Familiar Stranger (1/3) Spoilers, Post JE Rating G
AUTHOR:
sensiblecat
WORDS: 4358
CREDITS: Picture by
teasemetoo
Thank you to
wendymr for beta work
CHARACTERS: Everyone who was in the TARDIS in Journey's End.
The Companions have just saved the whole of creation. But that was a walk in the park compared to saving the Doctor.
CHAPTER ONE - Bananas and Pears
If I could reconcile it with my duty, I should unhesitatingly award her to myself, for I can conscientiously say that I know no man who is so well fitted to render her exceptionally happy.
The Lord Chancellor, Iolanthe by WS Gilbert
“Home,” said Jack, in his best B Movie voice. “Thank God it’s still here.”
Indeed it was. A beautiful Sunday morning - sun shining, bells ringing, birds chirping, kids in the park playing football like nothing had happened. He’d done it again, Rose thought. Or they’d done it again. Six humans, two Time Lords - or was that two and a half Time Lords, five and a half humans?
Her brain was ready to explode with it all. Maybe a Time Lord brain could handle it, but she couldn’t. Just having two Doctors in the same place was too much; it was almost a relief that the one in brown - her Doctor - had gone out to say goodbye to Sarah Jane. Although she was reluctant to let him out of her sight, without quite being able to figure out why. He wasn’t going anywhere, was he? Not with her back in his life. Why should he? That would be as daft as him regenerating when he didn’t need to. Everything was going to be fine, wasn’t it?
The remaining Doctor said, “Don’t know about you lot, but I’m starving!” He headed for the kitchen and returned with a fruit bowl. “Too much healthy food on this ship,” he complained.
“There’s bananas. One healthy thing you like,” Rose pointed out.
He scowled. “Can’t stand the things.” He bit into a pear and Rose heard Martha gasp.
“What’s wrong with pears?” he demanded, his mouth full. “Good source of Vitamin C. Always carry a couple of pears in your pocket.”
“But you hate pears,” Martha protested.
He shook his head. “No, he hates pears. I hate bananas.”
“Then you can’t be him, can you?” Jackie pointed out. “First thing he ever went for in the fruit bowl. Always complained if I didn’t have a few in. Not that he ever told me when he was coming, of course…”
“I can’t stand bananas, either,” Donna pointed out. “You’re sort of him with bits of me scattered through, aren’t you?”
“Yep. Like sugar sprinkles on a fairy cake.”
“Oh, thanks a lot!” Donna folded her arms and glared at him.
The Doctor wiped juice from his lips. “I’m not him,” he agreed, solemnly. “Weelll…” He paced around the room scratching at his hair, and Rose immediately found it impossible to believe he was anyone else. Would she ever get her head around all this?
“You look like him,” she pointed out. “More than look like him. Every little thing you do, it’s just so…” She stopped and giggled awkwardly.
“Except the bananas,” he pointed out, mouth full, stabbing a finger at her.
“D’you still like tea?” she asked. “Three sugars? Cup with Bagpuss on, third from the right on the top shelf?”
“Bagpuss?” He looked up, sucking in his lip, and frowned. “Draw the line at that, I think. I’m more a Clangers man this time around. Can’t beat a good Soup Dragon. What d’you think of the suit, by the way?”
Rose hesitated. “Do I have to tell you that?” she asked.
“Well, it helps us tell them apart,” Jackie pointed out. “But, honestly, changing into a whole new man was bad enough - she cried her eyes out that Christmas.”
“I know,” he said, regretfully. “I was there. But Rose-” Hesitantly, he took her hand. “This is that last time I’ll change. My body’s human now. Do you understand what that really means?”
“You’ll grow old, just like me?” Rose asked. “You won’t have to watch me wither and die and all that stuff?”
“Nope,” he said, sticking his chin a little in the air and waiting for her response. He did that when he was a bit worried, she remembered. As if it put him, just a bit, in control of the situation, where he liked to be.
“But aren’t you still a Time Lord?” Martha asked.
“See, that’s the interesting thing,” he said. “Physically, no. Only one heart.” He shuddered. “Don’t know if I’ll ever feel quite safe with that. And bodies…see, bodies are complicated. They affect the mind. Stuff like…” For the first time in Rose’s memory, he looked at her in a way that made her cheeks heat up.
“Never quite felt this way before,” he confessed. “Sorry, humans don’t discuss that in public, do they?”
“Depends,” said Jack.
“Do we really have time for this?” Martha asked, rolling her eyes with a cheeky smile.
“Nope.” He swung back to the controls and tapped his fingers around them, as if debating what lever to press.
“Oh well,” said Jackie. “You seem to be a lot more cheerful than the other Doctor, anyway. God, he could be moody sometimes.”
“He’d been through a lot, Mum,” Rose pointed out, resisting the urge to be irritated. Mum wouldn’t be around for much longer, and she’d rather not waste time bickering.
“I’d been through a lot,” the Doctor corrected her. He sighed, then lifted his head and looked at Jackie. “Lost my planet, Jackie. All of it - my people, everything.” Jackie went awkwardly quiet; even she could sense that they were treading delicate ground. “And d’you know how that happened?”
“Don’t,” said Rose, moving towards him. Remembering the times that veil had lifted, like the moment when the Beast had called him “Killer of your own kind”. The way he’d reacted - a pause, a straightening of the spine and a silent, final refusal to acknowledge what had just been said to anyone, herself included. She wondered if he’d known that that was the moment she pieced together the truth about him, and loved him with a new compassion because of it.
