Fic: Lapis Philosophorum, Interlude through Chapter Thirty
I haven't posted chapters from this story since July 15th, but I have been working on it (and I have more done than I'm posting here). It's just a little longer and more sprawl-y than I had originally planned, so I apologize for the long, long wait!
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. The final arc of the Tenth Doctor's final episodes negates elements herein, so in this story's "universe," the specials are non-canon.
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 | Chapters Twenty-Four through Twenty-Six | Chapters Twenty-Seven and Twenty-Eight
INTERLUDE
PROJECT: HLS001 Wedding Video 10022007
OUTPUT FORMAT: .avi for QuickTime (bitrate optimised for DVD not web streaming)
SOURCE FOOTAGE FILES AND TIMES: morningwbride1.avi (00:20:06), morningwbride2.avi (00:20:20), morningwgroom.avi (00:05:19), bridesmaids1.avi (00:10:57), bridesmaids2.avi (00:15:05), groomsmen.avi (00:08:16), ceremonyhouseleft1.avi (00:19:30), ceremonyhouseleft2.avi (00:19:30), ceremonycentreaisle1.avi (00:19:30), ceremonycentreaisle2.avi (00:19:30), ceremonyhouseright1.avi (00:19:30), ceremonyhouseright2.avi (00:19:30), ceremonychoirloft.avi (00:19:30), cocktailhour.avi (00:32:15), weddingpartyentrance.avi (00:10:19), firstdances.avi (00:12:27), cakecutting.avi (00:04:50), quickcutsdancing.avi (00:46:09), gartertoss.avi (00:00:57), bouquettoss.avi (00:02:34), lastdance.avi (00:04:01)
MUSIC TASKS: Replace/match-up background music w/clean copies of CD-quality sources except for ceremony pieces (cut choral/organ music segments entirely). For cocktailhour.avi file, re-edit to ‘Beyond the Sea’ (Bobby Darin version), weddingpartyentrance.avi to any one of several Sinatra tunes bride has authorised (check time codes), and firstdances.avi get re-edited to list per bride (see file B.doc on shared hard drive for list and time codes).
VARIOUS MOMENTS TO EDIT OUT: Cut from 00:15:03 to 00:17:01 of morningwbride1.avi of bride crying on phone with her dad. Totally delete groomsmen.avi file (check w/bride one more to make totally sure, but probably). Consider deleting last 10 seconds of gartertoss.avi, starting w/when groom leaves the dance floor (DO NOT show this file to the bride under any circumstances-excise this from the archives completely ASAP).
OTHER NOTES/INFORMATION: Polly in Line Editing wants to save footage following lastdance.avi file (Brett was filming w/the high def camera) for possible B.M. of the groom considering his current position. Gareth does not think this is a good idea AT ALL, as he has had a good working relationship with the bride and also, as he freely told Polly, ‘I have a soul.’
Further notes were scribbled this way and that in the margins of the form, the entirety of which was also covered in liberal amounts of blood. Police had been unable to locate the files enumerated therein amongst any of the company’s computers, hard drives, flash drives, cameras, or servers.
The murders of all members of the staff of David and Lloyd Wedding Video and Photography were never solved, but the events just happened to coincide with one of Prime Minister Saxon’s holidays to his country estate, where he spent four days in near-seclusion totally unobserved. His then-new bride, Lucy, had declined his invitation to accompany him, citing an uncharacteristic and sudden bout of stomach flu.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Tarminster. A deadly boring place of barren landscape and fish hatcheries. The cleric, until 1967, was Bishop Teryn Cole, the mid-twentieth century patriarch of the oldest family of the town. By the time he passed on, he was over a hundred years old and had more children than remaining brain cells. Still, he’d been kept on the books as the acting officiant, even though it was more likely that his eldest son, Sir Roderick Cole IV, would be on hand to ‘assist’.
