The Voyage of Alternatives (4/5)
Title: The Voyage of Alternatives
Author: Jessa L'Rynn
Character(s): Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler
Rating: T
Warnings: None
Summary: A cruise liner acquires a stowaway. The lounge singer doesn't know what to make of him when he knows her name and refuses to let go of her hand. Rose Tyler has never seen this "Doctor" fellow before. Has she?
Note: A rewrite of "The Voyage of the Damned" as a challenge response. Please note that Astrid Peth does not appear on this ship at all. Also, not all of the action is shown because I'm leaving out the parts that aren't affected by this change.
The Voyage of Alternatives
Part IV: Journey's End
Bannakaffalatta had given his life to save them. Foon had given her life to save the Doctor so he could save the rest of them. They'd made it through the initial crash and the trip up through the ship, but now they had lost three people in one room.
Rose felt so strange. She remembered this feeling - standing above a planet that was burning, standing in front of a door screaming to be taken back, standing in a doorway knowing her best friend had died, standing under snow that was ash, standing against a wall that killed her inside, standing on a beach that was empty. Standing, always standing, always waiting, and somehow, never quite alone.
They had a plan now. The rest of the party was to reach Reception One and send out an emergency signal. The Doctor was going to deck thirty one and find out what had caused all this in order to, hopefully, put a stop to it. Rose had charge of their only weapon, Bannakaffalatta's final gift, his power pack, that could generate an EMP pulse and stop the host.
The Doctor took her over to the nearest power port to charge it up. "Now, listen to me, Rose Tyler. I want you in one piece when all this is over, so you had best make absolutely certain to look after yourself. Have you got that?"
"Yeah, but only if you do the same, Doctor. I remember trouble seems to be in love with you or something. Follows you around like a puppy."
He grinned. "That's me, trouble magnet of the known galaxies." His grin abruptly vanished. "Not on purpose," he finished hastily.
"No," she agreed, "no one could get that much trouble on purpose."
"Do you remember me, now, Rose?" he asked, a desperate plea in his eyes. "Do you remember us?" He nudged her with an elbow, smiling that broken smile that seemed to say so much more than he did. "Stuff of legends?"
"I... Doctor, I have to tell you. They... they said I made you up."
"What?" he demanded.
"I'm insane, Doctor. Have been for most of my life."
"You are not!" he insisted. "Rose, I don't know who's been spouting all this rubbish at you, but it isn't true."
"Then why was I locked up?" she pleaded, her hands trembling. "Why did they tell me every time I mentioned you or the TARDIS or any of it that I was just imagining things?"
"So they held you somewhere and when you agreed with them, they let you go?" His eyes were blazing with fury and unstoppable alien power, but he wasn't angry at her. This was a natural phenomenon, instead, a storm building, the tidal rage all directed at those who had held her.
"No," she replied bitterly. "When I agreed with them, they gave me different drugs is all, and asked me different questions. I escaped, headed to the spaceport. All I knew is I had to get away from Sto. The cruise line was holding open auditions when I got there, so I signed up, sang a couple of Christmas carols to suit the theme, got the job. Hid out in the spaceports until departure. I was going to just keep with the company, keep traveling, until I found a way out or found something better."
"I'll take you anywhere. Every where. We'll go back to Woman Wept, you liked that. We'll go to Cardiff and maybe run into an old friend. We'll pop in to see Shakespeare, maybe figure out why Queen Bess wants my head on a plate."
"Thought that was Victoria?" Rose asked. She shook her head. Some of the things from her dreams had never made any sense, but she distinctly remembered telling one of her doctors once that Queen Victoria had banished them because they saved her life and she was an ungrateful cow.
"Her too," he agreed cheekily. "We're getting through this, we'll get back to the TARDIS, find out how you got on Sto, and..." He trailed off. "Well, I'm rubbish. I dunno what to do after that. I... I sorta dreamed about you coming back some times, but I never got past just finding you. What do you want to do?
