Fic: Lapis Philosophorum, Chapters Twenty-Four through Twenty-Six
NOTE: This WIP is nearing completion, and I'll continue to update it more frequently.
TITLE: ‘Lapis Philosophorum’
AUTHOR: QKellie
FANDOM: Doctor Who (and Torchwood to a lesser extent)
CHARACTERS: Rose Tyler, the Doctor, the Doctor ‘10.5’, Donna Noble, Jackie Tyler, Pete Tyler, Jake Simmonds, John Hart, Lucy Saxon, Harold Saxon, others
PAIRINGS: Rose/Doctor 10.5, Lucy Saxon/Harold Saxon (implied), Jake/Mickey (implied), others
RATING: PG-13
GENRE: Gen/drama/romance
WARNINGS: Spoilers for DW through series 4 and TW series 2x01. OCs present but not used to ship with anyone besides other OCs. Moderate to extreme Doctor/Rose shippiness abounds. Discussions of angst, action, violence, and bisexuality, but at heart this is a genfic, honestly.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This story takes a cut scene from DW’s series 4 finale as canon, but it does not depict it with a complete adherence to accuracy as it actually took place. TW spoilers spring up only after Chapter 23.
Prologues and Chapter One | Chapters Two and Three | Chapters Four through Six | Chapters Seven through Nine | Chapters Ten through Twelve | Interlude through Chapter Fourteen | Chapters Fifteen through Seventeen | Chapters Eighteen through Twenty | Chapters Twenty-One through Twenty-Three
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
In a quiet bedroom community on the outskirts of the capital city, a young student named Marguerite O’Malley was squealing. Her mother raised an eyebrow at her from behind her London Times. ‘Must you?’ she asked with a hint of disdain in her voice. ‘That thing ought not be at the breakfast table.’
Marguerite frowned. ‘Mum, it’s not any different than that,’ she said, gesturing at the newspaper. ‘It’s the same thing, just smaller.’
Her mother rolled her eyes. ‘Whatever you say, dear,’ she replied. ‘What has you quite so excited today, if I’m permitted to ask?’
Marguerite giggled. ‘If you don’t like my eHaro in the first place, you probably won’t understand or care,’ she said, sticking her tongue out playfully.
Mrs. O’Malley put her paper down. ‘Oh, come on, darling,’ she said, her expression softening, ‘I really do care about what interests you, I assure you. I admit to being a Luddite, but I don’t want you to think I don’t care what you like.’
Marguerite glanced dubiously at her mother, and her reverie dissipated slightly. ‘Promise you won’t poke fun at me?’
Mrs. O’Malley gave her daughter a warm smile. ‘Do I do that, ducks?’
Marguerite turned her eHaro screen around, upon which a video played soundlessly. ‘The new Haro Mini 18 is coming out,’ she told her mother, ‘and so there’s a new ad campaign.’ She began to blush furiously.
Mrs. O’Malley chuckled softly. ‘Their company president is a bit fetching, I’ll give ‘em that.’
Unbeknownst to either of them, they were staring at rogue Time Agent Captain John Hart extolling the virtues of a device cobbled together from alien technology. A scrolling bit of text beneath his image identified him not as Hart, however, but as ‘Axon Haros, Founder and CEO, Haroco.’ And forty miles away, the man masquerading as his son was bursting into his office with Harold Saxon’s widow.
No one was in the meeting to discuss the new Haro Mini 18.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Across the city, as turmoil gripped the Tyler estate, Heidi Walker spun her Figaro around in an alley and wedged it sideways between two buildings. A Mini Cooper had, until that moment, been screaming down the selfsame alley in the direction that now faced Heidi’s passenger door. Fortunately for the state of Torchwood’s car insurance premiums, the Cooper’s brakes were in excellent condition, as were Gilbert Freeman’s reflexes. Even several feet away and through layers of car window glass, Heidi could distinctly see Gilbert and Jake in the Cooper’s front seat mouthing the word ‘FUCK!’ simultaneously. She would’ve laughed if she hadn’t been half-terrified the two cars were about to collide.
When, mercifully, the Cooper had come to a complete stop, Heidi yanked up the Figaro’s emergency brake and, with impressive nimbleness and speed, crawled over the seats through to the passenger door and exited right in front of the Cooper. ‘What the hell is going on?!’ she demanded before the two men were out of their own vehicle. ‘Have you lot been paying attention to where the rest of the team even bloody well is?! And you!-’ She jabbed a finger angrily toward Jake as he opened his car door. ‘What’ve you done?!’
