The Doctor's Diary - Part 20
CHARACTERS: Ten/Rose (now reunited!), Romana, Donna, Jack
RATING: FRC
Usual disclaimers apply.
Illustration by
swankkat
Cross posted to
time_and_chips
“Fancy some chips?”
The Doctor materialised beside Rose. Not literally, but it felt that way; she hadn’t heard him come into the Hub or expected to see him for hours. She’d also forgotten how silently he could creep around in trainers.
“Had enough of Romana, then?” she asked, with a smile of satisfaction.
“I know how to handle Romana,” he said, putting his hands on her arms and giving her a kiss. “And it’s your first day back.”
“Chips it is, then,” Rose agreed. She waved happily to Jack and his staff, who embarrassed them both with a round of applause.
“Was that for the baby or us?” asked the Doctor.
“You can tell them about the baby,” said Rose. “I remember that lot. If it’s alien, it’s ours.”
They emerged into the sunshine of the Roald Dahl Platz and made for the nearest chip shop. For once, the Doctor paid. Rose remembered all the things she’d have to think about. Money, bank account, phone, somewhere to get her hair done. Ordinary things to do, day after day. But not just yet.
“Is it always this sunny in February?” she asked him, as they settled down on a seat with a view of the harbour.
“Global warming,” he replied. “This is the year it starts to get serious.”
“What happens?”
“To the Earth? I’m not supposed to tell you that. It gets worse before it gets better. Put it this way, I wouldn’t be buying a house in East Anglia right now.”
“You wouldn’t buy a house anyway,” said Rose. “Nasty things, with carpets and doors. But wouldn’t it be nice if they had baby houses for when your kids grew up and left home?”
“Yeah,” he agreed. He smiled at her and squeezed her hand in a way that made Rose wonder whether he was more paternal than he liked to admit. “How long are you gonna stay with me, then?”
“You know the answer to that,” she replied, laying her head on his shoulder. “How long does a baby TARDIS take to grow?”
“About two hundred and fifty years. After the first fifty, though, she chooses her Time Lord and then he takes over.”
“How does that work?”
“The Imprimitur. In a sense, the TARDIS chooses you. It grows, from the very beginning, to match the Time Lord’s personality.”
“Yours must have been a right little bugger, then.”
He laughed and they silently worked through their chips. “That’s better,” he said, licking salt from his fingers. “I still think they used to taste better in newspaper.”
“Now, now,” Rose scolded. “There’s a place for elegance and refinement in a Time Lord’s life, you know.”
“Not this Time Lord’s. She’ll lighten up once she gets used to having a few home comforts again. She’s had a tough time, hasn’t she?”
Rose nodded. “She could hardly afford to feed herself but as soon as she found out I needed to be in a TARDIS, she took me in like a shot.”
“I’m not sure how she managed it,” he said. “It takes a lot of energy to stabilise the biological field. Did she find out you’d had a Gallifreyan blood transfusion?”
“Yep. That was when she said she believed me. She said only you would be silly enough to do that. But I don’t think she meant it. Not quite.”
He hesitated. “Rose, she might have to be with us quite a while. I hope that’s all right with you. Can’t turn a pregnant lady out, you know. But I’ve diverted as much of the TARDIS’s power as I could into making her own place comfortable for her.”
“Granny flat?” suggested Rose.
“Sort of. Except she’s a little bit younger than me. Two Time Lords in a TARDIS isn’t generally a good idea.”
“I kinda figured that. As Jack would say,” said Rose.
“Fancy a walk?”
“I fancy some more chips. And then an afternoon in bed. With you.”
His arm tightened around her waist and his eyes twinkled. “I think that probably can be arranged.”
**********
They looked in on Romana when they returned, their arms full of bags of food. The Doctor had just remembered they were going to Elton and Ursula’s wedding the following day. Oh, and by the way, he’d said they could have the reception in the TARDIS.
“Can’t she do all the food?” Rose asked.
