The Shortest Life - Chapter Seven: The Great Escape [7/39]

[erthechilde]

The Shortest Life

by ErtheChilde

‘There’s no one else I can talk to. I’ve seen all that stuff up there, the size of it, and I can’t say a word.’



DISCLAIMER & OTHER WARNINGS

The Doctor gaped at Rose, unable to believe what he was hearing. She thought now was a good opportunity to air philosophical differences?

‘Is it really the time?’ he protested.

‘Right now you’re in a cell and can’t go swanning off somewhere if you don’t like where the conversation is headed,’ Rose replied firmly.

‘The conversation’s likely to be the only thing headed anywhere if we don’t get out of here - are you really so petty and stupid that you want to discuss this now?’

Her eyes flashed at the jab to her intelligence, but she didn’t remark on it. ‘We can’t go anywhere until the way is clear. My friend’s off doing that now and will come get us when it’s safe.’

‘Oh, you’re friend is it?’ he disparaged, angry and feeling a little bit betrayed. He’d been trying to think up ways to get out and save her, and here she was working with someone else and conspiring to keep him trapped in a cage. How had he been so wrong about Rose Tyler? ‘That mean you intend to just go off with him, then? Leave me here just ‘cos I won’t get into hormonal teenage rubbish with you?’

This time it was hurt that crossed her features instead of anger, but she kept her jaw firm and shoulders squared.

‘She is busy trying to make sure you and I can both get out of here,’ Rose replied angrily. ‘Together. The way we got here. But that’s gonna take time, and in that time there’s a few things we need to clear up.’

‘So, what, you intend to force me to talk?’ he asked, voice a dangerous quiet.

‘No, Doctor, I want you to listen. Just…’ she sighed. ‘I’m gonna let you out in a minute. I just…I just need you to hear this.’

That brought him up short.

Her tone had lightened again, and instead there was just something weariness and a bit of desperation in her voice. Rose was looking at him, eyes beseeching like she was trying to tell him just how important this was.

Despite his own anger at the situation, he couldn’t help focussing completely on her. This was not some dastardly opponent holding him captive, after all.

‘There’s nothing I want more than to travel with you,’ she told him earnestly. ‘And I’d be miserable if you brought me home to stay - but I won’t let you control me.’

He couldn’t help spluttering. ‘Control you?!’

Hadn’t they already had this out once before?

‘The last bloke that made me choose between my mum and him also convinced me to drop out of school and pay his way while he tried to become a rock star,’ Rose clarified grimly, and the Doctor’s indignation stalled. ‘I was a stupid chav back then, and really lucky I didn’t come out of it with more than a few hundred quid debt and some bruises -’

An inexplicable, primal anger sparked within him at the idea that anyone would dare raise a hand to Rose Tyler.

‘I won’t do that again,’ she continued. ‘I won’t let someone do that to me again.’

She held his gaze for a long moment, and as he found himself torn over what to say. His automatic response, already on his tongue, was to retort that if she really felt he was trying to control her, he would gladly bring her home once she let him out. But even as he tried to voice the words, they seemed to shrivel at the back of his throat, because he would be anything but glad at saying goodbye the Rose.

At being abandoned by yet another companion.

Any response he might have managed to get out, though, was interrupted as the door once more slammed open. Rose whirled around, clutching the sonic to her as a stranger entered the room.

Not an Amaranian, he was relieved to see, but apparently another human like her. An athletic looking woman with curly auburn hair and grey eyes, he felt a measure of wariness at the sight of her. For one thing, she was not dressed for the location or the time period. For another, she wore a wrist strap that he had come to associate with the Time Agency.

More important than either of those things, however, was the uneasy sense of familiarity he got from seeing her.

‘Sorry to break up the domestic, but it’s time to go!’ she declared, her voice steady despite breathlessness, then her eyes fell on him. ‘Oh, hello, sweetie.’

The Doctor made a face at the cloying endearment, then levelled a gaze at Rose. ‘This the friend you were talking about?’

‘Yeah,’ she answered, shooting the stranger an oddly irritated look. ‘Doctor, this is River - River, this is the Doctor.’

