Fanfic: DW/Fringe Xover The Ghost in the Machine (5/5)
Title: The Ghost in the Machine
Author: lunawho
Fandoms: Doctor Who and Fringe
Rating: K+
Spoilers: through 4x13 "Journey's End" for DW and 3x22 "The Day We Died" for Fringe
Summary: If there is anyone who understands the influence of one man's life on the universe, and how to bring about existence from non-existence, it's the Doctor
Pairings: TenII/Rose, Peter/Olivia
Genre: Adventure, sci-fi, slight romance, angst, drama
Special Note: Sequel to last summer's fic The Planets Bend Between Us. Link to that story included in chapter 1.
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
A/N: Here it is, everyone. The final chapter. Thanks so much to everyone who has reviewed this story, and left me continuous words of encouragement. It means so SO much.
Disclaimer: See previous chapters. I have no beta, so any and all mistakes are mine (especially whatever typos appear).
If you enjoy what you’ve read, feel free to check out my other works on my author profile (my name is jandl on ff.net) and leave me your thoughts. I hope everyone enjoys the s04 premiere of Fringe this week, and the s06 finale of DW that’s coming up. On with the show!
Chapter 5
Olivia was exhausted. How was it possible that everything that had happened had occurred in only three hours? It felt so much longer than that to her aching muscles and pounding skull. Then again, she reasoned to herself, she had technically just lived four lifetimes in less than twenty minutes, so it was no great wonder she was weary of it all. There was the original time line, the six months/lifetime with Peter as energy, the one minute/lifetime of Peter not existing at all, and then the new timeline with a Peter filled existence, minus the drama of universal war. Olivia herself wasn’t quite sure how it was possible for him to be there and all those events not be plaguing her, but she was now passed the point of questioning a good thing. She had done the impossible, to quote the Doctor, and she would have to be content with those words as an explanation. She wasn’t sure her brain could take much more explanation anyway, so she let it pass. She was positive that Peter could explain it all to her later, when they were both rested and had a combined IQ of something larger than a cucumber.
Peter was currently sitting at one of the lab tables, a wool blanket wrapped around his shoulders, talking quietly and intensely with Walter. In the thirty minutes since he had reappeared in the former bridge room -- Olivia supposed that now she would only need to refer to it as a lab -- she had gained no chance to speak with him. First, Walter had insisted on checking all of his vitals and now seemed to be questioning his son’s mental state. Olivia tried not to feel impatient or petulant. After all, she had been talking with Peter for an hour (though it seemed much shorter when she was unconscious), and Walter hadn’t spoken to his son in six months/an entire two different lifetimes. He deserved his opportunity to catch up. But still, Olivia wished he would hurry. A part of her wanted to speak to him so badly that she felt she may have to be rude and push Walter out of the way, or at least intrude in the conversation. The last thing she had told him before he stepped on the Machine was that she loved him, and she wanted to find out if they could continue that conversation. She at least wanted to touch him and get the physical confirmation that she wasn’t just dreaming. Peter glanced her direction, obviously only half listening to his father’s rambling, and spared her a small smile that immediately put Olivia a bit more at ease. Olivia sighed softly. He would come speak to her when he could, and her staring at him wasn’t going to make that wait any less of a time.
Olivia startled a bit when she felt a hand grab her shoulder, and turned to see Rose standing beside her, offering her a bottle of water. Olivia smiled in thanks as she grabbed it from Rose’s hand, and she then scooted over where she was sitting on a lab table, making room for the younger blonde haired woman.
Rose lifted herself up, swinging her legs off the edge like a child in primary school and gripping the edge of the table with her hands, flicking her fingers against the underside in a soothing rhythm. “So, you look like you’re thinking deep thoughts,” Rose said, cocking her head in Olivia’s direction and raising her eyebrows, her tongue sticking out between her teeth in a coquettish manner.
“Any thoughts at all seem like one thought too many right now,” Olivia answered. “I just…I feel like any answers I get would only confuse me more, but I also feel like if I don’t have any answers that it’s not really real. I mean, I’ve been four people in less than two hours. I have four lifetimes in my head, and I know which one the current timeline says is the truth, but what makes it any more real or true than the three other timelines I remember?”
“Well, the good looking, blue eyed bloke across the room who has been trying as hard as he can to not stare at you since he was brought into being thirty minutes ago is pretty real, I have to say. If he’s not, you’ve got one hot imagination, and I wouldn’t be adverse to you loaning it to me for awhile,” Rose replied, laughing slightly. Olivia felt herself smile in response.
“Wouldn’t your Doctor have a problem with that, don’t you think?”
“It’s not like he hasn’t had his share of being snogged by other women! Seriously, it’s like a step back to the 1950s sometimes with that alien. Another guy even *looks* at me, and he goes all broody, dark eyes and starts talking like, ‘I am the Oncoming Storm and the Bringer of Darkness,’ and they all would run off. But the second he sees a well-educated blonde, he runs away after her. Granted, he’s half-human now, so he’s improved a bit, especially since now he knows that he can’t hop in his TARDIS to another galaxy when my mum threatens to slap him. But, I’m a woman with eyes and I am more than allowed to look and fantasize. What the Doctor doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
“Plus, it hardly matters anyway. I don’t think that bloke of yours notices there’s another woman in the room.”
Olivia continued to smile as she listened to Rose chatter. Aside from Astrid and Rachel (and GOD was Olivia glad for the new memories she had that included a Rachel that could walk and talk, and for the wonderful niece she was blessed with), Olivia had no real female friends. She guessed, however, that Rose definitely now qualified. She only showed up when the world was ending, but wasn’t that what a friend *should* do?
Without really meaning to, Olivia found herself wondering what the Rose of her world would be like, and how had Rose implanted herself into an alternate world so easily? Olivia couldn’t really fathom it. How does one avoid their alternate self, especially if one has the same name?
“Rose, when you first arrived in what you and the Doctor call Pete’s World, how did you avoid your alternate self? I mean, I couldn’t avoid meeting mine and the situation turned out to be less than ideal.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t have an alternate. My parents never had children in that world -- that world’s version of Jackie didn’t want to ruin her figure. The only Rose Tyler in that world was a little dog. Made me telling Pete Tyler who I really was into something of an awkward conversation, I can tell you. I mean, he didn’t throw me into solitary confinement or anything, but his response to the news was more than a little frosty.”
“What about the Rose Tyler from my world? Do you want to look into her? We have plenty of time now, I think.”
Rose was silent a moment, and as Olivia looked into Rose’s honey brown eyes, she noticed that something about Rose seemed so much older than her twenty-something years. Olivia could not help but feel that some of her own hard-earned wisdom and life lessons were ones Rose had also been forced to learn the hard way as well. Olivia had four lifetimes in her eyes; she wondered how many she could count in Rose Tyler’s, if the younger woman would let her.
“It’s tempting, but I’ll pass. That Rose Tyler isn’t me anymore than the Pete’s World version of Olivia Dunham is you.”
“Yeah. Not that anyone on my team noticed that,” Olivia said, the words slipping out to her friend in a bitter fashion before she had a chance to check them. Rose sat silently beside her, the only sign that she was waiting for a continuation being that her fingers had stopped their rhythmic tapping on the underside of the lab table. Olivia took a deep breath before she continued. This woman had saved her life -- helped her escape back home -- and had given her some advice. If anyone deserved to know what the outcome and trials of that advice had been, it was Rose.
“I tried to follow what you had suggested to me before I left Pete’s World. I got home, Peter picked me up and made sure I rested and, despite my protesting, took me to the hospital to get checked out. And I knew from what he told me that my alternate had been undercover on my team for almost six weeks before they discovered she was a plant. And I thought I would be able to handle whatever he had to tell me -- like you said, he had earned all my efforts I’d gone through to save him, and therefore, he was obviously worth forgiving. But when he told me everything that had happened with…her, I just couldn’t. Every time I tried to forgive him, I just felt sick, and I wondered why I always have to be the understanding one, and then I’d just get angry at him. I guess, in the end, I forgot your advice because giving forgiveness turned out to be harder than I thought it would be.
“In the end though, underneath all the anger and fear and resentment, I only had one real source of anger. And I felt it for everyone, but I directed it at him because, well, his ignorance had hurt the most -- but I was angry that none of them noticed. Not a single one. She may not be me, as you say, but she may as well have been.”
