New Fic: Disheveled, Part 13, T+, S2/TIP
Dec. 2nd, 2006 06:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabid1stDISHEVELED
By Rabid1st
Ten/Rose
Rating: Teen+
Beta Babes: Aibhinn & Keswindhover
Spoilers: The Impossible Planet S2
Summary: Back in space once again, the Doctor and Rose go looking for trouble and find it. But maybe they will also find their way back to each other.
Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters. If I did…the show would be censored by…everyone but you smutty few. I humbly thank Russell T. Davies for creating the sweetest, most-loving, most-genuinely iconic couple in the history of the world for me to play with.
LINKS for all previous parts…can be found HERE
PART THIRTEEN
“But I need my ship,” the Doctor insisted, struggling to keep a note of rising panic from his voice and failing. “It’s all I’ve got, literally the only thing.”
“Your machine is lost,” Zack said, sympathetic but resolute. “…that is the end of it.”
He went on a bit around and between those fateful words, but the Doctor didn’t hear anything else. Lost. She was lost, his beautiful TARDIS. They’d been separated before. Once, she’d been wrenched apart by Tractators and scattered across a planet. Another time, while he languished in an asylum, she’d started a new life, put down roots. But always he’d been able to sense her, if not at first, then soon after the initial shock wore off. This time there was nothing beyond him but dead space. And Rose.
Rose, depending on him for her very survival, was even less suited to building a new life in this place than he was. She had no education to speak of, no family or friends, not even an identity. He’d promised to look after her, to show her the wonders of time and space, and always to bring her safely home. Now, every promise he’d made would be broken. They were stuck here on this mad world, this impossible planet in its unstable orbit. They might die here, crushed into nothingness. He could feel the black sun sucking on them like a hard candy, belittling them. He could sense time being squeezed into a meaningless filament just a few light years away. He was Lord of Irrelevance here.
The others departed; leaving he and Rose alone to adjust to vastly altered lives. “I’ve trapped you here,” he said, solemnly.
With her usual generosity of spirit, she sought to comfort him. “No, don’t worry about me,” she said.
The ground shook. Metal grated on metal. They both looked up and trembled just a little at the thought of what waited beyond the closed observation doors above their heads. Not just death but obliteration. No regenerations. No second chances. The inescapable gravity of their own mortality weighed heavily on them. They weren’t gods. They weren’t legends. They were people. Insignificant placeholders in eternity, and eternity ended in a black hole.
They had, in the past, even at the heart of some world-altering event, felt free to leave all trouble behind if they wished. The TARDIS gave them the power to flee to another time or place. Even while fighting the Daleks, they’d still had that freedom, still controlled their own destiny. The decision to face death or run had been theirs.
Staring upward, Rose realized they no longer had the luxury of running away. She let her fear color her voice as she went on, “Okay, we’re on a planet that shouldn’t exist underneath a black hole with no way out.” A spark of gallows humor lit her face as she looked at him again and said, “Yeah, I’ve changed my mind, start worrying about me.”
He couldn’t match her wavering smile with one of his own. Worry had settled on his shoulders already, worry and the sure and certain knowledge that, without his ship, he had nothing to offer her. No home. No riches. No escape. No future. Sooner or later she’d realize it, but not just yet. He hooked an arm around her and hugged her to his chest. She hummed happily, comforted. As he wrapped himself around her, gripping the ball of her shoulder with one hand, she melted into him. He sensed her ebbing confidence return and drew on her strength as a newborn might blindly draw on its mother’s milk. If she believed in him, he could – he would go on.
As Rose shifted, molding her body more completely to his, something bit into him, a hard outline in his lapel pocket. Her key. The slight weight of this token reminded him of all he had in this life, beyond his ship. He had a home, a place he belonged. It was light years and long centuries away but still out there. Or maybe home was here, with Rose. The lifeless lump of metal seemed to warm and pulse as he thought of this, taking up the rhythm of her heartbeat. Lowering his chin, he allowed himself a whiff of her hair and a brief, almost accidental, brush of his lips along the curve of her jaw line before he set her away. Pushing her to arm’s length, he met her eye and got down to the business of keeping them alive.
“I don’t fancy the laundry,” he said. “You suppose they might find some other use for me?”
“Maybe you could help translate that writing,” Rose suggested.
He grimaced, regretfully. “Didn’t look familiar.”
“But people…regular people…do that sort of thing all the time,” Rose said, threading her arm though the slight space between his sleeve and his body. “Translate the unfamiliar. People like Toby. They look for patterns, yeah? Similarities to other languages. Tha’ sort of thing. You’ve been around a bit more than most. Maybe something will click for you. Something you missed at first glance. Wouldn’t hurt to take another look.”
He almost told her he’d committed the runic symbols to memory and so had no need to study them again, but he reconsidered. Action was better than inaction. At least he would be doing something, keeping his mind occupied. It wouldn’t do to sit and brood about his losses or the tenuous predicament he’d landed Rose in. Why hadn’t he paid more attention to the TARDIS and her moods? Her recent indigestion had been prophetic. She must have sensed trouble brewing on this planet, felt it might be more than he could handle.
“Yes, all right,” he conceded to Rose. “I can take another look.” He patted his pockets until he located a pen, and then went in search of a pad or a notebook. “I used to keep a diary,” he said, as he opened the desk drawers and cupboards of complete strangers and rummaged through their stuff. “Handy when I wanted to take a few notes. Handier, still, when I needed to slip a plea for rescue through the bars of a prison cell...or...wile away a few hours perfecting the paper airplane. Don’t know why I gave up journaling. I suppose because they’ll be nobody coming after me to read my memoirs. Ah-ha,” he declared, riffling the pages of a small, leather-bound booklet. “Blank paper, awaiting inspiration. Perhaps…if I do a bit of anagram work…” Brandishing the notebook like a fundamentalist preacher waving a bible, he pointedly flapped its pages before tucking it into his jacket pocket. “Toby may have the letters turned about or even miscopied. Come to that, I wouldn’t mind a glance at his original artifacts.”
“There you go,” Rose said, happily, but then she sobered as a new worry hit. “I hope this doesn’t mean I have to take your spot in the laundry.” Delighted by her, the Doctor beamed and she grew teasingly indignant. “Oh, yes. It’s all right for you to smirk. You always end up with the tenured professorship while I go into domestic service on these little jaunts of yours. Dinner lady. Maid. Catering staff. Now, laundress. I’m allergic to housework. It’s a genuine medical condition.”
“Not too much starch in my collars,” he teased as he steered her toward the far door.
They returned to the kitchen to find Zack and Ida already there. Zack was just finishing his dinner. He spooned a final green glob into his mouth as they entered. Standing by his table, Ida whispered with him, their heads close together. Zack, spotting the Doctor, stiffened. Ida looked up when her Captain’s attention shifted away from her.
“Oh, there you are,” she said. “We’ve been talking over accommodations.” She sketched something like a salute at Zack, who stood and, leaving his empty dinner tray behind, moved with her toward the newcomers.
“Back on duty,” Zack said, gruff but friendly as he edged between Rose and the Doctor and exited.
They nodded a farewell at him before turning to Ida, who was still talking, “There’s not much to offer. The dormitory took a hit in this last quake and we don’t get many couples out this far. The Archive, I mean, couples in service. We don’t get any visitors at all, of course, obviously. So, what I…”
The Doctor interrupted, “I’ve been thinking…that is…we’ve been discussing…your runes.” His attention was already focused on the far wall and he edged rudely sideways as he drew his glasses from an inside jacket pocket. Settling the specs on his face, he peered at, and then strode toward the writing, adding for Ida’s benefit, “And any old cupboard will do.”
“He doesn’t sleep much,” Rose said with a small apologetic smile.
Leaving Ida behind, she followed the Doctor as he vaulted the short stair to crouch on the top step. He leaned in for a better view of Toby’s scrawled lettering. There were chairs nearby but Rose squeezed her hips onto the top step next to the Doctor’s trainers. He shifted naturally, giving no thought to making a bit more room for her to sit. It was a tight fit for them both but neither of them cared. They instinctively stayed close. While Rose studied the other people in the room, the Doctor took out his notebook and started drawing symbols.
Ida smiled, wanly, as she brought her clipboard to them. “Well, that answers that question.” Curious, Rose lifted her chin and Ida responded to the unasked query. “You don’t mind close quarters.”
“I guess not,” Rose admitted with a shy darting glance toward the Doctor. She played with a strand of her hair as she asked, “Does that matter?”
“Could do. As I said, we’ve grown suddenly pressed for space. But Zack never moved his things to the Captain’s quarters. He didn’t feel comfortable with the idea so soon after…” She didn’t finish her thought. Instead, after clearing her throat, she went on brusquely, “To point: there’s a room open. It’s nice by deep-space tour standards but certainly not palatial. The bunk is a bit bigger than standard issue, which is why I thought of it. The two of you could share for the rest of your stay.” She hesitated, noting Rose’s blush and then said carefully, “You might have to spoon up...”
“Perfect, thank you,” the Doctor muttered dismissively without breaking his concentration on the runes he was copying.
Ida looked from one to the other of them, puzzled by the marked difference in their attitude toward sharing a room. He seemed impatient, but Rose showed signs of embarrassment. She wondered about the nature of their contract. It was binding, almost certainly. Maybe they were newlyweds or something, she thought, not used to making joint arrangements. That they were a couple was obvious. And Rose, despite her blushes, made no argument against having a shared bed.
After a moment, Ida nodded and told Rose, “Habitation 8, out that door,” she pointed, “down one level, along corridor 43, room 1-1-6. It’s at the end of the corridor, just beyond the medical lab. If you’ll give me your thumbprints for identi-coding…”
She held out her clipboard and Rose noted a small square device, about the size of a saltine cracker, attached to it. The device had a grey screen just large enough for a thumb to fit. Hoping she understood what was required, Rose pressed her thumb down on the screen. When it glowed green and bleeped, she lifted her thumb. The outline of her print stayed under the glass. Checking a miniscule readout, Ida nodded and then presented the clipboard for the Doctor. He didn’t offer his thumb, didn’t even glance around, though he could certainly see Ida in his peripheral vision. Rose nudged him in the ribs.
“You can let me in,” he murmured lovingly but with a great deal of distraction. Tilting his head, he leaned so close to the wall his nose bumped it as he peered at one particular scribble. “This is fascinating. The Nevri Muli of the Lor’qua Sphere have a religious symbol very similar to this one. Very similar, indeed.” He jotted a note in his leather bound book. “The Cosmic Cardsharp they call it, suggesting double-dealing or treachery.”
“I’ll just…let him in,” Rose said, crinkling her nose at Ida.
“But he’ll need an identicode if he’s going to…”
The Doctor snatched off his spectacles and, frowning, whipped around on Ida Scott. “Can I get a look at the originals of this?” he asked, waving one earpiece at the wall. “The pots or tablets or what have you?”
“No,” Toby said from the other side of the room, causing everyone to crane their necks and stare rudely at him. He was just putting his dinner tray away. Shoving it onto the stack with enough force to wobble the whole pile, he said, “I’m sorry but…the artifacts are very fragile.”
“I’m not going to damage them,” the Doctor said, in a tone that indicated he thought Toby wasn’t quite capable of grasping simple concepts. “I just need to make sure you’ve copied them correctly.”
“I have,” Toby said, bristling a bit.
Rose patted the Doctor’s arm to alert him to the emotional undercurrent in the room. ‘Go easy,’ her touch said, ‘they don’t know us.’
“I can show you my notes,” Toby continued. “But the artifacts are…in a preservation solution and too important to jeopardize. Once they are coated…and set…I can let you handle them. Until then I have to stand firm.”
“Yes, all right,” the Doctor said, taking Rose’s tactile advice but immediately losing interest in social niceties. Sighing, he turned back to the writing on the wall. “I’ll see them first thing tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Toby muttered with some intensity as he headed for the door.
Rose and Ida watched him leave. “He seems a little edgy,” Rose remarked.
“It’s that thing hanging over our heads,” Ida said. “Everyone is edgy. And Toby was quite fond of our dearly departed Captain. He’s taken the loss a lot harder than most.”
“Were they…close?” Rose asked made curious by a note in Ida’s voice, which seemed to imply intimacy.
“I don’t think so. The Captain was a hard man, professional but very cold. Still, he did seem to have a soft spot for Toby.” The main computer announced a new hour and suddenly the room started filling up with people. Ida looked over her shoulder as Scooti arrived with a merry giggle. “Anyway, water under the bridge as they used to say. Help yourself to dinner. We can make this your rotation.”
“Uhm…what exactly happens in the laundry?” Rose asked. Ida had been turning away but she stopped and looked back, perplexed. Rose explained, “I might take the job you offered the Doctor. He’s going to be busy with your runes.”
“Oh…I see,” Ida said, adjusting to the idea. She mother-henned the station and wasn’t used to having her arrangements dismissed so easily. But she also realized that these two had no reason to go along with her organizing efforts. They didn’t work for the Torchwood Archive or the government, and so had no allegiance to her. A stern talking-to or a show of disappointment probably wouldn’t sway them. She couldn’t reprimand them or garnishee their wages. The most she could do if they caused any serious waves was threaten to leave them behind, and that was an empty threat. Zack wouldn’t leave a stray dog on this rock.
Accepting the situation with her usual good grace, she smiled and said, “It’s mostly supervising the Ood. Nothing too taxing. Just making sure they stay on schedule, collect all of the towels and uniforms and don’t forget any of the procedures. You’ll need to give them tasks each day and keep a close watch on their maintenance of the vacuum washers. Sometimes the Ood need a push to get started. It’s that sort of job.”
“I won’t have to press anyone’s suits, will I? I’m that bad with an iron.”
Ida laughed. “No, mostly you just need to fill out loads of paperwork. And encourage the Ood. They know what to do, they only need motivation.”
“Sounds fulfilling,” Rose sighed, inspiring the Doctor to break his concentration and dart a charmed glance her way.
Rose didn’t notice his adoring expression, but Ida did. She filed it away in her well-organized mind and went on with her day. Rose sat watching as Ida and the other workers filled their dinner trays and found tables. She tried to imagine joining in with their conversations, sharing her day with them. If this was to be her life, she reckoned she might as well start getting used to it. But would she ever grow accustomed to the Ood? Feel it was okay to exploit them? She doubted it.
Still, it looked like she and the Doctor were going to be stuck here. Unless he worked one of his miracles and managed to build another TARDIS or something, they would both need to adjust to the lifestyle. Prompted by the growl of her stomach, she went to have a peek at what was on the menu. Nothing on anyone’s plate looked appetizing, but Rose knew from experience that alien food could taste great and look horrid. Or conversely, look great and taste horrid. You never knew until you took your first bite.
“Don’t have the blue,” the pretty girl (Scooti , wasn’t it?) warned her, “Or the green.”