‘Oh, I can see that,’ the mysterious River purred, while Rose sonicked open the cell. There was a high-pitched squeal and a click and he found himself freed from his cell, coat and boots thrust into his arms.

‘Agent of the Shadow Proclamation, is it?’ he asked as he threw on his clothes, studying their new ally suspiciously.

‘That’s what it says on the badge,’ River winked. ‘The Amaranians were about to prep your companion here for sale. She realized something was up, started kicking up a fuss - it got my attention, so I decided to get involved. Things were so dull up until then.’

‘You sound as if you knew what the Amaranians were doing beforehand?’

‘Spoilers,’ River said with a wink. ‘Now hurry up, we have a daring escape to see to.’

And she ducked back out of the holding cell area, leaving the Doctor and Rose to exchange glances.

‘I think she fancies you,’ Rose teased.

‘And I think you’re a trouble magnet,’ the Doctor retorted with a scowl. ‘C’mon!’

They hurried after the mysterious River and into a hallway - a much more sterile and official looking hallway than the Doctor recalled them being brought in through. Evidently, he had shorted out the hologram for the entire floor, if not the whole satellite.

‘Looks a bit different, doesn’t it?’ Rose said, confirming his suspicions. She nodded around the hall, which was flashing red light in time with the sound of the alarm, as they caught up with the other woman.

River whirled around to face them.

‘Right - your ship is in the holding docks on the lower levels of the satellite,’ she explained, pointing to her left. ‘Down the corridor, there’s a service lift that’ll bring you right to it. They’d be expecting you to come down the main one, so it gives you a bit of stealth and some time.’

‘What about you?’ Rose asked.

‘Species trafficking ring to deal with, remember?’ River smirked, nodding her head in the opposite direction before taking off.

Rose and the Doctor exchanged glances.

‘Does she actually think we’re just going to up and leave in the middle of something like this?’ Rose asked, sounding scandalized.

‘Of course not. That was an invitation if I ever heard one,’ the Doctor answered, automatically reaching for Rose’s hand.

She took it without hesitating. ‘Knew you’d say that!’

They reached a crossway, but River wasn’t anywhere in sight. He started to head in one direction, but Rose tugged him in another. ‘No, the room where I was brought is this way.’

‘If you say so,’ he agreed, allowing her to navigate them around the station as she apparently knew where she was going. They were just rounding a corner when shouts from behind told him they had been spotted.

In the background he could hear orders being given to cordon off the different levels of the satellite, but despite this Rose was determinedly leading them onward. It was a change from how their adventures usually went, with him being the one organizing a daring rescue. As it was, he had already come up with at least thirteen different possible exit strategies, but seeing Rose taking control of the situation filled him with a buoying sense of pride that he just had to let her keep at it.

By the time they caught up with River in the main control room of the satellite, she was already in the midst of a dust up with at least three of the Amaranian traffickers. Several others were already knocked out on the floor amidst the ruins of hovering furniture and broken view screens.

‘Wow,’ Rose remarked, sounding impressed. ‘She’s a bit Lara Croft, isn’t she?’

The Doctor ignored that, tossing her the sonic as they crossed the threshold. ‘Go to the main computer and use the setting I’ve keyed it to. It’ll lock down the entire satellite so no one can leave.’

‘Got it!’

She darted away and the Doctor dove into the fray, just in time to grab hold of one of the Amaranians that was targeting River with his blaster.

‘Now that’s not very polite,’ he remarked idly, pulling the blaster back and using it to knock the Amaranian out.

River winked at him. ‘Thought I told you both to leg it?’

‘Well, Rose is only human…limited brain capacity and all that. Doesn’t listen to directions very well, so I’m left to break her in.’

‘Woman after my own heart - no wonder you could never keep her from wandering off.’

The Doctor’s head whipped around at that comment. Something in time rippled within him at those words, but he didn’t get a chance to ask about it as one of the traffickers grabbed him around the neck, forcing him to flip him over his shoulder.

‘Lemme go!’ he heard Rose yell from across the room, and after knocking his own assailant to the ground, he saw her being lifted away from the control unit he had sent her to, arms trapped in the alien’s grasp and legs kicking uselessly.

‘Rose!’

