Chapter 2 of my post-Doomsday fic
Yay! I've finished the next chapter of my fic! (took me long enough) Anyway, I'm calling this chapter two, and what was the prologue before, I'm now calling chapter one.
Title: Secrets on the Other Side 2/13
Pairing: 10/Rose
Rating: Adult
Spoilers: all of season 2
Summary: The Doctor realizes he can't go on without Rose, so he decides he's going to find a way to get her back, but what secrets lie in the other dimension?
A/N: The Doctor searches desperately for a way to get Rose back, while Rose makes a discovery of her own.
( Chapter one )
CHAPTER 2
Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor set the coordinates for a holding pattern. He needed time to do research. Dimension hopping had been entirely possible when Gallifrey and the Eye of Harmony were still around. It was impossible now. But then, impossible had always been his forte.
The first thing he set to doing was to look through the TARDIS’ navigation history. If he’d gotten to that universe before, he could do it again. Even if it was by accident. But, after five hours of searching and re-searching, he realized the data wasn’t there. When the TARDIS crashed through the vortex, it had lost power. The data was never recorded. He had no map. The next thing he did was try to figure out exactly what had gone wrong that first time, so he might be able to recreate it in a controlled form. It was his only lead as for a way to travel between dimensions.
He knew the time vortex had disappeared, but he didn’t know why or how. He never had figured that out. That disturbed him. By all accounts it should have been impossible. Impossible things sometimes happened, yes, but he was always able to figure out the reason. And where had it gone to back then? The only other time it had left the TARDIS was when it went into Rose. That was another thing he never figured out. How she had managed to do that and how she had survived as long as she had, let alone control it. No one should have been able to do that. Especially not a nineteen year old human girl. Even he, a Time Lord, wasn’t able to harness it after he drew it out of her. All he could do was send it back into the TARDIS. He only had it in his body for a matter of seconds and it had killed him. Rose woke up fine. Perfectly healthy. It baffled him. And that was saying something.
After a few days of tinkering, exploring, and talking to and yelling at an unresponsive TARDIS, he still had no results. So, the Doctor headed to the library. Maybe there was something in there on trans-dimensional travel.
*************************************************************
Rose awoke to the sound of her alarm. Not the same sound as she was used to. Her old alarm was still on the TARDIS. Not that she had ever really needed it. Time was irrelevant on the TARDIS, so it didn’t matter how long you slept. Besides, the Doctor had always woken her up early, eager for a new adventure. Cutest alarm clock ever, she thought with a smile. Her face quickly fell when she remembered there would be no more mornings like that. No more waking up in his arms nor falling asleep in them.
She dragged herself out of bed and headed for the shower. She let the hot water beat down on her and began to cry. She did that so much lately. It seemed like the hours of every day were punctuated by tears, even if they were sometimes unshed. It had only been a week since saying goodbye at Bad Wolf Bay, but it felt like an eternity. She put on a brave face for her family and tried to give the appearance of moving on, but she was screaming inside. Something told her she always would be.
When she finished her shower, Rose dressed in the clothes she had laid out the night before. A light blue dress shirt with a wide, angular collar, and a black suit. Today was her first day at Torchwood. Pete had put her in charge of alien identification and relations. She was nervous about it, but she had to be strong and live that 'fantastic life'. She stopped in front of the mirror to look herself over. She practiced a little smile. It looked fake. She grabbed the TARDIS key off her dresser and put it around her neck then headed downstairs. Maybe it was unhealthy that she still wore it, that she would always wear it, but it was the only thing she had of him.
Her mum and dad were in the kitchen. Her dad was reading the newspaper and her mum was making tea. It was strange. Growing up, this was the sort of scene she’d always dreamed of waking up to. Not anymore.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” said Jackie coming over to hug her daughter. This was how she greeted Rose now. Ever since she’d said goodbye to the Doctor. It was nice the first day or two. Now it was just a gesture of pity, driving the grief home. Pete caught her eye and rolled his in sympathy. That made it a bit better.
“Can I make you something to eat?” said Jackie, going back to take the kettle off the stove.
“No. I need to head off,” said Rose. “Don’t want to be late for my first day.”
“Rose,” said her mum, giving her a meaningful look, “Please.”