It would prove to be Roderick’s son, however, who would inherit the family’s most valuable asset--namely, the talent of alchemy. Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel, the alchemists who (according to legend) discovered the Philosopher’s Stone, emigrated from France to England before anyone in their circle could notice the elderly duo was not so much aging, not to mention dying. Tarminster, with its high mortality rate, was not a bad choice for the couple, especially if they went on holiday enough that they could return every few generations as their own descendants. The natural sort of descendants they did have in droves, to whom they freely passed on their gifts for science and magic as well as diplomacy. The branch of their children and grandchildren which eventually became the Cole family was well versed in both, though the political side was more apparent on the surface during Roderick’s generation.
Sir Roderick Teryn Flamel Cole V met Bella Margaret Charles in 1971, but it was not until 1982 that their first and only child was born. During the intervening years, Bella managed to win Roderick’s heart, convince him to marry her, and began setting up a comfortable home for the two of them precisely between the small ‘fashionable’ side of Tarminster and the outlying village of Midge, which was little more than an abandoned commune full of former peace activists and glitter rock fans. Bella, though not a Flamel by birth, was fascinated by the couple when first she met them, and even though Roderick and his father denied their identity, she knew straightaway who they really were. To Perenelle, she begged infusion of knowledge, not only for her own sake but for her children, as Bella was eager but unable to conceive. Through Perenelle’s help, darling little Lucy was born in 1982.
Though her parents loved her, they recognised Tarminster was not exactly the pinnacle of diverse and intellectual society, and so they sent her off to Brighton to study at Roedean at eleven. Up to that point, she’d been so close to her mother, and so the separation was difficult for both of them. Bella was a clever lass, though, and found ways for the two of them to communicate across the miles, even without the use of electronics: Bella would simply come to Lucy in her sleep, and in their dreams, the two had lengthy, complex training sessions about the nature of chemical, magical, and technological processes. Mrs. Cole taught her daughter everything her mother in law had taught her, and then some. By the time Lucy finished her last form at school, she had amassed more knowledge of alchemy than of her actual daytime studies. She knew how to transmute lead into gold, cast a glamour, grow and remove hair with the merest thought, and how to act as a conduit for spirits no longer on the earthly plane.
In an attempt to maintain some shred of normalcy in her life, she spent a year after graduation playing on the Sussex netball team while deciding what to do about the rest of her education. Finally, her father convinced her to stop prattling about and all but forced her into St. Andrews, where she flitted from class to class, unsure of anything but her mother’s continued nurturing of her innate talents. Under pressure from her mentors to declare a field, she finally settled upon Italian, though she became more interested in editing later, making it her minor field. An internship led to a job upon commencement at Fields and Rhodes, a non-fiction house who hired her on as a junior editor.
That was where everything changed.
Harold Saxon was an up-and-coming MP whom his party was keen on grooming to run for Prime Minister. As such, a swift deal was struck with F&R to produce his memoirs. Publicly, the book would be an autobiography, but certainly someone as busy as Saxon (so his head staffers said) would need… no, not a ‘ghost writer’, that was such an ugly term, wasn’t it? Better to call it a ‘co-author’, didn’t they think, and wasn’t it in the public’s interest to be able to have confidence that their elected officials were intelligent and adept multi-taskers? Surely he could be expected to serve in his capacity in parliament, run for PM, and write a book all at the same time, but the reality of it… weeeell, it was fine to… fudge things just a touch, wasn’t it?
Lucy wouldn’t get the byline, of course, she’d have to use a nom de plume, something official and dull-sounding. Wouldn’t do to be written by ‘Harold Saxon and Lucy Cole’. Her name sounded like a children’s presenter, not a respectable co-author. And so, for the cover they called her ‘L.C. Angle’. Professional, crisp, and vaguely mysterious--just like Mr. Saxon himself. During their all-too-brief meetings together to prepare the book, Lucy herself became smitten almost immediately and was certain Harold couldn’t possibly feel anything close to the same way. And yet once the book had gone to press, Harold asked to take a meeting with her on the pretense of discussing publicity.