He tried to get to her, but was hindered by a flurry of blasterfire that forced him to duck. Behind him, circuitry smoked and he heard the pained yelps of someone who hadn’t been so lucky.

Once again he tried to get to Rose, whose entire body was flailing. He watched, bemused, as she suddenly threw her head back and knocked the Amaranian in the face. He howled, releasing her automatically, and she whirled around and kicked him first in the shin, and then in another place that made the Doctor wince in sympathy.

He was just watching her shoulder-charge her attacker when his attention was called back to his own fight, ducking out of the path of blaster that went off as River struggled with another trafficker.

He threw himself back into it, disarming and knocking out his opponents with reflexes he couldn’t help wish he’d forgotten. And while River seemed to have no compunction of appropriating one of the Amaranian blasters for her own use, he carefully avoided touching any such weapon.

He’d sworn to himself that if he succeeded in eradicating the Daleks, he would never again use a gun.

In the background, there was a mechanical voice declaring that the satellite was being put on lock-down, all of the main exit ports being closed down. Between the Doctor and River, they managed make short work of two of the traffickers that jumped out from behind a large computer tower. The last few Amaranians seemed to be fleeing towards what appeared to be a teleport platform at the other end of the room. River tossed something round and illuminated in blue into their midst, and seconds later a flash bomb took out everything within a six foot radius.

‘Stun only - I know you’ve got a thing about that.’ She beamed at him and the familiar feeling was back tenfold. With it came the familiar sense of a different regeneration’s memories bleeding through into his current timeline.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he demanded.

‘Spoilers,’ she said again, in a maddeningly smug voice.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Don’t fret too much over it. You and I are going to meet a few more times before I can tell you that. And I have the distinct memory of telling you on one of those occasions - and not before.’

‘What do you mean, “not before”?’

‘Sorry, not allowed to tell you.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘It’s against the rules.’

‘Whose rules?’

‘Your rules.’

It hit him again, the discomforting partial perception of having had this conversation - or that he would have this conversation - in a different incarnation. And once again, before he could call her out on it, his attention was drawn by a shout from across the room.

‘Doctor!’

Once again, Rose was being held by one of their would-be captors - this time a much more decorated looking one than the others, probably the leader. He was dragging Rose toward the door they had come through, a hand securing her in a way that made it impossible to fight back.

‘Rose!’ he made a move toward her, only for the Amaranian to suddenly produce a blaster which he pushed roughly against her temple.

‘That would be an extremely bad idea, sir,’ he declared in the same officious sounding voice that most Amaranians used. ‘I would hate to have to decorate the floor with her brain matter. And I would also appreciate your associate lowering her weapon.’

‘Oh, I would, but I really don’t want to,’ River retorted, not budging.

‘Steady,’ the Doctor snapped. ‘That’s all we need are two trigger-happy semi-sentients taunting each other with guns. Let’s just talk this out and no one needs to get hurt.’ He turned an icy stare on the Amaranian captain, his voice going low and dangerous. ‘What exactly do you think you’re going to do? The entire satellite’s been locked down. Not many places for you to go, and trust me when I say as long as you have her with you, I’ll find you.’

‘I imagine so,’ the Amaranian agreed. ‘Which is why I have nothing to lose in doing this -’

Blaster still unerringly trained on Rose’s head, he reached for the nearest computer terminal and punched something in.

‘Satellite Self Destruct Engaged,’ a robotic voice echoed all around them.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Rose cried as he dragged her toward the door.

‘My crew and I prefer death to the type of prison sentence that the Shadow Proclamation likely has in store for us,’ the Amaranian captain said, smiling unpleasantly. ‘But on the off-chance that I make it out of here alive? She will be very useful. Very useful indeed.’

‘Doctor!’ Rose yelped as the Amaranian pushed her aside and punched a button.

The door separating the control room from the corridor slid down, separating him and Rose from the Doctor and River with an echoing finality.

‘Rose!’

The Doctor vaulted across computers and debris, trying to make it to the door before it slid shut, but missing it by inches.

‘Damn!’ he snarled, whipping out the sonic to try to open it. Nothing happened. ‘Deadlock sealed. There’s no way off the bridge - unless -’ He headed toward the teleport pad that the Amaranians had been trying to get to escape through before. ‘A localized teleport might make it possible to -’

He stopped talking when he saw a smoking, gaping hole in the coils and circuitry of the navigational matrix.

