1x03 The Mind Marauder
Title: 1x03 The Mind Marauder (1/2)
Author: cassandra_elise
Rating: PG
Pairing: Rose/Ten II
Summary: It's a race against time for the Doctor and Rose when they try to help a nation that has been “gifted” with telepathy. Meanwhile, the Doctor considers his mortality for the first time.
Author's notes: Thanks to shinyopals for her suggestions. And special thanks to my lovely beta worbeest for her extra help on this project.
Episode 3 of a virtual series at the_altverse, following Disappearance in Deadwood last week. Virtual Series Masterlist
Part 2
“Allons-y!” the Doctor shouted, grabbing his wife’s hand. Apparently they had already worn out their welcome on the distant planet Flibberin. Their feet pounded loudly on the aluminium floor as they made a beeline for the TARDIS, which was parked in a nearby room of the space station. Just when the Doctor thought they had got quite away, he became aware of a most unpleasant -ZING- just behind them. Turning to look over his shoulder, he saw a small furry alien chasing after them and firing his laser gun like mad. “Oh, bugger,” he muttered, pausing momentarily to devise a new strategy of escape.
Rose’s continued forward momentum caused her hand to pull away from his as she sprinted toward the blue police box just ahead. “Doctor?” she called, turning about and looking as though she had just lost a limb instead of a partner.
The Doctor’s head whipped to her surprised face and then back to the space creature behind him. The little purple creature took this opportunity to aim his gun right at Rose.
“Noooooooooooo!” the Doctor screamed, leaping ahead to shield her with his body.
ZING
The sensation came and went so quickly that for a second the Doctor thought he had imagined it. He reached out and gingerly touched the side of his duster coat. The cloth was hot to the touch, perhaps even burning, and he felt the rawness of his skin beneath it.
“Doctor, come on!” Rose was already in the doorway. She reached out her hand to him, and he took it. Together, they stumbled into the TARDIS and slammed the door on the furious monster outside.
The Doctor sat on what they laughingly referred to as his “captain’s chair” in a stunned silence. Rose looked at him for a moment, expecting him to do something. Then, she sighed, shook her head and began to fiddle with the controls. The TARDIS began to tip and twirl through time and space, grinding and moaning in protestation at each rotation.
The Doctor suddenly seemed to come to himself. “Oi! You can’t treat her that way. She’s like to get fussy and refuse to run altogether.” He jumped up and headed toward the panel where Rose was pulling levers and pushing buttons with a level of aplomb he was unused to seeing from anyone but himself. It was incredible to think that one day she would be able to handle the ship all by herself.
“I have steered her before,” Rose protested, but it was only half-hearted. She enjoyed the feel of his hand on hers as he helped her finesse the ship.
“That’s more like it,” he said in a calmer tone as the TARDIS slowed down slightly and stopped rocking as much. She turned and flashed a madcap grin at him, and he gradually lifted his hands from hers. “Where are we going in such a hurry anyway?”
Rose shrugged but said with relative authority, “I was thinking the lost moon of Poosh, you know, being it isn’t really lost at all in this universe. We did go to all that trouble to get the coordinates.”
The Doctor helped her set the bearings, and they were on their way. After a few minutes of fussing like a new mother over the control panel, he finally relinquished control of his beloved ship to Rose and sat down again. As, he did so, he felt a dull pain in his side. He turned and looked at the hole in his coat in annoyance. Why hadn’t that stupid burn healed yet? Then it dawned on him. He wasn’t a Time Lord anymore. Well, not completely. His was the mind of an alien genius trapped in the body of a human. A mortal. And if the laser had hit an inch or two to the left, it might have seriously damaged an internal organ. He gave an involuntary shudder at the thought. The wound might even have-dare he say it-killed him. And there would be no second chances, no regenerations.
“Doctor, is something the matter?” Rose looked up at him in concern and confusion.
“No, it’s nothing,” he lied, trying to hide the scorch marks on his coat.
“Are you hurt?” She removed her hand from a lever and made a move to come over to him.
“Rose, the throttle!” he sputtered in alarm as the TARDIS began to tilt dangerously to the right. “You can’t just let it go mid-flight!”
Rose clutched the lever and eased the ship back to an upright position. “You don’t have to snap at me.”