It was at this meeting that Lucy boarded the TARDIS, and she and Harold went on a grand adventure together that lasted three years in real time but which saw them only absent from London for twenty minutes. On their journeys, Lucy fell deeper in love as Harold showed her marvelous worlds, other times, and magnificent places. Certainly, each leg of the journey was made in order to further one of Harold’s nefarious plans to position himself as the next PM of the UK, but Lucy didn’t care. She loved him blessedly, completely, and wholly, and he seemed to grow to love her back, as much as a man of his power is ever capable.
Their nights were heady, their days full, and the troubling times never marred their courtship.
That only came later.
When Harold’s body had been consumed by the flames set alight by that damnable Doctor, Lucy had crept to the pyre in the night and extricated a ring from the debris. Harold had told her enough about Time Lord physiology and metaphysicality to know that ‘dead’ did not mean the same to his people as it did to humans. After all, her mother and ancestress had trained her well, hadn’t they? Bringing a being back to life who was already much more than a mere mortal homo sapien… how hard could that be?
Several years later, it was proving to be quite a bit more difficult than she could have ever imagined. By going across into the alternate universe with Jeremy, Lucy had hoped it would all be easier. After all, there would be no issues of paradox, nothing to stop Harold from being alive again in this reality, but some of their theoretical solutions were less than desirable. They could actually quite easily bring him back as an infant form of his first physical makeup, but that would negate all the reasons Lucy wanted him back in the first place. He’d be more like her son than her husband at that point, and while he would be the infamous Master no matter what, he wouldn’t be Harold, and that was what was most important to her.
The astrological alignment and constitution of a TARDIS would provide the appropriate link, and the help of Jeremy’s Time Agent associate would help with the physics components, while her own talents were still being put to work on the more mystical components. After months of trial and error, they were finally getting it, thanks to John Hart’s vast sums of money he was able to pour into the project via his Haroco sideline. It was simply a nice side effect that the horrible little devices had so swiftly taken over the entire British economy. When Harold returned, he’d have access to inestimable wealth with which to fund his second rise to political power.
Part of the problem was Jeremy, though. It appeared that John Hart was in it for the glory, the money, and the thrill of it all, but Jeremy’s purposes seemed a spot more opaque. He claimed when pressed to only care about chaos and the glory of bringing the Master back to power, but Lucy honestly didn’t see what was in it for him. She sometimes wondered if there was something familiar about the lad, if he’d worked for Harold’s administration during the year that damnable Martha Jones managed to erase, but that wasn’t it. It was simply that he remembered it, not that he’d been there exactly--that was what nagged at her. How the devil did Jeremy remember it? The only people who remembered it were those who were actually there: herself, the Doctor, Martha, Jack Harkness… what was Jeremy to gain from this?
When Lucy found herself going ‘round in circles about Jeremy’s motives, she’d usually have to have a lie down for at least an hour.
However, the mere chance of seeing Harold again… that made it all worthwhile. No, it would never be the perfect relationship, and of course she’d always have to share him with the universe, but it was all acceptable trade-off for just one more moment with him. One more ride across the galaxies--and, since this universe was new to her, it would be all the more adventurous--and one more night spent in his arms… never to be a lonely young widow again.
Still, she recalled all too vividly how that Martha Jones and Jack Harkness had looked upon the Doctor with such love and admiration, and now how Rose Tyler looked at him, too… was that even close to how she felt about Harold? All Time Lords were not created equal, it seemed. She adored her husband, and yet…
Would the Doctor have ever raised a hand to one of his companions, the way the Master did to her? And here she wasn’t a mere companion; he actually wed her and bed her and therefore was supposed to love her.
Was the way Harold treated Lucy love?
With the plan so far in motion, it was best not to waste time worrying about emotions. Get the job done, that was her goal. The rest would sort itself out in the end.
CHAPTER THIRTY
‘I don’t like feelin’ like me hands are tied, love.’
Jackie chuckled and traced long fingernails along his chest. ‘That’s not what you said last night…’
Pete rolled his eyes. ‘You’re mad, you know that?’ Still, he couldn’t help but smile at her, even if it was tinged with a bit of sadness. She was his Jackie but… not. So alike but often so different.