Olivia stared down at her lap as she finished speaking, distracting herself from her thoughts by studying the ripples in the water residing in her bottle. When she noticed that Rose was still not speaking after some minutes of silence, she turned to see what had distracted her young friend. Rose, it seemed was not distracted by anything at all, but was merely staring at Olivia as though deciding whether or not she had the right to ask what was currently fluttering through her mind.
“What is it?” Olivia asked, wondering what possible retort Rose could think of in response to her earlier statements.
“But you did forgive him eventually, right?”
Olivia balked at the question. She thought it was fairly evident that she had; she certainly wouldn’t have given herself a nosebleed and the world’s worst migraine (she was pretty certain she came close to having an aneurysm) to bring into existence someone she was loathing or felt wronged by. Then she remembered the bitter tone of her previous comments -- Olivia guessed that despite forgiving Peter and the others, a part of her would always be a bit resentful -- and realised that she couldn’t fault Rose for asking. She certainly hadn’t given Rose any clues to insinuate that Peter had redeemed himself.
“Of course. Wholeheartedly.”
“Good. Because I really don’t think you can afford to pass any judgments on that score,” Rose said, hopping down off the table and turning hard at the waist, as though working out some kinks from her back.
“What do you mean?” Olivia asked, not sure whether or not Rose’s comment was meant to sound as insulting and suggestive as it had been received.
Rose placed a hand on Olivia’s knee and gave it a friendly squeeze -- a show of affection that Olivia was fairly certain had been rubbed off on Rose from the Doctor -- and told Olivia firmly, though not unkindly, “Just think about it, okay? Whatever pain you felt a year ago -- the betrayal, the loneliness, the resentment -- I’m sure your friend has now felt that as well. The reasoning behind it may be different, but the pain is the same, and as with all other things in a relationship, pain and forgiveness are two way streets.”
With one last friendly squeeze and a small smile, Rose walked away. Olivia could do nothing more than stare bemusedly after her as she watched Rose go speak with Walter and Astrid, and tried to work out what she meant. It took her about thirty seconds longer than normal to realise that Walter was speaking with Rose, which meant that Peter would be free. However, when she glanced over to him, it was to see Peter deep in conversation with the Doctor. Damn, she thought. It appeared she would have to wait a few seconds longer.
<0>
The Doctor, meanwhile, was trying to have a conversation with the somewhat uncooperative Peter Bishop. The younger man’s attention seemed to be placed almost entirely on the blonde woman (well, the blonde that wasn’t Rose anyway). Not that the Doctor could blame the man -- the Doctor’s own attention was usually slightly spastic at best, and if the Doctor had been away from Rose for six months…well, he’d have something of a one track mind too. Hell, the Doctor had even overlooked a Dalek in the background when he had seen Rose standing on that street in Chiswick after two years of separation. It was the last thing he remembered from before he sprung out of a spare hand in the middle of an inferno in the TARDIS console room.
Still, there were important things to discuss, and that couldn’t happen until the younger Bishop at least realised the Doctor was speaking. The Doctor snapped his fingers and the young man, far from being impressed, merely glowered at him in an annoyed fashion.
“So, you’re feeling okay? No headaches or dizziness or random urges to join a circus?”
“Yes, no, no, and I’m already in a circus.”
The Doctor leaned forward over the opposite end of the table, resting his elbows on its top and placing his chin on the palm of one hand. He watched as Peter copied his pose somewhat, only instead of resting his chin on his hand, he rubbed at his eyes tiredly. The Doctor fought against the urge to do the same -- it had indeed been quite a long day. It had, in fact, been three different days today.
“So, no side effects at all? No mixing memories or gaps or anything like that?”
Peter looked around them quickly, checking the distance between where they were and the position of Rose and Astrid and then the distance between them and Olivia. He gestured for the Doctor to lean forward and lowered his voice as he spoke.
“I still remember everything -- the previous universe, the six months of seeing and not hearing, of yelling my throat raw. Naturally, I don’t remember not existing, but I remember everything else. Will I always have those memories?”
“Yes, but don’t worry. Eventually, the others will turn into what most memories are -- hazy and fuzzy on the details. I mean, to reference them, you’ll insert your own assumptions in there and you’ll create little titbits that you’ll swear are true but didn’t *really* happen, just like you do with all your childhood memories.”
“So am I two people or just one? Am I the Peter with all the real memories that no longer actually happened or am I the Peter with all the fake memories that *did* happen?” Peter asked quietly, staring at his hands. The Doctor wasn’t positive as to whether the young man was being rhetorical and philosophical or if he expected an answer.
The Doctor answered, in any case. “You are who you choose to be. Just as you’ve always been.”
Peter gave a weak chuckle and a small smile, nodding his head slightly. “There is one more thing,” the young man added, quieter still this time from the previous set of questions. “The future I saw…everything that happened. What am I supposed to do with that knowledge? Do I change it?”
The Doctor studied the man before him. Peter’s blue eyes were penetrating the Doctor’s brown ones with a fiery strength that somewhat resembled the look the Doctor had often seen in Olivia Dunham’s green ones. The Doctor knew the answer he gave was a perilous one -- could make or break the future of not only the reality he was currently in, but of the one he was about to return to in what would hopefully be only a few more minutes.
There are few things that could convince a genius of a man to climb into a universe-destroying machine. There are even fewer things that could convince a man well versed in quantum mechanics to want to screw around with the laws of time and space. Those things tended to come down to: completely destroying one’s own race in a Time War (the Doctor had fought the temptation to go back in time and save his own people and he had won, but it had been a near defeat on his part), trying to impress East End shop girls and give them their hearts desire, perform cheap tricks to make an intelligent med student smile…and to keep a loved one from being put in a situation that would end in them being killed.
“You already have, didn’t you?” the Doctor queried back. “The war doesn’t happen now. No one has had to cross over. Walternate doesn’t care about this universe -- to be honest, who knows what Rose and I will discover when we cross back over? It’ll be quite an adventure to get to know that universe all over again. Certainly a lot more peaceful I’m sure.”
“Then how am I here?” Peter asked. The Doctor gave into temptation and rubbed his own eyes with his right hand, resting the edges of his fingers on the bridge of his nose -- a physical cue that he had no real words to explain an idea he had, but that he was about to try to explain so that he could at least *sound* intelligent. There was nothing the Doctor hated more than to say nothing at all.
“You exist because your blonde friend on the other side of the room wanted you to do. You were quite lucky, you know. You had managed over the years of your friendship, to embed something so deeply within her psyche that even time and universal re-writes couldn’t get rid of it. You gave her a moral compass to follow.”
“What moral compass?” Peter asked, his tone implying that he had a good idea what the Doctor may be referring to, but was seeking confirmation.
“The Greek phrase in her head. ‘Be a better man than your father.’ That came from you, didn’t it?”
“Yeah. My mother used to say it to me every night before bed. It was one of the few things about my childhood I shared with her before…everything. It became like a code between us.”
“Ah yes. I know a lot about those. Sadly, the only foreign language Rose and I got to hear ours in was Welsh. Disappointing, that. And we didn’t even know it was our code phrase yet at the time.”
Peter raised his eyebrows in question, obviously curious to hear the story behind the Doctor’s digression, but the Doctor merely flicked the question away with his hand. There were more important things to discuss than stories from what was, quite literally, a lifetime and a half ago.
“Anyway, that phrase between you and Agent Dunham has a lot of power. It’s something pure, untarnished. It was something that, even with not remembering you, she could live up to because it follows her own personal disposition. That need to look after people and care for them. BUT it also describes you, at least in her own mind I’m assuming. So, all it took to bring you back was something to lead her to a thought or a small inclination toward that one familiar phrase, and ZAP!” The Doctor took the opportunity to thump his hand down hard on the table, causing everyone else in the room to stare at he and Peter. The Doctor shook his hand out slightly afterward, his hand numb with the force. “One tiny little sliver of thought and everything about you came shuffling back.”
“But I still don’t get how it’s possible.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve noted about the human race in my 900+ years of time and space travel, it’s that the one thing humans have the most trouble with is letting go. Memories are tricky things. Just when you think you’ve let someone go or that a feeling for someone is gone, they pop right back up again. Sometimes, that’s bad. It means that humans forgive, but they don’t forget; it means that bad habits are nearly impossible to break; it means that they return to relationships best left behind them. Other times, their fortitude and devotion does the impossible -- it keeps the dead alive in people’s hearts, it keeps people fighting in a hopeless situation, and it means that a person can hang on subconsciously to something that they’re not even aware they’ve lost in the first place. And if there’s one person who’s good at clinging on to what little hope there is with both hands, it’s your Agent Dunham.”
