I heard you. Well, it beeped.”
“And then the subnet connected.”
This appeared to be news to him. “Wait. After you reached out to me? Only then?”
“I wanted you to find me, I knew you could,” Rose said, though now that he seemed so flummoxed, she started doubting her faith. “You were trying to find me, right?”
“No. Hoping to find you, certainly! Because Donna gave me your message. But I was tracking a signal.”
“Two words. Bad wolf.”
“Two words,” he said gravely. “So you do remember, those words, seeing Donna, striding across to a parallel world.” Rose nodded. She wondered where he was going with this. “I think the TARDIS was actively searching for you. All this time. That's your connection, Rose. She wanted you back. No. Wait. She wanted me here. Of course!” He pushed the exclamation through his clenched teeth as he released her. “She wanted me here.”
“So, that's why I can understand what everyone is saying,” Rose said. “Because the TARDIS is guiding me? But how is that possible? She's not here.”
“You were part of her once,” he said, calm again and shrugging off any concerns, “Perhaps there is a link, still. Or, perhaps...?”
He cocked his head to one side. His eyes narrowed, as his expression grew guarded. He has a secret or two of his own, Rose thought. She longed for the days when they shared everything, even their innermost thoughts. But perhaps those days only existed in her mind. He'd always kept secrets. Maybe she'd been deluding herself, pretending he cared. He'd left Sarah Jane behind and every other companion. He'd promised she was different, but...maybe not. And she couldn't help wondering why, if the TARDIS had wanted her to find the Doctor, it had let her be sent back to this universe with the human copy? There had to be something else going on here.
“Perhaps? What?”
“Perhaps we shouldn't worry about this just now,” the Doctor said, “One crisis at a time.”
“I know a trick or two, to make a few bob, if we find can find a pub,” Jackie said. “And I wouldn't say no to sitting down for a pint. All this running about is exhausting.”
“But it's your first alien world, Jackie,” The Doctor said, trying for a lighter tone. “That's exciting.”
“Mum? How did you manage those kabob?”
“Like I said, I know a trick or two.” Jackie pointed at a sign. “That place has wi-fi.”
“There's an idea,” Rose said, “If you can link up my mum's phone, we could try accessing the Internet.”
“Can we email? I want to check on Tony,” Jackie said, handing Rose her mobile, “Though I still don't understand how you avoid roaming charges, Rose. Someone in Torchwood financial must notice you’re making calls from Saturn. Now, what's wrong with him?” She asked, as the Doctor started sputtering.
“That sign?” he said, pointing to the one Jackie had just indicated. “It's in Paplioo'zese.”
“No, it's not,” Jackie said. “It's in English.”
“Mum?” Rose felt a frisson of fear. She spoke gently, the way she had when she thought her mother was losing her mind. “You see English?”
“Of course, I see English. Don't you?”
“I do, yes, but,” Rose couldn't help casting a questioning glance at the Doctor, “We were just saying that's because of the TARDIS. It's still linked in my head. You shouldn’t see English.”
Jackie became visibly upset. “But why is it making me see things? I don't want it in my head. I thought that was odd, really, all the signs in English. I'm not stupid. I just thought—it was for the tourists. You know real people like us.”
Several of the passersby gave Jackie angry glares and Rose realized they could understand her mum. The translations went both ways.
“What’s going on?” Rose demanded.
“I don't know, but—of course,” the Doctor exclaimed. “That's why I was having such a hard time telling the languages apart. It's not an alien tongue. I am hearing high Gallifreyan with assorted accents. Your mother's hearing and seeing English.”
“From the TARDIS?” Rose asked. “Does that mean...? Is she coming back?”
“You tell me,” he said, with such threatening intensity Rose gulped in surprise. “Who closed the TARDIS door, Rose? Was it you? Are you keeping me safe?” He seized her arm. “Answer me.”
She'd seen that look in his eyes before. It made his enemies tremble, but it had never been directed at her. “No. You know it wasn't me. I was standing behind you. It just closed. All on its own.”
“All on its own,” he mimicked. He flung her arm away, rocking her with the force. “All that is, all that was, all that ever will be,” he said. “Does that ring a bell? You told Dalek Ka’an about killing the Emperor. Who told you? For all I know you sent Ka'an to find Davros.”
“What?” She couldn't believe he would accuse her of such ridiculous duplicity. “Doctor, that's insane.”
He paced back and forth, clutching at his hair. Rose chewed on her lower lip. What if he was? Insane. What if the archiving business had gone wrong? Or what if the change she'd sensed in him was only part of his delusion? Maybe this was the dangerous duplicate, not the man she loved at all. She'd seen him out of his mind before, during his Ninth incarnation, in a parallel world. She'd barely escaped with her life.
“I’ve been such a fool. Donna and her grandfather. Donna's car parked next to the TARDIS. That's not coincidence. That's a plan. Your plan.” He stabbed a finger at her. “She told you about her keys,” he said, awe softening his accusations. One hand circled around his head. “I can sense it all. Bits from Donna's memories, and the other me. He knew first. Well, he would. You created him.”
“No! I didn’t. Doctor, listen to me. Something is going wrong with you. In your head. It's the regeneration, or whatever that was, or maybe your memories are...”
"I remember. You. Scattering the Dalek fleet. Bring Jack back to life. Signs and symbols everywhere I go. Tell me why you're doing this?" he ordered, grabbing her shoulders.
“Let go of her, you,” Jackie demanded, shoving at him. “Can’t you see you’re scaring her?”
“Oh, she’s not scared. Are you, Rose?” He leaned too close, squinting into her face. Rose tried not to move away. He must see how frightened she was. How could he miss it? “You’ve never been scared of me. Amused, maybe. Dallying.”
“Doctor,” Rose said, holding on to her patience, while fighting back tears. Oddly, he was right, in a way, they were tears of frustration and heartbreak. Most of her fear was for him. She didn't really believe he would harm her. “You know me. You know my mum.”
“Do I? That’s why the other one didn't fight me on this ridiculous idea of leaving you behind. He couldn't. The pattern is coming together in my head, now that my head is together. A divided mind is a terrible waste of resources. All those varying perspectives kept me from seeing the whole. It was you, from the very beginning. Maybe from the moment we met.” He drew her up on her toes as he grip flexed. “Setting the universe right, manipulating me. And Donna. And Wilf. All of us pawns on a chess board. The question is: what are you?”
“She’s my daughter,” Jackie told him, “And if you don’t let go of her, I’m going to smack you.”
Rose blinked away the sting in her eyes. She felt wretched, but she had to get him under control. Oh, how she wanted to rave at him, call him a liar and a horrible person. But, of course, she still loved him, if this was really him. Not if. It was. And he wouldn't hurt her. Even if he was crazy. Losing her temper with him wouldn't solve anything. She didn't want him bolting away from her, not in this condition. It would be one disaster too many for the day. So she reigned in her emotions.
“Mum, he’s just confused. Doctor, you’ve had a shock. Maybe your blood sugar is too low, or…”
He fumbled, one-handed, for his sonic screwdriver and, finding it, pointed it at Rose's temple. She ducked. The screwdriver shrieked. He released his grip on her to smack the rebellious tool against his palm. Rose pushed her mum behind her. After making a few adjustments, he swept the screwdriver up and down, outlining her body. Whatever it told him sent him reeling backward.
“He's cracked,” Jackie said, as they stood watching the Doctor mutter to himself. “I knew it would happen one day. He's always been one button short of a shirt front. We should run while we have the chance.”
“We can't leave him like this, Mum.”
“Do you think he's dangerous, like the other him said?”
He could be, Rose knew. And maybe her mum was right about running. But the Doctor seemed to be settling down. Though, he didn't want to believe his screwdriver readings. He shook the instrument, thumped it and licked it. Then, he scratched his head and adjusted the settings again. This time Rose didn't flinch when he pointed it at her. But, when it beeped loudly, the Doctor looked as if he’d seen a Dalek. The remaining color drained from his face. All of his righteous anger seemed to vanish, too.
“Oh, no,” he mouthed, before shouting, “No. Not here. Not now. No. No. No.”
His ranting caused him to overheat again. He stopped pacing, tucked the screwdriver into his trouser pocket and stood very still. Rose held her breath, wondering what had caused this abrupt change in his manner. He put a hand to his chest. Maybe feeling his heartbeat? His hand rested there, moving slightly, fingers outlining something in an inner pocket. Then, he reached inside his jacket and his fingers closed around something small. Moving very carefully, as if he were cradeling a soap bubble, he drew forth a glowing bit of TARDIS coral. Rose inhaled sharply. The coral twisted in the Doctor's palm, morphing into a new, slightly bigger piece.
“That's got to be worth something,” Jackie said.
“It's priceless,” Rose said.
“And growing. We've cracked the plasma shell.”
The Doctor covered his eyes with his free hand, making an obvious effort to control his breathing. This was bad, Rose realized. It might be worse than him going mad. She didn't think she wanted to know more than that. And, before she could decide if she wanted to question him, he sprang into action, going from zero to sixty in a nanosecond. Like a conjurer, he made the piece of coral vanish with a smooth sweep of his hand. Jackie yelped as he snatched at her arm. He took Rose's hand, but clasped it very gently. As they set off through the crowd, he sheltered her from assorted bumps and jostles. He forged a path for her. All hesitation gone, he moved with intent.
“Keep up, keep up,” he commanded in a voice that barred all argument. “This isn't even close to over, yet.”
The element of surprise served him well. Rose forgot to resist. Jackie forgot to protest. The Doctor forgot all of his earlier distress. Rose assumed this was all about the baby TARDIS, but she couldn't be sure. The Doctor was confusing her. His breathing turned ragged again, but he didn’t seem to notice. He’d lost his deer in the headlights disorientation. He plowed over people and careened off of carts, ignoring shouts and threats. They turned left, and took a couple of rights. He had found his bearings, it seemed, because he steered them unerringly to a monorail station.
