Fic Update: The Silver Dollar Paradigm (5/?)
Title: The Silver Dollar Paradigm
Author: ladychi
Beta: jaradel & papilio_luna
Graphic Artist: ducktheduck
Rating: Teen
Summary: The Doctor and Rose tackle a vengeful ghost, temporal shifts, and an adventure that will test their relationship. AU after Doomsday. Written for chaosmonkey as a result of the Support Stacie auction.
Author's Note: This fic continues to be updated on Mondays & Thursdays -- even with the other ficlets and fics coming out for Support Stacie. Sorry, flisters! Lots of fic this week.
Previous Chapters: One| Two| Three| Four
There are an infinite number of universes existing side by side and through which our consciousnesses constantly pass. In these universes, all possibilities exist. You are alive in some, long dead in others, and never existed in still others. Many of our "ghosts" could indeed be visions of people going about their business in a parallel universe or another time -- or both.
-- Paul F. Eno
Chapter Five
"Oh my God," Nate said, his face turning pale as he ran over to the Doctor and Rose. "You're really bleeding."
"Yes, we can see that," the Doctor said coldy, reaching inside his breast pocket and drawing out the sonic screwdriver. "I can stitch the skin back together with this."
"You're going to stitch her skin back together with a laser pointer?" Nate's voice was dubious.
The Doctor shot Nate a withering look. "It's a sonic screwdriver. And it's much more than a laser pointer. Rose, I'm going to need you to hold still."
"Right," said Rose, looking paler than he liked to see her. "That's a lot of blood, Doctor."
"It looks a lot worse than it is. It would take you a long time to die from a wound like this. It's not nearly deep enough. We got out of the way quick enough that you're going to be okay." The Doctor aimed the sonic screwdriver at her wrist. Rose and Nate watched in fascination as the cut sealed together.
Rose shook her arm gingerly. "It itches."
"I just forced your skin to grow a few new layers in a matter of seconds," the Doctor said evenly, "it's going to itch a bit. And be irritated. I can soothe it when we get back to the TARDIS."
Rose raised an eyebrow at him. "Doctor -- the TARDIS is in 1867. Remember?"
"Yes. Right. I knew that." The Doctor pocketed the sonic screwdriver and reached for Rose's arm, running his thumb over the red skin. "Sorry."
"Hey." Rose took a step towards him and laid her hand on his shoulder. "Not your fault, yeah? We're all fine. We'll figure out how to get back to the TARDIS."
"Emily May kills by slicing the wrists of her victims," Nate said, from where he stood, some feet away from them. "And we just saw the old man. I think she's after you, Rose."
"We need to figure out what's centering her in the physical world," the Doctor said, breaking his eyes away from Rose to shoot Nate a look. "Emonivores can't usually manipulate the physical world like Emily May does."
"How do they usually work, then?" Rose asked. "I mean, if they can't touch things, how do they kill?"
"Same way she scared the trousers off of Nate over there," the Doctor said. "They get inside your head."
The wind picked up, blowing icy cold over the three of them, and Rose scrunched her nose, trying to bury her way deeper inside the cute little hoodie the Doctor had picked out for her. "If the man in the wagon always appears before Emily shows up, maybe we should move."
"Good idea, Rose!" the Doctor said with forced cheer. He beamed at her, but Rose could tell there wasn't any of the usual joy behind those eyes. Keeping Emily May at bay had to have been harder than he originally let on. She reached for his hand and squeezed it as they walked further down the path, until it left off at a line of trees.
Nate and the Doctor appeared to be unaffected, but the further they went into the woods, the odder Rose felt . Perhaps this was what the Doctor had told her about. Her head was foggy, her vision just a little blurred, and the wound on her wrist throbbed. Throat suddenly dry, she opened her mouth to tell the Doctor what was going on, but instead of what she'd planned to say, a scream broke from her.
There, not twenty feet in front of her, was a woman clothed in what had once been immaculate white. The gown was frilled and full, sweeping from a narrow waist to the floor, the sleeves worn and in tatters. Rose could swear she saw the corseting underneath the dress. The most terrifying aspect of her appearance, though, were her shockingly blue eyes. Their brightness was almost alien, and they were the only part of her that looked alive. Her skin was translucent, like that of a corpse submerged in water, and tears of blood spilled down her cheeks, falling stainlessly on her dress and the forest floor.
