In Any Other World - Chapter Thirteen : Utopia
Title: In Any Other World
Author: staci_x2
Rating: General/Teen
Warnings: None, so far
Pairings: Ten/Rose
Spoilers: Utopia.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: "My name is Rose Tyler. And this is the story of how I survived." What would things have been like for the Doctor and Rose if they had never been separated into different worlds?
"Jack," she murmured, and realised that tears had formed in her eyes.
He looked at her as he stopped gasping, grabbing her arms as he took in her face. His features spread into a wide grin.
"Rose Tyler," he said, and she smiled back at him through her tears.
"It feels like I haven't seen this place in forever," said Rose when they were finally back in the console room.
The Doctor stopped at the console and ran his fingers over it lovingly. Rose smiled.
"She missed us, didn't you girl?" he cooed, and the TARDIS seemed to hum in response. "We need to make a pit stop," he told Rose as she joined him at the console. "Cardiff."
Rose grinned.
"Refuelling?"
"Oh yes."
Rose took her place beside him as he set the ship into motion, remembering the last time they'd been to Cardiff. Good old Cardiff. It felt like such a long time ago. Everything had been different then. The Doctor had worn a leather jacket instead of the pinstripe suit Rose now loved so much, his hair had barely been long enough to ruffle, and of course they had been travelling with Jack.
She missed Jack a lot more than she ever let the Doctor know. Although it felt like another lifetime when she had last seen him, Rose still wished sometimes that he were there, wondering how he would have got along with the new Doctor. She smiled to herself as she thought of how he would probably flirt with him even more than he had with the old one.
"What?" the Doctor asked curiously as he saw Rose's smile.
She was immediately pulled out of her reverie, realising that the TARDIS had landed.
"Nothing," she told him. "I was just thinking about Jack."
The Doctor averted his eyes, as he usually did when she brought Jack up, and looked down at the monitor in front of him.
"We're almost done," he told her of the refuel, and Rose watched his expression change to one of shock as he stared at the monitor.
"What is it?" she asked, heading towards him to see for herself.
The Doctor pulled down a lever before she got there and looked up at her.
"The rift's been active," he said, blatantly changing the subject as the TARDIS began to move. "Only took twenty seconds, better than waiting all day, eh?"
Rose was suspicious of the nervousness in his voice. Before she could challenge him about it, though, the TARDIS lurched and they were both thrown to the floor as sparks flew from the console.
"Doctor, what's going on?" Rose demanded as they scrambled to their feet.
The Doctor clung to the sides of the monitor as the console continued to spark, announcing that they were accelerating into the future, all the way to the year one hundred trillion.
"That's impossible!" said the Doctor, and his confusion worried Rose as she watched the foreign symbols racing on the screen. "We're going to the end of the universe." he announced, and Rose's eyes widened in fear.
With one final thud, the TARDIS finally landed.
"Do you know what's out there?" Rose asked, and the Doctor shook his head.
"Not even the Time Lords came this far," he told her, his voice dark. "We should leave. We should go. We should really, really . . . go."
Rose smiled.
"Ok then, let's get out of here," said Rose, playing along.
Their faces were serious for a moment before they burst into laughter. The Doctor grinned widely as he ran towards the door, Rose following as he took hold of her hand.
*****
They stepped of the TARDIS into darkness, but before Rose could notice much else, she caught sight of a figure lying nearby on the ground. In the few seconds it took her to start running towards him, a wave of nausea washed over her as she realised who it was. Before she could reach him, she felt strong arms holding her, holding her back. She turned to the Doctor in a fit of confusion.
"Doctor, it's Jack!"
He looked her straight in the eyes.
"I know."
She glanced from him to the Doctor and back again.
"We need to help him!"
"It's alright, Rose, leave him," he said softly.
She looked at him with utter disbelief. She couldn't understand why he was stopping her, she could help him, they could help him. Before either of them could say anything else however, a loud gasping sound came from Jack and the Doctor's arms finally let go of Rose so she could rush to his side.
"Jack," she murmured, and realised that tears had formed in her eyes.
He looked at her as he stopped gasping, grabbing her arms as he took in her face. His features spread into a wide grin.
"Rose Tyler," he said, and she smiled back at him through her tears.
"Long time no see, Captain Jack," she said, and he laughed.
He attempted to get up and Rose rushed to help him to his feet. She looked round at the Doctor as they stood, the grin on her face slipping slightly when she saw his cold expression.
"Doctor," Jack said formally as Rose stood between them.
"Captain."
"Doctor, what's wrong?" Rose asked.
Although the Doctor had not been very fond of Jack when they had first met him, they had become firm friends once he had begun travelling with them, and so Rose couldn't understand why the Doctor was behaving the way he was.
The last time Rose had seen Jack had been on Game Station, before the Doctor had sent her home. She did not remember what had happened after that, other than that she had desperately tried to get back and save the Doctor. She knew that she had succeeded, and the Doctor had told her later on how she had looked into the heart of the TARDIS and poured the time vortex into the Dalek Emperor's head, destroying the whole fleet and saving them all.
When she had woken up in the TARDIS afterwards and watched her Doctor regenerate into a complete stranger, she had wanted to go back for Jack, thinking at the time that maybe he was dead and the Doctor was trying to spare her feelings. The next time she had brought him up had been after their trip to New Earth. She had asked the Doctor what had happened to Jack, and he had looked her straight in the eyes and told her, as he had when she had first asked to go back for him, that he was busy rebuilding the Earth.
Rose knew from that that Jack was alive. The Doctor wouldn't lie to her directly about it, no matter what. Whenever she mentioned him after that, the Doctor averted his eyes, as he had done in the TARDIS when she had reminisced about their last trip to Cardiff.
Before the Doctor could answer Rose's question, Jack intervened.
"It's good to see you, Doctor."
"And you," the Doctor answered, his tone unnatural and formal.
"Doctor-" Rose started, but Jack interrupted.
"You look as radiant as ever," he told her, his face showing the same smile had had worn all that time ago, though when Rose looked she noticed how old his eyes had become.
"Jack, what happened? After Game Station, what happened?"
Jack looked at the Doctor and then back at Rose.
"He abandoned me."
Rose looked at the Doctor, who averted his eyes guiltily. When neither of them said anything else, Rose broke the silence.
"How did you get here?" Rose asked, and Jack explained how he had clung to the outside of the TARDIS as it hurtled through the vortex.
"Wow," said Rose, and Jack smiled. "You were in Cardiff?"
Jack let out a chuckle.
"Long story, what d'you say I tell it to you later?"
Rose smiled in agreement and turned to the Doctor as they began to walk down the hill the TARDIS was parked on.
*****
"You changed your face," said Jack as they walked, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen once again.
"Well it doesn't look like I'm the only one who's had work done," he said, and Jack laughed.
Rose looked to the Doctor to see a smile finally cross his face.
"It happened after Game Station," she told Jack. "I woke up in the TARDIS after the Daleks were gone to him babbling on about how fantastic he was and how he hoped he'd have a head when he changed."
"Well, I haven't always been as lucky as I was with this regeneration!" the Doctor said indignantly. "You think I've always looked as good as I do now?"
Rose giggled as he ran a hand through his hair and shot her a wink.
