Fic: The Doctor and His Time Ladies (Chapter 2)
Title: The Doctor and His Time Ladies
Author: country_who
Rating: PG
Word Count (This chapter): 3235
Genre: AU, Actions/Adventure
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose, Tenth Doctor, Human Doctor, Rose, Jenny
Summary: AU Journey's End. Rose gets trapped in the TARDIS instead of Donna and now holds the mind of a Time Lord protected by the Bad Wolf, but what happens when the human Doctor dies, and the Time Lord tries to take her to a planet to get her mind off of him, and fulfill a promise? Does the Doctor have more to lose than gain?
Author's Note: Thanks to othermewriter who solidified the main ideas swimming in the soup I call my brain.
Author's Note 2: I've done a quick pic of Jenny's pet Chubchuck (bottom of the page), Mr. Anderson would look like, it's not very good, but I think it gets the point across. As for his voice, think Steve Urkal on helium.
Prologue| Chapter 1
Rose Tyler awoke the next morning with a strangely clear sensation in her head. It wasn’t muddled like it had been and was free of the stray thoughts that she had grown up knowing. It felt as though she had regained clarity in her mind without ever really losing it. She relished in the sensation and wondered if it would last the rest of her life. Surely, she wouldn’t want to go back to the way she used to think, in spurts instead of a constant stead stream. No wonder the Doctor bounced around all the time, this was invigorating.
Stretching out on her bed, Rose found that the only thing that was truly hazy was her memory of last night. The nightmare was still clear in her mind’s eye, as well as the Doctor’s comforting grip on her shoulders. The way he rocked her ever so slightly with the constant beating of his hearts was making its way to the front of her memory, but after that she only received bits and pieces. She recalled the Doctor telling her that he was going to make it so she could instinctively erect her own mental barriers, but after that it was all her own assumptions.
Knowing that the easiest way for the Doctor to enter her thoughts would have been when she was unconscious, she figured he had given her mind a simple command to sleep, and she had willingly succumbed.
She gently pushed her personal inquires to the back of her mind with ease, letting her mind drift from the past to the present. There was no point in letting her thoughts linger on what had happened. After all, she had meant what she said when she told the Doctor that she trusted him more than she trusted herself.
Glancing at the glowing letters on her bedside clock, Rose saw that the TARDIS decided to make it 7:05 in the morning. She had missed that about the ship. She could travel anywhere in time and space, but always decided to keep her insides composed and consistent. The decision couldn’t be for the Doctor’s benefit, for he was always running around and rarely slept. He could be-and probably was-ready for an adventure whenever the air seemed right, or on an arbitrary whim.
Instead, Rose knew the TARDIS did it for her and any of the other companions that came through her doors. It gave the Doctor a clear period of time that he couldn’t come barging into her room and sweeping her into the next escapade. It grounded her as well, letting her know that even with the life style she had fallen into, there was still one constant in her life. Everything else could fall apart, but this little, impossible, blue box was always going to be there.
She rubbed her eyes blearily and slid out from under the covers. Before stepping out of the bed, she slid her fingers lovingly over the walls of the ship. A slight tickle moved in the back of her mind and made a smile spread across her face. The sensation of being wrapped in warmth was pumping through her veins and running down to her fingers and toes.
She pulled her dressing gown around herself and walked into the console room to see the Doctor leaning against the TARDIS console. His jacket lay discarded on the floor and his flue oxford shirt was rolled up to the elbows. The sight of his arms made him seem exposed-made him seem human. He grinned at her while she perched on top of the captain’s chair and drew her knees up to her chest, still half asleep.
He had to suppress a laugh forming at the base of his throat at the sight of her. Her blonde hair was flying in every direction. Her cheeks had a pick tinge to them from being encased in the heat of her bedroom cover, while her eyelids lowered halfway over her eyes.
“Good morning,” the Doctor said, pretending to be oblivious to her drowsiness. “Sleep well?”
“Mmhm,” Rose mumbled. She scooted to the side and let the Doctor join her on the seat, while she leaned against him. “’M head feels different, it’s clearer.”
“Doesn’t sound that way,” he teased.
