Inertia - Part 2
Part 2
The Doctor grabbed Rose's hand and they ran for the tree line where they threw themselves down into a thicket. Chirping loudly, a few furry little animals shot out from the undergrowth, straight out into the meadow. The drones changed direction and hovered off after the new targets, making Rose wince.
"So, default mode?" she whispered.
"Shoot anything that moves," he said in a low voice.
"What kind of a stupid setting is that?"
"It comes in handy when playing conquer the planet," the Doctor said dryly.
"Can they see heat?"
"Yeah, but it must not be switched on. Giant hot human would have been much more tempting than little ball of fur."
"At least there's that. Okay, so what now?"
"I need to send out another signal. Thought I had the right one. Apparently not."
"So you need time to mess with the relay, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Right. Distraction time." Before the Doctor could respond, Rose jumped up and started shouting, waving her arms above her as she ran out into the clearing. "Come and get me!"
"ROSE!" she heard from the trees.
"FIX THE RELAY!" she yelled back as she ran across the meadow towards the tree line on opposite side. Fortunately the meadow wasn't as wide as it was long, but it was still far enough. Glancing over her shoulder she saw three drones headed her way.
Darting into the woods, Rose led the drones away from the clearing. One of the drones fired, scorching the tree next to her.
"Oh, not good," Rose muttered. She focused on a dense clump of trees and bolted for it, leaping over fallen branches on the ground.
She almost made it. Almost.
Laser fire glanced across her hand as she disappeared into the trees. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she crouched down, hoping not to give them a target. The drones hovered around her hiding spot, moving to different angles as she peered through the branches, trying to keep an eye on them while staying out of sight.
A noise caught her attention, and the drones' as well - they simultaneously turned and hovered off. Probably some poor little creature. Rose sighed, leaning her head back against a tree. Hopefully that had been enough time for the Doctor to do something.
She couldn't see anything from her hiding place, but it'd probably be good to hang out for a while anyway, just in case. Her hand throbbed, but fortunately it didn't look too bad. Just a burn across the back.
Rose heard a chirp next to her and looked down. Tiny eyes blinked up at her.
"Okay, don't bite me." She cautiously petted it and it chirped again.
Suddenly its nose started to twitch and it took off through the branches as a head poked into her hiding place. "You're bonkers, you know that?"
Rose jumped. Someday she would figure out the Doctor's ability to sneak around. And his uncanny ability to find things. Some of the time, that was. "It's about time!"
"Don't do that again. It was stupid." He grabbed her hand to pull her out, but chose the wrong hand. Rose cried out and he dropped it as quickly as if he had been burned. "What happened?"
Rose pushed herself up with her uninjured hand. "Oh, you know. Laser fire. The usual. Drones taken care of?"
"Yup. They'll be hunting each other now. You done with this planet?"
"Absolutely."
Upon returning to the TARDIS, the Doctor herded Rose into the med bay despite her protests that her hand wasn't that bad.
"Oh right. Next thing you know it's infected," the Doctor blustered at her.
Rose sighed. "You sound like my mother," she said as she hopped up on one of the tables while the Doctor rummaged through a drawer.
"A wise woman, your mother."
Rose burst out laughing. "If she could hear you say that now! The Doctor and her never did see eye-to-eye. Second time she saw him she smacked him one!"
The Doctor gave her a horrified look. "Never been smacked by someone's mother before."
"He said the same thing," Rose said, chuckling to herself at the memory.
"Well, don't count on a repeat performance." The Doctor poked at his chest. "I don't do families."
Rose dropped her head, hiding a wistful smile. "Yeah, I know."
"Right then. Hand."
As he ran a familiar device over the burn, she stared at his hands - she remembered when they looked like this.
And suddenly she was back to right when they had dropped off, well, kicked off Adam, right after Satellite 5. The Doctor had similarly shuttled her off to the med bay, where he had fussed over the minor burns she had gotten on her wrists from the electric restraint cuffs. He had used the same device then.
"Have you right in a mo," he told her, giving her a smile.
Rose shook her head as the Doctor looked back at her hand. That had been exactly what he had said then. Even the way he said it was the same.
"There! All better now!" The Doctor patted her now-healed hand and tossed the device back in the drawer.
Rose hopped off the table with a smile. "Thanks."
He grinned at her. "They don't call me the Doctor for nothing."
Rose found herself grinning back. "Oh yeah?"
"Cuts and bruises? Piece of cake," he said, clicking his fingers.
"With a little help from the thing in the drawer."
"Who do you think made the thing in the drawer?"
Rose smirked. "You think you're so impressive."
"I am so impressive!" he declared, trying to look annoyed but with an unmistakable twinkle in his eyes.
Holy deja vu.
"Well, thanks for the hand. Loved it," she said backing away. "I'm gonna go..." She shook her head again. "Um, sleep now. Thirty minutes on a planet and I'm done for."
He raised an eyebrow at her, which Rose was not finding attractive in any way whatsoever. Not at all. She ran into the doorframe on her way out but kept going, heading straight for the room she'd had before.
Rose flopped on the bed, the one with the same exact covers on it next to the same exact chair that was next to the same exact dresser. The overwhelming familiarity wasn't helping to keep things straight. She stared up at the ceiling.
What the hell was she doing?
He wasn't the same guy. Really wasn't. But it would be so easy to pretend and then maybe even someday forget, wouldn't it? After all, her Doctor would want her to embrace her new life, right? Even it was with a new him?
God.
She rubbed her eyes. Her mum had done it, after all. Gotten together with her dad in this world. Although...Pete wasn't really her dad, was he? He looked like her dad and any genetic test would say he was her dad, but she had watched her dad die in 1987. More than that, her dad had sacrificed his life to save her. To save the world. That was her dad.
Rose flung her arm across her eyes.
This wasn't her Doctor. He wasn't the man who held her hand as he showed her the universe. He wasn't the one who told her she was beautiful before remembering she was human. Wasn't the one who kept trying to take her to concerts but kept failing. Wasn't the one to pull her away from a black hole or the one to dance with her in Albion Hospital. He wasn't the one who took her to the London Olympics or the one to comfort her when she mourned her father.
He wasn't the one she loved.
Rose rolled over and buried her head into the pillow.
*
The Doctor wandered back to the console room, the image of Rose's dormant third strand of DNA burned into his mind.
She'd regenerate.
More than that, the new body wouldn't be human. It'd be Gallifreyan.
He spent over an hour studying the result, checking it all again and again, just to be sure. There was no denying the facts though, as much as he wanted to. He slumped into the chair, vaguely aware that Martha had returned and was in the room. Two phrases kept turning in his mind.
"What's wrong?" Martha asked quietly.
He looked up to her. She was perched on the railing.
"The TARDIS decided to play Mary Shelley," he answered bitterly. For the first time since she got pulled away, he was really glad Rose wasn't around at the moment. He needed to process and she wouldn't understand his reaction. No, Rose wouldn't see the big picture. Not yet, that was. Might take her years, even decades before it really hit her: the loss of her humanity. "God. Rose."
"Who's Rose?"
"I killed her," the Doctor said numbly.
"She's dead?"
The Doctor ignored the misunderstanding. "She was supposed to have a human life. A brilliant human life. And I took that away. Oh, she might have opened up the TARDIS, but..." He couldn't finish.
In his mind a war was raging.
It was an abomination. If the Time Lords were alive there would be inquiries and trials, and rightfully so. The human known as Rose Tyler was dead. A life cut short because of a whim of another.
Two others, actually.
The problem was that there was no way to hide himself from the TARDIS. So all his "harmless" thoughts about Rose up until the game station had done her in. The TARDIS had seen his pain, his loneliness and naturally wanted to fix that. Could he fault her? She had also seen his growing need, and even love, for Rose, and so when she had stepped into the TARDIS' path, and found Rose also shared her desire to end his pain and loneliness, the TARDIS took her.
He pressed his hand against his face and stared into the glow of the console, the ever-present hum the only sound. He could sense the TARDIS was either indifferent or unrepentant for what she had done. Probably the latter.
He still couldn't get his mind around the fact that the whole time since the game station, Rose had been changed. She hadn't really been human any more. But she was still Rose. Everything that happened after that, it was all still Rose.
And suddenly he was hit with the overwhelming need to touch her again. To hold her. He wanted her to tell him everything was okay. That she'd do it all over again if she could. He wanted her to give him absolution.
"Who's Rose?" Martha asked again.
"Rose is..." He thought for a moment. "Rose is..." Why did he always have such a hard time putting anything about her into words? "She was a nineteen-year-old shopgirl who I pulled out of a store basement before I blew it up. The store, not the basement. Although I'm sure the basement got a bit singed. And then..." He stopped again. A blur of images, thoughts and words collided in his mind.