Rose was unable to stifle her screams as Emily May walked toward her, hand outstretched. A voice began to whisper inside of her head. Come with me, Rose Tyler. Show me everything you are. All the pain, all the joy -- I can bring you rest.
"Doctor!" Rose shouted, terrified. "Help me, please!"
She couldn't feel him, couldn't hear his exact words, but she could hear him shouting, and that was enough. He was behind her. He was with her.
"Not today, bitch," Rose said, and took a deliberate step back. Emily May howled, rushing forward with hands extended like claws, but a beam of blue light from somewhere behind Rose seemed to dissolve the apparition. "Funny," Rose murmured just before she lost consciousness, "I thought angels were supposed to be gold."
**
The Doctor heard Rose's panicked scream and whirled, but he could see nothing in front of her. "Rose! Rose!" He grabbed her shoulders, but as before, she wouldn't move.
"Doctor! Help me, please!"
The Doctor closed his eyes and addressed the presence lurking outside of his brain. "She is mine," he thought, with all the psychic force he could muster. He pushed, a practical punch to Emily May's consciousness. It would cost him precious energy, but he hoped that it would wound incapacitate her long enough for him to help Rose build mental barriers against the emonivore. He would just have to rely on his own ability to tell the real world from the one Emily May wanted him to see.
He opened his eyes just in time to see Rose crumple to the ground, Nate rushing forward to catch her. Quickly, he checked Rose's pulse and looked up at the Doctor. "It's there. It seems a bit weak, though."
The Doctor rushed over to her, checking both of her wrists to make sure Emily May hadn't cut Rose again, on the physical plane. "She should be fine. She'll wake up in a minute. Remarkably resilient, is my Rose."
"What did you do?" Nate asked. "I saw her sort of freeze, and then you went all Spock..."
"We're waging a battle on two fronts now," the Doctor said grimly, squatting next to Rose, watching her eyes for any sign that she was returning to consciousness . "One's out here, in the physical world. The other one is in our psyches . She'll go after you next, Natey-boy. Whenever it starts -- whenever you start to feel like what you're seeing couldn't possibly be real, you have to let me know. Right away. I can help you."
"What do we do out here to stop her, then?" Nate asked.
"We have an exorcism. We need to get rid of all traces of her. The house. The silver coin. The knives she uses. All of it needs to go." The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief as Rose's eyelashes started to flutter.
"So -- you're going to kill her, then?" Nate smirked at the Doctor. "It's a little bit different when it's your woman, isn't it?"
The Doctor leveled a glare at Nate that made the younger man quail. "It is sometimes so easy to believe you're just a few precious years away from swinging in the trees," the Doctor muttered. "Rose is what matters. I'm going to do my best to protect you both, and save an endangered creature. But if I have to make the choice, it will always be her."
Nate's face fell and he rose to his feet, wiping his hands on his jeans. "Listen, I know you don't like me much..."
"Oh, that hardly has anything to do with it," the Doctor said dismissively.
"No, I know." Nate sighed. "Look, I just... I've seen that look before. The one you get when you look at her. And, I know you don't like me much, but... I used to look at Marie that way. I'll help you. I don't think anyone should have to go through that. What I did, I mean."
The Doctor was silent for a long moment. "Yeah. Thanks."
**
As soon as she opened her eyes she was screaming again, but the Doctor quickly put his hand over her mouth. "Shhhh," he soothed her. "You're safe for the moment."
"For the moment is bloody right," Rose said, sitting up. "Oh, my head. Doctor, if this is what your head feels like -- I feel really badly that you can't take an aspirin."
The Doctor laughed, throwing his head back with joy. "Rose, you're all right!"
"Yeah, m'fine," she said groggily. "I feel like I got hit by a wagon and then attacked by a psychopathic ghost, though."
"Ha! Wonder why," he teased. "Ready to stand up?"
"Yeah. Do you have anything for pain in those magic pockets of yours?" Rose asked.
"They're not magic, Rose, they're dimensionally transcendental," the Doctor said patiently. "And, as it happens, I do." He handed a few white pills over to Rose, who swallowed them gamely.
As soon as she had swallowed the pills, she wiped her hands on her jeans and squared her shoulders. "All right, what do we do next?"