“Trust me, if it didn’t I’d still be in bed, and dead to the world around me.” Rose gave the Doctor a sly grin and gently brushed her fingers against his black eye. She winged slightly, but decided not to say anything when the Time Lord gave her a disarming shrug.
“I felt the same way, when I first learned to erect my own barriers, it’s so much quieter. I mean imagine if we couldn’t do that. It would be like someone rambling in your ear non-stop, and that would be really annoying, and it would be even worse, because it’s not like you could tell them to stop, because you can’t stop someone thinking, or at least it would be very difficult I suppose that if you really, really wanted to, you could…”
“Doctor.”
The Doctor looked up at her with a raised eyebrow and a mouth still hanging wide open.
“Stop.”
“Right, sorry,” the Doctor replied, with a sheepish grin. “So, what do you say, breakfast and then we can decide how much trouble we want to get into today?”
Her feet hit the floor with the Doctor joining her. They linked arms together and exchanged cheesy grins.
“Dame Tyler would you care to join me the in galley for high potassium fruits and ring shaped pastries drenched in homogenized dairy product?”
“If that means banana and cereal in the kitchen, then, yes, Sir Doctor, I will,” Rose replied cheekily.
“Well if you want to dumb it down.” The Doctor’s words echoed from the TARDIS hallways.
~//~
A distinct whirring noise filled the space of the shuttle, followed by an even more alarming clattering sound that elevated to a racket. The noise was almost deafening by the time a groan escaped a squirming lump behind the captain’s chair of the confined space. Slowly a blonde head appeared from under a thick blanket, as Jenny finally regained consciousness and realized just what was happening to her ship.
Urgency and adrenaline pounded through her veins, as her twin hearts pounded in her chest. Her blonde hair was flying in every direction as she looked around her and realized she had fallen asleep in the control room again. Her thoughts raced at what could possibly be going on with her ship.
Leaping over the seat in a flourish, Jenny began to take the readout coming out of the monitor, as emergency lights came on in an eerie red glow. She kept telling herself she was going to replace those lights with a cheerier yellow, but Mr. Anderson had argued with her, telling her that red was his favorite color and that it was pretty. She found that she couldn’t deny the little fella and didn’t change them.
“Engine Pressure high, hull temperature increasing, shields failing,” Jenny said, while she reached out and turned on view-screen. “Setting course for closest oxygenated atmosphere, hold on Mr. Anderson,” Jenny shouted, while turned around to find a quivering creature, trying to push himself towards Jenny on a stump of tail. “We seem to be unable to steer the ship properly… or land.”
An electronic voice began to fill the air, rising above the insistent noise. “Prepare for impact with the planet Alderaan in 5.42 minutes.”
“Jenny crashing, stop! Anderson scared!” the creature shouted, while Jenny scooped the fury mass into her hands and gently brushed her hand over his black spotted red fur. The creature visibly relaxed, but stayed fearful. Mr. Anderson held out his tiny fur covered hands to grip onto her thumb. He was no larger than a mouse with large eyes that seemed to take up half of his face. Green antennae drooped in fear, while he tried to curl himself into a smaller ball.
He moved his legless body around with his arms while trying to position himself on his tail, but still fell over on his side. Jenny had to hold him steady, so he didn’t tumble onto the floor. He let a pitiful squeak come up from his throat and began to shiver harder.
Jenny put on a brave face and brushed her check against his hairy back.
“Jenny,” the creature said urgently.
“Hush now,” Jenny said. “We’ll be fine, you trust me don’t you?”
“Anderson trusts Jenny,” Mr. Anderson replied seriously, as if Jenny had insulted him. “Anderson scared for Jenny. Jenny love Anderson. Anderson love Jenny. Jenny save Anderson. Anderson no lose Jenny!”
“Impact in 4 minutes, survival possibility of Generated Anomaly, 5.4 percent, survival possibility of Chubchuck, 0.002 percent. Please assume crash positions,” the electronic voice rang out again.
Mr. Anderson screamed, covering his little ears and looked fearfully at Jenny, who was grumbling something about needing to change the ship’s programming. She was getting sick and tired of her own ship referring to her as the ‘Generated Anomaly.’ It was bad enough when her father referred to her in that way, but her ship saying it was ridiculous.