"Well I woke up ankle-deep in Dalek dust to find the TARDIS going off without me."
"How did you escape?" Rose asked, and Jack tapped a device on his wrist.
"You know how I used to be a Time Agent?" Rose nodded. "Well, I still had this. It's a vortex manipulator."
"What, you can travel through time with it?"
Before Jack could reply, the Doctor scoffed, stating that comparing that to the TARDIS was like comparing a sports car to a space hopper. Rose laughed, relieved that the cold atmosphere between them was changing. Jack went on to explain that he had wanted to get to the 21st century, thinking it the best place to find the Doctor, and ended up in 1869 with the vortex manipulator broken.
"You couldn't find him in over a century?" Rose asked.
"Not a version that would coincide with me. So I based myself by the rift 'cause I knew you'd come back to refuel. Then finally I get a signal on this detecting you and here we are."
"But how come you're still alive? You went back to 1869 and you don't look a day older than when I last saw you."
Jack smiled, taking her comment as a compliment.
"Actually I was hoping the Doctor might be able to explain that."
Rose looked to the Doctor to see that he had stopped walking. She and Jack stopped too and followed his eyeline over the edge of the canyon in front of them to see what looked like some sort of city. The Doctor said how it must have had some sort of life, long ago, but time had destroyed it, like it had everything else. As they stood looking out at the darkened landscape below, Jack noticed a figure running along the ground, chased by a group holding flaming torches.
*****
The three of them set off down the nearby slope at a run, soon catching up with the fleeing man. Jack got hold of him, reassuring him before passing him over to the Doctor and pointing a gun at the human-like creatures that had been chasing him. The Doctor told Jack not to shoot at them, so he fired his gun in the air instead, stopping the creatures in their tracks.
The Doctor's first idea was to take the man back to the TARDIS, but a look in the ship's direction told that there were too many creatures around for them to make it there. The man told them that if they could get to the silo then they would be safe, and the four of them set off in the direction the man led them, the creatures with the flaming torches chasing after them as they fled.
*****
They arrived at a tall gate in a frenzy, and the guards behind it demanded to see their teeth before they could go in. After a moment of confused hesitation, Jack, Rose and the Doctor copied the man they had followed and bared their teeth to the guards. The guards then quickly opened the gates and they ran inside, the gates closing behind them just in time to keep out the creatures their new friend had called 'the Futurekind'.
They stood and watched as who appeared to be the leader of the Futurekind taunted them, saying how they wanted to 'make feast' with the humans. Rose's stomach turned as she watched the Futurekind leering at them. They looked so human, aside from their pointed teeth. It saddened her to think that they were what her race might evolve into.
Once the Futurekind had walked away, the Doctor, Rose and Jack were led inside, along with the man who had brought them here, whose name was Padra.
*****
As they walked towards the building, the Doctor introduced them, and Rose was pleased when he introduced Jack alongside them. It seemed that whatever had made him act so coldly towards Jack was passing. Rose hung back slightly as they walked, giving the Doctor and Jack a chance to talk by striking up conversation with Padra.
"Who are they?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder towards the gate. "Those creatures you called the Futurekind? I mean, they look human, but . . ."
"Some say they're us," Padra replied. "That they're what the human race will become."
"What do you think?"
Padra looked at her.
"I think that I don't want to wait here and find out. I'm off to Utopia."
Before Rose could question Padra on Utopia, they arrived at the doors of the building and the guard led them inside. She didn't bring it up again as they were introduced to a man called Lieutennant Atillo.
"Hello, I'm the Doctor, and these are my friends, Jack and Rose."
Rose held up her hand in a half-wave.
"Hello," she said, looking around their surroundings with interest.
"A doctor?" Atillo said with interest. "A doctor of what?"
"Well, everything really," he told him with a charming smile. "Um, but I have a problem in that I've left my ship-"
Padra interrupted then.
"I'm looking for my family," he said. "I need to know if they got here."
The Doctor tried again to explain about the TARDIS, and Rose shared a smirk with Jack as the two men fired questions at the lieutenant. Eventually, Atillo referred Padra to a little boy who couldn't have been more than ten years old and told the Doctor that they would try their best to gt the TARDIS when they went out for the last water collection.
*****
As Atillo left, the little boy led Padra off to find his family and Jack, Rose and the Doctor followed. They walked through corridors, packed with people in sleeping bags against every wall as the little boy called out for Padra's family. Ad they walked, the Doctor began to rave, as he often did, about how amazing the human race were.
"End of the universe and here you are!" he said fondly, and Rose turned to give him a smile. "Indomitable! That's the word, Rose. Indomitable!"
Rose looked up as a woman finally answered the boy's calls for Padra's family, and watch with a sad smile as he was reunited with his mother, trying not to miss her own family so far away on the parallel world.
"Give me a hand with this," he said to Rose and Jack, after telling him off for flirting with a handsome passer-by.
Rose turned to see the Doctor holding the sonic screwdriver against a door. Jack helped him overwrite the code of the door and the door slid open. The Doctor stepped through before he realised the enormous drop on the other side. Jack caught him and pulled him back to safety before Rose realised what had happened.
She stuck her head through next to Jack and let out a small gasp at the sight of the colossal rocket situated in the silo.
"Wow," she said, and Jack made a noise of agreement.
"They're passengers," siad the Doctor, and Rose heard the grin in his voice even before she looked to see it on his face.
It made her smile too.
"They're going to Utopia," she said. "That's what Padra said. Is it supposed to be this hot?"
Rose fanned herself against the heat coming off the ship.
"No," said the Doctor thoughtfully. "Although I don't recognise those engines."
"Me neither," Jack concurred, and as they stepped back and closed the door, the Doctor pondered what Utopia could mean if the universe was falling apart.
Before they could begin to speculate however, an elderly man ran up to them and looked at the Doctor and Jack excitedly.
"The Doctor?" he said to Jack, and no sooner had the Doctor corrected him than he was being pulled down the corridor by the hand as the man repeated the word 'good'.
Rose and Jack followed, sharing another smirk as the man led them away.
*****
The man, who had introduced himself breifly as a professor, took them to a room where a friendly-looking insect-like alien was standing to welcome them. Rose gave her a kind smile as the professor took the Doctor to the other side of ther room.
"Chan, welcome, tho," the alien greeted them, and Rose smiled at her.
"Hello," she said. "I'm Rose, what's your name?"
"Chan, Chantho, tho," she replied, and Rose moved aside to let Jack introduce himself, flashing him an affectionate smile when he used his usual flirty manner in greeting Chantho.
As the Doctor told Jack off for flirting with Chantho, Rose crossed the room to join the Doctor and the professor. She was surprised to hear that there was nothing the Doctor could do to help.
"Nothing?" said the professor in disappointment, and Rose looked at the Doctor hopefully before he explained how he'd never seen a system like it.
"Oh come on," said Rose. "It can't be that much different to the usual stuff. Can't you just-"
"It's different to anything I've ever seen before."
Rose smiled.
"But you're clever."
He grinned.
"Oh no, Rose Tyler, I'm better than that. I'm briliant."
"So come on, chop chop, you can do this. If the both of you put your heads together you'll be able to get somewhere, and Jack can help, right?" she turned to look over at Jack and he approached them, taking off his backpack and setting it down.