“I... Yeah. Yeah, alright.” She hadn’t been eating as much as she should. “Just some toast and, um, what’ve we got for fruit?”
“Uh, just bananas and apples.”
“I’ll have an apple.” She wasn’t ready to eat a banana without crying yet.
“Sure you don’t want some sausage?” asked Pete indicating the plate on the table.
“Yeah.”
“You need your protein.” he said.
“Fine. I’ll have a sausage too.” She acted as if she were humoring them, but she knew they were right. She did need to start eating right.
After breakfast, Rose crossed the lawn to her car. Mickey, Jake, and some of the other Preachers were doing laps around the estate. Pete had let them set up shop in the guest house. She waved to them as they passed by. Only Mickey and Jake waved back. She didn’t know the others that well. She got in the grey SUV and started down the driveway. She could already tell this was going to be a long day.
***************************************************
Mickey watched as Rose drove away. She’d lost that brightness she used to have. The brightness that drew him to her in the first place, and shined even brighter when she started traveling with the Doctor. He felt for her. He knew what it was like to be trapped a world away from the one you loved and the people you knew. But at least, when he was left here, it was his choice and he’d known Rose would be happy. The Doctor must be miserable and broken. She probably knew it too.
He’d hated the Doctor at first. He’d taken his girlfriend and caused him to be accused of murder. The more he saw the Doctor in action though, the more he warmed up to him. And then in the short time he’d traveled with them, when he saw them together, he knew that this wasn’t some crush or fling that had stolen her away. He was in the presence of something great, something epic. It was love. Love on a scale that dwarfed the storybooks and movie screens. He couldn’t stand in the way of that.
Jake’s voice drew him from his thoughts. “Oi, Mickey! You gonna stand there all day? We’re suppose to be in front.”
“Right, sorry!” and he ran to catch up with the group.
*******************************************************
One week. One whole week he’d been studying, and still no leads! The Doctor was sitting with his glasses on, jacket off, tie loosened, in the library. Stubble was beginning to grow unchecked on his face. He’d read nearly every book in the library twice over. Nothing! He tore off his glasses, screamed in frustration and hurled his book at the wall, followed by three others for good measure. He sank back down into his chair and put his head in his hands, raking his fingers through his hair and balling them into fists at the back of his head.
“Dammit!” he slammed his fists down on the desk.
He hadn’t slept nor ate nor drank in the week since he began searching, but that was fine. Time Lords could go just under forty days without food or water and needed only a minimum of fifteen hours of sleep a month. He stood, tore his tie off, threw it down on the desk and began to pace the room. There had to be something. Something he missed. He refused to believe that getting Rose back was impossible. There was always a way, always a loophole. Always. He just had to find it. And he would find it. If it took an eternity of searching and he still came up empty, he still wouldn’t doubt the answer was out there. And if there was even a sliver of hope that he could find it, he would never stop looking.
Three more weeks and he still had nothing. The Doctor was consumed by his quest. He had time for nothing else. He looked awful, he felt awful, and he didn’t smell all that good either. He was incredibly scruffy by now. He’d exhausted all possible leads he could inside the TARDIS long ago and expanded his search outward. Finding scientists and physicists in all manner of times and places to see if any of them knew something he didn’t. None of them ever did. After all, who knew more than him? And then it struck him. There was someone who knew more than him! The Face of Boe! But how would he find him? The Face was notorious for only being found when he wanted to be. Well, that was another thing they had in common, now wasn’t it? The Doctor would find him. He just had to look in the right times and places.
Surprisingly, it only took him four more days to locate The Face of Boe. He was to attend a political conference in the Califar nebula on November 18th, 5,000,000,059. The Doctor knew he’d never get in the door looking like he did now.
He’d been avoiding his bedroom since Rose was gone. It would smell like her. He remembered when his room had officially become their room. They’d begun sleeping together not long after they left Mickey in the parallel universe. He’d finally gotten over himself and given in to his feelings for her. They still had separate rooms though. It was after they’d left the planet with the black hole that the room had become both of theirs.
They were lying in his bed and she’d needed something from her room (he couldn’t remember what) and she gotten up to get it.
“Can I just leave it in here?” she had asked tentatively.