“Sorry,” said the Doctor as he looked down at his trainers. “I guess I’m just not myself today.”
Rose smiled tentatively. “Just don’t let it happen again, ok?”
The Doctor grimaced feebly back at her as she turned back to the console. Rose eyed the reading on the screen with some suspicion. “Doctor, you better have a look. I think I did something wrong.”
“What?” The Doctor scrambled to view the screen. After a quick scrutiny of the English typing, he pulled out a pair of glasses and read the information in his home language of Gallifreyan. “We entered the coordinates correctly. The Lost Moon of Poosh-which we know is not lost in this universe-should be right here!”
“Maybe the coordinates were wrong to begin with,” Rose suggested.
The Doctor glared at her over the rim of her spectacles. “Please, Rose. I got these bearings from a highly trustworthy Moldarvian.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She muttered under her breath, “But how trustworthy can an alien be that has mold growing on it?” Unfortunately, she wasn’t quiet enough.
The Doctor bristled. “How is his appearance a factor? You’re saying if I had mold growing on me that I’d be an untrustworthy alien?”
“Half-alien,” Rose reminded him with a teasing smile.
The Doctor’s eyebrows arched, and his mouth turned down into a scowl. "That was a bit unnecessary, wasn't it?"
"What? You are half-alien. No point in denying it." She wondered why her flippant remark had rankled him so much.
"Implying that I'm inferior in my current form then when I was full Time Lord?"
Rose shook her head in disbelief. "You're not inferior! You're just . . . like me now, right? Mortal and all that?" She elbowed him playfully, but he stood as immobile as a statue.
"Can we please not talk about . . . mortality?" It took him every ounce of self-control to speak calmly.
Rose clasped his hand and waited until he looked at her to speak again. "But we are mortal, and you need to realise that we both could get killed on one of these jaunts."
He pulled her hand from his and took several steps backwards, his eyes flashing with bridled fury. "You think I don't know that? You think I haven't thought about what would happen if . . ."
Before the Doctor could finish, Rose’s mobile rang. “Saved by the bell,” Rose quipped as she snapped open her phone. “Hallo, Dad. What’s going on?”
The Doctor felt his anger dissolve into alarm as he watched his wife’s eyes grow large with shock. “What’s wrong? What’s the matter?”
Rose hung up her mobile and fixed him with her most serious expression. “They’ve found an intruder . . . at Torchwood.”
****
With equal parts concern and curiosity, the pair walked the bleak, sterile hallways of Torchwood. Their concern tripled when they spotted the fretful face of Pete, glistening with perspiration and contorted in what could either be fear or agony. Rose broke her cadence with the Doctor and rushed to her father’s side.
“Dad, what’s wrong?” Rose touched his trembling arm in consolation. “Which alien invaded? Anything we know?"
Pete feebly shook his head. He seemed anxious to speak but unable to find the words.
"What did it look like?” the Doctor jumped in. "Tall? Fat? Green? Speckled? Slimy? Prickly? Humanoid? Machine?"
Before the Doctor launched into a full-out rant, Rose interrupted him. "Anything from the files?" During her several years of working at Torchwood, Rose had compiled a list of the aliens she had encountered in this and the parallel universe as reference for the lesser-informed agents. Likenesses had been drawn by a featured artist, and the sketches and list had been inputted into the computer system for easy access.
Rose eyed the physical copy now in her fathers hands, the front page bearing the inscription, "TARDIS Confidential." Couldn't we have thought of a better name? she mused.
“Oh my God, it's the Daleks." The Doctor instinctively reached for the Sonic Screwdriver in the pocket of his blue suit coat-not that a screwdriver could defeat a ruthless Dalek bent on world domination.
“No, she’s humanoid,” Pete finally sputtered. He knew enough from his daughter's frightening description of the Daleks to know that Torchwood was not harbouring a homicidal pepper pot. “And she wants to speak to the Doctor . . . alone.”
“’She’? ’Alone?’" Rose arched one of her dark eyebrows. She turned to her husband for affirmation, but the Doctor’s own brow was furrowed with worry.
“She asked specifically for me?” He spoke in a tone that indicated he was deadly serious and no one ought to meddle with him. Rose understood the implication. This intruder from a parallel universe somehow knew of the Doctor. This could be bad.