"I'll do what I can," he told her.
"Brilliant," Rose said, turning and nearly tripping over Jack's backpack.
She caught her balance and picked it up, listeniong to the strange bubbling sound coming from within.
"Jack . . .?" she said, opening up the pack to look inside. "What's in- woah."
Her eyes widened in the process of pulling out what she now saw was a hand in a jar. A rather familiar-looking hand. She looked up to see both Jack and the Doctor coming over for a closer look, Jack looking slightly awkward.
"That's my hand!" the Doctor stuttered indignantly, and Jack explained that it was his Doctor detector.
Rose laughed when Chantho asked if it was a tradition amongst their people.
"No," Rose told her. "No. He got his hand chopped off in a swordfight and just grew another one."
The professor, looking both confused and intrigued, asked what species the Doctor was, and it turned out that neither the Professor nor Chantho had even heard of the Time Lord race. Chantho told them that she too was the last of her species, the native Malmooths of the planet on which they stood, Malcassairo. The city they had seen earlier was the one that had been hers.
*****
The conversation progressed into one about the Futurekind, and Rose repeated what Padra had told her earlier.
"Yes," the professor agreed. "It is feared that we will become like them if we do not reach Utopia."
"What is Utopia?" Rose asked. "I didn't get a chance to ask, is it another planet?"
The professor looked slightly puzzled again and Rose, Jack and the Doctor followed as he showed them to his computer.
"The call came from across the stars," he explained, showing them a blinking red dot on a navigational chart on the screen. "Come to Utopia. Originated from that point."
The professor wasn't exactly sure where the point was, but it was far, far away. They didn't know what awaited them, but it was their only option. As the Doctor inspected the navigation system on the screen, Rose noticed the professor's face clench up as though he was in pain.
"Professor?" Rose asked softly, and the Doctor too turned to look at him.
"Professor?" the Doctor said, more loudly than Rose, but the professor's face was clenched tighter than ever. "Professor!"
And then he snapped out of it, rather flustered, and asked they leave and let him do his work. The Doctor voiced his realisation that the rocket was not going to fly. They were stuck on this planet and none of the passengers knew.
"Doctor, can you do something?" Rose asked, and he grinned at her, producing the sonic screwdriver from his pocket.
"Of course I can, Rose, like I said, I'm brilliant."
She grinned back at him as he got to work, bringing a shocked but delighted smile to the face of the professor, who they finally learned was called Yana, when the Doctor used a timeless technique and got the system working.
*****
They all got to work then, the Doctor calling out instructions to Rose, Jack, Chantho and Yana at one hundred miles an hour as they prepared to launch the rocket to Utopia. Once everything was almost ready, Rose and Chantho left the lab to get some more circuits. As they made their way through the crowd of happy people making their way to the rocket, Rose ran into the boy ho had shown Padra back to his family.
She flashed him a smile, as although she wasn't particularly fond of children in general, he seemed like a sweet kid.
"Off to Utopia then?"
"That's right, miss," the boy replied. "I can't wait," Rose smiled again. "My mum used to say the skies are made of diamonds."
"Sounds great, you'd better hurry up or I might just take your seat for myself."
The boy grinned at her before continuing on his way to the magnificant ship, and Rose and Chantho headed back to the lab.
*****
Rose arrived in the lab to discover that the guards had succeeded in finding the TARDIS and it was standing right there in the lab. Jack instructed her to connect the circuits to the spar and she and Chantho set to work.
"Is the professor alright?" Rose asked, glancing behind her to see him and the Doctor conversing. "I mean, does he get pain like he had earlier a lot?"
"Chan, he does not like to talk to meabout it, tho."
Rose glanced over again to see the professor getting to his feet.
"He reminds me of the Doctor," she said fondly. "Never stops, even now he's helping, all so the rest of the humans can get to Utopia."
Chantho smiled.
"Chan, he is a remarkable man, tho."
Rose gave her a knowing grin.
"You love him, don't you?" she said softly, and Chantho looked as though she was blushing.
"Chan, I adore him, but I don't think he even notices, tho."
"I used to think that," Rose told her.
"Chan, the Doctor, tho?"
Rose nodded.
"I used to think he just saw me as a stupid human ape."
"Chan, but not anymore, tho?"
Rose smiled and looked back, watching the Doctor as he worked in the lab.
"No," she said. "Not anymore," she turned back to Chantho. "It's the little things, that's what you have to hold on to with people like the Doctor and Professor Yana. They may never tell you how they feel, but you know. You just . . . know."
She looked back to the circuits then, getting back to work on her task.
*****
Before long, they were almost finished, and after conencting all the circuits with Chantho, Rose helped the professor by rebooting the computer system every time the picture went out. They all stood by to watch as a man in a hazmat suit entered a room beneath the rocket that was filled with radiation. Jack was able to keep the radiation low enough from the lab whilst the man fixed the couplings.
There were five couplings that the man had to fix, but after he had done the first one and moved onto the second, an alarm began to sound and the power in the lab faltered. Rose stepped back from the computer as more alarms rang out, and Jack and the Doctor spurred into action, trying to stop the radiation from flooding the chamber beneath the rocket.
During all the chaos, Jack picked up two live cables and held them together in an attempt to jumpstart the override and stop the radiation, and Rose watched in horror as as he was electrocuted and fell to the floor.
"Jack!" she screamed, heading towards him at a run.
For the second time that day, she knelt beside his lifeless body, and felt the Doctor's arms holding her again.
"Rose, don't," she turned to him, her face full of anger.
"Help him!" she demanded.
He looked her straight in the eyes.
"Listen to me, Rose, it's ok."
"Does he look ok, Doctor?"
"Just wait. Trust me."
Rose watched Jack for a moment. He wasn't breathing.
"Whatever's going on between you two, I don't care," Rose told the Doctor. "If you won't help him then I will."
She wasn't exactly a medical professional, but Rose did know CPR from the first aid course she had done at school. The Doctor let her go as she leant over Jack, hovering her face above his to give him the kiss of life when suddenly, his arms were grabbing her and she let out a scream as he gasped for breath.
She could hear the Doctor telling Yana that Jack would be able to enter the radiation-filled chamber without dying, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from her now-breathing friend.
"Were you about to kiss me?" he asked with a cheeky grin. "Because I wouldn't protest-"
"Enough," said the Doctor irritably, and Jack smiled at Rose in a attempt to wipe the shocked expression from her face.
His attempt failed.
"You were . . ." she said breathlessly. "You were dead!"
"Yup," he said lightly, getting to his feet and facing the Doctor. "Now, what do you want me to do?"
*****
Rose stayed behind with Chantho and Yana as the Doctor and Jack set off for the chamber at a run. From the computer, Rose and the Doctor could communicate through audio only. It reminded her horribly of when they had visited the planet Krop Tor and she had been stranded on the planet's surface as the Doctor went ten miles below the surface. She hoped that this would have a better outcome.
By the time they had got to the computer and were communicating with the Doctor, Jack was already in the chamber, alive and working on the couplings.
"But he should evaporate," Yana said in disbelief. "What sort of man is he?"
"A brave one," she told him. "You wouldn't believe how different he was when I first met him."
Over the comm, she heard the Doctor chuckle in agreement.