"Nineteen," she stated. "And you're...nine hundred."
The Doctor glanced at Martha who had a quizzical look on her face. "She's twenty-one now," he said a little too defensively.
She didn't look impressed.
"After a few centuries, things like age start to have less meaning," he said, not convincing even himself.
"If you say so."
That old pang of mild guilt, the one that crept in whenever the subject of age came up, worked its way out of the little corner he kept it stuffed into. The guilt that hit him when Sarah Jane had called him 'Tiger' or when Jackie would look disapprovingly in his direction.
It wasn't as if he had gone on the prowl for some barely-adult blonde. That wasn't it. That was so far from it. But he knew how it looked.
And it wasn't just that. Not only age but species and intellect - they all added up to inconceivable. Improbable. Nonsensical, even. But when he was with Rose, right or wrong, all of that seemed to fall away.
"It wasn't some big plan," the Doctor sighed. "It just was." He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. There hadn't been a plan to...to what? To fall for her? The term sounded so puerile and hardly something he was used to thinking in reference to himself, but right now it felt accurate.
So no, there hadn't been a plan to fall so completely for Rose Tyler, but he had wanted someone's hand to hold as he crossed the universe, and so had damned the consequences from day one. And damned her.
Now it was more than wanting to get her back, he needed to get her back. He couldn't let her be blindsided by a regeneration. Nor was it acceptable for her to go through the world, never dying but always alone. She didn't deserve that...
"I was engaged."
The Doctor's eyes snapped open. Martha was looking down and reaching into her top, pulling out the ever-present chain that hung around her neck. At the end was a ring. She held it up, staring at it.
"They wouldn't let me wear it on my hand while on duty. Too distracting, I guess." She gave him a small, humourless laugh. "Got used to wearing it like this."
"Was he at the Delta Colony?"
Martha nodded.
"I'm sorry."
Martha turned it over with her fingers. "Sean was a scientist. A real geek-type, you know? Geologist." She smiled. "But he was..." She cleared her throat. "He was the one that helped me discover my interest in the medical field. And talked me into convincing my commander that having me study medicine would be an asset to him." She had a faraway look in her eyes. "He always knew I could be more than a girl with a gun."
"Sounds like he was a good man."
"The best. The absolute best. No offence, Doc, but you couldn't hold a candle to him."
The Doctor gave her a small smile. "I'm sure I couldn't."
"People said it would never work. Guess they were right." She tucked the ring back into her shirt, her hand trembling slightly. By the time she'd straightened the collar of her shirt, her calm exterior had returned. "Right. Something about Traedan's Sphere?"
The Doctor suddenly realized that the Face of Boe had included Martha in his telepathic thoughts. "I've never heard of it. No clue what it is or where to look."
"Well, we'd better get started then."
"Are you sure you want in on this? Won't be much joy-riding now."
"Wandering aimlessly through the universe is okay, I suppose, but now?" Martha said, suddenly looking pleased. "Now we have a mission objective."
*
After an hour of lying on her bed, Rose gave up trying to sleep and wandered into the console room. The Doctor was peering at the monitor but looked up when she stepped onto the platform.
"Can't sleep?" the Doctor asked.
"Nah."
"Useless pastime anyway. So, off to someplace new?"
Rose frowned. "Know any places that make banana daiquiris? Not just any banana daiquiris, really good ones."
"Yeah, right."
"You don't then?"
"You're serious?"
Rose sighed. "Pretty much."
"Didn't realize you were a lush."
"You ever have one of those days where all you want to do is find a pub and stay there?"
"Yeah, I know a place," the Doctor said slowly.
Soon Rose found herself in a cantina in Acapulco in 1959. The Doctor told her that the man sitting at a table in the back corner was some Hollywood actor. Rose didn't recognize him.
Ceiling fans swirled warm air overhead in the small, mainly empty room, and Rose began to play with a flower in a glass in the centre of the table she'd grabbed while the Doctor went to order their drinks. Somewhere a radio was playing some kind of guitar music that seemed to fit the sleepy mood of the place.
"All ordered," the Doctor said, taking a seat.
"You come here often?"
He smirked at her. "I'm already buying you a drink, you know."
She chuckled. "No, really."
He leaned his arms on the table. "I've been known to drop by on occasion."
"Huh."
"What?"
"Just that the other Doctor wasn't much of a drinker."
"When I said 'on occasion' that's what I meant. It's not like I hang out in pubs. I've got better things to do with my time."
Shortly their drinks arrived. Rose had one sip of the banana daiquiri and remembered she never liked them in the first place. "Want it?" she asked, pushing it towards the Doctor. "You like bananas."
"Pass, thanks," he said, taking a sip from one of the glasses in front of him.
"What's that again?"
"Completo - sangrita and tequila. Glasses. Not shots. And much more civilized than your umbrella drink."
"Oh my, we do have airs, don't we? I'll have that then."
The sangrita was okay, but it was quickly abandoned for the tequila which made her feel warm and relaxed. Another round of drinks had them swapping stories about similar times and places. The Doctor was particularly amused that her Doctor had let Adam on board because she thought he was cute.
"So he let someone on the TARDIS just so you could have a boyfriend?" he asked with a smirk.
She laughed. "Well, boyfriend status, which I'm not completely admitting now, lasted for approximately ten minutes."
The Doctor grinned at her. "Never liked the looks of him anyway."
"Well, he got kicked off the TARDIS a few hours later."
"Poor bloke. Loses his girl and gets thrown out all in the same day."
"He deserved it. Although I do feel kinda bad about the hole in his head." Rose giggled at the memory, leaning her head on her hand. Yeah, really, really relaxed.
"I'm not even gonna ask."
More drinks were ordered and the Doctor told her his version of encountering the werewolf in Scotland. He'd also figured out the thing with the Koh-i-noor and had also managed to get on the Queen's bad side. Funny, that.
"Banished me! Couldn't believe it! Here I go and save her and she banishes me!"
Rose grabbed his arm. "I know! What was that all about?"
"Right. So maybe I made a few werewolf jokes here and there."
Rose finished off her third tequila. Or was it her fourth? Fifth? "Oh! We-are-not-amused jokes here. Got her to say it even." Rose clunked down the glass. "Oh damn!"
"What?"
She started laughing uncontrollably. "The Doctor owes me ten quid!"
The Doctor leaned forward, grinning. "Non transferable."
A hand plunked down a glass of tequila on the table and the Doctor and Rose looked up, Rose still laughing. The bartender nodded at them. "For the lady from the gentlemen over there." He waved to the actor in the corner of the room.
Rose turned in her chair and held up the glass towards him. "Cheers!" She leaned over towards the Doctor. "Who'd you say that was again?"
"James Darren."
"Cheers, James Darren!" She downed the entire glass. Rose spun back which made everything a bit...spinny for a minute. She held the glass down on the table with both hands to steady herself.
"You've probably had enough."
"Probably." Rose grinned and stared at him. "You know what?"
"What?"
"You look so much like him."
"Maybe he looks like me," he said, smiling.
"Well, not any more 'cause I opened up the heart of the TARDIS." Rose swung her hand to demonstrate.
"You what?!" The smile instantly disappeared.
"Yup." Rose leaned her head against her hand again. "Opened it right up. And then you...I mean he had to kiss it right out of me. That was a great kiss," she said dreamily.
"So that's what made him regenerate," the Doctor said, staring at the table.
"After that, it was lovely. Well...I'm not talking about the French woman and you can't make me," Rose pointed at the Doctor.
He held up his hands at her.
"But it was...perfect." She waved her hand around. "Yeah, yeah. Monsters. Near death." She then leaned forward to him. "You ever been so in love you don't...I mean, it doesn't matter what you do just so long as you're together?"
The Doctor frowned at her.
Rose frowned back. "You're frowning. So, no?"
"He didn't put a stop to this crush?"
"Crush?!" Rose smacked the table with her hand. "As if. I love him...and he loves me. Would have said it too if not for the stupid supernova or whatever the hell it was."
"I don't believe you."
"Listen, you!" She reached over and shoved his shoulder. "I'd still be with him if it wasn't for the void and dad...Pete...dad catching me at the last second. Hold on...how'd he do that?" She thought for a moment and then laughed. "It doesn't make sense!"
"You're not making sense."
"Shhh. I'm mad at you." Rose played with the empty glass in front of her. "Why aren't you him? Oh, I know!" She smiled at the Doctor and sighed. "You could pretend to be him and then everything would be happy! And we could not go to concerts and you could tell me about your kids..."
"He told you he had kids?" the Doctor interrupted her. His expression had changed but Rose was having trouble deciphering it at the moment. It seemed like surprise, but maybe something else.