Pete once again mutely nodded. Rose had rarely seen him this perturbed. What exactly was going on? “She’s down in a holding cell right now,” Pete managed to get out. “I’ll-”
“That’s all right. We can find it on our own.” Rose spoke louder than she had intended. Her voice softened as she took in her terrified father. “You take it easy, ok?”
During their stint at Torchwood, the Doctor and Rose had been to the holding centre many times, sorting out banal alien/human miscommunications and preventing the occasional evil alien from unleashing a deadly assault on the world. It was Rose’s considered opinion that they had seen it all-in fact, the Doctor had boasted something to that effect the other day. There was little left in this vast universe that would come as a surprise to them, and yet fear followed them down the corridor, its thick pall pervading the air until Rose felt ready to choke.
And then a new sensation crept in: a sharp, prickling in the back of her head, as if some microcosmic creature was tickling her brain with a feather. “Do you feel that?” she whispered hoarsely.
The Doctor gingerly touched the back of his skull to reassure himself that nothing was there. “Yes, it seems to be emanating from the nearest holding cell.”
Two guards were stationed outside the door, each clutching their heads and bearing an expression of excruciating pain. “Make it stop!” one guard moaned.
The Doctor examined him for any physical contusions, but it seemed to be strictly an internal problem. “Make what stop?”
“Get out of here,” the other guard shouted at Rose. “It’ll only get worst the longer you remain.”
Rose looked to the Doctor for guidance, and then she felt the itch in her head spread across her entire mind. And . . . were those distant voices she heard? But where were they coming from?
The Doctor grabbed Rose by the arm and dragged her away from the cell. “I agree with the guard. This is no place for you.”
Rose yanked herself out of his grasp. “Oi! We’re a team now. You can’t just boss me around like you used to.”
“You never used to listen, anyway,” the Doctor snapped.
“Well, there’s no point in playing the lone hero. You’re just as susceptible to that tingling-brain-syndrome as the rest of us humans, remember?”
The Doctor pursed his lips together, fighting the urge to spew out several unsavoury maledictions. Why must she remind him of his weaknesses at a time like this? “I’m also part alien, remember? I can better withstand physical attacks than you lot.”
Rose crossed her arms over her chest, her usually plucky smile turned down in a scowl. The Doctor waited for her to disagree with him, but she turned her attention to the guards. “This way, gents! Let the Doctor do his superhero thing alone.” The mockery was evident even to the tortured guards. They left their post and followed meekly behind Rose, casting askance looks at the Doctor, as if to determine what sort of trouble he was going to be in once this was all over.
The Doctor ignored them, ignored Rose and ignored the niggling itch in his brain that could not be scratched. Instead, he concentrated on the distant voice which grew louder as he stepped into the cell.
The alien was definitely humanoid. In fact, the Doctor wondered if she was 100% human simply gifted with alien abilities. She was a pale creature with long dark hair the colour of a midnight sky. Her eyes were the same ebony, and they seemed to bore a hole into his very being.
The Doctor had seen many wonders during his travels through time and space, and this woman was no exception. Something about her made him feel in deep, reverent awe. “Who are you?” he managed to say.
“I am Lalena.” The words reverberated in his mind. Surprised, the Doctor stared at the stranger. Her mouth had not opened as she spoke.
“How do you know me?” The Doctor thought the phrase, but somehow the words took life and echoed aloud in the chamber . . . or were they still in his head, only the volume was magnified?
“I was told to ask for the Doctor. We need his help.” The girl stood as motionless and mute as a statue, and yet he heard her voice.
The Doctor concentrated all his efforts into speaking with his mind again. “Are you a telepath?” He tried not to grin when he succeeded in his task. "Blimey, I haven't met one in quite some time. This is a treat."
“My people have been given the gift of telepathy by a great and powerful creature called Boz.”
“That was generous of Boz.” The Doctor grinned and bounced from one foot to the other, evidently overjoyed at the arrival of such a talented being. “And how is it that I can now use telepathy?”
“Telepathy spreads like a virus. Boz chose me as his disciple, and I, little knowing the terrible side effects, let him infect my mind day in and day out for weeks on end. And as my power grew, I found I could infect those around me with a mere thought. A single word.
“Now we all suffer.”