Reaching the back of the ship’s control room, Jenny pressed the switch by the door and watched it ascend, while slipping Mr. Anderson on to her shoulder and giving his head a comforting pat. He purred in contentment and buried his face further into her neck. He couldn’t help murmuring Jenny’s name over and over against. The words were only intended for his ears, but Jenny picked up on them and cooed to him softly.
“I love you too; little one, but you’re being way too pessimistic. Look on the bright side.” She gave the small creature a wild smile, and placed a chaste kiss on his furry spotted forehead. “We’ve never crashed before, think of the fun. It’s like a rollercoaster ride! You liked Coney Island VI didn’t you? A whole new experience, just for the two of us!”
The red and black creature straightened out slightly and exposed his plush yellow-brown belly. Puffing out his chest, he tried to look tough in front of Jenny, despite how he had been acting. With a nod of his head, he offered Jenny a small grin and used his arms to pull himself up to her neck and begin to weave her hair into a simple braid, like he always did when he was nervous.
“Come on then, I need to get something before we crash.” Jenny whispered a bit more quietly. She felt moisture beginning to drip onto her neck and knew that her pet must be crying, but she refused to look in that direction. She couldn’t let the little guy see how upset and afraid she really was. That was not something her father would approve of. Not that it mattered, he wasn’t here, and after all her years of searching she wasn’t going to find him. He would never hug her again, or tell her she was brilliant.
She had spent the last six month searching for him. Of course, she didn’t tell that to herself at first. Instead, she said she was travelling, viewing the worlds with everything at her fingertips. It wasn’t until she was hurt on the planet Servitium with an injury that none of the doctors thought she would survive, did she admit how much she wanted her father to be with her.
She had slipped between unconsciousness and consciousness and saw him every time she drifted off. The doctor and nurses had told her when she finally began to recover that she would call out when she slipped away. Her words were always the same, ‘Dad’ repeated over and over again. She never begged for him to come for her, never asked why he wasn’t there with her, or why he wasn’t there with her in the first place.
It was a simple need, not a complex one. Every girl needed her father.
Jenny stepped into her room and carefully set the silently crying Chubchuck onto the bed she seldom slept on. He sat on the bed, watching Jenny intently, when a tremor ran through the trip and almost made Mr. Anderson fall onto his side.
“Be careful,” Jenny told him, while she bent down in front of a drawer and took out a photo of her father.
She had finally gotten a picture of him by tapping into her ship’s database. It had automatically downloaded the security tapes from the planet. She had spent hours rifling through the tapes before she found the one moment that she wanted to remember her father like.
He was standing next to her, holding the terraforming device above his head, poised to throw it to the ground. He was so strong, not like the last look she got of him, with tears in his eyes and a shaking voice.
“Jenny look for dad?” Mr. Anderson asked, as the muffled electronic voice gave another read out.
Jenny sniffed and shoved the picture in her pocket. “Yeah, you never know right? Crash a ship and he might come running to help.”
Mr. Anderson gave her a sympathetic smile. “Jenny and Anderson bunker down?”
Jenny nodded, grabbing up her tactical bag and beginning to fill it with sheets from her bed. She set it down on the bed and helped Mr. Anderson inside. “Okay little friend, hang on tight, curl yourself around the covers and try to stay as small as possible. You’ll be fine; just don’t come out until you know we’ve stopped, got it. I don’t care what you hear or feel. Stay in that bag and don’t come out.”
Jenny’s words were soft but stern, while she made sure Anderson was comfortable and safe. He was busily wrapping himself up until only one eye and antenna were sticking out from the covers.
“Jenny alright?” asked the small voice coming up from the white fabric.
“I’ll always be alright,” Jenny muttered, giving the Chubchuck a final pat on the head and zipping up the compartment.
“Impact in 1.00 minute, please brace for impact.”
“Here we go,” Jenny muttered, as she ran back into the control room and began to shut down all power feeds and dump the fuel from the ship to prevent a fireball from encasing them when they finally did make contact with Alderaan’s surface.
“Impact in 30 seconds.”
Jenny climbed back behind her captain’s chair and curled herself around the tactical bag. She pressed her ear against it and could just hear Mr. Anderson’s whimpering.
“Hush now, sweetheart, wouldn’t want to crash in a wet bag, would you? That wouldn’t be fun?”