"Just goes to show what a bit of time travel can do for you."
"Time travel?" said Yana, his voice sounding slightly distant all of a sudden.
Rose glanced back to see him looking at the TARDIS in wonder.
"That's his time machine," she told him. "The TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimension in Space."
She looked back to the computer as she heard the Doctor's voice, though he was talking to Jack. She listened intently as Jack told the story of how he realised he couldn't die. The Doctor's reaction to Jack began to make a bit more sense as he explained how his Time Lord instinct made it difficult to even look at Jack, as he was a fixed point in time and space. That was the reason the Doctor had left him behind.
"Last thing I remember," Jack said, "I was facing three Daleks. Death by extermination. And then I came back to life. What happened?"
"Rose," said the Doctor, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
She thought they must have forgotten she was listening. The Doctor explained how she had brought Jack back to life with the power of the time vortex.
"If a Time Lord did that, he'd become a god," said the Doctor. "A vengeful god. But she was human. She brought you back to life but she couldn't control it. She brought you back forever."
Rose brought up her hand to cover her mouth in shock. She'd made Jack immortal.
"Do you think she could change me back?" Jack asked.
"I took the power out of her," the Doctor told him. "It would've killed her if I hadn't."
"That's why you regenerated."
"Yep."
Rose felt tears welling in her eyes. All this time the Doctor had kept it from her that she'd brought Jack back to life forever. There were so many times when he could have told her what she'd done, the curse she'd brought upon her friend, and he'd just looked away. More tears filled her eyes as Jack told the Doctor how he'd been to the Powell Estate in the 90s to watch her grow up. She felt so guilty.
"Oh Jack," she whispered. "I'm sorry."
She knew that they'd heard her then, realised that she had listened to the whole conversation, and they stopped talking abruptly.
*****
Feeling awkward, Rose turned away from the computer, only to see Yana looking as though he were in some sort of trance.
"Professor?" Rose said cautiously, and Chantho began to fuss as they walked over him.
He began to talk about time travel, and how he'd never believed. Rose gave him a sympathetic smile, which quickly dropped from her face once he produced an extremely familiar watch from his pocket.
"Oh my God," she murmured. "Professor, can I see that please?"
He told her that the watch had never worked, and that he had been found with it as a naked child abandoned on the coast of the Silver Devastation. But Rose knew immediately what it was, why it had never worked, for it was exactly the same as the fob watch the Doctor had used to escape from the Family of Blood. The watch he had stored his Time Lord self in when he had become human.
"Have you ever opened it?" she asked, and the professor told her that it was stuck, unopenable.
The watch could only mean one thing. Professor Yana was a Time Lord. A Time Lord disguised as a human.
*****
Without thinking, Rose turned and ran for the door as fast as she could. She had to get to the Doctor, she had to tell him. She found the Doctor in the corridor, and he began babbling excitedly about the rocket. Jack had succeeded in his mission.
"Doctor, there's something I have to tell you," she said, talking as he got back to work.
"Right now?"
"Doctor, it's the professor, he's, um, he has this watch, the same watch you had when you became human, Doctor, I think he's . . ." she trailed off as he turned to look at her.
Rose thought back to when the Doctor had told her that he was the last of his people, how he was left travelling alone because there was nobody else. She saw that same look in his eyes right now as he looked at her, that same desperate loneliness, for he daren't believe that he wasn't alone.
Not alone. That was it, something clicked in Rose's head.
"The Face of Boe!" she said. "His last words, Doctor. 'You are not alone'."
"They all died, Rose," he said, not looking at her as he rushed about the corridor, pressing various buttons. "My people, all of them, they died."
"I know," she said softly. "But he's human. The Time Lord part's in the watch, the watch he's been carrying with him for seventeen years without ever opening it. This could be what the Face of Boe was telling you. What else could it mean?"
"What did he say, Rose?" he asked, and the vulnerability with which he spoke made her shiver. "What did the professor say?"
"He said the watch was broken. He said it was broken and so he'd never opened it, but it was like he couldn't even really see it."
"Perception filter," the Doctor murmured.
"Yeah," she said, and the Doctor suddenly looked worried.
"Can he see it now?"
"*****
The countdown to the rocket launch had now reached ten seconds, and the Doctor hastily turned to a keypad on the wall, catching a key thrown from Jack and turning it.The crash that rumbled through the building told them that the rocket had launched, and the Doctor rushed over to the phone. Lieutenant Atillo told them that they had achieved velocity and Rose smiled. The last of the humans were going to live on.
No sooner had the Doctor hung up the phone than he was setting off back to Yana's lab, running as fast as he could. Rose and Jack followed, only to find the door closing on them. The Doctor held the sonic screwdriver to it, desperately trying to get it open. He finally managed it, and they ran through, only to find that the Futurekind had got inside the Silo. The Doctor turned, pulling Rose by the hand when she hesitated at the sight of them charging, and they ran for their lives.
Their journey led them to another locked door, but it was the only way through. Jack set to work on the keypad whilst the Doctor pounded on it, calling to the professor and to let them in, warning him not to open the watch. A noise like a gunshot sounded from inside the room just seconds before Jack finally managaed to get the door to open.
They found Professor Yana standing against the TARDIS, and Rose knew immediately that he'd opened the watch, and that he had not changed for the better. The Doctor rushed towards the TARDIS, but Yana backed into it, locking the door behind him and preventing the Doctor from getting in.
"Let me in!" the Doctor yelled desperately, pounding on the TARDIS side. "Let me in!"
It was at that point that Rose noticed Chantho lying lifelessly on the floor.
"Oh no," she murmured, kneeling down beside her.
"Rose, help me!"
She looked up to see Jack struggling with the door and rushed over to help him stop the Futurekind from getting in. As she and Jack held the door shut, Rose looked over at the Doctor, who was pleading with the Time Lord version of Professor Yana to let him into the TARDIS. It broke Rose's heart to hear the grave sadness in his voice as he told the professor that they were the only Time Lords left.
Professor Yana would not obey, and as Rose held the door shut with all her strength, she saw a strange light coming from the TARDIS windows and a terrible scream filled the air. Rose suddenly screamed in shock as the leader of the Futurekind arrived at the door, hitting it with such force that she almost lost her grip and let it slide open.
A few seconds passed and then a new, younger-sounding voice sounded from the TARDIS, taunting the Doctor. The Doctor pleaded with him once again, asking him to just stop what he was doing.
"Use my name," the new voice commanded.
"Master," the Doctor whispered.
Rose let out a scream as the Futurekind's leader's arm swiped through the gap in the door. She glanced frantically at the Doctor to see him holding out the sonic screwdriver with determination.
"End of the universe," rang out the Master's voice. "Have fun. Bye bye!"
The leader of the Futurekind made another swipe for Rose and she screamed again, deeper fear flooding her as she heard the TARDIS begin to dematerialise.
"Doctor!" she screamed, and he looked round as the TARDIS disappeared.
His eyes widened when he saw what was happening and he rushed over, grabbing Jack's wrist. He held the sonic screwdriver over Jack's time vortex manipulator, yelling over the nosie of the Futurekind to keep it still. He grabbed Rose's nearest hand to him and placed it on the manipulator beneath his own.
"Now!" he called out, and everything went black.
