Seuls - Chapter 10
Author: mtemplar
Rating: Adult
Characters: The Doctor (Tenth), Rose Tyler
Disclaimer: I do not own 'Doctor Who' and am making no profit from this fanfiction.
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Graphic Sex, Graphic Violence, Romance
Spoilers: Set mid Series 2
Author's Notes: This story follows the events in To Have And Not To Hold (first chapter of that story is here) and Not Here (the first chapter of that short follow-up is here). It is loosely based on the Fourth Doctor serial 'Image of the Fendahl', and contains elements from the 1996 TV movie and the novel 'The Taking of Planet 5'. Huge hugs to principia_coh for the amazing icon and banner!
Betas: Many, many thanks to platypus, brit_columbia and garpu!
Summary: The Doctor and Rose have been mysteriously diverted to the ice planet Seuls, located within the constellation of Canthares. It soon becomes apparent that things are not at all as they should be, and the newly-formed bond between them will be tested as the trap of an ancient enemy is sprung.
Previous Chapters:
One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine
Crossposted to time_and_chips, dwfiction, Teaspoon and The Zero Room.
Chapter 10
"Oh my God." Rose snatched her hand away from the Doctor's face as though it were burnt. She stumbled backwards as her mind reeled in disorientation, and her stomach lurched again. What had she done?
The Doctor had been jarred by Rose's sudden movement, and was trying to steady himself. His right arm was still tethered tightly to the icy vessel, and stuck up crazily in the air, while his left arm was immobilized by Rose's makeshift sling. He looked confused, and Rose couldn't blame him. "Rose?" he said uncertainly. "What's wrong?"
"I... I did this... something... to you. But I can't remember!" Rose cried, her hands flying to her mouth.
The Doctor regarded her for a moment before slowly swallowing. "Rose, it's all right," he said in a low voice, as though he were attempting to soothe a skittish horse.
"No! It's not all right! I blacked out... and I can't remember what's happened, and I've hurt you!" she cried. "Oh God," she added in a small voice. "What's happened to me?"
"Come here."
"I can't! What if I hurt you again?"
"I'll take my chances," the Doctor said, his face grim. "Rose, you've gone under twice now, and I need to find out exactly what's happened."
"What do you mean?" she said, sniffing.
"I'm sorry, but I need to take a look at your head, Rose. I have to see how much damage has been done."
Cold panic sluiced through her. "Damage? What are you talking about?" Her hands flew to her hair, and she started feeling around carefully for anything out of the ordinary.
"Not like that, Rose," the Doctor said, his voice cold. "Inside."
"They've been mucking about with my head? But you can put it right, yeah?" she asked. It made sense - maybe she was just in the early stages of being possessed, just as Mitya had described to her.
"I'm not sure - that's why I need to look." The Doctor scooted himself over a bit, grunting as he slackened the chain that still bound his right wrist. He was able to lower his right arm to a more comfortable position, with his elbow bent and his wrist near his head. "Oh, that's better," he sighed in relief before looking over at the pink hoody stabilizing his left arm. He raised an eyebrow. "What's this?"
"Sorry," Rose muttered. "That's the only th-thing I had to make a sling with." She shivered in her thin t-shirt.
"I really don't need it," the Doctor said, looking concerned. "The shoulder's already healing. You, though - you're going to freeze. You should take it back."
"Are you s-sure?" Rose asked, hugging her arms to herself and rubbing them.
He held her gaze. "Yeah. Just try not to jar my shoulder when you undo the knot."
Rose crawled over to the Doctor's side, trying in vain to keep her teeth from chattering. She carefully undid the knotted sleeves of the hoody at his neck, trying not to notice how his eyes slid shut when her fingers accidentally grazed the skin of his neck. After slowly easing the garment from under his elbow, she sat back on her heels and quickly shrugged into it, rubbing her hands briskly over her arms in an attempt to warm up.
"I don't suppose you have the sonic, do you?" the Doctor asked hopefully.
Rose shook her head. "N-no," she said, shaking her head. "'S with your coat, in the room with the s-skull."
The Doctor's eyes widened at this. "Skull? You saw it?"
"Yeah. It's the last thing I r-remember. It was glowing."
"I see."
