Through A Glass Darkly - Ninth, Tenth, Rose - PG13
Title:Through A Glass Darkly
Authors: Little_Speaker and Dubious_Gannet (co-authored fic)
Rating: PG13 (angst, some mild knife-wielding)
Era: Ninth through Tenth
Notes: Set during the first 10-15 minutes after regeneration (which puts it during the Children in Need Special). AU where something is horribly wrong with the Doctor after his regeneration. Something....REALLY....WRONG.
Through A Glass Darkly
The laugh cackled and clawed at the heels of her tennis shoes as she scrambled down the corridor.
Ducking into a recess in the wall, she slid into a crouching position, forcing the air in and out of her lungs in a semi-controlled fashion. The last thing she wanted was her wheezing, gasping breaths to give her away.
"R-oooooooooooooose. I'm coming to find you....find you.....fiiiiiind yooooooooou......"
She fought back the tears and pulled herself up, forcing her body to run again. She wanted to scream, but couldn't.
Corridor turned into corridor, which led into another corridor.
She was running further down into the TARDIS than she'd ever been before. She'd passed her previous record several hours ago, and now the halls were becoming darker, wider, and the the organic columns of the main console room seemed to grow in these depths like kudzu. But she kept running, and the voice kept following her, the slight scottish burr audible even this far ahead.
Another corridor. Another right, a left, enter another corridor, make 2 more rights, end up in a corridor, running.
She stopped again, almost on the brink of collapsing. She hadn't heard the voice for about ten minutes. And for that ten minutes all she could concentrate on was getting ahead of it. She brushed some of the loose hair out of her face and finally took a look around, or as well as she could look in the current lighting conditions. She could barely see 5 or 6 feet ahead of her, and the ceiling was completely invisible in a tangle of wires and connecting columns. The walls were like a jungle of loose electronic components and parts tacked to each other. But beneath that, the smooth, almost bone-like surface of the TARDIS's interior shone through and reflected an ambient glow through the vast corridor.
Her hesitant footsteps echoed insanely off the walls, and she thought twice about proceeding any farther forward, but knew what was behind her would be much worse. FAR worse. She kept walking.
Soon it was as dark as a country road on a moonless night. The walls still reflected the ambient glow, but barely, just barely. Small LEDs scattered along the wires that snaked around the walls, and they soon became the only thing lighting her way. She began to choke up again, the fear rising, and the hate of herself also feeding it for not having brought something useful to find her way back with.
Almost like the saving grace moment in a children's fairy-tale, a light appeared ahead of her. A pinprick on the horizon, on a slight ascending angle. She made her way forward, and soon found the vast corridor narrowing into a smaller tunnel that eventually forced her onto hand and knees. Before long she was pulling herself through a ventilation-sized space, barely able to breathe again, but for different reasons. The light was right ahead of her when she heard the voice again, far off from behind her.
Her eyes unable to adjust so quickly to brightly lit space ahead of her, she couldn't see where she was pulling herself up into. All she knew was it was further away from the voice. As her leg made contact with solid ground, a hand slipped into hers and pulled her the rest of the way up.
------
"N-no...it can't be."
The hand that had helped her out of the small opening and into the brightly lit interior of the TARDIS console room was all too familiar. An un-naturally cold hand and slender, long fingers led up into the sleeve of a black leather jacket.
"You're not real."
She dared to look up into his eyes and saw a flash of hurt there. They quickly narrowed though, and the look became alien and distant, like the first time she had met him.
"Who ARE you? And what were you doin' in my ship's ventilation system?"
It was Rose's turn to flash a look of hurt and confusion. She took her hand back suddenly and backed up.
"What do you mean, 'Who am I?'. It's me. Rose".
"I've never seen you in my life, you filthy little ape. Now what the hell are you doin' in my TARDIS?" His voice rose in pitch and anger at the end of the sentence.
"It's me, Doctor!"
"I told YOU, I've never seen you in my life. Now I want an explanation as to what you're doin' here and I'm NOT gonna ask again."
Rose flinched as he grabbed her arm, rougher than he'd ever done before, no sign of the empathic if reserved Doctor coming through. He pulled her up almost eye to eye with him, about a foot away. Her hoodie collar began digging into her neck, on the verge of strangling her.
She finally looked up into his face and saw for the first time that maybe this wasn't her Doctor. It might have been a quick presumption on her part, but her gut told her so right away. His face was more gaunt, more lines of pain etched across it, the suffering more apparent. A pale complexion and unkempt hair stood out against the darkness of his clothes. The look in his eyes was still completely and utterly alien, and she closed her eyes and tears formed. It was her Doctor...but, It wasn't. On top of everything else since his regeneration, this was the cruelest twist yet.
From the vent she came in through, the voice trailed out again, though only into her ears.
"R-oooooooooooooose. I'm coming to find you....find you.....fiiiiiind yooooooooou......"