If you liked it, please leave a comment :) Comments make my day :)
Author: staci_x2
Rating: General/Teen
Warnings: None, so far
Pairings: Ten/Rose
Spoilers: Utopia.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: "My name is Rose Tyler. And this is the story of how I survived." What would things have been like for the Doctor and Rose if they had never been separated into different worlds?
"Jack," she murmured, and realised that tears had formed in her eyes.
He looked at her as he stopped gasping, grabbing her arms as he took in her face. His features spread into a wide grin.
"Rose Tyler," he said, and she smiled back at him through her tears.
"It feels like I haven't seen this place in forever," said Rose when they were finally back in the console room.
The Doctor stopped at the console and ran his fingers over it lovingly. Rose smiled.
"She missed us, didn't you girl?" he cooed, and the TARDIS seemed to hum in response. "We need to make a pit stop," he told Rose as she joined him at the console. "Cardiff."
Rose grinned.
"Refuelling?"
"Oh yes."
Rose took her place beside him as he set the ship into motion, remembering the last time they'd been to Cardiff. Good old Cardiff. It felt like such a long time ago. Everything had been different then. The Doctor had worn a leather jacket instead of the pinstripe suit Rose now loved so much, his hair had barely been long enough to ruffle, and of course they had been travelling with Jack.
She missed Jack a lot more than she ever let the Doctor know. Although it felt like another lifetime when she had last seen him, Rose still wished sometimes that he were there, wondering how he would have got along with the new Doctor. She smiled to herself as she thought of how he would probably flirt with him even more than he had with the old one.
"What?" the Doctor asked curiously as he saw Rose's smile.
She was immediately pulled out of her reverie, realising that the TARDIS had landed.
"Nothing," she told him. "I was just thinking about Jack."
The Doctor averted his eyes, as he usually did when she brought Jack up, and looked down at the monitor in front of him.
"We're almost done," he told her of the refuel, and Rose watched his expression change to one of shock as he stared at the monitor.
"What is it?" she asked, heading towards him to see for herself.
The Doctor pulled down a lever before she got there and looked up at her.
"The rift's been active," he said, blatantly changing the subject as the TARDIS began to move. "Only took twenty seconds, better than waiting all day, eh?"
Rose was suspicious of the nervousness in his voice. Before she could challenge him about it, though, the TARDIS lurched and they were both thrown to the floor as sparks flew from the console.
"Doctor, what's going on?" Rose demanded as they scrambled to their feet.
The Doctor clung to the sides of the monitor as the console continued to spark, announcing that they were accelerating into the future, all the way to the year one hundred trillion.
"That's impossible!" said the Doctor, and his confusion worried Rose as she watched the foreign symbols racing on the screen. "We're going to the end of the universe." he announced, and Rose's eyes widened in fear.
With one final thud, the TARDIS finally landed.
"Do you know what's out there?" Rose asked, and the Doctor shook his head.
"Not even the Time Lords came this far," he told her, his voice dark. "We should leave. We should go. We should really, really . . . go."
Rose smiled.
"Ok then, let's get out of here," said Rose, playing along.
Their faces were serious for a moment before they burst into laughter. The Doctor grinned widely as he ran towards the door, Rose following as he took hold of her hand.
*****
They stepped of the TARDIS into darkness, but before Rose could notice much else, she caught sight of a figure lying nearby on the ground. In the few seconds it took her to start running towards him, a wave of nausea washed over her as she realised who it was. Before she could reach him, she felt strong arms holding her, holding her back. She turned to the Doctor in a fit of confusion.
"Doctor, it's Jack!"
He looked her straight in the eyes.
"I know."
She glanced from him to the Doctor and back again.
"We need to help him!"
"It's alright, Rose, leave him," he said softly.
She looked at him with utter disbelief. She couldn't understand why he was stopping her, she could help him, they could help him. Before either of them could say anything else however, a loud gasping sound came from Jack and the Doctor's arms finally let go of Rose so she could rush to his side.
"Jack," she murmured, and realised that tears had formed in her eyes.
He looked at her as he stopped gasping, grabbing her arms as he took in her face. His features spread into a wide grin.
"Rose Tyler," he said, and she smiled back at him through her tears.
"Long time no see, Captain Jack," she said, and he laughed.
He attempted to get up and Rose rushed to help him to his feet. She looked round at the Doctor as they stood, the grin on her face slipping slightly when she saw his cold expression.
"Doctor," Jack said formally as Rose stood between them.
"Captain."
"Doctor, what's wrong?" Rose asked.
Although the Doctor had not been very fond of Jack when they had first met him, they had become firm friends once he had begun travelling with them, and so Rose couldn't understand why the Doctor was behaving the way he was.
The last time Rose had seen Jack had been on Game Station, before the Doctor had sent her home. She did not remember what had happened after that, other than that she had desperately tried to get back and save the Doctor. She knew that she had succeeded, and the Doctor had told her later on how she had looked into the heart of the TARDIS and poured the time vortex into the Dalek Emperor's head, destroying the whole fleet and saving them all.
When she had woken up in the TARDIS afterwards and watched her Doctor regenerate into a complete stranger, she had wanted to go back for Jack, thinking at the time that maybe he was dead and the Doctor was trying to spare her feelings. The next time she had brought him up had been after their trip to New Earth. She had asked the Doctor what had happened to Jack, and he had looked her straight in the eyes and told her, as he had when she had first asked to go back for him, that he was busy rebuilding the Earth.
Rose knew from that that Jack was alive. The Doctor wouldn't lie to her directly about it, no matter what. Whenever she mentioned him after that, the Doctor averted his eyes, as he had done in the TARDIS when she had reminisced about their last trip to Cardiff.
Before the Doctor could answer Rose's question, Jack intervened.
"It's good to see you, Doctor."
"And you," the Doctor answered, his tone unnatural and formal.
"Doctor-" Rose started, but Jack interrupted.
"You look as radiant as ever," he told her, his face showing the same smile had had worn all that time ago, though when Rose looked she noticed how old his eyes had become.
"Jack, what happened? After Game Station, what happened?"
Jack looked at the Doctor and then back at Rose.
"He abandoned me."
Rose looked at the Doctor, who averted his eyes guiltily. When neither of them said anything else, Rose broke the silence.
"How did you get here?" Rose asked, and Jack explained how he had clung to the outside of the TARDIS as it hurtled through the vortex.
"Wow," said Rose, and Jack smiled. "You were in Cardiff?"
Jack let out a chuckle.
"Long story, what d'you say I tell it to you later?"
Rose smiled in agreement and turned to the Doctor as they began to walk down the hill the TARDIS was parked on.
*****
"You changed your face," said Jack as they walked, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen once again.
"Well it doesn't look like I'm the only one who's had work done," he said, and Jack laughed.
Rose looked to the Doctor to see a smile finally cross his face.
"It happened after Game Station," she told Jack. "I woke up in the TARDIS after the Daleks were gone to him babbling on about how fantastic he was and how he hoped he'd have a head when he changed."
"Well, I haven't always been as lucky as I was with this regeneration!" the Doctor said indignantly. "You think I've always looked as good as I do now?"
Rose giggled as he ran a hand through his hair and shot her a wink.