“Bit tricky, that. I’m pumping so much of her energy into Romana’s TARDIS right now, and then there’s the foetus to maintain, and besides she doesn’t really understand human weddings. Bit like me.”
“Oh, thanks,” said Rose. “I haven’t been back for 24 hours and already I’m catering for parties. Right, it’s Marks and Spencers this afternoon for you, Doctor. And Oddbins for the champers. I’m not carrying all that stuff back on my own.”
“Can we have a cake?” he asked. “White, silver ball bearings?”
“Oh yes, a cake’s essential. Though I’m not sure where you can buy ready-made wedding cakes. You’re supposed to order them months in advance, you know. Didn’t they have weddings where you come from?”
“There wasn’t a lot of cake involved,” he replied. “Just telling each other your names.”
“Just telling each other your names? That was it?”
“Rose, even Romana doesn’t know my whole name. And I don’t know hers. It’s the ultimate in sharing yourself with somebody. It even switches off the contraceptive hormones. It’s a lifelong bond.”
They’d both stopped walking. It was one of those conversations where both people speaking knew what was really being said, and were wondering what they should do with the knowledge. Rose stared into his face, trying to read the expression in his eyes. She wouldn’t make the running on this; it would have to come from him. She wasn’t sure if she was ready, so she’d understand his reservations. Not that she didn’t want to spend her life with him; she only had to glance at him or feel his fingers brush accidentally-on-purpose against her own to know how true that was. But she’s realised, even though she’d only just arrived, that things had changed between them. They were not just two people in love, any more, travelling rootlessly through space and time. They had responsibilities. Friends, stuff to do, irritating people in their lives, people they both loved to bits but weren’t at all sure they would choose to live with.
“Human weddings don’t make any sense to me,” he said. “All that money, all that fuss, and then most of them seem to end in tears. If a couple of humans stay together half a century they’re doing well. Why bother?”
“People want to believe they can do it,” said Rose. “They think if they mean it enough when they say it, that’ll make it true.”
“Do you think that?” he asked, quietly.
“Not really. You can’t say something’s true if it isn’t, just because you want it to be. It’s not that easy. You have to ask yourself how much you really want it, and then go on wanting it, and making it real. You’ve got to want it deep inside even when you wake up in the morning not wanting it. Until it’s something that you can’t run away from. Like being a Time Lord.”
He nodded. “I think most things are possible,” he said. “But I also think most things are terribly difficult. Especially the worthwhile ones.”
Rose held his look in her eyes, and hoped she returned it. Summoning her courage, she asked, “Would you tell me your name if I asked you to? You don’t have to say yes.”
He stood with his chin in the air, looking a little remote in a way that once would have frightened her, but now she knew it was just part of him, the way he was, the same as the fingers in the jam or the outbursts of singing and leaping about. Still, it was good to remember that that part of him was there. He wasn’t just anybody.
But then, who was?
“I probably will,” he replied. “Some day.”
***********
Romana’s TARDIS was already transformed. She had a new carpet and a couple of cosy armchairs, and she sat in the largest with her feet up on a matching rose-patterned stool, her half-moon glasses perched on her nose, working her way through a pile of learned journals in Gallifreyan script.
“These aren’t very well catalogued,” she said, companionably. “Would you care for a cup of tea?”
“’S okay, just had one,” Rose lied, wanting nothing to delay their progress to the bedroom for much longer. “Didn’t know you were into handicrafts, Romana,” she added, noticing the basket of embroidery floss on a nearby table.
“I have had little spare time for such things,” said Romana, “but this is a project particularly dear to my heart, which I have managed to preserve, and now that I have the advantage of adequate lighting, I thought I might take it up again.”
Rose sat down beside her. “Can I look?”
Romana opened her mouth, about to correct the “Can” to a “May”, then changed her mind and smiled. “Yes, of course, my dear,” she said, unwrapping the frame.
“Oh, wow,” said Rose, gasping at the intricately worked scene taking shape. A graceful, white building, domed and circular, edged with graceful Doric columns, stood on a low hill under an alien sky. Rose could make out the outline of robed figures on the surrounding terrace.