‘We’re trapped in here,’ he realized.

‘Oh, not necessarily,’ River murmured smugly, holding up her wrist and showing off a familiar looking wrist band.

‘You’re a Time Agent?’ He realized. And really, he should have thought of that. It would explain why her time traces didn’t make any sense.

‘No, not exactly - but I did know one nice of enough to lend me his little toy,’ she chuckled, and then added, ‘Well, I knew what he liked.’ Her eyes raked over him again. ‘Bet if we had a bit more time, I could figure out what this you likes, too.’

The casual allusion to regeneration caught him off guard for a moment, but he recovered himself just as quickly.

Stepping forward, he grabbed her bare wrist tightly.

‘Who are you?’ he growled. ‘Because you’re not working for the Shadow Proclamation - they don’t have agents, and you don’t resemble the Judoon in any way - ’

‘Yeah, but Rose doesn’t know that, does she?’

His eyes flickered over her suspiciously again, and he realized suddenly what was off about this woman.

‘You don’t belong in this time.’

‘Oh, I bet you say that to all your girls.’

‘No, you don’t belong to this timeline - or any timeline,’ he told her, frowning as he tried to figure out the exact nature of the problem without tapping into his time sense. ‘Your time is…done. Run out. But you’re still here, right in front of me.’ Even as he said it, he knew it was true. He hadn’t noticed it before because he had been avoiding the use of his temporal senses. ‘Every creature is surrounded by a constant swirl of Time and…possibility. I can feel them even without reaching out, but you - you’ve got none. It’s as if, it’s all run out.’

She offered him a sad smile. ‘That’s because it has.’

‘What?’

‘I am out of time. Sort of. It’s a bit like a save point. And I was hauled out of time picoseconds before my death to do a job. When it’s done, I have to go back. She said it was one of those fixed points I wasn’t allowed to meddle with - ’

‘She?’

‘Can’t tell you.’

‘Then what the hell can you tell me?’

‘Just this: I was sent on this little adventure by your oldest friend.’

‘Oldest friend?’ There were only a handful of individuals that could carry that moniker, and all of them were dead. Unless - ‘Someone else survived?’

The pitying look she gave him answered that question and killed the tiniest spark of hope that tried to flare to life.

‘Why were you sent here, then?’ he asked stiffly, forcing his face back to blankness.

‘Playing the part of intergalactic messenger girl it seems,’ she sighed. ‘I was sent here specifically to find you and give you a message - and, well, then I saw your companion was about to be shipped off somewhere nasty. Seems they already had a buyer for her and everything, so even if you had managed to escape eventually, she would have been gone.’

‘I would have gone after her.’

‘It would’ve been too late by the time you found her,’ River pointed out. ‘Either way, you can say “thank you” any time now.’

He was quiet for a long moment, and instead asked, ‘What’s the message then?’

She leaned forward, motioning with a finger that he should come closer. Against his better judgement, he did so and she moved her lips to inches away from his ears.

‘Protect the Valiant Child.’

The message resonated within him, the memory of a dream long past. He could remember it now - the fevered dream and the promise he’d made to Time. Although he couldn’t remember exactly what had prompted him to promise, he knew he had meant it.

The aimless feeling, like he had forgotten something, disappeared as his memories clarified.

He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘When this is over, you’re going to tell me the truth. And hang the spoilers rot! But right now, we’ve got to get Rose back.’

‘Looking forward to it, love,’ River answered, not looking the least bit intimidated as she keyed in the right data for two travellers. ‘Hold tight.’

‘I hate travelling this way,’ the Doctor grunted. ‘Always leaves a bad taste in my mouth.’

‘Bit like sulphur,’ River agreed as the control room faded around them.

Only to materialize in a different corridor, completely surrounded by frantic Amaranians running to and fro through the out corridor. All of this came to a halt when they noticed the Doctor and River, and there was a sudden flurry of movement to train every available weapon on them.

‘Well, that was less than optimal,’ River sighed.