Jake cringed. ‘How do you always know everything?’
Heidi’s face hardened for a moment, and after a beat, she turned back to Gilbert. ‘Miss Tyler and Mr. Smith have been in a spot of trouble for quite some time now,’ she said coldly. ‘Did you realize that?’
Gilbert’s shoulders sagged. ‘Not as such,’ he mumbled.
‘I’m sure you were looking out for Mr. Simmonds here, but Gilbert, come on, what’s the first rule I put in around here, hmm?’
‘Check in with one another.’
‘Check in with one another, that’s right!’ she said, her tone brightening. ‘Which is why we have the microblog, the calibrated eHaros, and the lot of it. Do you think I do all these things to make your lives more difficult?’
Gilbert and Jake looked like scolded children. The former actually went so far as to shuffle his feet along the ground. ‘No,’ they both managed to mumble.
‘No, that’s not why I do it,’ Heidi agreed. ‘I want to keep us all safe; you know that. And the best way to do so is to know where everybody is at any given time!’ She took a deep breath and then turned to Gilbert. ‘Now, you care to fill me in on all this, or shall I have to review the security feeds?’
Jake frowned. ‘Oi, I ain’t good ‘nough to ask, that it?’
Heidi rolled her eyes. ‘Normally, yes, Jake,’ she replied, ‘but I’d prefer to question the fellow who doesn’t smell of excrement at the moment.’
Even Jake had to reply to that, and so Gilbert spent the next ten minutes debriefing Heidi on the situation. Heidi, for her part, made sure to stand downwind of Jake.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The last time Gilbert had a girlfriend, a completely different prime minister was in office. And, to make himself sound even more pathetic, that wasn’t even his longest relationship. To find that one, you had to go back over a decade into the recesses of his completely unimpressive dating history. Once, he’d contemplated making a spreadsheet of every girl he’d ever fancied and what had come of it, but when he realized how depressing the colour-coding was likely to get, he abandoned the project.
Now, he found himself in the unenviable position of being head over for his supervisor, so not only did he after to make certain to not bollocks up his daily wardrobe choice, he had to be an exemplary employee-beyond so, even-just to prove himself impressive and responsible. Which he had failed to do today, thanks to his associate. Brilliant. So Jake had the ability to screw him over at work and in love. Lovely bloke, that Jake.
To be fair, Jake had suffered his own mysterious losses as of late. It wasn’t so very long ago that his boyfriend was killed and a veritable doppelganger showed up in his place, only to be not only disinterested in forging a new relationship but also soon enough himself to be gone back to his home universe. Had to be not only confusing but frustrating as well, and Jake had certainly gone through what it felt like to have to see the object of one’s unrequited affections at work every day. Perhaps best if Gilbert gave old Jake the benefit of the doubt after all.
Meanwhile, far beneath the city, a small furry creature slept comfortably, blissfully unaware that only hours ago, Gilbert Freeman had been staring at the building beneath which it made its bed. The old Rhinebarry Theatre on Hearth Street was a crumbling dump well past its prime, but the creature neither understood this nor cared about its surroundings much. As long as its master was about, and as long as its master gave it spectacular nourishment and deliciously soft bedding, it was content.
Though it slept well, it was a small creature, and as such it did sleep only lightly. The merest hint of a key on a lock sent it into full alertness, its tiny rib cage blooming in and out rapidly, like the most fragile set of fireplace bellows sized for a child’s playhouse. Then the voice came, a near-whispered summons of the creature’s name, which sent it scuttling from its bed toward the base of a set of rickety stairs.
Slim, milk-white ankles with jaunty little knots of bone peeped out of silky pink heeled slippers topped in marabou. The feet carefully picked their way down the stairs. The creature positively leapt for joy at the sight of the person who most often fed it.
‘There you are, love,’ the woman said with an expression somewhere between smile and smirk. Her lips were full and painted a deep red, and her hair flowed down her back like golden water, terminating in lush curls, as in the style of a noir siren. She set a small plate down on the floor in front of her darling pet and went back upstairs.
The creature eagerly shoved its furry muzzle into the food. After even just a few seconds of eating, it knew these souls had been tender morsels indeed! Mistress must have worked very hard to harvest these in particular from their hosts.
Satiated after a few moments, the creature stretched languidly and left half the contents of the meal intact. Always good to pause in eating, it thought, as the last few bits of human essence always made for a such lovely dessert.
Upstairs, the creature’s mistress entered the magician’s dressing room. She donned her sparkling assistant’s costume and admired herself in the mirror unabashedly for several long moments. ‘Couldn’t have asked for better,’ she said aloud. ‘So far, this life will do quite well.’
