Doctor Who Fic: Universal Realignment (7/8)
Story Title: Universal Realignment
Author: butterfly
Summary: The Doctor takes Martha and Jack for a trip before the final scenes of "Last of the Time Lords".
Pairing: Doctor/Rose
Rating: PG-13.
Warning: AU after Doctor Who 3x13 - "Last of the Time Lords".
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to Doctor Who and the BBC.
Previous parts: One; Two; Three; Four; Five; Six.
Universal Realignment
Jack glanced up from the screen to see the Doctor and Rose stumble out of a corridor and into the main room. Nothing was stable - it was the bumpiest ride he'd ever had in the TARDIS and that was saying a lot.
"Something's wrong, Doctor," Jack said. "The monitor's been giving out these strange readings but it refuses to translate for me."
The Doctor pulled out his specs and slipped them on, then stepped over to look at the screen.
His face went still.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Martha asked, her eyes wide with worry. There was another frozen moment and then the Doctor smiled widely, in a way that made Jack instinctively mistrust every word about to come out of his mouth.
"Oh, there's a small fracture in space and time that appears to be widening and splitting off into microfractures," the Doctor said airily. The contrast between the lightness of his tone and the actual content of his words was staggering. What the hell was going on? "I say we give it a day or two. See if it settles by itself."
"It's not dangerous?" Rose asked. She sounded dubious.
"Well, I didn't say that." The Doctor pressed a button and yanked on a lever and all the motion just… stopped. Jack could still see the warning on the screen flashing, though. The Doctor hadn't fixed the problem, just one of the symptoms.
"Then it is dangerous," Martha said, gingerly letting go of the railing where she'd been clinging. "How dangerous?"
"If I understand what he just said correctly, it's very dangerous," Jack said. "If space and time is fracturing, this dimension is going to start breaking down. Letting in… the space between dimensions."
"The Void," Rose said. Her face paled as she backed a step away from the Doctor. "Doctor-"
"I don't think it's anything we should concern ourselves with at the moment," the Doctor said. "Maybe if we leave it alone, it'll stop. Or reverse. Or… go away. It's impossible to say with our current information."
"If that fracture is widening then, soon enough, the universe will start collapsing," Jack said. "Why aren't you worried about this?"
"Leave it, Jack."
"Why should he?" Martha demanded. "You aren't denying that this is dangerous, so why don't you want to do anything to fix it?"
"There's nothing to be done," the Doctor said. "And I really do think that it might get better on its own."
Jack scrubbed a hand over his eyes, and glanced back over at the monitor… he still couldn't read it, but he recognized the flashing symbols now. That's what the TARDIS had been reading when they'd first landed on the planet. He'd been wrong before. They were still on Galtia Six. Whatever was happening was coming from the planet. Maybe from the lizards, but that didn't explain why…
Jack's blood ran cold and his mind cleared. There was only one way that the Doctor's behavior made any sense.
"Doctor, there is a way to stop this, isn't there?" Jack asked, looking over to meet the Doctor's level gaze. "And I think I know what it is."
"No, Jack." The Doctor's words were all the worse for how calm they were. He wasn't screaming or shaking anyone's shoulders. He wasn't angry. He was quiet and certain. "That's not an option."
"What's not an option?" Martha asked.
"Universes collapsing… that sounds familiar," Rose said, with a shaky laugh. The Doctor didn't turn to face her, so Jack got to see the way his face tightened. "You're not telling me that this is about me, are you? You're not saying that to fix this, I have to go back. You're… you're not."
"I'm sorry," Jack said, and he couldn't quite look Rose in the eyes. "It's the only possibility. I should have seen it before."
"But that isn't fair," Martha said. "There has to be something else we can do."
"I wish that I could think of something - hell, I wish that he could," Jack said. "If he had a plan, he would have already put it in motion. We don't have any choices."
"Is Jack right?" Rose asked, placing her hand on the Doctor's back. He shivered and closed his eyes for just a moment. "Is this because of me?"
"It doesn't matter. I won't do it," the Doctor said, shaking off Rose's hand, and now Jack could see the faint lines of strain by the sides of his mouth. "And without me, Jack can't."
"He's right about that. I don't know the controls that well… I can't read the language." He could follow the Doctor's orders easily enough, but whatever might be needed to do to reopen that fracture wide enough without cracking the universe apart required skills that he'd never had the chance to learn.