-------
Time and relative dimensions in space is a funny way of stating the redundant. Time is an illusion caused by passage through space; space an illusion formed through one's inability to exist everywhere, thanks to time.
Einstein had said that. No, wait. Douglas Adams.
Both dead. Funny how that worked out. But they were right, weren't they?
It doesn't matter where you go, because now is everywhere.
And it doesn't matter when you go, because here is everywhere.
And here and now is pain, and lost, and alone.
And now there's this blond bint crawling out of the ductwork.
-----
Rose sat on the grille of the TARDIS floor, staring numbly at her surroundings. They weren't quite as she remembered them from her trips with -- that is -- with -- those times that --
The console room seemed --
Bigger. Vast, that was the word. Bookshelves. A chaise lounge. Iron-wrought candelabras. A phonograph. These things, and the shapes of other, less familiar shapes could be seen in the faint light that radiated outwards from the Art Nouveau wall sconces sweeping upwards to arc overhead in the huge dome of the ceiling, where something -- a bat? fluttered briefly. In the middle of it all was the old, familiar time rotor, except that it looked like something out of a Jules Verne novella -- brass handles, glass and ceramic knobs, patched-in wire relays that might've been from old telephone switchboards. Even the grille on which she sat had an elaborate interlacing pattern of rings, instead of the industrial matrix she remembered.
But it was the TARDIS. It just looked like it could be a Meat Loaf video.
And this was the Doctor. Just --
"Don't make yourself too comfy," he muttered, dragging a monitor down from its ceiling mount. "You an' I are going to have a nice little chit-chat, just as soon as -- Damn!" He glowered at whatever was on the monitor -- its layout was different from the design scheme Rose was used to seeing -- and turned back to the main console. Rose was surprised to see that, while he was wearing his trademark leather coat, the Doctor also had some sort of cravat. It didn't suit him.
"Doctor?"
"Shut it."
"Doctor, what's happened?"
"I said --"
Rose stood up, instinctively putting out her hand to steady herself on the guide rail that ringed the console. It wasn't there.
"Oi! You! DOWN."
"Why are you like this?!" wailed Rose. This wasn't fair. . .
He sneered at her distress. "How'm I supposed to be, then? Got a vested interest in the emotional well-being of everyone you hijack?"
Rose stared. The time rotor sputtered unevenly, and the Doctor began stabbing at the buttons, muttering darkly to himself.
This wasn't fair. To lose him the first time, the monster sweeping down to devour him in one fell blow, bad enough. To see the hologram's wistful sad smile before it faded, awful. To see a light engulf him like the Sun had eaten the Earth, leaving behind that stranger with beautiful hands and soulful brown eyes and asymmetrical, sharp white teeth --
Who had been chasing her --
"You said you couldn't do this!" she screamed, confusion and anger and fear and loss boiling over.
He looked up, irritated. "What're you on about?"
"You said you couldn't change back! When I asked, remember? You regenerated, and I asked --"
He didn't even appear to move. His hand was back around her hoodie, cold blue eyes boring into hers. "Who are you?"
"Doctor --"
He shook her, brutally. "Answer the question! Who are you, and how did you know I regenerated?"
"I was THERE!" Rose screamed. "How can you NOT know?!" Briefly she wondered if there was a paradox somewhere in that claim, but the momentum carried her over. "You -- you burned, and all I could do was watch, and then -- and then --"
By degrees the Doctor's grip slackened. His expression underwent the same familiar old transitions she remembered from whenever the Time War was raised: the cold, flat, hard look that indicated that the drawbridge was up and no one was coming out. Yet some part of Rose thought the change was less subtle, more raw somehow.
He turned away, moving back to the console. Rose sank down onto the grille, staring at her knees. For the better part of two minutes, neither of them said anything. The time rotor sounded off, almost sick. Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled.
Finally, he spoke. "It wasn't like that."
Rose looked up.
He wasn't looking at her. The expression was fixated on the time rotor, but not seeing it. "Lots of things burned. I wasn't one of them."
Rose just stared up at him. After an eternity or two expired, he met her gaze. Guarded, but not as openly hostile. "Shouldn't sit there; I'll trip on you. Go," he pointed at an upholstered armchair by -- was that a fireplace? "Wait there while I sort this lot out. And don't try anything funny." He gave her a particularly sharp look. "Whatever you think you knew about me, I'm a completely new man."
-----
Time and relative dimensions in space is a funny way of stating the redundant. Time is an illusion caused by passage through space; space an illusion formed through one's inability to exist everywhere, thanks to time.
Who said that? Someone dead. Surely, someone dead.
Well, we knew them, certainly? Yes. Someone dead.
(the corridors twist and turn and the endings run inwards and fire and rage and song flow in you/we/us and all things worth living for are all things worth dying for are all things worth killing for
and the singing the voices are trying to tell you/we/us something
and the yellow girl with the pouting lips
and the turn of the Earth --)
The Earth, frittering away like a marshmallow held too close to the fire, or a meatball shriveling in a saucepan, or an eyeball lanced with a white-hot butterknife --
That's right! We were looking for Rose.