"Well I woke up ankle-deep in Dalek dust to find the TARDIS going off without me."
"How did you escape?" Rose asked, and Jack tapped a device on his wrist.
"You know how I used to be a Time Agent?" Rose nodded. "Well, I still had this. It's a vortex manipulator."
"What, you can travel through time with it?"
Before Jack could reply, the Doctor scoffed, stating that comparing that to the TARDIS was like comparing a sports car to a space hopper. Rose laughed, relieved that the cold atmosphere between them was changing. Jack went on to explain that he had wanted to get to the 21st century, thinking it the best place to find the Doctor, and ended up in 1869 with the vortex manipulator broken.
"You couldn't find him in over a century?" Rose asked.
"Not a version that would coincide with me. So I based myself by the rift 'cause I knew you'd come back to refuel. Then finally I get a signal on this detecting you and here we are."
"But how come you're still alive? You went back to 1869 and you don't look a day older than when I last saw you."
Jack smiled, taking her comment as a compliment.
"Actually I was hoping the Doctor might be able to explain that."
Rose looked to the Doctor to see that he had stopped walking. She and Jack stopped too and followed his eyeline over the edge of the canyon in front of them to see what looked like some sort of city. The Doctor said how it must have had some sort of life, long ago, but time had destroyed it, like it had everything else. As they stood looking out at the darkened landscape below, Jack noticed a figure running along the ground, chased by a group holding flaming torches.
*****
The three of them set off down the nearby slope at a run, soon catching up with the fleeing man. Jack got hold of him, reassuring him before passing him over to the Doctor and pointing a gun at the human-like creatures that had been chasing him. The Doctor told Jack not to shoot at them, so he fired his gun in the air instead, stopping the creatures in their tracks.
The Doctor's first idea was to take the man back to the TARDIS, but a look in the ship's direction told that there were too many creatures around for them to make it there. The man told them that if they could get to the silo then they would be safe, and the four of them set off in the direction the man led them, the creatures with the flaming torches chasing after them as they fled.
*****
They arrived at a tall gate in a frenzy, and the guards behind it demanded to see their teeth before they could go in. After a moment of confused hesitation, Jack, Rose and the Doctor copied the man they had followed and bared their teeth to the guards. The guards then quickly opened the gates and they ran inside, the gates closing behind them just in time to keep out the creatures their new friend had called 'the Futurekind'.
They stood and watched as who appeared to be the leader of the Futurekind taunted them, saying how they wanted to 'make feast' with the humans. Rose's stomach turned as she watched the Futurekind leering at them. They looked so human, aside from their pointed teeth. It saddened her to think that they were what her race might evolve into.
Once the Futurekind had walked away, the Doctor, Rose and Jack were led inside, along with the man who had brought them here, whose name was Padra.
*****
As they walked towards the building, the Doctor introduced them, and Rose was pleased when he introduced Jack alongside them. It seemed that whatever had made him act so coldly towards Jack was passing. Rose hung back slightly as they walked, giving the Doctor and Jack a chance to talk by striking up conversation with Padra.
"Who are they?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder towards the gate. "Those creatures you called the Futurekind? I mean, they look human, but . . ."
"Some say they're us," Padra replied. "That they're what the human race will become."
"What do you think?"
Padra looked at her.
"I think that I don't want to wait here and find out. I'm off to Utopia."
Before Rose could question Padra on Utopia, they arrived at the doors of the building and the guard led them inside. She didn't bring it up again as they were introduced to a man called Lieutennant Atillo.
"Hello, I'm the Doctor, and these are my friends, Jack and Rose."
Rose held up her hand in a half-wave.
"Hello," she said, looking around their surroundings with interest.
"A doctor?" Atillo said with interest. "A doctor of what?"
"Well, everything really," he told him with a charming smile. "Um, but I have a problem in that I've left my ship-"
Padra interrupted then.
"I'm looking for my family," he said. "I need to know if they got here."
The Doctor tried again to explain about the TARDIS, and Rose shared a smirk with Jack as the two men fired questions at the lieutenant. Eventually, Atillo referred Padra to a little boy who couldn't have been more than ten years old and told the Doctor that they would try their best to gt the TARDIS when they went out for the last water collection.
*****
As Atillo left, the little boy led Padra off to find his family and Jack, Rose and the Doctor followed. They walked through corridors, packed with people in sleeping bags against every wall as the little boy called out for Padra's family. Ad they walked, the Doctor began to rave, as he often did, about how amazing the human race were.
"End of the universe and here you are!" he said fondly, and Rose turned to give him a smile. "Indomitable! That's the word, Rose. Indomitable!"
Rose looked up as a woman finally answered the boy's calls for Padra's family, and watch with a sad smile as he was reunited with his mother, trying not to miss her own family so far away on the parallel world.
"Give me a hand with this," he said to Rose and Jack, after telling him off for flirting with a handsome passer-by.
Rose turned to see the Doctor holding the sonic screwdriver against a door. Jack helped him overwrite the code of the door and the door slid open. The Doctor stepped through before he realised the enormous drop on the other side. Jack caught him and pulled him back to safety before Rose realised what had happened.
She stuck her head through next to Jack and let out a small gasp at the sight of the colossal rocket situated in the silo.
"Wow," she said, and Jack made a noise of agreement.
"They're passengers," siad the Doctor, and Rose heard the grin in his voice even before she looked to see it on his face.
It made her smile too.
"They're going to Utopia," she said. "That's what Padra said. Is it supposed to be this hot?"
Rose fanned herself against the heat coming off the ship.
"No," said the Doctor thoughtfully. "Although I don't recognise those engines."
"Me neither," Jack concurred, and as they stepped back and closed the door, the Doctor pondered what Utopia could mean if the universe was falling apart.
Before they could begin to speculate however, an elderly man ran up to them and looked at the Doctor and Jack excitedly.
"The Doctor?" he said to Jack, and no sooner had the Doctor corrected him than he was being pulled down the corridor by the hand as the man repeated the word 'good'.
Rose and Jack followed, sharing another smirk as the man led them away.
*****
The man, who had introduced himself breifly as a professor, took them to a room where a friendly-looking insect-like alien was standing to welcome them. Rose gave her a kind smile as the professor took the Doctor to the other side of ther room.
"Chan, welcome, tho," the alien greeted them, and Rose smiled at her.
"Hello," she said. "I'm Rose, what's your name?"
"Chan, Chantho, tho," she replied, and Rose moved aside to let Jack introduce himself, flashing him an affectionate smile when he used his usual flirty manner in greeting Chantho.
As the Doctor told Jack off for flirting with Chantho, Rose crossed the room to join the Doctor and the professor. She was surprised to hear that there was nothing the Doctor could do to help.
"Nothing?" said the professor in disappointment, and Rose looked at the Doctor hopefully before he explained how he'd never seen a system like it.
"Oh come on," said Rose. "It can't be that much different to the usual stuff. Can't you just-"
"It's different to anything I've ever seen before."
Rose smiled.
"But you're clever."
He grinned.
"Oh no, Rose Tyler, I'm better than that. I'm briliant."
"So come on, chop chop, you can do this. If the both of you put your heads together you'll be able to get somewhere, and Jack can help, right?" she turned to look over at Jack and he approached them, taking off his backpack and setting it down.