“The Capitol,” Romana explained. “Our seat of Government. Over to the right is the official Presidential residence.”
“Wow,” Rose repeated, impressed by its luxury. She thought how much dignity and strength of character Romana must have needed to survive the last few years. In their different way, they’d been as lonely and wretched for her as for the Doctor. She was conscious of his presence behind her, hovering, not entirely comfortable, exactly as he’d been on their last complete day together while she was hugging Mum back in the flat.
“Of course,” Romana continued, “the Doctor also served a brief term as President.”
“You never said!” Rose looked round at him, trying to imagine it. He wouldn’t have said, of course; he’d never said anything about his home. She wondered how long it had been since he’d even seen a picture of it.
He nodded. “Yes, my fifth incarnation. You were away with the Tharils, by then, Fred. There wasn’t a lot of choice. I don’t think Tegan ever really settled.”
“What do you think of the picture?” Rose ventured. “Did it really look like that?”
“It’s pretty good.” A half-smile turned up one corner of his mouth. “I don’t remember the sky being quite that shade. Well, only in a very good summer. And are you going to put in the Kaden trees? They were beautiful, Rose. The leaves were silver on the top but kind of translucent underneath, and when the sun set it looked as if they were on fire.”
It was the longest speech she’d ever heard him make about his home. He almost looked happy remembering it. Romana was doing him good, Rose thought.
“Oh, that would require photolucent thread,” said Romana, “and hitherto that has been beyond my means. In any case, the most delicate work is completed last.”
“We’ll go over to Veluctartos Alpha II and pick some up sometime,” he offered. “Rose, you’d love the markets there. They’re almost enticing enough to make me try my hand at something creative.”
“Nah, you’ll be off picking up spare parts for the TARDIS while we have a girly day out,” said Rose.
“You know me so well.” He moved over to the uterine pod in the heart of Romana’s console.
“Just look at that,” he murmured. “Shiny new TARDIS, who’d have thought it?”
Rose stood beside him as he pointed out different features to her. Just like the Doctor’s control room, the minature TARDIS was a beautiful blend of the mechanical and the organic. The round sphere, supported by graceful curving struts, protected a globe of coral light like an amniotic sac, and the whole structure shimmered like an enormous, living pearl.
“How big will it get?” she asked.
“It’s dimensionally transcendent,” he explained. “It’s all packed into a very small space, a kind of mini-universe in there, outside space and time. And when it’s ready, it’ll tell us. Could be fifty years or more.”
I won’t live to see it grow up, Rose thought, and a stab went through her heart as she thought of what that would mean to him. She turned her thoughts to happier things. “Who’s it for?” she asked. “When will you know?”
“I think we already do know,” he said, smiling. “He can’t go on borrowing ours for ever.”
Ours, Rose thought. Our TARDIS. He actually said that. “You promised you’d teach me to drive,” she reminded him. Romana had covered the theory, but practical lessons had been out of the question.
“Quite right, too,” Romana agreed. Perhaps it was a Time Lords catchphrase.
“Okay. London, tomorrow?” he asked. “Got to start somewhere.”
“Which bit of London?” asked Rose.
“Chiswick.”
“Chiswick? We don’t know anyone there, do we?”
“I’m picking up a friend,” he said.
******
Outside the neat terraced house, with its bay window and its stained-glass door, Rose brought the TARDIS to a reasonably smooth stop.
“Not bad for a beginner,” the Doctor said. “How’d you like to see a bit of atmospheric excitation?”
“Oh God, you are such a show-off!” Rose teased him, as he pointed his sonic screwdriver up at the sky and a dusting of snow fell from a Spring sky.
“For old times’ sake,” he grinned, ringing the doorbell.
“Doctor!” cried a red-haired woman, opening the door and hurrying forward to give him a hug.
“And who the hell’s this?” demanded Donna, looking distinctly put out at the thought of not having the Doctor to herself.