“You mean there’s no getting rid of it?” The Doctor wasn’t sure if he liked that idea. True, knowing what Rose was always thinking would be intriguing for a while, but any level of privacy would be completely eliminated. As a self-respecting human/alien hybrid he couldn't justify abusing powers in that way. And then imagine if he heard Jackie’s thoughts? That was a punishment he wouldn’t inflict on any of his enemies.
“Yes, you are one of the infected.”
The Doctor frowned, trying to wrap his mind around this news. “Why do you refer to it as a virus? Isn’t it more of a gift?”
“For my people it is a virus. We are too weak to utilise it properly. My people are going mad, unable to think or sleep but always hearing the voices of their neighbours echoing in their heads, day and night. It kills and destroys.”
“Does Boz know?”
“I cannot say.”
The Doctor shook his head in disbelief. “But if he can read minds . . .”
“Boz is a much superior being. He has the ability to filter and block thoughts. He has not heard our pleas.”
The Doctor found himself pitying this poor humanoid race, but he doubted he could do much to help.
“I hear your thoughts. You want to know what you can do to stop the telepathy.”
“Well, yes. But if your own people can’t control it, how do you expect me-“
Lalena smiled knowingly, which made her ethereal appearance ten times as intimidating. “You are well known to me, Doctor. You and your wife have seen unimaginable things throughout time and space.”
The Doctor gawked. “WHAT?”
“Your true name is hidden from the universe, scattered with the destruction of your home planet.”
“WHAT?”
“You are a . . . . Time Lord.”
The Doctor stared at her darkly. “What?”
****
Rose led the two guards down the maze of corridors to her father’s office. Besides a brief moment of English propriety wherein they had introduced themselves as Smithy and Franklin, the two men were grimly silent. Rose knew enough about human nature to respect their unsaid wishes for quietude, which was why she was somewhat bemused when Smithy spoke up.
“Thank God, her voice is gone from my head.”
She wheeled around to face him. “Is that what was bothering you? Voices in your head?”
Smithy gave her a wary look. “I didn’t say anything.”
“She must have read your mind.” Franklin sighed in resignation. “We weren’t quick enough to save her.”
Rose planted her feet firmly into the floor and spread her arms to halt her comrades. “Wait. You’re saying that alien gave us telepathy?”
The two exchanged worried glances, as if afraid they’d said too much, and then nodded. Rose placed her hands on her hips, hoping she exuded authority. “Then why can’t I hear your thoughts now?”
“You weren’t in the presence of the telepath long enough to develop strong powers,” a third voice answered.
Rose pivoted yet again to face the newest arrival, her father. “Were you infected, too?”
Peter smiled wanly. “Don’t worry. I’ve only felt that intolerable prickle in my brain. I haven’t actually read anyone’s mind . . . yet,” he added in an almost jocular tone.
Rose found little humour in his feeble attempt at a joke. “What does she want with us? How did she know about Torchwood-and the Doctor? How did she get here? What is-”
Pete tossed a mechanical device at Rose’s gesticulating hands, and she nimbly caught it before it hit the ground. At first glance, the contraption had the appearance of a wristwatch-a band of synthetic material wound around a square face-but further inspection revealed it to be the most rudimentary form of a time machine.
“I haven’t seen one of these since Captain Jack,” Rose marvelled as she pressed a button. Digital coordinates flashed onto the face. “Set for this time and location. She knew exactly where to find us. But where did she come from?”
“Her name’s Lalena, and she’s a 22nd century girl from Satellite 223 in the Ripple Ridge Galaxy, some four thousand light years from here. Her people need our immediate assistance.”
Rose found herself swivelling for a third time to face her husband. “You got a lot of information out of her.”
“More like she put a lot of information into me.” The Doctor approached her, fear darkening his brown eyes to near obsidian. “Are you all right?” He stroked her blonde trusses gently, as if she was as delicate as her namesake.
Rose felt herself relax under his loving gaze and touch. She nodded almost imperceptibly, not removing her eyes from his. “What about you?”
“Other than the-“he counted the heads in the room, “-four voices running through my head on top of my own, yeah, I’m brilliant.”
“The telepathy should subside shortly,” Pete assured him.
The Doctor did not acknowledge this statement, as he was staring at the device in Rose’s hand. “Where did you get that?” he demanded.
“From your friend.”
Sensing the tension, Pete summoned his guards to his office. “Rose, Doctor, come find me when you’re through.”