Then today there’d been Davros, with his, “You have murdered thousands.” Breaking him before her eyes, and she couldn’t say a word in his defence because it would have revealed her loyalty to him, and been yet another knife for the old monster to twist in his guts. It was one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do.
At least this Doctor hadn’t had to listen to Davros as well as massacring the Daleks. They must be diverging already.
The Doctor breathed deeply and then he said, “Some things just have to be done. And it’s better not to think too much. What was I supposed to do back there, stand there and let ‘em take over the universe? And it’s obvious what was going on with Davros. Trying to load me with guilt, paralyse me, convince me I’m the same as him.” His face creased up a little at that. Rose wondered if another similarity between them was the way they tried to laugh off terribly important issues.
“No,” he agreed. “That hurts. But I think, maybe, it hurts me less than him.”
“So you’re not the same?” Mickey ventured.
“Not quite.” Eyes averted once more, he drummed on the dashboard. “It’s the Donna effect, see. Got a bit of her when I was created. Remember Pompeii, Donna? When we had to push that button and make Vesuvius happen? You were there with me - him? No, me, definitely me. And you taught me something very important.”
Donna smiled hesitantly; blink and you’d have missed it. “Just save someone?”
“That as well.” He looked at Donna. Rose could see the love in his eyes as he did so. “But mainly, like I said before, there’s time’s when it’s better not to think too much. You can’t always do the perfect thing, only the least worst under the circumstances.”
Donna Noble, I think I love you, Rose thought.
“Hallelujah!” Jack exclaimed. “At last, someone gets through!”
“But have we got through to him?” Rose jerked her head towards the TARDIS door. “He’ll be back in here any minute.”
Then Jack said, “Then I think we’re gonna need a plan. Fast.”
Rose felt uneasy for the first time. It hadn’t occurred to her that anyone, least of all her Doctor, would question her right to be here. He’d run down that street towards her as if he’d seen water after years in the desert. His face had lit up with joy and disbelief. They’d fallen right back into their old rapport as if they’d never been apart. Him, her, the TARDIS. Everything was back where it should be.
Jack was still looking at her. “C’mon, Rose. He’ll be in here in a few minutes, giving us some hogwash about the gaps being about to close and he’ll whisk you all back to that parallel world before you know what’s hit you.”
“Not only that,” Donna added. “He’ll drop you at Bad Wolf Bay, so you’re upset and you can’t think clearly.”
“He’d better not!” Jackie exclaimed. “Miles from anywhere! Does he have any idea how long it takes to get a plane out there? We won’t even have the jeep!”
“But, why?” Rose asked, looking around at them all in disbelief. “Apart from taking Mum back, of course? What are you saying - that he’d lie to me?”
“Like he’s never done that before?” Mickey challenged her.
“No!” But she’d no sooner said the word than she looked at Jack, who was supposed to be dead. She’d seen a Dalek kill him. The Doctor couldn’t get her away fast enough. Every time Jack had been anywhere near her, even allowing for the dangerous circumstances, end of the universe and all that, he’d been as jumpy as a cat on hot bricks. Wouldn’t look at her. Wouldn’t leave the two of them alone together, even for a brief greeting.
“He lied to you about me,” Jack said, confirming her fears. “Rose, how old d’you think I am?”
She was flustered, her breaths coming quick and shallow, raising her hands to her forehead as she tried to make sense of it all. “I don’t know! You used to travel in time - you could be sixty for all I know. Why?”
Jack folded his arms and looked straight at her. “I’m over a hundred and forty years old.”
“You can’t be!”
“He is,” said Martha. “Jack didn’t die back there in the Crucible because he can’t die. Or rather, he can’t stay dead. I was there when the Doctor met him again, right at the end of the universe. See, the Doctor ran out on him back at the Game Station. And that’s not all. All that time, Jack waited in Cardiff for the timelines to intersect so he could see the Doctor again.”
“No way!” Donna protested.
Rose looked into the other Doctor’s eyes, dismayed. “Is that true?” she asked.
He was silent for a minute. That told her what she had to know. Then he said, “When you came back to the Game Station, you looked into the Heart of the TARDIS. You were filled with the power of the Time Vortex itself. You were creator and destroyer. You could raise the dead. You made Jack a fixed point in time, the man who can never die.”
“No!” Rose cried in horror, clutching her forehead. “The Doctor - I mean you - you wouldn’t just leave Jack. He said…he told me…”
The Doctor finished the sentence. “That Jack was busy rebuilding the world? That bit was true. What I didn’t say was that I was terrified of what you’d unleashed. Everything about Jack repelled me - sorry, I know that’s harsh, but it’s true. I’m a Time Lord, and a fixed point in time, that’s just wrong.”
“You never said that to him, surely!” Rose was horrified.
He looked uneasy. “Rose, I’m sorry, but I did. It says a lot for Jack that he’s here right now, with us.”
Jack shrugged, though Rose saw the pain lurking in his eyes.
“You have changed,” Martha remarked. “I couldn’t believe how callous you were to him back on that planet at the end of the universe. You just didn’t seem to get him.”
“And is that ‘cos you’ve changed?” Rose asked. “Or are you a different person?”
“Nature or nurture?” queried Donna. “The old debate, isn’t it? This symbiotic biological matrix…” She tossed her head as she spoke - Rose felt she couldn’t quite believe such words were coming from her lips. “It means we’re connected. Sorry, we are. He’s got bits of me, I’ve bits of him.”
“And what happens if we split you up?” Martha queried.
“Dunno,” said the Doctor. “I mean, you could just mindwipe Donna, reset the clock so she didn’t know anything about all this. You can’t just leave a Time Lord mind in a human brain, it’d probably kill her or drive her insane.”