She didn't know. Well, that wasn't true. "I want to get my memories back," she said.
"Good idea. We'll work on that."
The ship rocked and the Doctor jumped to the comm, only to find out that they had less than ten minutes to fix all of this. The Doctor handed the screwdriver over to Rickston. "Don't change the settings. Rose, don't let him lose it."
She nodded and helped Mr. Copper with the medical kit.
"Get moving!" he shouted and headed for the door.
"No, wait!" Rose answered.
"What?" he said. "Rose, you can't come with me, please just go and... be safe, please?"
"Doctor, there's something..." She shook her head. "Oh, never mind! Just, be careful, for once in your life!!"
"Right," he said. He darted back toward her, snatched her up in a tight hug, and then looked deep into her eyes. "See you soon," he promised, so softly, resting his forehead briefly on hers. His lips brushed hers tentatively, delicately, sipping and savoring at once. He pulled away so quickly, and his tongue flicked over his lower lip, as if collecting the taste. With that, and a quick jerk of his head, he pounded off back the way they had come.
Rose touched a trembling hand to her lips, where his cool mouth had brushed them so lightly she could hardly claim to have felt it. "Doctor," she whispered, "I remember."
The Doctor took the stairs at his usual run-for-your-life pace, his mind whirling at far faster speeds. He probably should have kissed her properly, just in case it was a real good-bye. But she would have remembered it this time, she would be aware of it and he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do in that instance. This body had been spun into existence with the taste of her on his lips, but she would never remember why. Even confronted with the Daleks, all she had ever remembered, as far as he knew, was that she had ended the Time War.
Why didn't he do it, though? He'd wanted to kiss her, probably since she pulled that Tarzan stunt to rescue him all those years ago. He'd hardly even remembered he was the Doctor until he took her hand, but she'd saved him anyway, saved him in ways even he was staggered to try to comprehend. It was so much to think about, really. He'd had so many ideas, so many dreams, what it would be like to find her again, what he would say, what she would want.
He'd occasionally tempted himself with such mad ideas as a house with carpets in Croydon or Cardiff. He'd occasionally thought of just traveling together hand in hand for all eternity, as impossible as it seemed. Once, he'd woke screaming from the image of her under an orange sky at sun rise, wrapped in his arms in a grove of silver trees.
He'd never thought he'd just find her, wandering lost on a doomed space liner. He wished...
He didn't have time for wishing, because the host had him suddenly surrounded, and it was time to find a way to get dragged into the presence of the mastermind behind this farce, time to save the Earth and time to save his Rose.
Rose glanced at the teleport bracelets and knew what she had to do. She called Midshipman Frame on the Bridge and, with some clever talk and liberal use of the phrase 'needs someone with him', she persuaded him to transfer energy to the teleport, enough to get her down to Deck 31.
The Doctor was busy with what could only be the ruins of Max Capricorn. Rose frantically looked around for some solution. There was the forklift, but that was just a fleeting notion, she couldn't drive one of the things, no chance, not with a life spent in the Asylum. Even if it wasn't real, even if she had a real life outside, before, she couldn't remember ever having driven anything in her life. Besides, he could see something like that coming and have time to get the host - with the strength of ten men - to stop her.
The Doctor's frantic words now turned to anger at the man who was determined to finish off the ship and kill the world beneath them. All this just for money, all this death, all this tragedy, just because one person thought what they wanted was more important than anyone else at all.
She had seen a lot of it, in the life she half-remembered, both before the Doctor and after she'd met him. The Doctor had never agreed with it, spent his life fighting all kinds of terror and nightmares that, more often than not boiled down to simple greed. And he always blamed himself, even when there was no way in which any of it was his fault.
Everything has its time and everything dies.
Max Capricorn sang out orders for the host to hold the Doctor and kill him. Rose ran forward as the host prepared to fling the fatal halo disk at the Doctor. "No, wait!" she shouted.