"We need to find those knives," the Doctor said. "I doubt she'd keep them in the house with the knives we found -- that's too much of her existence based in one place. It'd be like... what's the expression? Putting all your eggs in one basket."
"They say they see the girls going down to the crick carrying them, right?" Rose asked. "That's the story, anyway."
"Right," Nate said.
"So, is there some place where she could keep them? Some place sheltered? If she's only coming out once a year, she's going to need some place to keep them away from the elements," the Doctor said.
"Right," Nate said. "Just... let me think. The Nealy place had this... shed. At the bottom of the property, by the crick. That'd be a good place to start. Don't think anyone's been in there for ages. We never went in as kids."
"Nealy shed it is then!" the Doctor reached for Rose's hand. "Now, lead on, O'Cleary!"
They walked for about a mile and a half, down the wooded hill to the crick, which they followed for some distance. Rose and the Doctor followed Nate, taking comfort in each other's presence without having to really say much, even though they were both incredibly tense.
Eventually, they saw it: "shed" was being a bit generous. It was more of a shack, held together with nails and hope, and although it was in such obvious disrepair, the roof seemed to be in good shape.
"If I were a ghostie, I would keep my knives in here," the Doctor said, bouncing a little on his feet as he approached the door with his sonic screwdriver. "It's all sort of... stereotypical, isn't it Rose? Isolated rural country, little shack down by the creek, creepy-crawly haunted mansion..."
"Someone's been reading too much Stephen King," Nate drawled in agreement. "It's locked," he said, bewildered. "Why would someone lock a shed no one uses?"
"Because someone's been using it all this time," Rose suggested.
The Doctor aimed his sonic screwdriver at the padlock. It opened with a loud click, and the Doctor pocketed the screwdriver, reaching out with his free hand to remove the lock and throw it on the ground. The door opened with a groan, and the Doctor recoiled, throwing his arm over his nose. Slowly, he dropped his arm and took another step forward, a grim look on his face.
"Nate?"
"Yeah?"
"What was your girlfriend wearing when she disappeared?"
"Jeans and a blue Superman top," Nate responded promptly. His eyes widened when he realized the implications. "Is it...?"
"I'm sorry," said the Doctor, looking at Nate with genuine sympathy. "I am so, so sorry."
**
Chapter Six
Author: ladychi
Beta: jaradel & papilio_luna
Graphic Artist: ducktheduck
Rating: Teen
Summary: The Doctor and Rose tackle a vengeful ghost, temporal shifts, and an adventure that will test their relationship. AU after Doomsday. Written for chaosmonkey as a result of the Support Stacie auction.
Author's Note: This fic continues to be updated on Mondays & Thursdays -- even with the other ficlets and fics coming out for Support Stacie. Sorry, flisters! Lots of fic this week.
Previous Chapters: One| Two| Three| Four
There are an infinite number of universes existing side by side and through which our consciousnesses constantly pass. In these universes, all possibilities exist. You are alive in some, long dead in others, and never existed in still others. Many of our "ghosts" could indeed be visions of people going about their business in a parallel universe or another time -- or both.
-- Paul F. Eno
Chapter Five
"Oh my God," Nate said, his face turning pale as he ran over to the Doctor and Rose. "You're really bleeding."
"Yes, we can see that," the Doctor said coldy, reaching inside his breast pocket and drawing out the sonic screwdriver. "I can stitch the skin back together with this."
"You're going to stitch her skin back together with a laser pointer?" Nate's voice was dubious.
The Doctor shot Nate a withering look. "It's a sonic screwdriver. And it's much more than a laser pointer. Rose, I'm going to need you to hold still."
"Right," said Rose, looking paler than he liked to see her. "That's a lot of blood, Doctor."
"It looks a lot worse than it is. It would take you a long time to die from a wound like this. It's not nearly deep enough. We got out of the way quick enough that you're going to be okay." The Doctor aimed the sonic screwdriver at her wrist. Rose and Nate watched in fascination as the cut sealed together.
Rose shook her arm gingerly. "It itches."
"I just forced your skin to grow a few new layers in a matter of seconds," the Doctor said evenly, "it's going to itch a bit. And be irritated. I can soothe it when we get back to the TARDIS."
Rose raised an eyebrow at him. "Doctor -- the TARDIS is in 1867. Remember?"