“Jenny,” he cried out loudly. She could see the zipper on the bag beginning to open slightly, but she forced it shut.
“No,” Jenny said harshly.
“Impact in 10…9…8…7…”
Jenny closed her eyes, reached into her pocket and touched the picture. She imagined the look on his face, the pride, the lack of fear. She was content.
“Three…Two…One…”
~//~
The Doctor and Rose sat down around the table in the TARDIS’s kitchen. Rose munched silently on her cereal, while the Doctor was carefully slicing his already peeled banana with his sonic screwdriver. The gentle whirring coming from the device changed frequency, and the blue end of the sonic illuminated a single piece of banana and caused it to rise gracefully into the air.
The Doctor grinned and opened his mouth, so that the banana slice dropped in. He chewed happily and began to focus on more slices at a time. Gradually, the Doctor moved onto six banana slices and seven pieces of Rose’s cheerios. She glared at him, but gave herself with giggles, when the Doctor’s concentration broke suddenly and dropped all the food items into his hair.
Frowning, the Time Lord picked a piece of banana out of his hair and rolled it in his fingers before opening his mouth and attempting to eat the fruit. Rose swatted his hand away before he could try.
“No, Doctor,” Rose told him, coming over taking the food out of his hair and dumping it in the rubbish bin. “I swear you act like you’re nine, not nine hundred. Honestly, how did you get by without me?”
Rose tied her dressing gown tighter around her waist and sat down. Hazel eyes stared at the Doctor, taking careful notice of how his face fell slightly for the briefest of seconds. His face quickly broke into a smile and covered his unsure emotions.
“I had friends, Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said, putting on an affronted voice. “I didn’t become a hermit after we were separated.” His voice softened and covered her hand with his. “I told them about you. Donna had wanted to meet you for the longest time. She might have been a bit happier to see you than I was.”
“Really?” Rose asked, her voice sounding slightly pained.
“No,” the Doctor said in a teasing voice that caused the minute amounts of doubt that were swimming around in her stomach melt away. “No man was as happy as I was.”
Rose smiled, thinking back at how much she longed to see the Doctor like that again. His hair blowing wildly, his legs pounding and a permanent smile growing on his face. Her heart pounded just at the sight of him. If it wasn’t for the Dalek, that would have been the happiest moment of her life.
“Rose Tyler, aren’t you being a wee bit competitive?” the Doctor asked, coming up from behind her and drawing her into a hug. His arms encircled her and lifted her lightly from the floor into a spin. “I didn’t get my chance to do that,” he whispered in her ears, and spun her around one more time before she had to push off of him.
She didn’t release her grip from around his shoulders while she stared into his eyes. She didn’t dare to even breathe, as she watched the Doctor’s eyes become filled with a longing. His hands moved down from her shoulders to rest at her lower back, outside the soft fabric of her robe. She lowered her eyelids when the Doctor moved in closer, and tightened her grip around the Doctor’s shoulders. Her conscious thought faded away and the only thing that she could think of was a mental countdown. Three…Two…One…
“I better get the TARDIS ready,” the Doctor said, jumping back and rubbing the back of his neck furiously. “She’s been feeling a bit queasy lately, and I don’t want her getting turned around and ending up in the middle of an ocean or an iceberg. You want to get dressed, right?”
He stared at Rose, and tried to avoid the hurt expression on her face, instead taking in her pink dressing gown. Her hands were shoved deeply into her pockets and her feet were shuffling slightly back from him, as if he had pushed her.
“Of course you do. Anyway, I was thinking Barcelona, but then I got to thinking, ‘no it’s way too crowded,’ so I was thinking of going to the a nice planet somewhere, packing a nice picnic lunch and just talking, like we did on New Earth. Just like old times, eh Rose? Two travelers, not worried about defending or adventures, just two friends.”
Rose nodded and gave him a smile. “Yeah, two best friends.” She knew the words sounded flat from the moment they formed on her tongue, but she couldn’t help herself. Friends… best friends, but still, just friends.
“Molto-bene,” the Doctor said before walking with Rose out of the kitchen and listening for her door to close, while he acted like he was walking towards the console room. Instead, he leaned heavily against one of the coral struts and let his feet just out from underneath him. He covered his face with his hands and blew out all the breath in his lungs.