"Yup. Once upon a time. Well, he said he'd been a dad so it could have been one kid, I suppose. He also has a weird thing for those little metal balls on fairy cakes."
"Right."
"Oh, and then we could...oh, wait. I already said about not going to concerts." Rose set the glass upside down. "I miss his arms around me," she said to the glass.
The Doctor cleared his throat.
She looked up at him. "So what d'ya say? Wanna substitute for the Doctor? It'd be so nice."
He stood up, the chair legs scraping against the floor. "Time to go." He threw some coins on the table.
"Damn."
She obviously hadn't been moving fast enough or maybe at all, because suddenly she felt the Doctor pulling her up onto her feet. "Bye bye, James Darren!" she called out as he dragged her out into the street.
The TARDIS seemed far. Really far. Had it been this far? Maybe it moved.
She stopped walking. "I'm gonna sleep now," she said, closing her eyes.
The Doctor muttered something she couldn't make out and then grabbed her around the waist, pushing her forward towards the TARDIS.
Rose heard the key in the lock and then the creak of the door twice, first opening and then closing. She opened her eyes to the console room.
"Home again." She smiled up at the Doctor and then wrapped her arms around him, leaning her head against his shoulder. He may not have been what she was used to any more, but he still felt good. Everything felt good. And everything was feeling heavy. It would be so nice to just lay down now.
She felt herself starting to slip down. Suddenly she was being lifted up and then there was movement. Maybe the TARDIS was moving again. The TARDIS was sneaky like that. Didn't really matter though, since she still had her arms around the Doctor. That's pretty much all that mattered.
Rose was only vaguely aware of being dumped on her bed before blacking out.
*
The Doctor sprinted through the dim, wet streets, dodging food vendors and people milling around their carts. Stupid stereotypical bad guys with their stupid hidden escape panels. Clichés should not be allowed in real life. It was annoying.
The Doctor ran around a corner and into a woman carrying a box full of puka shells, sending the contents flying. "Sorry! I'm sorry!" he yelled over his shoulder. He didn't slow down and her curses followed him.
The man couldn't have gotten far, and with the bright green shirt that matched the green hair, he should be easy to spot. Down another street, and there! The Doctor grabbed the person by the shoulder. A shocked face turned to him, but it was one of a human instead of a Drulian, the only real difference between the two being the deep ridges around the eyes.
"Watch it, mate!"
The Doctor let go. "Sorry. Thought you were someone else."
His eyes swept over the crowd - thank god for height - but the overabundance of neon wasn't helping, casting everyone in a purplish glow.
Nothing.
He continued on his original course and picked a side street at random. He had just passed an alleyway, but movement caught his attention. He grabbed a lamp post to help him brake and jogged back to the alley.
He grinned.
Farden Langith-Ber Trayan. Black-marketeer and, surprisingly enough, Parliamentarian. Infamous throughout the Yat Galaxy. And currently pinned to the wall by one Martha Jones.
Damn, that woman was good.
"Now see," the Doctor said as he strolled up to them, putting his hands in his pockets, "...this was inevitable. Why do people always insist on doing it the hard way? Here I offer to get you a few cases of Poyll Whiskey for some simple information and what do you do? You run. Now that's not very nice."
Farden tried to spit at him.
"Don't think so." Martha pushed him harder against the wall, hand around his neck.
"But now I'm going to have to skip the whiskey and go straight to the threat. Well, not really a threat since I will actually do it."
"What, you gonna kill me?" Farden sneered.
"Oh no. Killing's no fun." The Doctor smiled and moved to mere inches away from Farden's face. "You like your little life? How you've grown fat and rich off of your black market empire? The houses, the transports, the women? I am going to destroy that."
Farden's eyes flicked back and forth between the Doctor and Martha as if trying to decide which was the greater threat. He dropped his gaze. "You're as bad as Time Agents, you know that?" he muttered.
The Doctor frowned. "Time Agents? What'd they want with you?"
"Thought I had some not-of-this-century hyperdrive. Didn't find what they were looking for." Farden smirked.
"This is getting us nowhere," Martha declared, fingers tightening.
"Fine," Farden choked out. "Traedan's Sphere? Never heard of it."
"Think he's telling the truth?" Martha asked, glancing at the Doctor.
Farden shrugged, as much as he could shrug while being held against a wall. "You won't tell me what it is or even what it looks like, so something called Traedan's Sphere? It's never crossed my path. Why did you think I had it?"
The Doctor sighed. "Trayan. Traedan."
"What, my name sounds like it? That's it? You have no idea what this thing is yourselves, do you?"
The Doctor turned and began walking out of the alleyway. "Come on, Martha."
He heard a grunt from behind him and then Martha appeared at his side. "You sure?"
"It was a long shot to begin with. They're all long shots," he said flatly.
"You're not giving up, are you?"
"After only four tries? Hardly, Martha. Plus our slimy green friend did help me."
"How exactly did he do that?" she asked, matching his stride.
"Oh, he made me think of something. It may be another nothing, but its marginally better than randomly hopping around time and space, checking off one of the thousands of things that sound like Traedan."
"What's that, then?"
"We're going to see Jack Harkness."
*
Hell.
Rose lifted her head off her pillow and flopped her legs off the bed. She looked down. The least he could have done was to take off her shoes.
Even the muted lighting in the TARDIS was too harsh as she made her way to the galley. Food would be lovely right about now. Some eggs maybe. However, when she got there the thought of a quick nap sounded more appealing. She sat down at the table, putting her head down on her arms.
She heard the Doctor come into the room and she groaned a greeting. Next she heard him doing something off to the side. Loudly. Damn him. And then something hit the table with a bang.
Rose's head snapped up and she focused on the most disgusting and beautiful sight in the universe. "Oh, thank god. The cure." She grabbed the glass and choked down the contents. She'd had the Doctor's hangover cure twice before, both times when Jack was around, come to think of it. He'd told her it was best she didn't know what was in it, but it worked. "Thanks."
"I'm not him. Not as far as you're concerned."
Rose set down the glass and looked up at him. His arms were crossed over his chest and he was staring at her, doing a good impression of a deer in the headlights.
"I'll never be him."
"I..."
"This..." The Doctor waved his hand between them. "...will never happen."
"What?"
"I'm not a substitution."
Rose's words from the night before came flooding back. "Oh, god," she groaned.
"And she remembers."
"I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry."
"I think you need to leave," he said, and walked out the door.
No. Rose nearly knocked over the chair as she went after him.
She caught up to him as he strode down the corridor. "I shouldn't have said that. It was wrong. So wrong. But couldn't we just start over? No pretending, no complications."
"You are complication incarnate."
"I should have told you...something," Rose said as they entered the console room.
"Yes. You should have," he said, hopping up onto the platform and moving to the console. He turned a knob.
"Stop. Please!" Rose begged, putting her hands on top of his.
He hesitated for a moment and then his shoulders slumped slightly. Rose let go only when he backed away from the console.
He sat down in the chair, crossing his arms. "Tell me something. Does your mum beat you?"
"What?!"
"That friend of yours then?"
"No! What the hell...?"
"Just trying to figure out why you need to run away so badly. Most people would be thanking their lucky stars to have family and friends when they wind up in another universe."
"I'm not running away!"
"What then? You've got a life out there! Family and friends out there!"
Rose shoved her hands into her pockets, suddenly finding his shoes interesting.
"You know I'm not the person you're looking for. Why are you here?"
Her fingers found the unused notes - the ones that had been meant for the shampoo for her holiday. She closed her eyes.
"It wasn't just about him," she said softly. "Well, it was and it wasn't. It was all of this," she said, looking around the room. "The travelling to other places. New people. New ideas. It was more than an ordinary life."
"Sometimes an ordinary life is one that matters most, you know." His face, as well as his tone, had softened, but was still insistent.
"Not for me. And I don't care if that sounds selfish, or seems like I think I'm more important than just plain old Rose Tyler," she said, thinking of Mickey and her mum staring at her in that restaurant so long ago, back when the Doctor had sent her away from the game station. "It's my life and I get a little say in it."
"No, it's my life and you want to hang out in it."
"Look," she tried. "Now you know about me and him."
He grunted as the glazed look returned.
"Disapproval. Right. Fine. And you told me that would never happen between us." She held up her hand to stop another grunt. "Also fine. So now that we have that out of the way, can't we just get on with it? The Doctor and his assistant?"
He shook his head. "Don't think you can handle it."
"Okay. But if I have a problem it's my problem."
The Doctor frowned. "Right. Until you get drunk and try and set me up in your little world."
"Think I'm swearing off drinking," she sighed. "You'd never hear another thing about it. Really."
The Doctor stared at the console.
She tapped the chair with her fingers. "I'm really good robot bait," she tried.
He continued to stare.