‘Just a bit,’ the Doctor agreed as he and River backed away. ‘Stupidly loyal bunch. Their leader says jump, they say -’

‘ - where’s the nearest cliff.’

‘Yep.’

His eyes flitted back and forth in the empty hallway, looking for any means of escape. If he got killed or was forced to regenerate, it was time he’d lose from finding Rose. And trying to follow trails of slaves and slave owners across the galaxy was not the easiest task in the world.

His eyes lit on a nearby protrusion on the wall and his heart lifted. A rubbish chute.

River seemed to notice at the same time, because she began to surreptitiously inch them toward it.

‘Go on, then,’ she ordered. ‘I’ve got this.’

‘What? No -’

‘I’ve got my own way out, remember?’ she said, indicating her vortex manipulator. ‘Now go get Rose!’

She shoved him towards the chute, ducking out of the way herself as gunfire erupted around them. She took cover around the corner facing them and started rummaging in her pockets, probably for another flash bomb or blaster.

Questions abounded in his head, but the Doctor ignored them for now. She had said they would meet again, and he could get his answers then. For now, he simply threw himself towards the chute and dove in.

There was an exploding sound behind him, cut off as he slid down the vent.

‘I really hope this doesn’t lead to an incinerator,’ he muttered.

· ΘΣ ·

A quick dash through the satellite’s waste disposal system, and the Doctor found himself in a service corridor leading to the docking levels. He was just cursing his inability to move any faster, when a shout broke through his thoughts as he rounded a corner.

‘Doctor!’

There was Rose, slumped uncertainly outside the corridor leading to the transportation hangar. She looked rumpled and bruised, but no worse for the wear.

‘You’re a sight,’ he told her, trying to make light of his relief in finding her unharmed. ‘What’d I tell you about wandering off?’

‘Didn’t have much of a choice, really,’ she shot back, allowing him to help her to her feet.

‘And where is our friend the slaver captain?’

‘Gone in there - he said with all the transport they’ve commandeered, there’s bound to be one that has a teleport,’ she explained. ‘He was gonna take me with him - said the amount of money I’d fetch would let him start over with a new crew.’

‘And yet you’re still here?’

‘Don’tnthink he reckoned on me fighting him,’ she said, looking smug. ‘I practically took a chunk out of his arm and suddenly he wasn’t so keen.’

‘You’re lucky his skin wasn’t poisonous,’ he chided, although he was proud.

Rose’s face fell. ‘You mean that’s a possibility?’

‘Xenobiology lessons later,’ he decided, grabbing her hand and hauling her onward toward the hangar. ‘He just left you here?’

‘No, I ran here after biting him - and I’m never going to get that taste out of my mouth, am I - Guess he didn’t feel like coming after me. Waste of time, and all that.’

They burst through the huge hangar door to the docking port.

Across the room he could see the TARDIS, surrounded by several Amaranian officers pointing blasters at them.

Beside him, Rose slowed, staring at the weapons uncertainly, and the Doctor tightened his grip on her hand, hoping to pass on a sense of reassurance. He’d be able to talk them out of this bit of trouble, just enough to get them to the ship.

Probably.

He was just opening his mouth to do just that, arms slowly raising in surrender, when there was a sudden explosion from the area just behind the Amaranians and the TARDIS.

Something blue and foamy exploded within a ten yard radius of the ship, just barely reaching the Doctor and Rose. He managed to shield her from most of it, but a huge glob of the stuff hit his front and began to solidify on contact.

‘I just put that on,’ he grumbled, though his eyes were fixed on the Amaranians being immobilized by the blue foam. Some kind of organic immobilization tool from what he could tell; nasty stuff to get stuck in, even if it only lasted a short time. Amazingly, none of the stuff had landed on the doors of the TARDIS, meaning whoever had thrown it had excellent aim or was terribly lucky.

Seconds later something zipped past them on a speeder, leading another group of Amaranians away.

River.

‘Her timing’s almost as good as yours,’ the Doctor pointed out.

‘Bet she hasn’t got the bronze though.’

Just as the aliens started to gain on the speeder, there was another flash and River was gone, the speeder careening into a wall. A wall very close to where the Amaranian captain appeared to be struggling with a primitive teleport device.

He looked up split seconds before it happened.