“Yeah, sure,” he’d said. Then he’d stopped to think for a moment. This was a bit silly, wasn’t it? Running back and forth between rooms the way they were. She was just about at the door when he’d said it. “Why, um...” She turned. “Why don’t you leave all your things in here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well...I mean...I know it’s not a house with a little white picket fence and a mortgage, but...I... I mean...Well...”
“Are...Are you asking me to move in with you?” she’d asked in what he liked to think was a cautiously hopeful voice.
He’d given her that little lopsided smile she thought was so cute and shrugged one naked shoulder. “Maybe,” and he’d looked her eyes in way that said anything but ‘maybe’.
He’d watched as the expression of joy slowly spread across her face and became a childish glee, and he’d known his expression was mirroring hers as she ran over and pounced on him squealing “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” and the dressing gown she’d only just put on was quickly shed. The next time they entered the room the TARDIS had taken it upon herself to move all of Rose’s things in and arrange them perfectly.
The Doctor smiled sadly at the memory. If he couldn’t get her back, that would be all he would have. Memories. And that wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Slowly, he forced himself to open the bedroom door. It was dark, and yes, it did still smell like her. Like the both of them. Memories of being tangled up in her rushed back all at once and threatened to destroy him. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to drive them away. He was getting her back. Drowning in his misery wasn’t going to do either of them any good. He turned on the lights and headed to the bathroom. Before he could hope to get into the conference, he needed a shower, a shave, and a change of clothes.
*****************************************************
Rose sat at her desk waiting for her lunch break. She’d been working here at Torchwood for nearly a month. It had been hard getting up every day and going to work, trying pointlessly to move on. Then, on her fifth day at work, she overheard someone mention that a few months back the research department had been working on experiments in trans-dimensional study.
Her first instinct was that she had to find those files. Maybe she could find a way back to the Doctor. Then she thought about it logically. She didn’t know anything about quantum physics. She knew only what she had understood of what the Doctor told her. Besides, what could these people know that the Doctor didn’t. If there was a way to bring her back, surely he would have done it already.
Then she found out where the files were kept. The temptation was too great. She snuck in and read as much as she could before she had to be back at her desk. She didn’t understand much of it, but did her best to remedy that on the internet when she got back to her desk. Eventually it became a routine, and it gave her something to look forward to. Every day she would spend her lunch hour in the records room reading, taking notes, doing her best to fill in the blanks. At her desk, she would surf the web learng all she could about quantum physics, string theory, and any dimensional theories she could get her hands on. She bought all the books she could on the subjects. It may be fruitless and she might never find what she needed, but it gave her something else to live for.
So there she sat, waiting for her break, so she could get to the records room again. “Rose?” a voice in front of her drew her eyes from the clock. It was Paul, her supervisor. “We’re gonna need you to work through lunch, that okay?” It wasn’t a request. Bosses don’t make requests. So why did they always insist on making them sound that way?
“Sure,” she had no choice. “Why?”
“We just got that load of alien artifacts in. You know, the ones they found off the coast of Sweden. Anyway, Mr. Tyler’s busy meeting with the president,” she kept having to remind herself that they weren’t talking about America when they said that here, “and the whole staff is running around like chickens with their heads cut off, so were all working overtime.”
“Oh. Alright,” said Rose.
“Great,” said Paul, and he dropped a stack of files on her desk. "See if you can identify any of these. I think we’ve got a new species!”
Rose waited until Paul was gone and sighed heavily. She was going to have to wait until tomorrow to get any research done.
Rose opened the file. She flipped through it absent mindedly until something Caught her eye. Something she recognized. But what she was looking at was impossible. Wasn’t it?
*****************************************
The Doctor stepped out of the bathroom freshly washed and closely shaved with a towel around his waist. The shower had still smelled like her shampoo. It was killing him. He need to get Rose back soon or he would surely descend into madness.
He headed for the dresser, trying desperately not to look around at anything in the room for fear of seeing one of her blouses or hoodies lying around. He dressed in a clean suit. He opted for the plain white shirt and threw on the first tie he found. Brown and bronze speckled. He set the coordinates for the time and location of the conference and the TARDIS landed in no time at all. The Doctor put on his coat, grabbed the psychic paper and headed out the door. If the answer to getting Rose back existed anywhere, it was out there.