She brought him out of his brief reverie quickly. No time for self-pitying around her. She talked too much. Which, Pete reasoned, was probably just what he needed.
‘So what’s the harm in transferring the lad elsewhere?’ Jackie asked. ‘I mean, if he’s unreliable and sneaky and odd, but you can’t fire ‘im, why keep ‘im on in somethin’ what’ll muck the whole workplace up if he’s off cadgin’ a fag or whatever it is he’s doin’? Hmm? Find somethin’ else for ‘im.’
Pete sighed. ‘I don’t honestly want to do that,’ he said gruffly. ‘I want to sack the git and be done with it.’
Jackie shrugged. ‘Then why don’t you?’ Pete started to protest, but Jackie cut him off. ‘Who’s company is this, darling? Yours or this Haroco bastard?’
‘Now, Jackie, Haroco’s been very good to both of us,’ he pointed out. ‘Good for the whole country, even. Rebuilt a lot of stuff what got destroyed in the attacks and all. Axon Haros is a decent bloke.’
Jackie turned away and took up an emery board from her nightstand. Her lips were pursed as she began running the file across her nails.
Pete sighed. ‘Jacks, I know this one. Passive aggressive. You want me to tell you you’re right and I’m wrong.’
‘Well, yeah,’ Jackie replied immediately, no hint of sheepishness in her tone. ‘Honestly, why make me even go through the motions? Just tell me you’re wrong and be done with it so we can get some sleep, darling.’
Pete shook his head. ‘Ain’t that simple, is it? You honestly want me to do something counter to Axon bloody Haros?!’
‘You said yourself he’s a decent bloke,’ Jackie pointed out. ‘Do you really think he’ll react with such overprotection of his kid--who, may I remind you, is a full-fledged adult man who can take care of himself--that he’d retaliate somehow? Kill your whole bleedin’ company?’
Pete’s expression softened; he kissed Jackie on the cheek. ‘You’re probably right, ducks,’ he said. ‘I’m always expecting the worst out of folks, aren’t I? What’s really the worst that could happen?’
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. The final arc of the Tenth Doctor's final episodes negates elements herein, so in this story's "universe," the specials are non-canon.
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 | Chapters Twenty-Four through Twenty-Six | Chapters Twenty-Seven and Twenty-Eight
INTERLUDE
PROJECT: HLS001 Wedding Video 10022007
OUTPUT FORMAT: .avi for QuickTime (bitrate optimised for DVD not web streaming)
SOURCE FOOTAGE FILES AND TIMES: morningwbride1.avi (00:20:06), morningwbride2.avi (00:20:20), morningwgroom.avi (00:05:19), bridesmaids1.avi (00:10:57), bridesmaids2.avi (00:15:05), groomsmen.avi (00:08:16), ceremonyhouseleft1.avi (00:19:30), ceremonyhouseleft2.avi (00:19:30), ceremonycentreaisle1.avi (00:19:30), ceremonycentreaisle2.avi (00:19:30), ceremonyhouseright1.avi (00:19:30), ceremonyhouseright2.avi (00:19:30), ceremonychoirloft.avi (00:19:30), cocktailhour.avi (00:32:15), weddingpartyentrance.avi (00:10:19), firstdances.avi (00:12:27), cakecutting.avi (00:04:50), quickcutsdancing.avi (00:46:09), gartertoss.avi (00:00:57), bouquettoss.avi (00:02:34), lastdance.avi (00:04:01)
MUSIC TASKS: Replace/match-up background music w/clean copies of CD-quality sources except for ceremony pieces (cut choral/organ music segments entirely). For cocktailhour.avi file, re-edit to ‘Beyond the Sea’ (Bobby Darin version), weddingpartyentrance.avi to any one of several Sinatra tunes bride has authorised (check time codes), and firstdances.avi get re-edited to list per bride (see file B.doc on shared hard drive for list and time codes).