There was a muffled explosion of sound and fire.

‘River!’ Rose shouted, her smile fading.

She made to move toward the incendiary, but the Doctor held on to her.

‘She got out,’ he told her. ‘I saw her - she teleported right out. Probably put herself down planetside.’

Though he doubted that, given how much information she both had and hadn’t given him.

‘Uh…Doctor?’

‘Yeah?’

‘The, uh, blue stuff? It’s starting to melt.’

He blinked and looked at the Amaranians that were starting to be able to move again. In the distance where River had disappeared, the aliens were getting over their confusion and turning to head back toward the Doctor and Rose once more.

‘Right - time to go!’

He pulled Rose by the hand, navigating her through the sea of Amaranians and into the TARDIS. They were just closing the door behind them when the aliens managed to get completely free. The sound of fists pounding on the doors followed them as they bounded up towards the console.

‘Are we actually gonna get out this time?’ Rose asked. ‘Only, you said they shouldn’t have been able to catch us last time, but -’

‘Dematerialization sequence was just a bit out of sync - otherwise most tractor beams couldn’t hold us, let alone this one,’ the Doctor answered, pulling a lever and twirling a few dials. ‘If I could just - hah! There we go -’

The Time Rotor began to move up and down, and the wheezing groan of the TARDIS heaving into the Vortex filled their ears. Outside sounds faded away, and after a few jolting shakes of the ship, he eased them into a lazy drift through time and space.

‘And that’s us off,’ the Doctor announced smugly. ‘Not quite the most daring escape I’ve ever managed, but can’t have everything.’

‘Yeah, cos you did that all by yourself, did you?’

‘Hm…guess I had a bit of help.’

They grinned at each other for a long spell, before he decided to break the silence.

‘So, Rose Tyler, where to next?’ he asked eagerly. ‘Kingdom of Jerusalem after the First Crusade? Off to Rome to visit Emperor Nero? Bit of advice, don’t let him around a lit flame…or a lyre, for that matter.’

Rose bit her lip. ‘Well…that depends.’

Her words brought him up short, and all of a sudden. From her expression, he had a feeling she was either going to ask him to do something unpleasant or was gearing up for a serious, more-likely-than-not domestic conversation.

‘Oh? Depends on what?’ he tried to sound off hand, but his hearts were clenching. She seemed just as uneasy, because her fists were balled tight and from the way she was squaring her shoulders, she was about to say something unpleasant. ‘Rose?’

‘On you,’ she told him. ‘On finishing our conversation.’

He tensed. ‘You mean the one where you accused me of controlling you? Cos if we’re about to have a repeat of Velopssi where you all but said I’d used mind-control to make you come with me -’

‘You can’t blame me for things I don’t remember doing!’

‘Why not? Happens to me all the time…’

‘Alright, fine - but if I did say that, I can’t imagine not apologizing for it. And if I didn’t, let me apologize again - I would never really think that of you,’ Rose insisted. ‘It was probably just me really angry about something and lashing out. I do that sometimes - and before you get all superior and Time Lord-y about it, you’re not exactly blameless when it comes to lashing out either!’

He opened his mouth to protest, only to be distracted when her hand suddenly snapped out and grabbed his. The movement was urgent, but the squeeze of her fingers around his encouraging. ‘Stop - look, can we just…can we just talk about this normal people - or aliens - or whatever. Like some kind of mature species?’

He was torn between the instinct to pull away from her and the desperate need to squeeze her hand back. He forced neutrality into his tone. ‘Fine.’

‘Great,’ she offered him a tentative smile, before turning serious again. ‘I know you don’t see it that way, but you tried to stop me from staying to clear things properly with Mum. After I’d been missing for a year.’

‘Twelve hours,’ he corrected with sulky intonation of someone losing an argument.

‘To her it was a year! She’s all the family I ever had and I’m all that she’s ever had since my dad…’ Rose swallowed, either unwilling or unable to finish the sentence. Some wounds, he knew, never really healed. ‘The point it, I won’t put her through another year like that, Doctor, not even for you. Not even for the universe. And if you can’t handle that…then I guess you need to bring me home.’

The Doctor felt like his lungs were seizing up a bit.