"But it doesn't make any sense." Martha looked over at Rose, mingled confusion and sympathy in her eyes. "I thought this was her original universe. How can she not belong to it?"
"Opanilicks can be bothersome for the residents of any particular universe, but they aren't dangerous. Our problem is that they only create a transit window designed for something the size of a three-foot lizard. That light that appears when they travel burns off excess atoms from their previous universe, keeps them from tearing holes in reality," the Doctor said, pulling off his glasses and slipping them back into his pocket. "When Rose came through, being larger than an Opanilick, she was still dragging pieces of that other universe with her, attached to her, like burrs from a burdock plant - the air that she'd breathed and the food that she'd eaten was still inside her. They could sense it. It's why they attacked her. They knew that her presence in this universe was dangerous."
"You knew," Rose said. "All along, you knew this was happening."
"I knew it was a possibility. I was hoping that I was wrong. As you yourself pointed out, I've been wrong so often recently." The Doctor glanced slightly behind himself, where Rose was standing, tension bleeding through his deceptively casual outward appearance.
"You didn't tell any of us," Martha said, leaning back heavily onto the console. Jack didn't have to look at her to peg the note of betrayal in her voice. He could sympathize - that first moment of realizing that, no matter what a person did to prove his loyalty, Rose Tyler would always matter more was hell to get through. Martha had thought that she and the Doctor were close… he'd thought the same thing before he'd been left behind, the sound of the TARDIS ringing in his ears. "You knew the universe was at risk and you didn't say a word."
"Until we knew for certain, there was no point in causing panic."
"And now we do know," Jack said, his voice harsher than he'd planned. "I love Rose, too, but we can't prioritize her over the universe."
"I have to go back," Rose said, her voice breathy, as though the words were being forced out of her. The look on her face was almost… resigned, like she'd known all along that she wouldn't get to stay.
"No," the Doctor said, finally turning to face Rose. If this conversation weren't quite so important, Jack would want to leave them to it, but he couldn't risk the Doctor making the wrong choice. As the Doctor continued speaking, Jack maneuvered so that he could see both of them. "I won't allow it."
"It's my choice."
"It's not what you want."
"Of course it isn't," Rose admitted, earnest and honest. "I'd love to stay here with you, but I can't. We are not more important than the universe, Doctor."
The Doctor's expression softened and he reached out to tuck some of Rose's hair behind her ear. "To me, you are." Jack could see Rose leaning slightly toward the Doctor and this was not a good direction for this conversation to be going in.
"But won't Rose die along with the rest of the universe?" Martha said, looking startled when everyone turned toward her. "I mean… if the universe is collapsing, we're all going to die."
"Actually, we probably wouldn't," the Doctor said. As Martha had pointed out, back when this trip had started, 'probably' wasn't the most reassuring word for the Doctor to use. "We'd likely end up stuck in the Void and, in that case, I wouldn't recommend us actually leaving the TARDIS… ever… but we'd still be alive and together. Ninety-eight percent certainty. Well, maybe eighty-nine. Well… no one really likes to hear the odds, anyway."
"And that's the solution that you want to go with?" Martha asked. "Our universe in tatters and us with an eighty-nine percent chance of surviving at all?"
"Seventy-seven at the lowest," the Doctor amended. "Still, better than the alternative."
"How can that possibly be better?" Jack asked, trying to figure out if he could tie the Doctor up, drug him, and force him to tell Jack what to do to fix this.
"Rose will be happy."
"Destroying the universe will not make me happy," Rose said, looking stunned. "Doctor, I lived in that parallel world for eight years. I can do it again."
"No, you told me," the Doctor said. And that was just lovely. Couldn't Rose and the Doctor just have been off having reunion sex, like any other couple? "You said that your heart would always belong to me. That other man - you couldn't promise him the rest of your life. Because you still love me. If I'm the only man who will ever make you happy, how can I possibly deny you that happiness? I was asked a question once… what use are emotions if-"
"If you won't save the woman you love," Rose finished for him, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears and Jack wished that he could be anywhere but in this room right now, though they were too caught up in each other to pay attention to him or Martha. "Doctor… I said that I was happy without you. I was. I will be, again."
"You were lying," the Doctor said, gently. His hand lifted up, as if to touch her again, but she pulled back and the Doctor curled his hand into a fist and let it drop. "We both knew it. Your… boyfriend… did he know about me?"