VARIOUS MOMENTS TO EDIT OUT: Cut from 00:15:03 to 00:17:01 of morningwbride1.avi of bride crying on phone with her dad. Totally delete groomsmen.avi file (check w/bride one more to make totally sure, but probably). Consider deleting last 10 seconds of gartertoss.avi, starting w/when groom leaves the dance floor (DO NOT show this file to the bride under any circumstances-excise this from the archives completely ASAP).
OTHER NOTES/INFORMATION: Polly in Line Editing wants to save footage following lastdance.avi file (Brett was filming w/the high def camera) for possible B.M. of the groom considering his current position. Gareth does not think this is a good idea AT ALL, as he has had a good working relationship with the bride and also, as he freely told Polly, ‘I have a soul.’
Further notes were scribbled this way and that in the margins of the form, the entirety of which was also covered in liberal amounts of blood. Police had been unable to locate the files enumerated therein amongst any of the company’s computers, hard drives, flash drives, cameras, or servers.
The murders of all members of the staff of David and Lloyd Wedding Video and Photography were never solved, but the events just happened to coincide with one of Prime Minister Saxon’s holidays to his country estate, where he spent four days in near-seclusion totally unobserved. His then-new bride, Lucy, had declined his invitation to accompany him, citing an uncharacteristic and sudden bout of stomach flu.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Tarminster. A deadly boring place of barren landscape and fish hatcheries. The cleric, until 1967, was Bishop Teryn Cole, the mid-twentieth century patriarch of the oldest family of the town. By the time he passed on, he was over a hundred years old and had more children than remaining brain cells. Still, he’d been kept on the books as the acting officiant, even though it was more likely that his eldest son, Sir Roderick Cole IV, would be on hand to ‘assist’.
It would prove to be Roderick’s son, however, who would inherit the family’s most valuable asset--namely, the talent of alchemy. Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel, the alchemists who (according to legend) discovered the Philosopher’s Stone, emigrated from France to England before anyone in their circle could notice the elderly duo was not so much aging, not to mention dying. Tarminster, with its high mortality rate, was not a bad choice for the couple, especially if they went on holiday enough that they could return every few generations as their own descendants. The natural sort of descendants they did have in droves, to whom they freely passed on their gifts for science and magic as well as diplomacy. The branch of their children and grandchildren which eventually became the Cole family was well versed in both, though the political side was more apparent on the surface during Roderick’s generation.
Sir Roderick Teryn Flamel Cole V met Bella Margaret Charles in 1971, but it was not until 1982 that their first and only child was born. During the intervening years, Bella managed to win Roderick’s heart, convince him to marry her, and began setting up a comfortable home for the two of them precisely between the small ‘fashionable’ side of Tarminster and the outlying village of Midge, which was little more than an abandoned commune full of former peace activists and glitter rock fans. Bella, though not a Flamel by birth, was fascinated by the couple when first she met them, and even though Roderick and his father denied their identity, she knew straightaway who they really were. To Perenelle, she begged infusion of knowledge, not only for her own sake but for her children, as Bella was eager but unable to conceive. Through Perenelle’s help, darling little Lucy was born in 1982.
Though her parents loved her, they recognised Tarminster was not exactly the pinnacle of diverse and intellectual society, and so they sent her off to Brighton to study at Roedean at eleven. Up to that point, she’d been so close to her mother, and so the separation was difficult for both of them. Bella was a clever lass, though, and found ways for the two of them to communicate across the miles, even without the use of electronics: Bella would simply come to Lucy in her sleep, and in their dreams, the two had lengthy, complex training sessions about the nature of chemical, magical, and technological processes. Mrs. Cole taught her daughter everything her mother in law had taught her, and then some. By the time Lucy finished her last form at school, she had amassed more knowledge of alchemy than of her actual daytime studies. She knew how to transmute lead into gold, cast a glamour, grow and remove hair with the merest thought, and how to act as a conduit for spirits no longer on the earthly plane.