He could tell just looking at her that this was something she didn’t want to do. She wanted to stay with him and the ultimatum she was giving him was at least forty percent nothing but bravado - her drawing a line in the sand to figure out where she stood with him.

‘You don’t get to make decisions for me,’ she continued, and then paused for a minute, before adding, ‘Not unless it’s like Downing Street, where it comes down to saving the world. Which means if I want to square things with my mum and Mickey, you don’t get to hold an intergalactic sand storm or aliens with glowing skin or whatever over my head ‘til I choose what you want to do. So I’m gonna be calling Mum every so often, and I’m going to have to visit.’ She paused again, and concluded with forced levity, ‘And possibly stop by to do laundry, cos if you’ve got a washing machine on board, I haven’t found it yet.’

He opened his mouth to reply that, of course there was a washing machine on board the TARDIS, but hesitated. Rose was watching him expectantly, and he realized with a pang that this meant something to her.

In the past, and given his thoughts on the matter earlier, the course of action should have been clear: he should bring her home rather than deal with someone who couldn’t stomach leaving their cosy life behind. In his experience, it was those companions who stubbornly retained their ties to their families and comfort zones that caused the most trouble.

Yet faced with the decision being laid out before him, the idea of bringing Rose home - the idea of her wanting to leave - put an awful taste in his mouth. More than that, the most honest part of himself knew that he needed her more right now than he needed to stick to his old ways.

He had spent his entire life having others forced to fit into the way he lived his life, perhaps it was time to give a little on that front. Especially if he didn’t want to continue on alone.

Briefly, he considered whether he would be able to endure the necessity of getting a little domestic in order to keep Rose travelling with him, and found to his surprise that the trade-off sounded less terrible than he usually would have considered. If it meant visiting her mother and friends once in a while in order to keep her by his side…

Well, he would deal with it.

Just until he didn’t need her anymore, he told the Time Lord part of him that continued to balk at the idea of being tied down in any way.

Besides, he’d already given her the damn key just yesterday, he wasn’t about to look like an idiot asking for it back.

‘Fine,’ the Doctor grunted eventually. ‘We can go back for laundry - but don’t expect me to come ‘round for tea.’

‘Trust me, I’ve learned my lesson,’ Rose quipped, but there was no malice in her voice. Meeting her gaze, he saw she was once again grinning at him, tongue poking out the corner of her mouth.

‘S’not like we can avoid the Earth entirely, anyway,’ he mumbled grudgingly, ‘Seeing as how there’s some kind of invasion usually going on. No wonder you’re so jeopardy friendly, considering where you come from…’

‘If you think I’m jeopardy friendly because I come from Earth, I’d hate to see what your -’

Her voice cut off abruptly, but not before the Doctor sensed the direction of her thoughts. Forestalling any apologies or words that would make him think too hard on the subject, he cut her off, ‘So, tell me how you managed your daring rescue to come get me.’

Rose still managed to look contrite at her slip up, but quickly replaced that with a grin and launched into a tale of how she and River had met in the waiting room of the so-called security station, as well as a ploy that helped them sneak their belongings out of the lock-up where they had been taken.

‘…and then River saw I was about to get seen by this one green bloke while I was getting your things, and she kinda swore that she knew I was going to blow her operation, but she didn’t seem all that upset about it - so she grabs the guy and plants one on him - was he ever surprised! - and the whole time is pointing at me to go and get you. Wasn’t much else I could do.’

‘And that’s how you ended up finding me?’

‘Pretty much, yeah.’

‘So how did you know you could trust her?’

‘Hm?’

‘This River person. How’d you know you could trust her, at first?’

‘Didn’t seem like she wanted to hurt me,’ Rose shrugged. ‘Besides, she showed me her badge and stuff. Told me she was an agent of the Shadow Proclamation. Heard you talking about them enough, so I figured it was safe.’

The Doctor frowned. ‘The Shadow Proclamation doesn’t use agents. They usually work with mercenaries, if they work with anyone.’

‘But she showed me…’

‘This?’ the Doctor asked, bringing out the billfold that housed the psychic paper and flipping it open, willing it to show her whatever credentials River had showed her.

Her eyes widened. ‘But…?’