The Doctor dug his Sonic Screwdriver out and aimed it at the machine. “You haven’t dismantled it yet, I see.”
Rose stepped away from his reach. “And you’re not going to. How is Lalena supposed to get home if you destroy her time hopper?”
“TARDIS. Time Lord. Ring any bells?”
Rose protectively hugged the gadget to her chest. “And why are we the only beings in the universe allowed to have a time machine?”
“Because I’m the only one who understands the full ramifications of time travel. You put a time machine into the incompetent hands of creatures like . . .” he trailed off.
“Say it,” Rose hissed.
The Doctor obliged. “Like humans, and the whole universe could implode!”
Rose jutted out her chin. “You’re human too, you know.”
The Doctor was suddenly glad Rose could not read his thoughts, or she would have read the terror he felt every time he remembered a lethal laser had almost killed him. The panic that arose every time he remembered he had more than Rose's life to worry about. He managed to keep his voice steady as he retorted, “Well, of course not all humans are incompetent. Like you and me. We know what we’re doing.”
“If we know what we’re doing, then we can teach others as well.”
The Doctor pulled at his hair in frustration. “Rose, just hand it over.”
Rose’s doe eyes flashed, and with a smirk of defiance, she snapped the contraption onto her wrist. “This conversation isn’t over.”
The Doctor stared at Rose in astonishment. Would she have been this insolent with his Timelord self? A vestige of self doubt gnawed at him, reminding him vaguely of the prickling in his brain. Sometimes he was certain she found his human self as inferior as he did.
Rose interrupted his internal self-deprecation with a simple rhetorical question. “Satellite 223, eh?” She was clearly trying to break the tension, and despite his current anger, the Doctor had to appreciate her efforts. The Doctor was keenly aware that she wasn’t apologising for her actions but for the discomfort they had caused. Despite himself, he felt the rest of his frustration abate .Finding she had garnered her husband’s attention, she smiled tentatively. “So when are we leaving?”
****
After a brief consultation with Peter, the duo returned to the TARDIS. It was decided that Lalena would remain at Torchwood until they were able to determine if they could actually do anything about the telepathy and its originator. As it was quite late, Rose wanted to get a good night’s rest before taking off. The Doctor, though reticent at first, finally succumbed to his own human needs. The two agreed to head out for Satellite 223 first thing in the morning.
The strain between them was still palpable, but Rose took charge of the situation by slipping into a powder pink Baby Doll. Their energies were soon expended in a far more pleasant manner, and between crushing lips and tangling limbs, their squabble from the afternoon was momentarily forgotten. They slept soundly that night.
The next morning, Rose awoke to find the space next to her empty and cold. This discovery did not faze her, as she knew that even as a human, the Doctor needed far less sleep than her. Wrapping a robe around herself, she made her way to the console room and found the Doctor already busy at the controls. She watched as he entered the bearings for the satellite without any hesitation.
“No fair,” she sighed melodramatically. “You heard those coordinates once and you remember them with no trouble at all.”
He didn’t mention that the data had become embedded in his brain, the numbers branded underneath his eyelids with a fiery certainty. And neither of them mentioned the tingle in the back of their minds, a dull trickle slowly weathering away the solid wall of sanity protecting them from the full onslaught of its power.
****
The TARDIS materialised on the ground floor of the Satellite in what appeared to be the docking area. Surprisingly, the traffic was nonexistent; not a single spaceship was coming or going. A few dockhands were straggled about the empty bay, plodding at the lethargic rate of a snail. They completely ignored Rose and the Doctor’s arrival, and though this was rather odd, the Doctor and Rose did not stick around to investigate further. They were after an alien.
They took the lift to the first floor and stepped out into what could only be described as the reception lobby. Much to Rose’s surprise, Satellite 223 didn’t even begin to reach the mayhem and magnitude of Satellite 5, the base she had visited in the alternate world with the Doctor way back in the days when he was leather-clad and big-eared. Satellite 5 had been more a metropolis suspended in space, whereas this station bore a heavy resemblance to a lavish cruise ship, sans the amenities of pressed bed sheets and grovelling concierge.