TITLE: ‘Lapis Philosophorum’
AUTHOR: QKellie
FANDOM: Doctor Who (and Torchwood to a lesser extent)
CHARACTERS: Rose Tyler, the Doctor, the Doctor ‘10.5’, Donna Noble, Jackie Tyler, Pete Tyler, Jake Simmonds, John Hart, Lucy Saxon, Harold Saxon, others
PAIRINGS: Rose/Doctor 10.5, Lucy Saxon/Harold Saxon (implied), Jake/Mickey (implied), others
RATING: PG-13
GENRE: Gen/drama/romance
WARNINGS: Spoilers for DW through series 4 and TW series 2x01. OCs present but not used to ship with anyone besides other OCs. Moderate to extreme Doctor/Rose shippiness abounds. Discussions of angst, action, violence, and bisexuality, but at heart this is a genfic, honestly.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This story takes a cut scene from DW’s series 4 finale as canon, but it does not depict it with a complete adherence to accuracy as it actually took place. TW spoilers spring up only after Chapter 23.
Prologues and Chapter One | Chapters Two and Three | Chapters Four through Six | Chapters Seven through Nine | Chapters Ten through Twelve | Interlude through Chapter Fourteen | Chapters Fifteen through Seventeen | Chapters Eighteen through Twenty | Chapters Twenty-One through Twenty-Three
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
In a quiet bedroom community on the outskirts of the capital city, a young student named Marguerite O’Malley was squealing. Her mother raised an eyebrow at her from behind her London Times. ‘Must you?’ she asked with a hint of disdain in her voice. ‘That thing ought not be at the breakfast table.’
Marguerite frowned. ‘Mum, it’s not any different than that,’ she said, gesturing at the newspaper. ‘It’s the same thing, just smaller.’
Her mother rolled her eyes. ‘Whatever you say, dear,’ she replied. ‘What has you quite so excited today, if I’m permitted to ask?’
Marguerite giggled. ‘If you don’t like my eHaro in the first place, you probably won’t understand or care,’ she said, sticking her tongue out playfully.
Mrs. O’Malley put her paper down. ‘Oh, come on, darling,’ she said, her expression softening, ‘I really do care about what interests you, I assure you. I admit to being a Luddite, but I don’t want you to think I don’t care what you like.’
Marguerite glanced dubiously at her mother, and her reverie dissipated slightly. ‘Promise you won’t poke fun at me?’
Mrs. O’Malley gave her daughter a warm smile. ‘Do I do that, ducks?’
Marguerite turned her eHaro screen around, upon which a video played soundlessly. ‘The new Haro Mini 18 is coming out,’ she told her mother, ‘and so there’s a new ad campaign.’ She began to blush furiously.
Mrs. O’Malley chuckled softly. ‘Their company president is a bit fetching, I’ll give ‘em that.’
Unbeknownst to either of them, they were staring at rogue Time Agent Captain John Hart extolling the virtues of a device cobbled together from alien technology. A scrolling bit of text beneath his image identified him not as Hart, however, but as ‘Axon Haros, Founder and CEO, Haroco.’ And forty miles away, the man masquerading as his son was bursting into his office with Harold Saxon’s widow.
No one was in the meeting to discuss the new Haro Mini 18.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Across the city, as turmoil gripped the Tyler estate, Heidi Walker spun her Figaro around in an alley and wedged it sideways between two buildings. A Mini Cooper had, until that moment, been screaming down the selfsame alley in the direction that now faced Heidi’s passenger door. Fortunately for the state of Torchwood’s car insurance premiums, the Cooper’s brakes were in excellent condition, as were Gilbert Freeman’s reflexes. Even several feet away and through layers of car window glass, Heidi could distinctly see Gilbert and Jake in the Cooper’s front seat mouthing the word ‘FUCK!’ simultaneously. She would’ve laughed if she hadn’t been half-terrified the two cars were about to collide.
When, mercifully, the Cooper had come to a complete stop, Heidi yanked up the Figaro’s emergency brake and, with impressive nimbleness and speed, crawled over the seats through to the passenger door and exited right in front of the Cooper. ‘What the hell is going on?!’ she demanded before the two men were out of their own vehicle. ‘Have you lot been paying attention to where the rest of the team even bloody well is?! And you!-’ She jabbed a finger angrily toward Jake as he opened his car door. ‘What’ve you done?!’
Jake cringed. ‘How do you always know everything?’