Neither spoke for a few moments, and Rose was starting to feel nervous and panicky again, despite the Doctor's reassuring presence. "Doctor," she started, not sure how to bring up the subject. "You said that you'd seen this... this before, when you 'took care' of things. What happened?" He looked away from her, his eyes downcast. As the silence stretched out long enough to be uncomfortable, she hesitantly moved closer to where he sat, propped up against the side of the frozen, carved longboat. "Doctor?" she implored. "Please tell me. I need to know."
He raised haunted eyes to her, and her heart skipped a beat in her chest.
"Yes, I've seen and fought the Fendahl before, but it was incomplete. It had possessed several people, yes - but not enough to fully manifest. It was... almost like a ghost of itself, its encoded remains preserved in bone for twelve million years. Can you imagine? Playing dead for twelve million years?" Rose shrugged, and the Doctor continued, waving his right hand and making the chain jingle.
"It was reanimated by the combined energy of a rift in time and a scanning device." He paused, grabbing at the chain that bound his right wrist. "Granted, it only worked by chance, really... a one-in-a-million chance, or is that one-in-twelve million - "
Rose cleared her throat.
"Sorry. Dr. Fendelman's scanner - "
"What?" Rose interrupted. "Did he name the Fendahl or something? I thought you said this all happened on Earth!"
"Oh - nothing of the sort, just an odd series of events caused by the Fendahl's manipulation of your planet's history. Dr. Fendelman's scanner reanimated the Fendahl, and I was able to defeat it because it was incomplete. Dumb luck, really."
Rose smiled, despite the seriousness of their situation. "Seems to happen a lot."
He gave her a slight grin in return. "Yeah."
"So you said it'd possessed people before?" she said, hope beginning to kindle within her. "What happened to them? Were they all right after you sorted things?"
The Doctor looked away from her again before sighing heavily and continuing in a low voice. "The leader of the coven helping the Fendahl shot and killed Dr. Fendelman and one of his assistants. That left the coven short of the thirteen members needed to resurrect the Fendahl. Each of them still had a small piece of the Fendahl within them, though. A Fendahleen - able to control their thoughts and behavior through sheer psychic force, much like you saw with the colonists."
"So you're saying" - Rose paused, trying to make sense of what the Doctor was telling her - "the colonists? They each have a piece of this thing inside their heads? Is it in my head?"
"I don't know, Rose. That's why I need to look. There was someone else back then - "
"Why am I not surprised?" Rose muttered, her hand flying to her mouth almost immediately. "Sorry, I didn't mean - "
"Thea," the Doctor continued as if she hadn't spoken. "She was another of Dr. Fendelman's assistants. She paid the ultimate price - becoming the Fendahl itself."
"What?" Rose exclaimed. "So that colonist lady with the weird eyes is the Fendahl?"
The Doctor shook his head. "No. She's helping the Fendahl, but she hasn't become the Fendahl, at least not yet. She still has free will."
"So what happened to... Thea?" Rose asked, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer.
"I destroyed her, Rose," the Doctor said, his voice faltering. "After the Fendahl core overwhelmed her, I killed her. I had to... out of mercy."
Silence enveloped them, save for the loud pounding of Rose's heart and the rattle of the chain as the Doctor tried to pull himself free. After a few moments, Rose scooted again, planting herself between the Doctor's knees, where he could readily reach her. "Do it," she said in a shaky voice. "Look."
The Doctor swallowed hard. "Lean forward." He slowly brought his fingertips to her temples, his left arm a bit more slowly than the right. The chain jingled. He looked her in the eye as he made contact. "If there's something that you don't want me to see, Rose, just imagine putting it behind a door. And then shutting it."
Rose nodded. The Doctor closed his eyes, then opened them again.
"Oh, and Rose?" he said, his voice low and husky.
"Yeah?"
"I can feel the bond - it's possible that the urge to mate myself to you will become quite strong. If I try to, well..." He paused, looking uncomfortable. "Er... do something - you'll have to push me away. It's really not in our interests to have my barriers go down, and they're very close right now."
"What?" Rose exclaimed, but the Doctor had closed his eyes again and pressed his forehead to hers.