"Need someone to draw away laser fire? I'm your girl."
The Doctor's expression changed to one Rose recognized - she'd worn him down. Relief flooded her and she decided at that moment she really was going to swear off drinking.
"Keep it to yourself?" he asked.
"Yes," she quickly replied.
He pointed at her. "I'm not your walking therapy session."
"Absolutely not."
*
The TARDIS had felt the need to poke around in Farden's encrypted data files, which the Doctor was only too happy to forward on to the authorities. Enjoying the brief moment of pleasure at the thought of the look on Farden's face when he realized his corrupt days were over, the Doctor set the coordinates for their next destination - to see a man who made his living conning his way through time and space, and hopefully a man who had heard of Traedan's Sphere while doing just that.
"We're really going to see Jack?" Martha had caught the tail end of a conversation during the brief reunion with Jack, but it had been enough. The Doctor had run across him in the late 21st century when they were both investigating a crashed space ship in the Baltic Sea. Turned out Jack had conned his way onto a Time Agent's ship after he had spent about six months in the year 200,100. He had tried to go looking for the Doctor and Rose, figuring that Rose's home would be a good place to start. But after a little domestic squabble, Jack had been dumped in the later part of the century instead of the earlier. He and Torchwood found each other and he had been working for them for about two years.
After the initial shock and actual belief that the Doctor was really the Doctor in spite of the new face, Jack was more than a little irked at having been abandoned. And when he found out about Rose and the parallel world, he blamed the Doctor for that as well. But mostly it was about being abandoned. Martha had heard the shouted suggestion involving the Doctor and the horse he rode in on, and they parted ways.
"Yup." He flipped a switch. "Should be a hell of a time."
Jack was easy enough to track down since he'd never pass up an opportunity to say, 'I'm in the book.' Soon the Doctor was knocking on the door to a posh high-rise flat. Apparently Torchwood paid well.
The door opened and Jack's face instantly hardened.
"Ooh, clothed, I see. That's a good sign," the Doctor greeted.
The door started to close on him, but the Doctor slapped up his hand, stopping it. "Jack, I need your help."
Jack nodded over the Doctor's shoulder to Martha. "Still with him, I see. It was 'Martha,' right?"
"Yeah," came her uncomfortable reply.
Jack let go of the door and walked down the hallway into the kitchen, the Doctor and Martha following. "Watch out for him, Martha," Jack called over his shoulder. He pulled a beer out of the fridge, hitting the top of the bottle on the edge of the counter. "You want one?" he asked her.
"Thanks. No," she said.
"What makes you think I would help you?" Jack asked the Doctor before taking a drink.
"I'm trying to get to Rose."
"Going back for Rose," Jack said slowly.
"Yes." The Doctor knew where this was headed and god help him, it was probably better to let Jack get it out.
"Okay, I'm not going to even pretend I rank up there with Rose in your mind. I caught that subtle distinction the second I stepped foot on the TARDIS."
The Doctor waited for the question he knew was coming. The one Jack had been too angry to ask on their last encounter.
"But why?"
"I was going to regenerate. I barely had time to get Rose on board. And then it all went bad."
"That covers the leaving. Now how about the not coming back? I mean, had I done something to offend you? Been incompetent on some expedition?" Jack's fingers gripped the bottle. "Not stood by your side when you were ready to burn down the universe over Rose?!" The bottle hit the counter, some foam escaping out the top.
"Jack, you didn't need me. You never needed me."
"Need you? What the hell does that have to do with anything? I have to need you? Oh, I understand. You're so far above us - the supreme being, come down to Earth to save us all," he said waving his hands in the air. "But look out if you don't need saving, 'cause he'll just leave you on a game station."
The Doctor stared at the abandoned bottle. His patience was wearing thin and his anger rising. He did not need to defend himself over this.
"So is that what it was with Rose?" Jack asked. "You kept her around 'cause she needed you? Or was it that you needed her? Are you gonna tell me that all boiled down to something so crude?"
The Doctor's eyes snapped up to Jack's. "No."
Jack matched his gaze. "Then don't give me that 'need' shit. I thought you were a friend."
He had no clue. Not a damn clue. But Jack's words cut into him more than they had a right to, and the Doctor resented it.
"Apparently not," Jack said after the Doctor didn't respond.
"People come and go. I don't have the luxury of keeping friends." Letting Jack get it out of his system was one thing. This was starting to turn into another. The Doctor walked out of the kitchen and into the lounge.
Jack followed close behind. "Kinda thinking that's of your own choosing. You wanna be the lone wolf? Fine. But you don't get to use the choice as an excuse."
The Doctor turned on his heels. "You have no idea what it's like watching people you...care about die or leave you," the Doctor said bitterly. "Over and over and over again. That right there is my life."
"I'm not even going to ask why you're going after Rose then. I know. You can't help yourself. But the rest? How many people have wound up on a game station? So, hurt others before they hurt unto you? Always protect yourself from the pain? Some life."
"You done yet?" the Doctor asked, warning in his tone. He was not going to discuss this any further with Jack.
Jack stared at him for a moment and then sighed, walking towards the window and looking out to the city. "Fine. What do you need?"
As the Doctor put his hands in his pockets, he glanced at Martha, who had been watching their little scene. It wouldn't surprise him in the least if she'd soon ask to be dropped off at the nearest spaceport. Hell, even he thought it was too much drama and he was in the middle of it all.
"Traedan's Sphere. Don't know what it looks like but I think it will help me get to Rose."
"Traedan's Sphere. And you think it'll get you to a parallel world."
"Yes."
"There's something."
The Doctor closed the gap between them. "Tell me. Jack, please."
"Orb of Raden."
"What is it?"
"Back when I was a Time Agent there were always rumours about this inventor and something called the Orb of Raden. See, his inventions were always a little too good, you know? So we thought he'd gotten his hands on a time travel device. Couldn't ever prove it, though. And after our scientists took apart his inventions, they determined they weren't future tech. Too great a deviation."
"Inventions stolen from other worlds!" For the first time since they had left New Earth, the Doctor began to feel hope.
"Could have been. Parallel worlds weren't really on anyone's radar."
"Name of the inventor. Time. Place," the Doctor demanded.
"Yeah, I got 'em. Funny. You need me. Guess 'need' comes into it after all."
"Jack, I'm making an effort not to throttle you at the moment."
"I'm coming with you."
The Doctor blinked at Jack. "Sorry?"
"You owe me one."
"And this 'one.' It's travelling on the TARDIS?"
"Nope. But travelling on the TARDIS will help me collect when I think of what the 'one' is." Not waiting for a reply, he crossed the room and grabbed his jacket. "Okay, I'm ready."
"You don't need anything else?" Martha asked him.
"Not unless the Doctor threw out all my stuff. And being the pack rat that he is? Not likely," Jack said, ushering them out the door.
The Doctor was now really wishing he had thrown out Jack's stuff, just to knock that smug attitude down a notch. Of course, he hadn't. No one's stuff ever got thrown out. It just wound up in the wardrobe or one of the other storage rooms or sometimes a library, depending on what it was.
"Think it's all balled up somewhere. Under the sink maybe? Needed something to catch a leak."
Jack said nothing. He closed the door behind them and then headed down the corridor. Humour to deflect tension probably hadn't been the best route there.
As the three of them walked silently back to the TARDIS, Jack's words to him tumbled in his mind.
Right, so maybe, maybe he could understand Jack's reaction to it all. But it wasn't as if he'd been around for more than a couple of months. And despite his response, Jack really did not need him.
At the TARDIS, Jack pulled a key out of his pocket and waved it at them. "Still got it," he said, unlocking the door.
Two jackets and a coat were thrown over the railing - the Doctor wondered why he even bothered keeping the coat rack in the room - and Jack finally gave up the information.
"Prescott Daniels. 4287. Montreal, Republic of New Canada, Earth."
Standing in the glow of the console, Jack helped punch in the coordinates to their destination. The Doctor had forgotten how competent Jack had been in flying the TARDIS. Not that he'd ever let him take her for a spin on his own, mind.
Looking at Jack standing there now, the Doctor had the briefest of moments where he half-expected Rose to come bouncing in, ready for an adventure with the three of them. She'd really been the reason Jack had come, and stayed, on board. If it had been up to him, Jack would have been dropped off quicker than he could have said 'innuendo.' But Jack had more than proven his worth and he had stuck with the Doctor through some pretty rough times. And so maybe...?
The Doctor shook his head at the console. He wasn't sure if it was resignation or realization that made him say it.
"Jack," he said quietly, not looking away from the controls. "I'm sorry."
He heard Jack sigh.
"Don't let it happen again." He gave the Doctor's shoulder a pat and then walked out of the room.