That answers the public transport question, Rose thought, as the Doctor flashed his psychic paper at the ticket taker. Once they'd boarded, he commandeered a bench and sat Rose down on it. She murmured an apology at the commuters he'd ordered to move, but didn't bother asking the brooding Doctor anything. He leaned against a pole, as the monorail zipped along. This was a mood she recognized. He would talk when he snapped out of it. He had his arms crossed and his chin down. His glower raised a stone wall between them. Besides, she didn't feel like fighting whatever crazy notion might have enter his head. Her stomach crabs had returned. They were dancing a rumba on her spleen. She was tired, thirsty, cranky and sick. So much for Rose Tyler, the seasoned team leader. She leaned against her mum's shoulder and closed her eyes.
She didn't stir again until Jackie said, “Oh, look, Rose. Tha's amazing. Like a giant dandelion clock.”
With everything else going on, Rose had forgotten this was her mum's first time on an alien world. The structure she pointed at turned out to be the spaceport hotel. Since the Doctor had retreated into his thoughts, Rose played tour guide. She took her mind off her own troubles, by pointing out aliens she knew. She taught her mum how to find a gem trader by the purple sashes worn by the profession for centuries. Jackie showed Rose how to get the best deal. They bargained away one of Rose's diamonds for a sublet room. The Doctor surfaced from his mood to suggest something on the ground floor. As soon as they'd reached this small sanctuary, he found himself confronted by two women with lots of questions.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Jackie said. “Dragging us around like rag dolls. Rose isn't feeling well.” Rose opened her mouth to ask how she knew that. “Don't say you are fine, sweetheart. I'm your mother, I can tell.” She turned back to the Doctor. “Otherwise, she would have given you a kick in the backside.”
“And I didn't do anything to the TARDIS,” Rose began. “Or you. Or Donna. I didn't crack the shell on that coral. And I'm not going to...”
He held up a hand. “Nevermind all that. Jackie, I don't have time to explain. I need you to use those skills of yours to find more food, enough for a couple of days. Don’t go far or get lost. I won't come looking for you.” He started casing the place. There wasn't much to discover, a bed, a tallboy-type cabinet. He pushed against the latter, trying to shift it, but it failed to budge. He growled in frustration. “What is wrong with this body? No muscular strength. No lung capicity. I need to create some kind of barricade. Of all the systems in the universe,we would be stranded in one that never heard of doors.” After another hearty shove, he gave up his fight with the furniture. Stepping to the window, he angled his body so he could see out without being seen. “Rose, you stay here. Jackie, go!”
“Doctor?” Rose said, worry smothering her outrage. “Are you going to tell us what's wrong?”
“I don’t know who you think you are, ordering us about,” Jackie said. “But my daughter is…”
“Your daughter is pregnant,” he announced, turning abruptly to face them. The grim set of his jaw pulled the rug out from under Jackie's tirade before it could fully launch.
Rose had been expecting more paranoiad raving, not this. “Pregnant? No, I’m not.”
“But you are. Very, very pregnant. And, at this time, in this place, that is very, very bad news.”
“I can’t be. I haven't...it’s not possible.”
“Not through the ordinary means, perhaps. But these are extraordinary times. Don’t you see? That’s what this is about. All of it. The Meta Crisis. The Archiving. The TARDIS is giving me what I thought I could never have, again, a family. I passed through you, Rose. In my natural...state.”
“And...and...now, I'm pregnant?”
She still couldn't follow his logic. There'd been no sex. She'd been unconscious. The TARDIS doing this to her was just...wrong, creepy, like some interdimensional assault. Though she wasn't quite sure who to blame. The Doctor hadn't planned this or even known it would happen. But he'd said it was what HE wanted? What about her? She wasn't ready to settle down, start a family. She didn't want to be even a little bit pregnant, nevermind...
"Very, very pregnant. That’s how's it's done, among my people. One of the ways. And,I'm sorry. I know this is...awkward, confusing, scary." He nodded to himself, content with that word. "I'll fix this, but we don't have much time. Your body is changing. That's why we can all understand the native tongue. Because you need to, Rose. You are resonating through the seed coral.”
“If she were very pregnant, she’d be showing,” Jackie reasoned.
“Oh, she is,” he assured them. “She’s all aglow. That’s why the K'anB'akiur Scourge came to us on the beach. You're a proper beacon, Rose, to any species with a temporal sensory array. Sadly, that is no longer me. Remember the pilot fish?”
“They wanted to use your regenerative energy to fuel a ship,” Rose answered, automatically.
“Imagine 41,283 of me, each one worth a fortune on the open market.”
Rose shivered. He had to be talking about duplicates. “41,000 copies?”
“Children. Embryos."
"I knew it. I told you. Didn't I say so?" Jackie said.
"Not in her head. In your,” he waved a hand at Rose's mid-section. “In you. Every viable, xeno-compatible, egg in your ovarian reserve has been fertilized. I might be a pawn, Rose, but you're not. You're the queen. My natural form? Your genetic material? The time vortex energy from the heart of the TARDIS? Brilliant. She’s created the first human Time Lords. Bound to be a few thousand Regenerates in the mix.”
A few…thousand? Potential Time Lords? Inside her? Rose tottered. Blackness rose like a tide, rushing from all sides of her vision and the floor swam up toward her. She didn’t know when her knees gave out, but the Doctor sprang to check her fall. He eased her backward, until she sat on the edge of the narrow bed. She slumped into him, head lolling. He settled next to her, keeping her in a loose embrace. She longed to feel the warmth of his arm around her shoulders, but her body had gone numb. Pregnant. No wonder she’d been nauseous all day.
“Every egg,” she mumbled. “Yeah, that's...very, very...”
END THIS PART
Part Four
IDLE & BLESSED
by Rabid1st
Doctor Who
Ten/Rose
AU from “The End of Time”
Rating: Mature Eventually
Beta: Keswindhover
Warning: This is not a Ten2 story. He is gone, but, not forgotten, exactly. Basically, in my world, Ten2 was a vessel, created by the TARDIS, to store the Tenth Regeneration of the Doctor. A fleshy pocket watch, if you will, for those who have seen Human Nature or Utopia.
Summary: The Tenth Doctor has been archived into a biometrically identical vessel with a human heart and other human parts. He's worked out everything but the impossible bits, but he hasn't caught Rose up on any of it, yet. Rose is understandably confused.
“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
Part One
Part Two
On the far side of a proper promenade, they located a row of quaint bather's accommodations, changing huts, each fully plumbed with shower and toilet. Rose laid claim to one, guarding the entrance while the Doctor and her mother explored the interior. While she waited, occasionally waving off butterfly people, Rose's leaned against the hut's wooden lattice work. She didn't plan to mention it to her companions, but she felt awful. Her head ached. She rubbed her temples, wondering if she'd been injured when she fell. It could be a concussion. Her stomach felt queasy, too. Of course, she hadn't eaten anything since, when? Since breakfast. Two universes ago? She took a gel-pack of emergency rations from her pocket, pulled open the tab, and sucked down the lemon-lime contents. The quick carbs helped clear her head, but her belly cramped so severely she nearly dropped the packet.
Probably getting an ulcer, she thought, all this stress. Two Doctors. One of them human. Good Lord. Who could have see that coming? And the kiss. So right, and so very wrong. How long had it been since anyone had kissed her like that? Bonfire night? No. That one paled in comparison. His kiss had seemed like something from a dream. An echo of a pleasant shiver zipped up her spine. Rose asked herself the same question she'd been asking for the last five years: How much more of this could she take? Her life seemed to be one impossible event after another, crisis incoming--no waiting. And no time to unwind.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd taken a day off to relax. It had to be before she came to this world. But she did recall something Torchwood Director Suzie Costello had once told her about hope. Mickey had mentioned opening a Pandora's Box during a trade negotiation and, when talk turned to the idea of hope, Costello had said, “Hope belongs in there with all the other evils. Never forget that, Tyler. Hope is the evil thing we cling to, when we should be arming ourselves against it.”
Being a natural optimist, Rose had scoffed, but recent events seemed determined to convince her to, at least, take precautions against entertaining too much hope. She'd kept the little winged beast alive for five years, now, even when she'd had good cause to give it up. While attempting to return to the Doctor, she'd been stymied so many times she'd lost count. She'd held a dying Donna in her arms. She'd watched Jack burn. The Earth had been lost and a million solar systems beyond it. She'd developed Zen-like patience with screwy temporal currents. Her time in the TARDIS served her well. She'd learned to keep her wits about her while traveling with the Doctor. There were tricks she'd mastered. Never use your real name. Keep your sense of humor. Brazen anything out. Silence is your best defense against intrusive questions.
Everywhere she went, people had questions. Who are you? Can you save us? Who are you looking for, again? When are you going to give up on the Doctor and settle down? Alternative Donna's, Torchwood, Mickey, her mum, knowing the fate of worlds was in her hands, always turned to her in times of crisis, asking her what to do—as if she knew. Ever since she'd been sucked into an existence where her father had lived and succeeded, Rose had been trying to work out who she was. Who she wanted to be. She couldn't become Pete's daughter. The Doctor had been right about that. Pete had known Jackie, so they quickly developed an easy rapport.
But unlike her mum, or Mickey, Rose didn't have a place in her new world. She hadn't taken to being pampered and rich. She loved the man who was almost her dad, enjoyed his company, but she couldn't forget that she belonged elsewhere. So, instead of becoming a new Rose Tyler, she'd become the new Doctor. The Bad Wolf. Defender of the Earth. A mysterious stranger. She'd joined Torchwood and found it wanting. With the Doctor as her lodestar, she'd tweaked it into something more humane, less militant. The effort hardened her, but she'd kept her resilience. She'd studied alien technology and diplomacy, accidentally created alternative universes, built a traveling machine or two, and gotten her friends killed several times over. Her goal of returning home always remained elusive, just out her reach.