Rose smiled and nodded before turning her attention to her plate. She pointed at what appeared to be a bean dish after giving the Dinner Ood her tray. The creature ladled up a healthy serving of the bluish black pellets labeled Protein One. He…she…it asked her about sauce. Rose tried to project friendly mental vibes. But her attempt at conversation led to the Ood uttering a cryptic phrase about the Beast and its armies. Rose stared open-mouthed for a moment and then said, “I’m sorry? Wh--?”
“Apologies,” the Ood told her, tapping its communicator. “I said, ‘I hope you enjoy your meal.’”
It certainly hadn’t said that, but Rose saw no point in arguing. For all she knew the communicators picked up interstellar evangelists as well as Ood thought patterns. Reminded of ‘Welcome to Hell’ and wishing she were better at telepathy, she glanced toward the Doctor only to find he was still absorbed in his work. He could stay focused that way for hours. Probably, she didn’t need to tell him about an odd Ood. Probably, it didn’t matter.
Shrugging off the incident, Rose looked for an open seat among the diners. She was reminded forcefully of the dinner hour at school. Luckily, Scooti waved her over to a table before she had to insinuate herself on anyone. Rose went happily, wondering about her complete lack of jealousy toward this beautiful girl. Maybe, it was her newfound sense of maturity, developing she’d noticed since she’d first learned of the pregnancy. Maybe, it was because the Doctor hadn’t seemed to notice anyone but her since they’d arrived. Thinking back, she realized that had been the case on every planet they’d visited recently.
“You’ve nothing to drink,” Scooti remarked as Rose settled on a stool opposite her.
“Jefferson, bring Rose a mug of CarbCaff,” the other diner at the table, a forty-ish woman with short-cropped red hair called out. Mr. Jefferson poured an extra cup of what looked and smelled like coffee and brought it to Rose on his way to his own seat. “I’m Eris,” the redhead went on in a smoky voice, stretching a hand across the table, “Medical Tech. Level 3, which is the best you’ll get out here so don’t come down with anything complicated.”
“Oh, we’ll be neighbors,” Rose told her. “Ida said she was putting us in the former Captain’s quarters.”
“About time someone moved into them,” Eris said. “And better you than me.” She shot a quick look over her shoulder at the Doctor and then leaned toward Rose to huskily whisper. “He’s a cute one. Where did you find him?”
“Henrik’s department store,” Rose quipped, casting a fond smile in the Doctor’s general direction. “He was on sale.” The other two didn’t laugh at her joke and she realized she’d probably said something anachronistic. “It’s a sort of…shopping…market…uhm, trading center…in London…on Earth.”
The other two nodded, but vaguely as if they still didn’t quite understand.
“So, he’s a slave?” Eris guessed. “You bought him?”
“Cor, no!” Rose choked on her laugh, burbling a bit of her coffee-like drink. “It’s nothing like that. He’s…that is we’re…” She didn’t know quite how to put it. Boyfriend seemed too flippant. Companion seemed too formal. Lover wasn’t exactly accurate just now and anyway, she’d turn red if she said it. She decided abruptly to change the subject. “So, how long have you both been out here…in space, I mean?”
“This is my first assignment,” Scooti said, obviously thrilled by the adventure. “I got this posting right out of training. I couldn’t believe the luck.”
Eris gave the younger girl’s shoulders a friendly squeeze just as Ida had done earlier and said, “And I was born on a freight-liner. Never sat foot on anything I’d care to call a home world. You?”
Rose pondered the question briefly, and then shrugged. “Don’t know. I’ve lost track,” she said. “But it must be a year or two by now.” She raised her voice, “Doctor? How long have we been traveling?”
Head bowed over his notes, he didn’t seem to hear her at first, but then he lifted his line of sight to meet hers and said, “You’re twenty-three.”
A shiver raced down Rose’s arms and she frowned. Four years? She’d been with him for four years. No wonder she felt more at home in the TARDIS. Dazed, she turned her attention to her food, forgetting all about her tablemates until Scooti’s hand covered hers.
“What’s wrong?” Scooti asked softly.
Rose took a deep breath and released it. “Oh, it’s…nothing. I just thought…I’d…” She sat her fork aside. Staring sightlessly toward the door, hand to her head, she wondered how long it had been since she and the Doctor last made love. So much had happened since then: losing Susan, the assault, recovering and travel. They’d been to a dozen planets and back for Christmas with her mother. She tried to add up the days and found they blended together in her mind. How many monthly periods had she had? Three? Four? Were they regular? She shot an appraising glance at Eris and then edged closer to whisper, “Do you know about female stuff? Babies?”
“I know this isn’t the place for one,” Eris said. “Why? You don’t think you’re pregnant?”
“No…no,” Rose said, hastily. “It’s just…I lost a child awhile back.”
“How awful for you,” Scooti said her big eyes full of sympathy.
“Yeah,” Rose breathed, not wanting to go into it. The burning in her cheeks told her she was blushing furiously as she pressed on, “Look, what I was wondering was…if I’m okay to…you know…?” She ducked her head but kept her narrowed gaze fixed on the Med Tech. This really shouldn’t be so hard to discuss. She was twenty-three, after all, a long way from virginal. And she’d been with the same man for four years. All right, she’d been with Mickey for a bit at first…so, maybe it was more like two years with the Doctor.
But she should be able to declare her desire out loud: I want to have sex with that man over there, the cute one with the sexy specs. He’s the one I’m going home with tonight. And yeah, we just might make good use of that narrow bed, if you catch my drift.
Eris didn’t quite know what she was getting at. “You want to try again? Or…?”
“Sex,” Rose hissed. To her horror, in the corner of her eye, she noticed Mr. Jefferson turn to stare. She lowered her voice to an even softer burr. “I was…I had an operation. They…took the baby. And we haven’t…you know…it’s been…well, too long.”
“Oh,” Eris said, lightly, “So, you two are under contract?”
Frowning, Rose shook her head slightly. “Contract?”
“Exclusive reproduction rights? Or aren’t you exclusive?”
“Oh,” Rose gasped, catching the drift of the question if not its deeper meaning. “Yeah!” She shot another fond glance at the Doctor. “We’re…pretty exclusive.”
“Damn,” Eris said, exchanging a ‘just our luck’ look with Scooti. “We were hoping one of you would be open to renegotiation. Scooti and I have an NBNE arrangement,” off of Rose’s puzzled frown, she clarified, “Non-Binding, Non-Exclusive. We’re always on the lookout for potential partners.”
“You know how it is on a closed base like this,” Scooti said. “Once you’ve done everyone who’s willing…”
“Ah…no…sorry,” Rose said, doing her best not to blush. Then, realizing she was probably being rude, she said,” “I mean, no, we’re not looking for…anything,” she stretched the final word out until she thought of something else to say, “different or more.”
“A happy couple,” the smiling Eris sighed, her tone making compatibility sound as rare and lovely as Rose suddenly realized it was. “Tell you what...I could run the standard reproductive tests. Stop by after dinner and I’ll take a look at you.”
“Thanks,” Rose said. Then, to keep the conversation moving along, she spoke blithely, “So, what do you do around here for fun?” As soon as the question left her lips she regretted it. What if they went into explicit detail?
“Fun? What’s that?” Scooti laughed.
“Yeah,” Eris drawled, “This planet isn’t exactly the Pan-Galactic seat of entertainment. Now, that we know you aren’t available and you haven’t smuggled in a sex slave from the Earth market, I reckon we’re back to playing cards and pitching ore into the gravity well.” She feigned regret as she poked Scooti with an elbow, “And for one brief moment things were looking up around here.”
Rose laughed along with them. She wasn’t comfortable, yet, in such a sexually-open society, but she’d gotten used to Jack. And it felt good to have some female company for a change. She’d missed Shareen teasing her about boys. From time to time, she even missed talking about fashion and hairstyles and cute celebrities, too. Most of what Scooti and Eris discussed was gossipy insight into their coworkers. Rose tried to follow it but soon lost track of the names. It was trivial, of course, the sort of conversations her mother always had with the neighbors. Rose could never again be enchanted by such simple day-to-day topics, but the chattering soothed her in a way. It made her feel at home.
Still, when Eris left for her duty-shift, Scooti went to sit with Mr. Jefferson and Rose was relieved to be joined by the Doctor. Her mind craved stimulation and he was sure to provide it. She looked at him expectantly as he sank into Scooti ’s vacated seat. He’d brought a cup of the red, syrupy beverage one of the Ood had given her earlier. It splashed over the side of the cup he plunked dejectedly down in front of him.
“It’s hopeless gibberish,” he sighed. “Even if I had the TARDIS, I…” He broke off, what use was it to tell her about computer programs that no longer existed?
Rose stretched out a hand to him. Craving the touch, he toyed with her fingers as he took a tentative sip of his drink. The syrup wasn’t sweet, as he’d expected it to be and he shuddered slightly, pulling a disgusted face before frowning down into his cup.
Laughing, Rose said, “Yeah, it’s salty. Weird, huh?”
“Electrolytes,” he told her. After taking another taste and experimentally swishing the fluid around in his mouth, he said, “Zinc, magnesium, other trace minerals. Good for concentration and counteracting stress.”
Setting the cup down again, so he wouldn’t have to release her hand, he took a small waxed paper tube from an inner jacket pocket. Flicking the tube open with his thumb, he sprinkled some of the brown powder it contained into his drink. Jaumelia bark. Rose knew because he’d told her. She wasn’t sure why he’d suddenly developed such a taste for the stuff, but at least once a week he added it to his food. Maybe it reminded him of home.
“Better than sugar in my case,” he continued, making the Jaumelia bark tube a bookmark for his notes. “You don’t want me sloshed.”
“Not just now, no.”
“Maybe later?” he asked, a teasing smile touching his lips.
“I’ve got an appointment, later. But I might work you in before morning. You’ll want to conserve that,” she reminded him, nodding at his packet of spice.
“Oh, Jaumelia trees are fairly common,” he said, “Helclymnixtahcorapilliana made sure of that. They just don’t smell the same as they do on Gallifrey.”
“Helcla…who?”
“Helcia, to you,” the Doctor said. “She was Omega’s true companion. Legend says she seeded the universe with Jaumelia trees.”
“Like Johnny Appleseed?” Rose murmured through a wide smile.
“A bit, yes. But she would see it more as St. Patrick driving the serpents from Ireland,” the Doctor said. “She got tired of all those demi-Gallifreyans showing up on her doorstep and took preemptive steps. The Jaumelia tree provides temporary immunocontraception for my species, keeps Johnny’s seed from taking root…if you will. Legend says the perfume alone did the trick on old Omega, which is why Rassilon had all those groves planted. But science has since proved it’s the essential oils. Found in the fruit, the seeds…and…” he picked up the waxed paper tube and gave it a little shake before tucking it back in his pocket, “…the ground bark.”
“Ah…” Rose said and then shaking her head, she said, “What?”
“It’s protection,” he said, simply, “From unwanted pregnancy.”
Rose blinked. “Oh,” she said, and then a second or two later repeated herself, “Oh. That’s…”
“Unnecessary?” the Doctor prompted when she didn’t go on. “Presumptive?”
“I’m trying to think of a word that doesn’t imply you are sweet but still means…sweet,” Rose said.
“Oh…well…” He sucked in and released a deep breath, and then, waving a dismissive hand, said, “You can get back to me.”
She nodded at his notebook. “No luck at all, then?”
Crossing his arms, he glanced down at the scribbling on the open pages. “There’s some resemblance to the Nevri Muli pictograms. One or two letters. Well…one or two…if you squint and…hold your head at the proper angle. Some vague commonalities with half a dozen other scripts but…nah…” he let his gaze drift to the ceiling as he sighed, “nothing concrete, nothing to be going on with.”
“It’s early yet,” Rose said, encouragingly.
The Doctor dropped his line of sight back to her and widened his eyes. “I rather thought that it was quite late,” he countered and Rose knew he wasn’t talking about the relative time of day.
The lights flickered, distracting her before she could think of a suitably supportive response. Ida used her wristcom to contact Zack, in the control center. He told her the Scarlett System was breaking up, causing interference.
“You might want to see this,” Ida said, addressing the Doctor, “A moment in history.”
He lifted his chin a bit, but seemed only marginally interested as he watched her go to the observation window controls. Rose thought he looked depressed. His arms were crossed protectively over his chest. His whole body had a certain stiffness, as if he ached all over and didn’t want to move. The loss of the TARDIS had to be weighing on him. But he looked up, as she did, when the roof rolled back to reveal a gorgeous star field.
The colors stole your breath away. Brilliant red and gold and silver sprayed across the black canvas of heaven. Ida acted the tour guide, talking of the civilizations, planets and solar systems dying, being crushed into nothing. It daunted. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she finished, “We have witnessed its passing.”
Did that mean the Pelushi lived on, then? Rose wondered. All those worlds? Stars? People? If they existed in someone’s memory, weren’t they still alive in a way? Wasn’t that really all anyone could hope for…to be remembered? She heard the Doctor ask, rather meekly, “No, could you leave it open? I won’t go mad, I promise.”
“How would you know?” Ida countered and he almost smiled.
Rose looked up. She’d seen a lot of strange things in her time. Too many to believe the view would drive her mad but she couldn’t help noticing how quickly Ida cleared the room. Eying the black hole, she ran a theory by the Doctor.
“I’ve seen films and things, yeah? They say black holes are like gateways to another universe.”
Hope, the Doctor realized, drawing in a long breath, she still had hope. And he was available to crush it. How handy of him.
“Not that one,” he told her with deep regret. “It just eats.”
“A long way from home,” she said, wistfully.
He looked back at her, his precious girl, toying with her earring, staring up at something people with less imagination feared. Who was he to deny her hope? Anything was possible after all, if this planet could exist. He pointed his pen, aiming it toward a dark sliver to the side of the great star, and said, “Go that way…turn right and go about…uh…oh…five hundred years and you’ll reach the Earth.”
She fumbled in her pocket and he thought, for a second, she might be looking for something to write the directions down on but then she took her cell phone out and checked the signal. It didn’t work. Too much interference, he imagined. She shrugged it off, saying she wouldn’t know what to tell Jackie in any case. He sympathized. He wouldn’t want to explain this mess either. Jackie, if she ever heard of it, would probably box his ears for getting Rose into so much trouble.
Rose asked him if he could build another TARDIS. If only he could. “They were grown, not built,” he said. And with his home planet gone, they were stuck. Trapped. Temporally becalmed. He was truly an exile now. An immigrant to this time period, he’d been stranded, rather like a shark washed into a tidal pool by an unusually large wave. He had no idea how he would survive, let alone care for Rose.
She accepted his explanation, nodding and then taking a deep breath said, “Well, it could be worse. This lot said they’d give us a lift.”