“Stupid…stupid…”
Author: country_who
Rating: PG
Word Count (This chapter): 3235
Genre: AU, Actions/Adventure
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose, Tenth Doctor, Human Doctor, Rose, Jenny
Summary: AU Journey's End. Rose gets trapped in the TARDIS instead of Donna and now holds the mind of a Time Lord protected by the Bad Wolf, but what happens when the human Doctor dies, and the Time Lord tries to take her to a planet to get her mind off of him, and fulfill a promise? Does the Doctor have more to lose than gain?
Author's Note: Thanks to othermewriter who solidified the main ideas swimming in the soup I call my brain.
Author's Note 2: I've done a quick pic of Jenny's pet Chubchuck (bottom of the page), Mr. Anderson would look like, it's not very good, but I think it gets the point across. As for his voice, think Steve Urkal on helium.
Prologue| Chapter 1
Rose Tyler awoke the next morning with a strangely clear sensation in her head. It wasn’t muddled like it had been and was free of the stray thoughts that she had grown up knowing. It felt as though she had regained clarity in her mind without ever really losing it. She relished in the sensation and wondered if it would last the rest of her life. Surely, she wouldn’t want to go back to the way she used to think, in spurts instead of a constant stead stream. No wonder the Doctor bounced around all the time, this was invigorating.
Stretching out on her bed, Rose found that the only thing that was truly hazy was her memory of last night. The nightmare was still clear in her mind’s eye, as well as the Doctor’s comforting grip on her shoulders. The way he rocked her ever so slightly with the constant beating of his hearts was making its way to the front of her memory, but after that she only received bits and pieces. She recalled the Doctor telling her that he was going to make it so she could instinctively erect her own mental barriers, but after that it was all her own assumptions.
Knowing that the easiest way for the Doctor to enter her thoughts would have been when she was unconscious, she figured he had given her mind a simple command to sleep, and she had willingly succumbed.
She gently pushed her personal inquires to the back of her mind with ease, letting her mind drift from the past to the present. There was no point in letting her thoughts linger on what had happened. After all, she had meant what she said when she told the Doctor that she trusted him more than she trusted herself.
Glancing at the glowing letters on her bedside clock, Rose saw that the TARDIS decided to make it 7:05 in the morning. She had missed that about the ship. She could travel anywhere in time and space, but always decided to keep her insides composed and consistent. The decision couldn’t be for the Doctor’s benefit, for he was always running around and rarely slept. He could be-and probably was-ready for an adventure whenever the air seemed right, or on an arbitrary whim.
Instead, Rose knew the TARDIS did it for her and any of the other companions that came through her doors. It gave the Doctor a clear period of time that he couldn’t come barging into her room and sweeping her into the next escapade. It grounded her as well, letting her know that even with the life style she had fallen into, there was still one constant in her life. Everything else could fall apart, but this little, impossible, blue box was always going to be there.
She rubbed her eyes blearily and slid out from under the covers. Before stepping out of the bed, she slid her fingers lovingly over the walls of the ship. A slight tickle moved in the back of her mind and made a smile spread across her face. The sensation of being wrapped in warmth was pumping through her veins and running down to her fingers and toes.
She pulled her dressing gown around herself and walked into the console room to see the Doctor leaning against the TARDIS console. His jacket lay discarded on the floor and his flue oxford shirt was rolled up to the elbows. The sight of his arms made him seem exposed-made him seem human. He grinned at her while she perched on top of the captain’s chair and drew her knees up to her chest, still half asleep.
He had to suppress a laugh forming at the base of his throat at the sight of her. Her blonde hair was flying in every direction. Her cheeks had a pick tinge to them from being encased in the heat of her bedroom cover, while her eyelids lowered halfway over her eyes.
“Good morning,” the Doctor said, pretending to be oblivious to her drowsiness. “Sleep well?”
“Mmhm,” Rose mumbled. She scooted to the side and let the Doctor join her on the seat, while she leaned against him. “’M head feels different, it’s clearer.”
“Doesn’t sound that way,” he teased.
“Trust me, if it didn’t I’d still be in bed, and dead to the world around me.” Rose gave the Doctor a sly grin and gently brushed her fingers against his black eye. She winged slightly, but decided not to say anything when the Time Lord gave her a disarming shrug.