"Rose!!" the Doctor protested, writhing in the grips of the robots holding him.
"Kill her first," Capricorn commanded.
Rose nodded. "Yeah," she said, "give it a go."
The host turned to follow her pace. It flung the disk at her, but she ducked and rolled. She stopped, right in front of the Capricorn bot. One of the hosts clutching the struggling Doctor threw the halo disk at her. Rose stood still and fearless. She had to keep the view blocked... The disk was coming toward her, the Doctor was shouting commands and curses and pleas for her life.
Rose dropped at the last possible second, executed a quick somersault. There was a sudden, wailing "No!!", a horrible crunching noise, and then a machine silence, the soft version of the sound of a flat-line monitor. Completing her move, Rose kicked the Doctor's legs out from under him. The host, not having expected the maneuver, lost their grips on him.
He jumped for her and snatched her close, apparently not caring what the host were doing. "Jericho St. Junior School Under-sevens gymnastics team," he breathed into her hair.
"Got the bronze," she agreed, shakily, and then she burst into tears.
"Hey, none of that, now," he said, rubbing her back in strong circles. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"No, no, I just..." She dashed tears from her face. "I'm sorry."
He tilted her face up. "Rose Tyler, do you fancy a trip in the arms of an angel?"
"I already am," she said. He blinked at her in surprise, so she mustered a smile. "S'what Reinette called you, innit?"
He brushed the tears from her face. "Yeah, maybe," he agreed. "But you know me better than that."
They both pointedly avoided looking at the bot that had been Max Capricorn as they got to their feet. Rose fished the sonic screwdriver from her pocket and handed it over. There was a quick whirring and the sounds of the machinery that had supported the disembodied head were silenced.
Then, the Doctor snapped his fingers. The host that had been holding him prisoner before took his arms again. Two more appeared at her side. Then, they were both lifted up. Rose only had eyes for the Doctor as they were flown up the engine shaft. He looked like he was supposed to look, bathed in fire and stillness. She shook her head. It was time to finish this and save the world.
Rose leaned back against the counter, watching as Rickston hugged the Doctor and told him how rich he now was. Mr. Copper stood next to her and shook his head.
The Doctor left Slade with the Midshipman and joined Rose and Mr. Copper. "Now, if you could have chosen anyone to survive," observed Mr. Copper, "he wouldn't have been the one. But if you could choose who lives and who dies, you'd be a god."
"And a vengeful one," Rose agreed.
"Don't worry," the Doctor said. "Rickston the Idiot may grow up someday. It's happened before." He smiled. "And now, I think it's time we left. Mr. Copper, you probably shouldn't be here when the authorities arrive, either. Teleport for three?"
Mr. Copper stared at them in happy disbelief and wonder. "I... oh, thank you!!"
Rose grinned and leaned into the Doctor. "Teleport for three," she said, and it sounded absolutely wonderful.
They sent Mr. Copper off with a rather large fortune on a credit card that would never be a problem. He promised to make them both proud.
The Doctor led her to the TARDIS. "It's time we got you back, Rose Tyler," he said.
"The TARDIS," she agreed and, from around her neck, she fished a long, silver chain. On the end of it hung the key he had given her years ago, the key that was more than just a TARDIS key between them. Jack had one, Martha had one, but Rose's - hers was special, because he gave it to her to mean she could share his life. He took it back once in a moment of feeling betrayed. He gave it back again because it belonged with her, a small part of the TARDIS to keep with her always. And, of course, the TARDIS now kept a small part of her. "No one ever noticed it. Sometimes, if I wished hard enough, they didn't even notice me." She looked up from it and held it up for him to see. "This is the right key, isn't it?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "Oh, yes." He watched with awe and delight as Rose unlocked the door as if she'd last done it yesterday. He had to fight off the urge to snatch her up and carry her inside. She lived here, she belonged here, she was with him, again, at last, his precious girl. Instead, he flung open the doors. "Rose Tyler, welcome home."