Shock vibrated through him. She didn’t seem distressed at the prospect of living out their days in this time. “And then what?” he asked, curious as to how she saw their altered circumstance. She stared at him blankly for a second or two and then gave it some real thought.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Find a planet? Get a job? Live a life same as the rest of the universe.”
He let out his pent breath with a snort, surprised not to feel more alarmed by her suggestion. She was talking about a normal life. The sort no Time Lord dared contemplate. Well, no, that wasn’t exactly true. His people were quite settled, indolent in a way. They just weren’t domesticated. No homes. No ties. They lived, always adrift in the eternal sea, just like their most primal ancestors…able to molt, change…cast off the old life and all of its baggage without regret.
“I’d have to settle down,” he heard himself saying. He didn’t really sound upset by the prospect, only taken aback.
A part of his mind listened in detached amazement as he rattled on about getting a house, with doors and carpets. A proper house…for Rose. Because, of course, he didn’t need a house. Any old cupboard would do for him. He could hitch a ride on some tramp steamer, live by his wits and charm. He could see the universe. But Rose needed roots. A bed. Walls. Carpets. She wanted to find a planet and a job and, it stood to reason, they would need a house. The thought of it terrified him, but he also felt strangely buoyant, as if poised on the brink of a new and wondrous adventure.
“You’d have to get a mortgage,” Rose sang, delighted when he grimaced.
“No, no, I’m dying, that’s it,” he lamented dramatically. “I am dying. It is all over.”
“What about me?” she laughed. “I’ll have to get one, too.”
He stopped enjoying the game and stilled, staring at her. She didn’t understand. And he couldn’t explain it, couldn’t nudge her in the right direction. She’d have to come to the conclusion on her own as he had. His Time Lord Honor allowed nothing else. She came to it rather quickly.
The world seemed to shift dramatically as she said, “Or, I don’t know. It could be the same one. We could both…” She met his eye and had her own moment of terrifying revelation. The Doctor’s hearts stopped beating and he was sure hers had, too. Pressure built in his ears. He longed to pop them but he couldn’t move. He could only stare at her as she gasped, “Housemates,” as if the breath had just been knocked out of her, “Share…or not…whatever.” She looked away quickly toward the maddening sun, blushing crimson as she went on, “We’ll sort something out.”
It hurt, physically. Longing, like a birth pang, twisted through his gut but he remained unaccountably calm. They were so close to the truth, now. Uncovering it was like prying a gem from sucking soil but they both had to see it, acknowledge it. They were never going to part. It had always been there, that gem of truth, unspoken between them. They weren’t friends or traveling companions. They were a couple. But saying the words made it real, not a ‘someday’ thing. This was it.
Knowing they should let it go, take a little breather, the Doctor dropped his chin to his chest, sighing, “Anyway…”
Just as Rose said, “We’ll see.” He could hear her strained smile but he didn’t dare look up. His eyes would surely plead his case.
He was, after all, a petitioner. It was for her to decide when…or if…they were going to sort something out. What the hell was he doing? he wondered, almost smiling. Did he have any idea how to be a good helpmate? Housemate? Husband? Did she crave some primitive gesture like a ring or a ceremony? Of course, she might find that presumptuous. She might want a life apart from him, eventually. He had no idea how he’d take that. Not well, he imagined. But humans changed their minds about things over time. Maybe Rose had changed her mind about him already. They hadn’t had sex in months. She seemed completely uninterested. And he was essentially responsible for her being stuck in this godforsaken spot in the first place.
“I promised Jackie I’d always take you home,” he said, knowing he had no right to make a second promise precluding the first one.
“Everyone leaves home sometime,” Rose said, matter-of-factly.
People did. He had. He’d left home to travel and met someone he would never have met if he’d stayed on Gallifrey. He’d been so naïve before the war. Before Rose. He’d had no idea he could feel this way, terrified and hopeful at the same time. But leaving home and being better off for it were two different things.
“Not to end up stuck here,” he said, offering her a chance to express her disappointment in him.
“Yeah, but stuck with you,” she murmured. “That’s not so bad.”
He didn’t dare smile but it was hard to hold in the swell of joy as it expanded his chest. Love and light seemed to wash over him, though he still felt numb at the tips of his fingers, in his feet and toes. “Yeah?” he asked, finally looking up at her, not sure if she was saying what his hearts told him she was.
“Yes!” She said, turning a brightly confident smile on him, meeting his eye without flinching.
Yes.
Sweet mother of creation, she’d said it. She’d accept him, accepted it, the inevitable union. From the expression on her face, she knew what she was saying, too. Peace settled on him. Peace, like he’d never known. He took a breath and then another. It was easier to breathe than he’d expected it would be. He’d expected to feel trapped but he didn’t.
Three breaths into his new life, Rose’s phone rang. She answered it. Listened for a few seconds, and then hurled the cell across the room. He followed its flight with his eyes, unable to summon any sense of alarm despite the frown on Rose’s face. Whatever new storm was brewing, they would weather it together.
“Who was it?” he asked.
She was staring blindly after her phone but seemed to come out of a trance. “I…a voice,” she shuddered, and her fear transmitted itself to him in a rush, “It was horrible…like when the Ood spoke to me.”
“The Ood spoke to you? Which Ood? When?” He scowled like a jealous lover. “About what?
Rose shook herself and turned toward him. “Earlier,” she said, pointing toward the serving line, “When I was getting my dinner, one of the Ood said something about ‘the Beast’ and ‘a war on God’ and then just now, on my phone…” she trailed off into troubled silence.
“You think the two events are connected?”
“I think…yes,” she said, meeting his eye. “I can feel it…somehow.”
He sucked on the inside of his cheek for a moment and then launched to his feet. “That’s good enough for me. Come on,” he said, seizing her hand and moving toward the door.
“Where are we going?” Rose asked, breathlessly rushing to keep pace with him.
“Ood Central,” he called over his shoulder.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When they arrived at Ood habitation, a vast underground chamber, they found Danny on Ood duty.
“Evening,” the Doctor sang out as he propelled down the stairs.
Danny greeted them as ‘the mysterious couple’ and asked if they were settling in but the Doctor was in no mood for idle chitchat. He got straight down to the business of sussing out Ood communication. Danny explained about the interface device and the telepathy field but in a condescending way that belittled the Ood and had Rose doubting his qualifications as an ‘Ethics’ officer. No matter how you sliced and packaged it, slavery didn’t strike her as particularly ethical.
Yet, Danny was more than ready to go along with it. Maybe it helped him to think of the Ood as ‘cattle.’ Maybe he could dismiss low-level empaths as somehow less important than other people, but Rose couldn’t. And she didn’t like his smirking, either. He reminded her a bit of Jimmy Stone, cute but shallow. She would never go for his type these days. It suddenly hit her, quite forcefully, that she wasn’t going to be going for any type, ever again. She and the Doctor would be…what? Finding a house, she guessed, living a life…together.
As Danny tried to verbally maneuver out from under the Doctor’s pinning gaze, Rose thought about the future. A life together, she repeated silently. She got all tingly thinking about what it might mean to be half of a serious couple. Not just a girlfriend, a flatmate, but a…what? Soulmate? The Doctor’s true companion. Her stomach dropped with an icy slosh. The sensation reminded her of that moment at the top of the rollercoaster, seconds before your car plunges downward, when you find you are both excited and at the same time amazed you let your friend talk you into getting on the ride. Rose didn’t think she wanted off the ride, though. She might scream as they went over, she might clutch the Doctor’s hand for support, but she didn’t think she would have things any other way.
Danny broke into her abstracted thoughts, asking what the Ood in the kitchen had told her. She couldn’t quite remember. Then, he asked her about her communicator device. What had it said?
“He is awake,” she responded.
“And you will worship him,” the Ood on the next level chorused.
The Doctor straightened and repeated her words, “He is awake.”
The Ood responded like a well-trained congregation reciting from the Book of Common Prayer. “And you will worship him.”
“Worship who?” The Doctor demanded. “Who’s talking to you? Who is it?”
The Ood remained silent, staring. The Doctor broke from a standstill and, cornering around the guard railing, pelted down the stairs to their level. Rose followed him at a slower pace while Danny held well back, calling half-hearted encouragement from the balcony.
“You won’t get anything out of them,” he said, noticing the Doctor was questioning the Ood. “They can’t understand new concepts until they’ve been psychically reinforced.”
“Maybe someone’s reinforcing them,” Rose ground out around a falsely bright smile.
“You think so, too?” The Doctor asked her.
She hadn’t expected to be taken quite so seriously but when she considered his question, she nodded. “I can feel it. Underneath.” She pointed at the floor.
The Doctor’s head bobbled through an extended bout of nodding as he stared into the distance, digesting this info. “Yes,” he agreed, “Right at the heart of this planet.” Then, he turned, bracing his hands on his knees and peered into the slanted eyes of the nearest Ood. A brief physical examination told him nothing. He thought about establishing a mental link. “I wonder if I could make contact with…”
Alarms sounded and the floor bucked erratically, throwing the Doctor and Rose forward into the seated Ood. A stiff breeze whipped through the room. The air cooled rapidly in the wake of this brief wind. Running feet drummed in the corridors. Danny was yelling something into his wristcom but Rose was more interested in the computer’s announcement of an ‘Emergency Hull Breach.’
The Doctor focused on the announcement as well. He caught at Rose’s sleeve and, tugging her along, raced for and mounted the stairs. Intent only on fleeing, he opened doors when they got in his way, spinning their wheel locks like a sailing master bringing his ship about. Rose and Danny stayed with him. They dashed through a habitation area and into the corridor beyond. There they were joined by a few other people, all of them running. This didn’t seem like a good time to question anyone’s motivation. Everyone went along with the crowd, pushing and jostling their way toward Mr. Jefferson who urged them on with shouts and gestures.
“Come on,” he bellowed, holding the door open, “Keep moving.”
They did. Rose and the Doctor ran well beyond the point where most of their companions stopped for a breather. Hearing the door seal, feeling the air warming on his face, the Doctor pivoted and retraced his steps, calling out to Jefferson, “Everyone all right? What happened? What was it?”
“Hull breach,” Rose heard Jefferson say. “We were open to the elements.”
“That wasn’t a quake,” the Doctor countered. “What caused it?”
Neither Jefferson nor Zack seemed to know. All that was certain was the black sun had taken another big bite out of the base. Several sections were now uninhabitable. Rose turned her attention to the wounded. There were scores of people with scrapes and bruises but Toby seemed worst off. He’d been the last one through the door. Maybe he’d suffered some oxygen deprivation. Certainly, his hands were shaking as he huddled on the floor. Rose knelt beside him, offering comfort. He looked into her eyes like a lost child seeking solace. She put an arm around his shoulders as he told the Doctor what he remembered about the moments before the breach. His recollections weren’t very helpful.
“Scooti Manista, report,” Jefferson requested of his wristcom.
He got no answer.
Scooti, they soon learned, had no voice in the world anymore. She’d been sucked into the vacuum of space. “She was twenty,” Ida announced, as they stared up though the observation window at Scooti’s lifeless husk, “Twenty years old.”
Beautiful. Vivacious. Dead…at twenty. They all had trouble digesting it. Looking up at the dead girl – gently spinning, almost it seemed, waving goodbye as she drifted toward the black hole—Rose felt her gorge rise and covered her mouth. She’d seen death before, stark and sudden, but it always sickened her. Like the Doctor, who apologized for every life lost in his wake, Rose felt somehow responsible, as if there were more to do, as if she should not mourn but act. Stop the march of time, perhaps. Turn back the clock. Bring life to the lifeless. Her guilt made no objective sense. She didn’t understand the pulse of demanding godhood within her. But she did believe that somehow, ultimately, she would be held responsible for Scooti Manista’s passing.
The drill stopped.
For a moment, Rose didn’t understand what was happening to stir such tension in the room. She moved to the Doctor’s side, seeking enlightenment, but it was Ida who explained. “We’ve stopped drilling. We’ve made it.”
The silence lasted less than five minutes and then the base became an agitated anthill of activity. There was a grand scurrying. Instructions boomed from the intercoms. Everyone started talking at once, moving toward exits. Rose knew the exact second when the excitement of the group infected the Doctor. He was standing behind and a bit to the side of her when the fever seized him. His whole body seemed to crackle with suppressed energy.
There was something new in the universe. Down below, at the center of the planet, there was a place as yet unseen…untouched…untested. He longed to explore--craved new knowledge, like a drug--needed his freedom the way other people needed food or air. He would not, could not, be contained in a house with walls and doors. Not yet. Probably not in her lifetime. She would have to live his life, the life of a nomad. Yes, it would be dangerous. Yes, they might die. Yes, it was worth it to be with him…one second longer…to watch him uncover one more piece of the puzzle, one more precious detail about the structure and workings of creation.
As the others scattered to their assigned duties, Rose reached a decision about her future. She sensed it spread out before her, hard to see, hard to even imagine, but at the same time…intriguing, inviting. She knew then she would never leave him. Never chose a divergent path. Drawing a cleansing breath, she exhaled, releasing with the breath all expectations of a normal human life. Nerves steadied, she turned to face the Doctor with a bright and genuinely compassionate smile.
“We ran by a whole rack of spacesuits back there,” she pointed toward the far door. “They’d probably let you borrow one.”
Hand jammed in his pockets, he rocked up on his toes and bounced, grinning madly. But he didn’t rush off immediately. She could tell he wanted to but, instead, he met her eye with intense and sudden sobriety and asked, “What about you?”
“Someone’s got to man the com system, make sure you make it back to the surface,” she said, playfully wrinkling her nose. “Besides, I told you, I’ve got an appointment.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, head tilted to one side as he beamed down on her. “An assignation, I shouldn’t wonder. I said you were going native.”
“You’ve found me out,” Rose agreed with faux resignation. “As soon as you’re a mile underground, I’m meeting Toby in habitation six for a spot of NBNE,” she said, with a click of the tongue and wink. “He’s promised to show me his artifacts.”
“Oh, well done!” the Doctor exclaimed, grinning happily as he took her arm to steer her through the door into the corridor. “Be sure to take copious notes.”
With an indignant snort, Rose twisted free of his grip, while at the same time, pushing his shoulder, shoving him away. “Good to know you’ve got your priorities straight,” she laughed.
His eyes found hers as she backed along the corridor in the opposite direction from the one he’d have to take to get suited up. Their gazes locked. He said her name softly, holding her attention. His mouth fell open, stayed open while his lips formed letters but not words. Rose had the sense he wanted to say something profound but couldn’t quite manage it. She waited.
Finally, after some internal wrangling, he simply said, “See ya at the send off?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” she assured him.
Pivoting on her heel, she turned and, hair flipping back and forth in time with her steps, strode off without looking back at him over her shoulder. Whatever he’d been struggling to say, she didn’t need to hear it. She needed no promises, no reassuring words. This was the life she’d chosen. They’d be okay as long as he was free to roam. He’d keep coming back to her as long as she believed in him.