-----
It was like being lost in the woods and being taken into the safe warm cabin at the end of a snowy drive, sat in front of a fire, and given cocoa and a blanket. But she'd crawled out of a tunnel, into a foreign TARDIS, and now sat rigid by an unused fireplace packed with half-charred clothes and bits of things. She heard the clinking of china behind her and turned around to see the Doctor coming towards her with a tray of tea.
"There's nothing valuable in the fireplace, it's all junk. So don't be getting any ideas about rummaging through my stuff. Same goes for the rest of the place"
Just when Rose thought he was maybe coming around, the stinging words and mistrust came back. She looked back into the charred remains and thought she saw a cricket bat.
"So," he settled himself into another armchair opposite hers and set down his tray,"Want to start explainin' how you made it into my TARDIS without me seeing you?" He began pouring tea into a chipped glass, and offered it to her.
"Umm..thanks. I don't suppose you have any..er..sugar?"
He shot her another slant-eyed look.
"Right..um, well...," she choked back her tears for the hundredth time since she'd arrived. Deep breath. "You..you haven't been the same since the change....and... ..and....it was like 5 minutes after that..an...and I know you were having problems, and something was wrong, but you started scarin' me, an...and saying horrible things. Then you started screaming at me and chasing me...right after I asked you..if...if........if you could change back." She broke down in tears and buried her face into her hands.
She expected the strong, familiar weight against her back, the Doctor's hand on her shoulder, telling her everything would be ok. She pulled herself together after a few awkward moments of emotion, but he was still seated and making no move towards her. His hand was perched under his chin, as if observing and assessing her emotional outburst.
"WHY ARE YOU JUST SITTING THERE LIKE THAT?!"
His expression turned sour again, and he gave her the sharpest scowl she'd ever seen. "Why are you assuming I have any emotional investment in you that would cause me to act otherwise? I've never met you in my life, and now you're claiming you've been traveling with me for almost a year, and you know personal details about me I've not told anyone in centuries. On top of all that, you have the audacity to bring up the Time War. This all sounds highly improbable, Rose Tyler." He took a sip of his tea calmly, and continued to stare her down.
She felt something cold in her stomach when he said her name. Like someone had dropped ice cubes into her gut.
"How can you not remember me?" It was barely above a whisper, as if she was talking to herself. In keeping with the manic roller coaster emotions of the moment, she switched into desperation mode, rose off her seat and started towards the Doctor. Before he had time to pull away, she was on top of him, leaning over and pulling his face close to her own.
"Don't you even remember this?"
She tried to bring her lips to meet the Doctor's, but was quickly thrown off him completely and landed on her back, sprawled across the floor in front of the imposing figure in the leather jacket. She clenched her eyes shut, ready for the retribution that would come for such an act, but saw through her eyelids his shadow pass over top of her, careful not to step on her haphazard limbs. Rose craned her neck to the side and saw him head back to the console. "Hey! Where are you going!? I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that!"
"I'm taking you home, back to where you came from."
"You don't even know."
"Yes, I do. Earth's Earth. You humans are adaptable. I'm sure you'll adapt to wherever I drop your arse".
She was on the verge of crying again, and with one last desperate attempt she could muster, threw herself on the console in front of the Doctor, looking up at him through tears and running mascara. "No. Before you ditch me....I...I know you can do things. Like look into my head. I know you can. You said once your species could do that. Like...a psychic thing. I want you to do it..so you believe me. You can't get rid of me this easy...you didn't the first time."
He continued the silence, looking down at her with the impervious look he had worn the last half hour, and finally game a faint smile. The Doctor stepped back and leaned against a stone column, still staring down at her clutching the console. "Alright, I'll humor you. Not many people want someone rummaging around their personal business. Go sit back in the chair."
She felt like a child being watched as she hesitantly hoisted herself up and walked slowly back to the armchair.
"Go on. Sit."
Rose uneasily settled back, closing her eyes, and quite suddenly the Doctor's cool touch was on her temple, fore and middle finger applying gentle pressure on each side of her temple. She opened her eyes slightly and was unnerved by the close proximity of the Doctor's face to her own. "Shut em' ". She quickly clenched her eyes shut again.
-----
At first the sensation was like falling. Not physically falling, but more of a caving in on one's self, but...farther, and deeper.
Then if felt like someone had just entered the room she was in. Not that she was physically in a room either, but there was a sudden, and very overwhelming presence in her sense of being.
It was like when he was with her on Platform One. Observing what was in front of them, not looking at each other, but each aware of the presence next to them.
Rose realized suddenly what was happening. She was being pulled back through time, through her memories, none of which physically manifested into images, but each emotion from every single moment burned through her until she thought she was on the verge of pain. Then a soft whisper brought her back to reality.
-----
"Rose...wake up."