The Doctor gave him a small smile when he finished, standing up from his position at the table. The rest would be left up to Agent Dunham to explain to the man, for it was her heart and her mind that had decided the situation. And he had his own universe to get back to and his own firecracker of a blonde with which to argue and tease.
“I’ll just…leave you two to it,” the Doctor said, somewhat awkwardly as he saw that the younger man had already left the table to begin walking to the other side of the room where Agent Dunham was eagerly standing up to receive him.
<0>
Olivia stood awkwardly before Peter, wringing her hands together nervously and berating herself internally for being ridiculous. This wasn’t their first conversation or their first reunion. Hell, it wasn’t their first anything -- they’d passed all of those months ago -- and yet, she felt as though she had asked him out and was anxiously awaiting his reply. It was juvenile and totally the wrong feeling for the situation they were in, but it was how she felt. In one reality, she had told him she loved him and though he hadn’t said the words in response, she had known he felt the same. (Words had never really been necessary between them anyway). But this was a new reality, and they were different people now, and she didn’t know which version of Olivia he expected her to be. (She actually was pretty certain that within a few hours she was going to be hit with an identity crisis or end up hospitalised with some form of multiple personality disorder. One way or another, she wasn’t leaving this crisis without being in need of some sort of therapy).
“Hi,” he said, putting his hands into his jean pockets and rocking back slightly as though unsure of what to do with himself.
“Hey,” she answered back. She stood stone still for a second before throwing caution to the wind and throwing her arms around his neck to hug him. She wasn’t sure which version of herself it was that wanted the contact -- version 1 that was in love with him, version 2 that was lonely, version 3 that was even more lonely, or version 4 that was either in love with him or just really friendly (she didn’t know herself well enough yet) -- but she indulged the whim. Peter didn’t seem to mind all that much as he quickly returned it and squeezed her hard enough around her midsection that she suspected she might be sporting bruised ribs later.
“Thank you,” he whispered against her neck.
She released him and leaned back to look up at him with a smile. “I’m pretty sure you and the universe are worth it.” Without meaning to, one of her hands reached out and tangled its fingers with his. It felt familiar, comfortable, and right. Olivia relished it. Version 1 had always loved holding his hand (and doing lots of other things too, if she let herself think about it). Version 2 had always liked to study people’s hands, but rarely held anyone’s hand. Version 3 had hated to be touched at all. Version 4 seemed to enjoy it as much as Version 1, and was more than happy to go along with the development. There was something in her that felt complete when his hand encased hers and it made her feel like she went on and on forever -- their hands feeling almost like a circle -- and she wondered if this is why everyone always seemed to see holding hands as a mark of intimacy.
“I still don’t know how you brought me back. I mean, I know you focused on my mother’s phrase, but what did that do?” He used their encased hands to pull her closer to him, forcing her to throw her head further back to continue to see his face while she spoke. It also brought her body into slightly more contact with his own, and she definitely couldn’t find it within herself to complain about that.
“That was easy. I did as you asked. I wished you gone, and for a few seconds there -- maybe half a minute -- you were. And the kind of person I was -- lonely, unforgiving, hopeless, no patience at all for anyone, no humour -- was someone that even I couldn’t stand. To be honest, I’m pretty sure that version of me was clinically depressed and suicidal. And all I could think through this intense ringing in my ears was, ‘There’s got to be more to life than this.’ Then I remembered the phrase, and I found myself struggling to remember how I knew it and why it meant so much to me to be a better person than the people who had gone before me. I had to remember why I was supposed to care about people. And even though I had no idea of you -- no memories or ideas -- all I knew was that people *like* you had to exist somewhere. A good, intelligent man with a strong personality, and I found myself wishing for that. I guess a part of me was waiting for you just like you were…”
She stopped suddenly, her mind finally realising what Rose had been trying to tell her previously. Peter had been waiting for her. For the six months that she had blissfully been living a life without him in it, he had been trying to contact her -- had yelled for her, done everything within his limited power to try and get her attention -- and she hadn’t noticed at all. Along with the crushing feeling of guilt came the feeling of empathy. She had been replaced and *he* hadn’t noticed, and he had been taken out of her life completely and *she* hadn’t noticed. She was pretty sure they were more than even when it came to feelings of betrayal. Rose was right; Olivia had no place to judge anymore, much less hold on to those negative feelings. In any case, if there was one thing Olivia had learned over the last few months and four distinct lifetimes, it was that time was a precious, unpredictable thing. And she needed take whatever little bit of it she had.
She shook her head to clear it, aware that she had left her thought hanging in mid-air. “Anyway, I guess the real story is that Version 3 of myself was constantly wishing for things she didn’t have because aside from work she literally had nothing at all. And that wish brought me you…after I went under about 3 minutes of absolutely unbearable pain through every inch of my body, of course.”
“Sorry,” Peter answered awkwardly, apparently at a lost for anything else to say.
Olivia stared up into his eyes, relishing the fact that she could see and touch him and also remember him. It was more than she could have hoped for an hour previously, but she was beginning to suspect that the Doctor tried to make a habit of doing the impossible wherever he went, if only so that he could say that he done so.
She reached up a hand and ran it gently over his omnipresent two-day stubble before snaking her hand back behind his head to force his head down to her level. She smirked at him slightly and whispered, “Don’t be” -- a comment she knew he would recognise as his own from what felt like a lifetime before. And before he could chuckle or give a response she planted her own lips over his. It had been too damn long since she had done this, a portion of her mind told her (most likely the affection starved portion, if Olivia had to hazard a guess). She was dimly aware that there was an audience in the room, but she decided she would worry about that later. She hadn’t kissed Peter in six months in one time line’s reckoning, and she’d never kissed him at all in the other two, and the current version of herself seemed pretty content to just go along with the ride.
Peter seemed to agree with her. His lips were caressing her own with very little finesse, but what he lacked in grace he made up for in fervency. After all, she wasn’t exactly focusing on her form either. The kiss was what one would expect from a couple who hadn’t had any contact in too long a time. It wasn’t so much exploratory as it was a claiming -- a very firm pillaging of each other’s mouths that was meant to be as dizzying and heady as it was relatively short. The exploratory, sweet kisses would come later, when it was just the two of them. For now, quick, needy, and thorough was what was needed.
It didn’t break off until Olivia heard a distinct cough and throat clearing from near her right.
“Not to break up this lovely little reunion,” announced the Doctor, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet in his plimsolls and keeping his eyes determinedly fixed on the ceiling, a blush coating his cheeks, “but I was wondering if you were planning on getting Rose and I home anytime soon?”
<0>
Rose felt like clocking the Doctor upside his head. Couldn’t he give Olivia and her bloke even five minutes to reunite? After all, the universe hadn’t been nearly so kind to Rose and the Doctor when they had been reunited -- Rose was sure such lovely reunions were quite rare -- and she thought her friend deserved the opportunity to enjoy it a bit. Plus, if Rose wanted to be honest, she really enjoyed watching them. They had gone from awkward and cute to hot and steamy in seconds, and it was the closest thing Rose had seen to an epic reunion that wasn’t on the telly. She supposed seeing her mum meet up with Pete came pretty damn close to epic, but it wasn’t *quite* the same thing. This one had both hugging AND kissing, and she was certain there would have been declarations of love soon after too if the Doctor hadn’t ruined it. And to think she had often accused *Mickey* of being a cock block.
Rose curbed her impulse to clock the Doctor completely and settled for elbowing him in the back instead.
“Oi! What was that for?” the Doctor asked indignantly, rubbing the spot she had whacked as though she had hit him much harder than she had done in actuality. Rose didn’t dignify his question with a response and merely rolled her eyes. For being the smartest being in the universe (or so he claimed), he really was the densest bloke she’d ever met, of any species.
Olivia and Peter came over to join Rose, the Doctor, Walter and Astrid where they were standing near the door to the room. Rose noted with slight girly excitement that Olivia’s fingers were still firmly interlaced with Peter’s.
“I’m supposed to get you home? But I thought you said that the bridge was gone now?”
“Oh, it is!” the Doctor answered with flourish. “And great job on that, by the way. But, you can send Rose and I back to our world the same way you got back to this one last year. You still have the ability to open miniature rifts, and as long as nobody messes with it after we go through, it’ll close itself up quickly enough. And if need be, I’ll give it a little boost towards being a scab myself,” he finished, pulling out his sonic screwdriver from the breast pocket of his jacket.