Heidi’s face hardened for a moment, and after a beat, she turned back to Gilbert. ‘Miss Tyler and Mr. Smith have been in a spot of trouble for quite some time now,’ she said coldly. ‘Did you realize that?’
Gilbert’s shoulders sagged. ‘Not as such,’ he mumbled.
‘I’m sure you were looking out for Mr. Simmonds here, but Gilbert, come on, what’s the first rule I put in around here, hmm?’
‘Check in with one another.’
‘Check in with one another, that’s right!’ she said, her tone brightening. ‘Which is why we have the microblog, the calibrated eHaros, and the lot of it. Do you think I do all these things to make your lives more difficult?’
Gilbert and Jake looked like scolded children. The former actually went so far as to shuffle his feet along the ground. ‘No,’ they both managed to mumble.
‘No, that’s not why I do it,’ Heidi agreed. ‘I want to keep us all safe; you know that. And the best way to do so is to know where everybody is at any given time!’ She took a deep breath and then turned to Gilbert. ‘Now, you care to fill me in on all this, or shall I have to review the security feeds?’
Jake frowned. ‘Oi, I ain’t good ‘nough to ask, that it?’
Heidi rolled her eyes. ‘Normally, yes, Jake,’ she replied, ‘but I’d prefer to question the fellow who doesn’t smell of excrement at the moment.’
Even Jake had to reply to that, and so Gilbert spent the next ten minutes debriefing Heidi on the situation. Heidi, for her part, made sure to stand downwind of Jake.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The last time Gilbert had a girlfriend, a completely different prime minister was in office. And, to make himself sound even more pathetic, that wasn’t even his longest relationship. To find that one, you had to go back over a decade into the recesses of his completely unimpressive dating history. Once, he’d contemplated making a spreadsheet of every girl he’d ever fancied and what had come of it, but when he realized how depressing the colour-coding was likely to get, he abandoned the project.
Now, he found himself in the unenviable position of being head over for his supervisor, so not only did he after to make certain to not bollocks up his daily wardrobe choice, he had to be an exemplary employee-beyond so, even-just to prove himself impressive and responsible. Which he had failed to do today, thanks to his associate. Brilliant. So Jake had the ability to screw him over at work and in love. Lovely bloke, that Jake.
To be fair, Jake had suffered his own mysterious losses as of late. It wasn’t so very long ago that his boyfriend was killed and a veritable doppelganger showed up in his place, only to be not only disinterested in forging a new relationship but also soon enough himself to be gone back to his home universe. Had to be not only confusing but frustrating as well, and Jake had certainly gone through what it felt like to have to see the object of one’s unrequited affections at work every day. Perhaps best if Gilbert gave old Jake the benefit of the doubt after all.
Meanwhile, far beneath the city, a small furry creature slept comfortably, blissfully unaware that only hours ago, Gilbert Freeman had been staring at the building beneath which it made its bed. The old Rhinebarry Theatre on Hearth Street was a crumbling dump well past its prime, but the creature neither understood this nor cared about its surroundings much. As long as its master was about, and as long as its master gave it spectacular nourishment and deliciously soft bedding, it was content.
Though it slept well, it was a small creature, and as such it did sleep only lightly. The merest hint of a key on a lock sent it into full alertness, its tiny rib cage blooming in and out rapidly, like the most fragile set of fireplace bellows sized for a child’s playhouse. Then the voice came, a near-whispered summons of the creature’s name, which sent it scuttling from its bed toward the base of a set of rickety stairs.
Slim, milk-white ankles with jaunty little knots of bone peeped out of silky pink heeled slippers topped in marabou. The feet carefully picked their way down the stairs. The creature positively leapt for joy at the sight of the person who most often fed it.
‘There you are, love,’ the woman said with an expression somewhere between smile and smirk. Her lips were full and painted a deep red, and her hair flowed down her back like golden water, terminating in lush curls, as in the style of a noir siren. She set a small plate down on the floor in front of her darling pet and went back upstairs.
The creature eagerly shoved its furry muzzle into the food. After even just a few seconds of eating, it knew these souls had been tender morsels indeed! Mistress must have worked very hard to harvest these in particular from their hosts.
Satiated after a few moments, the creature stretched languidly and left half the contents of the meal intact. Always good to pause in eating, it thought, as the last few bits of human essence always made for a such lovely dessert.
Upstairs, the creature’s mistress entered the magician’s dressing room. She donned her sparkling assistant’s costume and admired herself in the mirror unabashedly for several long moments. ‘Couldn’t have asked for better,’ she said aloud. ‘So far, this life will do quite well.’