In an attempt to maintain some shred of normalcy in her life, she spent a year after graduation playing on the Sussex netball team while deciding what to do about the rest of her education. Finally, her father convinced her to stop prattling about and all but forced her into St. Andrews, where she flitted from class to class, unsure of anything but her mother’s continued nurturing of her innate talents. Under pressure from her mentors to declare a field, she finally settled upon Italian, though she became more interested in editing later, making it her minor field. An internship led to a job upon commencement at Fields and Rhodes, a non-fiction house who hired her on as a junior editor.
That was where everything changed.
Harold Saxon was an up-and-coming MP whom his party was keen on grooming to run for Prime Minister. As such, a swift deal was struck with F&R to produce his memoirs. Publicly, the book would be an autobiography, but certainly someone as busy as Saxon (so his head staffers said) would need… no, not a ‘ghost writer’, that was such an ugly term, wasn’t it? Better to call it a ‘co-author’, didn’t they think, and wasn’t it in the public’s interest to be able to have confidence that their elected officials were intelligent and adept multi-taskers? Surely he could be expected to serve in his capacity in parliament, run for PM, and write a book all at the same time, but the reality of it… weeeell, it was fine to… fudge things just a touch, wasn’t it?
Lucy wouldn’t get the byline, of course, she’d have to use a nom de plume, something official and dull-sounding. Wouldn’t do to be written by ‘Harold Saxon and Lucy Cole’. Her name sounded like a children’s presenter, not a respectable co-author. And so, for the cover they called her ‘L.C. Angle’. Professional, crisp, and vaguely mysterious--just like Mr. Saxon himself. During their all-too-brief meetings together to prepare the book, Lucy herself became smitten almost immediately and was certain Harold couldn’t possibly feel anything close to the same way. And yet once the book had gone to press, Harold asked to take a meeting with her on the pretense of discussing publicity.
It was at this meeting that Lucy boarded the TARDIS, and she and Harold went on a grand adventure together that lasted three years in real time but which saw them only absent from London for twenty minutes. On their journeys, Lucy fell deeper in love as Harold showed her marvelous worlds, other times, and magnificent places. Certainly, each leg of the journey was made in order to further one of Harold’s nefarious plans to position himself as the next PM of the UK, but Lucy didn’t care. She loved him blessedly, completely, and wholly, and he seemed to grow to love her back, as much as a man of his power is ever capable.
Their nights were heady, their days full, and the troubling times never marred their courtship.
That only came later.
When Harold’s body had been consumed by the flames set alight by that damnable Doctor, Lucy had crept to the pyre in the night and extricated a ring from the debris. Harold had told her enough about Time Lord physiology and metaphysicality to know that ‘dead’ did not mean the same to his people as it did to humans. After all, her mother and ancestress had trained her well, hadn’t they? Bringing a being back to life who was already much more than a mere mortal homo sapien… how hard could that be?
Several years later, it was proving to be quite a bit more difficult than she could have ever imagined. By going across into the alternate universe with Jeremy, Lucy had hoped it would all be easier. After all, there would be no issues of paradox, nothing to stop Harold from being alive again in this reality, but some of their theoretical solutions were less than desirable. They could actually quite easily bring him back as an infant form of his first physical makeup, but that would negate all the reasons Lucy wanted him back in the first place. He’d be more like her son than her husband at that point, and while he would be the infamous Master no matter what, he wouldn’t be Harold, and that was what was most important to her.
The astrological alignment and constitution of a TARDIS would provide the appropriate link, and the help of Jeremy’s Time Agent associate would help with the physics components, while her own talents were still being put to work on the more mystical components. After months of trial and error, they were finally getting it, thanks to John Hart’s vast sums of money he was able to pour into the project via his Haroco sideline. It was simply a nice side effect that the horrible little devices had so swiftly taken over the entire British economy. When Harold returned, he’d have access to inestimable wealth with which to fund his second rise to political power.