He smiled. “Oh, this is my Plus One,” he said. “Her name is Rose.”
RATING: FRC
Usual disclaimers apply.
Illustration by
swankkat
Cross posted to
time_and_chips
“Fancy some chips?”
The Doctor materialised beside Rose. Not literally, but it felt that way; she hadn’t heard him come into the Hub or expected to see him for hours. She’d also forgotten how silently he could creep around in trainers.
“Had enough of Romana, then?” she asked, with a smile of satisfaction.
“I know how to handle Romana,” he said, putting his hands on her arms and giving her a kiss. “And it’s your first day back.”
“Chips it is, then,” Rose agreed. She waved happily to Jack and his staff, who embarrassed them both with a round of applause.
“Was that for the baby or us?” asked the Doctor.
“You can tell them about the baby,” said Rose. “I remember that lot. If it’s alien, it’s ours.”
They emerged into the sunshine of the Roald Dahl Platz and made for the nearest chip shop. For once, the Doctor paid. Rose remembered all the things she’d have to think about. Money, bank account, phone, somewhere to get her hair done. Ordinary things to do, day after day. But not just yet.
“Is it always this sunny in February?” she asked him, as they settled down on a seat with a view of the harbour.
“Global warming,” he replied. “This is the year it starts to get serious.”
“What happens?”
“To the Earth? I’m not supposed to tell you that. It gets worse before it gets better. Put it this way, I wouldn’t be buying a house in East Anglia right now.”
“You wouldn’t buy a house anyway,” said Rose. “Nasty things, with carpets and doors. But wouldn’t it be nice if they had baby houses for when your kids grew up and left home?”
“Yeah,” he agreed. He smiled at her and squeezed her hand in a way that made Rose wonder whether he was more paternal than he liked to admit. “How long are you gonna stay with me, then?”
“You know the answer to that,” she replied, laying her head on his shoulder. “How long does a baby TARDIS take to grow?”
“About two hundred and fifty years. After the first fifty, though, she chooses her Time Lord and then he takes over.”
“How does that work?”
“The Imprimitur. In a sense, the TARDIS chooses you. It grows, from the very beginning, to match the Time Lord’s personality.”
“Yours must have been a right little bugger, then.”
He laughed and they silently worked through their chips. “That’s better,” he said, licking salt from his fingers. “I still think they used to taste better in newspaper.”
“Now, now,” Rose scolded. “There’s a place for elegance and refinement in a Time Lord’s life, you know.”
“Not this Time Lord’s. She’ll lighten up once she gets used to having a few home comforts again. She’s had a tough time, hasn’t she?”
Rose nodded. “She could hardly afford to feed herself but as soon as she found out I needed to be in a TARDIS, she took me in like a shot.”
“I’m not sure how she managed it,” he said. “It takes a lot of energy to stabilise the biological field. Did she find out you’d had a Gallifreyan blood transfusion?”
“Yep. That was when she said she believed me. She said only you would be silly enough to do that. But I don’t think she meant it. Not quite.”
He hesitated. “Rose, she might have to be with us quite a while. I hope that’s all right with you. Can’t turn a pregnant lady out, you know. But I’ve diverted as much of the TARDIS’s power as I could into making her own place comfortable for her.”
“Granny flat?” suggested Rose.
“Sort of. Except she’s a little bit younger than me. Two Time Lords in a TARDIS isn’t generally a good idea.”
“I kinda figured that. As Jack would say,” said Rose.
“Fancy a walk?”
“I fancy some more chips. And then an afternoon in bed. With you.”
His arm tightened around her waist and his eyes twinkled. “I think that probably can be arranged.”
**********
They looked in on Romana when they returned, their arms full of bags of food. The Doctor had just remembered they were going to Elton and Ursula’s wedding the following day. Oh, and by the way, he’d said they could have the reception in the TARDIS.
“Can’t she do all the food?” Rose asked.
“Bit tricky, that. I’m pumping so much of her energy into Romana’s TARDIS right now, and then there’s the foetus to maintain, and besides she doesn’t really understand human weddings. Bit like me.”