"Yes. Right. I knew that." The Doctor pocketed the sonic screwdriver and reached for Rose's arm, running his thumb over the red skin. "Sorry."
"Hey." Rose took a step towards him and laid her hand on his shoulder. "Not your fault, yeah? We're all fine. We'll figure out how to get back to the TARDIS."
"Emily May kills by slicing the wrists of her victims," Nate said, from where he stood, some feet away from them. "And we just saw the old man. I think she's after you, Rose."
"We need to figure out what's centering her in the physical world," the Doctor said, breaking his eyes away from Rose to shoot Nate a look. "Emonivores can't usually manipulate the physical world like Emily May does."
"How do they usually work, then?" Rose asked. "I mean, if they can't touch things, how do they kill?"
"Same way she scared the trousers off of Nate over there," the Doctor said. "They get inside your head."
The wind picked up, blowing icy cold over the three of them, and Rose scrunched her nose, trying to bury her way deeper inside the cute little hoodie the Doctor had picked out for her. "If the man in the wagon always appears before Emily shows up, maybe we should move."
"Good idea, Rose!" the Doctor said with forced cheer. He beamed at her, but Rose could tell there wasn't any of the usual joy behind those eyes. Keeping Emily May at bay had to have been harder than he originally let on. She reached for his hand and squeezed it as they walked further down the path, until it left off at a line of trees.
Nate and the Doctor appeared to be unaffected, but the further they went into the woods, the odder Rose felt . Perhaps this was what the Doctor had told her about. Her head was foggy, her vision just a little blurred, and the wound on her wrist throbbed. Throat suddenly dry, she opened her mouth to tell the Doctor what was going on, but instead of what she'd planned to say, a scream broke from her.
There, not twenty feet in front of her, was a woman clothed in what had once been immaculate white. The gown was frilled and full, sweeping from a narrow waist to the floor, the sleeves worn and in tatters. Rose could swear she saw the corseting underneath the dress. The most terrifying aspect of her appearance, though, were her shockingly blue eyes. Their brightness was almost alien, and they were the only part of her that looked alive. Her skin was translucent, like that of a corpse submerged in water, and tears of blood spilled down her cheeks, falling stainlessly on her dress and the forest floor.
Rose was unable to stifle her screams as Emily May walked toward her, hand outstretched. A voice began to whisper inside of her head. Come with me, Rose Tyler. Show me everything you are. All the pain, all the joy -- I can bring you rest.
"Doctor!" Rose shouted, terrified. "Help me, please!"
She couldn't feel him, couldn't hear his exact words, but she could hear him shouting, and that was enough. He was behind her. He was with her.
"Not today, bitch," Rose said, and took a deliberate step back. Emily May howled, rushing forward with hands extended like claws, but a beam of blue light from somewhere behind Rose seemed to dissolve the apparition. "Funny," Rose murmured just before she lost consciousness, "I thought angels were supposed to be gold."
**
The Doctor heard Rose's panicked scream and whirled, but he could see nothing in front of her. "Rose! Rose!" He grabbed her shoulders, but as before, she wouldn't move.
"Doctor! Help me, please!"
The Doctor closed his eyes and addressed the presence lurking outside of his brain. "She is mine," he thought, with all the psychic force he could muster. He pushed, a practical punch to Emily May's consciousness. It would cost him precious energy, but he hoped that it would wound incapacitate her long enough for him to help Rose build mental barriers against the emonivore. He would just have to rely on his own ability to tell the real world from the one Emily May wanted him to see.
He opened his eyes just in time to see Rose crumple to the ground, Nate rushing forward to catch her. Quickly, he checked Rose's pulse and looked up at the Doctor. "It's there. It seems a bit weak, though."
The Doctor rushed over to her, checking both of her wrists to make sure Emily May hadn't cut Rose again, on the physical plane. "She should be fine. She'll wake up in a minute. Remarkably resilient, is my Rose."
"What did you do?" Nate asked. "I saw her sort of freeze, and then you went all Spock..."
"We're waging a battle on two fronts now," the Doctor said grimly, squatting next to Rose, watching her eyes for any sign that she was returning to consciousness . "One's out here, in the physical world. The other one is in our psyches . She'll go after you next, Natey-boy. Whenever it starts -- whenever you start to feel like what you're seeing couldn't possibly be real, you have to let me know. Right away. I can help you."
"What do we do out here to stop her, then?" Nate asked.