The Doctor folded the paper up again. ‘I’m not the only one in the universe with psychic paper, Rose. Best keep an eye out for that.’

‘How?’ Rose asked, looking a bit wrong-footed.

‘Not much you can do unless you get some psychic training. I can help you with that, a bit - would be easier if you were the slightest bit telepathic, but I’d’ve noticed by now if you were,’ he told her. ‘For now, whenever someone shows you identification, think of something completely different from what they’re showing you. With a bit of practice, that might make the paper flicker a bit and you’d know.’

‘’Kay,’ she said, wide-eyed with incredulity.

‘In the meantime, my question is, what our friend River was doing there to begin with. She said we’d met before.’

‘Have you?’

‘No - she said we meet again in the future. Not unheard of, that. Sometimes things happen to me out of order.’

‘Let me get this straight - she’s met us before and we’ve never met her, but at some point in our future we’re going to meet her and she won’t have met us? Or something like that?’

The Doctor beamed proudly. ‘Exactly.’

‘Right…’ Rose mused. ‘So maybe our future selves sent her here to help us?’

‘No, that’s not it. I wouldn’t risk creating or maintaining a time loop for something so boring as a species trafficking operation,’ the Doctor answered thoughtfully. ‘Besides, she told me she was sent here.’

‘By who?

‘My oldest friend, apparently,’ he answered bitterly. ‘Which is impossible, because anyone that fits that very, very small category is gone.’

Rose was quiet, and he wasn’t sure if it was out of pity or pensiveness until she asked, ‘What if whoever it is sent her from your past?’

‘Doesn’t work that way,’ he told her, trying to keep his tone distant and academic despite the blistering pain at the subject of their conversation. ‘Time Lords exist outside of time. Now that…now that my planet is gone, it’s as if every individual Time Lord’s time line has disappeared with it. The only remnant of them now are points where their timelines interacted with mine, and even then they’re just echoes.’

He noticed that her face was pulled into a contemplative frown, trying to think around problems she never would have considered before meeting him.

‘What if it’s not a Time Lord?’ she suggested. ‘Or…what if it’s someone you haven’t met yet? Just cos she said it was your oldest friend might mean it’s someone you make friends with in your future and stay friends with for a long time. I mean, your kind live practically forever, right?’

‘Something like that,’ he said softly. He couldn’t help the admiring glance he gave her this time. Really, she was a rather brilliant little human. ‘It’s entirely possible. Still, doesn’t give us any answers, does it?’

‘Maybe we should go back and ask her,’ Rose suggested then, a bit hesitant. ‘I mean, at some point before she disappears.’

The Doctor considered it for a moment, then shook his head. ‘She’s likely long gone by now, wherever her teleport brought her. And going back to before would risk temporal complications I don’t much care to deal with, what with the TARDIS being tetchy enough to let traffic cops catch us.’

There was an annoyed hum at that.

‘If this River person telling the truth, we’ll run into her again,’ the Doctor said. ‘And I’m inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt this time - she did get you out of there, didn’t she?’

‘Which let me save you,’ Rose agreed. ‘So she can’t be completely bad, can she?’

Not unless she had an ulterior motive beyond her so-called message delivery, the Doctor didn’t say, not wanting to shatter Rose’s optimism so early in their travels. ‘Yeah.’

Rose smiled at him, like his admitting something so optimistic was the highlight of her day, and he quickly busied himself with the controls again.

‘Alright then - next stop, Powell Estate,’ he announced with the air of someone bestowing a great concession. ‘Just do me a favour and don’t go running out right away.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well…on the minute, improbable chance that I mistyped the coordinates and out there isn’t London in 2005, we can still correct it,’ he explained. ‘Once you’re part of the time stream, though…let’s just say I’m not in the mood for your mother takin’ exception to my face again.’

‘And what’re the odds?’ she challenged.

‘Infinitesimally small,’ he pronounced, glancing at the screen in front of him and frowning. ‘Then again…’

Rose raised an eyebrow as he leaned down to check something. ‘How far off?’

‘Just a day this time.’

Rose groaned, but it was a resigned sound and with little malice.

All was forgiven, it seemed.

This time.

NEXT CHAPTER