“I felt the same way, when I first learned to erect my own barriers, it’s so much quieter. I mean imagine if we couldn’t do that. It would be like someone rambling in your ear non-stop, and that would be really annoying, and it would be even worse, because it’s not like you could tell them to stop, because you can’t stop someone thinking, or at least it would be very difficult I suppose that if you really, really wanted to, you could…”
“Doctor.”
The Doctor looked up at her with a raised eyebrow and a mouth still hanging wide open.
“Stop.”
“Right, sorry,” the Doctor replied, with a sheepish grin. “So, what do you say, breakfast and then we can decide how much trouble we want to get into today?”
Her feet hit the floor with the Doctor joining her. They linked arms together and exchanged cheesy grins.
“Dame Tyler would you care to join me the in galley for high potassium fruits and ring shaped pastries drenched in homogenized dairy product?”
“If that means banana and cereal in the kitchen, then, yes, Sir Doctor, I will,” Rose replied cheekily.
“Well if you want to dumb it down.” The Doctor’s words echoed from the TARDIS hallways.
~//~
A distinct whirring noise filled the space of the shuttle, followed by an even more alarming clattering sound that elevated to a racket. The noise was almost deafening by the time a groan escaped a squirming lump behind the captain’s chair of the confined space. Slowly a blonde head appeared from under a thick blanket, as Jenny finally regained consciousness and realized just what was happening to her ship.
Urgency and adrenaline pounded through her veins, as her twin hearts pounded in her chest. Her blonde hair was flying in every direction as she looked around her and realized she had fallen asleep in the control room again. Her thoughts raced at what could possibly be going on with her ship.
Leaping over the seat in a flourish, Jenny began to take the readout coming out of the monitor, as emergency lights came on in an eerie red glow. She kept telling herself she was going to replace those lights with a cheerier yellow, but Mr. Anderson had argued with her, telling her that red was his favorite color and that it was pretty. She found that she couldn’t deny the little fella and didn’t change them.
“Engine Pressure high, hull temperature increasing, shields failing,” Jenny said, while she reached out and turned on view-screen. “Setting course for closest oxygenated atmosphere, hold on Mr. Anderson,” Jenny shouted, while turned around to find a quivering creature, trying to push himself towards Jenny on a stump of tail. “We seem to be unable to steer the ship properly… or land.”
An electronic voice began to fill the air, rising above the insistent noise. “Prepare for impact with the planet Alderaan in 5.42 minutes.”
“Jenny crashing, stop! Anderson scared!” the creature shouted, while Jenny scooped the fury mass into her hands and gently brushed her hand over his black spotted red fur. The creature visibly relaxed, but stayed fearful. Mr. Anderson held out his tiny fur covered hands to grip onto her thumb. He was no larger than a mouse with large eyes that seemed to take up half of his face. Green antennae drooped in fear, while he tried to curl himself into a smaller ball.
He moved his legless body around with his arms while trying to position himself on his tail, but still fell over on his side. Jenny had to hold him steady, so he didn’t tumble onto the floor. He let a pitiful squeak come up from his throat and began to shiver harder.
Jenny put on a brave face and brushed her check against his hairy back.
“Jenny,” the creature said urgently.
“Hush now,” Jenny said. “We’ll be fine, you trust me don’t you?”
“Anderson trusts Jenny,” Mr. Anderson replied seriously, as if Jenny had insulted him. “Anderson scared for Jenny. Jenny love Anderson. Anderson love Jenny. Jenny save Anderson. Anderson no lose Jenny!”
“Impact in 4 minutes, survival possibility of Generated Anomaly, 5.4 percent, survival possibility of Chubchuck, 0.002 percent. Please assume crash positions,” the electronic voice rang out again.
Mr. Anderson screamed, covering his little ears and looked fearfully at Jenny, who was grumbling something about needing to change the ship’s programming. She was getting sick and tired of her own ship referring to her as the ‘Generated Anomaly.’ It was bad enough when her father referred to her in that way, but her ship saying it was ridiculous.