She jolted awake suddenly, and frantically looked about. Strong hands brought her struggling arms down onto the chair rests. Her head felt like it was about to split open.
"I'm sorry, Rose."
An apology? Her head was killing her.
"Here, take this". Something was pushed into her palm, and she followed the instructions. Without water, the small capsule went down rough, but almost instantly she felt her head clearing. She took a few gasping breaths.
"I told you it was invasive; I'm surprised you even wanted to do it. Pretty resilient for a stupid ape." But something about the tone in the last two words didn't have the stinging harshness of earlier. It was more of the endearing teasing that her Doctor used to do. He was giving her a crooked, half-smile, leaning back on his heels and staring at her. He made a small nodding motion with his head, "C'mere".
Without hesitation she fell forward and bawled into his arms for a while.
Then, a thin and lithe form slid through the grille and landed on the floor of the TARDIS.
" 'Ello! What have we got here?"
-----
Time and relative dimensions in space is a funny way of --
Well.
Now doesn't this look familiar?
-----
Rose's breath caught in her throat. No, she thought, it's all right, I'm finally crying on the right set of shoulders, almost right, anyway, no no no please God anyone not him I'm finally safe --
She felt the Doctor stiffen. She forced herself to turn her head from the familiar (but different) jacket to face the same (but different) jacket, draped on the shoulders of that angular, alien figure. He was looking upwards and all around him, bright, wicked eyes jumping merrily from aspect to aspect of the decor. The terrible grin was back, teeth flashing white in the gloom.
He looked delighted. That could mean anything.
"That's him," she whispered up at the Doctor. His expression was impossible to read.
The Doctor -- the other Doctor -- flitted around the console, cooing and humming in preoccupied glee. "Buttons. Big, narsty ol' things. What do they do, what do they do, what do they do? Ooh, here's a big'un --"
"Stay behind the chair," the Doctor murmured into the side of Rose's face.
"But--"
"Do it." He detached himself from her hold, gripping her firmly by each wrist and steering her down into the armchair. He turned towards the console, straightening slowly. His face shifted into an expression of detached calm, an old and familiar mask.
Rose didn't dare look around to see what the lanky maniac was doing, but a disjointed little song was now warbling from somewhere behind them, accompanied by the rasping of switches and the occasional giggle.
"Bad manners to touch what isn't yours," the Doctor said, folding his arms behind his back.
She couldn't help it. She peeped around the side. The usurper didn't look up from the control panel; he seemed preoccupied.
"Don't think we've been introduced," the Doctor continued, taking a slow step forward. "You got a name?"
The maniac didn't look up. He was spinning some sort of dial in a dreamy if abstracted fashion, smiling blandly at whatever was on the LCD screen below him. In its golden light, he looked nothing less than beatific. "Ooh, and don't you just make the prettiest little sound when I twist you, don't you--"
"Oi, Scarecrow! You barge into my TARDIS, you better have an explanation." The Doctor took another stride forwards, and Rose heard an alarmingly vicious undertone in his voice. "Or failing that, one hell of an insurance plan."
"This is my TARDIS," the scarecrow murmured absently, pausing in his spinning to rotate the dial counterclockwise.
"Not yet it isn't. Assuming you are what . . what I think you are."
"Really? What if you're not what I thought I was?" Still without looking up. Still looking at the screen.
"You'll want to stop fooling with the console, whoever you are. The TARDIS took a beating; she's not in any position to have random visitors playing Speak-and-Spell with the flux capacitor relays."
"'Woof! Woof!' says the doggie."
"I'm warning you--"
Rose saw the maniac's serene face suddenly freeze over, his eyes locking on to the screen as though seeing it for the first time. The hand on the dial slowly stopped moving, and it suddenly felt as though a malignant pressure was building. . .
"I've seen this screen before," the scarecrow hissed. "Before. When --"
The Doctor was out of Rose's range of view, being blocked by the chair, but by his voice she placed him about halfway between her and the console. "Yeah? Tell me about it." His voice was flat.
"Before. Before --" The madman pressed his hand against the glass encasing the time rotor. "Woof! Woof!"
"TELL me. When did you see this?" Rose flinched at the Doctor's voice.
The other shook his head, violently. "Nononononononononono not again. Never again! Not like this--"
"WHEN DID YOU SEE IT?"
"I was -- I was --" The face which had done nothing but terrify Rose finally tore itself away from the panel. The brilliant mad eyes were shining as they finally looked upon the Doctor. Whatever passed between their two gazes was beyond her ability to see, but the feeling of pressure intensified until she wondered if he felt it too, foundering and lost. For a moment, she pitied him, so alone, so terrified, trembling in some mysterious and nameless fear that she could only guess at.
"I saw this before," the scarecrow whispered, "when --"
The Doctor stepped closer, impatiently. "When?" he prompted.
"When I was you."
-----
Time and relative dimensions in space is a funny way of relating to yourself in space and time.
Especially when you meet your past.
Especially when you meet your future.
Especially when your future tries to kill your past.