Author: Jessa L'Rynn
Character(s): Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler
Rating: T
Warnings: None
Summary: A cruise liner acquires a stowaway. The lounge singer doesn't know what to make of him when he knows her name and refuses to let go of her hand. Rose Tyler has never seen this "Doctor" fellow before. Has she?
Note: A rewrite of "The Voyage of the Damned" as a challenge response. Please note that Astrid Peth does not appear on this ship at all. Also, not all of the action is shown because I'm leaving out the parts that aren't affected by this change.
The Voyage of Alternatives
Part IV: Journey's End
Bannakaffalatta had given his life to save them. Foon had given her life to save the Doctor so he could save the rest of them. They'd made it through the initial crash and the trip up through the ship, but now they had lost three people in one room.
Rose felt so strange. She remembered this feeling - standing above a planet that was burning, standing in front of a door screaming to be taken back, standing in a doorway knowing her best friend had died, standing under snow that was ash, standing against a wall that killed her inside, standing on a beach that was empty. Standing, always standing, always waiting, and somehow, never quite alone.
They had a plan now. The rest of the party was to reach Reception One and send out an emergency signal. The Doctor was going to deck thirty one and find out what had caused all this in order to, hopefully, put a stop to it. Rose had charge of their only weapon, Bannakaffalatta's final gift, his power pack, that could generate an EMP pulse and stop the host.
The Doctor took her over to the nearest power port to charge it up. "Now, listen to me, Rose Tyler. I want you in one piece when all this is over, so you had best make absolutely certain to look after yourself. Have you got that?"
"Yeah, but only if you do the same, Doctor. I remember trouble seems to be in love with you or something. Follows you around like a puppy."
He grinned. "That's me, trouble magnet of the known galaxies." His grin abruptly vanished. "Not on purpose," he finished hastily.
"No," she agreed, "no one could get that much trouble on purpose."
"Do you remember me, now, Rose?" he asked, a desperate plea in his eyes. "Do you remember us?" He nudged her with an elbow, smiling that broken smile that seemed to say so much more than he did. "Stuff of legends?"
"I... Doctor, I have to tell you. They... they said I made you up."
"What?" he demanded.
"I'm insane, Doctor. Have been for most of my life."
"You are not!" he insisted. "Rose, I don't know who's been spouting all this rubbish at you, but it isn't true."
"Then why was I locked up?" she pleaded, her hands trembling. "Why did they tell me every time I mentioned you or the TARDIS or any of it that I was just imagining things?"
"So they held you somewhere and when you agreed with them, they let you go?" His eyes were blazing with fury and unstoppable alien power, but he wasn't angry at her. This was a natural phenomenon, instead, a storm building, the tidal rage all directed at those who had held her.
"No," she replied bitterly. "When I agreed with them, they gave me different drugs is all, and asked me different questions. I escaped, headed to the spaceport. All I knew is I had to get away from Sto. The cruise line was holding open auditions when I got there, so I signed up, sang a couple of Christmas carols to suit the theme, got the job. Hid out in the spaceports until departure. I was going to just keep with the company, keep traveling, until I found a way out or found something better."
"I'll take you anywhere. Every where. We'll go back to Woman Wept, you liked that. We'll go to Cardiff and maybe run into an old friend. We'll pop in to see Shakespeare, maybe figure out why Queen Bess wants my head on a plate."
"Thought that was Victoria?" Rose asked. She shook her head. Some of the things from her dreams had never made any sense, but she distinctly remembered telling one of her doctors once that Queen Victoria had banished them because they saved her life and she was an ungrateful cow.
"Her too," he agreed cheekily. "We're getting through this, we'll get back to the TARDIS, find out how you got on Sto, and..." He trailed off. "Well, I'm rubbish. I dunno what to do after that. I... I sorta dreamed about you coming back some times, but I never got past just finding you. What do you want to do?