Chapter 3
Title: Secrets on the Other Side 2/13
Pairing: 10/Rose
Rating: Adult
Spoilers: all of season 2
Summary: The Doctor realizes he can't go on without Rose, so he decides he's going to find a way to get her back, but what secrets lie in the other dimension?
A/N: The Doctor searches desperately for a way to get Rose back, while Rose makes a discovery of her own.
( Chapter one )
CHAPTER 2
Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor set the coordinates for a holding pattern. He needed time to do research. Dimension hopping had been entirely possible when Gallifrey and the Eye of Harmony were still around. It was impossible now. But then, impossible had always been his forte.
The first thing he set to doing was to look through the TARDIS’ navigation history. If he’d gotten to that universe before, he could do it again. Even if it was by accident. But, after five hours of searching and re-searching, he realized the data wasn’t there. When the TARDIS crashed through the vortex, it had lost power. The data was never recorded. He had no map. The next thing he did was try to figure out exactly what had gone wrong that first time, so he might be able to recreate it in a controlled form. It was his only lead as for a way to travel between dimensions.
He knew the time vortex had disappeared, but he didn’t know why or how. He never had figured that out. That disturbed him. By all accounts it should have been impossible. Impossible things sometimes happened, yes, but he was always able to figure out the reason. And where had it gone to back then? The only other time it had left the TARDIS was when it went into Rose. That was another thing he never figured out. How she had managed to do that and how she had survived as long as she had, let alone control it. No one should have been able to do that. Especially not a nineteen year old human girl. Even he, a Time Lord, wasn’t able to harness it after he drew it out of her. All he could do was send it back into the TARDIS. He only had it in his body for a matter of seconds and it had killed him. Rose woke up fine. Perfectly healthy. It baffled him. And that was saying something.
After a few days of tinkering, exploring, and talking to and yelling at an unresponsive TARDIS, he still had no results. So, the Doctor headed to the library. Maybe there was something in there on trans-dimensional travel.
*************************************************************
Rose awoke to the sound of her alarm. Not the same sound as she was used to. Her old alarm was still on the TARDIS. Not that she had ever really needed it. Time was irrelevant on the TARDIS, so it didn’t matter how long you slept. Besides, the Doctor had always woken her up early, eager for a new adventure. Cutest alarm clock ever, she thought with a smile. Her face quickly fell when she remembered there would be no more mornings like that. No more waking up in his arms nor falling asleep in them.
She dragged herself out of bed and headed for the shower. She let the hot water beat down on her and began to cry. She did that so much lately. It seemed like the hours of every day were punctuated by tears, even if they were sometimes unshed. It had only been a week since saying goodbye at Bad Wolf Bay, but it felt like an eternity. She put on a brave face for her family and tried to give the appearance of moving on, but she was screaming inside. Something told her she always would be.
When she finished her shower, Rose dressed in the clothes she had laid out the night before. A light blue dress shirt with a wide, angular collar, and a black suit. Today was her first day at Torchwood. Pete had put her in charge of alien identification and relations. She was nervous about it, but she had to be strong and live that 'fantastic life'. She stopped in front of the mirror to look herself over. She practiced a little smile. It looked fake. She grabbed the TARDIS key off her dresser and put it around her neck then headed downstairs. Maybe it was unhealthy that she still wore it, that she would always wear it, but it was the only thing she had of him.
Her mum and dad were in the kitchen. Her dad was reading the newspaper and her mum was making tea. It was strange. Growing up, this was the sort of scene she’d always dreamed of waking up to. Not anymore.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” said Jackie coming over to hug her daughter. This was how she greeted Rose now. Ever since she’d said goodbye to the Doctor. It was nice the first day or two. Now it was just a gesture of pity, driving the grief home. Pete caught her eye and rolled his in sympathy. That made it a bit better.
“Can I make you something to eat?” said Jackie, going back to take the kettle off the stove.
“No. I need to head off,” said Rose. “Don’t want to be late for my first day.”
“Rose,” said her mum, giving her a meaningful look, “Please.”
“I... Yeah. Yeah, alright.” She hadn’t been eating as much as she should. “Just some toast and, um, what’ve we got for fruit?”