Even when the dimension cannon started working, the Doctor evaded her. She'd called to him in a panic a hundred times, only to have him slip away into oblivion. He'd die under the Thames or fall victim to an invisible entity on a world made of crystal and diamonds, even as she rushed to save him. Rose couldn't help feeling that, despite today's apparent success, she'd somehow arrived too late, again. When that Dalek shot the Doctor and he'd started to regenerate, she'd begged him not to die. Rose shuddered, remembering. She didn't want to think about how close she'd come to losing him. She had found him three times, now. The first time, he'd been half-mad following the Time War. The second, he'd been a childish future self in a cul-de-sac universe. Had she ended up in a fatal time line, again? One where the Doctor split in two? Finding two Doctors turned out to be just as frustrating as finding none. And she'd lost her link to Torchwood One. On all of her previous journeys, the Superphone had helped her coordinate her travels and return to a reset point. This time she was stuck, unless the Albatross found her. Would they think to wake it?
She hadn't told the Doctor about her secret helper in this world. Confessions were the last thing on her mind during those few stolen moments surrounding his aborted regeneration. All she'd wanted was to hold him. Now, she wasn't sure what she should share with him. He certainly wouldn't approve of the Albatross. And she wasn't sure she could trust him completely, despite the reassurances of her heart. He felt right to her now. He hadn't before she'd passed out. But she couldn't shake her nagging doubts about this doppleganger with one heart. How could it be her Doctor? He would have to explain what had happened after their kiss. Why she'd blacked out. Or better yet, why he had left her behind in the first place. Would her Doctor, the real Doctor, have tossed her back into this prison?
Perhaps. She had to admit the possibility. If, as he'd said, he believed it was their only choice, the only way to contain a dangerous being. If it were the only way to save others from harm. He'd certainly looked heartbroken. He'd said they saved the universe, but at a cost, and that cost was a human Doctor. He'd called his double dangerous, full of hate. But then, the human Doctor had somehow—changed. She couldn't explain exactly how she knew, but he was better now. Or maybe she hoped he was.
Rose tried to put it all out of her mind. She opened the back of her mobile and grimaced. The phone's interior had melted into a gooey mess of metal and plastic. It looked beyond help. She was on her own. After waving off another alien couple, Rose closed her eyes and, groaning, let her chin fall toward her chest. God, she felt awful. There'd been a flu going around Torchwood last week. But, she couldn't afford to be sick. She had a world to save and a possibly psycho Doctor to contain. She heard the unmistakable tread of those trainers, closing on her, and opened her eyes. But she didn't dare look over at him. If she met his gaze, she'd be swept up an emotional maelstrom and abandon all sense of a separate, reasonable self. And, until she knew what she was dealing with, she must not fall under his spell.
“Better?” she asked, pretending to study her phone.
“Much! Thank you!”
Even with her attention fixed on business, she noted his beaming smile in her peripheral vision. As always, it punctuated his exclamations, and made her want to turn toward him, like a sunflower toward the dawn. She needed them to be right again, to be content and happy together. She needed to rest, to stop being him. Rose knew it would be hard to resist the pull of their synchronicity. The mere sight of him acted like a tonic in her veins, or a shot of whiskey. He made her warm all over. Just yesterday, or earlier today, they'd run toward one another like the worst cliché of reunited lovers, both of them wearing grins so wide and bright. Her face still ached. She'd practically floated down that deserted street. And then, somehow, without even realizing when, she'd lost everything. He'd been him, at first, before the TARDIS fell into Dalek hands. She'd have sworn it.
“Although,” he amended, sobering as he failed to connect with her, “in future, perhaps it would be better if you explained biological processes rather than your mother. She's a little too hands on.”
“That's gratitude for you,” Jackie said, crowding close behind him. “You're the one who had questions.”
“Leave him alone, mum.” Rose ordered, pushing out of her slouch. She had to bite her lip to keep her stern composure when her mum give the Doctor's rump a small pat.
“Nothing I haven't seen before, ducks,” Jackie said, sucking in her breath to squeeze past him.
The changing huts were little more than two cupboards stuck together. There were no doors. A dog-legged portico of white lattice sheltered those using the facility from passing eyes. Three people strained the limits of the space, which had an alien configuration, awkward for humans. The entrances were tall, but not wide, designed to accommodate folded wings. The hut appeared to be designed for couples, rather than families. Rose had already noticed there were no children in evidence on the beach or along nearby streets. No family style facilities. Maybe butterfly people had caterpillar young. The Doctor would know.
“Lucky we found this place in time,” Jackie went on. “Near to bursting, you were.” She maneuvered around to face Rose. “You should go while you have the chance, Sweetheart.”
Rose nodded and, handing her ruined phone to the Doctor, ducked into the facilities. Away from the crowds, in a cool, dimly lit space, she felt marginally better. The live crabs in her stomach stopped churning and pummeling her. She took a deep breath, praying the worst was over. Certain she looked frightful; she'd planned to avoid the full length mirror. But the suggestion of something alien at the corner of her sight caused her to glance up into her own eyes. She looked older, thirty at least, and careworn. A memory of something her Mum once said came back to her. “There will be a woman in a marketplace on some alien world, but she's not Rose Tyler. She's not even human.” It had happened at last, and quite suddenly. Like a curse falling on her. Rose hardly recognized herself. How could she have changed so much in just two days?
As she took a step toward the mirror, a wave of dizziness hit. The world tilted around her. The floor slithered under her feet, like sand sucked away by an undertow. Rose grabbed at the edges of the mirror, suddenly afraid it was a portal, pulling her through to another realm. Disoriented, she thought she might faint or vomit. Luckily, before she did either, her mother's voice snapped her out of the weird head-space. The strident, but familiar, sound splashed into her like a refreshing spray of water.
“It will just be a minute or two more,” Jackie yelled in response to an alien inquiry, as if shouting could surmount the language barrier. Then, she directed a question toward the bathroom. “Rose? Why do the butterfly people have toilets?”
“Paplioo'zue,” the Doctor said, entering the conversation in that oh, so familiar way of his. “They are called Paplioo'zue or -kun, if they are mothier, less...decorative.”
“I suppose they need them, same as us,” Rose answered, glad for the distraction. Both she and her mother ignored the Doctor's interjection.
Rose took a shaky breath and looked again at her reflection. Same old, same old. Rose Tyler, age 24, a little worse for wear. She wore her traveling uniform of jeans, a pink shirt and a short purple jacket. She glanced around the now stabilized room. A bench. A sink. A toilet and shower. Nothing seemed amiss. This was ridiculous. She'd dimension hopped a dozen times or more. You expected a little disorientation. It was perfectly normal. This sensation of displacement was new, though. For a second or two there, it had seemed as if the whole universe had upped anchor, drifting and bobbing over time waves like an inflatable lifeboat.
A lifeboat universe. Why did that sound right to her? Rose shook her head, but gently. She couldn't allow a few odd sensations to distract her. Her mum needed her. And the human Doctor was her responsibility, too. Even if, somehow, he'd become her Doctor. Even if she didn't understand how that particular miracle had happened. She realized that she had no choice but to trust her instincts about him. He'd once promised never to leave her for more than five and a half hours. So, he'd come back. While she was unconscious, he'd come back.
He'd explain himself soon enough. And, she mentally insisted, there was nothing wrong with her that twelve hours of sleep wouldn't put right. No sense becoming a time hopping hypochondriac. She considered her reflection with new resolve and felt better about her haggard appearance. The mirror didn't lie. It, also, didn't try to swallow her. She looked tired, but human enough, her face make-up smeared and slightly freckled. Her hair was full of sand. She combed through it with her fingers, wishing she had time for a shower. Outside the Doctor nattered on about bathrooms. Rose used the loo and washed her face in the basin. Light years away from her lipstick and foundation, she reckoned the Paplioo'zue would just have to take her au natural.
“They have relatively similar biology...You'll find it all over the universe. Human physiology...well...essentially...” The Doctor's voice faded to background music as Rose puttered, a comforting drone. She admired the change in her mother. Jackie used to lose patience with him quite quickly. But she seemed to be following his rambling, and even contributed questions. “Their parts, equipment, elimination—erhm, organs have a humanoid design.”
When he stammered his way through the thesaurus, Rose imagined his thin fingers curling in the air. She thought her insides might melt from years of pent up longing. Just to see him, to hear him go on about nothing at all. She knew every nuance of his mannerisms. He would lift his brow while drawing out the word “well.” She'd seen it a thousand times.
“Well, all humanoid creatures have similar adaptations. Some of it is cross-breeding, of course. You lot did get out there and mingle in the later ages of Earth. But some of it is completely coincidental. There is an efficiency to upright quadrupeds, two arms, two legs. Faces. Bipedal.” He would be nodding about now, hitting his flow in the stream of consciousness. “Run longer. See further. Of course, some species are nothing like yours. Insectoids. Plasmaoids proliferate...do nicely. But most sentient species are relatively human-shaped. Lucky, that, or Rose would have had a very hard time of it in our travels. My people took on a human-like form during the Death Zone Days. Though, that was strictly cosmetic, a matter of fashion. Time Lords don't need bathrooms.”
Jackie snorted her disbelief. “I've seen your parts. They're not so different.”
“Only on the outside,” he told her. “The inside is another story. My people don't waste energy through elimination. We are highly efficient organisms. Had to be with the state of our planet. We look like you. But we are not you. My people were morphadaptive from the earliest stages of our evolution. We adapt to threats, circumstances, fashion, by changing our form, our bodies. An endless variety of shapes are possible. Granted some are more practical, than others. But I could look like any species, fish, fowl, fibrous slug, anything. Two heads. No head. I happen to prefer this configuration, but it is all cosmetic, a fancy dress outfit. Or pair of glasses. Useful. But not an essential part of me. Or it wasn't...before I was archived. Now, I'm stuck in what is, frankly, a less than ideal body. One that will age and die. Like it or not. Which means, I have to eat and sleep and manage...well...everything. I hope my heart is sound.”
“At least you're still young,” Jackie said. “Wait until your prostate goes. Pete's had problems with his for the last year, but he won't see about it. That's men for you. I remember my old Dad...”