“You’re not mindwiping me, sunshine!” Donna bellowed.
“Then you’ll probably have to put up with me sticking around.” The Doctor sat down on the jump seat and grinned winningly at them all.
“Both of you?” asked Mickey, sceptically.
“Well, that’s not gonna work, is it?” Jackie said. “And I ought to be getting back, it’s all very well this metapsychic philatelical stuff…”
“Tell me how this Donna thing works,” said Rose, looking at the Doctor.
“Simple. We need each other. Donna will burn up unless the two of us stay together through the adjustment period and we handle it very carefully. There’s only one alternative to that; to take away her memories of me completely, return her to the point before she met me or saw the TARDIS. Now, assuming you think that’s acceptable - which I don’t-” he added rapidly, seeing Donna’s expression, “that means I take all the human stuff into me. A rather neat solution.”
“Not for poor Donna!” cried Rose.
“I’ll poor Donna you!” Donna exclaimed. “Besides, what about all the people who know me now? You lot and Mum, and Gramps. You’d have to ask them to lie to me for the rest of my life.”
Rose looked at Jack. It wasn’t a comfortable moment. She’d expected him to be as shocked as she felt, but instead he glanced away, his eyes impassive, only a little frown revealing how often he’d probably had to do things like that.
Donna hadn’t finished yet. “I could just go back, couldn’t I? I don’t mean to the old me, I mean to the new but human one. God, it’s so complicated! Three Time Lords around the place, sounds like too much of a good thing, to me. Why can’t you and me share it out between ourselves?” She was looking at the Doctor. “Maybe if I sort of grew into it, bit by bit, I’d be okay. I’m not even sure I want to become another species overnight. It’s not all bad being human.”
“In your case, it’s wonderful.” The Doctor smiled warmly at her. “I’d much rather see you change at your own pace than have another biology imposed on you. I don’t just want you to become like me. I learned from you, Donna. I want to keep doing that. And the thought of you going back to that woman who thought the height of excitement was a new flavour of Pringles just breaks my heart.” He stopped and changed tack. “Heart. Singular. Ooh, that sounded weird.”
“Yeah, well,” murmured Donna, looking shy for the first time.
“You wouldn’t really do that,” Rose almost pleaded. “Would you?”
“Only as a last resort. And we ought to discuss it while Donna’s in a fit state to express her wishes. If we wait for the metacrisis to begin to unravel, things could deteriorate very quickly. Then it might be a case of taking away her memories to save her life.”
Donna’s eyes filled with tears. “I think I’d rather die! To have all that wonderful stuff I’ve done and seen and learned, just gone…” She looked at Martha. “You warned me, didn’t you? You told me that being with him changes you.”
Martha nodded, silently.
“You know what Sarah Jane once said?” said Rose. “That some things are worth getting your heart broken for. And it’s your life. Your choice. Nobody ought to make it for you.”
“Let them try!”
“Donna, look at me.” The Doctor moved towards her and put his hands on her shoulders. “In your own way, you saved me every bit as much as Rose did before you…and Martha saved-” Rose saw him stop abruptly. There was an untold story there, one shared by Jack if the look on his face was anything to go by. “You all saved me,” he went on. “And I didn’t always say thank you. Or hang around to help you cope with the implications of that. But I want to now. I owe you that, Donna. We all do. And I really believe, if we all pull together, we can keep you with us and keep you safe.”
“Promise?” Donna asked.
He nodded solemnly. “Promise. Unless your life’s in imminent danger, and even then with your consent, if at all possible. If I didn’t say that, I couldn’t look your family in the face.”
“Well, that should be okay, shouldn’t it?” Rose looked around at everybody. “Bit complicated, specially if it has to be this Doctor that helps Donna and it can’t be my…the other one, I mean.” She grinned. “But we’ll work it out - won’t we?”
“Except,” said Jack, looking rather grim, “our old friend in the brown suit probably already has a game plan thought up. One that makes him feel he’s done the right thing for everybody. Tears him apart, of course, but he thinks he deserves that. And as for Donna, he’ll manage to convince himself it’s the only way to save her and conveniently ignore the alternatives. After all, they are rather complicated.”
“What plan’s that?” Rose began to feel apprehensive.
“Well, it’s obvious,” the Doctor pointed out. “I’ve a human lifespan now. I’ll age. Apart from that, and the odd bit of Donna, I’m him. Same memories. Same habits, same dreams. I could spend the rest of my life with you, Rose. And you could spend yours with me.” Then he bobbed his head and gave her the one-sided little smile she remembered so well. “Happy ending.”
“Not for him!” Rose protested. “He ends up on his own and he’s had to watch me go off with someone who looks exactly like him! It doesn’t get much worse than that!”
“Well, he’s used to it,” said Jackie. “He must have known it was never gonna work, you and him. He tried to warn you all those years ago at Bad Wolf Bay. Couldn’t even say the words.”
“And can you?” asked Rose, looking at the Doctor.
“Do I have to say it?” he asked.
“Yes. I think you do.”
He looked at her very directly. She saw every bit of longing and joy in his face that she’d ever seen in the original Doctor’s. The difference, though, was when he spoke.
He breathed in deeply. “Okay. Rose Tyler, I love you. I’ve only got one life now, and I’d like to spend it with you. If you’ll have me.”
Wow. It had taken him years, but he’d actually said it. Rose wondered if she ought to mark the occasion. Snog him senseless, or something? Didn’t seem right just to leave him standing there. But she couldn’t, not quite. Not with the other one outside, trying to carry all the pain involved and leave her with the good bits, the way he always did.