She didn't know. Well, that wasn't true. "I want to get my memories back," she said.
"Good idea. We'll work on that."
The ship rocked and the Doctor jumped to the comm, only to find out that they had less than ten minutes to fix all of this. The Doctor handed the screwdriver over to Rickston. "Don't change the settings. Rose, don't let him lose it."
She nodded and helped Mr. Copper with the medical kit.
"Get moving!" he shouted and headed for the door.
"No, wait!" Rose answered.
"What?" he said. "Rose, you can't come with me, please just go and... be safe, please?"
"Doctor, there's something..." She shook her head. "Oh, never mind! Just, be careful, for once in your life!!"
"Right," he said. He darted back toward her, snatched her up in a tight hug, and then looked deep into her eyes. "See you soon," he promised, so softly, resting his forehead briefly on hers. His lips brushed hers tentatively, delicately, sipping and savoring at once. He pulled away so quickly, and his tongue flicked over his lower lip, as if collecting the taste. With that, and a quick jerk of his head, he pounded off back the way they had come.
Rose touched a trembling hand to her lips, where his cool mouth had brushed them so lightly she could hardly claim to have felt it. "Doctor," she whispered, "I remember."
The Doctor took the stairs at his usual run-for-your-life pace, his mind whirling at far faster speeds. He probably should have kissed her properly, just in case it was a real good-bye. But she would have remembered it this time, she would be aware of it and he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do in that instance. This body had been spun into existence with the taste of her on his lips, but she would never remember why. Even confronted with the Daleks, all she had ever remembered, as far as he knew, was that she had ended the Time War.
Why didn't he do it, though? He'd wanted to kiss her, probably since she pulled that Tarzan stunt to rescue him all those years ago. He'd hardly even remembered he was the Doctor until he took her hand, but she'd saved him anyway, saved him in ways even he was staggered to try to comprehend. It was so much to think about, really. He'd had so many ideas, so many dreams, what it would be like to find her again, what he would say, what she would want.
He'd occasionally tempted himself with such mad ideas as a house with carpets in Croydon or Cardiff. He'd occasionally thought of just traveling together hand in hand for all eternity, as impossible as it seemed. Once, he'd woke screaming from the image of her under an orange sky at sun rise, wrapped in his arms in a grove of silver trees.
He'd never thought he'd just find her, wandering lost on a doomed space liner. He wished...
He didn't have time for wishing, because the host had him suddenly surrounded, and it was time to find a way to get dragged into the presence of the mastermind behind this farce, time to save the Earth and time to save his Rose.
Rose glanced at the teleport bracelets and knew what she had to do. She called Midshipman Frame on the Bridge and, with some clever talk and liberal use of the phrase 'needs someone with him', she persuaded him to transfer energy to the teleport, enough to get her down to Deck 31.
The Doctor was busy with what could only be the ruins of Max Capricorn. Rose frantically looked around for some solution. There was the forklift, but that was just a fleeting notion, she couldn't drive one of the things, no chance, not with a life spent in the Asylum. Even if it wasn't real, even if she had a real life outside, before, she couldn't remember ever having driven anything in her life. Besides, he could see something like that coming and have time to get the host - with the strength of ten men - to stop her.
The Doctor's frantic words now turned to anger at the man who was determined to finish off the ship and kill the world beneath them. All this just for money, all this death, all this tragedy, just because one person thought what they wanted was more important than anyone else at all.
She had seen a lot of it, in the life she half-remembered, both before the Doctor and after she'd met him. The Doctor had never agreed with it, spent his life fighting all kinds of terror and nightmares that, more often than not boiled down to simple greed. And he always blamed himself, even when there was no way in which any of it was his fault.
Everything has its time and everything dies.
Max Capricorn sang out orders for the host to hold the Doctor and kill him. Rose ran forward as the host prepared to fling the fatal halo disk at the Doctor. "No, wait!" she shouted.