“Uh, just bananas and apples.”
“I’ll have an apple.” She wasn’t ready to eat a banana without crying yet.
“Sure you don’t want some sausage?” asked Pete indicating the plate on the table.
“Yeah.”
“You need your protein.” he said.
“Fine. I’ll have a sausage too.” She acted as if she were humoring them, but she knew they were right. She did need to start eating right.
After breakfast, Rose crossed the lawn to her car. Mickey, Jake, and some of the other Preachers were doing laps around the estate. Pete had let them set up shop in the guest house. She waved to them as they passed by. Only Mickey and Jake waved back. She didn’t know the others that well. She got in the grey SUV and started down the driveway. She could already tell this was going to be a long day.
***************************************************
Mickey watched as Rose drove away. She’d lost that brightness she used to have. The brightness that drew him to her in the first place, and shined even brighter when she started traveling with the Doctor. He felt for her. He knew what it was like to be trapped a world away from the one you loved and the people you knew. But at least, when he was left here, it was his choice and he’d known Rose would be happy. The Doctor must be miserable and broken. She probably knew it too.
He’d hated the Doctor at first. He’d taken his girlfriend and caused him to be accused of murder. The more he saw the Doctor in action though, the more he warmed up to him. And then in the short time he’d traveled with them, when he saw them together, he knew that this wasn’t some crush or fling that had stolen her away. He was in the presence of something great, something epic. It was love. Love on a scale that dwarfed the storybooks and movie screens. He couldn’t stand in the way of that.
Jake’s voice drew him from his thoughts. “Oi, Mickey! You gonna stand there all day? We’re suppose to be in front.”
“Right, sorry!” and he ran to catch up with the group.
*******************************************************
One week. One whole week he’d been studying, and still no leads! The Doctor was sitting with his glasses on, jacket off, tie loosened, in the library. Stubble was beginning to grow unchecked on his face. He’d read nearly every book in the library twice over. Nothing! He tore off his glasses, screamed in frustration and hurled his book at the wall, followed by three others for good measure. He sank back down into his chair and put his head in his hands, raking his fingers through his hair and balling them into fists at the back of his head.
“Dammit!” he slammed his fists down on the desk.
He hadn’t slept nor ate nor drank in the week since he began searching, but that was fine. Time Lords could go just under forty days without food or water and needed only a minimum of fifteen hours of sleep a month. He stood, tore his tie off, threw it down on the desk and began to pace the room. There had to be something. Something he missed. He refused to believe that getting Rose back was impossible. There was always a way, always a loophole. Always. He just had to find it. And he would find it. If it took an eternity of searching and he still came up empty, he still wouldn’t doubt the answer was out there. And if there was even a sliver of hope that he could find it, he would never stop looking.
Three more weeks and he still had nothing. The Doctor was consumed by his quest. He had time for nothing else. He looked awful, he felt awful, and he didn’t smell all that good either. He was incredibly scruffy by now. He’d exhausted all possible leads he could inside the TARDIS long ago and expanded his search outward. Finding scientists and physicists in all manner of times and places to see if any of them knew something he didn’t. None of them ever did. After all, who knew more than him? And then it struck him. There was someone who knew more than him! The Face of Boe! But how would he find him? The Face was notorious for only being found when he wanted to be. Well, that was another thing they had in common, now wasn’t it? The Doctor would find him. He just had to look in the right times and places.
Surprisingly, it only took him four more days to locate The Face of Boe. He was to attend a political conference in the Califar nebula on November 18th, 5,000,000,059. The Doctor knew he’d never get in the door looking like he did now.
He’d been avoiding his bedroom since Rose was gone. It would smell like her. He remembered when his room had officially become their room. They’d begun sleeping together not long after they left Mickey in the parallel universe. He’d finally gotten over himself and given in to his feelings for her. They still had separate rooms though. It was after they’d left the planet with the black hole that the room had become both of theirs.
They were lying in his bed and she’d needed something from her room (he couldn’t remember what) and she gotten up to get it.
“Can I just leave it in here?” she had asked tentatively.