Rose watched in amusement as Walter’s eyes lit up in excitement and he took a small step toward the Doctor. Peter reached out an arm and held Walter back.
“Walter,” the son admonished, “that technology is way beyond the design of this century, and no, you don’t have the patent on it. So don’t even *try* to lie and say that you do.”
“Is that a vibrancy modulating and transmogrification device?” asked Walter, leaning over Peter’s outstretched arm in an effort to get as close to the screwdriver as possible.
“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” the Doctor said. “Though, to keep it simple and for time’s sake, I just call it a sonic screwdriver.”
“A sonic screwdriver?” Peter asked, scepticism evident in his voice. “How did you come up with that invention? Need to fix a few doors?”
“I was putting up cabinets actually.”
“How…er…useful,” retorted Peter sarcastically.
Rose fought back a laugh at the Doctor’s embarrassed expression. The Doctor cleared his throat and tried to get them back on topic.
“Still, Rose and I need your help to get back.”
“Okay,” Olivia answered, taking a deep breath and standing up straight. “What do you need me to do?”
“I just need you to focus for us on what you remember about our world. Not the people -- I don’t want to accidentally drag you over with us -- but the places, the sights, the smells. Those sorts of differences. Rose and I will focus on our physical connections over there, and before you know it we should be back in our rightful place. That should be interesting, what with the Statue of Liberty being used for completely different things over there now, I’m sure.”
“That sounds simple enough,” said Agent Dunham, dropping Peter’s hand and stepping closer toward the Doctor and Rose. She reached out a hand to the Doctor, and the Doctor grasped it, giving it a firm shake. “Thank you,” Olivia said, her voice showing the gravity of the sentiment. “Thank you for everything.”
Olivia held out a hand to Rose for Rose to shake, but Rose knocked the hand out of the way and hugged her instead. As had happened the year before, Olivia held herself stiffly at first before loosening and hugging Rose back firmly. “And thanks to you, too,” Rose heard Olivia say softly. “Not just for saving the universe and Peter, but for…y’know. All that other stuff. You were right.”
“Yeah, well. I usually am, me. Try telling him that though,” she said, nodding her head in the Doctor’s direction and smiling in fondness. “You look after that lot, yeah?” Rose said, gesturing towards the rest of the Fringe Team standing behind Olivia. “Sounds like you lot get yourself into almost as much trouble as the Doctor and I do.”
“We stay busy, yeah,” Olivia responded, chuckling slightly because there was little else she could do. “And I will.”
Rose nodded to the others in farewell, giving an extra little wink to Astrid for whom she felt a strange, special fondness. The young lab assistant turned active field agent had been an interesting person for Rose to chat with while Olivia had been in the tank, and she found that Astrid had a lot of potential, considering her knowledge of computers and the paranormal. If it wasn’t for the problem of being in opposite universes, she may have even tried recruiting the younger woman to work at Torchwood. Ah well. C’est le vie.
Rose stepped back from the group to rejoin the Doctor. She felt the familiar feel of the Doctor’s hand enveloping her own, his thumb brushing the back of her hand in a familiar stroke that still sent gooseflesh up her arm. She spared him a small smile before closing her eyes to focus.
She allowed the memories of those in Pete’s World to come as quickly as they wanted to. She thought first of the Doctor himself -- the feel of his hand over hers, the smell of him that was left on the pillow in the morning, the way he bounced like a five year old given too much sugar, the squeak that would appear in his voice when he was flustered, the way his tongue would explore her mouth when they kissed, his faith in her that sometimes left her breathless and overwhelmed and made her worry that one day she would fail him. She thought of her mum -- that comforting hug that only mothers have, the way her mother would yell Rose’s full name when she was pissed as hell at her (Rose hated to hear that dreaded “Marion” between Rose and Tyler), the most perfect tea in the universe that only her mum seemed to know how to make, that strong slap the Doctor was always terrified of. She thought of her little brother Tony -- how his first word had been RoRo and how that had made her mum turn seven shades of red, how he followed the Doctor around and tried to fight “aliens” with his “sonic screwdriver” (they were really random house hold objects fought off with a wooden figurine the Doctor had whittled for him). She thought of Pete and his protectiveness of her. She thought of Jake and his Geordie accent and the way he always ran into extraterrestrial altercations with guns blazing (to the Doctor’s great chagrin).
Rose felt a strange popping in her ears, like pressure being let loose, and saw a faint flash of blue behind her eyelids, and then found herself back in her own universe, the Doctor’s hand slightly clammy in her own.
“Where did you come from?” came a familiar voice. Rose turned around to see Dr Bishop and Brandon standing around an elaborate machine that Rose couldn’t figure out. It was evident that this version of Walter was not a Secretary of Defence, for he was wearing a lab coat with his name on it and lacked the austerity of the Walternate with which Rose was more accustomed. Even Brandon felt different -- less skeevy and sadistic and more confused and, to be frank, adorable.
The Doctor quickly plastered on a smile and sauntered up to the two men with the feel of a man who knows exactly what he’s doing. Rose pulled an equally at ease expression and followed his steps forward.
“Hi, I’m Doctor Smith, and this is my lovely assistant Rose, and we were sent down from the…CEO to see how this…project…is coming along.” Rose felt it was far from his most convincing lie, but she kept on smiling anyway. What she wouldn’t give for the Doctor to still have his psychic paper.
“We told Nina Sharp it wouldn’t be anywhere near finished yet,” Walter replied, his tone petulant and annoyed. “Tell her if she’s that anxious to have it finished she can work on it herself!” With that, Walter threw down his tools (which looked to Rose like a very tiny wrench and what appeared to be duct tape -- she wasn’t about to ask, that was for sure) and started to mutter incoherently about “women who thought they were more intelligent than they really were” and “sleeping..to the top.” Rose was pretty sure it was just masked sexism slipping through; it seemed to be a facet of every version of Walter she had met so far. Brandon looked a bit terrified of Walter’s reaction.
“Look, sir,” he said, sidling up the Doctor nervously and putting on what Rose was sure Brandon though was a winning smile, “please ignore Dr Bishop. He’s been under a lot of stress recently, what with the constant modifications made to the plans and all. And he just really doesn’t want to rush the work and have the trial testing potentially hurt someone. Trust me, he does realise the importance of this government contract. He’s just…er…busy?” he offered, somewhat lamely.
The Doctor merely nodded, trying to look serious and important. “Right. Well, just make sure it’s finished by the due date and that it works correctly. You know how Ms Sharp is about these things. We’ll be keeping an eye on you,” the Doctor added, wagging in his finger in the poor scientist’s face and accidentally tapping him on the nose more than once. Or, at least, Rose assumed the tapping was accidental. One could never really tell with the Doctor.
The Doctor grabbed Rose by the arm and ushered her out of the door. The two of them rushed through the Statue of Liberty, which now seemed to belong to a Massive Dynamic that was run by Ms Nina Sharp (Rose wondered how that huge change had come about and was excited to research that when she got home), and neither of them chanced looking at each other until they were standing outside of the building. Security was now rather lax, and no one had really seemed to pay them much mind as long as they walked like they knew where they were going. Since this was the Doctor’s normal modus operandi anyway, they were golden. Rose still breathed a sigh of relief when they exited the oppressive building.
“So, what was that thing?” she asked, hoping that it wasn’t something like a new kind of Amber. She had had enough adventure for one week, and if the universe was trying to throw another one in her path already, she was ready to tell it to piss off. She was going home to England, taking a long bath, curling up next to the Doctor and going to sleep for a year.
“I’m not positive, but I think it was a sonic Hoover. Granted, it was missing a few key components, so I can’t say for sure.”
“They’d need a government contract for that?”
“Well, they will be used to clean up the government’s messes,” the Doctor joked.
“Oh that…that’s…bad joke. Really? That’s the best you can come up with?”
“Oi! It’s been a long day, all right? Like to see you do better. So, what do you say, Rose Tyler? You up for a long zeppelin ride and then an even longer tea with your mum,” the Doctor visibly shuddered and made a noise that sounded suspiciously like “ew” after that suggestion, “and then finally head home?”
Rose nodded and grabbed his hand once again, taking comfort in the familiar warmth of it. She placed a light kiss where his arm turned into his shoulder before placing her head there, resting it against him as she matched his long strides as they walked towards the ferry that would lead them back to the main land. She rejoiced at the thought of returning to England and seeing her mum. But she didn’t really feel like she was going home -- home for her was wherever the Doctor was, and he was always with her. But, she didn’t tell him that; she was certain he already knew. He always had.