"Rose!!" the Doctor protested, writhing in the grips of the robots holding him.
"Kill her first," Capricorn commanded.
Rose nodded. "Yeah," she said, "give it a go."
The host turned to follow her pace. It flung the disk at her, but she ducked and rolled. She stopped, right in front of the Capricorn bot. One of the hosts clutching the struggling Doctor threw the halo disk at her. Rose stood still and fearless. She had to keep the view blocked... The disk was coming toward her, the Doctor was shouting commands and curses and pleas for her life.
Rose dropped at the last possible second, executed a quick somersault. There was a sudden, wailing "No!!", a horrible crunching noise, and then a machine silence, the soft version of the sound of a flat-line monitor. Completing her move, Rose kicked the Doctor's legs out from under him. The host, not having expected the maneuver, lost their grips on him.
He jumped for her and snatched her close, apparently not caring what the host were doing. "Jericho St. Junior School Under-sevens gymnastics team," he breathed into her hair.
"Got the bronze," she agreed, shakily, and then she burst into tears.
"Hey, none of that, now," he said, rubbing her back in strong circles. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"No, no, I just..." She dashed tears from her face. "I'm sorry."
He tilted her face up. "Rose Tyler, do you fancy a trip in the arms of an angel?"
"I already am," she said. He blinked at her in surprise, so she mustered a smile. "S'what Reinette called you, innit?"
He brushed the tears from her face. "Yeah, maybe," he agreed. "But you know me better than that."
They both pointedly avoided looking at the bot that had been Max Capricorn as they got to their feet. Rose fished the sonic screwdriver from her pocket and handed it over. There was a quick whirring and the sounds of the machinery that had supported the disembodied head were silenced.
Then, the Doctor snapped his fingers. The host that had been holding him prisoner before took his arms again. Two more appeared at her side. Then, they were both lifted up. Rose only had eyes for the Doctor as they were flown up the engine shaft. He looked like he was supposed to look, bathed in fire and stillness. She shook her head. It was time to finish this and save the world.
Rose leaned back against the counter, watching as Rickston hugged the Doctor and told him how rich he now was. Mr. Copper stood next to her and shook his head.
The Doctor left Slade with the Midshipman and joined Rose and Mr. Copper. "Now, if you could have chosen anyone to survive," observed Mr. Copper, "he wouldn't have been the one. But if you could choose who lives and who dies, you'd be a god."
"And a vengeful one," Rose agreed.
"Don't worry," the Doctor said. "Rickston the Idiot may grow up someday. It's happened before." He smiled. "And now, I think it's time we left. Mr. Copper, you probably shouldn't be here when the authorities arrive, either. Teleport for three?"
Mr. Copper stared at them in happy disbelief and wonder. "I... oh, thank you!!"
Rose grinned and leaned into the Doctor. "Teleport for three," she said, and it sounded absolutely wonderful.
They sent Mr. Copper off with a rather large fortune on a credit card that would never be a problem. He promised to make them both proud.
The Doctor led her to the TARDIS. "It's time we got you back, Rose Tyler," he said.
"The TARDIS," she agreed and, from around her neck, she fished a long, silver chain. On the end of it hung the key he had given her years ago, the key that was more than just a TARDIS key between them. Jack had one, Martha had one, but Rose's - hers was special, because he gave it to her to mean she could share his life. He took it back once in a moment of feeling betrayed. He gave it back again because it belonged with her, a small part of the TARDIS to keep with her always. And, of course, the TARDIS now kept a small part of her. "No one ever noticed it. Sometimes, if I wished hard enough, they didn't even notice me." She looked up from it and held it up for him to see. "This is the right key, isn't it?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "Oh, yes." He watched with awe and delight as Rose unlocked the door as if she'd last done it yesterday. He had to fight off the urge to snatch her up and carry her inside. She lived here, she belonged here, she was with him, again, at last, his precious girl. Instead, he flung open the doors. "Rose Tyler, welcome home."