Even if there wasn’t another Doctor to factor in now, it was harder than she’d imagined it would be to just come back and carry on the way they had before. They’d both been through stuff, so much stuff, and it changed you. There were things he was keeping to himself - Jack, for instance, and whatever had happened with Martha. Rose had a feeling that relationship hadn’t been an easy one. Oh, he still loved her - Rose, that was - to bits. She’d seen the way he’d run to her along that wrecked street last night. But he was holding back. He was preparing to lose her all over again, something that would hurt him so much he might even wish she’d stayed away.
“Gonna just stand there, are you?” Donna asked.
“You could at least kiss the bloke,” her mother complained.
Rose shook her head. “I can’t, Mum. Not yet.” She looked at the Doctor. “I’m not saying never. And of course - well - oh, you know, don’t you?”
“Oh, Rose,” he said, softly, in a voice soaked through with happiness. “Yes, I know. And you didn’t need to say it, either.” Then a smile broke through and they ended up hugging the life out of one another. “But I’m awfully glad you did.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she said, wretchedly. “Whatever I do, someone’s going to get hurt.”
“We’ll work something out,” he promised her. “And I’m not just saying that, I promise. It might be a bit messy and there’s no guarantees that nobody will shed a tear, but at least we’ll try.”
Rose rested her head against him. “You feel different. Not as cold. And that one heart…it’s just weird.” Cautiously, she placed her hand against his chest. “I can’t get over this feeling you’re gonna keel over and die any minute.”
“Martha’s very efficient at resuscitating me,” he reassured her. And he winked at his former companion. “Ba-ba-boom-bah!”
“Ba-ba-boom-bah!” She gave him the thumbs-up and laughed.
The Doctor still had an arm folded round her. It felt wonderful. He gave her their particular smile and chuckled as he squeezed her. “You said that hand gave you the creeps. Remember?”
“You really remember that?”
“I remember all of it, Rose. And it’s not like it happened to someone else. I remember how it made me feel, and all the things I longed to say and never could.”
“Why not?”
He sighed. “Oh, that’s a complicated one. Mind if we leave it for now?”
“Please don’t ask me to choose,” she said. “I can’t. Not yet. You will, though, won’t you? You’ll tell me that the gap’s gonna close in twenty minutes and it’s now or never. And I don’t think I could bear that.”
“No, that’s the other one’s trick,” Donna said. She moved to the controls. “See this schematic? There’s loads of gaps. The barrier won’t settle down for weeks. And don’t worry, Mrs T, there’s no need to drop you off in the middle of Norway. Door to door taxi service, that’s us.”
“Hang on a mo,” said Mickey. “There’s only one TARDIS. That’s never gonna work, no way.”
“Don’t be such a defeatist,” said Martha. “We all managed to work together getting the Earth back home. In fact, the TARDIS was flying better than I’ve ever known. They’re meant to have more than one Time Lord.”
“I’ve a bit of coral back at the ranch,” Jack offered. “You could have that and start off a new one.”
Rose recalled the glimpses of Torchwood and his team that she’d seen throughout the day’s events, the attractive woman descended from Gwyneth and the reserved young man that she strongly suspected was more than a friend to Jack.
“I don’t want to go home without seeing Torchwood,” she said. “And I never thought I’d hear myself say that.”
“Way to go!” Jack said, embracing her. “Torchwood isn’t all the same. T3 - the Cardiff branch - always was a bit of a law unto itself. Been associated with them since the 90s - the 1890s that is. Boy, you should have seen me in one of those old frock coats; you’d have been putty in my hands. And post-Canary Wharf - well, lessons were learned.”
“And we could talk,” the Doctor added. “Really talk, I mean.”
“You have changed,” said Martha.
“That’s all very well,” Jackie said, “But all this isn’t getting me home, and I’ve a little boy to get back to.”
“I remember,” agreed the Doctor. “What did you call him?”
“Doctor,” said Jackie. She let him struggle with that and then laughed and thumped him. “No, we called him Tony. Pete’s on nursery duty. He’ll be worried sick about me.”
“You didn’t have to come,” Rose pointed out.
“Don’t be silly, course I did! I wasn’t gonna leave you to do all that. I thought I might never see you again.”
“If we wait until he comes back in, most of us won’t ever see each other again,” Martha pointed out. “I think Jack’s right. I’ve seen how ruthless he can be. Donna, brain-wiped, Jack dumped home before anybody has the time to talk, and you two paired off at Bad Wolf Bay, like or lump it. He won’t even hang around to say goodbye. It’ll hurt him too much.”
“You really think he’ll do all that?” Rose didn’t need to ask, not really.
“No,” the Doctor declared. “Because I’m going to stop him.”
Then, with a lightning-movement, he kicked off the handbrake and the TARDIS groaned into life.
“Allons-y!” he cried, gleefully.
“You stole the TARDIS!” Martha exclaimed.
“Not the first time,” he said cheerfully. “Besides, you can’t steal something that’s already yours, can you? We’ll just pop home with you, Jackie. Don’t worry, we’ll leave you right outside your front door and you’ll get the chance to say all the goodbyes you want. And that’ll give us time to implement my brilliantly clever plan.”
Rose cheered and threw her arms around him again.
“Oi, you!” said Donna. “That’s my symbiotic biological metacrisis twin you’re hitting on there!”
“Call that a crisis?” Jack said. “That’s nothing to the look there’ll be on his face when he sees the TARDIS disappear. Mind if I join the party?”
“He can always snap his fingers,” said Donna. “See if that works.”
Jack grinned at Rose.