"The first time he ever asked me out on a date, I said no. When he asked me why… I don't think he expected me to answer, but I said that I'd lost the man I loved and wasn't looking to replace him. Yeah, he knew," Rose said. "I did fall in love with him, Doctor. I didn't lie about that."
"You wore my key around your neck," the Doctor said - and Jack could see it now, Rose's key lying on the outside of her shirt, the light from the console glinting off it. "You never stopped looking for a way back to me. You said that. You may have cared about this other man in a shallow and human way… but you knew where you belonged. Where you were meant to be."
"I am human, Doctor. I only know how to love in a shallow, human way," Rose said, her voice lifting and sharpening. "I'm not just human when you're angry with me. I'm human all the time. I don't love you like one Time Lord loves another, with just her mind. I love you like a human, with everything that goes along with that. I'm sorry if human love isn't good enough for you, because it's all I've got on offer."
Rose was nearly panting with frustration and the Doctor was practically quivering. With anyone else, Jack would be expecting angry sex up against a wall at this point, but with these two, he had no idea what would happen next.
"You think that I love just your mind?" the Doctor asked, the words a challenge. "I told you were beautiful once, remember?"
"Oh, yes, 'considering that I'm human', I do recall," Rose said and her old accent was rising up now to choke her words. "It's not exactly the best compliment in the world, now is it?"
"I'd never found a human so attractive before! It was fairly new. Pardon me if I was a bit surprised. Besides, you always had Mister Mickey to fall back on, so it's not like you were starved for affection."
"Oh, are we still going on about Mickey? Has that been bothering you? Have you been lying awake in your bed, wondering whether or not we might be shagging at that very moment?" Rose took a few steps forward, crowding the Doctor up against the console.
"Well, it's not as though you ever really broke up with him," the Doctor said, not backing up an inch and as bitter and harsh as Jack had ever heard him sound. Jack saw Martha wince and cover her eyes. He fought the urge to do the same. Even with the universe in the balance, he was seriously considering sneaking out of the room until the yelling was over. "There I was, brand-new and all for you, and you were still kissing him hello and goodbye. Like nothing I'd done, which included saving you from the Daleks and, oh, yes, dying for you… like none of that mattered. No, I can't possibly see why that would bother me."
"All for me? All for me?" Rose's voice was reaching pitches that Jack had never heard out of her before. "What about Reinette bloody Poisson? Remember her? 'France is a different planet' - remember that?"
"She didn't mean anything!" the Doctor shouted, his arms flailing out wildly, though Jack noticed that, despite how close they were standing, Rose wasn't in any danger of getting accidentally hit.
"Neither did Mickey!" The moment after the words rushed out, Rose took a step back from the Doctor and clapped a hand over her mouth, looking sick. "I didn't mean that. I didn't. I love Mickey. I've loved Mickey all my life."
The Doctor, on the other hand, was looking positively gleeful. Jack had never found him less attractive.
"Didn't mean anything?" His voice was smug in a way that made Jack want to punch him in the nose. "And when… do you think… did that happen for you? After I changed or… was it before? When was the last kiss with Mickey that you really meant?"
"That's none of your business," Rose said faintly, still looking like she wanted to throw up. She took a slow, deep breath and Jack saw the Doctor's face fall a bit. "Mickey and I… we were friends in the parallel world, Doctor. Just friends. And… you never needed to be jealous of him."
"You didn't need to be jealous, either," the Doctor said, his smugness having faded to normal background levels. "Not of Reinette and not of Sarah Jane or Kelly or Helen or Cleo or… or Christy or-"
"Lucy?" Rose suggested, offering up a wobbly smile.
"Or Lucy," he agreed, and his expression was rueful now, that ugly superiority gone. "When I first opened my eyes after regenerating, you were there with me… I can remember thinking that I wanted to hold your hand for the rest of my life. No one will ever replace you, Rose. No one could ever replace you. You don't need to worry about that."
Rose's smile widened and the Doctor smiled back at her, both of them so full of relief, and… this could last a while, if they just let it happen and there was currently something of a crisis, so Jack should interrupt them. As soon as he was certain that the Doctor wouldn't murder him for it.
"So, we need to find another solution," Martha said, and Jack could have kissed her. "We need a plan that will let Rose stay here with all of us. Doctor - you are the smartest man that I have ever met. You'll think of something better than hiding in the TARDIS and hoping that the bad things will go away."
"That's just it," the Doctor said, glancing over at Jack. "I know that there has to be another way, but I can't… I can't think of one."