"I'll do what I can," he told her.
"Brilliant," Rose said, turning and nearly tripping over Jack's backpack.
She caught her balance and picked it up, listeniong to the strange bubbling sound coming from within.
"Jack . . .?" she said, opening up the pack to look inside. "What's in- woah."
Her eyes widened in the process of pulling out what she now saw was a hand in a jar. A rather familiar-looking hand. She looked up to see both Jack and the Doctor coming over for a closer look, Jack looking slightly awkward.
"That's my hand!" the Doctor stuttered indignantly, and Jack explained that it was his Doctor detector.
Rose laughed when Chantho asked if it was a tradition amongst their people.
"No," Rose told her. "No. He got his hand chopped off in a swordfight and just grew another one."
The professor, looking both confused and intrigued, asked what species the Doctor was, and it turned out that neither the Professor nor Chantho had even heard of the Time Lord race. Chantho told them that she too was the last of her species, the native Malmooths of the planet on which they stood, Malcassairo. The city they had seen earlier was the one that had been hers.
*****
The conversation progressed into one about the Futurekind, and Rose repeated what Padra had told her earlier.
"Yes," the professor agreed. "It is feared that we will become like them if we do not reach Utopia."
"What is Utopia?" Rose asked. "I didn't get a chance to ask, is it another planet?"
The professor looked slightly puzzled again and Rose, Jack and the Doctor followed as he showed them to his computer.
"The call came from across the stars," he explained, showing them a blinking red dot on a navigational chart on the screen. "Come to Utopia. Originated from that point."
The professor wasn't exactly sure where the point was, but it was far, far away. They didn't know what awaited them, but it was their only option. As the Doctor inspected the navigation system on the screen, Rose noticed the professor's face clench up as though he was in pain.
"Professor?" Rose asked softly, and the Doctor too turned to look at him.
"Professor?" the Doctor said, more loudly than Rose, but the professor's face was clenched tighter than ever. "Professor!"
And then he snapped out of it, rather flustered, and asked they leave and let him do his work. The Doctor voiced his realisation that the rocket was not going to fly. They were stuck on this planet and none of the passengers knew.
"Doctor, can you do something?" Rose asked, and he grinned at her, producing the sonic screwdriver from his pocket.
"Of course I can, Rose, like I said, I'm brilliant."
She grinned back at him as he got to work, bringing a shocked but delighted smile to the face of the professor, who they finally learned was called Yana, when the Doctor used a timeless technique and got the system working.
*****
They all got to work then, the Doctor calling out instructions to Rose, Jack, Chantho and Yana at one hundred miles an hour as they prepared to launch the rocket to Utopia. Once everything was almost ready, Rose and Chantho left the lab to get some more circuits. As they made their way through the crowd of happy people making their way to the rocket, Rose ran into the boy ho had shown Padra back to his family.
She flashed him a smile, as although she wasn't particularly fond of children in general, he seemed like a sweet kid.
"Off to Utopia then?"
"That's right, miss," the boy replied. "I can't wait," Rose smiled again. "My mum used to say the skies are made of diamonds."
"Sounds great, you'd better hurry up or I might just take your seat for myself."
The boy grinned at her before continuing on his way to the magnificant ship, and Rose and Chantho headed back to the lab.
*****
Rose arrived in the lab to discover that the guards had succeeded in finding the TARDIS and it was standing right there in the lab. Jack instructed her to connect the circuits to the spar and she and Chantho set to work.
"Is the professor alright?" Rose asked, glancing behind her to see him and the Doctor conversing. "I mean, does he get pain like he had earlier a lot?"
"Chan, he does not like to talk to meabout it, tho."
Rose glanced over again to see the professor getting to his feet.
"He reminds me of the Doctor," she said fondly. "Never stops, even now he's helping, all so the rest of the humans can get to Utopia."
Chantho smiled.
"Chan, he is a remarkable man, tho."
Rose gave her a knowing grin.
"You love him, don't you?" she said softly, and Chantho looked as though she was blushing.
"Chan, I adore him, but I don't think he even notices, tho."
"I used to think that," Rose told her.
"Chan, the Doctor, tho?"
Rose nodded.
"I used to think he just saw me as a stupid human ape."
"Chan, but not anymore, tho?"
Rose smiled and looked back, watching the Doctor as he worked in the lab.
"No," she said. "Not anymore," she turned back to Chantho. "It's the little things, that's what you have to hold on to with people like the Doctor and Professor Yana. They may never tell you how they feel, but you know. You just . . . know."
She looked back to the circuits then, getting back to work on her task.
*****
Before long, they were almost finished, and after conencting all the circuits with Chantho, Rose helped the professor by rebooting the computer system every time the picture went out. They all stood by to watch as a man in a hazmat suit entered a room beneath the rocket that was filled with radiation. Jack was able to keep the radiation low enough from the lab whilst the man fixed the couplings.
There were five couplings that the man had to fix, but after he had done the first one and moved onto the second, an alarm began to sound and the power in the lab faltered. Rose stepped back from the computer as more alarms rang out, and Jack and the Doctor spurred into action, trying to stop the radiation from flooding the chamber beneath the rocket.
During all the chaos, Jack picked up two live cables and held them together in an attempt to jumpstart the override and stop the radiation, and Rose watched in horror as as he was electrocuted and fell to the floor.
"Jack!" she screamed, heading towards him at a run.
For the second time that day, she knelt beside his lifeless body, and felt the Doctor's arms holding her again.
"Rose, don't," she turned to him, her face full of anger.
"Help him!" she demanded.
He looked her straight in the eyes.
"Listen to me, Rose, it's ok."
"Does he look ok, Doctor?"
"Just wait. Trust me."
Rose watched Jack for a moment. He wasn't breathing.
"Whatever's going on between you two, I don't care," Rose told the Doctor. "If you won't help him then I will."
She wasn't exactly a medical professional, but Rose did know CPR from the first aid course she had done at school. The Doctor let her go as she leant over Jack, hovering her face above his to give him the kiss of life when suddenly, his arms were grabbing her and she let out a scream as he gasped for breath.
She could hear the Doctor telling Yana that Jack would be able to enter the radiation-filled chamber without dying, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from her now-breathing friend.
"Were you about to kiss me?" he asked with a cheeky grin. "Because I wouldn't protest-"
"Enough," said the Doctor irritably, and Jack smiled at Rose in a attempt to wipe the shocked expression from her face.
His attempt failed.
"You were . . ." she said breathlessly. "You were dead!"
"Yup," he said lightly, getting to his feet and facing the Doctor. "Now, what do you want me to do?"
*****
Rose stayed behind with Chantho and Yana as the Doctor and Jack set off for the chamber at a run. From the computer, Rose and the Doctor could communicate through audio only. It reminded her horribly of when they had visited the planet Krop Tor and she had been stranded on the planet's surface as the Doctor went ten miles below the surface. She hoped that this would have a better outcome.
By the time they had got to the computer and were communicating with the Doctor, Jack was already in the chamber, alive and working on the couplings.
"But he should evaporate," Yana said in disbelief. "What sort of man is he?"
"A brave one," she told him. "You wouldn't believe how different he was when I first met him."
Over the comm, she heard the Doctor chuckle in agreement.