Cross-posted to ipswich and time_and_chips
Authors: Little_Speaker and Dubious_Gannet (co-authored fic)
Rating: PG13 (angst, some mild knife-wielding)
Era: Ninth through Tenth
Notes: Set during the first 10-15 minutes after regeneration (which puts it during the Children in Need Special). AU where something is horribly wrong with the Doctor after his regeneration. Something....REALLY....WRONG.
Through A Glass Darkly
The laugh cackled and clawed at the heels of her tennis shoes as she scrambled down the corridor.
Ducking into a recess in the wall, she slid into a crouching position, forcing the air in and out of her lungs in a semi-controlled fashion. The last thing she wanted was her wheezing, gasping breaths to give her away.
"R-oooooooooooooose. I'm coming to find you....find you.....fiiiiiind yooooooooou......"
She fought back the tears and pulled herself up, forcing her body to run again. She wanted to scream, but couldn't.
Corridor turned into corridor, which led into another corridor.
She was running further down into the TARDIS than she'd ever been before. She'd passed her previous record several hours ago, and now the halls were becoming darker, wider, and the the organic columns of the main console room seemed to grow in these depths like kudzu. But she kept running, and the voice kept following her, the slight scottish burr audible even this far ahead.
Another corridor. Another right, a left, enter another corridor, make 2 more rights, end up in a corridor, running.
She stopped again, almost on the brink of collapsing. She hadn't heard the voice for about ten minutes. And for that ten minutes all she could concentrate on was getting ahead of it. She brushed some of the loose hair out of her face and finally took a look around, or as well as she could look in the current lighting conditions. She could barely see 5 or 6 feet ahead of her, and the ceiling was completely invisible in a tangle of wires and connecting columns. The walls were like a jungle of loose electronic components and parts tacked to each other. But beneath that, the smooth, almost bone-like surface of the TARDIS's interior shone through and reflected an ambient glow through the vast corridor.
Her hesitant footsteps echoed insanely off the walls, and she thought twice about proceeding any farther forward, but knew what was behind her would be much worse. FAR worse. She kept walking.
Soon it was as dark as a country road on a moonless night. The walls still reflected the ambient glow, but barely, just barely. Small LEDs scattered along the wires that snaked around the walls, and they soon became the only thing lighting her way. She began to choke up again, the fear rising, and the hate of herself also feeding it for not having brought something useful to find her way back with.
Almost like the saving grace moment in a children's fairy-tale, a light appeared ahead of her. A pinprick on the horizon, on a slight ascending angle. She made her way forward, and soon found the vast corridor narrowing into a smaller tunnel that eventually forced her onto hand and knees. Before long she was pulling herself through a ventilation-sized space, barely able to breathe again, but for different reasons. The light was right ahead of her when she heard the voice again, far off from behind her.
Her eyes unable to adjust so quickly to brightly lit space ahead of her, she couldn't see where she was pulling herself up into. All she knew was it was further away from the voice. As her leg made contact with solid ground, a hand slipped into hers and pulled her the rest of the way up.
------
"N-no...it can't be."
The hand that had helped her out of the small opening and into the brightly lit interior of the TARDIS console room was all too familiar. An un-naturally cold hand and slender, long fingers led up into the sleeve of a black leather jacket.
"You're not real."
She dared to look up into his eyes and saw a flash of hurt there. They quickly narrowed though, and the look became alien and distant, like the first time she had met him.
"Who ARE you? And what were you doin' in my ship's ventilation system?"
It was Rose's turn to flash a look of hurt and confusion. She took her hand back suddenly and backed up.
"What do you mean, 'Who am I?'. It's me. Rose".
"I've never seen you in my life, you filthy little ape. Now what the hell are you doin' in my TARDIS?" His voice rose in pitch and anger at the end of the sentence.
"It's me, Doctor!"
"I told YOU, I've never seen you in my life. Now I want an explanation as to what you're doin' here and I'm NOT gonna ask again."
Rose flinched as he grabbed her arm, rougher than he'd ever done before, no sign of the empathic if reserved Doctor coming through. He pulled her up almost eye to eye with him, about a foot away. Her hoodie collar began digging into her neck, on the verge of strangling her.
She finally looked up into his face and saw for the first time that maybe this wasn't her Doctor. It might have been a quick presumption on her part, but her gut told her so right away. His face was more gaunt, more lines of pain etched across it, the suffering more apparent. A pale complexion and unkempt hair stood out against the darkness of his clothes. The look in his eyes was still completely and utterly alien, and she closed her eyes and tears formed. It was her Doctor...but, It wasn't. On top of everything else since his regeneration, this was the cruelest twist yet.
From the vent she came in through, the voice trailed out again, though only into her ears.
"R-oooooooooooooose. I'm coming to find you....find you.....fiiiiiind yooooooooou......"
-------
Time and relative dimensions in space is a funny way of stating the redundant. Time is an illusion caused by passage through space; space an illusion formed through one's inability to exist everywhere, thanks to time.