"What makes you so certain?" Jack asked.
"It's simple," the Doctor said. "Rose, do you hate me? Do you want me suffer horrible agonizing pain?"
"Not at the moment," Rose said. "If you'd asked five minutes ago, it might have been a different answer."
"There you have it," the Doctor said, as if everything had been explained.
"There you have… what?" Martha asked.
"There was this… thing… this phrase that followed Rose and me around for… probably longer than we actually noticed," the Doctor said. Jack's breath caught in his throat and he wondered-
"Bad wolf?" Martha asked. Cardiff - that first time in Cardiff, the Doctor had pointed that phrase out and wondered if it meant anything.
"You were paying attention. Earlier. When I was hugging Rose..." The Doctor paused, his expression hovering in an amusing mix of pride and self-consciousness. "You know, that was a bit of a personal moment."
"Believe me, I would be much happier if you two would start having your personal moments in private," Martha said. "As it is, I can't avoid them."
"That's… a good point. Anyway… it turned out that 'Bad Wolf' was actually a code that Rose retroactively planted in our timeline to guide herself to becoming powerful enough to scatter it in the first place."
"That makes my head hurt," Martha said, but she had a sparkle in her eye.
"Well, the point is… Bad Wolf is what led Rose to this universe. To bring her here just to have her pulled away again - this time knowing for certain that she'll always love me and never be truly happy without me - that would be torture. Rose wouldn't do that to me." The Doctor shrugged. "So, you see, there must be another way out of this. But I can't see it."
"You know, if you'd just told us all this up-front, we could have avoided a lot of argument," Jack pointed out. The Doctor opened his mouth and Jack cut him off. "I know… you were hoping that you wouldn't need to tell us at all. But we're your friends, Doctor, and we want to be able to help you when we can."
"Could Rose open up the TARDIS again?" Martha suggested.
"That's not happening," the Doctor said, firmly.
"Why not?" Martha asked.
"Looking into the Time Vortex is incredibly dangerous," he said. "She shouldn't have survived it the first time. If I'd been there… well, I wasn't and that was precisely why she did it. In any case, it's completely out of the question. I won't put Rose at risk."
"And I get no choice?" Rose asked. "It's my life, Doctor, if I decide to risk it."
"I have bent enough to say that you can face any danger that I would face," the Doctor said, and Jack could see his hands trembling, though his voice stayed level. "Don't ask me to let you do something that I wouldn't dare do myself. If you died because of my ship, I would never forgive myself."
"It really scares you that much?" Rose asked, glancing up to meet the Doctor's eyes. The Doctor closed the distance between them, wrapping his hands around her shoulders and leaning in to whisper something to her, the words too quiet for Jack to hear. Rose was nodding and she'd closed her eyes, her body leaning in toward the Doctor's.
Jack looked over at Martha, who'd tilted her head and was staring at the Doctor and Rose with an intent look. He went over to find out what she was thinking.
"Have you come up with something?" he asked her. She nodded carefully, reaching up to undo the necklace that hung around her neck.
"Yeah - can you give this to the Doctor?" she asked, the heart-shaped pendant on it pressing into his palm when she handed it to him. "Right now. He'll know what to do with it."
"What is it?" Jack asked, holding it up and trying to see what made it so special. It just looked like an ordinary, though pretty, necklace to him.
"He'll know," Martha said, with a reassuring smile.
Jack made his way over to the Doctor and Rose, who were standing right up against the railing. As he got closer, he could hear the sounds of their soft conversation. Just before he would have been able to make out individual words, Rose glanced up and acknowledged him with a slightly watery smile.
"Have you two thought up another option?" Rose asked. Jack was pleased to meet the hope in her voice with a bright grin. He dangled Martha's necklace from his hand.
"Martha seemed to think that this might help," Jack said. The Doctor took it from him, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion.
"There's nothing unique about this necklace," the Doctor said, hauling out his sonic screwdriver and frowning as he waved it. "It's not an alien device in disguise, secretly advanced technology, or anything that would-"
The Doctor broke off as he looked off over Jack's shoulder. Jack turned to see Martha standing at the console, feeling underneath for something.
"Rose said the trick was to know - to absolutely know - what it is that you want," Martha said, not looking back at them.
"Martha, don't-" the Doctor said, pushing past Jack.
The Doctor was just a step away from her when the panel that Martha was standing at flipped up, the same way that it had with Blon all those years ago, and the room flooded with blinding light.
Part Eight