He had, at least, that one trait in common with Oberon, the fairy king.
END THIS PART
PART FOURTEEN
AUTHOR'S NOTES: A few questions answered...my beta babes had some...so I thought you all might, too.
Where are you getting this dialogue? Matt Jones. He wrote The Impossible Planet and lots of the dialogue in this chapter is his...I don't usually borrow so heavily from canon but I had to for this bit of illumination.
Who is this Eris person? I made her up.
But weren't there only a few people on that base? There were extras rushing about that we never really met. I only expanded their number by about five in my mind.
But the rocket only held five people? Rose took Mr. Jefferson's place. But since the Doctor and Rose were offered a lift off the planet when everyone was still alive...obviously there is more room on the rocket. We learn there was a hold. Why not crew quarters, too? I figured we met the command crew...and that other people existed but we didn't meet them.
About that rocket...weren't the people stranded and miserable? Nope. They were neither. They rode the gravity funnel down to the planet and intended to ride it out and they were joking and laughing about it collapsing early on. They are tense, however, because of the dangers of their job.
Why don't you stick to one P.O.V.? I do. It's called Third Person Omniscient. You can look it up on wikipedia.org if you like.
When...oh...WHEN will we have more smut? Chapter 15
By Rabid1st
Ten/Rose
Rating: Teen+
Beta Babes: Aibhinn & Keswindhover
Spoilers: The Impossible Planet S2
Summary: Back in space once again, the Doctor and Rose go looking for trouble and find it. But maybe they will also find their way back to each other.
Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters. If I did…the show would be censored by…everyone but you smutty few. I humbly thank Russell T. Davies for creating the sweetest, most-loving, most-genuinely iconic couple in the history of the world for me to play with.
LINKS for all previous parts…can be found HERE
PART THIRTEEN
“But I need my ship,” the Doctor insisted, struggling to keep a note of rising panic from his voice and failing. “It’s all I’ve got, literally the only thing.”
“Your machine is lost,” Zack said, sympathetic but resolute. “…that is the end of it.”
He went on a bit around and between those fateful words, but the Doctor didn’t hear anything else. Lost. She was lost, his beautiful TARDIS. They’d been separated before. Once, she’d been wrenched apart by Tractators and scattered across a planet. Another time, while he languished in an asylum, she’d started a new life, put down roots. But always he’d been able to sense her, if not at first, then soon after the initial shock wore off. This time there was nothing beyond him but dead space. And Rose.
Rose, depending on him for her very survival, was even less suited to building a new life in this place than he was. She had no education to speak of, no family or friends, not even an identity. He’d promised to look after her, to show her the wonders of time and space, and always to bring her safely home. Now, every promise he’d made would be broken. They were stuck here on this mad world, this impossible planet in its unstable orbit. They might die here, crushed into nothingness. He could feel the black sun sucking on them like a hard candy, belittling them. He could sense time being squeezed into a meaningless filament just a few light years away. He was Lord of Irrelevance here.
The others departed; leaving he and Rose alone to adjust to vastly altered lives. “I’ve trapped you here,” he said, solemnly.
With her usual generosity of spirit, she sought to comfort him. “No, don’t worry about me,” she said.
The ground shook. Metal grated on metal. They both looked up and trembled just a little at the thought of what waited beyond the closed observation doors above their heads. Not just death but obliteration. No regenerations. No second chances. The inescapable gravity of their own mortality weighed heavily on them. They weren’t gods. They weren’t legends. They were people. Insignificant placeholders in eternity, and eternity ended in a black hole.
They had, in the past, even at the heart of some world-altering event, felt free to leave all trouble behind if they wished. The TARDIS gave them the power to flee to another time or place. Even while fighting the Daleks, they’d still had that freedom, still controlled their own destiny. The decision to face death or run had been theirs.
Staring upward, Rose realized they no longer had the luxury of running away. She let her fear color her voice as she went on, “Okay, we’re on a planet that shouldn’t exist underneath a black hole with no way out.” A spark of gallows humor lit her face as she looked at him again and said, “Yeah, I’ve changed my mind, start worrying about me.”
He couldn’t match her wavering smile with one of his own. Worry had settled on his shoulders already, worry and the sure and certain knowledge that, without his ship, he had nothing to offer her. No home. No riches. No escape. No future. Sooner or later she’d realize it, but not just yet. He hooked an arm around her and hugged her to his chest. She hummed happily, comforted. As he wrapped himself around her, gripping the ball of her shoulder with one hand, she melted into him. He sensed her ebbing confidence return and drew on her strength as a newborn might blindly draw on its mother’s milk. If she believed in him, he could – he would go on.
As Rose shifted, molding her body more completely to his, something bit into him, a hard outline in his lapel pocket. Her key. The slight weight of this token reminded him of all he had in this life, beyond his ship. He had a home, a place he belonged. It was light years and long centuries away but still out there. Or maybe home was here, with Rose. The lifeless lump of metal seemed to warm and pulse as he thought of this, taking up the rhythm of her heartbeat. Lowering his chin, he allowed himself a whiff of her hair and a brief, almost accidental, brush of his lips along the curve of her jaw line before he set her away. Pushing her to arm’s length, he met her eye and got down to the business of keeping them alive.
“I don’t fancy the laundry,” he said. “You suppose they might find some other use for me?”
“Maybe you could help translate that writing,” Rose suggested.
He grimaced, regretfully. “Didn’t look familiar.”
“But people…regular people…do that sort of thing all the time,” Rose said, threading her arm though the slight space between his sleeve and his body. “Translate the unfamiliar. People like Toby. They look for patterns, yeah? Similarities to other languages. Tha’ sort of thing. You’ve been around a bit more than most. Maybe something will click for you. Something you missed at first glance. Wouldn’t hurt to take another look.”
He almost told her he’d committed the runic symbols to memory and so had no need to study them again, but he reconsidered. Action was better than inaction. At least he would be doing something, keeping his mind occupied. It wouldn’t do to sit and brood about his losses or the tenuous predicament he’d landed Rose in. Why hadn’t he paid more attention to the TARDIS and her moods? Her recent indigestion had been prophetic. She must have sensed trouble brewing on this planet, felt it might be more than he could handle.
“Yes, all right,” he conceded to Rose. “I can take another look.” He patted his pockets until he located a pen, and then went in search of a pad or a notebook. “I used to keep a diary,” he said, as he opened the desk drawers and cupboards of complete strangers and rummaged through their stuff. “Handy when I wanted to take a few notes. Handier, still, when I needed to slip a plea for rescue through the bars of a prison cell...or...wile away a few hours perfecting the paper airplane. Don’t know why I gave up journaling. I suppose because they’ll be nobody coming after me to read my memoirs. Ah-ha,” he declared, riffling the pages of a small, leather-bound booklet. “Blank paper, awaiting inspiration. Perhaps…if I do a bit of anagram work…” Brandishing the notebook like a fundamentalist preacher waving a bible, he pointedly flapped its pages before tucking it into his jacket pocket. “Toby may have the letters turned about or even miscopied. Come to that, I wouldn’t mind a glance at his original artifacts.”
“There you go,” Rose said, happily, but then she sobered as a new worry hit. “I hope this doesn’t mean I have to take your spot in the laundry.” Delighted by her, the Doctor beamed and she grew teasingly indignant. “Oh, yes. It’s all right for you to smirk. You always end up with the tenured professorship while I go into domestic service on these little jaunts of yours. Dinner lady. Maid. Catering staff. Now, laundress. I’m allergic to housework. It’s a genuine medical condition.”
“Not too much starch in my collars,” he teased as he steered her toward the far door.
They returned to the kitchen to find Zack and Ida already there. Zack was just finishing his dinner. He spooned a final green glob into his mouth as they entered. Standing by his table, Ida whispered with him, their heads close together. Zack, spotting the Doctor, stiffened. Ida looked up when her Captain’s attention shifted away from her.
“Oh, there you are,” she said. “We’ve been talking over accommodations.” She sketched something like a salute at Zack, who stood and, leaving his empty dinner tray behind, moved with her toward the newcomers.
“Back on duty,” Zack said, gruff but friendly as he edged between Rose and the Doctor and exited.
They nodded a farewell at him before turning to Ida, who was still talking, “There’s not much to offer. The dormitory took a hit in this last quake and we don’t get many couples out this far. The Archive, I mean, couples in service. We don’t get any visitors at all, of course, obviously. So, what I…”
The Doctor interrupted, “I’ve been thinking…that is…we’ve been discussing…your runes.” His attention was already focused on the far wall and he edged rudely sideways as he drew his glasses from an inside jacket pocket. Settling the specs on his face, he peered at, and then strode toward the writing, adding for Ida’s benefit, “And any old cupboard will do.”
“He doesn’t sleep much,” Rose said with a small apologetic smile.
Leaving Ida behind, she followed the Doctor as he vaulted the short stair to crouch on the top step. He leaned in for a better view of Toby’s scrawled lettering. There were chairs nearby but Rose squeezed her hips onto the top step next to the Doctor’s trainers. He shifted naturally, giving no thought to making a bit more room for her to sit. It was a tight fit for them both but neither of them cared. They instinctively stayed close. While Rose studied the other people in the room, the Doctor took out his notebook and started drawing symbols.
Ida smiled, wanly, as she brought her clipboard to them. “Well, that answers that question.” Curious, Rose lifted her chin and Ida responded to the unasked query. “You don’t mind close quarters.”
“I guess not,” Rose admitted with a shy darting glance toward the Doctor. She played with a strand of her hair as she asked, “Does that matter?”
“Could do. As I said, we’ve grown suddenly pressed for space. But Zack never moved his things to the Captain’s quarters. He didn’t feel comfortable with the idea so soon after…” She didn’t finish her thought. Instead, after clearing her throat, she went on brusquely, “To point: there’s a room open. It’s nice by deep-space tour standards but certainly not palatial. The bunk is a bit bigger than standard issue, which is why I thought of it. The two of you could share for the rest of your stay.” She hesitated, noting Rose’s blush and then said carefully, “You might have to spoon up...”
“Perfect, thank you,” the Doctor muttered dismissively without breaking his concentration on the runes he was copying.
Ida looked from one to the other of them, puzzled by the marked difference in their attitude toward sharing a room. He seemed impatient, but Rose showed signs of embarrassment. She wondered about the nature of their contract. It was binding, almost certainly. Maybe they were newlyweds or something, she thought, not used to making joint arrangements. That they were a couple was obvious. And Rose, despite her blushes, made no argument against having a shared bed.
After a moment, Ida nodded and told Rose, “Habitation 8, out that door,” she pointed, “down one level, along corridor 43, room 1-1-6. It’s at the end of the corridor, just beyond the medical lab. If you’ll give me your thumbprints for identi-coding…”
She held out her clipboard and Rose noted a small square device, about the size of a saltine cracker, attached to it. The device had a grey screen just large enough for a thumb to fit. Hoping she understood what was required, Rose pressed her thumb down on the screen. When it glowed green and bleeped, she lifted her thumb. The outline of her print stayed under the glass. Checking a miniscule readout, Ida nodded and then presented the clipboard for the Doctor. He didn’t offer his thumb, didn’t even glance around, though he could certainly see Ida in his peripheral vision. Rose nudged him in the ribs.
“You can let me in,” he murmured lovingly but with a great deal of distraction. Tilting his head, he leaned so close to the wall his nose bumped it as he peered at one particular scribble. “This is fascinating. The Nevri Muli of the Lor’qua Sphere have a religious symbol very similar to this one. Very similar, indeed.” He jotted a note in his leather bound book. “The Cosmic Cardsharp they call it, suggesting double-dealing or treachery.”
“I’ll just…let him in,” Rose said, crinkling her nose at Ida.
“But he’ll need an identicode if he’s going to…”
The Doctor snatched off his spectacles and, frowning, whipped around on Ida Scott. “Can I get a look at the originals of this?” he asked, waving one earpiece at the wall. “The pots or tablets or what have you?”
“No,” Toby said from the other side of the room, causing everyone to crane their necks and stare rudely at him. He was just putting his dinner tray away. Shoving it onto the stack with enough force to wobble the whole pile, he said, “I’m sorry but…the artifacts are very fragile.”
“I’m not going to damage them,” the Doctor said, in a tone that indicated he thought Toby wasn’t quite capable of grasping simple concepts. “I just need to make sure you’ve copied them correctly.”
“I have,” Toby said, bristling a bit.
Rose patted the Doctor’s arm to alert him to the emotional undercurrent in the room. ‘Go easy,’ her touch said, ‘they don’t know us.’
“I can show you my notes,” Toby continued. “But the artifacts are…in a preservation solution and too important to jeopardize. Once they are coated…and set…I can let you handle them. Until then I have to stand firm.”
“Yes, all right,” the Doctor said, taking Rose’s tactile advice but immediately losing interest in social niceties. Sighing, he turned back to the writing on the wall. “I’ll see them first thing tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Toby muttered with some intensity as he headed for the door.
Rose and Ida watched him leave. “He seems a little edgy,” Rose remarked.
“It’s that thing hanging over our heads,” Ida said. “Everyone is edgy. And Toby was quite fond of our dearly departed Captain. He’s taken the loss a lot harder than most.”
“Were they…close?” Rose asked made curious by a note in Ida’s voice, which seemed to imply intimacy.
“I don’t think so. The Captain was a hard man, professional but very cold. Still, he did seem to have a soft spot for Toby.” The main computer announced a new hour and suddenly the room started filling up with people. Ida looked over her shoulder as Scooti arrived with a merry giggle. “Anyway, water under the bridge as they used to say. Help yourself to dinner. We can make this your rotation.”
“Uhm…what exactly happens in the laundry?” Rose asked. Ida had been turning away but she stopped and looked back, perplexed. Rose explained, “I might take the job you offered the Doctor. He’s going to be busy with your runes.”
“Oh…I see,” Ida said, adjusting to the idea. She mother-henned the station and wasn’t used to having her arrangements dismissed so easily. But she also realized that these two had no reason to go along with her organizing efforts. They didn’t work for the Torchwood Archive or the government, and so had no allegiance to her. A stern talking-to or a show of disappointment probably wouldn’t sway them. She couldn’t reprimand them or garnishee their wages. The most she could do if they caused any serious waves was threaten to leave them behind, and that was an empty threat. Zack wouldn’t leave a stray dog on this rock.
Accepting the situation with her usual good grace, she smiled and said, “It’s mostly supervising the Ood. Nothing too taxing. Just making sure they stay on schedule, collect all of the towels and uniforms and don’t forget any of the procedures. You’ll need to give them tasks each day and keep a close watch on their maintenance of the vacuum washers. Sometimes the Ood need a push to get started. It’s that sort of job.”
“I won’t have to press anyone’s suits, will I? I’m that bad with an iron.”