“What goes around tends to come around,” he said.
She smiled back.
sensiblecat
WORDS: 4358
CREDITS: Picture by
teasemetoo
Thank you to
wendymr for beta work
CHARACTERS: Everyone who was in the TARDIS in Journey's End.
The Companions have just saved the whole of creation. But that was a walk in the park compared to saving the Doctor.
CHAPTER ONE - Bananas and Pears
If I could reconcile it with my duty, I should unhesitatingly award her to myself, for I can conscientiously say that I know no man who is so well fitted to render her exceptionally happy.
The Lord Chancellor, Iolanthe by WS Gilbert
“Home,” said Jack, in his best B Movie voice. “Thank God it’s still here.”
Indeed it was. A beautiful Sunday morning - sun shining, bells ringing, birds chirping, kids in the park playing football like nothing had happened. He’d done it again, Rose thought. Or they’d done it again. Six humans, two Time Lords - or was that two and a half Time Lords, five and a half humans?
Her brain was ready to explode with it all. Maybe a Time Lord brain could handle it, but she couldn’t. Just having two Doctors in the same place was too much; it was almost a relief that the one in brown - her Doctor - had gone out to say goodbye to Sarah Jane. Although she was reluctant to let him out of her sight, without quite being able to figure out why. He wasn’t going anywhere, was he? Not with her back in his life. Why should he? That would be as daft as him regenerating when he didn’t need to. Everything was going to be fine, wasn’t it?
The remaining Doctor said, “Don’t know about you lot, but I’m starving!” He headed for the kitchen and returned with a fruit bowl. “Too much healthy food on this ship,” he complained.
“There’s bananas. One healthy thing you like,” Rose pointed out.
He scowled. “Can’t stand the things.” He bit into a pear and Rose heard Martha gasp.
“What’s wrong with pears?” he demanded, his mouth full. “Good source of Vitamin C. Always carry a couple of pears in your pocket.”
“But you hate pears,” Martha protested.
He shook his head. “No, he hates pears. I hate bananas.”
“Then you can’t be him, can you?” Jackie pointed out. “First thing he ever went for in the fruit bowl. Always complained if I didn’t have a few in. Not that he ever told me when he was coming, of course…”
“I can’t stand bananas, either,” Donna pointed out. “You’re sort of him with bits of me scattered through, aren’t you?”
“Yep. Like sugar sprinkles on a fairy cake.”
“Oh, thanks a lot!” Donna folded her arms and glared at him.
The Doctor wiped juice from his lips. “I’m not him,” he agreed, solemnly. “Weelll…” He paced around the room scratching at his hair, and Rose immediately found it impossible to believe he was anyone else. Would she ever get her head around all this?
“You look like him,” she pointed out. “More than look like him. Every little thing you do, it’s just so…” She stopped and giggled awkwardly.
“Except the bananas,” he pointed out, mouth full, stabbing a finger at her.
“D’you still like tea?” she asked. “Three sugars? Cup with Bagpuss on, third from the right on the top shelf?”
“Bagpuss?” He looked up, sucking in his lip, and frowned. “Draw the line at that, I think. I’m more a Clangers man this time around. Can’t beat a good Soup Dragon. What d’you think of the suit, by the way?”
Rose hesitated. “Do I have to tell you that?” she asked.
“Well, it helps us tell them apart,” Jackie pointed out. “But, honestly, changing into a whole new man was bad enough - she cried her eyes out that Christmas.”
“I know,” he said, regretfully. “I was there. But Rose-” Hesitantly, he took her hand. “This is that last time I’ll change. My body’s human now. Do you understand what that really means?”
“You’ll grow old, just like me?” Rose asked. “You won’t have to watch me wither and die and all that stuff?”
“Nope,” he said, sticking his chin a little in the air and waiting for her response. He did that when he was a bit worried, she remembered. As if it put him, just a bit, in control of the situation, where he liked to be.
“But aren’t you still a Time Lord?” Martha asked.
“See, that’s the interesting thing,” he said. “Physically, no. Only one heart.” He shuddered. “Don’t know if I’ll ever feel quite safe with that. And bodies…see, bodies are complicated. They affect the mind. Stuff like…” For the first time in Rose’s memory, he looked at her in a way that made her cheeks heat up.
“Never quite felt this way before,” he confessed. “Sorry, humans don’t discuss that in public, do they?”
“Depends,” said Jack.
“Do we really have time for this?” Martha asked, rolling her eyes with a cheeky smile.
“Nope.” He swung back to the controls and tapped his fingers around them, as if debating what lever to press.
“Oh well,” said Jackie. “You seem to be a lot more cheerful than the other Doctor, anyway. God, he could be moody sometimes.”
“He’d been through a lot, Mum,” Rose pointed out, resisting the urge to be irritated. Mum wouldn’t be around for much longer, and she’d rather not waste time bickering.
“I’d been through a lot,” the Doctor corrected her. He sighed, then lifted his head and looked at Jackie. “Lost my planet, Jackie. All of it - my people, everything.” Jackie went awkwardly quiet; even she could sense that they were treading delicate ground. “And d’you know how that happened?”
“Don’t,” said Rose, moving towards him. Remembering the times that veil had lifted, like the moment when the Beast had called him “Killer of your own kind”. The way he’d reacted - a pause, a straightening of the spine and a silent, final refusal to acknowledge what had just been said to anyone, herself included. She wondered if he’d known that that was the moment she pieced together the truth about him, and loved him with a new compassion because of it.
Then today there’d been Davros, with his, “You have murdered thousands.” Breaking him before her eyes, and she couldn’t say a word in his defence because it would have revealed her loyalty to him, and been yet another knife for the old monster to twist in his guts. It was one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do.