Rose stopped listening. She sank down onto a wooden bench, the only furnishing in the hut. All this talk about the Doctor's half-human body made her curious. She wondered if it could be as simple as he indicated, slipping into new flesh. He always talked about seeing things with new eyes. But it was difficult to imagine him looking out from the inside of his body, like a person in a diving bell. Could he leave his body entirely? He seemed to be saying he could, had. Who was this hybrid Doctor? After the regeneration he'd been the same Doctor. Same man, new face. Only this time it wasn't a new face. If he'd looked different, she would have been more comfortable with him. But the Doctor had stayed, and gone. And possibly returned. Was this man an impostor, a clone, a copy? Before she'd passed out, he'd claimed he would grow old at the same time as her. That's seemed to be the bargain on the table. But she'd never asked for that.
Before the light in her head, before she'd passed out, before he'd changed again, she'd pulled away from the offer. She hadn't been able to resist the suggestion of the kiss. “Kiss me and you will know,” he'd said. It could have been the right answer. She'd been intrigued for a moment by the thought of...well...physical compatibility, sex. And the human Doctor had delivered. That kiss sparked up a fire inside her and, for a second or ten, Rose had given herself to the flame. But even under the influence of her hormones, she hadn't forgotten her Doctor was still waiting for an answer. “Does it need saying?” No, it didn't. It never had. But, they shouldn't have needed a test. He'd already changed or he never would have thought of leaving her behind. Rose didn't want passionate kisses or a house or a Doctor who would age with her. She'd never asked him to settle down. It had been his idea from the start. He'd suggested a house with doors and carpets.
She only wanted him. When she'd tried to picture the two of them aging together, side by side in rocking chairs, she couldn't manage it. That ridiculous image, as much as the sound of the TARDIS leaving, had made her pull away from the kiss. The thought of her Doctor, feeble and helpless, made her heartsick, not happy. A fair trade Rose supposed, because it was probably what he'd always envisioned for her, whenever she'd talked about “forever.” He'd thought of her decaying, wasting away. Maybe that's why he couldn't bear to stay. But, as Rose told him, many times, either of them dying of old age wasn't a very plausible scenario. Death on the run seemed a far more likely outcome for the pair of them. Rose had always assumed she would meet her maker after drinking a poisonous tea, which the Doctor had previously assured her was perfectly safe and delicious.
He'd lost a lot of people in his life, but it had never occurred to her that he would be so afraid of facing another loss that he would abandon her. How could he be so childish? So selfish. Adults didn't hide from things by covering their eyes and humming. His leaving wouldn't make her immortal. She would still die one day. She lived a dangerous life, with or without him. Did he imagine her puttering around Torchwood doing paperwork, before heading home on the five o'clock train with a take away curry? Was that how he wanted to live in this forced retirement? No. Rose couldn't believe it of him. Even if they settled down a bit, bought a real house with doors or what have you, they wouldn't become stodgy office workers. They would still be explorers, adventurers. Look at Sarah Jane, she'd never stopped looking for trouble. Old age wasn't crippling in this era. Grannies ran marathons. Seventy year old men started families.
“Yes, well, that's enough biology for now,” Rose heard the Doctor say, evidently hoping to cut off Jackie's story about Uncle Ted's trip to the hospital with appendicitis. “Besides, I don't think I have an appendix or a prostate.”
He backpedaled into the room, just as Rose stood up to leave. She could see the concentration on his face as he mentally probed about in his abdomen for organs. Jackie followed him in, over stuffing the small space, forcing the Doctor to retreat into Rose or the shower. He opted for her.
“Nope. No prostate. That's a relief. I hear they are nothing but trouble.” To emphasize the joke, he prodded Rose with an elbow. Then, he exclaimed, “Ooh! I've a womb. That's new. And interesting. Do I like the womb? Maybe. Vestigial. No ovaries, thank goodness. Imagine me with Premenstrual Syndrome. Or pregnant?”
“A womb?” Jackie squeaked. “Where did you get that?”
“Half-female on my Donna's side,” he said, by way of explanation. Then, because Jackie had sounded a tad accusatory, he added, “I didn't steal it. It's a what-do-you-call-it? Side effect,” He gulped down the remaining words in the sentence, “of the Meta-Crisis.”
“Rose?” Jackie said, “Did you hear that?”
“I heard,” Rose said.
“He's got Donna's womb,” Jackie told her and Rose wondered why she had bothered answering.
“Do you?” she said, lifting a weary brow at the Doctor. “That's different.”
“It's all different from...” He turned his head slightly and stood transfixed.
They both fell into a dumbfounded trance as their eyes locked. The universe shifted again, far more pleasantly this time, rocking like a hammock under her. Rose momentarily lost track of her worries, her breathing, everything. It was an endearing trait, this habit he had of losing himself in her, drawing her into their private world. Again, a slight smile tugged at the corners of Rose's mouth. She couldn't help herself. His evident devotion always made her feel effervescent. And she empathized with his bemused expression. She felt much the same, being this close to him after so long apart. But even as she allowed herself to lean into his pull, Rose smacked down her elation. She couldn’t afford to be lulled into a false sense of security. He might have the same old sappy ways and great hair, but he didn't deserve to be encouraged. Not this time.
He'd caused her no end of grief. He'd lied to her about never leaving. He’d left. And she wasn't convinced he'd intended to return. Even if he'd come back, or meant to all along, she couldn't forget how devastated she’d been when she saw the TARDIS fading. And he’d expected her to act as a jailer or nurse for his duplicate. After she'd risked her life to return to home, he might as well have slammed the door in her face. To have all of her hopes crushed, not by circumstance, but by the person she trusted most, was just too much to immediately forgive.
Resolute, Rose broke their connection by looking away. Her malaise returned like a punishment. A pulse of pain shot through her gut. Nausea made her mouth water and she would have laid down right there if she didn’t have her mum to worry about. She opted for a slight grimace. No one seemed to notice her distress. Her mum peered up at the Doctor. The Doctor stared at his shoes.
They were lost on an alien world, one about to be destroyed by ravenous insects. The story of their lives, really. Rose wasn't even the least bit amused by this situation. No, she was furious. The Doctor owed her quite a few apologies, but there was slim chance she'd get more than the generic “sorry” out of him. And she was fair-minded enough to realize he, also, had some adjusting to do. It couldn't be easy waking up human. So, she wouldn't hound him for answers to all of her questions. Not yet. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said of her mother.
“It's not natural,” Jackie said. “I'm as open-minded as the next person, but if he's got a womb, how can you be sure he's a him? Not that I'd say a thing about it, if you didn't mind, sweetheart. You know, I'm not one to judge. Remember when Gladys' eldest boy started wearing those evening gowns to Tesco, I'm the one who did his hair up for him. And told those gossiping cows at the laundromat to sod off, too.”
“Mum, leave off,” Rose sighed, angling behind the Doctor to look out the door. “We can't stay here. We need supplies and a hotel room, somewhere to set up a command center.”
“And it's vestigial,” the Doctor huffed, following Rose as she stepped out into the bright sunshine, “A minor whatsit—glitch, that's all it is, just a glitch in the XY chromosomes. I was made from Donna. Or this vessel was. She had the double X, parthenogenesis leads to girls on Earth, but I used my handy spare hand. Everything I needed for this body's coding, all on file in the hand.” He wiggled his fingers in front of his nose. “The end result is something completely new, unique, the perfect vessel. Weeelll, I say perfect...”
Rose nodded toward the distant space port spires, but let him take the lead, heading into the city. She was content to shepherd her mom in his wake. He'd, no doubt, been here before and she trusted him to know more than she did about the culture. As they weaved through an exponentially increasing crowd, he kept talking.
“Most of Donna’s genes have been neutralized by my...? Innate avatar patterns. But some things, like the second heart and the respiratory bypass, couldn’t be duplicated. Regeneration? That’s complicated. Obviously any femininity is completely off-line. This is me,” he tapped his temple, “stored up here. Where it counts. I've been archived. Although, human flesh is more assertive than I would have imagined. Not what I'm used to, I must say. All of this,” his upper lip lifted into a sneer, “...breathing and, and...leaking. I wasn't even a tiny bit human before the Meta-Crisis.”
“And I never said a word about it,” Jackie said primly.
Rose snorted. “You said plenty.” She air quoted as she did a sing-song impersonation of her mother. “'Has he got two of anything else? Can he even...you know? What if he eats you straight after? What if his...you know...has spines on it, like a hedgehog?'”
“Spines?” The Doctor stopped suddenly, forcing them all to break stride or risk losing touch. “Spines?”
“On your little Doctor, like a cat,” Jackie said, as Rose took her arm to steer keep her close. “Or a bed bug.”
“Ah, traumatic insemination. No. No. None of that.”
“And what would you say if your only daughter was dating a 900 year old alien? Tell me you wouldn't worry about him sticking his embryo implants in her head.”
“Mum, can we stop talking about…”
“Hand to heart, Jackie,” the Doctor said solemnly, “I promise to never implant embryos in Rose's head. Besides, I'm 98% sure we can’t reproduce. But if we did they would be the three sexes and no tentacles, or spines, 95%...92, that is, let's say, 90% sure. Although...stranger things have happened.”
“What are you two on about?” Rose asked, snatched out of contemplating her physical distress by this possibly relevant information. She strained to hear him over the ambient din.
“Potential offspring,” he shouted over the blare of a passing radio. “Unlikely as that eventuality is at the moment. Probably no tentacles.” Rose cut her eyes to the side to indicate the staring people. He moved closer, tucking her and Jackie to him, one under each arm. “We wouldn't devolve. My people did have gelatinous limbs once upon a time. Oh, so long ago. Did I ever mention that? We were originally sort of jellyfish. Well, I say jellyfish. What I mean is squidish. Well, I say squidish.” He paused to consider, allowing Rose to duck his hold, and then announced, “Octopi! Energy octopi! Gaseous and adaptomorphic. This was eons ago, of course, when we first crawled out of the seas. But then, you lot were once more fish than fowl, too. And you had penis spines, come to that.”
“I knew it,” Jackie exclaimed. “He's a gassy squid.”