Ida laughed. “No, mostly you just need to fill out loads of paperwork. And encourage the Ood. They know what to do, they only need motivation.”
“Sounds fulfilling,” Rose sighed, inspiring the Doctor to break his concentration and dart a charmed glance her way.
Rose didn’t notice his adoring expression, but Ida did. She filed it away in her well-organized mind and went on with her day. Rose sat watching as Ida and the other workers filled their dinner trays and found tables. She tried to imagine joining in with their conversations, sharing her day with them. If this was to be her life, she reckoned she might as well start getting used to it. But would she ever grow accustomed to the Ood? Feel it was okay to exploit them? She doubted it.
Still, it looked like she and the Doctor were going to be stuck here. Unless he worked one of his miracles and managed to build another TARDIS or something, they would both need to adjust to the lifestyle. Prompted by the growl of her stomach, she went to have a peek at what was on the menu. Nothing on anyone’s plate looked appetizing, but Rose knew from experience that alien food could taste great and look horrid. Or conversely, look great and taste horrid. You never knew until you took your first bite.
“Don’t have the blue,” the pretty girl (Scooti , wasn’t it?) warned her, “Or the green.”
Rose smiled and nodded before turning her attention to her plate. She pointed at what appeared to be a bean dish after giving the Dinner Ood her tray. The creature ladled up a healthy serving of the bluish black pellets labeled Protein One. He…she…it asked her about sauce. Rose tried to project friendly mental vibes. But her attempt at conversation led to the Ood uttering a cryptic phrase about the Beast and its armies. Rose stared open-mouthed for a moment and then said, “I’m sorry? Wh--?”
“Apologies,” the Ood told her, tapping its communicator. “I said, ‘I hope you enjoy your meal.’”
It certainly hadn’t said that, but Rose saw no point in arguing. For all she knew the communicators picked up interstellar evangelists as well as Ood thought patterns. Reminded of ‘Welcome to Hell’ and wishing she were better at telepathy, she glanced toward the Doctor only to find he was still absorbed in his work. He could stay focused that way for hours. Probably, she didn’t need to tell him about an odd Ood. Probably, it didn’t matter.
Shrugging off the incident, Rose looked for an open seat among the diners. She was reminded forcefully of the dinner hour at school. Luckily, Scooti waved her over to a table before she had to insinuate herself on anyone. Rose went happily, wondering about her complete lack of jealousy toward this beautiful girl. Maybe, it was her newfound sense of maturity, developing she’d noticed since she’d first learned of the pregnancy. Maybe, it was because the Doctor hadn’t seemed to notice anyone but her since they’d arrived. Thinking back, she realized that had been the case on every planet they’d visited recently.
“You’ve nothing to drink,” Scooti remarked as Rose settled on a stool opposite her.
“Jefferson, bring Rose a mug of CarbCaff,” the other diner at the table, a forty-ish woman with short-cropped red hair called out. Mr. Jefferson poured an extra cup of what looked and smelled like coffee and brought it to Rose on his way to his own seat. “I’m Eris,” the redhead went on in a smoky voice, stretching a hand across the table, “Medical Tech. Level 3, which is the best you’ll get out here so don’t come down with anything complicated.”
“Oh, we’ll be neighbors,” Rose told her. “Ida said she was putting us in the former Captain’s quarters.”
“About time someone moved into them,” Eris said. “And better you than me.” She shot a quick look over her shoulder at the Doctor and then leaned toward Rose to huskily whisper. “He’s a cute one. Where did you find him?”
“Henrik’s department store,” Rose quipped, casting a fond smile in the Doctor’s general direction. “He was on sale.” The other two didn’t laugh at her joke and she realized she’d probably said something anachronistic. “It’s a sort of…shopping…market…uhm, trading center…in London…on Earth.”
The other two nodded, but vaguely as if they still didn’t quite understand.
“So, he’s a slave?” Eris guessed. “You bought him?”
“Cor, no!” Rose choked on her laugh, burbling a bit of her coffee-like drink. “It’s nothing like that. He’s…that is we’re…” She didn’t know quite how to put it. Boyfriend seemed too flippant. Companion seemed too formal. Lover wasn’t exactly accurate just now and anyway, she’d turn red if she said it. She decided abruptly to change the subject. “So, how long have you both been out here…in space, I mean?”
“This is my first assignment,” Scooti said, obviously thrilled by the adventure. “I got this posting right out of training. I couldn’t believe the luck.”
Eris gave the younger girl’s shoulders a friendly squeeze just as Ida had done earlier and said, “And I was born on a freight-liner. Never sat foot on anything I’d care to call a home world. You?”
Rose pondered the question briefly, and then shrugged. “Don’t know. I’ve lost track,” she said. “But it must be a year or two by now.” She raised her voice, “Doctor? How long have we been traveling?”
Head bowed over his notes, he didn’t seem to hear her at first, but then he lifted his line of sight to meet hers and said, “You’re twenty-three.”
A shiver raced down Rose’s arms and she frowned. Four years? She’d been with him for four years. No wonder she felt more at home in the TARDIS. Dazed, she turned her attention to her food, forgetting all about her tablemates until Scooti’s hand covered hers.
“What’s wrong?” Scooti asked softly.
Rose took a deep breath and released it. “Oh, it’s…nothing. I just thought…I’d…” She sat her fork aside. Staring sightlessly toward the door, hand to her head, she wondered how long it had been since she and the Doctor last made love. So much had happened since then: losing Susan, the assault, recovering and travel. They’d been to a dozen planets and back for Christmas with her mother. She tried to add up the days and found they blended together in her mind. How many monthly periods had she had? Three? Four? Were they regular? She shot an appraising glance at Eris and then edged closer to whisper, “Do you know about female stuff? Babies?”
“I know this isn’t the place for one,” Eris said. “Why? You don’t think you’re pregnant?”
“No…no,” Rose said, hastily. “It’s just…I lost a child awhile back.”
“How awful for you,” Scooti said her big eyes full of sympathy.
“Yeah,” Rose breathed, not wanting to go into it. The burning in her cheeks told her she was blushing furiously as she pressed on, “Look, what I was wondering was…if I’m okay to…you know…?” She ducked her head but kept her narrowed gaze fixed on the Med Tech. This really shouldn’t be so hard to discuss. She was twenty-three, after all, a long way from virginal. And she’d been with the same man for four years. All right, she’d been with Mickey for a bit at first…so, maybe it was more like two years with the Doctor.
But she should be able to declare her desire out loud: I want to have sex with that man over there, the cute one with the sexy specs. He’s the one I’m going home with tonight. And yeah, we just might make good use of that narrow bed, if you catch my drift.
Eris didn’t quite know what she was getting at. “You want to try again? Or…?”
“Sex,” Rose hissed. To her horror, in the corner of her eye, she noticed Mr. Jefferson turn to stare. She lowered her voice to an even softer burr. “I was…I had an operation. They…took the baby. And we haven’t…you know…it’s been…well, too long.”
“Oh,” Eris said, lightly, “So, you two are under contract?”
Frowning, Rose shook her head slightly. “Contract?”
“Exclusive reproduction rights? Or aren’t you exclusive?”
“Oh,” Rose gasped, catching the drift of the question if not its deeper meaning. “Yeah!” She shot another fond glance at the Doctor. “We’re…pretty exclusive.”
“Damn,” Eris said, exchanging a ‘just our luck’ look with Scooti. “We were hoping one of you would be open to renegotiation. Scooti and I have an NBNE arrangement,” off of Rose’s puzzled frown, she clarified, “Non-Binding, Non-Exclusive. We’re always on the lookout for potential partners.”
“You know how it is on a closed base like this,” Scooti said. “Once you’ve done everyone who’s willing…”
“Ah…no…sorry,” Rose said, doing her best not to blush. Then, realizing she was probably being rude, she said,” “I mean, no, we’re not looking for…anything,” she stretched the final word out until she thought of something else to say, “different or more.”
“A happy couple,” the smiling Eris sighed, her tone making compatibility sound as rare and lovely as Rose suddenly realized it was. “Tell you what...I could run the standard reproductive tests. Stop by after dinner and I’ll take a look at you.”
“Thanks,” Rose said. Then, to keep the conversation moving along, she spoke blithely, “So, what do you do around here for fun?” As soon as the question left her lips she regretted it. What if they went into explicit detail?
“Fun? What’s that?” Scooti laughed.
“Yeah,” Eris drawled, “This planet isn’t exactly the Pan-Galactic seat of entertainment. Now, that we know you aren’t available and you haven’t smuggled in a sex slave from the Earth market, I reckon we’re back to playing cards and pitching ore into the gravity well.” She feigned regret as she poked Scooti with an elbow, “And for one brief moment things were looking up around here.”
Rose laughed along with them. She wasn’t comfortable, yet, in such a sexually-open society, but she’d gotten used to Jack. And it felt good to have some female company for a change. She’d missed Shareen teasing her about boys. From time to time, she even missed talking about fashion and hairstyles and cute celebrities, too. Most of what Scooti and Eris discussed was gossipy insight into their coworkers. Rose tried to follow it but soon lost track of the names. It was trivial, of course, the sort of conversations her mother always had with the neighbors. Rose could never again be enchanted by such simple day-to-day topics, but the chattering soothed her in a way. It made her feel at home.
Still, when Eris left for her duty-shift, Scooti went to sit with Mr. Jefferson and Rose was relieved to be joined by the Doctor. Her mind craved stimulation and he was sure to provide it. She looked at him expectantly as he sank into Scooti ’s vacated seat. He’d brought a cup of the red, syrupy beverage one of the Ood had given her earlier. It splashed over the side of the cup he plunked dejectedly down in front of him.
“It’s hopeless gibberish,” he sighed. “Even if I had the TARDIS, I…” He broke off, what use was it to tell her about computer programs that no longer existed?
Rose stretched out a hand to him. Craving the touch, he toyed with her fingers as he took a tentative sip of his drink. The syrup wasn’t sweet, as he’d expected it to be and he shuddered slightly, pulling a disgusted face before frowning down into his cup.
Laughing, Rose said, “Yeah, it’s salty. Weird, huh?”
“Electrolytes,” he told her. After taking another taste and experimentally swishing the fluid around in his mouth, he said, “Zinc, magnesium, other trace minerals. Good for concentration and counteracting stress.”
Setting the cup down again, so he wouldn’t have to release her hand, he took a small waxed paper tube from an inner jacket pocket. Flicking the tube open with his thumb, he sprinkled some of the brown powder it contained into his drink. Jaumelia bark. Rose knew because he’d told her. She wasn’t sure why he’d suddenly developed such a taste for the stuff, but at least once a week he added it to his food. Maybe it reminded him of home.
“Better than sugar in my case,” he continued, making the Jaumelia bark tube a bookmark for his notes. “You don’t want me sloshed.”
“Not just now, no.”
“Maybe later?” he asked, a teasing smile touching his lips.
“I’ve got an appointment, later. But I might work you in before morning. You’ll want to conserve that,” she reminded him, nodding at his packet of spice.
“Oh, Jaumelia trees are fairly common,” he said, “Helclymnixtahcorapilliana made sure of that. They just don’t smell the same as they do on Gallifrey.”
“Helcla…who?”
“Helcia, to you,” the Doctor said. “She was Omega’s true companion. Legend says she seeded the universe with Jaumelia trees.”
“Like Johnny Appleseed?” Rose murmured through a wide smile.
“A bit, yes. But she would see it more as St. Patrick driving the serpents from Ireland,” the Doctor said. “She got tired of all those demi-Gallifreyans showing up on her doorstep and took preemptive steps. The Jaumelia tree provides temporary immunocontraception for my species, keeps Johnny’s seed from taking root…if you will. Legend says the perfume alone did the trick on old Omega, which is why Rassilon had all those groves planted. But science has since proved it’s the essential oils. Found in the fruit, the seeds…and…” he picked up the waxed paper tube and gave it a little shake before tucking it back in his pocket, “…the ground bark.”
“Ah…” Rose said and then shaking her head, she said, “What?”
“It’s protection,” he said, simply, “From unwanted pregnancy.”
Rose blinked. “Oh,” she said, and then a second or two later repeated herself, “Oh. That’s…”
“Unnecessary?” the Doctor prompted when she didn’t go on. “Presumptive?”
“I’m trying to think of a word that doesn’t imply you are sweet but still means…sweet,” Rose said.
“Oh…well…” He sucked in and released a deep breath, and then, waving a dismissive hand, said, “You can get back to me.”
She nodded at his notebook. “No luck at all, then?”
Crossing his arms, he glanced down at the scribbling on the open pages. “There’s some resemblance to the Nevri Muli pictograms. One or two letters. Well…one or two…if you squint and…hold your head at the proper angle. Some vague commonalities with half a dozen other scripts but…nah…” he let his gaze drift to the ceiling as he sighed, “nothing concrete, nothing to be going on with.”
“It’s early yet,” Rose said, encouragingly.
The Doctor dropped his line of sight back to her and widened his eyes. “I rather thought that it was quite late,” he countered and Rose knew he wasn’t talking about the relative time of day.
The lights flickered, distracting her before she could think of a suitably supportive response. Ida used her wristcom to contact Zack, in the control center. He told her the Scarlett System was breaking up, causing interference.
“You might want to see this,” Ida said, addressing the Doctor, “A moment in history.”
He lifted his chin a bit, but seemed only marginally interested as he watched her go to the observation window controls. Rose thought he looked depressed. His arms were crossed protectively over his chest. His whole body had a certain stiffness, as if he ached all over and didn’t want to move. The loss of the TARDIS had to be weighing on him. But he looked up, as she did, when the roof rolled back to reveal a gorgeous star field.
The colors stole your breath away. Brilliant red and gold and silver sprayed across the black canvas of heaven. Ida acted the tour guide, talking of the civilizations, planets and solar systems dying, being crushed into nothing. It daunted. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she finished, “We have witnessed its passing.”
Did that mean the Pelushi lived on, then? Rose wondered. All those worlds? Stars? People? If they existed in someone’s memory, weren’t they still alive in a way? Wasn’t that really all anyone could hope for…to be remembered? She heard the Doctor ask, rather meekly, “No, could you leave it open? I won’t go mad, I promise.”
“How would you know?” Ida countered and he almost smiled.
Rose looked up. She’d seen a lot of strange things in her time. Too many to believe the view would drive her mad but she couldn’t help noticing how quickly Ida cleared the room. Eying the black hole, she ran a theory by the Doctor.
“I’ve seen films and things, yeah? They say black holes are like gateways to another universe.”
Hope, the Doctor realized, drawing in a long breath, she still had hope. And he was available to crush it. How handy of him.
“Not that one,” he told her with deep regret. “It just eats.”
“A long way from home,” she said, wistfully.