*
Part 3
The Doctor grabbed Rose's hand and they ran for the tree line where they threw themselves down into a thicket. Chirping loudly, a few furry little animals shot out from the undergrowth, straight out into the meadow. The drones changed direction and hovered off after the new targets, making Rose wince.
"So, default mode?" she whispered.
"Shoot anything that moves," he said in a low voice.
"What kind of a stupid setting is that?"
"It comes in handy when playing conquer the planet," the Doctor said dryly.
"Can they see heat?"
"Yeah, but it must not be switched on. Giant hot human would have been much more tempting than little ball of fur."
"At least there's that. Okay, so what now?"
"I need to send out another signal. Thought I had the right one. Apparently not."
"So you need time to mess with the relay, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Right. Distraction time." Before the Doctor could respond, Rose jumped up and started shouting, waving her arms above her as she ran out into the clearing. "Come and get me!"
"ROSE!" she heard from the trees.
"FIX THE RELAY!" she yelled back as she ran across the meadow towards the tree line on opposite side. Fortunately the meadow wasn't as wide as it was long, but it was still far enough. Glancing over her shoulder she saw three drones headed her way.
Darting into the woods, Rose led the drones away from the clearing. One of the drones fired, scorching the tree next to her.
"Oh, not good," Rose muttered. She focused on a dense clump of trees and bolted for it, leaping over fallen branches on the ground.
She almost made it. Almost.
Laser fire glanced across her hand as she disappeared into the trees. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she crouched down, hoping not to give them a target. The drones hovered around her hiding spot, moving to different angles as she peered through the branches, trying to keep an eye on them while staying out of sight.
A noise caught her attention, and the drones' as well - they simultaneously turned and hovered off. Probably some poor little creature. Rose sighed, leaning her head back against a tree. Hopefully that had been enough time for the Doctor to do something.
She couldn't see anything from her hiding place, but it'd probably be good to hang out for a while anyway, just in case. Her hand throbbed, but fortunately it didn't look too bad. Just a burn across the back.
Rose heard a chirp next to her and looked down. Tiny eyes blinked up at her.
"Okay, don't bite me." She cautiously petted it and it chirped again.
Suddenly its nose started to twitch and it took off through the branches as a head poked into her hiding place. "You're bonkers, you know that?"
Rose jumped. Someday she would figure out the Doctor's ability to sneak around. And his uncanny ability to find things. Some of the time, that was. "It's about time!"
"Don't do that again. It was stupid." He grabbed her hand to pull her out, but chose the wrong hand. Rose cried out and he dropped it as quickly as if he had been burned. "What happened?"
Rose pushed herself up with her uninjured hand. "Oh, you know. Laser fire. The usual. Drones taken care of?"
"Yup. They'll be hunting each other now. You done with this planet?"
"Absolutely."
Upon returning to the TARDIS, the Doctor herded Rose into the med bay despite her protests that her hand wasn't that bad.
"Oh right. Next thing you know it's infected," the Doctor blustered at her.
Rose sighed. "You sound like my mother," she said as she hopped up on one of the tables while the Doctor rummaged through a drawer.
"A wise woman, your mother."
Rose burst out laughing. "If she could hear you say that now! The Doctor and her never did see eye-to-eye. Second time she saw him she smacked him one!"
The Doctor gave her a horrified look. "Never been smacked by someone's mother before."
"He said the same thing," Rose said, chuckling to herself at the memory.
"Well, don't count on a repeat performance." The Doctor poked at his chest. "I don't do families."
Rose dropped her head, hiding a wistful smile. "Yeah, I know."
"Right then. Hand."
As he ran a familiar device over the burn, she stared at his hands - she remembered when they looked like this.
And suddenly she was back to right when they had dropped off, well, kicked off Adam, right after Satellite 5. The Doctor had similarly shuttled her off to the med bay, where he had fussed over the minor burns she had gotten on her wrists from the electric restraint cuffs. He had used the same device then.
"Have you right in a mo," he told her, giving her a smile.
Rose shook her head as the Doctor looked back at her hand. That had been exactly what he had said then. Even the way he said it was the same.
"There! All better now!" The Doctor patted her now-healed hand and tossed the device back in the drawer.
Rose hopped off the table with a smile. "Thanks."
He grinned at her. "They don't call me the Doctor for nothing."
Rose found herself grinning back. "Oh yeah?"
"Cuts and bruises? Piece of cake," he said, clicking his fingers.
"With a little help from the thing in the drawer."
"Who do you think made the thing in the drawer?"
Rose smirked. "You think you're so impressive."
"I am so impressive!" he declared, trying to look annoyed but with an unmistakable twinkle in his eyes.
Holy deja vu.
"Well, thanks for the hand. Loved it," she said backing away. "I'm gonna go..." She shook her head again. "Um, sleep now. Thirty minutes on a planet and I'm done for."
He raised an eyebrow at her, which Rose was not finding attractive in any way whatsoever. Not at all. She ran into the doorframe on her way out but kept going, heading straight for the room she'd had before.
Rose flopped on the bed, the one with the same exact covers on it next to the same exact chair that was next to the same exact dresser. The overwhelming familiarity wasn't helping to keep things straight. She stared up at the ceiling.
What the hell was she doing?
He wasn't the same guy. Really wasn't. But it would be so easy to pretend and then maybe even someday forget, wouldn't it? After all, her Doctor would want her to embrace her new life, right? Even it was with a new him?
God.
She rubbed her eyes. Her mum had done it, after all. Gotten together with her dad in this world. Although...Pete wasn't really her dad, was he? He looked like her dad and any genetic test would say he was her dad, but she had watched her dad die in 1987. More than that, her dad had sacrificed his life to save her. To save the world. That was her dad.
Rose flung her arm across her eyes.
This wasn't her Doctor. He wasn't the man who held her hand as he showed her the universe. He wasn't the one who told her she was beautiful before remembering she was human. Wasn't the one who kept trying to take her to concerts but kept failing. Wasn't the one to pull her away from a black hole or the one to dance with her in Albion Hospital. He wasn't the one who took her to the London Olympics or the one to comfort her when she mourned her father.
He wasn't the one she loved.
Rose rolled over and buried her head into the pillow.
*
The Doctor wandered back to the console room, the image of Rose's dormant third strand of DNA burned into his mind.
She'd regenerate.
More than that, the new body wouldn't be human. It'd be Gallifreyan.
He spent over an hour studying the result, checking it all again and again, just to be sure. There was no denying the facts though, as much as he wanted to. He slumped into the chair, vaguely aware that Martha had returned and was in the room. Two phrases kept turning in his mind.
- ...she too burned away.
I am the Bad Wolf.
"What's wrong?" Martha asked quietly.
He looked up to her. She was perched on the railing.
"The TARDIS decided to play Mary Shelley," he answered bitterly. For the first time since she got pulled away, he was really glad Rose wasn't around at the moment. He needed to process and she wouldn't understand his reaction. No, Rose wouldn't see the big picture. Not yet, that was. Might take her years, even decades before it really hit her: the loss of her humanity. "God. Rose."
"Who's Rose?"
"I killed her," the Doctor said numbly.
"She's dead?"
The Doctor ignored the misunderstanding. "She was supposed to have a human life. A brilliant human life. And I took that away. Oh, she might have opened up the TARDIS, but..." He couldn't finish.
In his mind a war was raging.
It was an abomination. If the Time Lords were alive there would be inquiries and trials, and rightfully so. The human known as Rose Tyler was dead. A life cut short because of a whim of another.
Two others, actually.
The problem was that there was no way to hide himself from the TARDIS. So all his "harmless" thoughts about Rose up until the game station had done her in. The TARDIS had seen his pain, his loneliness and naturally wanted to fix that. Could he fault her? She had also seen his growing need, and even love, for Rose, and so when she had stepped into the TARDIS' path, and found Rose also shared her desire to end his pain and loneliness, the TARDIS took her.
He pressed his hand against his face and stared into the glow of the console, the ever-present hum the only sound. He could sense the TARDIS was either indifferent or unrepentant for what she had done. Probably the latter.
He still couldn't get his mind around the fact that the whole time since the game station, Rose had been changed. She hadn't really been human any more. But she was still Rose. Everything that happened after that, it was all still Rose.
And suddenly he was hit with the overwhelming need to touch her again. To hold her. He wanted her to tell him everything was okay. That she'd do it all over again if she could. He wanted her to give him absolution.
"Who's Rose?" Martha asked again.
"Rose is..." He thought for a moment. "Rose is..." Why did he always have such a hard time putting anything about her into words? "She was a nineteen-year-old shopgirl who I pulled out of a store basement before I blew it up. The store, not the basement. Although I'm sure the basement got a bit singed. And then..." He stopped again. A blur of images, thoughts and words collided in his mind.