“Oh, thanks,” said Rose. “I haven’t been back for 24 hours and already I’m catering for parties. Right, it’s Marks and Spencers this afternoon for you, Doctor. And Oddbins for the champers. I’m not carrying all that stuff back on my own.”
“Can we have a cake?” he asked. “White, silver ball bearings?”
“Oh yes, a cake’s essential. Though I’m not sure where you can buy ready-made wedding cakes. You’re supposed to order them months in advance, you know. Didn’t they have weddings where you come from?”
“There wasn’t a lot of cake involved,” he replied. “Just telling each other your names.”
“Just telling each other your names? That was it?”
“Rose, even Romana doesn’t know my whole name. And I don’t know hers. It’s the ultimate in sharing yourself with somebody. It even switches off the contraceptive hormones. It’s a lifelong bond.”
They’d both stopped walking. It was one of those conversations where both people speaking knew what was really being said, and were wondering what they should do with the knowledge. Rose stared into his face, trying to read the expression in his eyes. She wouldn’t make the running on this; it would have to come from him. She wasn’t sure if she was ready, so she’d understand his reservations. Not that she didn’t want to spend her life with him; she only had to glance at him or feel his fingers brush accidentally-on-purpose against her own to know how true that was. But she’s realised, even though she’d only just arrived, that things had changed between them. They were not just two people in love, any more, travelling rootlessly through space and time. They had responsibilities. Friends, stuff to do, irritating people in their lives, people they both loved to bits but weren’t at all sure they would choose to live with.
“Human weddings don’t make any sense to me,” he said. “All that money, all that fuss, and then most of them seem to end in tears. If a couple of humans stay together half a century they’re doing well. Why bother?”
“People want to believe they can do it,” said Rose. “They think if they mean it enough when they say it, that’ll make it true.”
“Do you think that?” he asked, quietly.
“Not really. You can’t say something’s true if it isn’t, just because you want it to be. It’s not that easy. You have to ask yourself how much you really want it, and then go on wanting it, and making it real. You’ve got to want it deep inside even when you wake up in the morning not wanting it. Until it’s something that you can’t run away from. Like being a Time Lord.”
He nodded. “I think most things are possible,” he said. “But I also think most things are terribly difficult. Especially the worthwhile ones.”
Rose held his look in her eyes, and hoped she returned it. Summoning her courage, she asked, “Would you tell me your name if I asked you to? You don’t have to say yes.”
He stood with his chin in the air, looking a little remote in a way that once would have frightened her, but now she knew it was just part of him, the way he was, the same as the fingers in the jam or the outbursts of singing and leaping about. Still, it was good to remember that that part of him was there. He wasn’t just anybody.
But then, who was?
“I probably will,” he replied. “Some day.”
***********
Romana’s TARDIS was already transformed. She had a new carpet and a couple of cosy armchairs, and she sat in the largest with her feet up on a matching rose-patterned stool, her half-moon glasses perched on her nose, working her way through a pile of learned journals in Gallifreyan script.
“These aren’t very well catalogued,” she said, companionably. “Would you care for a cup of tea?”
“’S okay, just had one,” Rose lied, wanting nothing to delay their progress to the bedroom for much longer. “Didn’t know you were into handicrafts, Romana,” she added, noticing the basket of embroidery floss on a nearby table.
“I have had little spare time for such things,” said Romana, “but this is a project particularly dear to my heart, which I have managed to preserve, and now that I have the advantage of adequate lighting, I thought I might take it up again.”
Rose sat down beside her. “Can I look?”
Romana opened her mouth, about to correct the “Can” to a “May”, then changed her mind and smiled. “Yes, of course, my dear,” she said, unwrapping the frame.
“Oh, wow,” said Rose, gasping at the intricately worked scene taking shape. A graceful, white building, domed and circular, edged with graceful Doric columns, stood on a low hill under an alien sky. Rose could make out the outline of robed figures on the surrounding terrace.