At least this Doctor hadn’t had to listen to Davros as well as massacring the Daleks. They must be diverging already.
The Doctor breathed deeply and then he said, “Some things just have to be done. And it’s better not to think too much. What was I supposed to do back there, stand there and let ‘em take over the universe? And it’s obvious what was going on with Davros. Trying to load me with guilt, paralyse me, convince me I’m the same as him.” His face creased up a little at that. Rose wondered if another similarity between them was the way they tried to laugh off terribly important issues.
“No,” he agreed. “That hurts. But I think, maybe, it hurts me less than him.”
“So you’re not the same?” Mickey ventured.
“Not quite.” Eyes averted once more, he drummed on the dashboard. “It’s the Donna effect, see. Got a bit of her when I was created. Remember Pompeii, Donna? When we had to push that button and make Vesuvius happen? You were there with me - him? No, me, definitely me. And you taught me something very important.”
Donna smiled hesitantly; blink and you’d have missed it. “Just save someone?”
“That as well.” He looked at Donna. Rose could see the love in his eyes as he did so. “But mainly, like I said before, there’s time’s when it’s better not to think too much. You can’t always do the perfect thing, only the least worst under the circumstances.”
Donna Noble, I think I love you, Rose thought.
“Hallelujah!” Jack exclaimed. “At last, someone gets through!”
“But have we got through to him?” Rose jerked her head towards the TARDIS door. “He’ll be back in here any minute.”
Then Jack said, “Then I think we’re gonna need a plan. Fast.”
Rose felt uneasy for the first time. It hadn’t occurred to her that anyone, least of all her Doctor, would question her right to be here. He’d run down that street towards her as if he’d seen water after years in the desert. His face had lit up with joy and disbelief. They’d fallen right back into their old rapport as if they’d never been apart. Him, her, the TARDIS. Everything was back where it should be.
Jack was still looking at her. “C’mon, Rose. He’ll be in here in a few minutes, giving us some hogwash about the gaps being about to close and he’ll whisk you all back to that parallel world before you know what’s hit you.”
“Not only that,” Donna added. “He’ll drop you at Bad Wolf Bay, so you’re upset and you can’t think clearly.”
“He’d better not!” Jackie exclaimed. “Miles from anywhere! Does he have any idea how long it takes to get a plane out there? We won’t even have the jeep!”
“But, why?” Rose asked, looking around at them all in disbelief. “Apart from taking Mum back, of course? What are you saying - that he’d lie to me?”
“Like he’s never done that before?” Mickey challenged her.
“No!” But she’d no sooner said the word than she looked at Jack, who was supposed to be dead. She’d seen a Dalek kill him. The Doctor couldn’t get her away fast enough. Every time Jack had been anywhere near her, even allowing for the dangerous circumstances, end of the universe and all that, he’d been as jumpy as a cat on hot bricks. Wouldn’t look at her. Wouldn’t leave the two of them alone together, even for a brief greeting.
“He lied to you about me,” Jack said, confirming her fears. “Rose, how old d’you think I am?”
She was flustered, her breaths coming quick and shallow, raising her hands to her forehead as she tried to make sense of it all. “I don’t know! You used to travel in time - you could be sixty for all I know. Why?”
Jack folded his arms and looked straight at her. “I’m over a hundred and forty years old.”
“You can’t be!”
“He is,” said Martha. “Jack didn’t die back there in the Crucible because he can’t die. Or rather, he can’t stay dead. I was there when the Doctor met him again, right at the end of the universe. See, the Doctor ran out on him back at the Game Station. And that’s not all. All that time, Jack waited in Cardiff for the timelines to intersect so he could see the Doctor again.”
“No way!” Donna protested.
Rose looked into the other Doctor’s eyes, dismayed. “Is that true?” she asked.
He was silent for a minute. That told her what she had to know. Then he said, “When you came back to the Game Station, you looked into the Heart of the TARDIS. You were filled with the power of the Time Vortex itself. You were creator and destroyer. You could raise the dead. You made Jack a fixed point in time, the man who can never die.”
“No!” Rose cried in horror, clutching her forehead. “The Doctor - I mean you - you wouldn’t just leave Jack. He said…he told me…”
The Doctor finished the sentence. “That Jack was busy rebuilding the world? That bit was true. What I didn’t say was that I was terrified of what you’d unleashed. Everything about Jack repelled me - sorry, I know that’s harsh, but it’s true. I’m a Time Lord, and a fixed point in time, that’s just wrong.”
“You never said that to him, surely!” Rose was horrified.
He looked uneasy. “Rose, I’m sorry, but I did. It says a lot for Jack that he’s here right now, with us.”
Jack shrugged, though Rose saw the pain lurking in his eyes.
“You have changed,” Martha remarked. “I couldn’t believe how callous you were to him back on that planet at the end of the universe. You just didn’t seem to get him.”
“And is that ‘cos you’ve changed?” Rose asked. “Or are you a different person?”
“Nature or nurture?” queried Donna. “The old debate, isn’t it? This symbiotic biological matrix…” She tossed her head as she spoke - Rose felt she couldn’t quite believe such words were coming from her lips. “It means we’re connected. Sorry, we are. He’s got bits of me, I’ve bits of him.”
“And what happens if we split you up?” Martha queried.
“Dunno,” said the Doctor. “I mean, you could just mindwipe Donna, reset the clock so she didn’t know anything about all this. You can’t just leave a Time Lord mind in a human brain, it’d probably kill her or drive her insane.”