"Nineteen," she stated. "And you're...nine hundred."
The Doctor glanced at Martha who had a quizzical look on her face. "She's twenty-one now," he said a little too defensively.
She didn't look impressed.
"After a few centuries, things like age start to have less meaning," he said, not convincing even himself.
"If you say so."
That old pang of mild guilt, the one that crept in whenever the subject of age came up, worked its way out of the little corner he kept it stuffed into. The guilt that hit him when Sarah Jane had called him 'Tiger' or when Jackie would look disapprovingly in his direction.
It wasn't as if he had gone on the prowl for some barely-adult blonde. That wasn't it. That was so far from it. But he knew how it looked.
And it wasn't just that. Not only age but species and intellect - they all added up to inconceivable. Improbable. Nonsensical, even. But when he was with Rose, right or wrong, all of that seemed to fall away.
"It wasn't some big plan," the Doctor sighed. "It just was." He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. There hadn't been a plan to...to what? To fall for her? The term sounded so puerile and hardly something he was used to thinking in reference to himself, but right now it felt accurate.
So no, there hadn't been a plan to fall so completely for Rose Tyler, but he had wanted someone's hand to hold as he crossed the universe, and so had damned the consequences from day one. And damned her.
Now it was more than wanting to get her back, he needed to get her back. He couldn't let her be blindsided by a regeneration. Nor was it acceptable for her to go through the world, never dying but always alone. She didn't deserve that...
"I was engaged."
The Doctor's eyes snapped open. Martha was looking down and reaching into her top, pulling out the ever-present chain that hung around her neck. At the end was a ring. She held it up, staring at it.
"They wouldn't let me wear it on my hand while on duty. Too distracting, I guess." She gave him a small, humourless laugh. "Got used to wearing it like this."
"Was he at the Delta Colony?"
Martha nodded.
"I'm sorry."
Martha turned it over with her fingers. "Sean was a scientist. A real geek-type, you know? Geologist." She smiled. "But he was..." She cleared her throat. "He was the one that helped me discover my interest in the medical field. And talked me into convincing my commander that having me study medicine would be an asset to him." She had a faraway look in her eyes. "He always knew I could be more than a girl with a gun."
"Sounds like he was a good man."
"The best. The absolute best. No offence, Doc, but you couldn't hold a candle to him."
The Doctor gave her a small smile. "I'm sure I couldn't."
"People said it would never work. Guess they were right." She tucked the ring back into her shirt, her hand trembling slightly. By the time she'd straightened the collar of her shirt, her calm exterior had returned. "Right. Something about Traedan's Sphere?"
The Doctor suddenly realized that the Face of Boe had included Martha in his telepathic thoughts. "I've never heard of it. No clue what it is or where to look."
"Well, we'd better get started then."
"Are you sure you want in on this? Won't be much joy-riding now."
"Wandering aimlessly through the universe is okay, I suppose, but now?" Martha said, suddenly looking pleased. "Now we have a mission objective."
*
After an hour of lying on her bed, Rose gave up trying to sleep and wandered into the console room. The Doctor was peering at the monitor but looked up when she stepped onto the platform.
"Can't sleep?" the Doctor asked.
"Nah."
"Useless pastime anyway. So, off to someplace new?"
Rose frowned. "Know any places that make banana daiquiris? Not just any banana daiquiris, really good ones."
"Yeah, right."
"You don't then?"
"You're serious?"
Rose sighed. "Pretty much."
"Didn't realize you were a lush."
"You ever have one of those days where all you want to do is find a pub and stay there?"
"Yeah, I know a place," the Doctor said slowly.
Soon Rose found herself in a cantina in Acapulco in 1959. The Doctor told her that the man sitting at a table in the back corner was some Hollywood actor. Rose didn't recognize him.
Ceiling fans swirled warm air overhead in the small, mainly empty room, and Rose began to play with a flower in a glass in the centre of the table she'd grabbed while the Doctor went to order their drinks. Somewhere a radio was playing some kind of guitar music that seemed to fit the sleepy mood of the place.
"All ordered," the Doctor said, taking a seat.
"You come here often?"
He smirked at her. "I'm already buying you a drink, you know."
She chuckled. "No, really."
He leaned his arms on the table. "I've been known to drop by on occasion."
"Huh."
"What?"
"Just that the other Doctor wasn't much of a drinker."
"When I said 'on occasion' that's what I meant. It's not like I hang out in pubs. I've got better things to do with my time."
Shortly their drinks arrived. Rose had one sip of the banana daiquiri and remembered she never liked them in the first place. "Want it?" she asked, pushing it towards the Doctor. "You like bananas."
"Pass, thanks," he said, taking a sip from one of the glasses in front of him.
"What's that again?"
"Completo - sangrita and tequila. Glasses. Not shots. And much more civilized than your umbrella drink."
"Oh my, we do have airs, don't we? I'll have that then."
The sangrita was okay, but it was quickly abandoned for the tequila which made her feel warm and relaxed. Another round of drinks had them swapping stories about similar times and places. The Doctor was particularly amused that her Doctor had let Adam on board because she thought he was cute.
"So he let someone on the TARDIS just so you could have a boyfriend?" he asked with a smirk.
She laughed. "Well, boyfriend status, which I'm not completely admitting now, lasted for approximately ten minutes."
The Doctor grinned at her. "Never liked the looks of him anyway."
"Well, he got kicked off the TARDIS a few hours later."
"Poor bloke. Loses his girl and gets thrown out all in the same day."
"He deserved it. Although I do feel kinda bad about the hole in his head." Rose giggled at the memory, leaning her head on her hand. Yeah, really, really relaxed.
"I'm not even gonna ask."
More drinks were ordered and the Doctor told her his version of encountering the werewolf in Scotland. He'd also figured out the thing with the Koh-i-noor and had also managed to get on the Queen's bad side. Funny, that.
"Banished me! Couldn't believe it! Here I go and save her and she banishes me!"
Rose grabbed his arm. "I know! What was that all about?"
"Right. So maybe I made a few werewolf jokes here and there."
Rose finished off her third tequila. Or was it her fourth? Fifth? "Oh! We-are-not-amused jokes here. Got her to say it even." Rose clunked down the glass. "Oh damn!"
"What?"
She started laughing uncontrollably. "The Doctor owes me ten quid!"
The Doctor leaned forward, grinning. "Non transferable."
A hand plunked down a glass of tequila on the table and the Doctor and Rose looked up, Rose still laughing. The bartender nodded at them. "For the lady from the gentlemen over there." He waved to the actor in the corner of the room.
Rose turned in her chair and held up the glass towards him. "Cheers!" She leaned over towards the Doctor. "Who'd you say that was again?"
"James Darren."
"Cheers, James Darren!" She downed the entire glass. Rose spun back which made everything a bit...spinny for a minute. She held the glass down on the table with both hands to steady herself.
"You've probably had enough."
"Probably." Rose grinned and stared at him. "You know what?"
"What?"
"You look so much like him."
"Maybe he looks like me," he said, smiling.
"Well, not any more 'cause I opened up the heart of the TARDIS." Rose swung her hand to demonstrate.
"You what?!" The smile instantly disappeared.
"Yup." Rose leaned her head against her hand again. "Opened it right up. And then you...I mean he had to kiss it right out of me. That was a great kiss," she said dreamily.
"So that's what made him regenerate," the Doctor said, staring at the table.
"After that, it was lovely. Well...I'm not talking about the French woman and you can't make me," Rose pointed at the Doctor.
He held up his hands at her.
"But it was...perfect." She waved her hand around. "Yeah, yeah. Monsters. Near death." She then leaned forward to him. "You ever been so in love you don't...I mean, it doesn't matter what you do just so long as you're together?"
The Doctor frowned at her.
Rose frowned back. "You're frowning. So, no?"
"He didn't put a stop to this crush?"
"Crush?!" Rose smacked the table with her hand. "As if. I love him...and he loves me. Would have said it too if not for the stupid supernova or whatever the hell it was."
"I don't believe you."
"Listen, you!" She reached over and shoved his shoulder. "I'd still be with him if it wasn't for the void and dad...Pete...dad catching me at the last second. Hold on...how'd he do that?" She thought for a moment and then laughed. "It doesn't make sense!"
"You're not making sense."
"Shhh. I'm mad at you." Rose played with the empty glass in front of her. "Why aren't you him? Oh, I know!" She smiled at the Doctor and sighed. "You could pretend to be him and then everything would be happy! And we could not go to concerts and you could tell me about your kids..."
"He told you he had kids?" the Doctor interrupted her. His expression had changed but Rose was having trouble deciphering it at the moment. It seemed like surprise, but maybe something else.