“Octopi,” he bristled, taking sudden umbrage. “And it is more of an energy matrix. Than a...gas.” He darted abruptly to the right, almost losing them. They ran to catch up. “And I wouldn't remark on ancestors at all, if I were descended from hairless apes. Octopi, by comparison, are amazing, even on Earth. Multiple hearts, carry their own oxygen supply with them. Very intelligent.” The rhythm of his speech and pace slowed. He glanced over his shoulder, back the way they'd come. “Change shape or color at will. Escape from any trap. You'd be proud to be tentacled...if you were.”
Nothing set the Doctor off like the origins of species. He would do twenty minutes before breakfast, if the toaster malfunctioned. But, instead of launching into the expected rant, he spun about, so suddenly her mum nearly toppled him. He took Jackie by the elbows and scooted her out of the way of a burly alien with meter long horns. They had crossed into a square and now faced a confusing tangle of claustrophobic pathways. Each meandered through the crowd toward diverging streets. When she glanced up, Rose could barely see the sky. Hovering platforms supported open air shops, floating above the buildings. The people climbed up ropes or flew to reach them. Bits of confetti and trash showered down on her.
“Before you continue on about how superior your species is,” she said, gesturing at the choice of directions before them, “which way to the spaceport?”
The Doctor breathed raggedly beside her. He didn't seem to be enjoying the carnival atmosphere. In fact, he looked confused, blanked out, like her grandmother used to get from the Alzheimer’s. Generally enthralled by busy marketplaces, he definitely was having some issues with this one. He cocked his head to one side, and then pivoted in a slow circle. Rose wondered if the human body had failed him somehow. He appeared to be listening, perhaps trying to sort out the Paplioozese from the many other languages being spoken simultaneously.
Rose had given up on discerning individual words from the cacophony around them. Everyone seemed to be talking at once. There were no cars or lorries, but a number of elephant-sized, burden-laden creatures had lumbered past. Harness bells jangled. The animals bellowed. Street musicians played odd hooting instruments. Vendors called out their wares. To their left, what looked like a snake-charmer clapped and capered. From time to time, his “snakes” blew out clouds of multi-colored dust. Off-world visitors used translator pendants to communicate. They spoke their own language with an echo of the native tongue. She should find one of those for her mum. Understanding alien languages was yet another thing she would have to discuss with the Doctor.
She watched a Papiloo'zue couple climb the side of a building across the way. Others were clinging to tiny ledges. The city had a Mumbai bazaar meets monarch butterfly migration vibe to it. There were too many different species to count on the ground. Buyers and sellers, pets and pet owners, draft animals and drivers, natives and tourists pushed through the narrow roads. Rose had the distinct impression that the city planners hadn't envisioned more than a handful of people on these streets at one time. And the din hammered against her ear drums.
Paplioo'zue chirped stridently as they dickered for goods, and buzzed as they took wing into the sky. Flying machines hummed. Bird-like beasts in cages cawed. There were fewer of the drabber, quieter Paplioo'kun on hand. Rose wondered if they came out at night like the moths they resembled. Once the hot sun set would they swarm the city the way the colorful Papiloo'zue did now?
Jewels and clothing and food and other goods tempted from displays behind glass or on trays in the hands of vocal salespeople. Rose's stomach cramped. She thought of her mother, going hungry, and felt a stab of guilt. She should have shared the rations before they set off on this quest. They all needed food, water, rest and safety. The Doctor wasn't immortal anymore. He wasn't looking well.
He'd paled to chalky white. His dark eyes seemed almost kohl-rimmed. Sweat stained the back of his suit. He appeared to be searching for some landmark, but there was nothing to see but smoke, people, wings, shops and fluttering confetti. The buildings around the square were generic, mud-daubed brick, all between three and five stories high. The streets had narrowed, until the sun cast only a sliver of light along them. The Doctor circled Rose, taking intimate liberties, his palms sliding along her waist. She stiffened, but before she could react, he'd let go. He held out his hand. She jammed both of hers into her jacket pockets.
“Right,” he said, in a mournful tone. “I think,” he swallowed hard, “we're lost.” He mirrored her body language by tucking his own hands into his trouser pockets. Then, he dipped his head in the direction they'd come. When she grimaced, he said, “No?”
“Can't you feel the world moving?”
“I can't feel my lips. I believe that snake dust is an intoxicant. Do you feel...strange?”
Rose did feel a little unsteady and quite sick. But she didn't think I was the snake dust. For the first time, she noticed how slender the Doctor was, and thought about how fragile he might be. He could be injured so easily, fatally injured.
“What kind of strange?”
“My chest hurts. Nothing smells right. I can’t sense anything. No gravitational pull. No planetary tilt. How do you people find your way home from the market? There's nothing but noise in my head. I’ve never been lost before. Well, I have, but not like this. It's like going blind and deaf...while wearing a spacesuit. I suppose—we could, we could ask for directions.” He glanced up and down the street again. “Or a taxi, perhaps, or...a train.”
“Just relax. Think. Where are we?” she asked, placing a hand on his arm.
“I told you, we're lost.”
“No,” Rose laughed, in spite of his distress and her worry. “What planet? What time? Have you been here before?”
“I said, didn't I?” He frowned as he sorted out his short term memory. “Did I? No, perhaps not. Could I be having a cerebral hemorrhage?”
“Let’s find out, tell me what you remember about all of this.”
“Cignus Minor Three, Circa 2875.” He gestured broadly, a measure of his breezy confidence returning. “The year of the Great Ceremony. This is definitely not business as usual. We are here to bear witness to the blessed union of the young queen of the Paplioo'zue to a prince of the Paplioo'kun. Butterfly people all, well, butterflies and moths. The Paplioo'kun are more like moths.”
“Oh, I miss those,” Jackie said. “Having a President means no royal weddings. Sarah Jane told me young prince William is married, Rose. So, you've lost your chance.”
The aside confused him for a second. “What? Oh, yes, no monarchy in your England. But this, this is a royal wedding multiplied by a million Diamond Jubilees. Two vast empires have been at war for a few thousand years. Civilized war, mind you, for the last couple of centuries, more like competitive business dealings and aggressive colonization. But any day now, all of that changes. There will be peace in this corner of the galaxy. And 10,000 commitment ceremonies in this system alone. Love is in the air.” He waved a hand at the multitudes milling around them. “An unprecedented boon to the economy, everyone cashing in on the fairytale romance. I had always intended to bring you here one day.”
“One day when the world needed saving,” Rose said, softly. He had to lean very close to hear her.
She struggled to hold her place while being repeatedly jostled. The Doctor noticed, took her elbow and edged sideways until she had her back against a wall. It was quieter there, between two vendors. Rose hoped they wouldn’t be pinned to the wall by the increasing crowd. What had looked like a reasonably bustling city had turned into the tubes at rush hour. And was well on the way to resembling a standing-room-only concert. It was hard to imagine all of it gone in less than a month.
Rose gulped against the lump of bile in her throat. A street magician, or priest, confronted them and conjured a shower of flaming sparks from a bowl. Rose ducked left to avoid the fiery spray and nearly brought down a tent over a kabob seller. Jackie started apologizing to the vendor, a Jadoon trader with a translator pendant.
Personal flying machines darted and weaved around the kites and banners and hover-shops overhead. Rose supposed flying was like walking, you wanted a vehicle every now and again. The Doctor could probably fly one on of those, if they could find one for rent. She hadn't seen any buses or taxis. And surely every spare room had been let. Turning to ask the Doctor, if he knew of any way they might navigate the city quicker, she saw Jackie receiving three steaming kabobs from the food vendor. What had she used for money? The vendor looked pleased with the deal, waving as Jackie pushed her way back to Rose to present the food with a flourish.
“Have a bite to eat,” Jackie said. “It will help you think. The world's not ending today.”
“It could be,” Rose said.
But she and the Doctor took the offered skewers of meat and fruit. He sniffed his. Her stomach did a slow roll, and refused to even entertain the idea of food. One bite would have her retching.
“You can have mine,” she said, handing the greasy thing to the Doctor, who had already gobbled his down. “It might help clear your head.”
“You have to keep up your strength, too, Rose,” Jackie said. “Who knows when we will find another friendly alien in this madhouse?”
“I had a gel-pack earlier,” Rose said. “I’m not hungry.”
The Doctor made short work of her kabob. She'd never seen him eat like that, as if he were literally starving. Between ravenous gulps, he panted for air. The sea generally resided at sea level, so his breathing distress wasn't due to altitude. It couldn't be exertion. They had been walking quickly, but hadn't moved for several minutes. He might be asthmatic or allergic to something. Or he could be having trouble adjusting to his human lungs. The air on this world was thinner than on Earth. If he wasn't careful, his hyperventilation would trigger a panic attack...or a fainting spell.
“Breath through your nose,” she told him. “Count seven as you breathe in. Eleven out. Gasping makes it worse.”
“Hyperventilation,” he said. And she nodded, even though it hadn’t been a question. He was the Doctor, after all. He held out a trembling hand. “I'm shaking.”
“It’s the oxygen mix,” she said. “Torchwood keeps me fit with high altitude training, mountain obstacle courses. You'll have to start working out.”
“Your mother seems fine.”
“I teach Zumba,” Jackie said.
“I never thought I’d out run you,” Rose said, pleased. “Take that Suzie Costello.”
“Torchwood!” the Doctor declared, snapping his fingers. “Do they have anything to offer in this emergency? A compass would do.”
“We use RPN, Relative Positioning Navigation. Useless now I've lost contact with my base. Without the mobile we're cut off. And I don't have your extra deep pockets,” she added with a grin. “I have five energy gel-packs, and some detox tablets for water purification, two nearly perfect Hyperlicon diamonds for trading. Flint, steel, matches and some psychic paper. A sonic cutting tool and a few broad spectrum antibiotics. And you.”
“And me,” the Doctor agreed. “Even in this body, I'm much handier than a sonic lipstick.”
“I've got tissues, lip balm and my credit cards,” Jackie added, checking her pockets. “And a second bloody useless mobile.”
Inspired, Rose smacked the Doctor's arm lightly. “Did you bring the universal credit card?”
He shook his head. “Wouldn't work here, different universe, different currencies. It's the niggling details that get you, reversed portraits on the coins, odd colors for the paper money.”