“Yeah, sure,” he’d said. Then he’d stopped to think for a moment. This was a bit silly, wasn’t it? Running back and forth between rooms the way they were. She was just about at the door when he’d said it. “Why, um...” She turned. “Why don’t you leave all your things in here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well...I mean...I know it’s not a house with a little white picket fence and a mortgage, but...I... I mean...Well...”
“Are...Are you asking me to move in with you?” she’d asked in what he liked to think was a cautiously hopeful voice.
He’d given her that little lopsided smile she thought was so cute and shrugged one naked shoulder. “Maybe,” and he’d looked her eyes in way that said anything but ‘maybe’.
He’d watched as the expression of joy slowly spread across her face and became a childish glee, and he’d known his expression was mirroring hers as she ran over and pounced on him squealing “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” and the dressing gown she’d only just put on was quickly shed. The next time they entered the room the TARDIS had taken it upon herself to move all of Rose’s things in and arrange them perfectly.
The Doctor smiled sadly at the memory. If he couldn’t get her back, that would be all he would have. Memories. And that wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Slowly, he forced himself to open the bedroom door. It was dark, and yes, it did still smell like her. Like the both of them. Memories of being tangled up in her rushed back all at once and threatened to destroy him. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to drive them away. He was getting her back. Drowning in his misery wasn’t going to do either of them any good. He turned on the lights and headed to the bathroom. Before he could hope to get into the conference, he needed a shower, a shave, and a change of clothes.
*****************************************************
Rose sat at her desk waiting for her lunch break. She’d been working here at Torchwood for nearly a month. It had been hard getting up every day and going to work, trying pointlessly to move on. Then, on her fifth day at work, she overheard someone mention that a few months back the research department had been working on experiments in trans-dimensional study.
Her first instinct was that she had to find those files. Maybe she could find a way back to the Doctor. Then she thought about it logically. She didn’t know anything about quantum physics. She knew only what she had understood of what the Doctor told her. Besides, what could these people know that the Doctor didn’t. If there was a way to bring her back, surely he would have done it already.
Then she found out where the files were kept. The temptation was too great. She snuck in and read as much as she could before she had to be back at her desk. She didn’t understand much of it, but did her best to remedy that on the internet when she got back to her desk. Eventually it became a routine, and it gave her something to look forward to. Every day she would spend her lunch hour in the records room reading, taking notes, doing her best to fill in the blanks. At her desk, she would surf the web learng all she could about quantum physics, string theory, and any dimensional theories she could get her hands on. She bought all the books she could on the subjects. It may be fruitless and she might never find what she needed, but it gave her something else to live for.
So there she sat, waiting for her break, so she could get to the records room again. “Rose?” a voice in front of her drew her eyes from the clock. It was Paul, her supervisor. “We’re gonna need you to work through lunch, that okay?” It wasn’t a request. Bosses don’t make requests. So why did they always insist on making them sound that way?
“Sure,” she had no choice. “Why?”
“We just got that load of alien artifacts in. You know, the ones they found off the coast of Sweden. Anyway, Mr. Tyler’s busy meeting with the president,” she kept having to remind herself that they weren’t talking about America when they said that here, “and the whole staff is running around like chickens with their heads cut off, so were all working overtime.”
“Oh. Alright,” said Rose.
“Great,” said Paul, and he dropped a stack of files on her desk. "See if you can identify any of these. I think we’ve got a new species!”
Rose waited until Paul was gone and sighed heavily. She was going to have to wait until tomorrow to get any research done.
Rose opened the file. She flipped through it absent mindedly until something Caught her eye. Something she recognized. But what she was looking at was impossible. Wasn’t it?
*****************************************
The Doctor stepped out of the bathroom freshly washed and closely shaved with a towel around his waist. The shower had still smelled like her shampoo. It was killing him. He need to get Rose back soon or he would surely descend into madness.
He headed for the dresser, trying desperately not to look around at anything in the room for fear of seeing one of her blouses or hoodies lying around. He dressed in a clean suit. He opted for the plain white shirt and threw on the first tie he found. Brown and bronze speckled. He set the coordinates for the time and location of the conference and the TARDIS landed in no time at all. The Doctor put on his coat, grabbed the psychic paper and headed out the door. If the answer to getting Rose back existed anywhere, it was out there.
Chapter 3