"Yup. Once upon a time. Well, he said he'd been a dad so it could have been one kid, I suppose. He also has a weird thing for those little metal balls on fairy cakes."
"Right."
"Oh, and then we could...oh, wait. I already said about not going to concerts." Rose set the glass upside down. "I miss his arms around me," she said to the glass.
The Doctor cleared his throat.
She looked up at him. "So what d'ya say? Wanna substitute for the Doctor? It'd be so nice."
He stood up, the chair legs scraping against the floor. "Time to go." He threw some coins on the table.
"Damn."
She obviously hadn't been moving fast enough or maybe at all, because suddenly she felt the Doctor pulling her up onto her feet. "Bye bye, James Darren!" she called out as he dragged her out into the street.
The TARDIS seemed far. Really far. Had it been this far? Maybe it moved.
She stopped walking. "I'm gonna sleep now," she said, closing her eyes.
The Doctor muttered something she couldn't make out and then grabbed her around the waist, pushing her forward towards the TARDIS.
Rose heard the key in the lock and then the creak of the door twice, first opening and then closing. She opened her eyes to the console room.
"Home again." She smiled up at the Doctor and then wrapped her arms around him, leaning her head against his shoulder. He may not have been what she was used to any more, but he still felt good. Everything felt good. And everything was feeling heavy. It would be so nice to just lay down now.
She felt herself starting to slip down. Suddenly she was being lifted up and then there was movement. Maybe the TARDIS was moving again. The TARDIS was sneaky like that. Didn't really matter though, since she still had her arms around the Doctor. That's pretty much all that mattered.
Rose was only vaguely aware of being dumped on her bed before blacking out.
*
The Doctor sprinted through the dim, wet streets, dodging food vendors and people milling around their carts. Stupid stereotypical bad guys with their stupid hidden escape panels. Clichés should not be allowed in real life. It was annoying.
The Doctor ran around a corner and into a woman carrying a box full of puka shells, sending the contents flying. "Sorry! I'm sorry!" he yelled over his shoulder. He didn't slow down and her curses followed him.
The man couldn't have gotten far, and with the bright green shirt that matched the green hair, he should be easy to spot. Down another street, and there! The Doctor grabbed the person by the shoulder. A shocked face turned to him, but it was one of a human instead of a Drulian, the only real difference between the two being the deep ridges around the eyes.
"Watch it, mate!"
The Doctor let go. "Sorry. Thought you were someone else."
His eyes swept over the crowd - thank god for height - but the overabundance of neon wasn't helping, casting everyone in a purplish glow.
Nothing.
He continued on his original course and picked a side street at random. He had just passed an alleyway, but movement caught his attention. He grabbed a lamp post to help him brake and jogged back to the alley.
He grinned.
Farden Langith-Ber Trayan. Black-marketeer and, surprisingly enough, Parliamentarian. Infamous throughout the Yat Galaxy. And currently pinned to the wall by one Martha Jones.
Damn, that woman was good.
"Now see," the Doctor said as he strolled up to them, putting his hands in his pockets, "...this was inevitable. Why do people always insist on doing it the hard way? Here I offer to get you a few cases of Poyll Whiskey for some simple information and what do you do? You run. Now that's not very nice."
Farden tried to spit at him.
"Don't think so." Martha pushed him harder against the wall, hand around his neck.
"But now I'm going to have to skip the whiskey and go straight to the threat. Well, not really a threat since I will actually do it."
"What, you gonna kill me?" Farden sneered.
"Oh no. Killing's no fun." The Doctor smiled and moved to mere inches away from Farden's face. "You like your little life? How you've grown fat and rich off of your black market empire? The houses, the transports, the women? I am going to destroy that."
Farden's eyes flicked back and forth between the Doctor and Martha as if trying to decide which was the greater threat. He dropped his gaze. "You're as bad as Time Agents, you know that?" he muttered.
The Doctor frowned. "Time Agents? What'd they want with you?"
"Thought I had some not-of-this-century hyperdrive. Didn't find what they were looking for." Farden smirked.
"This is getting us nowhere," Martha declared, fingers tightening.
"Fine," Farden choked out. "Traedan's Sphere? Never heard of it."
"Think he's telling the truth?" Martha asked, glancing at the Doctor.
Farden shrugged, as much as he could shrug while being held against a wall. "You won't tell me what it is or even what it looks like, so something called Traedan's Sphere? It's never crossed my path. Why did you think I had it?"
The Doctor sighed. "Trayan. Traedan."
"What, my name sounds like it? That's it? You have no idea what this thing is yourselves, do you?"
The Doctor turned and began walking out of the alleyway. "Come on, Martha."
He heard a grunt from behind him and then Martha appeared at his side. "You sure?"
"It was a long shot to begin with. They're all long shots," he said flatly.
"You're not giving up, are you?"
"After only four tries? Hardly, Martha. Plus our slimy green friend did help me."
"How exactly did he do that?" she asked, matching his stride.
"Oh, he made me think of something. It may be another nothing, but its marginally better than randomly hopping around time and space, checking off one of the thousands of things that sound like Traedan."
"What's that, then?"
"We're going to see Jack Harkness."
*
Hell.
Rose lifted her head off her pillow and flopped her legs off the bed. She looked down. The least he could have done was to take off her shoes.
Even the muted lighting in the TARDIS was too harsh as she made her way to the galley. Food would be lovely right about now. Some eggs maybe. However, when she got there the thought of a quick nap sounded more appealing. She sat down at the table, putting her head down on her arms.
She heard the Doctor come into the room and she groaned a greeting. Next she heard him doing something off to the side. Loudly. Damn him. And then something hit the table with a bang.
Rose's head snapped up and she focused on the most disgusting and beautiful sight in the universe. "Oh, thank god. The cure." She grabbed the glass and choked down the contents. She'd had the Doctor's hangover cure twice before, both times when Jack was around, come to think of it. He'd told her it was best she didn't know what was in it, but it worked. "Thanks."
"I'm not him. Not as far as you're concerned."
Rose set down the glass and looked up at him. His arms were crossed over his chest and he was staring at her, doing a good impression of a deer in the headlights.
"I'll never be him."
"I..."
"This..." The Doctor waved his hand between them. "...will never happen."
"What?"
"I'm not a substitution."
Rose's words from the night before came flooding back. "Oh, god," she groaned.
"And she remembers."
"I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry."
"I think you need to leave," he said, and walked out the door.
No. Rose nearly knocked over the chair as she went after him.
She caught up to him as he strode down the corridor. "I shouldn't have said that. It was wrong. So wrong. But couldn't we just start over? No pretending, no complications."
"You are complication incarnate."
"I should have told you...something," Rose said as they entered the console room.
"Yes. You should have," he said, hopping up onto the platform and moving to the console. He turned a knob.
"Stop. Please!" Rose begged, putting her hands on top of his.
He hesitated for a moment and then his shoulders slumped slightly. Rose let go only when he backed away from the console.
He sat down in the chair, crossing his arms. "Tell me something. Does your mum beat you?"
"What?!"
"That friend of yours then?"
"No! What the hell...?"
"Just trying to figure out why you need to run away so badly. Most people would be thanking their lucky stars to have family and friends when they wind up in another universe."
"I'm not running away!"
"What then? You've got a life out there! Family and friends out there!"
Rose shoved her hands into her pockets, suddenly finding his shoes interesting.
"You know I'm not the person you're looking for. Why are you here?"
Her fingers found the unused notes - the ones that had been meant for the shampoo for her holiday. She closed her eyes.
"It wasn't just about him," she said softly. "Well, it was and it wasn't. It was all of this," she said, looking around the room. "The travelling to other places. New people. New ideas. It was more than an ordinary life."
"Sometimes an ordinary life is one that matters most, you know." His face, as well as his tone, had softened, but was still insistent.
"Not for me. And I don't care if that sounds selfish, or seems like I think I'm more important than just plain old Rose Tyler," she said, thinking of Mickey and her mum staring at her in that restaurant so long ago, back when the Doctor had sent her away from the game station. "It's my life and I get a little say in it."
"No, it's my life and you want to hang out in it."
"Look," she tried. "Now you know about me and him."
He grunted as the glazed look returned.
"Disapproval. Right. Fine. And you told me that would never happen between us." She held up her hand to stop another grunt. "Also fine. So now that we have that out of the way, can't we just get on with it? The Doctor and his assistant?"
He shook his head. "Don't think you can handle it."
"Okay. But if I have a problem it's my problem."
The Doctor frowned. "Right. Until you get drunk and try and set me up in your little world."
"Think I'm swearing off drinking," she sighed. "You'd never hear another thing about it. Really."
The Doctor stared at the console.
She tapped the chair with her fingers. "I'm really good robot bait," she tried.