Rose nodded, having faced this problem in her dimension travels. “Names of the dynasties. I know. Maybe you could fix my mum's mobile. Jiggery poke it into finding Torchwood?”
“Unlikely, without the TARDIS to help with temporal shunts. We are a long way from Earth's satellite system...” He broke off and squinted at Rose. “How did you manage it?”
“What?” she asked.
“How did you boost the signal of your mobile to contact Torchwood? You didn't have a TARDIS.”
“She's got a sort of...” Jackie began, but Rose cut her off quickly.
“It's the same one you fixed for me,” Rose said. “It worked here, remember? It linked to the cybernet to help us find my dad?”
“Yes, but I was here, then. The TARDIS was contemporary to you. How did you get it to work once the crack in the universe closed and you were stranded?”
“Mickey thought it was the Albatross,” Jackie said.
“It never stopped working,” Rose said, glaring at her mum. “Look, if everyone is feeling better we should be moving along. I think the crowd is thinning.”
“The sun is setting,” he said.
“It was like finding you on the beach,” Jackie went on, not taking the meaning of Rose's pointed stare and head shake. “Or hearing English. She can just do things. I told her it wasn’t natural, but she never listens to me.”
“Mum,” Rose said, a warning in her tone. “Now is not the time.”
“The beach? What about the beach?” he asked.
“He needs to know, sweetheart,” Jackie said, “If he's going to help us go home.”
Rose sighed. There was almost no chance they would ever see home or Pete or Tony again. Without a TARDIS or a jump cannon, they were stranded. She thought of little Tony growing up without Jackie and almost wept. Her nausea returned with a vengeance and she doubled over.
The Doctor took her by the elbows, applying a light shake. “Rose, are you in pain or…?”
“She means when you called to me,” Rose said, through gritted teeth. She straightened, attempting to pull away from his grip. “All those years ago, at Bad Wolf Bay. I knew how to find you. Like you found me back on Earth, when I called you.”
“You called me?” he repeated, peering into her face. Then, his eyes lit with the realization. “Of course, you called me on the mobile. And I heard you. Well, it beeped.”
“And then the subnet connected.”
This appeared to be news to him. “Wait. After you reached out to me? Only then?”
“I wanted you to find me, I knew you could,” Rose said, though now that he seemed so flummoxed, she started doubting her faith. “You were trying to find me, right?”
“No. Hoping to find you, certainly! Because Donna gave me your message. But I was tracking a signal.”
“Two words. Bad wolf.”
“Two words,” he said gravely. “So you do remember, those words, seeing Donna, striding across to a parallel world.” Rose nodded. She wondered where he was going with this. “I think the TARDIS was actively searching for you. All this time. That's your connection, Rose. She wanted you back. No. Wait. She wanted me here. Of course!” He pushed the exclamation through his clenched teeth as he released her. “She wanted me here.”
“So, that's why I can understand what everyone is saying,” Rose said. “Because the TARDIS is guiding me? But how is that possible? She's not here.”
“You were part of her once,” he said, calm again and shrugging off any concerns, “Perhaps there is a link, still. Or, perhaps...?”
He cocked his head to one side. His eyes narrowed, as his expression grew guarded. He has a secret or two of his own, Rose thought. She longed for the days when they shared everything, even their innermost thoughts. But perhaps those days only existed in her mind. He'd always kept secrets. Maybe she'd been deluding herself, pretending he cared. He'd left Sarah Jane behind and every other companion. He'd promised she was different, but...maybe not. And she couldn't help wondering why, if the TARDIS had wanted her to find the Doctor, it had let her be sent back to this universe with the human copy? There had to be something else going on here.
“Perhaps? What?”
“Perhaps we shouldn't worry about this just now,” the Doctor said, “One crisis at a time.”
“I know a trick or two, to make a few bob, if we find can find a pub,” Jackie said. “And I wouldn't say no to sitting down for a pint. All this running about is exhausting.”
“But it's your first alien world, Jackie,” The Doctor said, trying for a lighter tone. “That's exciting.”
“Mum? How did you manage those kabob?”
“Like I said, I know a trick or two.” Jackie pointed at a sign. “That place has wi-fi.”
“There's an idea,” Rose said, “If you can link up my mum's phone, we could try accessing the Internet.”
“Can we email? I want to check on Tony,” Jackie said, handing Rose her mobile, “Though I still don't understand how you avoid roaming charges, Rose. Someone in Torchwood financial must notice you’re making calls from Saturn. Now, what's wrong with him?” She asked, as the Doctor started sputtering.
“That sign?” he said, pointing to the one Jackie had just indicated. “It's in Paplioo'zese.”
“No, it's not,” Jackie said. “It's in English.”
“Mum?” Rose felt a frisson of fear. She spoke gently, the way she had when she thought her mother was losing her mind. “You see English?”
“Of course, I see English. Don't you?”
“I do, yes, but,” Rose couldn't help casting a questioning glance at the Doctor, “We were just saying that's because of the TARDIS. It's still linked in my head. You shouldn’t see English.”
Jackie became visibly upset. “But why is it making me see things? I don't want it in my head. I thought that was odd, really, all the signs in English. I'm not stupid. I just thought—it was for the tourists. You know real people like us.”
Several of the passersby gave Jackie angry glares and Rose realized they could understand her mum. The translations went both ways.
“What’s going on?” Rose demanded.
“I don't know, but—of course,” the Doctor exclaimed. “That's why I was having such a hard time telling the languages apart. It's not an alien tongue. I am hearing high Gallifreyan with assorted accents. Your mother's hearing and seeing English.”
“From the TARDIS?” Rose asked. “Does that mean...? Is she coming back?”
“You tell me,” he said, with such threatening intensity Rose gulped in surprise. “Who closed the TARDIS door, Rose? Was it you? Are you keeping me safe?” He seized her arm. “Answer me.”
She'd seen that look in his eyes before. It made his enemies tremble, but it had never been directed at her. “No. You know it wasn't me. I was standing behind you. It just closed. All on its own.”
“All on its own,” he mimicked. He flung her arm away, rocking her with the force. “All that is, all that was, all that ever will be,” he said. “Does that ring a bell? You told Dalek Ka’an about killing the Emperor. Who told you? For all I know you sent Ka'an to find Davros.”
“What?” She couldn't believe he would accuse her of such ridiculous duplicity. “Doctor, that's insane.”
He paced back and forth, clutching at his hair. Rose chewed on her lower lip. What if he was? Insane. What if the archiving business had gone wrong? Or what if the change she'd sensed in him was only part of his delusion? Maybe this was the dangerous duplicate, not the man she loved at all. She'd seen him out of his mind before, during his Ninth incarnation, in a parallel world. She'd barely escaped with her life.
“I’ve been such a fool. Donna and her grandfather. Donna's car parked next to the TARDIS. That's not coincidence. That's a plan. Your plan.” He stabbed a finger at her. “She told you about her keys,” he said, awe softening his accusations. One hand circled around his head. “I can sense it all. Bits from Donna's memories, and the other me. He knew first. Well, he would. You created him.”
“No! I didn’t. Doctor, listen to me. Something is going wrong with you. In your head. It's the regeneration, or whatever that was, or maybe your memories are...”
"I remember. You. Scattering the Dalek fleet. Bring Jack back to life. Signs and symbols everywhere I go. Tell me why you're doing this?" he ordered, grabbing her shoulders.
“Let go of her, you,” Jackie demanded, shoving at him. “Can’t you see you’re scaring her?”
“Oh, she’s not scared. Are you, Rose?” He leaned too close, squinting into her face. Rose tried not to move away. He must see how frightened she was. How could he miss it? “You’ve never been scared of me. Amused, maybe. Dallying.”
“Doctor,” Rose said, holding on to her patience, while fighting back tears. Oddly, he was right, in a way, they were tears of frustration and heartbreak. Most of her fear was for him. She didn't really believe he would harm her. “You know me. You know my mum.”
“Do I? That’s why the other one didn't fight me on this ridiculous idea of leaving you behind. He couldn't. The pattern is coming together in my head, now that my head is together. A divided mind is a terrible waste of resources. All those varying perspectives kept me from seeing the whole. It was you, from the very beginning. Maybe from the moment we met.” He drew her up on her toes as he grip flexed. “Setting the universe right, manipulating me. And Donna. And Wilf. All of us pawns on a chess board. The question is: what are you?”
“She’s my daughter,” Jackie told him, “And if you don’t let go of her, I’m going to smack you.”
Rose blinked away the sting in her eyes. She felt wretched, but she had to get him under control. Oh, how she wanted to rave at him, call him a liar and a horrible person. But, of course, she still loved him, if this was really him. Not if. It was. And he wouldn't hurt her. Even if he was crazy. Losing her temper with him wouldn't solve anything. She didn't want him bolting away from her, not in this condition. It would be one disaster too many for the day. So she reigned in her emotions.
“Mum, he’s just confused. Doctor, you’ve had a shock. Maybe your blood sugar is too low, or…”
He fumbled, one-handed, for his sonic screwdriver and, finding it, pointed it at Rose's temple. She ducked. The screwdriver shrieked. He released his grip on her to smack the rebellious tool against his palm. Rose pushed her mum behind her. After making a few adjustments, he swept the screwdriver up and down, outlining her body. Whatever it told him sent him reeling backward.
“He's cracked,” Jackie said, as they stood watching the Doctor mutter to himself. “I knew it would happen one day. He's always been one button short of a shirt front. We should run while we have the chance.”
“We can't leave him like this, Mum.”
“Do you think he's dangerous, like the other him said?”
He could be, Rose knew. And maybe her mum was right about running. But the Doctor seemed to be settling down. Though, he didn't want to believe his screwdriver readings. He shook the instrument, thumped it and licked it. Then, he scratched his head and adjusted the settings again. This time Rose didn't flinch when he pointed it at her. But, when it beeped loudly, the Doctor looked as if he’d seen a Dalek. The remaining color drained from his face. All of his righteous anger seemed to vanish, too.
“Oh, no,” he mouthed, before shouting, “No. Not here. Not now. No. No. No.”