Author: lunawho
Fandoms: Doctor Who and Fringe
Rating: K+
Spoilers: through 4x13 "Journey's End" for DW and 3x22 "The Day We Died" for Fringe
Summary: If there is anyone who understands the influence of one man's life on the universe, and how to bring about existence from non-existence, it's the Doctor
Pairings: TenII/Rose, Peter/Olivia
Genre: Adventure, sci-fi, slight romance, angst, drama
Special Note: Sequel to last summer's fic The Planets Bend Between Us. Link to that story included in chapter 1.
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
A/N: Here it is, everyone. The final chapter. Thanks so much to everyone who has reviewed this story, and left me continuous words of encouragement. It means so SO much.
Disclaimer: See previous chapters. I have no beta, so any and all mistakes are mine (especially whatever typos appear).
If you enjoy what you’ve read, feel free to check out my other works on my author profile (my name is jandl on ff.net) and leave me your thoughts. I hope everyone enjoys the s04 premiere of Fringe this week, and the s06 finale of DW that’s coming up. On with the show!
Chapter 5
Olivia was exhausted. How was it possible that everything that had happened had occurred in only three hours? It felt so much longer than that to her aching muscles and pounding skull. Then again, she reasoned to herself, she had technically just lived four lifetimes in less than twenty minutes, so it was no great wonder she was weary of it all. There was the original time line, the six months/lifetime with Peter as energy, the one minute/lifetime of Peter not existing at all, and then the new timeline with a Peter filled existence, minus the drama of universal war. Olivia herself wasn’t quite sure how it was possible for him to be there and all those events not be plaguing her, but she was now passed the point of questioning a good thing. She had done the impossible, to quote the Doctor, and she would have to be content with those words as an explanation. She wasn’t sure her brain could take much more explanation anyway, so she let it pass. She was positive that Peter could explain it all to her later, when they were both rested and had a combined IQ of something larger than a cucumber.
Peter was currently sitting at one of the lab tables, a wool blanket wrapped around his shoulders, talking quietly and intensely with Walter. In the thirty minutes since he had reappeared in the former bridge room -- Olivia supposed that now she would only need to refer to it as a lab -- she had gained no chance to speak with him. First, Walter had insisted on checking all of his vitals and now seemed to be questioning his son’s mental state. Olivia tried not to feel impatient or petulant. After all, she had been talking with Peter for an hour (though it seemed much shorter when she was unconscious), and Walter hadn’t spoken to his son in six months/an entire two different lifetimes. He deserved his opportunity to catch up. But still, Olivia wished he would hurry. A part of her wanted to speak to him so badly that she felt she may have to be rude and push Walter out of the way, or at least intrude in the conversation. The last thing she had told him before he stepped on the Machine was that she loved him, and she wanted to find out if they could continue that conversation. She at least wanted to touch him and get the physical confirmation that she wasn’t just dreaming. Peter glanced her direction, obviously only half listening to his father’s rambling, and spared her a small smile that immediately put Olivia a bit more at ease. Olivia sighed softly. He would come speak to her when he could, and her staring at him wasn’t going to make that wait any less of a time.
Olivia startled a bit when she felt a hand grab her shoulder, and turned to see Rose standing beside her, offering her a bottle of water. Olivia smiled in thanks as she grabbed it from Rose’s hand, and she then scooted over where she was sitting on a lab table, making room for the younger blonde haired woman.
Rose lifted herself up, swinging her legs off the edge like a child in primary school and gripping the edge of the table with her hands, flicking her fingers against the underside in a soothing rhythm. “So, you look like you’re thinking deep thoughts,” Rose said, cocking her head in Olivia’s direction and raising her eyebrows, her tongue sticking out between her teeth in a coquettish manner.
“Any thoughts at all seem like one thought too many right now,” Olivia answered. “I just…I feel like any answers I get would only confuse me more, but I also feel like if I don’t have any answers that it’s not really real. I mean, I’ve been four people in less than two hours. I have four lifetimes in my head, and I know which one the current timeline says is the truth, but what makes it any more real or true than the three other timelines I remember?”
“Well, the good looking, blue eyed bloke across the room who has been trying as hard as he can to not stare at you since he was brought into being thirty minutes ago is pretty real, I have to say. If he’s not, you’ve got one hot imagination, and I wouldn’t be adverse to you loaning it to me for awhile,” Rose replied, laughing slightly. Olivia felt herself smile in response.
“Wouldn’t your Doctor have a problem with that, don’t you think?”
“It’s not like he hasn’t had his share of being snogged by other women! Seriously, it’s like a step back to the 1950s sometimes with that alien. Another guy even *looks* at me, and he goes all broody, dark eyes and starts talking like, ‘I am the Oncoming Storm and the Bringer of Darkness,’ and they all would run off. But the second he sees a well-educated blonde, he runs away after her. Granted, he’s half-human now, so he’s improved a bit, especially since now he knows that he can’t hop in his TARDIS to another galaxy when my mum threatens to slap him. But, I’m a woman with eyes and I am more than allowed to look and fantasize. What the Doctor doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
“Plus, it hardly matters anyway. I don’t think that bloke of yours notices there’s another woman in the room.”
Olivia continued to smile as she listened to Rose chatter. Aside from Astrid and Rachel (and GOD was Olivia glad for the new memories she had that included a Rachel that could walk and talk, and for the wonderful niece she was blessed with), Olivia had no real female friends. She guessed, however, that Rose definitely now qualified. She only showed up when the world was ending, but wasn’t that what a friend *should* do?
Without really meaning to, Olivia found herself wondering what the Rose of her world would be like, and how had Rose implanted herself into an alternate world so easily? Olivia couldn’t really fathom it. How does one avoid their alternate self, especially if one has the same name?
“Rose, when you first arrived in what you and the Doctor call Pete’s World, how did you avoid your alternate self? I mean, I couldn’t avoid meeting mine and the situation turned out to be less than ideal.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t have an alternate. My parents never had children in that world -- that world’s version of Jackie didn’t want to ruin her figure. The only Rose Tyler in that world was a little dog. Made me telling Pete Tyler who I really was into something of an awkward conversation, I can tell you. I mean, he didn’t throw me into solitary confinement or anything, but his response to the news was more than a little frosty.”
“What about the Rose Tyler from my world? Do you want to look into her? We have plenty of time now, I think.”
Rose was silent a moment, and as Olivia looked into Rose’s honey brown eyes, she noticed that something about Rose seemed so much older than her twenty-something years. Olivia could not help but feel that some of her own hard-earned wisdom and life lessons were ones Rose had also been forced to learn the hard way as well. Olivia had four lifetimes in her eyes; she wondered how many she could count in Rose Tyler’s, if the younger woman would let her.
“It’s tempting, but I’ll pass. That Rose Tyler isn’t me anymore than the Pete’s World version of Olivia Dunham is you.”
“Yeah. Not that anyone on my team noticed that,” Olivia said, the words slipping out to her friend in a bitter fashion before she had a chance to check them. Rose sat silently beside her, the only sign that she was waiting for a continuation being that her fingers had stopped their rhythmic tapping on the underside of the lab table. Olivia took a deep breath before she continued. This woman had saved her life -- helped her escape back home -- and had given her some advice. If anyone deserved to know what the outcome and trials of that advice had been, it was Rose.
“I tried to follow what you had suggested to me before I left Pete’s World. I got home, Peter picked me up and made sure I rested and, despite my protesting, took me to the hospital to get checked out. And I knew from what he told me that my alternate had been undercover on my team for almost six weeks before they discovered she was a plant. And I thought I would be able to handle whatever he had to tell me -- like you said, he had earned all my efforts I’d gone through to save him, and therefore, he was obviously worth forgiving. But when he told me everything that had happened with…her, I just couldn’t. Every time I tried to forgive him, I just felt sick, and I wondered why I always have to be the understanding one, and then I’d just get angry at him. I guess, in the end, I forgot your advice because giving forgiveness turned out to be harder than I thought it would be.
“In the end though, underneath all the anger and fear and resentment, I only had one real source of anger. And I felt it for everyone, but I directed it at him because, well, his ignorance had hurt the most -- but I was angry that none of them noticed. Not a single one. She may not be me, as you say, but she may as well have been.”
Olivia stared down at her lap as she finished speaking, distracting herself from her thoughts by studying the ripples in the water residing in her bottle. When she noticed that Rose was still not speaking after some minutes of silence, she turned to see what had distracted her young friend. Rose, it seemed was not distracted by anything at all, but was merely staring at Olivia as though deciding whether or not she had the right to ask what was currently fluttering through her mind.