Part of the problem was Jeremy, though. It appeared that John Hart was in it for the glory, the money, and the thrill of it all, but Jeremy’s purposes seemed a spot more opaque. He claimed when pressed to only care about chaos and the glory of bringing the Master back to power, but Lucy honestly didn’t see what was in it for him. She sometimes wondered if there was something familiar about the lad, if he’d worked for Harold’s administration during the year that damnable Martha Jones managed to erase, but that wasn’t it. It was simply that he remembered it, not that he’d been there exactly--that was what nagged at her. How the devil did Jeremy remember it? The only people who remembered it were those who were actually there: herself, the Doctor, Martha, Jack Harkness… what was Jeremy to gain from this?
When Lucy found herself going ‘round in circles about Jeremy’s motives, she’d usually have to have a lie down for at least an hour.
However, the mere chance of seeing Harold again… that made it all worthwhile. No, it would never be the perfect relationship, and of course she’d always have to share him with the universe, but it was all acceptable trade-off for just one more moment with him. One more ride across the galaxies--and, since this universe was new to her, it would be all the more adventurous--and one more night spent in his arms… never to be a lonely young widow again.
Still, she recalled all too vividly how that Martha Jones and Jack Harkness had looked upon the Doctor with such love and admiration, and now how Rose Tyler looked at him, too… was that even close to how she felt about Harold? All Time Lords were not created equal, it seemed. She adored her husband, and yet…
Would the Doctor have ever raised a hand to one of his companions, the way the Master did to her? And here she wasn’t a mere companion; he actually wed her and bed her and therefore was supposed to love her.
Was the way Harold treated Lucy love?
With the plan so far in motion, it was best not to waste time worrying about emotions. Get the job done, that was her goal. The rest would sort itself out in the end.
CHAPTER THIRTY
‘I don’t like feelin’ like me hands are tied, love.’
Jackie chuckled and traced long fingernails along his chest. ‘That’s not what you said last night…’
Pete rolled his eyes. ‘You’re mad, you know that?’ Still, he couldn’t help but smile at her, even if it was tinged with a bit of sadness. She was his Jackie but… not. So alike but often so different.
She brought him out of his brief reverie quickly. No time for self-pitying around her. She talked too much. Which, Pete reasoned, was probably just what he needed.
‘So what’s the harm in transferring the lad elsewhere?’ Jackie asked. ‘I mean, if he’s unreliable and sneaky and odd, but you can’t fire ‘im, why keep ‘im on in somethin’ what’ll muck the whole workplace up if he’s off cadgin’ a fag or whatever it is he’s doin’? Hmm? Find somethin’ else for ‘im.’
Pete sighed. ‘I don’t honestly want to do that,’ he said gruffly. ‘I want to sack the git and be done with it.’
Jackie shrugged. ‘Then why don’t you?’ Pete started to protest, but Jackie cut him off. ‘Who’s company is this, darling? Yours or this Haroco bastard?’
‘Now, Jackie, Haroco’s been very good to both of us,’ he pointed out. ‘Good for the whole country, even. Rebuilt a lot of stuff what got destroyed in the attacks and all. Axon Haros is a decent bloke.’
Jackie turned away and took up an emery board from her nightstand. Her lips were pursed as she began running the file across her nails.
Pete sighed. ‘Jacks, I know this one. Passive aggressive. You want me to tell you you’re right and I’m wrong.’
‘Well, yeah,’ Jackie replied immediately, no hint of sheepishness in her tone. ‘Honestly, why make me even go through the motions? Just tell me you’re wrong and be done with it so we can get some sleep, darling.’
Pete shook his head. ‘Ain’t that simple, is it? You honestly want me to do something counter to Axon bloody Haros?!’
‘You said yourself he’s a decent bloke,’ Jackie pointed out. ‘Do you really think he’ll react with such overprotection of his kid--who, may I remind you, is a full-fledged adult man who can take care of himself--that he’d retaliate somehow? Kill your whole bleedin’ company?’
Pete’s expression softened; he kissed Jackie on the cheek. ‘You’re probably right, ducks,’ he said. ‘I’m always expecting the worst out of folks, aren’t I? What’s really the worst that could happen?’