He continued to stare.
"Need someone to draw away laser fire? I'm your girl."
The Doctor's expression changed to one Rose recognized - she'd worn him down. Relief flooded her and she decided at that moment she really was going to swear off drinking.
"Keep it to yourself?" he asked.
"Yes," she quickly replied.
He pointed at her. "I'm not your walking therapy session."
"Absolutely not."
*
The TARDIS had felt the need to poke around in Farden's encrypted data files, which the Doctor was only too happy to forward on to the authorities. Enjoying the brief moment of pleasure at the thought of the look on Farden's face when he realized his corrupt days were over, the Doctor set the coordinates for their next destination - to see a man who made his living conning his way through time and space, and hopefully a man who had heard of Traedan's Sphere while doing just that.
"We're really going to see Jack?" Martha had caught the tail end of a conversation during the brief reunion with Jack, but it had been enough. The Doctor had run across him in the late 21st century when they were both investigating a crashed space ship in the Baltic Sea. Turned out Jack had conned his way onto a Time Agent's ship after he had spent about six months in the year 200,100. He had tried to go looking for the Doctor and Rose, figuring that Rose's home would be a good place to start. But after a little domestic squabble, Jack had been dumped in the later part of the century instead of the earlier. He and Torchwood found each other and he had been working for them for about two years.
After the initial shock and actual belief that the Doctor was really the Doctor in spite of the new face, Jack was more than a little irked at having been abandoned. And when he found out about Rose and the parallel world, he blamed the Doctor for that as well. But mostly it was about being abandoned. Martha had heard the shouted suggestion involving the Doctor and the horse he rode in on, and they parted ways.
"Yup." He flipped a switch. "Should be a hell of a time."
Jack was easy enough to track down since he'd never pass up an opportunity to say, 'I'm in the book.' Soon the Doctor was knocking on the door to a posh high-rise flat. Apparently Torchwood paid well.
The door opened and Jack's face instantly hardened.
"Ooh, clothed, I see. That's a good sign," the Doctor greeted.
The door started to close on him, but the Doctor slapped up his hand, stopping it. "Jack, I need your help."
Jack nodded over the Doctor's shoulder to Martha. "Still with him, I see. It was 'Martha,' right?"
"Yeah," came her uncomfortable reply.
Jack let go of the door and walked down the hallway into the kitchen, the Doctor and Martha following. "Watch out for him, Martha," Jack called over his shoulder. He pulled a beer out of the fridge, hitting the top of the bottle on the edge of the counter. "You want one?" he asked her.
"Thanks. No," she said.
"What makes you think I would help you?" Jack asked the Doctor before taking a drink.
"I'm trying to get to Rose."
"Going back for Rose," Jack said slowly.
"Yes." The Doctor knew where this was headed and god help him, it was probably better to let Jack get it out.
"Okay, I'm not going to even pretend I rank up there with Rose in your mind. I caught that subtle distinction the second I stepped foot on the TARDIS."
The Doctor waited for the question he knew was coming. The one Jack had been too angry to ask on their last encounter.
"But why?"
"I was going to regenerate. I barely had time to get Rose on board. And then it all went bad."
"That covers the leaving. Now how about the not coming back? I mean, had I done something to offend you? Been incompetent on some expedition?" Jack's fingers gripped the bottle. "Not stood by your side when you were ready to burn down the universe over Rose?!" The bottle hit the counter, some foam escaping out the top.
"Jack, you didn't need me. You never needed me."
"Need you? What the hell does that have to do with anything? I have to need you? Oh, I understand. You're so far above us - the supreme being, come down to Earth to save us all," he said waving his hands in the air. "But look out if you don't need saving, 'cause he'll just leave you on a game station."
The Doctor stared at the abandoned bottle. His patience was wearing thin and his anger rising. He did not need to defend himself over this.
"So is that what it was with Rose?" Jack asked. "You kept her around 'cause she needed you? Or was it that you needed her? Are you gonna tell me that all boiled down to something so crude?"
The Doctor's eyes snapped up to Jack's. "No."
Jack matched his gaze. "Then don't give me that 'need' shit. I thought you were a friend."
He had no clue. Not a damn clue. But Jack's words cut into him more than they had a right to, and the Doctor resented it.
"Apparently not," Jack said after the Doctor didn't respond.
"People come and go. I don't have the luxury of keeping friends." Letting Jack get it out of his system was one thing. This was starting to turn into another. The Doctor walked out of the kitchen and into the lounge.
Jack followed close behind. "Kinda thinking that's of your own choosing. You wanna be the lone wolf? Fine. But you don't get to use the choice as an excuse."
The Doctor turned on his heels. "You have no idea what it's like watching people you...care about die or leave you," the Doctor said bitterly. "Over and over and over again. That right there is my life."
"I'm not even going to ask why you're going after Rose then. I know. You can't help yourself. But the rest? How many people have wound up on a game station? So, hurt others before they hurt unto you? Always protect yourself from the pain? Some life."
"You done yet?" the Doctor asked, warning in his tone. He was not going to discuss this any further with Jack.
Jack stared at him for a moment and then sighed, walking towards the window and looking out to the city. "Fine. What do you need?"
As the Doctor put his hands in his pockets, he glanced at Martha, who had been watching their little scene. It wouldn't surprise him in the least if she'd soon ask to be dropped off at the nearest spaceport. Hell, even he thought it was too much drama and he was in the middle of it all.
"Traedan's Sphere. Don't know what it looks like but I think it will help me get to Rose."
"Traedan's Sphere. And you think it'll get you to a parallel world."
"Yes."
"There's something."
The Doctor closed the gap between them. "Tell me. Jack, please."
"Orb of Raden."
"What is it?"
"Back when I was a Time Agent there were always rumours about this inventor and something called the Orb of Raden. See, his inventions were always a little too good, you know? So we thought he'd gotten his hands on a time travel device. Couldn't ever prove it, though. And after our scientists took apart his inventions, they determined they weren't future tech. Too great a deviation."
"Inventions stolen from other worlds!" For the first time since they had left New Earth, the Doctor began to feel hope.
"Could have been. Parallel worlds weren't really on anyone's radar."
"Name of the inventor. Time. Place," the Doctor demanded.
"Yeah, I got 'em. Funny. You need me. Guess 'need' comes into it after all."
"Jack, I'm making an effort not to throttle you at the moment."
"I'm coming with you."
The Doctor blinked at Jack. "Sorry?"
"You owe me one."
"And this 'one.' It's travelling on the TARDIS?"
"Nope. But travelling on the TARDIS will help me collect when I think of what the 'one' is." Not waiting for a reply, he crossed the room and grabbed his jacket. "Okay, I'm ready."
"You don't need anything else?" Martha asked him.
"Not unless the Doctor threw out all my stuff. And being the pack rat that he is? Not likely," Jack said, ushering them out the door.
The Doctor was now really wishing he had thrown out Jack's stuff, just to knock that smug attitude down a notch. Of course, he hadn't. No one's stuff ever got thrown out. It just wound up in the wardrobe or one of the other storage rooms or sometimes a library, depending on what it was.
"Think it's all balled up somewhere. Under the sink maybe? Needed something to catch a leak."
Jack said nothing. He closed the door behind them and then headed down the corridor. Humour to deflect tension probably hadn't been the best route there.
As the three of them walked silently back to the TARDIS, Jack's words to him tumbled in his mind.
Right, so maybe, maybe he could understand Jack's reaction to it all. But it wasn't as if he'd been around for more than a couple of months. And despite his response, Jack really did not need him.
At the TARDIS, Jack pulled a key out of his pocket and waved it at them. "Still got it," he said, unlocking the door.
Two jackets and a coat were thrown over the railing - the Doctor wondered why he even bothered keeping the coat rack in the room - and Jack finally gave up the information.
"Prescott Daniels. 4287. Montreal, Republic of New Canada, Earth."
Standing in the glow of the console, Jack helped punch in the coordinates to their destination. The Doctor had forgotten how competent Jack had been in flying the TARDIS. Not that he'd ever let him take her for a spin on his own, mind.
Looking at Jack standing there now, the Doctor had the briefest of moments where he half-expected Rose to come bouncing in, ready for an adventure with the three of them. She'd really been the reason Jack had come, and stayed, on board. If it had been up to him, Jack would have been dropped off quicker than he could have said 'innuendo.' But Jack had more than proven his worth and he had stuck with the Doctor through some pretty rough times. And so maybe...?
The Doctor shook his head at the console. He wasn't sure if it was resignation or realization that made him say it.
"Jack," he said quietly, not looking away from the controls. "I'm sorry."
He heard Jack sigh.
"Don't let it happen again." He gave the Doctor's shoulder a pat and then walked out of the room.
*
Part 3