“You’re not mindwiping me, sunshine!” Donna bellowed.
“Then you’ll probably have to put up with me sticking around.” The Doctor sat down on the jump seat and grinned winningly at them all.
“Both of you?” asked Mickey, sceptically.
“Well, that’s not gonna work, is it?” Jackie said. “And I ought to be getting back, it’s all very well this metapsychic philatelical stuff…”
“Tell me how this Donna thing works,” said Rose, looking at the Doctor.
“Simple. We need each other. Donna will burn up unless the two of us stay together through the adjustment period and we handle it very carefully. There’s only one alternative to that; to take away her memories of me completely, return her to the point before she met me or saw the TARDIS. Now, assuming you think that’s acceptable - which I don’t-” he added rapidly, seeing Donna’s expression, “that means I take all the human stuff into me. A rather neat solution.”
“Not for poor Donna!” cried Rose.
“I’ll poor Donna you!” Donna exclaimed. “Besides, what about all the people who know me now? You lot and Mum, and Gramps. You’d have to ask them to lie to me for the rest of my life.”
Rose looked at Jack. It wasn’t a comfortable moment. She’d expected him to be as shocked as she felt, but instead he glanced away, his eyes impassive, only a little frown revealing how often he’d probably had to do things like that.
Donna hadn’t finished yet. “I could just go back, couldn’t I? I don’t mean to the old me, I mean to the new but human one. God, it’s so complicated! Three Time Lords around the place, sounds like too much of a good thing, to me. Why can’t you and me share it out between ourselves?” She was looking at the Doctor. “Maybe if I sort of grew into it, bit by bit, I’d be okay. I’m not even sure I want to become another species overnight. It’s not all bad being human.”
“In your case, it’s wonderful.” The Doctor smiled warmly at her. “I’d much rather see you change at your own pace than have another biology imposed on you. I don’t just want you to become like me. I learned from you, Donna. I want to keep doing that. And the thought of you going back to that woman who thought the height of excitement was a new flavour of Pringles just breaks my heart.” He stopped and changed tack. “Heart. Singular. Ooh, that sounded weird.”
“Yeah, well,” murmured Donna, looking shy for the first time.
“You wouldn’t really do that,” Rose almost pleaded. “Would you?”
“Only as a last resort. And we ought to discuss it while Donna’s in a fit state to express her wishes. If we wait for the metacrisis to begin to unravel, things could deteriorate very quickly. Then it might be a case of taking away her memories to save her life.”
Donna’s eyes filled with tears. “I think I’d rather die! To have all that wonderful stuff I’ve done and seen and learned, just gone…” She looked at Martha. “You warned me, didn’t you? You told me that being with him changes you.”
Martha nodded, silently.
“You know what Sarah Jane once said?” said Rose. “That some things are worth getting your heart broken for. And it’s your life. Your choice. Nobody ought to make it for you.”
“Let them try!”
“Donna, look at me.” The Doctor moved towards her and put his hands on her shoulders. “In your own way, you saved me every bit as much as Rose did before you…and Martha saved-” Rose saw him stop abruptly. There was an untold story there, one shared by Jack if the look on his face was anything to go by. “You all saved me,” he went on. “And I didn’t always say thank you. Or hang around to help you cope with the implications of that. But I want to now. I owe you that, Donna. We all do. And I really believe, if we all pull together, we can keep you with us and keep you safe.”
“Promise?” Donna asked.
He nodded solemnly. “Promise. Unless your life’s in imminent danger, and even then with your consent, if at all possible. If I didn’t say that, I couldn’t look your family in the face.”
“Well, that should be okay, shouldn’t it?” Rose looked around at everybody. “Bit complicated, specially if it has to be this Doctor that helps Donna and it can’t be my…the other one, I mean.” She grinned. “But we’ll work it out - won’t we?”
“Except,” said Jack, looking rather grim, “our old friend in the brown suit probably already has a game plan thought up. One that makes him feel he’s done the right thing for everybody. Tears him apart, of course, but he thinks he deserves that. And as for Donna, he’ll manage to convince himself it’s the only way to save her and conveniently ignore the alternatives. After all, they are rather complicated.”
“What plan’s that?” Rose began to feel apprehensive.
“Well, it’s obvious,” the Doctor pointed out. “I’ve a human lifespan now. I’ll age. Apart from that, and the odd bit of Donna, I’m him. Same memories. Same habits, same dreams. I could spend the rest of my life with you, Rose. And you could spend yours with me.” Then he bobbed his head and gave her the one-sided little smile she remembered so well. “Happy ending.”
“Not for him!” Rose protested. “He ends up on his own and he’s had to watch me go off with someone who looks exactly like him! It doesn’t get much worse than that!”
“Well, he’s used to it,” said Jackie. “He must have known it was never gonna work, you and him. He tried to warn you all those years ago at Bad Wolf Bay. Couldn’t even say the words.”
“And can you?” asked Rose, looking at the Doctor.
“Do I have to say it?” he asked.
“Yes. I think you do.”
He looked at her very directly. She saw every bit of longing and joy in his face that she’d ever seen in the original Doctor’s. The difference, though, was when he spoke.
He breathed in deeply. “Okay. Rose Tyler, I love you. I’ve only got one life now, and I’d like to spend it with you. If you’ll have me.”
Wow. It had taken him years, but he’d actually said it. Rose wondered if she ought to mark the occasion. Snog him senseless, or something? Didn’t seem right just to leave him standing there. But she couldn’t, not quite. Not with the other one outside, trying to carry all the pain involved and leave her with the good bits, the way he always did.