He looked back at her, his precious girl, toying with her earring, staring up at something people with less imagination feared. Who was he to deny her hope? Anything was possible after all, if this planet could exist. He pointed his pen, aiming it toward a dark sliver to the side of the great star, and said, “Go that way…turn right and go about…uh…oh…five hundred years and you’ll reach the Earth.”
She fumbled in her pocket and he thought, for a second, she might be looking for something to write the directions down on but then she took her cell phone out and checked the signal. It didn’t work. Too much interference, he imagined. She shrugged it off, saying she wouldn’t know what to tell Jackie in any case. He sympathized. He wouldn’t want to explain this mess either. Jackie, if she ever heard of it, would probably box his ears for getting Rose into so much trouble.
Rose asked him if he could build another TARDIS. If only he could. “They were grown, not built,” he said. And with his home planet gone, they were stuck. Trapped. Temporally becalmed. He was truly an exile now. An immigrant to this time period, he’d been stranded, rather like a shark washed into a tidal pool by an unusually large wave. He had no idea how he would survive, let alone care for Rose.
She accepted his explanation, nodding and then taking a deep breath said, “Well, it could be worse. This lot said they’d give us a lift.”
Shock vibrated through him. She didn’t seem distressed at the prospect of living out their days in this time. “And then what?” he asked, curious as to how she saw their altered circumstance. She stared at him blankly for a second or two and then gave it some real thought.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Find a planet? Get a job? Live a life same as the rest of the universe.”
He let out his pent breath with a snort, surprised not to feel more alarmed by her suggestion. She was talking about a normal life. The sort no Time Lord dared contemplate. Well, no, that wasn’t exactly true. His people were quite settled, indolent in a way. They just weren’t domesticated. No homes. No ties. They lived, always adrift in the eternal sea, just like their most primal ancestors…able to molt, change…cast off the old life and all of its baggage without regret.
“I’d have to settle down,” he heard himself saying. He didn’t really sound upset by the prospect, only taken aback.
A part of his mind listened in detached amazement as he rattled on about getting a house, with doors and carpets. A proper house…for Rose. Because, of course, he didn’t need a house. Any old cupboard would do for him. He could hitch a ride on some tramp steamer, live by his wits and charm. He could see the universe. But Rose needed roots. A bed. Walls. Carpets. She wanted to find a planet and a job and, it stood to reason, they would need a house. The thought of it terrified him, but he also felt strangely buoyant, as if poised on the brink of a new and wondrous adventure.
“You’d have to get a mortgage,” Rose sang, delighted when he grimaced.
“No, no, I’m dying, that’s it,” he lamented dramatically. “I am dying. It is all over.”
“What about me?” she laughed. “I’ll have to get one, too.”
He stopped enjoying the game and stilled, staring at her. She didn’t understand. And he couldn’t explain it, couldn’t nudge her in the right direction. She’d have to come to the conclusion on her own as he had. His Time Lord Honor allowed nothing else. She came to it rather quickly.
The world seemed to shift dramatically as she said, “Or, I don’t know. It could be the same one. We could both…” She met his eye and had her own moment of terrifying revelation. The Doctor’s hearts stopped beating and he was sure hers had, too. Pressure built in his ears. He longed to pop them but he couldn’t move. He could only stare at her as she gasped, “Housemates,” as if the breath had just been knocked out of her, “Share…or not…whatever.” She looked away quickly toward the maddening sun, blushing crimson as she went on, “We’ll sort something out.”
It hurt, physically. Longing, like a birth pang, twisted through his gut but he remained unaccountably calm. They were so close to the truth, now. Uncovering it was like prying a gem from sucking soil but they both had to see it, acknowledge it. They were never going to part. It had always been there, that gem of truth, unspoken between them. They weren’t friends or traveling companions. They were a couple. But saying the words made it real, not a ‘someday’ thing. This was it.
Knowing they should let it go, take a little breather, the Doctor dropped his chin to his chest, sighing, “Anyway…”
Just as Rose said, “We’ll see.” He could hear her strained smile but he didn’t dare look up. His eyes would surely plead his case.
He was, after all, a petitioner. It was for her to decide when…or if…they were going to sort something out. What the hell was he doing? he wondered, almost smiling. Did he have any idea how to be a good helpmate? Housemate? Husband? Did she crave some primitive gesture like a ring or a ceremony? Of course, she might find that presumptuous. She might want a life apart from him, eventually. He had no idea how he’d take that. Not well, he imagined. But humans changed their minds about things over time. Maybe Rose had changed her mind about him already. They hadn’t had sex in months. She seemed completely uninterested. And he was essentially responsible for her being stuck in this godforsaken spot in the first place.
“I promised Jackie I’d always take you home,” he said, knowing he had no right to make a second promise precluding the first one.
“Everyone leaves home sometime,” Rose said, matter-of-factly.
People did. He had. He’d left home to travel and met someone he would never have met if he’d stayed on Gallifrey. He’d been so naïve before the war. Before Rose. He’d had no idea he could feel this way, terrified and hopeful at the same time. But leaving home and being better off for it were two different things.
“Not to end up stuck here,” he said, offering her a chance to express her disappointment in him.
“Yeah, but stuck with you,” she murmured. “That’s not so bad.”
He didn’t dare smile but it was hard to hold in the swell of joy as it expanded his chest. Love and light seemed to wash over him, though he still felt numb at the tips of his fingers, in his feet and toes. “Yeah?” he asked, finally looking up at her, not sure if she was saying what his hearts told him she was.
“Yes!” She said, turning a brightly confident smile on him, meeting his eye without flinching.
Yes.
Sweet mother of creation, she’d said it. She’d accept him, accepted it, the inevitable union. From the expression on her face, she knew what she was saying, too. Peace settled on him. Peace, like he’d never known. He took a breath and then another. It was easier to breathe than he’d expected it would be. He’d expected to feel trapped but he didn’t.
Three breaths into his new life, Rose’s phone rang. She answered it. Listened for a few seconds, and then hurled the cell across the room. He followed its flight with his eyes, unable to summon any sense of alarm despite the frown on Rose’s face. Whatever new storm was brewing, they would weather it together.
“Who was it?” he asked.
She was staring blindly after her phone but seemed to come out of a trance. “I…a voice,” she shuddered, and her fear transmitted itself to him in a rush, “It was horrible…like when the Ood spoke to me.”
“The Ood spoke to you? Which Ood? When?” He scowled like a jealous lover. “About what?
Rose shook herself and turned toward him. “Earlier,” she said, pointing toward the serving line, “When I was getting my dinner, one of the Ood said something about ‘the Beast’ and ‘a war on God’ and then just now, on my phone…” she trailed off into troubled silence.
“You think the two events are connected?”
“I think…yes,” she said, meeting his eye. “I can feel it…somehow.”
He sucked on the inside of his cheek for a moment and then launched to his feet. “That’s good enough for me. Come on,” he said, seizing her hand and moving toward the door.
“Where are we going?” Rose asked, breathlessly rushing to keep pace with him.
“Ood Central,” he called over his shoulder.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When they arrived at Ood habitation, a vast underground chamber, they found Danny on Ood duty.
“Evening,” the Doctor sang out as he propelled down the stairs.
Danny greeted them as ‘the mysterious couple’ and asked if they were settling in but the Doctor was in no mood for idle chitchat. He got straight down to the business of sussing out Ood communication. Danny explained about the interface device and the telepathy field but in a condescending way that belittled the Ood and had Rose doubting his qualifications as an ‘Ethics’ officer. No matter how you sliced and packaged it, slavery didn’t strike her as particularly ethical.
Yet, Danny was more than ready to go along with it. Maybe it helped him to think of the Ood as ‘cattle.’ Maybe he could dismiss low-level empaths as somehow less important than other people, but Rose couldn’t. And she didn’t like his smirking, either. He reminded her a bit of Jimmy Stone, cute but shallow. She would never go for his type these days. It suddenly hit her, quite forcefully, that she wasn’t going to be going for any type, ever again. She and the Doctor would be…what? Finding a house, she guessed, living a life…together.
As Danny tried to verbally maneuver out from under the Doctor’s pinning gaze, Rose thought about the future. A life together, she repeated silently. She got all tingly thinking about what it might mean to be half of a serious couple. Not just a girlfriend, a flatmate, but a…what? Soulmate? The Doctor’s true companion. Her stomach dropped with an icy slosh. The sensation reminded her of that moment at the top of the rollercoaster, seconds before your car plunges downward, when you find you are both excited and at the same time amazed you let your friend talk you into getting on the ride. Rose didn’t think she wanted off the ride, though. She might scream as they went over, she might clutch the Doctor’s hand for support, but she didn’t think she would have things any other way.
Danny broke into her abstracted thoughts, asking what the Ood in the kitchen had told her. She couldn’t quite remember. Then, he asked her about her communicator device. What had it said?
“He is awake,” she responded.
“And you will worship him,” the Ood on the next level chorused.
The Doctor straightened and repeated her words, “He is awake.”
The Ood responded like a well-trained congregation reciting from the Book of Common Prayer. “And you will worship him.”
“Worship who?” The Doctor demanded. “Who’s talking to you? Who is it?”
The Ood remained silent, staring. The Doctor broke from a standstill and, cornering around the guard railing, pelted down the stairs to their level. Rose followed him at a slower pace while Danny held well back, calling half-hearted encouragement from the balcony.
“You won’t get anything out of them,” he said, noticing the Doctor was questioning the Ood. “They can’t understand new concepts until they’ve been psychically reinforced.”
“Maybe someone’s reinforcing them,” Rose ground out around a falsely bright smile.
“You think so, too?” The Doctor asked her.
She hadn’t expected to be taken quite so seriously but when she considered his question, she nodded. “I can feel it. Underneath.” She pointed at the floor.
The Doctor’s head bobbled through an extended bout of nodding as he stared into the distance, digesting this info. “Yes,” he agreed, “Right at the heart of this planet.” Then, he turned, bracing his hands on his knees and peered into the slanted eyes of the nearest Ood. A brief physical examination told him nothing. He thought about establishing a mental link. “I wonder if I could make contact with…”
Alarms sounded and the floor bucked erratically, throwing the Doctor and Rose forward into the seated Ood. A stiff breeze whipped through the room. The air cooled rapidly in the wake of this brief wind. Running feet drummed in the corridors. Danny was yelling something into his wristcom but Rose was more interested in the computer’s announcement of an ‘Emergency Hull Breach.’
The Doctor focused on the announcement as well. He caught at Rose’s sleeve and, tugging her along, raced for and mounted the stairs. Intent only on fleeing, he opened doors when they got in his way, spinning their wheel locks like a sailing master bringing his ship about. Rose and Danny stayed with him. They dashed through a habitation area and into the corridor beyond. There they were joined by a few other people, all of them running. This didn’t seem like a good time to question anyone’s motivation. Everyone went along with the crowd, pushing and jostling their way toward Mr. Jefferson who urged them on with shouts and gestures.
“Come on,” he bellowed, holding the door open, “Keep moving.”
They did. Rose and the Doctor ran well beyond the point where most of their companions stopped for a breather. Hearing the door seal, feeling the air warming on his face, the Doctor pivoted and retraced his steps, calling out to Jefferson, “Everyone all right? What happened? What was it?”
“Hull breach,” Rose heard Jefferson say. “We were open to the elements.”
“That wasn’t a quake,” the Doctor countered. “What caused it?”
Neither Jefferson nor Zack seemed to know. All that was certain was the black sun had taken another big bite out of the base. Several sections were now uninhabitable. Rose turned her attention to the wounded. There were scores of people with scrapes and bruises but Toby seemed worst off. He’d been the last one through the door. Maybe he’d suffered some oxygen deprivation. Certainly, his hands were shaking as he huddled on the floor. Rose knelt beside him, offering comfort. He looked into her eyes like a lost child seeking solace. She put an arm around his shoulders as he told the Doctor what he remembered about the moments before the breach. His recollections weren’t very helpful.
“Scooti Manista, report,” Jefferson requested of his wristcom.
He got no answer.
Scooti, they soon learned, had no voice in the world anymore. She’d been sucked into the vacuum of space. “She was twenty,” Ida announced, as they stared up though the observation window at Scooti’s lifeless husk, “Twenty years old.”
Beautiful. Vivacious. Dead…at twenty. They all had trouble digesting it. Looking up at the dead girl – gently spinning, almost it seemed, waving goodbye as she drifted toward the black hole—Rose felt her gorge rise and covered her mouth. She’d seen death before, stark and sudden, but it always sickened her. Like the Doctor, who apologized for every life lost in his wake, Rose felt somehow responsible, as if there were more to do, as if she should not mourn but act. Stop the march of time, perhaps. Turn back the clock. Bring life to the lifeless. Her guilt made no objective sense. She didn’t understand the pulse of demanding godhood within her. But she did believe that somehow, ultimately, she would be held responsible for Scooti Manista’s passing.
The drill stopped.
For a moment, Rose didn’t understand what was happening to stir such tension in the room. She moved to the Doctor’s side, seeking enlightenment, but it was Ida who explained. “We’ve stopped drilling. We’ve made it.”
The silence lasted less than five minutes and then the base became an agitated anthill of activity. There was a grand scurrying. Instructions boomed from the intercoms. Everyone started talking at once, moving toward exits. Rose knew the exact second when the excitement of the group infected the Doctor. He was standing behind and a bit to the side of her when the fever seized him. His whole body seemed to crackle with suppressed energy.
There was something new in the universe. Down below, at the center of the planet, there was a place as yet unseen…untouched…untested. He longed to explore--craved new knowledge, like a drug--needed his freedom the way other people needed food or air. He would not, could not, be contained in a house with walls and doors. Not yet. Probably not in her lifetime. She would have to live his life, the life of a nomad. Yes, it would be dangerous. Yes, they might die. Yes, it was worth it to be with him…one second longer…to watch him uncover one more piece of the puzzle, one more precious detail about the structure and workings of creation.
As the others scattered to their assigned duties, Rose reached a decision about her future. She sensed it spread out before her, hard to see, hard to even imagine, but at the same time…intriguing, inviting. She knew then she would never leave him. Never chose a divergent path. Drawing a cleansing breath, she exhaled, releasing with the breath all expectations of a normal human life. Nerves steadied, she turned to face the Doctor with a bright and genuinely compassionate smile.
“We ran by a whole rack of spacesuits back there,” she pointed toward the far door. “They’d probably let you borrow one.”
Hand jammed in his pockets, he rocked up on his toes and bounced, grinning madly. But he didn’t rush off immediately. She could tell he wanted to but, instead, he met her eye with intense and sudden sobriety and asked, “What about you?”
“Someone’s got to man the com system, make sure you make it back to the surface,” she said, playfully wrinkling her nose. “Besides, I told you, I’ve got an appointment.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, head tilted to one side as he beamed down on her. “An assignation, I shouldn’t wonder. I said you were going native.”