She was suddenly somewhere else - not the springtime meadow of her inner mindscape that she usually saw when the Doctor was in her head, but a place she didn't recognize. A vast expanse of jagged, icy peaks and blinding white snow met her eyes, and she held up an arm to shield herself against a sudden blast of wind-driven sleet. Looking down, she noted that she was wearing a drift-white, loose-fitting robe, trimmed with soft, frothy fur along the hood, and at the edges of the bell-shaped sleeves. She didn't see the Doctor anywhere, and kicked at the snow that lay beneath her feet, wondering what she should do. Something caught her eye in the exposed snow beneath the surface, and she knelt to investigate. It appeared to be a scattering of crushed pink rose petals - was this her meadow after all?
"Doctor?" she called uncertainly.
Strong arms encircled her from behind, and Rose jumped slightly as a pair of soft lips made contact with the base of her neck. "Oh!" she cried as she was playfully nipped. As she turned in his embrace to face him, his lips suddenly descended on hers.
"Doctor," she managed to get out between messy, frantic kisses. "You have to stop! Your barriers - "
He withdrew from her slowly and nodded, looking strangely bereft, and Rose's heart turned in her chest.
"You said you needed to look inside my head?" she gently reminded him. The loud crack of a glacier calving in the distance hung in the air, and Rose suddenly had the sensation of her memories being rifled through, like the pages of a book. She winced as some of the more painful memories of her adolescence flew by, and tried to focus on the Doctor, still standing in front of her, his brow furrowed in concentration.
Something moved in the distance.
Rose squinted out into the snowy glare. Across the endless white, she could make out something over the Doctor's shoulder - something dark, moving across the bleak landscape. It paused, then turned in the direction of where Rose and the Doctor stood, gaining speed. As it neared, Rose could see a streak of very alien blackness, bounding across the snow toward them, stars twinkling within its body. Almost instantaneously, it was upon them, and Rose shrieked, quickly pushing the Doctor out of the way of the creature....
Rose blinked rapidly, her heart racing and limbs flailing as she abruptly exited her mindscape and returned to reality. She fell backwards onto the packed snow, landing awkwardly. White hot pain flared through her ankle, and she grimaced as she tried to catch her breath, taking in noisy gasps for air through her teeth. The Doctor still sat tethered to the ship, watching her with wide eyes.
"What the hell was that?" she exclaimed, still gasping for breath.
"Rose," he said, looking horrified. "Oh, Rose, I don't... I...." He violently tugged at the chain that still bound his right wrist. "Why... why didn't you just let me go alone!" he cried, as the manacle cut into his already injured skin. Blood dripped silently onto the snow as he stood shakily to give himself better leverage.
"Doctor, you've got to stop! You're hurting yourself!" Rose shouted, alarmed at the growing number of crimson stains on the white surface. "Please!"
He calmed somewhat, giving the chain a last, futile tug before staring incredulously at her. "Rose... I can't... I can't lose you," he mumbled, his words barely audible to Rose's ear.
"Doctor?" she said, speaking softly in an attempt to keep both herself and the Doctor from panicking. "There was something in there, wasn't there? I wasn't seeing things? What did you see?" She waited for him to respond, taking in the rapid rise and fall of his chest. "Is it bad?" she whispered.
Several agonizing moments passed before the Doctor answered. "It's... it's worse than I thought, Rose," he murmured. "You don't just have a Fendahleen in there, Rose... you have the Fendahl core itself. If it manifests - "
"That's 'if,'" Rose interrupted, wanting nothing more than to fling her arms around him and cling to him tightly. "If."
"It's more a matter... a matter of 'when,' Rose," he said, his voice hoarse and unsteady. "You'll be completely consumed, and it's my fault for not keeping you safe!"
"It's not your fault, Doctor. We're in this together, remember? We'll find a way to get out of this mess," she said, trying to find the words that would reassure him.
"It is my fault, Rose. My fault. Mine," he snapped, his features distorted by his near-panicked state. "I couldn't save Thea. I killed her! I had to! Don't you understand?"
"You'll figure out something. You always do," Rose said, the tears starting to gather.
"And I've done something extremely stupid," the Doctor said, his voice wavering. Rose grabbed at his hand, intending to comfort him, but he jerked it away violently.
"The bond, Rose," he said, breathing heavily. "I've made a terrible mistake."