His ranting caused him to overheat again. He stopped pacing, tucked the screwdriver into his trouser pocket and stood very still. Rose held her breath, wondering what had caused this abrupt change in his manner. He put a hand to his chest. Maybe feeling his heartbeat? His hand rested there, moving slightly, fingers outlining something in an inner pocket. Then, he reached inside his jacket and his fingers closed around something small. Moving very carefully, as if he were cradeling a soap bubble, he drew forth a glowing bit of TARDIS coral. Rose inhaled sharply. The coral twisted in the Doctor's palm, morphing into a new, slightly bigger piece.
“That's got to be worth something,” Jackie said.
“It's priceless,” Rose said.
“And growing. We've cracked the plasma shell.”
The Doctor covered his eyes with his free hand, making an obvious effort to control his breathing. This was bad, Rose realized. It might be worse than him going mad. She didn't think she wanted to know more than that. And, before she could decide if she wanted to question him, he sprang into action, going from zero to sixty in a nanosecond. Like a conjurer, he made the piece of coral vanish with a smooth sweep of his hand. Jackie yelped as he snatched at her arm. He took Rose's hand, but clasped it very gently. As they set off through the crowd, he sheltered her from assorted bumps and jostles. He forged a path for her. All hesitation gone, he moved with intent.
“Keep up, keep up,” he commanded in a voice that barred all argument. “This isn't even close to over, yet.”
The element of surprise served him well. Rose forgot to resist. Jackie forgot to protest. The Doctor forgot all of his earlier distress. Rose assumed this was all about the baby TARDIS, but she couldn't be sure. The Doctor was confusing her. His breathing turned ragged again, but he didn’t seem to notice. He’d lost his deer in the headlights disorientation. He plowed over people and careened off of carts, ignoring shouts and threats. They turned left, and took a couple of rights. He had found his bearings, it seemed, because he steered them unerringly to a monorail station.
That answers the public transport question, Rose thought, as the Doctor flashed his psychic paper at the ticket taker. Once they'd boarded, he commandeered a bench and sat Rose down on it. She murmured an apology at the commuters he'd ordered to move, but didn't bother asking the brooding Doctor anything. He leaned against a pole, as the monorail zipped along. This was a mood she recognized. He would talk when he snapped out of it. He had his arms crossed and his chin down. His glower raised a stone wall between them. Besides, she didn't feel like fighting whatever crazy notion might have enter his head. Her stomach crabs had returned. They were dancing a rumba on her spleen. She was tired, thirsty, cranky and sick. So much for Rose Tyler, the seasoned team leader. She leaned against her mum's shoulder and closed her eyes.
She didn't stir again until Jackie said, “Oh, look, Rose. Tha's amazing. Like a giant dandelion clock.”
With everything else going on, Rose had forgotten this was her mum's first time on an alien world. The structure she pointed at turned out to be the spaceport hotel. Since the Doctor had retreated into his thoughts, Rose played tour guide. She took her mind off her own troubles, by pointing out aliens she knew. She taught her mum how to find a gem trader by the purple sashes worn by the profession for centuries. Jackie showed Rose how to get the best deal. They bargained away one of Rose's diamonds for a sublet room. The Doctor surfaced from his mood to suggest something on the ground floor. As soon as they'd reached this small sanctuary, he found himself confronted by two women with lots of questions.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Jackie said. “Dragging us around like rag dolls. Rose isn't feeling well.” Rose opened her mouth to ask how she knew that. “Don't say you are fine, sweetheart. I'm your mother, I can tell.” She turned back to the Doctor. “Otherwise, she would have given you a kick in the backside.”
“And I didn't do anything to the TARDIS,” Rose began. “Or you. Or Donna. I didn't crack the shell on that coral. And I'm not going to...”
He held up a hand. “Nevermind all that. Jackie, I don't have time to explain. I need you to use those skills of yours to find more food, enough for a couple of days. Don’t go far or get lost. I won't come looking for you.” He started casing the place. There wasn't much to discover, a bed, a tallboy-type cabinet. He pushed against the latter, trying to shift it, but it failed to budge. He growled in frustration. “What is wrong with this body? No muscular strength. No lung capicity. I need to create some kind of barricade. Of all the systems in the universe,we would be stranded in one that never heard of doors.” After another hearty shove, he gave up his fight with the furniture. Stepping to the window, he angled his body so he could see out without being seen. “Rose, you stay here. Jackie, go!”
“Doctor?” Rose said, worry smothering her outrage. “Are you going to tell us what's wrong?”
“I don’t know who you think you are, ordering us about,” Jackie said. “But my daughter is…”
“Your daughter is pregnant,” he announced, turning abruptly to face them. The grim set of his jaw pulled the rug out from under Jackie's tirade before it could fully launch.
Rose had been expecting more paranoiad raving, not this. “Pregnant? No, I’m not.”
“But you are. Very, very pregnant. And, at this time, in this place, that is very, very bad news.”
“I can’t be. I haven't...it’s not possible.”
“Not through the ordinary means, perhaps. But these are extraordinary times. Don’t you see? That’s what this is about. All of it. The Meta Crisis. The Archiving. The TARDIS is giving me what I thought I could never have, again, a family. I passed through you, Rose. In my natural...state.”
“And...and...now, I'm pregnant?”
She still couldn't follow his logic. There'd been no sex. She'd been unconscious. The TARDIS doing this to her was just...wrong, creepy, like some interdimensional assault. Though she wasn't quite sure who to blame. The Doctor hadn't planned this or even known it would happen. But he'd said it was what HE wanted? What about her? She wasn't ready to settle down, start a family. She didn't want to be even a little bit pregnant, nevermind...
"Very, very pregnant. That’s how's it's done, among my people. One of the ways. And,I'm sorry. I know this is...awkward, confusing, scary." He nodded to himself, content with that word. "I'll fix this, but we don't have much time. Your body is changing. That's why we can all understand the native tongue. Because you need to, Rose. You are resonating through the seed coral.”
“If she were very pregnant, she’d be showing,” Jackie reasoned.
“Oh, she is,” he assured them. “She’s all aglow. That’s why the K'anB'akiur Scourge came to us on the beach. You're a proper beacon, Rose, to any species with a temporal sensory array. Sadly, that is no longer me. Remember the pilot fish?”
“They wanted to use your regenerative energy to fuel a ship,” Rose answered, automatically.
“Imagine 41,283 of me, each one worth a fortune on the open market.”
Rose shivered. He had to be talking about duplicates. “41,000 copies?”
“Children. Embryos."
"I knew it. I told you. Didn't I say so?" Jackie said.
"Not in her head. In your,” he waved a hand at Rose's mid-section. “In you. Every viable, xeno-compatible, egg in your ovarian reserve has been fertilized. I might be a pawn, Rose, but you're not. You're the queen. My natural form? Your genetic material? The time vortex energy from the heart of the TARDIS? Brilliant. She’s created the first human Time Lords. Bound to be a few thousand Regenerates in the mix.”
A few…thousand? Potential Time Lords? Inside her? Rose tottered. Blackness rose like a tide, rushing from all sides of her vision and the floor swam up toward her. She didn’t know when her knees gave out, but the Doctor sprang to check her fall. He eased her backward, until she sat on the edge of the narrow bed. She slumped into him, head lolling. He settled next to her, keeping her in a loose embrace. She longed to feel the warmth of his arm around her shoulders, but her body had gone numb. Pregnant. No wonder she’d been nauseous all day.
“Every egg,” she mumbled. “Yeah, that's...very, very...”
END THIS PART
Part Four
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-09 04:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-09 06:13 am (UTC)Sorry to have weirded you out. There will be cozier chapters to come. Things are all of kilter as Rose and the Doctor adjust to the changed circumstances. And...stuff...
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-09 06:16 am (UTC)Sorry, responding from the netbook, again. Tiny keys. GRIN!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-09 12:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-10 12:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-10 01:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-09 02:33 pm (UTC)There's quite a power shift going on in this relationship and I don't think the Doctor's too happy with it, putting it mildly. He's always been in control before. The changing power dynamics between these three are pretty unpleasant, at leat short-term. My heart goes out to Rose. Ten is so typically consumed with solving his own mystery, and working through his dislike of having it imposed on him without his knowledge or consent, that his empathy counter (never his strongest point) is set to zero. I fear Rose is in for a bumpy ride.
But I did like the way you filled in her background since the events of Doomsday, and the courage and resourcefulness she's needed - yes, she has had to become the Doctor in this world. And therein lies a good part of the problem.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-09 07:06 pm (UTC)Instead, he's piled on a whole barge-load of extra stress. She has to take care of her Mum and, maybe, him. And she's now facing a completely life-changing, life-threatening shock.
Thank you for your comments and for the lovely compliment about my Doctor and his extreme alienness. He is lacking empathy, but also a bit of awareness. I feel for him, too, because he's trapped in what would, for us, be a snowsuit for subzero weather. He has lost touch with his surroundings, for the moment, and that's made him snappy and reactionary. He is...I think...a little scared of Rose. She can, after all, hurt him at the core. Also, she does things he finds incomprehensible. We can't overlook the fact that no Time Lord could control the vortex as Rose did. That he died, just directing it back home. And then there is the smaller things that she notices, about people...and him...via her own empathy.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-10 12:13 am (UTC)BTW, I hope you don't mind my friending you?
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-10 01:21 am (UTC)I am so happy you like the alien nature of my Doctor. This is what I shoot for, an alien Doctor, a patient and courageous Rose and some crisis management. I love to have them challenged my their circumstances. I think that is the beauty of their relationship, they can deal with their problems, their differences, and still find delight in one another.
Thanks for the lovely feedback.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-10 02:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-10 03:20 pm (UTC)It has taken me this long to find a way to salvage the mess I was left with after JE. That is, to reconcile my Wild Geese 2 ideas with the TV canon. I am finding my groove again, though. So...YAY!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-10 05:48 pm (UTC)Comment hijacking-- my apologies. But, O.M.G.!! The mere idea of a continuation of WWGK makes me all sorts of delighted! *happy dance*
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-10 09:59 pm (UTC)Sorry, if I raised your hopes for a straight continuation.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-10 10:24 pm (UTC)If I am honest, I truly enjoyed your creativity in explaining his biology in that story and I see elements of it in this one, which is awesome! You stretch the limits of his being alien and how it applies to his relationships. That is a rare treat and one I truly appreciate!