“What is it?” Olivia asked, wondering what possible retort Rose could think of in response to her earlier statements.
“But you did forgive him eventually, right?”
Olivia balked at the question. She thought it was fairly evident that she had; she certainly wouldn’t have given herself a nosebleed and the world’s worst migraine (she was pretty certain she came close to having an aneurysm) to bring into existence someone she was loathing or felt wronged by. Then she remembered the bitter tone of her previous comments -- Olivia guessed that despite forgiving Peter and the others, a part of her would always be a bit resentful -- and realised that she couldn’t fault Rose for asking. She certainly hadn’t given Rose any clues to insinuate that Peter had redeemed himself.
“Of course. Wholeheartedly.”
“Good. Because I really don’t think you can afford to pass any judgments on that score,” Rose said, hopping down off the table and turning hard at the waist, as though working out some kinks from her back.
“What do you mean?” Olivia asked, not sure whether or not Rose’s comment was meant to sound as insulting and suggestive as it had been received.
Rose placed a hand on Olivia’s knee and gave it a friendly squeeze -- a show of affection that Olivia was fairly certain had been rubbed off on Rose from the Doctor -- and told Olivia firmly, though not unkindly, “Just think about it, okay? Whatever pain you felt a year ago -- the betrayal, the loneliness, the resentment -- I’m sure your friend has now felt that as well. The reasoning behind it may be different, but the pain is the same, and as with all other things in a relationship, pain and forgiveness are two way streets.”
With one last friendly squeeze and a small smile, Rose walked away. Olivia could do nothing more than stare bemusedly after her as she watched Rose go speak with Walter and Astrid, and tried to work out what she meant. It took her about thirty seconds longer than normal to realise that Walter was speaking with Rose, which meant that Peter would be free. However, when she glanced over to him, it was to see Peter deep in conversation with the Doctor. Damn, she thought. It appeared she would have to wait a few seconds longer.
<0>
The Doctor, meanwhile, was trying to have a conversation with the somewhat uncooperative Peter Bishop. The younger man’s attention seemed to be placed almost entirely on the blonde woman (well, the blonde that wasn’t Rose anyway). Not that the Doctor could blame the man -- the Doctor’s own attention was usually slightly spastic at best, and if the Doctor had been away from Rose for six months…well, he’d have something of a one track mind too. Hell, the Doctor had even overlooked a Dalek in the background when he had seen Rose standing on that street in Chiswick after two years of separation. It was the last thing he remembered from before he sprung out of a spare hand in the middle of an inferno in the TARDIS console room.
Still, there were important things to discuss, and that couldn’t happen until the younger Bishop at least realised the Doctor was speaking. The Doctor snapped his fingers and the young man, far from being impressed, merely glowered at him in an annoyed fashion.
“So, you’re feeling okay? No headaches or dizziness or random urges to join a circus?”
“Yes, no, no, and I’m already in a circus.”
The Doctor leaned forward over the opposite end of the table, resting his elbows on its top and placing his chin on the palm of one hand. He watched as Peter copied his pose somewhat, only instead of resting his chin on his hand, he rubbed at his eyes tiredly. The Doctor fought against the urge to do the same -- it had indeed been quite a long day. It had, in fact, been three different days today.
“So, no side effects at all? No mixing memories or gaps or anything like that?”
Peter looked around them quickly, checking the distance between where they were and the position of Rose and Astrid and then the distance between them and Olivia. He gestured for the Doctor to lean forward and lowered his voice as he spoke.
“I still remember everything -- the previous universe, the six months of seeing and not hearing, of yelling my throat raw. Naturally, I don’t remember not existing, but I remember everything else. Will I always have those memories?”
“Yes, but don’t worry. Eventually, the others will turn into what most memories are -- hazy and fuzzy on the details. I mean, to reference them, you’ll insert your own assumptions in there and you’ll create little titbits that you’ll swear are true but didn’t *really* happen, just like you do with all your childhood memories.”
“So am I two people or just one? Am I the Peter with all the real memories that no longer actually happened or am I the Peter with all the fake memories that *did* happen?” Peter asked quietly, staring at his hands. The Doctor wasn’t positive as to whether the young man was being rhetorical and philosophical or if he expected an answer.
The Doctor answered, in any case. “You are who you choose to be. Just as you’ve always been.”
Peter gave a weak chuckle and a small smile, nodding his head slightly. “There is one more thing,” the young man added, quieter still this time from the previous set of questions. “The future I saw…everything that happened. What am I supposed to do with that knowledge? Do I change it?”
The Doctor studied the man before him. Peter’s blue eyes were penetrating the Doctor’s brown ones with a fiery strength that somewhat resembled the look the Doctor had often seen in Olivia Dunham’s green ones. The Doctor knew the answer he gave was a perilous one -- could make or break the future of not only the reality he was currently in, but of the one he was about to return to in what would hopefully be only a few more minutes.
There are few things that could convince a genius of a man to climb into a universe-destroying machine. There are even fewer things that could convince a man well versed in quantum mechanics to want to screw around with the laws of time and space. Those things tended to come down to: completely destroying one’s own race in a Time War (the Doctor had fought the temptation to go back in time and save his own people and he had won, but it had been a near defeat on his part), trying to impress East End shop girls and give them their hearts desire, perform cheap tricks to make an intelligent med student smile…and to keep a loved one from being put in a situation that would end in them being killed.
“You already have, didn’t you?” the Doctor queried back. “The war doesn’t happen now. No one has had to cross over. Walternate doesn’t care about this universe -- to be honest, who knows what Rose and I will discover when we cross back over? It’ll be quite an adventure to get to know that universe all over again. Certainly a lot more peaceful I’m sure.”
“Then how am I here?” Peter asked. The Doctor gave into temptation and rubbed his own eyes with his right hand, resting the edges of his fingers on the bridge of his nose -- a physical cue that he had no real words to explain an idea he had, but that he was about to try to explain so that he could at least *sound* intelligent. There was nothing the Doctor hated more than to say nothing at all.
“You exist because your blonde friend on the other side of the room wanted you to do. You were quite lucky, you know. You had managed over the years of your friendship, to embed something so deeply within her psyche that even time and universal re-writes couldn’t get rid of it. You gave her a moral compass to follow.”
“What moral compass?” Peter asked, his tone implying that he had a good idea what the Doctor may be referring to, but was seeking confirmation.
“The Greek phrase in her head. ‘Be a better man than your father.’ That came from you, didn’t it?”
“Yeah. My mother used to say it to me every night before bed. It was one of the few things about my childhood I shared with her before…everything. It became like a code between us.”
“Ah yes. I know a lot about those. Sadly, the only foreign language Rose and I got to hear ours in was Welsh. Disappointing, that. And we didn’t even know it was our code phrase yet at the time.”
Peter raised his eyebrows in question, obviously curious to hear the story behind the Doctor’s digression, but the Doctor merely flicked the question away with his hand. There were more important things to discuss than stories from what was, quite literally, a lifetime and a half ago.
“Anyway, that phrase between you and Agent Dunham has a lot of power. It’s something pure, untarnished. It was something that, even with not remembering you, she could live up to because it follows her own personal disposition. That need to look after people and care for them. BUT it also describes you, at least in her own mind I’m assuming. So, all it took to bring you back was something to lead her to a thought or a small inclination toward that one familiar phrase, and ZAP!” The Doctor took the opportunity to thump his hand down hard on the table, causing everyone else in the room to stare at he and Peter. The Doctor shook his hand out slightly afterward, his hand numb with the force. “One tiny little sliver of thought and everything about you came shuffling back.”
“But I still don’t get how it’s possible.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve noted about the human race in my 900+ years of time and space travel, it’s that the one thing humans have the most trouble with is letting go. Memories are tricky things. Just when you think you’ve let someone go or that a feeling for someone is gone, they pop right back up again. Sometimes, that’s bad. It means that humans forgive, but they don’t forget; it means that bad habits are nearly impossible to break; it means that they return to relationships best left behind them. Other times, their fortitude and devotion does the impossible -- it keeps the dead alive in people’s hearts, it keeps people fighting in a hopeless situation, and it means that a person can hang on subconsciously to something that they’re not even aware they’ve lost in the first place. And if there’s one person who’s good at clinging on to what little hope there is with both hands, it’s your Agent Dunham.”