“You’ve found me out,” Rose agreed with faux resignation. “As soon as you’re a mile underground, I’m meeting Toby in habitation six for a spot of NBNE,” she said, with a click of the tongue and wink. “He’s promised to show me his artifacts.”
“Oh, well done!” the Doctor exclaimed, grinning happily as he took her arm to steer her through the door into the corridor. “Be sure to take copious notes.”
With an indignant snort, Rose twisted free of his grip, while at the same time, pushing his shoulder, shoving him away. “Good to know you’ve got your priorities straight,” she laughed.
His eyes found hers as she backed along the corridor in the opposite direction from the one he’d have to take to get suited up. Their gazes locked. He said her name softly, holding her attention. His mouth fell open, stayed open while his lips formed letters but not words. Rose had the sense he wanted to say something profound but couldn’t quite manage it. She waited.
Finally, after some internal wrangling, he simply said, “See ya at the send off?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” she assured him.
Pivoting on her heel, she turned and, hair flipping back and forth in time with her steps, strode off without looking back at him over her shoulder. Whatever he’d been struggling to say, she didn’t need to hear it. She needed no promises, no reassuring words. This was the life she’d chosen. They’d be okay as long as he was free to roam. He’d keep coming back to her as long as she believed in him.
He had, at least, that one trait in common with Oberon, the fairy king.
END THIS PART
PART FOURTEEN
AUTHOR'S NOTES: A few questions answered...my beta babes had some...so I thought you all might, too.
Where are you getting this dialogue? Matt Jones. He wrote The Impossible Planet and lots of the dialogue in this chapter is his...I don't usually borrow so heavily from canon but I had to for this bit of illumination.
Who is this Eris person? I made her up.
But weren't there only a few people on that base? There were extras rushing about that we never really met. I only expanded their number by about five in my mind.
But the rocket only held five people? Rose took Mr. Jefferson's place. But since the Doctor and Rose were offered a lift off the planet when everyone was still alive...obviously there is more room on the rocket. We learn there was a hold. Why not crew quarters, too? I figured we met the command crew...and that other people existed but we didn't meet them.
About that rocket...weren't the people stranded and miserable? Nope. They were neither. They rode the gravity funnel down to the planet and intended to ride it out and they were joking and laughing about it collapsing early on. They are tense, however, because of the dangers of their job.
Why don't you stick to one P.O.V.? I do. It's called Third Person Omniscient. You can look it up on wikipedia.org if you like.
When...oh...WHEN will we have more smut? Chapter 15
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-02 11:18 pm (UTC)I think Ace...definitely
Date: 2006-12-03 06:45 pm (UTC)While I totally adore Tegan and think that she would stand by the Doctor through anything, fight like a tiger for him...and that they had a certain spiritual fire in common. I feel that she was a bit too grounded on Earth to become a nomad. Granted she chose to go with him again in Arc of Infinity...but she also told him she was sick of his life when she left him. A
nd while I was a huge shipper for Tegan/Five...I really believe that she wasn't as suited to the Doctor or his lifestyle as Rose, Jo Grant and Sarah Jane were. I'm, also, one of the vocal minority who believe Romana wasn't suited to his life, either. And I think canon proves that out...because she left him, too. I think that is the key to future companion interaction...within the companion...there should be a reason to leave him. Martha, I imagine, will want to go on with her medical career, eventually, even if its working to save natives from an alien plague on a distant world. She judge something MORE important than the Doctor.
The Satan Pit shows us, quite clearly, that the Doctor and Rose didn't judge much to be more important than each other. Only the fate of entire universes...it seems.
Thanks for the thoughtful question.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-02 11:30 pm (UTC)One of my favourite episodes and one of my favourite stories!
Can't wait for an update!
:)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 02:16 am (UTC)Thanks for the comment. Update on the way.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-02 11:32 pm (UTC)I particularly like Rose's acceptance of her bond with the Doctor. After all the angst, she came about this relatively angst-free and I think it was done very realistically.
I also can see her becoming even more like the Doctor in this chapter.
In short, I love this fic so much!
*quietly waits for chapter 15 ;)*
Hugs and snuggles you...MMMmmmmm
Date: 2006-12-06 04:29 pm (UTC)I love the rereaders...they get the continuity. And, also, sometimes remind me of what I wrote. Because I seldom reread. I do read each chapter about twenty bazillion times though...so you would THINK I would have it in my mind.
I'm glad you can see the bond gelling and so see the organic nature of Rose's acceptance of it all. I think they both come to it slowly over-time and so it is relatively angst-free when they admit it. And, paradoxically, I think that is what made people miss the significance of things in canon. I think the Doctor and Rose move smoothly toward this perfect union of souls...and we, as viewers, are so used to seeing love portrayed as a angst-ridden, lustful struggle...that we missed the beauty of it...the joy in each other that Rose and Ten had. Because...while my mind is still open to the 'did they or didn't they' debate about sex...I don't think there is any question that Russell, Billie and David were conveying telling this exact love story.
If I write my post-Doomsday fic...I intend to take their line through it...no sex...just heartfelt devotion.
Sounds boring, huh? But I will blow a lot of things up and have lots of yearning...so maybe it won't be very, very dull. ;->
Thank you for taking the time to leave me some comment love. I very much appreciate it. Sorry, it took so long for me to tell you so.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-02 11:50 pm (UTC)Glad to see you've answered that important question! :p
Another great chapter, Rae.
Hello, Milady
Date: 2006-12-08 02:17 am (UTC)Anyway, yes...I have my eyes (and my smutty mind) on the prize.
Thanks for the thumbs up.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-03 12:04 am (UTC)Yey! You updated! And this was a fantastic incorporation of the episode. Love everything about it and I just want more! Just want to hug Rose in this part.
CLEAR...bzzzzz...CLEAR
Date: 2006-12-08 02:34 am (UTC)So happy to hear you loved this chapter and are available to give Rose a hug. She was planning on getting one from the Doctor later...but you can get in ahead of him. He's trying on a spacesuit just now.
Thanks for the comments.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-03 12:35 am (UTC)Really nice work. Let's have some major angst next ch. and then some down home shagging :)
Loving it (but you already knew that).
If I have changed the way you look at this eppy
Date: 2006-12-08 02:36 am (UTC)And then...interesting shagging.
Thanks for the love.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-03 01:49 am (UTC)I'm still struggling with my next chapter. You are my guru! <3
Yeah...he thought it would scare him...
Date: 2006-12-08 02:37 am (UTC)Sends you happy vibes for your next chapter. Thanks you for your kind words.
Rae
I'm so happy you find the fic squee-worthy
Date: 2006-12-08 02:49 am (UTC)As for the expanded cast...yes, that was my thought on seeing the extras in the background..."Those are red shirts." And, so, I added another one because I thought Ida wasn't upset enough for my purposes...and anyway would be off with the Doctor adventuring.
Ida is my favorite ALMOST companion. I would love her to come back with Tennant in S4. I think they should bracket him with someone younger and then Ida on the other side.
Yes, you may have another...poo' lil' orphan chil'
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-03 02:21 am (UTC)Thanks for the kind words re: Chapter 13
Date: 2006-12-09 03:04 am (UTC)Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-03 02:28 am (UTC)Also, wanted to say: I love this fic, whether or not there's more smut. Smut does not a good story make. :)
So...people aren't so eager for the smut...?
Date: 2006-12-09 03:11 am (UTC)Naaaahhhh!
Smut does not a good story make. But on the other hand it's...as the Doctor has said..."Not bad...not bad at all."
Yes, to me there would have to be a few people we didn't see. We see vague folks running by and such...and it was a big old base. Lots of habitation areas. Like I said, I figure we met the command crew and saw a few of the others...but that doesn't mean we met EVERYONE.
And I think being stranded together made a big difference in their relationship. The Doctor has been stranded before but he's never really "settled"...I think he's scared of it...but he does embrace the whole idea pretty fully. I was, frankly...FLOORED by his bringing up houses and settling down off her comment. And then I hop online and see all of these people lamenting the awkwardness of it. I'm like...well...it SHOULD be awkward...they are discussing huge changes in their lives.
And amazingly...though, at the time, so many people predicted it was the END of the romance...it turned out to be only the tip of the romantic iceberg. I totally adore the Doctor's attempt to tell Ida to tell Rose how he feels...and then when he sighs, "Oh, she knows" I thought...YEAH...she does.
SIGH! I love these two.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-03 02:51 am (UTC)And thanks for the heads up on the smut. TWO MORE parts to go? Bah ;).
That's interesting about Seven
Date: 2006-12-03 03:28 am (UTC)To me...the Doctor is the Doctor...in all forms. But there are slight changes in speech patterns and mannerisms. Some things though...I consider universal...his passion for exploration, his pride in his Time Lord status...his love of (and occasional frustration with) humanity...his symbiotic relationship with the TARDIS. I believe Rose is his true companion for all times and all regenerations...even though canon probably won't bare me out on that one in the long run...it did okay for two years.
I am also glad you felt the integration to the episode worked. It was rather vital to the whole of this fic for me to do this chapter in this way. But I wasn't sure I could get it to work. So...thrilled at the moment to see it apprectiated. Thank you.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-03 03:25 am (UTC)I've had a horrible day, so this was an absolutely wonderful surprise. I also just happened to watch both "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit" tonight, so this time period is just about as fresh in my mind as it could be.
I'll come back tomorrow, rested and more coherent, but I wanted to quickly say how much I loved this chapter, and especially how you managed to work around the canon, but still stay entirely true to your story.
I also loved how you turned what appeared to be such an awkward and tense moment between the Doctor and Rose (talking about houses and mortgages, etc.) into a beautiful moving forward in their relationship, and accepting (Rose, especially), that this is forever. True companions. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. :)
Jeepers! It can't be the end of the feedback already...
Date: 2006-12-03 03:36 am (UTC)Thanks for the early posting, Suze. I'm glad you enjoyed the melding of my story with the canon. It was vital that this work if my story was going to be plausible...and you have taken a load off my mind. Kind of made my evening, really. I hated working with someone else's scenes and dialogue like this (it smacks of plagerism to me)...but the tense moment, I feel...had deeper meaning in canon than people realized.
I think that it WAS a turning point for them. But because people weren't seeing it through the Doctor's eyes and Rose's eyes...it looked like a pulling apart. The Satan Pit proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they WEREN'T pulling apart, at all. But...as you can see...seen from a different perspective...the same scene becomes a 'beautiful moving forward'...awkward only because they've never done anything like it before.
I will look forward to your coming back...and tell myself there will be more feedback until then.
Not that I'm superstitious or anything...no...not me.
Rae
Re: Jeepers! It can't be the end of the feedback already...
From:I'm baaaaaaaack!
From:The official end to the feedback has arrived!
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-03 04:23 am (UTC)A happy ending, you say? Hmmm!
Date: 2006-12-09 03:14 am (UTC)Okay...I'm sure I will send your nerves into rehab with what's to come...but I like to think it's a happy ending. Some people might disagree...we will see what you think...if you are still reading at the end.
However, so you know...you have to read to the very end to learn the full truth. There will be several mini-climaxes between now and the VERY END.
Thanks for your Yaay! And your Squee. Hugs you.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-03 04:50 am (UTC)This made me smile. As did your questions. ^_^ Smut!
The definitely are moving back to couple status
Date: 2006-12-09 03:19 am (UTC)Rose is understandably in need of a break at this point. The important thing is...she learns that she IS in favor of a long, happy life with him. That traveling in the TARDIS suits her.
I think they are like any couple...one of them feels very passionately about his career...the other one goes along...but not at any great hardship. Rose isn't giving up MUCH...just what it expected of her, that she marry and have a house and some kids. In return she is getting the universe as her backyard and the Doctor as her love. Pretty good deal.
I'm glad this chapter and my questions made you smile. As does the forthcoming smut. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the chapter with me. I love hearing from you.
Rae
Another excellent chapter
Date: 2006-12-03 05:09 am (UTC)I was amused when Ida wondered if they were newlyweds -- they are, aren't they? They make their final commitment right there in Habitation 3.
Two chapters, in such quick succession! You must be writing fast!
~np-complete~
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-04 04:34 am (UTC)Yes, exactly...what they want most is to simply be together. And that is a truly lovely thing to see depicted. And Ida was right...as are you...they are newlyweds here. They are accepting the truth of what they've probably known in their hearts for a long time...that they aren't going to want separate lives. This is why...I firmly believe...the Doctor said "I'd have to settle down" in canon. He doesn't HAVE to settle down just because the TARDIS is gone. He'd just proved how useful he could be on a space mission by doing calculations that took the others months in a matter of a few seconds.
"Oh, I'm very good." I bet he is. Good enough to write his own ticket on any space mission. But ROSE...wanted to find a planet and live a life...she just said so...and I think it was nothing BUT love...and the idea that they would never part...that prompted him to think..."HOUSE!" A house for ROSE...that was it. But yes...it did scare him...he said so...and having her go there with him...scared him even more. But if you watch...he's not panicking or running or making any sort of excuse...he says, "Anyway..." and when she accepts it...that stuck with him won't be so bad...he is happy. You can see it on his face.
Thanks...as ever...for your kind words and support of my fiction. I truly appreciate the consistent feedback.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-03 05:40 am (UTC)Welcome to the party, Pastrypack
Date: 2006-12-04 04:39 am (UTC)I, also, admire your stamina...I can't read this fic in one sitting. I've tried. So...take a breather...have a cookie.
You brought cookies, right?
Next chapter coming soon. Thanks for taking the time to leave me a comment. I love hearing from my readers. It helps me remember to write on those days when I would rather sleep or watch TV or something.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-03 05:47 am (UTC)I love that you decided to include this bit. With the way Rose and the Doctor interact, I really doubt that they've only known each other for two years. In season two, we saw a massive change in Rose's character and it's a bit much to claim that only one year went by. And, being together only two years seemed a bit short. I like your four and how you had Rose totally lose track of time.
Rose's menstrual cycle. You suggested that something's a little funky here. She's been travelling four years and I bet she's been using her cycle to count time on Earth. Well, from her reaction to the four years bit, I'm assuming that her bodily functions a bit whacked out. Maybe time travelling slows your menstrual cycle?
There's another thing I love, but I'm not sure I'm interpretting it right. Rose has decided that if her and the Doctor are stuck:
1. They'll need a stationary home
2. They'll still go on their adventures when possible
3. She's not going to force the Doctor to conform to humans' daily patterned practices. Rose will let the Doctor still be his adventurous self.
4. Sometimes, she'll stay home and let the Doctor go out to have his wild fun. Why? She knows that he will always come back to her.
Awww.... How sweet!!! Both are going to try to make accommodations for each other. :)
So... We know that the next bit of smut will happen in chapter 15. But, when's the next time we'll get another really hot kissing scene? At the send-off to the underground, maybe?
Can I also say that I'm glad that Rose and the Doctor are back to being touchy-feely? This was one thing I loved about them. All the hugging, bumping, hand-holding, showing, pulling, etc. They take part in a lot of physical contact.