"Just goes to show what a bit of time travel can do for you."
"Time travel?" said Yana, his voice sounding slightly distant all of a sudden.
Rose glanced back to see him looking at the TARDIS in wonder.
"That's his time machine," she told him. "The TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimension in Space."
She looked back to the computer as she heard the Doctor's voice, though he was talking to Jack. She listened intently as Jack told the story of how he realised he couldn't die. The Doctor's reaction to Jack began to make a bit more sense as he explained how his Time Lord instinct made it difficult to even look at Jack, as he was a fixed point in time and space. That was the reason the Doctor had left him behind.
"Last thing I remember," Jack said, "I was facing three Daleks. Death by extermination. And then I came back to life. What happened?"
"Rose," said the Doctor, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
She thought they must have forgotten she was listening. The Doctor explained how she had brought Jack back to life with the power of the time vortex.
"If a Time Lord did that, he'd become a god," said the Doctor. "A vengeful god. But she was human. She brought you back to life but she couldn't control it. She brought you back forever."
Rose brought up her hand to cover her mouth in shock. She'd made Jack immortal.
"Do you think she could change me back?" Jack asked.
"I took the power out of her," the Doctor told him. "It would've killed her if I hadn't."
"That's why you regenerated."
"Yep."
Rose felt tears welling in her eyes. All this time the Doctor had kept it from her that she'd brought Jack back to life forever. There were so many times when he could have told her what she'd done, the curse she'd brought upon her friend, and he'd just looked away. More tears filled her eyes as Jack told the Doctor how he'd been to the Powell Estate in the 90s to watch her grow up. She felt so guilty.
"Oh Jack," she whispered. "I'm sorry."
She knew that they'd heard her then, realised that she had listened to the whole conversation, and they stopped talking abruptly.
*****
Feeling awkward, Rose turned away from the computer, only to see Yana looking as though he were in some sort of trance.
"Professor?" Rose said cautiously, and Chantho began to fuss as they walked over him.
He began to talk about time travel, and how he'd never believed. Rose gave him a sympathetic smile, which quickly dropped from her face once he produced an extremely familiar watch from his pocket.
"Oh my God," she murmured. "Professor, can I see that please?"
He told her that the watch had never worked, and that he had been found with it as a naked child abandoned on the coast of the Silver Devastation. But Rose knew immediately what it was, why it had never worked, for it was exactly the same as the fob watch the Doctor had used to escape from the Family of Blood. The watch he had stored his Time Lord self in when he had become human.
"Have you ever opened it?" she asked, and the professor told her that it was stuck, unopenable.
The watch could only mean one thing. Professor Yana was a Time Lord. A Time Lord disguised as a human.
*****
Without thinking, Rose turned and ran for the door as fast as she could. She had to get to the Doctor, she had to tell him. She found the Doctor in the corridor, and he began babbling excitedly about the rocket. Jack had succeeded in his mission.
"Doctor, there's something I have to tell you," she said, talking as he got back to work.
"Right now?"
"Doctor, it's the professor, he's, um, he has this watch, the same watch you had when you became human, Doctor, I think he's . . ." she trailed off as he turned to look at her.
Rose thought back to when the Doctor had told her that he was the last of his people, how he was left travelling alone because there was nobody else. She saw that same look in his eyes right now as he looked at her, that same desperate loneliness, for he daren't believe that he wasn't alone.
Not alone. That was it, something clicked in Rose's head.
"The Face of Boe!" she said. "His last words, Doctor. 'You are not alone'."
"They all died, Rose," he said, not looking at her as he rushed about the corridor, pressing various buttons. "My people, all of them, they died."
"I know," she said softly. "But he's human. The Time Lord part's in the watch, the watch he's been carrying with him for seventeen years without ever opening it. This could be what the Face of Boe was telling you. What else could it mean?"
"What did he say, Rose?" he asked, and the vulnerability with which he spoke made her shiver. "What did the professor say?"
"He said the watch was broken. He said it was broken and so he'd never opened it, but it was like he couldn't even really see it."
"Perception filter," the Doctor murmured.
"Yeah," she said, and the Doctor suddenly looked worried.
"Can he see it now?"
"*****
The countdown to the rocket launch had now reached ten seconds, and the Doctor hastily turned to a keypad on the wall, catching a key thrown from Jack and turning it.The crash that rumbled through the building told them that the rocket had launched, and the Doctor rushed over to the phone. Lieutenant Atillo told them that they had achieved velocity and Rose smiled. The last of the humans were going to live on.
No sooner had the Doctor hung up the phone than he was setting off back to Yana's lab, running as fast as he could. Rose and Jack followed, only to find the door closing on them. The Doctor held the sonic screwdriver to it, desperately trying to get it open. He finally managed it, and they ran through, only to find that the Futurekind had got inside the Silo. The Doctor turned, pulling Rose by the hand when she hesitated at the sight of them charging, and they ran for their lives.
Their journey led them to another locked door, but it was the only way through. Jack set to work on the keypad whilst the Doctor pounded on it, calling to the professor and to let them in, warning him not to open the watch. A noise like a gunshot sounded from inside the room just seconds before Jack finally managaed to get the door to open.
They found Professor Yana standing against the TARDIS, and Rose knew immediately that he'd opened the watch, and that he had not changed for the better. The Doctor rushed towards the TARDIS, but Yana backed into it, locking the door behind him and preventing the Doctor from getting in.
"Let me in!" the Doctor yelled desperately, pounding on the TARDIS side. "Let me in!"
It was at that point that Rose noticed Chantho lying lifelessly on the floor.
"Oh no," she murmured, kneeling down beside her.
"Rose, help me!"
She looked up to see Jack struggling with the door and rushed over to help him stop the Futurekind from getting in. As she and Jack held the door shut, Rose looked over at the Doctor, who was pleading with the Time Lord version of Professor Yana to let him into the TARDIS. It broke Rose's heart to hear the grave sadness in his voice as he told the professor that they were the only Time Lords left.
Professor Yana would not obey, and as Rose held the door shut with all her strength, she saw a strange light coming from the TARDIS windows and a terrible scream filled the air. Rose suddenly screamed in shock as the leader of the Futurekind arrived at the door, hitting it with such force that she almost lost her grip and let it slide open.
A few seconds passed and then a new, younger-sounding voice sounded from the TARDIS, taunting the Doctor. The Doctor pleaded with him once again, asking him to just stop what he was doing.
"Use my name," the new voice commanded.
"Master," the Doctor whispered.
Rose let out a scream as the Futurekind's leader's arm swiped through the gap in the door. She glanced frantically at the Doctor to see him holding out the sonic screwdriver with determination.
"End of the universe," rang out the Master's voice. "Have fun. Bye bye!"
The leader of the Futurekind made another swipe for Rose and she screamed again, deeper fear flooding her as she heard the TARDIS begin to dematerialise.
"Doctor!" she screamed, and he looked round as the TARDIS disappeared.
His eyes widened when he saw what was happening and he rushed over, grabbing Jack's wrist. He held the sonic screwdriver over Jack's time vortex manipulator, yelling over the nosie of the Futurekind to keep it still. He grabbed Rose's nearest hand to him and placed it on the manipulator beneath his own.
"Now!" he called out, and everything went black.
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