Reaching the back of the ship’s control room, Jenny pressed the switch by the door and watched it ascend, while slipping Mr. Anderson on to her shoulder and giving his head a comforting pat. He purred in contentment and buried his face further into her neck. He couldn’t help murmuring Jenny’s name over and over against. The words were only intended for his ears, but Jenny picked up on them and cooed to him softly.
“I love you too; little one, but you’re being way too pessimistic. Look on the bright side.” She gave the small creature a wild smile, and placed a chaste kiss on his furry spotted forehead. “We’ve never crashed before, think of the fun. It’s like a rollercoaster ride! You liked Coney Island VI didn’t you? A whole new experience, just for the two of us!”
The red and black creature straightened out slightly and exposed his plush yellow-brown belly. Puffing out his chest, he tried to look tough in front of Jenny, despite how he had been acting. With a nod of his head, he offered Jenny a small grin and used his arms to pull himself up to her neck and begin to weave her hair into a simple braid, like he always did when he was nervous.
“Come on then, I need to get something before we crash.” Jenny whispered a bit more quietly. She felt moisture beginning to drip onto her neck and knew that her pet must be crying, but she refused to look in that direction. She couldn’t let the little guy see how upset and afraid she really was. That was not something her father would approve of. Not that it mattered, he wasn’t here, and after all her years of searching she wasn’t going to find him. He would never hug her again, or tell her she was brilliant.
She had spent the last six month searching for him. Of course, she didn’t tell that to herself at first. Instead, she said she was travelling, viewing the worlds with everything at her fingertips. It wasn’t until she was hurt on the planet Servitium with an injury that none of the doctors thought she would survive, did she admit how much she wanted her father to be with her.
She had slipped between unconsciousness and consciousness and saw him every time she drifted off. The doctor and nurses had told her when she finally began to recover that she would call out when she slipped away. Her words were always the same, ‘Dad’ repeated over and over again. She never begged for him to come for her, never asked why he wasn’t there with her, or why he wasn’t there with her in the first place.
It was a simple need, not a complex one. Every girl needed her father.
Jenny stepped into her room and carefully set the silently crying Chubchuck onto the bed she seldom slept on. He sat on the bed, watching Jenny intently, when a tremor ran through the trip and almost made Mr. Anderson fall onto his side.
“Be careful,” Jenny told him, while she bent down in front of a drawer and took out a photo of her father.
She had finally gotten a picture of him by tapping into her ship’s database. It had automatically downloaded the security tapes from the planet. She had spent hours rifling through the tapes before she found the one moment that she wanted to remember her father like.
He was standing next to her, holding the terraforming device above his head, poised to throw it to the ground. He was so strong, not like the last look she got of him, with tears in his eyes and a shaking voice.
“Jenny look for dad?” Mr. Anderson asked, as the muffled electronic voice gave another read out.
Jenny sniffed and shoved the picture in her pocket. “Yeah, you never know right? Crash a ship and he might come running to help.”
Mr. Anderson gave her a sympathetic smile. “Jenny and Anderson bunker down?”
Jenny nodded, grabbing up her tactical bag and beginning to fill it with sheets from her bed. She set it down on the bed and helped Mr. Anderson inside. “Okay little friend, hang on tight, curl yourself around the covers and try to stay as small as possible. You’ll be fine; just don’t come out until you know we’ve stopped, got it. I don’t care what you hear or feel. Stay in that bag and don’t come out.”
Jenny’s words were soft but stern, while she made sure Anderson was comfortable and safe. He was busily wrapping himself up until only one eye and antenna were sticking out from the covers.
“Jenny alright?” asked the small voice coming up from the white fabric.
“I’ll always be alright,” Jenny muttered, giving the Chubchuck a final pat on the head and zipping up the compartment.
“Impact in 1.00 minute, please brace for impact.”
“Here we go,” Jenny muttered, as she ran back into the control room and began to shut down all power feeds and dump the fuel from the ship to prevent a fireball from encasing them when they finally did make contact with Alderaan’s surface.
“Impact in 30 seconds.”
Jenny climbed back behind her captain’s chair and curled herself around the tactical bag. She pressed her ear against it and could just hear Mr. Anderson’s whimpering.
“Hush now, sweetheart, wouldn’t want to crash in a wet bag, would you? That wouldn’t be fun?”
“Jenny,” he cried out loudly. She could see the zipper on the bag beginning to open slightly, but she forced it shut.