Einstein had said that. No, wait. Douglas Adams.
Both dead. Funny how that worked out. But they were right, weren't they?
It doesn't matter where you go, because now is everywhere.
And it doesn't matter when you go, because here is everywhere.
And here and now is pain, and lost, and alone.
And now there's this blond bint crawling out of the ductwork.
-----
Rose sat on the grille of the TARDIS floor, staring numbly at her surroundings. They weren't quite as she remembered them from her trips with -- that is -- with -- those times that --
The console room seemed --
Bigger. Vast, that was the word. Bookshelves. A chaise lounge. Iron-wrought candelabras. A phonograph. These things, and the shapes of other, less familiar shapes could be seen in the faint light that radiated outwards from the Art Nouveau wall sconces sweeping upwards to arc overhead in the huge dome of the ceiling, where something -- a bat? fluttered briefly. In the middle of it all was the old, familiar time rotor, except that it looked like something out of a Jules Verne novella -- brass handles, glass and ceramic knobs, patched-in wire relays that might've been from old telephone switchboards. Even the grille on which she sat had an elaborate interlacing pattern of rings, instead of the industrial matrix she remembered.
But it was the TARDIS. It just looked like it could be a Meat Loaf video.
And this was the Doctor. Just --
"Don't make yourself too comfy," he muttered, dragging a monitor down from its ceiling mount. "You an' I are going to have a nice little chit-chat, just as soon as -- Damn!" He glowered at whatever was on the monitor -- its layout was different from the design scheme Rose was used to seeing -- and turned back to the main console. Rose was surprised to see that, while he was wearing his trademark leather coat, the Doctor also had some sort of cravat. It didn't suit him.
"Doctor?"
"Shut it."
"Doctor, what's happened?"
"I said --"
Rose stood up, instinctively putting out her hand to steady herself on the guide rail that ringed the console. It wasn't there.
"Oi! You! DOWN."
"Why are you like this?!" wailed Rose. This wasn't fair. . .
He sneered at her distress. "How'm I supposed to be, then? Got a vested interest in the emotional well-being of everyone you hijack?"
Rose stared. The time rotor sputtered unevenly, and the Doctor began stabbing at the buttons, muttering darkly to himself.
This wasn't fair. To lose him the first time, the monster sweeping down to devour him in one fell blow, bad enough. To see the hologram's wistful sad smile before it faded, awful. To see a light engulf him like the Sun had eaten the Earth, leaving behind that stranger with beautiful hands and soulful brown eyes and asymmetrical, sharp white teeth --
Who had been chasing her --
"You said you couldn't do this!" she screamed, confusion and anger and fear and loss boiling over.
He looked up, irritated. "What're you on about?"
"You said you couldn't change back! When I asked, remember? You regenerated, and I asked --"
He didn't even appear to move. His hand was back around her hoodie, cold blue eyes boring into hers. "Who are you?"
"Doctor --"
He shook her, brutally. "Answer the question! Who are you, and how did you know I regenerated?"
"I was THERE!" Rose screamed. "How can you NOT know?!" Briefly she wondered if there was a paradox somewhere in that claim, but the momentum carried her over. "You -- you burned, and all I could do was watch, and then -- and then --"
By degrees the Doctor's grip slackened. His expression underwent the same familiar old transitions she remembered from whenever the Time War was raised: the cold, flat, hard look that indicated that the drawbridge was up and no one was coming out. Yet some part of Rose thought the change was less subtle, more raw somehow.
He turned away, moving back to the console. Rose sank down onto the grille, staring at her knees. For the better part of two minutes, neither of them said anything. The time rotor sounded off, almost sick. Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled.
Finally, he spoke. "It wasn't like that."
Rose looked up.
He wasn't looking at her. The expression was fixated on the time rotor, but not seeing it. "Lots of things burned. I wasn't one of them."
Rose just stared up at him. After an eternity or two expired, he met her gaze. Guarded, but not as openly hostile. "Shouldn't sit there; I'll trip on you. Go," he pointed at an upholstered armchair by -- was that a fireplace? "Wait there while I sort this lot out. And don't try anything funny." He gave her a particularly sharp look. "Whatever you think you knew about me, I'm a completely new man."
-----
Time and relative dimensions in space is a funny way of stating the redundant. Time is an illusion caused by passage through space; space an illusion formed through one's inability to exist everywhere, thanks to time.
Who said that? Someone dead. Surely, someone dead.
Well, we knew them, certainly? Yes. Someone dead.
(the corridors twist and turn and the endings run inwards and fire and rage and song flow in you/we/us and all things worth living for are all things worth dying for are all things worth killing for
and the singing the voices are trying to tell you/we/us something
and the yellow girl with the pouting lips
and the turn of the Earth --)
The Earth, frittering away like a marshmallow held too close to the fire, or a meatball shriveling in a saucepan, or an eyeball lanced with a white-hot butterknife --
That's right! We were looking for Rose.