Even if there wasn’t another Doctor to factor in now, it was harder than she’d imagined it would be to just come back and carry on the way they had before. They’d both been through stuff, so much stuff, and it changed you. There were things he was keeping to himself - Jack, for instance, and whatever had happened with Martha. Rose had a feeling that relationship hadn’t been an easy one. Oh, he still loved her - Rose, that was - to bits. She’d seen the way he’d run to her along that wrecked street last night. But he was holding back. He was preparing to lose her all over again, something that would hurt him so much he might even wish she’d stayed away.
“Gonna just stand there, are you?” Donna asked.
“You could at least kiss the bloke,” her mother complained.
Rose shook her head. “I can’t, Mum. Not yet.” She looked at the Doctor. “I’m not saying never. And of course - well - oh, you know, don’t you?”
“Oh, Rose,” he said, softly, in a voice soaked through with happiness. “Yes, I know. And you didn’t need to say it, either.” Then a smile broke through and they ended up hugging the life out of one another. “But I’m awfully glad you did.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she said, wretchedly. “Whatever I do, someone’s going to get hurt.”
“We’ll work something out,” he promised her. “And I’m not just saying that, I promise. It might be a bit messy and there’s no guarantees that nobody will shed a tear, but at least we’ll try.”
Rose rested her head against him. “You feel different. Not as cold. And that one heart…it’s just weird.” Cautiously, she placed her hand against his chest. “I can’t get over this feeling you’re gonna keel over and die any minute.”
“Martha’s very efficient at resuscitating me,” he reassured her. And he winked at his former companion. “Ba-ba-boom-bah!”
“Ba-ba-boom-bah!” She gave him the thumbs-up and laughed.
The Doctor still had an arm folded round her. It felt wonderful. He gave her their particular smile and chuckled as he squeezed her. “You said that hand gave you the creeps. Remember?”
“You really remember that?”
“I remember all of it, Rose. And it’s not like it happened to someone else. I remember how it made me feel, and all the things I longed to say and never could.”
“Why not?”
He sighed. “Oh, that’s a complicated one. Mind if we leave it for now?”
“Please don’t ask me to choose,” she said. “I can’t. Not yet. You will, though, won’t you? You’ll tell me that the gap’s gonna close in twenty minutes and it’s now or never. And I don’t think I could bear that.”
“No, that’s the other one’s trick,” Donna said. She moved to the controls. “See this schematic? There’s loads of gaps. The barrier won’t settle down for weeks. And don’t worry, Mrs T, there’s no need to drop you off in the middle of Norway. Door to door taxi service, that’s us.”
“Hang on a mo,” said Mickey. “There’s only one TARDIS. That’s never gonna work, no way.”
“Don’t be such a defeatist,” said Martha. “We all managed to work together getting the Earth back home. In fact, the TARDIS was flying better than I’ve ever known. They’re meant to have more than one Time Lord.”
“I’ve a bit of coral back at the ranch,” Jack offered. “You could have that and start off a new one.”
Rose recalled the glimpses of Torchwood and his team that she’d seen throughout the day’s events, the attractive woman descended from Gwyneth and the reserved young man that she strongly suspected was more than a friend to Jack.
“I don’t want to go home without seeing Torchwood,” she said. “And I never thought I’d hear myself say that.”
“Way to go!” Jack said, embracing her. “Torchwood isn’t all the same. T3 - the Cardiff branch - always was a bit of a law unto itself. Been associated with them since the 90s - the 1890s that is. Boy, you should have seen me in one of those old frock coats; you’d have been putty in my hands. And post-Canary Wharf - well, lessons were learned.”
“And we could talk,” the Doctor added. “Really talk, I mean.”
“You have changed,” said Martha.
“That’s all very well,” Jackie said, “But all this isn’t getting me home, and I’ve a little boy to get back to.”
“I remember,” agreed the Doctor. “What did you call him?”
“Doctor,” said Jackie. She let him struggle with that and then laughed and thumped him. “No, we called him Tony. Pete’s on nursery duty. He’ll be worried sick about me.”
“You didn’t have to come,” Rose pointed out.
“Don’t be silly, course I did! I wasn’t gonna leave you to do all that. I thought I might never see you again.”
“If we wait until he comes back in, most of us won’t ever see each other again,” Martha pointed out. “I think Jack’s right. I’ve seen how ruthless he can be. Donna, brain-wiped, Jack dumped home before anybody has the time to talk, and you two paired off at Bad Wolf Bay, like or lump it. He won’t even hang around to say goodbye. It’ll hurt him too much.”
“You really think he’ll do all that?” Rose didn’t need to ask, not really.
“No,” the Doctor declared. “Because I’m going to stop him.”
Then, with a lightning-movement, he kicked off the handbrake and the TARDIS groaned into life.
“Allons-y!” he cried, gleefully.
“You stole the TARDIS!” Martha exclaimed.
“Not the first time,” he said cheerfully. “Besides, you can’t steal something that’s already yours, can you? We’ll just pop home with you, Jackie. Don’t worry, we’ll leave you right outside your front door and you’ll get the chance to say all the goodbyes you want. And that’ll give us time to implement my brilliantly clever plan.”
Rose cheered and threw her arms around him again.
“Oi, you!” said Donna. “That’s my symbiotic biological metacrisis twin you’re hitting on there!”
“Call that a crisis?” Jack said. “That’s nothing to the look there’ll be on his face when he sees the TARDIS disappear. Mind if I join the party?”
“He can always snap his fingers,” said Donna. “See if that works.”
Jack grinned at Rose.
“What goes around tends to come around,” he said.
She smiled back.