“The Capitol,” Romana explained. “Our seat of Government. Over to the right is the official Presidential residence.”
“Wow,” Rose repeated, impressed by its luxury. She thought how much dignity and strength of character Romana must have needed to survive the last few years. In their different way, they’d been as lonely and wretched for her as for the Doctor. She was conscious of his presence behind her, hovering, not entirely comfortable, exactly as he’d been on their last complete day together while she was hugging Mum back in the flat.
“Of course,” Romana continued, “the Doctor also served a brief term as President.”
“You never said!” Rose looked round at him, trying to imagine it. He wouldn’t have said, of course; he’d never said anything about his home. She wondered how long it had been since he’d even seen a picture of it.
He nodded. “Yes, my fifth incarnation. You were away with the Tharils, by then, Fred. There wasn’t a lot of choice. I don’t think Tegan ever really settled.”
“What do you think of the picture?” Rose ventured. “Did it really look like that?”
“It’s pretty good.” A half-smile turned up one corner of his mouth. “I don’t remember the sky being quite that shade. Well, only in a very good summer. And are you going to put in the Kaden trees? They were beautiful, Rose. The leaves were silver on the top but kind of translucent underneath, and when the sun set it looked as if they were on fire.”
It was the longest speech she’d ever heard him make about his home. He almost looked happy remembering it. Romana was doing him good, Rose thought.
“Oh, that would require photolucent thread,” said Romana, “and hitherto that has been beyond my means. In any case, the most delicate work is completed last.”
“We’ll go over to Veluctartos Alpha II and pick some up sometime,” he offered. “Rose, you’d love the markets there. They’re almost enticing enough to make me try my hand at something creative.”
“Nah, you’ll be off picking up spare parts for the TARDIS while we have a girly day out,” said Rose.
“You know me so well.” He moved over to the uterine pod in the heart of Romana’s console.
“Just look at that,” he murmured. “Shiny new TARDIS, who’d have thought it?”
Rose stood beside him as he pointed out different features to her. Just like the Doctor’s control room, the minature TARDIS was a beautiful blend of the mechanical and the organic. The round sphere, supported by graceful curving struts, protected a globe of coral light like an amniotic sac, and the whole structure shimmered like an enormous, living pearl.
“How big will it get?” she asked.
“It’s dimensionally transcendent,” he explained. “It’s all packed into a very small space, a kind of mini-universe in there, outside space and time. And when it’s ready, it’ll tell us. Could be fifty years or more.”
I won’t live to see it grow up, Rose thought, and a stab went through her heart as she thought of what that would mean to him. She turned her thoughts to happier things. “Who’s it for?” she asked. “When will you know?”
“I think we already do know,” he said, smiling. “He can’t go on borrowing ours for ever.”
Ours, Rose thought. Our TARDIS. He actually said that. “You promised you’d teach me to drive,” she reminded him. Romana had covered the theory, but practical lessons had been out of the question.
“Quite right, too,” Romana agreed. Perhaps it was a Time Lords catchphrase.
“Okay. London, tomorrow?” he asked. “Got to start somewhere.”
“Which bit of London?” asked Rose.
“Chiswick.”
“Chiswick? We don’t know anyone there, do we?”
“I’m picking up a friend,” he said.
******
Outside the neat terraced house, with its bay window and its stained-glass door, Rose brought the TARDIS to a reasonably smooth stop.
“Not bad for a beginner,” the Doctor said. “How’d you like to see a bit of atmospheric excitation?”
“Oh God, you are such a show-off!” Rose teased him, as he pointed his sonic screwdriver up at the sky and a dusting of snow fell from a Spring sky.
“For old times’ sake,” he grinned, ringing the doorbell.
“Doctor!” cried a red-haired woman, opening the door and hurrying forward to give him a hug.
“And who the hell’s this?” demanded Donna, looking distinctly put out at the thought of not having the Doctor to herself.
He smiled. “Oh, this is my Plus One,” he said. “Her name is Rose.”