The Doctor gave him a small smile when he finished, standing up from his position at the table. The rest would be left up to Agent Dunham to explain to the man, for it was her heart and her mind that had decided the situation. And he had his own universe to get back to and his own firecracker of a blonde with which to argue and tease.
“I’ll just…leave you two to it,” the Doctor said, somewhat awkwardly as he saw that the younger man had already left the table to begin walking to the other side of the room where Agent Dunham was eagerly standing up to receive him.
<0>
Olivia stood awkwardly before Peter, wringing her hands together nervously and berating herself internally for being ridiculous. This wasn’t their first conversation or their first reunion. Hell, it wasn’t their first anything -- they’d passed all of those months ago -- and yet, she felt as though she had asked him out and was anxiously awaiting his reply. It was juvenile and totally the wrong feeling for the situation they were in, but it was how she felt. In one reality, she had told him she loved him and though he hadn’t said the words in response, she had known he felt the same. (Words had never really been necessary between them anyway). But this was a new reality, and they were different people now, and she didn’t know which version of Olivia he expected her to be. (She actually was pretty certain that within a few hours she was going to be hit with an identity crisis or end up hospitalised with some form of multiple personality disorder. One way or another, she wasn’t leaving this crisis without being in need of some sort of therapy).
“Hi,” he said, putting his hands into his jean pockets and rocking back slightly as though unsure of what to do with himself.
“Hey,” she answered back. She stood stone still for a second before throwing caution to the wind and throwing her arms around his neck to hug him. She wasn’t sure which version of herself it was that wanted the contact -- version 1 that was in love with him, version 2 that was lonely, version 3 that was even more lonely, or version 4 that was either in love with him or just really friendly (she didn’t know herself well enough yet) -- but she indulged the whim. Peter didn’t seem to mind all that much as he quickly returned it and squeezed her hard enough around her midsection that she suspected she might be sporting bruised ribs later.
“Thank you,” he whispered against her neck.
She released him and leaned back to look up at him with a smile. “I’m pretty sure you and the universe are worth it.” Without meaning to, one of her hands reached out and tangled its fingers with his. It felt familiar, comfortable, and right. Olivia relished it. Version 1 had always loved holding his hand (and doing lots of other things too, if she let herself think about it). Version 2 had always liked to study people’s hands, but rarely held anyone’s hand. Version 3 had hated to be touched at all. Version 4 seemed to enjoy it as much as Version 1, and was more than happy to go along with the development. There was something in her that felt complete when his hand encased hers and it made her feel like she went on and on forever -- their hands feeling almost like a circle -- and she wondered if this is why everyone always seemed to see holding hands as a mark of intimacy.
“I still don’t know how you brought me back. I mean, I know you focused on my mother’s phrase, but what did that do?” He used their encased hands to pull her closer to him, forcing her to throw her head further back to continue to see his face while she spoke. It also brought her body into slightly more contact with his own, and she definitely couldn’t find it within herself to complain about that.
“That was easy. I did as you asked. I wished you gone, and for a few seconds there -- maybe half a minute -- you were. And the kind of person I was -- lonely, unforgiving, hopeless, no patience at all for anyone, no humour -- was someone that even I couldn’t stand. To be honest, I’m pretty sure that version of me was clinically depressed and suicidal. And all I could think through this intense ringing in my ears was, ‘There’s got to be more to life than this.’ Then I remembered the phrase, and I found myself struggling to remember how I knew it and why it meant so much to me to be a better person than the people who had gone before me. I had to remember why I was supposed to care about people. And even though I had no idea of you -- no memories or ideas -- all I knew was that people *like* you had to exist somewhere. A good, intelligent man with a strong personality, and I found myself wishing for that. I guess a part of me was waiting for you just like you were…”
She stopped suddenly, her mind finally realising what Rose had been trying to tell her previously. Peter had been waiting for her. For the six months that she had blissfully been living a life without him in it, he had been trying to contact her -- had yelled for her, done everything within his limited power to try and get her attention -- and she hadn’t noticed at all. Along with the crushing feeling of guilt came the feeling of empathy. She had been replaced and *he* hadn’t noticed, and he had been taken out of her life completely and *she* hadn’t noticed. She was pretty sure they were more than even when it came to feelings of betrayal. Rose was right; Olivia had no place to judge anymore, much less hold on to those negative feelings. In any case, if there was one thing Olivia had learned over the last few months and four distinct lifetimes, it was that time was a precious, unpredictable thing. And she needed take whatever little bit of it she had.
She shook her head to clear it, aware that she had left her thought hanging in mid-air. “Anyway, I guess the real story is that Version 3 of myself was constantly wishing for things she didn’t have because aside from work she literally had nothing at all. And that wish brought me you…after I went under about 3 minutes of absolutely unbearable pain through every inch of my body, of course.”
“Sorry,” Peter answered awkwardly, apparently at a lost for anything else to say.
Olivia stared up into his eyes, relishing the fact that she could see and touch him and also remember him. It was more than she could have hoped for an hour previously, but she was beginning to suspect that the Doctor tried to make a habit of doing the impossible wherever he went, if only so that he could say that he done so.
She reached up a hand and ran it gently over his omnipresent two-day stubble before snaking her hand back behind his head to force his head down to her level. She smirked at him slightly and whispered, “Don’t be” -- a comment she knew he would recognise as his own from what felt like a lifetime before. And before he could chuckle or give a response she planted her own lips over his. It had been too damn long since she had done this, a portion of her mind told her (most likely the affection starved portion, if Olivia had to hazard a guess). She was dimly aware that there was an audience in the room, but she decided she would worry about that later. She hadn’t kissed Peter in six months in one time line’s reckoning, and she’d never kissed him at all in the other two, and the current version of herself seemed pretty content to just go along with the ride.
Peter seemed to agree with her. His lips were caressing her own with very little finesse, but what he lacked in grace he made up for in fervency. After all, she wasn’t exactly focusing on her form either. The kiss was what one would expect from a couple who hadn’t had any contact in too long a time. It wasn’t so much exploratory as it was a claiming -- a very firm pillaging of each other’s mouths that was meant to be as dizzying and heady as it was relatively short. The exploratory, sweet kisses would come later, when it was just the two of them. For now, quick, needy, and thorough was what was needed.
It didn’t break off until Olivia heard a distinct cough and throat clearing from near her right.
“Not to break up this lovely little reunion,” announced the Doctor, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet in his plimsolls and keeping his eyes determinedly fixed on the ceiling, a blush coating his cheeks, “but I was wondering if you were planning on getting Rose and I home anytime soon?”
<0>
Rose felt like clocking the Doctor upside his head. Couldn’t he give Olivia and her bloke even five minutes to reunite? After all, the universe hadn’t been nearly so kind to Rose and the Doctor when they had been reunited -- Rose was sure such lovely reunions were quite rare -- and she thought her friend deserved the opportunity to enjoy it a bit. Plus, if Rose wanted to be honest, she really enjoyed watching them. They had gone from awkward and cute to hot and steamy in seconds, and it was the closest thing Rose had seen to an epic reunion that wasn’t on the telly. She supposed seeing her mum meet up with Pete came pretty damn close to epic, but it wasn’t *quite* the same thing. This one had both hugging AND kissing, and she was certain there would have been declarations of love soon after too if the Doctor hadn’t ruined it. And to think she had often accused *Mickey* of being a cock block.
Rose curbed her impulse to clock the Doctor completely and settled for elbowing him in the back instead.
“Oi! What was that for?” the Doctor asked indignantly, rubbing the spot she had whacked as though she had hit him much harder than she had done in actuality. Rose didn’t dignify his question with a response and merely rolled her eyes. For being the smartest being in the universe (or so he claimed), he really was the densest bloke she’d ever met, of any species.
Olivia and Peter came over to join Rose, the Doctor, Walter and Astrid where they were standing near the door to the room. Rose noted with slight girly excitement that Olivia’s fingers were still firmly interlaced with Peter’s.
“I’m supposed to get you home? But I thought you said that the bridge was gone now?”
“Oh, it is!” the Doctor answered with flourish. “And great job on that, by the way. But, you can send Rose and I back to our world the same way you got back to this one last year. You still have the ability to open miniature rifts, and as long as nobody messes with it after we go through, it’ll close itself up quickly enough. And if need be, I’ll give it a little boost towards being a scab myself,” he finished, pulling out his sonic screwdriver from the breast pocket of his jacket.