Rating: Adult
Characters: The Doctor (Tenth), Rose Tyler
Disclaimer: I do not own 'Doctor Who' and am making no profit from this fanfiction.
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Graphic Sex, Graphic Violence, Romance
Spoilers: Set mid Series 2
Author's Notes: This story follows the events in To Have And Not To Hold (first chapter of that story is here) and Not Here (the first chapter of that short follow-up is here). It is loosely based on the Fourth Doctor serial 'Image of the Fendahl', and contains elements from the 1996 TV movie and the novel 'The Taking of Planet 5'. Huge hugs to principia_coh for the amazing icon and banner!
Betas: Many, many thanks to platypus, brit_columbia and garpu!
Summary: The Doctor and Rose have been mysteriously diverted to the ice planet Seuls, located within the constellation of Canthares. It soon becomes apparent that things are not at all as they should be, and the newly-formed bond between them will be tested as the trap of an ancient enemy is sprung.
Previous Chapters:
One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine
Crossposted to time_and_chips, dwfiction, Teaspoon and The Zero Room.
Chapter 10
"Oh my God." Rose snatched her hand away from the Doctor's face as though it were burnt. She stumbled backwards as her mind reeled in disorientation, and her stomach lurched again. What had she done?
The Doctor had been jarred by Rose's sudden movement, and was trying to steady himself. His right arm was still tethered tightly to the icy vessel, and stuck up crazily in the air, while his left arm was immobilized by Rose's makeshift sling. He looked confused, and Rose couldn't blame him. "Rose?" he said uncertainly. "What's wrong?"
"I... I did this... something... to you. But I can't remember!" Rose cried, her hands flying to her mouth.
The Doctor regarded her for a moment before slowly swallowing. "Rose, it's all right," he said in a low voice, as though he were attempting to soothe a skittish horse.
"No! It's not all right! I blacked out... and I can't remember what's happened, and I've hurt you!" she cried. "Oh God," she added in a small voice. "What's happened to me?"
"Come here."
"I can't! What if I hurt you again?"
"I'll take my chances," the Doctor said, his face grim. "Rose, you've gone under twice now, and I need to find out exactly what's happened."
"What do you mean?" she said, sniffing.
"I'm sorry, but I need to take a look at your head, Rose. I have to see how much damage has been done."
Cold panic sluiced through her. "Damage? What are you talking about?" Her hands flew to her hair, and she started feeling around carefully for anything out of the ordinary.
"Not like that, Rose," the Doctor said, his voice cold. "Inside."
"They've been mucking about with my head? But you can put it right, yeah?" she asked. It made sense - maybe she was just in the early stages of being possessed, just as Mitya had described to her.
"I'm not sure - that's why I need to look." The Doctor scooted himself over a bit, grunting as he slackened the chain that still bound his right wrist. He was able to lower his right arm to a more comfortable position, with his elbow bent and his wrist near his head. "Oh, that's better," he sighed in relief before looking over at the pink hoody stabilizing his left arm. He raised an eyebrow. "What's this?"
"Sorry," Rose muttered. "That's the only th-thing I had to make a sling with." She shivered in her thin t-shirt.
"I really don't need it," the Doctor said, looking concerned. "The shoulder's already healing. You, though - you're going to freeze. You should take it back."
"Are you s-sure?" Rose asked, hugging her arms to herself and rubbing them.
He held her gaze. "Yeah. Just try not to jar my shoulder when you undo the knot."
Rose crawled over to the Doctor's side, trying in vain to keep her teeth from chattering. She carefully undid the knotted sleeves of the hoody at his neck, trying not to notice how his eyes slid shut when her fingers accidentally grazed the skin of his neck. After slowly easing the garment from under his elbow, she sat back on her heels and quickly shrugged into it, rubbing her hands briskly over her arms in an attempt to warm up.
"I don't suppose you have the sonic, do you?" the Doctor asked hopefully.
Rose shook her head. "N-no," she said, shaking her head. "'S with your coat, in the room with the s-skull."
The Doctor's eyes widened at this. "Skull? You saw it?"
"Yeah. It's the last thing I r-remember. It was glowing."
"I see."