From David Tennant's video blog (which I saw on YouTube), I get the impression that the actors are the same. You see Billie hanging off of David a lot and it's really cute. I wonder if the actors developed this instant relationship themselves and it showed up onscreen or did RTD's writing cause them to start acting like that...
There you are...:waves:
Date: 2006-12-04 03:59 am (UTC)...which makes me think...she's been gone loads longer than Jackie suspects. I think she brings her mum laundry so that mum thinks they've only been gone a few weeks or a month when they've really been gone for years.
Oh...Billie hanging off David is worth seeing. I look forward to my DVD's even more now. I think what happened there is RTD wrote the story...as a love story. I think David and Billie...are actors and they liked each other as well...and so they acted their way to this deeper place. As David said recently...it would be hard to have perspective on something like that..if you were playing a character so deeply and fully in love. Part of your mind knows it is an act but you have to open yourself so far up...The Doctor and Rose had no barriers at all between them...and it is truly amazing to me that David and Billie were both able to be so emotionally open, so wholehearted. You would have to develop a lot of trust with the other person to do that, I would think.
As for your questions...Rose has decided to stick with the Doctor no matter where he roams...to let him roam unfettered as much as possible. She does this even though the Doctor has offered to buy a house for her and settle down...because (As she tells Jackie in Army of Ghosts) she knows he won't ever settle except to please her. So...we have this openess I spoke of...this unselfish loving...he would settle for her...she would never ask it of him. In a truly loving and supportive relationship...you know that the other person will do whatever they have to for you...but you don't force them to do things that will harm their spirit.
Rose isn't pining for a home and kids and normal life. She's rejected that several times over...and she loves traveling with him...so it makes sense that they would travel rather than settle. What she tells her mum in Army of Ghosts is she's NEVER going to have those things...and it is a little sad for her...but more sad for her Mum, who can't see the advantages of it.
As for the menstrual cycle...I think that Rose might get confused because there is no day or night or lunar cycle to plot onboard the TARDIS...and also there is the background radiation to consider. Time bending around her might make her hormones go a little wonky.
Thanks for all of the insight and the long, involved feedback. It's good to know you are still out there reading.
Rae
Re: There you are...:waves:
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-03 04:48 pm (UTC)One bit I liked in particular was the section about the Jaumelia tree bark. I thought it was very right that the Doctor should be thinking about this, totally unprompted, and it was good to see Rose's reaction to it. All very real and true. I can see how they are fitting together much more so than perhaps they were before, which was obviously your goal. 3rd Person Om' is something fanfic writers don't seem to go for that much, but you handled it well...
And, as for the smut, well, that's good news (Btw, I was re-reading Suicide Blonde the other day and stumbled upon a phrase I wondered if you were going to work into this... Something about any number of rolls in the surf? ;) ), but I'm just looking forward to the next chapter at the moment. I think The Satan Pit is my favourite episode of the series. I can certainly imagine that things changing significantly in that... perhaps not through interaction between the two of them, but on an introspective, thoughtful level certainly.
Good luck writing the next chapter!
The Satan Pit is my favorite episode, too
Date: 2006-12-03 05:40 pm (UTC)Okay...THAT and it kicked ass. I mean...it was an amazing episode on the action front, too.
But I'm not sure I'm going to tackle it. And I'll tell you why. Everything that happens in the Satan Pit...the introspection we see as an audience. I just let you see in this chapter. If you think about it...all The Satan Pit really does is let them act out their committment to one another. To confirm it for the audience the way (quite honestly...no fanwanking) I believe they confirmed it for themselves during the mortgage conversation.
As awkward as that conversation was...neither the Doctor nor Rose pulled away from the concept of being together. And HE moved forward into 'settling down' MUCH more wholeheartedly than he should of...given his character's historic wanderlust. He should NEVER have thought of a house...and the fact that he did...stemmed directly from Rose saying they would "live a life, same as the rest of the universe."
It stemmed from him being unable to conceive of leaving Rose behind and striking out on his own.
And in The Satan Pit he confirms that with his cautious retreat from what he OBVIOUSLY wants to do...explore that pit. And, also, in a direct line when there is no obvious way out..."OH, I'll get back. Rose is up there." <<--Again, he cannot conceive of any circumstance that would part them. And THAT is him...not her. That one line is why I can't conceive of him giving up and going on with no thought of her now.
If he had gone over to say goodbye and found her settled with Mickey or just over him...I think he might have given up and let her "live the life he can never have" but she loves him and isn't about to give up on who she is...and that means he won't give up on the "impossible" problem of reunion.
All of this is my way of telling you...don't get your hopes up for The Satan Pit chapter because I may not go into any detail with it. I may skip it entirely...we will see. <<--I wouldn't want to beat my dead horse. On the other hand...there are still people who don't understand that the Doctor was torn away from Rose before he could say...Rose Tyler, I love You.
SHEESH! It didn't even require reading between the lines.
Thank you so much for leaving the detailed feedback. Yes, as a matter of fact...we are going to deal with the surf idea...but I'm not sure we will go into detail with that or not. If you want a beach scene...try my Nine/Rose ficlet Ricochet. It's not very good though...I was just testing my ability to write Nine/Rose with it. Rather like the flower one was a test of my Rose/Ten skills. <<--it is also referenced in Disheveled. I like to reference...what can I say. ;->
Rae
super glad someone recognizes 3-p Om...I'm rather unusual...but people don't generally mind it because I don't get, too, dizzying...even if we are more used to third person-limited in our fiction these days.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-03 07:43 pm (UTC)I love them, too...
Date: 2006-12-04 03:29 am (UTC)As I told someone else...already, I'm not sure I will be tackling TSP in the same detail that I used on TIP. I think the detail/insight on TIP is needed for some people to get what happened during the "mortgage conversation"...as I've said...I don't consider my take fanwanking, at all. Because you can see clearly in TSP that what I imply here is true...these two love each other and can't conceive of EVER parting. And the Doctor is JUST as active a participant in the love as Rose is...he is just as fixated on returning to her, taking care of her, being with her...rescuing her. Her last words to people were about him...his last words were about her.
They both believed in each other...she believed he would find a way back to him if he could...and if he couldn't...she wasn't going to give up on him either. He believed...in her. That she would not want him to give up. That she would say what she DID say..."Don't worry about me." She would expect him to fight...and go on fighting...for what he believes in.
I think that we see in these two episodes what we will see in S3. The Doctor can go on BECAUSE of Rose...because she would expect him to keep living and fighting...but also to keep her in his heart. She would do the same for him. If someone loves you...they want you to live...to have a good life...but they both know that the other one longs for them, too. It really is beautifully tragic...and we do need our hope. RTD was exactly right...we need to have the hope and they need it, too...the hope that they can be together one day. Even if he's ten miles underground with no cable or she's in another universe.
When David's run as the Doctor ends...maybe we will have hope fulfilled.
Thanks for the applause. Was that for ME...or the forthcoming smut?
Rae
Jaumelia bark
Date: 2006-12-03 09:58 pm (UTC)Re: Jaumelia bark
Date: 2006-12-04 03:39 am (UTC)The Jaumelia trees aren't canon. What IS canon is the sterilization of the Doctor's species. The Doctor...seriously...does not have sex in canon. Which is what allowed that whole big mix up about Susan being adopted to happen in the books and in some fanwanks.
But I think that even without sex...there are ways to reproduce...so she could still be...and probably is...his grandchild. There is book canon, as I've said before/elsewhere, indicating Susan is the daughter of someone called, "The Other"...and it occurred to me that they might mean "the other Doctor" so I made Ten her biological father...with the understanding that things have changed so radically that his EARLIER selves wouldn't believe it even if we downloaded some photos for them.
As for why the Doctor didn't protect Rose from the beginning if he could...the answer if two-fold...1) he wanted to converge with her...have children 2) he probably didn't think about the Jaumelia trees until after he smelled them on Rose's hair when she came back from Gallifrey. You don't tend to think of contraceptives if your entire species lacks an arousal response.
Thanks for the comments and kind words about my subconscious. I really appreciate the encouragement.
Rae
Re: Jaumelia bark
From:You know...I don't remember
From:belly buttons
From:Well...in canon...they don't really address it
From:See? All that rambling and I did miss a point
From:Defending the Doctor's asexuality
From:While I do think I DID fanwank GiTF
From:We will make Ten/Rose sense of GiTF
From:We will make Ten/Rose sense of GiTF part 2
From:That was my take on it, too...
From:Oh, I'm so taking this to email...
Date: 2006-12-04 12:25 am (UTC)When I first read through it, my first reaction was, "Ohh, I want the next chapter NOW!" I'm guessing the Doctor will be a very lucky Time Lord after the end of The Satan Pit. Heh.
I enjoyed how you wrote the undercurrents for scenes from the show, particularly the mortgage conversation. I just finished watching the two-parter over the weekend, and really the romance is so there.
Expect me to email you concerning one glaring 'throwaway' line you stuck in there. :)
Hiya...got your e-mail...
Date: 2006-12-04 04:46 am (UTC)As for your guess about how lucky the Doctor is about to get...well...yeah...I don't see how anyone could see TSP and NOT think that they had sex right after. The way she throws herself into his arms...the way he lifts her off her feet and swings her back and forth...the mutual groaning...those two wanted to get horizontal. Not a doubt in my mind. And Ida...refers to them as a couple. Like she's sealing the deal on it. Pronouncing them WHO together.
Nice that you rewatched to see it. It is definitely there.
Thanks for the comments. And the email. It is always a pleasure and...very interesting...to hear from you.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-04 04:41 am (UTC)“Sex,” Rose hissed. To her horror, in the corner of her eye, she noticed Mr. Jefferson turn to stare.
So much love for Mr. Jefferson. :)
Is this story going to end up being Doomsday-AU or are you not going to say yet?
Glad to see you again
Date: 2006-12-04 04:51 am (UTC)People, I think, are too used to romance being depicted as arguing and over the top passion...when in reality...it can be more like the Doctor/Rose...comfort and warmth and care and facing terrifying things together. In a way...admitting that you are terrified of settling down...but willing to do so...is very loving.
And...yeah...who doesn't love Mr. Jefferson. He's the best.
Going all the way to Doomsday...and beyond. I have a secret to share with you all...and then...I have a coda to the secret.
Rae
Re: Glad to see you again
From:Thank you...as always...
From:Re: Glad to see you again
From:True...there is that...
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-04 05:47 am (UTC)there's so many things i could say, but it's sort of overwhelming trying to sort out every single thing i'd like to say. i feel very bad for rose. she's had to struggle so hard. it will be wonderful when she's finally ready to let the doctor back into her mind.
and in a slightly unrelated note, i am kind of terrified for "the runaway bride". i'm really not sure whether i'll be able to watch it without crying.
I think the Runaway Bride is going to tell us lots
Date: 2006-12-04 08:13 pm (UTC)As for your remarks on this chapter...yes, this is a turning point...for this fic and for Rose and the Doctor as a couple. I believe in canon it was the point when they consummated or...committed to the idea of forever. And we see very clearly in later episodes that the Doctor is just as committed to Rose as she is to him. We see it here, too. Because...as I have him illuminate...there is no reason in the world for him to need "a proper house"...except for Rose to live in it.
Yes, he's terrified by the reality of her going to the same place as he's already gone...because suddenly it's all real...but...he is definitely happy when she says, "Being stuck with him is not so bad." The 'stuck with' has the same sense of meaning there as it does in his line...it means...stuck forever with him. So...his "Yeah?" is..."Really, you will stay with me...forever?" and her "Yes!" is...YES! I accept your proposal.
Sorry to hear I overwhelmed your comment-er. But you don't have to say much...it's nice for me to know you enjoyed the chapter. And to have a bit of insight into why! I'm glad you still feel for Rose...it is hard for her...all of this alien stuff. I imagine her reeling a bit with the enormous change in how she now sees her future. But I think the subsequent events in The Satan Pit...cemented her understanding of her feelings. She and the Doctor are tested...separated...assumed lost...but they continue to believe in one another.
This is why I think RTD was wise to cancel the Rose spin-off...because I don't think Rose should be seen to go blithely on. The Doctor has had to do that before and always knew that one day he would lose her to death...but she is devastated and it would be wrong to then go...oh, no...she's okay. Or...rather...it would undermine the power of her in the Doctor's life. So...that gives me hope about the future of the show...because if RTD hadn't been committed to them as a couple...he might have considered a Rose spin-off over a Sarah Jane one. As it is...he is saying...I know the main hope here...is not that Rose lives a happy life but that they find one another again...the Doctor and his Rose.
Rae
Re: I think the Runaway Bride is going to tell us lots
From:Pardon me for not looking...here
From:Okay...that's how good my willpower is...
From:Re: Okay...that's how good my willpower is...
From:See? That's exactly what I think, too...
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-04 04:43 pm (UTC)I like that talking about their physical relationship in front of others still makes Rose blush, but the Doctor is fine with blurting out perfect thank you when Ida assigned them a room while still working on the runes. Heh Rose's jealousy is in hand, I think the Doctor's may still flare up at some point. The key she gave him tying him to some kind of home and giving him faith is beautiful. Rose is his home and he is hers. I just love how you grasp these two and what they mean to each other. And yay to them making love again soon. Four years together. Wow. I don't know what I will do when this fic ends.
Every chapter leaves you floored?
Date: 2006-12-04 09:05 pm (UTC)If I see that people are picking up on the vibe I want them to pick up on...I move on...if they aren't seeing it or are misinterpreting it...then I know I need to illuminate further. Luckily, in the last chapter...everyone seemed to hop onboard with the Key...and so I was able to back right off that line in this chapter and go on with the other development of the relationship. Had people missed the significance of the key...it would have told me I failed to give it enough weight the first time round and needed to readdress it.
I am continually amazed by the same-pageness of myself and my readers though. People tend to follow what I'm saying and respond with insightful questions and comments. You picked up on all of the points I made in this chapter. You follow my theme of True Companionship and closeness very easily even though I was trying to keep it subtle. And you also picked up on the Doctor not being over his jealousy...I think we see abit of it in Doomsday...when he asks about Mickey. I think the Doctor has always worried about Mickey...thinking Rose will one day want that devoted human relationship.
Personally, I think Rose knows what she wants...and it's never been Mickey.
Thanks as always for sharing your thoughts on the chapter...it makes me all glowy. As for what you will do when this fic ends...uhm...read my next one? ;->
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-05 08:07 pm (UTC)Glad to hear there'll be more smut soon :) *waits patiently for chapter 15*
As long as you are waiting patiently
Date: 2006-12-09 03:22 am (UTC)I love your birthday cake, too. Very nice and kind of squishy. And you have "coat" Doctor.
Thanks for the kind words re: this chapter. I appreciate the appreciation.
Rae