Rose watched in amusement as Walter’s eyes lit up in excitement and he took a small step toward the Doctor. Peter reached out an arm and held Walter back.
“Walter,” the son admonished, “that technology is way beyond the design of this century, and no, you don’t have the patent on it. So don’t even *try* to lie and say that you do.”
“Is that a vibrancy modulating and transmogrification device?” asked Walter, leaning over Peter’s outstretched arm in an effort to get as close to the screwdriver as possible.
“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” the Doctor said. “Though, to keep it simple and for time’s sake, I just call it a sonic screwdriver.”
“A sonic screwdriver?” Peter asked, scepticism evident in his voice. “How did you come up with that invention? Need to fix a few doors?”
“I was putting up cabinets actually.”
“How…er…useful,” retorted Peter sarcastically.
Rose fought back a laugh at the Doctor’s embarrassed expression. The Doctor cleared his throat and tried to get them back on topic.
“Still, Rose and I need your help to get back.”
“Okay,” Olivia answered, taking a deep breath and standing up straight. “What do you need me to do?”
“I just need you to focus for us on what you remember about our world. Not the people -- I don’t want to accidentally drag you over with us -- but the places, the sights, the smells. Those sorts of differences. Rose and I will focus on our physical connections over there, and before you know it we should be back in our rightful place. That should be interesting, what with the Statue of Liberty being used for completely different things over there now, I’m sure.”
“That sounds simple enough,” said Agent Dunham, dropping Peter’s hand and stepping closer toward the Doctor and Rose. She reached out a hand to the Doctor, and the Doctor grasped it, giving it a firm shake. “Thank you,” Olivia said, her voice showing the gravity of the sentiment. “Thank you for everything.”
Olivia held out a hand to Rose for Rose to shake, but Rose knocked the hand out of the way and hugged her instead. As had happened the year before, Olivia held herself stiffly at first before loosening and hugging Rose back firmly. “And thanks to you, too,” Rose heard Olivia say softly. “Not just for saving the universe and Peter, but for…y’know. All that other stuff. You were right.”
“Yeah, well. I usually am, me. Try telling him that though,” she said, nodding her head in the Doctor’s direction and smiling in fondness. “You look after that lot, yeah?” Rose said, gesturing towards the rest of the Fringe Team standing behind Olivia. “Sounds like you lot get yourself into almost as much trouble as the Doctor and I do.”
“We stay busy, yeah,” Olivia responded, chuckling slightly because there was little else she could do. “And I will.”
Rose nodded to the others in farewell, giving an extra little wink to Astrid for whom she felt a strange, special fondness. The young lab assistant turned active field agent had been an interesting person for Rose to chat with while Olivia had been in the tank, and she found that Astrid had a lot of potential, considering her knowledge of computers and the paranormal. If it wasn’t for the problem of being in opposite universes, she may have even tried recruiting the younger woman to work at Torchwood. Ah well. C’est le vie.
Rose stepped back from the group to rejoin the Doctor. She felt the familiar feel of the Doctor’s hand enveloping her own, his thumb brushing the back of her hand in a familiar stroke that still sent gooseflesh up her arm. She spared him a small smile before closing her eyes to focus.
She allowed the memories of those in Pete’s World to come as quickly as they wanted to. She thought first of the Doctor himself -- the feel of his hand over hers, the smell of him that was left on the pillow in the morning, the way he bounced like a five year old given too much sugar, the squeak that would appear in his voice when he was flustered, the way his tongue would explore her mouth when they kissed, his faith in her that sometimes left her breathless and overwhelmed and made her worry that one day she would fail him. She thought of her mum -- that comforting hug that only mothers have, the way her mother would yell Rose’s full name when she was pissed as hell at her (Rose hated to hear that dreaded “Marion” between Rose and Tyler), the most perfect tea in the universe that only her mum seemed to know how to make, that strong slap the Doctor was always terrified of. She thought of her little brother Tony -- how his first word had been RoRo and how that had made her mum turn seven shades of red, how he followed the Doctor around and tried to fight “aliens” with his “sonic screwdriver” (they were really random house hold objects fought off with a wooden figurine the Doctor had whittled for him). She thought of Pete and his protectiveness of her. She thought of Jake and his Geordie accent and the way he always ran into extraterrestrial altercations with guns blazing (to the Doctor’s great chagrin).
Rose felt a strange popping in her ears, like pressure being let loose, and saw a faint flash of blue behind her eyelids, and then found herself back in her own universe, the Doctor’s hand slightly clammy in her own.
“Where did you come from?” came a familiar voice. Rose turned around to see Dr Bishop and Brandon standing around an elaborate machine that Rose couldn’t figure out. It was evident that this version of Walter was not a Secretary of Defence, for he was wearing a lab coat with his name on it and lacked the austerity of the Walternate with which Rose was more accustomed. Even Brandon felt different -- less skeevy and sadistic and more confused and, to be frank, adorable.
The Doctor quickly plastered on a smile and sauntered up to the two men with the feel of a man who knows exactly what he’s doing. Rose pulled an equally at ease expression and followed his steps forward.
“Hi, I’m Doctor Smith, and this is my lovely assistant Rose, and we were sent down from the…CEO to see how this…project…is coming along.” Rose felt it was far from his most convincing lie, but she kept on smiling anyway. What she wouldn’t give for the Doctor to still have his psychic paper.
“We told Nina Sharp it wouldn’t be anywhere near finished yet,” Walter replied, his tone petulant and annoyed. “Tell her if she’s that anxious to have it finished she can work on it herself!” With that, Walter threw down his tools (which looked to Rose like a very tiny wrench and what appeared to be duct tape -- she wasn’t about to ask, that was for sure) and started to mutter incoherently about “women who thought they were more intelligent than they really were” and “sleeping..to the top.” Rose was pretty sure it was just masked sexism slipping through; it seemed to be a facet of every version of Walter she had met so far. Brandon looked a bit terrified of Walter’s reaction.
“Look, sir,” he said, sidling up the Doctor nervously and putting on what Rose was sure Brandon though was a winning smile, “please ignore Dr Bishop. He’s been under a lot of stress recently, what with the constant modifications made to the plans and all. And he just really doesn’t want to rush the work and have the trial testing potentially hurt someone. Trust me, he does realise the importance of this government contract. He’s just…er…busy?” he offered, somewhat lamely.
The Doctor merely nodded, trying to look serious and important. “Right. Well, just make sure it’s finished by the due date and that it works correctly. You know how Ms Sharp is about these things. We’ll be keeping an eye on you,” the Doctor added, wagging in his finger in the poor scientist’s face and accidentally tapping him on the nose more than once. Or, at least, Rose assumed the tapping was accidental. One could never really tell with the Doctor.
The Doctor grabbed Rose by the arm and ushered her out of the door. The two of them rushed through the Statue of Liberty, which now seemed to belong to a Massive Dynamic that was run by Ms Nina Sharp (Rose wondered how that huge change had come about and was excited to research that when she got home), and neither of them chanced looking at each other until they were standing outside of the building. Security was now rather lax, and no one had really seemed to pay them much mind as long as they walked like they knew where they were going. Since this was the Doctor’s normal modus operandi anyway, they were golden. Rose still breathed a sigh of relief when they exited the oppressive building.
“So, what was that thing?” she asked, hoping that it wasn’t something like a new kind of Amber. She had had enough adventure for one week, and if the universe was trying to throw another one in her path already, she was ready to tell it to piss off. She was going home to England, taking a long bath, curling up next to the Doctor and going to sleep for a year.
“I’m not positive, but I think it was a sonic Hoover. Granted, it was missing a few key components, so I can’t say for sure.”
“They’d need a government contract for that?”
“Well, they will be used to clean up the government’s messes,” the Doctor joked.
“Oh that…that’s…bad joke. Really? That’s the best you can come up with?”
“Oi! It’s been a long day, all right? Like to see you do better. So, what do you say, Rose Tyler? You up for a long zeppelin ride and then an even longer tea with your mum,” the Doctor visibly shuddered and made a noise that sounded suspiciously like “ew” after that suggestion, “and then finally head home?”
Rose nodded and grabbed his hand once again, taking comfort in the familiar warmth of it. She placed a light kiss where his arm turned into his shoulder before placing her head there, resting it against him as she matched his long strides as they walked towards the ferry that would lead them back to the main land. She rejoiced at the thought of returning to England and seeing her mum. But she didn’t really feel like she was going home -- home for her was wherever the Doctor was, and he was always with her. But, she didn’t tell him that; she was certain he already knew. He always had.