Neither spoke for a few moments, and Rose was starting to feel nervous and panicky again, despite the Doctor's reassuring presence. "Doctor," she started, not sure how to bring up the subject. "You said that you'd seen this... this before, when you 'took care' of things. What happened?" He looked away from her, his eyes downcast. As the silence stretched out long enough to be uncomfortable, she hesitantly moved closer to where he sat, propped up against the side of the frozen, carved longboat. "Doctor?" she implored. "Please tell me. I need to know."
He raised haunted eyes to her, and her heart skipped a beat in her chest.
"Yes, I've seen and fought the Fendahl before, but it was incomplete. It had possessed several people, yes - but not enough to fully manifest. It was... almost like a ghost of itself, its encoded remains preserved in bone for twelve million years. Can you imagine? Playing dead for twelve million years?" Rose shrugged, and the Doctor continued, waving his right hand and making the chain jingle.
"It was reanimated by the combined energy of a rift in time and a scanning device." He paused, grabbing at the chain that bound his right wrist. "Granted, it only worked by chance, really... a one-in-a-million chance, or is that one-in-twelve million - "
Rose cleared her throat.
"Sorry. Dr. Fendelman's scanner - "
"What?" Rose interrupted. "Did he name the Fendahl or something? I thought you said this all happened on Earth!"
"Oh - nothing of the sort, just an odd series of events caused by the Fendahl's manipulation of your planet's history. Dr. Fendelman's scanner reanimated the Fendahl, and I was able to defeat it because it was incomplete. Dumb luck, really."
Rose smiled, despite the seriousness of their situation. "Seems to happen a lot."
He gave her a slight grin in return. "Yeah."
"So you said it'd possessed people before?" she said, hope beginning to kindle within her. "What happened to them? Were they all right after you sorted things?"
The Doctor looked away from her again before sighing heavily and continuing in a low voice. "The leader of the coven helping the Fendahl shot and killed Dr. Fendelman and one of his assistants. That left the coven short of the thirteen members needed to resurrect the Fendahl. Each of them still had a small piece of the Fendahl within them, though. A Fendahleen - able to control their thoughts and behavior through sheer psychic force, much like you saw with the colonists."
"So you're saying" - Rose paused, trying to make sense of what the Doctor was telling her - "the colonists? They each have a piece of this thing inside their heads? Is it in my head?"
"I don't know, Rose. That's why I need to look. There was someone else back then - "
"Why am I not surprised?" Rose muttered, her hand flying to her mouth almost immediately. "Sorry, I didn't mean - "
"Thea," the Doctor continued as if she hadn't spoken. "She was another of Dr. Fendelman's assistants. She paid the ultimate price - becoming the Fendahl itself."
"What?" Rose exclaimed. "So that colonist lady with the weird eyes is the Fendahl?"
The Doctor shook his head. "No. She's helping the Fendahl, but she hasn't become the Fendahl, at least not yet. She still has free will."
"So what happened to... Thea?" Rose asked, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer.
"I destroyed her, Rose," the Doctor said, his voice faltering. "After the Fendahl core overwhelmed her, I killed her. I had to... out of mercy."
Silence enveloped them, save for the loud pounding of Rose's heart and the rattle of the chain as the Doctor tried to pull himself free. After a few moments, Rose scooted again, planting herself between the Doctor's knees, where he could readily reach her. "Do it," she said in a shaky voice. "Look."
The Doctor swallowed hard. "Lean forward." He slowly brought his fingertips to her temples, his left arm a bit more slowly than the right. The chain jingled. He looked her in the eye as he made contact. "If there's something that you don't want me to see, Rose, just imagine putting it behind a door. And then shutting it."
Rose nodded. The Doctor closed his eyes, then opened them again.
"Oh, and Rose?" he said, his voice low and husky.
"Yeah?"
"I can feel the bond - it's possible that the urge to mate myself to you will become quite strong. If I try to, well..." He paused, looking uncomfortable. "Er... do something - you'll have to push me away. It's really not in our interests to have my barriers go down, and they're very close right now."
"What?" Rose exclaimed, but the Doctor had closed his eyes again and pressed his forehead to hers.