That said, I look forward to following this story and catching up on a few of your newer fics. I've been MIA from fandom for far too long it seems...
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-11 01:42 am (UTC)Here's hoping I finish this before we learn anything about the 50th Anniversary story. When I saw David and Billie were coming back, I was like...oh, no!
Oh, and you should look for a Kara/Lee story of mine called Iced. It is on here somewhere. I'm not on LJ at the moment or I would link you. But it should be in the tags.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-12 03:12 pm (UTC)I'm nervous about DT & BP coming back with SM at the lead, but I want to believe he won't screw up our OTP. I fully expect a massive cock block on screen...
Got the link and will be working my way through the K/L fics. I'll comment as I go. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-12 04:54 pm (UTC)And, as I said, the story goes nowhere, I lost all heart for it, because I couldn't reconcile Rose and Ten again in my head.
I am amazed we didn't run into one another back in the BSG days, too. But, luckily for me, that means you do not hold a grudge against me for "Minotaur." <<--Yet, another fic I set up and didn't finish. I'm noted for a couple of these...but not all of my fic go this way, so don't worry. Many of them are finished. What ruins fic for me is the canon going so far south that I lose all of my love for a show and can't bear to spend anymore time with the characters.
Hence, my current worry about the Anniversary. I hope to be finished with this fic, before I have any input from Moff. As you say, I think his many thrust will be the cock block...basically stating that Rose/Ten are not any different than any other Companion/Doctor relationship.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-13 10:39 pm (UTC)In my early BSG & DW days, I had a different name and changed to this one after a ym chat with a DW fandom pal at the time. That seems like a lifetime ago because I can't recall what handle I was under back then. I'm getting old and losing my memory! Hahaha I recognize latteaddict but no one else from those days. She wrote this amazing K/L fic about a fertility festival. Ring any bells? So, I am really looking forward to reading your BSG fics based on the fact I love your DW ones. Disheveled anyone? :)
Do you watch TWD (The Walking Dead)? I am starting to tiptoe further into that fandom; although, I can't be bothered with the comic book side of it. Bleh.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-14 01:07 am (UTC)I started back at the invention of the Internet...before there were blogs or ebay or anything. Back then we did bulletin boards and newsgroups. I wrote interactive Mulder/Scully fic for an X-Files board. And I started out called Rabid...then we moved to a new host and someone took Rabid...so I was Rabid1st. After X-Files...I did Buffy...then BSG, Kara/Lee, then Doctor/Rose. I am afraid I will not be following you into the TWD fandom as zombies give me nightmares. The only zombie movies I've ever watched were...uhm..Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead and 28 Days Later.
The BSG fic came over to this journal before I had worked out that I should tag things properly. Luckily, as you've now seen, I did think to make a master list. I should tag THAT.
And I'm glad you enjoyed Disheveled. I have a couple of other one shot fics. But, as I said, Gum died on the vine, because I just couldn't warm to Ten2, even as a villain. To me he's nothing but a symbol of RTD cowardice or lack of imagination. I can understand why people took to him, but it required me to stop thinking so highly of Rose...and I couldn't bring myself to do that. I just can't see her trying so hard to return to him...and then giving up when he gave her a copy of himself. Of course, a lot of it depends on people believing that Ten2 is just another regeneration of the Doctor. David Tennant believes that...and maybe RTD did, too...but judging by how that kiss was edited, I think RTD realized, at the end...that Rose would never allow a relationship with Ten 2.
RTD even says something like that in his commentary...that if he was honest with himself, he knows Rose would never have left the TARDIS at all once she'd gotten back to him. RTD knows his epic romance too well to believe in the ending he gave us.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-14 01:04 pm (UTC)OMG! Mulder/Scully were my first OTP and, consequently, my introduction to fandom ships. Heh. The Internet was so shiny and new in those days. I was a freshman in college and I was sooo excited about getting my first big bulky computer with fancy dial up! Haha I loved it so and was determined to teach myself HTML so I could have a webpage all to myself online. Fast forward a couple of decades later and I am still determined to have a 'home' in cyberspace. Some things never change... Although, I intend to keep this handle because I no longer feel restless online if that makes sense?
As for Ten2, I had a hard time buying into the happily ever after. Like you, I couldn't see Rose taking her 'consolation prize' so easily after all her hard work trying to get back to Ten. It seemed like a slap in the face at first, but I eventually came to the conclusion that a Doctor is better than no Doctor in Pete's World. And, I agree about the edited kiss... RTD knew...
TWD is more of a dalliance for me than anything else at this point. Hahaha DW is my primary fandom these days despite the obvious. Who was your first Doctor? Mine was Four. I was hooked the first time I saw those cheesy monsters and long scarf. Ha!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-14 05:52 pm (UTC)And look how much we have in common! You with the Mulder/Scully love as well. I'm sure we must have crossed paths at the Fallout Shelter. That IS what it was called. You will know when you look at Iced, perhaps, that you have seen it before. Or, perhaps, you haven't seen it before and we just failed to cross paths in our previous fandoms. I've always had a bit of a lag between chapters. Not as long as this story has had...but it is possible to overlook my fic, I think.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-18 01:18 pm (UTC)THIS! This is when I became nervous with SM taking over, and that thought has never left me. Quite honestly, the show still has the story telling bones, but it tends to get lost in SM's version of things. His ego takes away from the characters, and it just comes across as the Moff show. I feel as though he is thumbing his nose at the long standing fans and the subculture, so he can be remembered for...what? Rebooting the show and force feeding his say so to viewers? Bleh. That's pure ego not originality. He tells us River is the perfect woman for the Doctor, but he doesn't do anything to convince the audience except shroud her in mystery and innuendo. How is that perfect for anyone? He marries them hurriedly and expects the audience to accept that as real love. Give me something more tangible so I can believe. I saw what could have been a brilliant character (River) and made her into a suggestion (and eventual fact) while removing the freedom of choice from the Doctor. He had to marry her right then and there or else all hell would break loose because she loved him.
RTD never did that... Hell, we never even got the words onscreen, but we never really needed them, did we? He showed us instead.
*exits soap box*
I've always had a bit of a lag between chapters. Not as long as this story has had...but it is possible to overlook my fic, I think.
BTW, your writing is brilliant and definitely not forgettable! Disheveled, anyone? Vintage 2008! Like I said previously, this is a go to fic rec for most fandom folks. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-18 02:35 pm (UTC)RTD never did that... Hell, we never even got the words onscreen, but we never really needed them, did we? He showed us instead.
To me, this is the entire problem with River. Lord knows I could have loved her gunslinger bravado, but Moff saddles the Doctor with her in the Library. He basically makes the Doctor promise not to change anything about their magnificent love. So, from that moment on, the Doctor is obligated to marry her, indulge her fantasy life, etc. He knows at the end of her life River was willing to die for him. And he knows she doesn't want that to change.
This means, essentially, he can't have real feelings for her. He can learn to like her, I suppose, but mostly he has to indulge her, due to the great obligation he owes to her for saving all of those people. She is, to my way of thinking, the most tragically pathetic of characters, because what defines her is a false love. And only Moff, in my opinion, would imagine that was something to admire.
I think RTD was correct...it didn't need saying. Because Rose did know. And so did the Doctor. I love that one little scene where the Doctor asks Rose "How long are you going to stay with me?" And she says, "Forever" and he has that blissful little smile. Because, that's what he wants, you can tell, without any extra words. He wants to believe Rose will never leave him. And, to be fair to RTD, she never does...she's there at the very end for Ten.
Thank you for the kind words about my writing. I think what I meant is it is easy to forget I AM writing something...due to the lag. So, people may not read me at all. The way you appeared to have missed Iced in the BSG fandom.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-18 02:46 pm (UTC)D'oh! I misread you after my little soap box rant. Regardless, it's nice to feel the love periodically. :) That reminds me, any idea when the next chapter of Idle & Blessed will be posted?
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-18 05:45 pm (UTC)As for I&B...probably this time next week. I have a few more tweaks before I send it to the beta...then she has a turn around...and I have to further polish. So...soon, but not soonest. Sorry for that. But I shall work diligently today and tomorrow on it and hopefully wing it off by Saturday.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-18 10:52 pm (UTC)Something better
Date: 2013-04-11 01:52 am (UTC)http://rabid1st.livejournal.com/147115.html
Re: Something better
Date: 2013-04-13 10:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-10 03:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-10 04:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-12 10:09 pm (UTC)This is probably my favourite line so far:
The mere sight of him acted like a tonic in her veins, or a shot of whiskey.
Mainly because I know precisely what that feels like (and because the e-mails currently replacing it are nowhere near enough).
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-12 10:26 pm (UTC)Aww, I am sorry you are missing someone who makes you feel all warm and cozy. But, yes, I know that feeling, too, and emails definitely do not replace the sight or touch of a loved one.
Thank you for reading, and commenting, I have so few of you, now, I feel I must go door to door with reminders. GRIN. Someone asked me if Doctor Who Fanfic was "over" the other day. And I suppose it is for Doctor/Rose fics. I haven't kept up with River, the Ponds or Clara.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-14 05:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-14 05:48 am (UTC)I know I've been on the fringes of the fandom for such a long time. But, I have always wanted to go back to some of the Wild Geese 2 ideas that I had to abandon after JE. And as Moff went along, I began to develop this idea of archiving the assorted versions of the modern Doctor. And that led to some resurrection of Ten/Rose for me.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-14 05:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-14 05:15 pm (UTC)And you are right. Poor Rose is in a lot of trouble. That sort of pregnancy goes beyond unnatural into another realm of OMG. The question is, can she be saved? And if she can, will she be willing to sacrifice this planet to save herself? Since, without a time machine, they can't do both things. Or can they? :grin:
Thanks for the feedback. I will pop over to chapter 2 and fix that link.
Rae