"We have an exorcism. We need to get rid of all traces of her. The house. The silver coin. The knives she uses. All of it needs to go." The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief as Rose's eyelashes started to flutter.
"So -- you're going to kill her, then?" Nate smirked at the Doctor. "It's a little bit different when it's your woman, isn't it?"
The Doctor leveled a glare at Nate that made the younger man quail. "It is sometimes so easy to believe you're just a few precious years away from swinging in the trees," the Doctor muttered. "Rose is what matters. I'm going to do my best to protect you both, and save an endangered creature. But if I have to make the choice, it will always be her."
Nate's face fell and he rose to his feet, wiping his hands on his jeans. "Listen, I know you don't like me much..."
"Oh, that hardly has anything to do with it," the Doctor said dismissively.
"No, I know." Nate sighed. "Look, I just... I've seen that look before. The one you get when you look at her. And, I know you don't like me much, but... I used to look at Marie that way. I'll help you. I don't think anyone should have to go through that. What I did, I mean."
The Doctor was silent for a long moment. "Yeah. Thanks."
**
As soon as she opened her eyes she was screaming again, but the Doctor quickly put his hand over her mouth. "Shhhh," he soothed her. "You're safe for the moment."
"For the moment is bloody right," Rose said, sitting up. "Oh, my head. Doctor, if this is what your head feels like -- I feel really badly that you can't take an aspirin."
The Doctor laughed, throwing his head back with joy. "Rose, you're all right!"
"Yeah, m'fine," she said groggily. "I feel like I got hit by a wagon and then attacked by a psychopathic ghost, though."
"Ha! Wonder why," he teased. "Ready to stand up?"
"Yeah. Do you have anything for pain in those magic pockets of yours?" Rose asked.
"They're not magic, Rose, they're dimensionally transcendental," the Doctor said patiently. "And, as it happens, I do." He handed a few white pills over to Rose, who swallowed them gamely.
As soon as she had swallowed the pills, she wiped her hands on her jeans and squared her shoulders. "All right, what do we do next?"
"We need to find those knives," the Doctor said. "I doubt she'd keep them in the house with the knives we found -- that's too much of her existence based in one place. It'd be like... what's the expression? Putting all your eggs in one basket."
"They say they see the girls going down to the crick carrying them, right?" Rose asked. "That's the story, anyway."
"Right," Nate said.
"So, is there some place where she could keep them? Some place sheltered? If she's only coming out once a year, she's going to need some place to keep them away from the elements," the Doctor said.
"Right," Nate said. "Just... let me think. The Nealy place had this... shed. At the bottom of the property, by the crick. That'd be a good place to start. Don't think anyone's been in there for ages. We never went in as kids."
"Nealy shed it is then!" the Doctor reached for Rose's hand. "Now, lead on, O'Cleary!"
They walked for about a mile and a half, down the wooded hill to the crick, which they followed for some distance. Rose and the Doctor followed Nate, taking comfort in each other's presence without having to really say much, even though they were both incredibly tense.
Eventually, they saw it: "shed" was being a bit generous. It was more of a shack, held together with nails and hope, and although it was in such obvious disrepair, the roof seemed to be in good shape.
"If I were a ghostie, I would keep my knives in here," the Doctor said, bouncing a little on his feet as he approached the door with his sonic screwdriver. "It's all sort of... stereotypical, isn't it Rose? Isolated rural country, little shack down by the creek, creepy-crawly haunted mansion..."
"Someone's been reading too much Stephen King," Nate drawled in agreement. "It's locked," he said, bewildered. "Why would someone lock a shed no one uses?"
"Because someone's been using it all this time," Rose suggested.
The Doctor aimed his sonic screwdriver at the padlock. It opened with a loud click, and the Doctor pocketed the screwdriver, reaching out with his free hand to remove the lock and throw it on the ground. The door opened with a groan, and the Doctor recoiled, throwing his arm over his nose. Slowly, he dropped his arm and took another step forward, a grim look on his face.
"Nate?"
"Yeah?"
"What was your girlfriend wearing when she disappeared?"
"Jeans and a blue Superman top," Nate responded promptly. His eyes widened when he realized the implications. "Is it...?"
"I'm sorry," said the Doctor, looking at Nate with genuine sympathy. "I am so, so sorry."
**
Chapter Six