She was suddenly somewhere else - not the springtime meadow of her inner mindscape that she usually saw when the Doctor was in her head, but a place she didn't recognize. A vast expanse of jagged, icy peaks and blinding white snow met her eyes, and she held up an arm to shield herself against a sudden blast of wind-driven sleet. Looking down, she noted that she was wearing a drift-white, loose-fitting robe, trimmed with soft, frothy fur along the hood, and at the edges of the bell-shaped sleeves. She didn't see the Doctor anywhere, and kicked at the snow that lay beneath her feet, wondering what she should do. Something caught her eye in the exposed snow beneath the surface, and she knelt to investigate. It appeared to be a scattering of crushed pink rose petals - was this her meadow after all?
"Doctor?" she called uncertainly.
Strong arms encircled her from behind, and Rose jumped slightly as a pair of soft lips made contact with the base of her neck. "Oh!" she cried as she was playfully nipped. As she turned in his embrace to face him, his lips suddenly descended on hers.
"Doctor," she managed to get out between messy, frantic kisses. "You have to stop! Your barriers - "
He withdrew from her slowly and nodded, looking strangely bereft, and Rose's heart turned in her chest.
"You said you needed to look inside my head?" she gently reminded him. The loud crack of a glacier calving in the distance hung in the air, and Rose suddenly had the sensation of her memories being rifled through, like the pages of a book. She winced as some of the more painful memories of her adolescence flew by, and tried to focus on the Doctor, still standing in front of her, his brow furrowed in concentration.
Something moved in the distance.
Rose squinted out into the snowy glare. Across the endless white, she could make out something over the Doctor's shoulder - something dark, moving across the bleak landscape. It paused, then turned in the direction of where Rose and the Doctor stood, gaining speed. As it neared, Rose could see a streak of very alien blackness, bounding across the snow toward them, stars twinkling within its body. Almost instantaneously, it was upon them, and Rose shrieked, quickly pushing the Doctor out of the way of the creature....
Rose blinked rapidly, her heart racing and limbs flailing as she abruptly exited her mindscape and returned to reality. She fell backwards onto the packed snow, landing awkwardly. White hot pain flared through her ankle, and she grimaced as she tried to catch her breath, taking in noisy gasps for air through her teeth. The Doctor still sat tethered to the ship, watching her with wide eyes.
"What the hell was that?" she exclaimed, still gasping for breath.
"Rose," he said, looking horrified. "Oh, Rose, I don't... I...." He violently tugged at the chain that still bound his right wrist. "Why... why didn't you just let me go alone!" he cried, as the manacle cut into his already injured skin. Blood dripped silently onto the snow as he stood shakily to give himself better leverage.
"Doctor, you've got to stop! You're hurting yourself!" Rose shouted, alarmed at the growing number of crimson stains on the white surface. "Please!"
He calmed somewhat, giving the chain a last, futile tug before staring incredulously at her. "Rose... I can't... I can't lose you," he mumbled, his words barely audible to Rose's ear.
"Doctor?" she said, speaking softly in an attempt to keep both herself and the Doctor from panicking. "There was something in there, wasn't there? I wasn't seeing things? What did you see?" She waited for him to respond, taking in the rapid rise and fall of his chest. "Is it bad?" she whispered.
Several agonizing moments passed before the Doctor answered. "It's... it's worse than I thought, Rose," he murmured. "You don't just have a Fendahleen in there, Rose... you have the Fendahl core itself. If it manifests - "
"That's 'if,'" Rose interrupted, wanting nothing more than to fling her arms around him and cling to him tightly. "If."
"It's more a matter... a matter of 'when,' Rose," he said, his voice hoarse and unsteady. "You'll be completely consumed, and it's my fault for not keeping you safe!"
"It's not your fault, Doctor. We're in this together, remember? We'll find a way to get out of this mess," she said, trying to find the words that would reassure him.
"It is my fault, Rose. My fault. Mine," he snapped, his features distorted by his near-panicked state. "I couldn't save Thea. I killed her! I had to! Don't you understand?"
"You'll figure out something. You always do," Rose said, the tears starting to gather.
"And I've done something extremely stupid," the Doctor said, his voice wavering. Rose grabbed at his hand, intending to comfort him, but he jerked it away violently.
"The bond, Rose," he said, breathing heavily. "I've made a terrible mistake."