-----
It was like being lost in the woods and being taken into the safe warm cabin at the end of a snowy drive, sat in front of a fire, and given cocoa and a blanket. But she'd crawled out of a tunnel, into a foreign TARDIS, and now sat rigid by an unused fireplace packed with half-charred clothes and bits of things. She heard the clinking of china behind her and turned around to see the Doctor coming towards her with a tray of tea.
"There's nothing valuable in the fireplace, it's all junk. So don't be getting any ideas about rummaging through my stuff. Same goes for the rest of the place"
Just when Rose thought he was maybe coming around, the stinging words and mistrust came back. She looked back into the charred remains and thought she saw a cricket bat.
"So," he settled himself into another armchair opposite hers and set down his tray,"Want to start explainin' how you made it into my TARDIS without me seeing you?" He began pouring tea into a chipped glass, and offered it to her.
"Umm..thanks. I don't suppose you have any..er..sugar?"
He shot her another slant-eyed look.
"Right..um, well...," she choked back her tears for the hundredth time since she'd arrived. Deep breath. "You..you haven't been the same since the change....and... ..and....it was like 5 minutes after that..an...and I know you were having problems, and something was wrong, but you started scarin' me, an...and saying horrible things. Then you started screaming at me and chasing me...right after I asked you..if...if........if you could change back." She broke down in tears and buried her face into her hands.
She expected the strong, familiar weight against her back, the Doctor's hand on her shoulder, telling her everything would be ok. She pulled herself together after a few awkward moments of emotion, but he was still seated and making no move towards her. His hand was perched under his chin, as if observing and assessing her emotional outburst.
"WHY ARE YOU JUST SITTING THERE LIKE THAT?!"
His expression turned sour again, and he gave her the sharpest scowl she'd ever seen. "Why are you assuming I have any emotional investment in you that would cause me to act otherwise? I've never met you in my life, and now you're claiming you've been traveling with me for almost a year, and you know personal details about me I've not told anyone in centuries. On top of all that, you have the audacity to bring up the Time War. This all sounds highly improbable, Rose Tyler." He took a sip of his tea calmly, and continued to stare her down.
She felt something cold in her stomach when he said her name. Like someone had dropped ice cubes into her gut.
"How can you not remember me?" It was barely above a whisper, as if she was talking to herself. In keeping with the manic roller coaster emotions of the moment, she switched into desperation mode, rose off her seat and started towards the Doctor. Before he had time to pull away, she was on top of him, leaning over and pulling his face close to her own.
"Don't you even remember this?"
She tried to bring her lips to meet the Doctor's, but was quickly thrown off him completely and landed on her back, sprawled across the floor in front of the imposing figure in the leather jacket. She clenched her eyes shut, ready for the retribution that would come for such an act, but saw through her eyelids his shadow pass over top of her, careful not to step on her haphazard limbs. Rose craned her neck to the side and saw him head back to the console. "Hey! Where are you going!? I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that!"
"I'm taking you home, back to where you came from."
"You don't even know."
"Yes, I do. Earth's Earth. You humans are adaptable. I'm sure you'll adapt to wherever I drop your arse".
She was on the verge of crying again, and with one last desperate attempt she could muster, threw herself on the console in front of the Doctor, looking up at him through tears and running mascara. "No. Before you ditch me....I...I know you can do things. Like look into my head. I know you can. You said once your species could do that. Like...a psychic thing. I want you to do it..so you believe me. You can't get rid of me this easy...you didn't the first time."
He continued the silence, looking down at her with the impervious look he had worn the last half hour, and finally game a faint smile. The Doctor stepped back and leaned against a stone column, still staring down at her clutching the console. "Alright, I'll humor you. Not many people want someone rummaging around their personal business. Go sit back in the chair."
She felt like a child being watched as she hesitantly hoisted herself up and walked slowly back to the armchair.
"Go on. Sit."
Rose uneasily settled back, closing her eyes, and quite suddenly the Doctor's cool touch was on her temple, fore and middle finger applying gentle pressure on each side of her temple. She opened her eyes slightly and was unnerved by the close proximity of the Doctor's face to her own. "Shut em' ". She quickly clenched her eyes shut again.
-----
At first the sensation was like falling. Not physically falling, but more of a caving in on one's self, but...farther, and deeper.
Then if felt like someone had just entered the room she was in. Not that she was physically in a room either, but there was a sudden, and very overwhelming presence in her sense of being.
It was like when he was with her on Platform One. Observing what was in front of them, not looking at each other, but each aware of the presence next to them.
Rose realized suddenly what was happening. She was being pulled back through time, through her memories, none of which physically manifested into images, but each emotion from every single moment burned through her until she thought she was on the verge of pain. Then a soft whisper brought her back to reality.
-----
"Rose...wake up."
She jolted awake suddenly, and frantically looked about. Strong hands brought her struggling arms down onto the chair rests. Her head felt like it was about to split open.