“No,” Jenny said harshly.
“Impact in 10…9…8…7…”
Jenny closed her eyes, reached into her pocket and touched the picture. She imagined the look on his face, the pride, the lack of fear. She was content.
“Three…Two…One…”
~//~
The Doctor and Rose sat down around the table in the TARDIS’s kitchen. Rose munched silently on her cereal, while the Doctor was carefully slicing his already peeled banana with his sonic screwdriver. The gentle whirring coming from the device changed frequency, and the blue end of the sonic illuminated a single piece of banana and caused it to rise gracefully into the air.
The Doctor grinned and opened his mouth, so that the banana slice dropped in. He chewed happily and began to focus on more slices at a time. Gradually, the Doctor moved onto six banana slices and seven pieces of Rose’s cheerios. She glared at him, but gave herself with giggles, when the Doctor’s concentration broke suddenly and dropped all the food items into his hair.
Frowning, the Time Lord picked a piece of banana out of his hair and rolled it in his fingers before opening his mouth and attempting to eat the fruit. Rose swatted his hand away before he could try.
“No, Doctor,” Rose told him, coming over taking the food out of his hair and dumping it in the rubbish bin. “I swear you act like you’re nine, not nine hundred. Honestly, how did you get by without me?”
Rose tied her dressing gown tighter around her waist and sat down. Hazel eyes stared at the Doctor, taking careful notice of how his face fell slightly for the briefest of seconds. His face quickly broke into a smile and covered his unsure emotions.
“I had friends, Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said, putting on an affronted voice. “I didn’t become a hermit after we were separated.” His voice softened and covered her hand with his. “I told them about you. Donna had wanted to meet you for the longest time. She might have been a bit happier to see you than I was.”
“Really?” Rose asked, her voice sounding slightly pained.
“No,” the Doctor said in a teasing voice that caused the minute amounts of doubt that were swimming around in her stomach melt away. “No man was as happy as I was.”
Rose smiled, thinking back at how much she longed to see the Doctor like that again. His hair blowing wildly, his legs pounding and a permanent smile growing on his face. Her heart pounded just at the sight of him. If it wasn’t for the Dalek, that would have been the happiest moment of her life.
“Rose Tyler, aren’t you being a wee bit competitive?” the Doctor asked, coming up from behind her and drawing her into a hug. His arms encircled her and lifted her lightly from the floor into a spin. “I didn’t get my chance to do that,” he whispered in her ears, and spun her around one more time before she had to push off of him.
She didn’t release her grip from around his shoulders while she stared into his eyes. She didn’t dare to even breathe, as she watched the Doctor’s eyes become filled with a longing. His hands moved down from her shoulders to rest at her lower back, outside the soft fabric of her robe. She lowered her eyelids when the Doctor moved in closer, and tightened her grip around the Doctor’s shoulders. Her conscious thought faded away and the only thing that she could think of was a mental countdown. Three…Two…One…
“I better get the TARDIS ready,” the Doctor said, jumping back and rubbing the back of his neck furiously. “She’s been feeling a bit queasy lately, and I don’t want her getting turned around and ending up in the middle of an ocean or an iceberg. You want to get dressed, right?”
He stared at Rose, and tried to avoid the hurt expression on her face, instead taking in her pink dressing gown. Her hands were shoved deeply into her pockets and her feet were shuffling slightly back from him, as if he had pushed her.
“Of course you do. Anyway, I was thinking Barcelona, but then I got to thinking, ‘no it’s way too crowded,’ so I was thinking of going to the a nice planet somewhere, packing a nice picnic lunch and just talking, like we did on New Earth. Just like old times, eh Rose? Two travelers, not worried about defending or adventures, just two friends.”
Rose nodded and gave him a smile. “Yeah, two best friends.” She knew the words sounded flat from the moment they formed on her tongue, but she couldn’t help herself. Friends… best friends, but still, just friends.
“Molto-bene,” the Doctor said before walking with Rose out of the kitchen and listening for her door to close, while he acted like he was walking towards the console room. Instead, he leaned heavily against one of the coral struts and let his feet just out from underneath him. He covered his face with his hands and blew out all the breath in his lungs.
“Stupid…stupid…”