"I'm sorry, Rose."
An apology? Her head was killing her.
"Here, take this". Something was pushed into her palm, and she followed the instructions. Without water, the small capsule went down rough, but almost instantly she felt her head clearing. She took a few gasping breaths.
"I told you it was invasive; I'm surprised you even wanted to do it. Pretty resilient for a stupid ape." But something about the tone in the last two words didn't have the stinging harshness of earlier. It was more of the endearing teasing that her Doctor used to do. He was giving her a crooked, half-smile, leaning back on his heels and staring at her. He made a small nodding motion with his head, "C'mere".
Without hesitation she fell forward and bawled into his arms for a while.
Then, a thin and lithe form slid through the grille and landed on the floor of the TARDIS.
" 'Ello! What have we got here?"
-----
Time and relative dimensions in space is a funny way of --
Well.
Now doesn't this look familiar?
-----
Rose's breath caught in her throat. No, she thought, it's all right, I'm finally crying on the right set of shoulders, almost right, anyway, no no no please God anyone not him I'm finally safe --
She felt the Doctor stiffen. She forced herself to turn her head from the familiar (but different) jacket to face the same (but different) jacket, draped on the shoulders of that angular, alien figure. He was looking upwards and all around him, bright, wicked eyes jumping merrily from aspect to aspect of the decor. The terrible grin was back, teeth flashing white in the gloom.
He looked delighted. That could mean anything.
"That's him," she whispered up at the Doctor. His expression was impossible to read.
The Doctor -- the other Doctor -- flitted around the console, cooing and humming in preoccupied glee. "Buttons. Big, narsty ol' things. What do they do, what do they do, what do they do? Ooh, here's a big'un --"
"Stay behind the chair," the Doctor murmured into the side of Rose's face.
"But--"
"Do it." He detached himself from her hold, gripping her firmly by each wrist and steering her down into the armchair. He turned towards the console, straightening slowly. His face shifted into an expression of detached calm, an old and familiar mask.
Rose didn't dare look around to see what the lanky maniac was doing, but a disjointed little song was now warbling from somewhere behind them, accompanied by the rasping of switches and the occasional giggle.
"Bad manners to touch what isn't yours," the Doctor said, folding his arms behind his back.
She couldn't help it. She peeped around the side. The usurper didn't look up from the control panel; he seemed preoccupied.
"Don't think we've been introduced," the Doctor continued, taking a slow step forward. "You got a name?"
The maniac didn't look up. He was spinning some sort of dial in a dreamy if abstracted fashion, smiling blandly at whatever was on the LCD screen below him. In its golden light, he looked nothing less than beatific. "Ooh, and don't you just make the prettiest little sound when I twist you, don't you--"
"Oi, Scarecrow! You barge into my TARDIS, you better have an explanation." The Doctor took another stride forwards, and Rose heard an alarmingly vicious undertone in his voice. "Or failing that, one hell of an insurance plan."
"This is my TARDIS," the scarecrow murmured absently, pausing in his spinning to rotate the dial counterclockwise.
"Not yet it isn't. Assuming you are what . . what I think you are."
"Really? What if you're not what I thought I was?" Still without looking up. Still looking at the screen.
"You'll want to stop fooling with the console, whoever you are. The TARDIS took a beating; she's not in any position to have random visitors playing Speak-and-Spell with the flux capacitor relays."
"'Woof! Woof!' says the doggie."
"I'm warning you--"
Rose saw the maniac's serene face suddenly freeze over, his eyes locking on to the screen as though seeing it for the first time. The hand on the dial slowly stopped moving, and it suddenly felt as though a malignant pressure was building. . .
"I've seen this screen before," the scarecrow hissed. "Before. When --"
The Doctor was out of Rose's range of view, being blocked by the chair, but by his voice she placed him about halfway between her and the console. "Yeah? Tell me about it." His voice was flat.
"Before. Before --" The madman pressed his hand against the glass encasing the time rotor. "Woof! Woof!"
"TELL me. When did you see this?" Rose flinched at the Doctor's voice.
The other shook his head, violently. "Nononononononononono not again. Never again! Not like this--"
"WHEN DID YOU SEE IT?"
"I was -- I was --" The face which had done nothing but terrify Rose finally tore itself away from the panel. The brilliant mad eyes were shining as they finally looked upon the Doctor. Whatever passed between their two gazes was beyond her ability to see, but the feeling of pressure intensified until she wondered if he felt it too, foundering and lost. For a moment, she pitied him, so alone, so terrified, trembling in some mysterious and nameless fear that she could only guess at.
"I saw this before," the scarecrow whispered, "when --"
The Doctor stepped closer, impatiently. "When?" he prompted.
"When I was you."
-----
Time and relative dimensions in space is a funny way of relating to yourself in space and time.
Especially when you meet your past.
Especially when you meet your future.
Especially when your future tries to kill your past.
Cross-posted to ipswich and time_and_chips