“Yes, you’ll find this station is vastly superior in décor compared to the later models,” the Doctor said as he passed his hand over an immaculately polished handrail. “As the universe became more populated, the builders learned to concentrate on the bare necessities of living instead of on the luxuries.” He paused, noting that Rose was staring queerly at him. “What?”
“I didn’t say anything and you just started talking a mile a minute-.”
“You did too. I distinctly heard you remark on the sheer opulence of the satellite and . . .” The Doctor trailed off. “I heard your thoughts, didn’t I?”
Rose nodded slowly, feeling as if she was agreeing to a death sentence. “Your telepathy is getting stronger.”
“Which means the source of the power is nearby.” The Doctor scanned the room for any signs of life and frowned. “Or is it?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Look around,” he ordered, his voice urgent and strained. “Do you notice anything odd?”
It took Rose only a second to spot the problem. “There’s nobody down here.”
“And why build a space station for people, if there are no people?” The Doctor mused.
“There were the workers in the docking area. Should we go ask them?”
“Might not be a bad idea.”
The twosome returned to the ground floor and confronted the nearest man. Of course, when it came to the Doctor, confrontations took on a different nature than the typical “good cop/bad cop” scenario of the movies. “Hello,” he said brightly, “this here is Rose Tyler, and I’m the Doctor. What’s your name?”
The man’s dark eyes gazed listlessly out of pale, gaunt face. His arms hung limply at his side, two sticks with a translucent cover of flesh. His hair resembled a mess of bristly raven feathers. Rose didn’t want to say anything, but he looked like a skeleton.
His black eyes locked with Rose’s. “Yes, I am near death.”
Rose jumped as the thought invaded her mind.
The Doctor recovered quicker from the mental intrusion. “Where is Boz?” he asked aloud.
The man turned his gaze to him. “Boz is everywhere. In all our thoughts. In all our dreams.”
“Yes, we know.” Rose placed a gentle hand on his emaciated shoulder. “But where is he on this base?”
“He is above us.”
Rose leaned in to whisper to her husband. “Is he talking literally or figuratively?”
The answer came before she could finish. “We have quarantined the upper floors-those floors closer to Boz and his power. There the people are mad.”
“And you’re not?” The Doctor thought it before he could stop himself. Fortunately his own psychic connection was weak at the moment, and his thoughts went unheard.
“But that’s not right,” Rose protested, “trapping all those people. Someone should’ve let them leave the base.”
“I think they did let some of them go.” The Doctor pointed towards the empty docking. “All space stations are equipped with emergency escape pods. As you can see, they’re all missing.”
“Thousands fled,” the strange man intoned, “but hundreds remain.”
“Including you,” Rose observed. She turned to her husband, determination spread across her visage. “That settles it. We’ve got to stop that alien and save these people. Now.” She didn’t wait for a response but marched resolutely back to the lift, the Doctor trailing behind her.
“It might come in handy if we had a plan,” the Doctor said. “For instance, do you realise what the intergalactic protocol for quarantining a space station is?”
Rose concentrated her efforts on reading his mind for the answer, but all she got was a faint buzz. Clearly she and the Doctor had not been exposed long enough to the source to communicate through telepathy.
Fortunately the Doctor supplied the answer for her. “They lock the lifts so we can’t get to the quarantined floors.”
Rose bit her lip in frustration at this news, but her mood quickly shifted as her husband whipped out his Sonic Screwdriver. “Fortunately, you come prepared,” she remarked.
The Doctor grunted in agreement, his hands flying meticulously about the control panel, the screwdriver humming as he soldered wires. After a brief moment where the wires started smoking ominously, Doctor shut off his screwdriver and surveyed the end result. “That should do it.”
“Right.” Rose called for the lift. “There are 100 floors and we’ve seen only two of ‘em."
"But Boz and the rest of the passengers are purportedly on the higher levels, so we can skip--say the first 49 floors," the Doctor added.
"That leaves 50 more to search.” Rose spoke with precision and authority, her days as a top-ranking Torchwood agent coming to good use. "We split up, we search for anything suspicious, and we meet back in the lobby at 14:00.” She glanced down at her watch to confirm the time but discovered Lalena’s time travelling device securely fastened to her wrist instead.
The Doctor followed her gaze and glowered, aiming the screwdriver at Rose’s wrist. “Why do you still have that thing?” The screwdriver began pulsating, quickly engulfing its target with a blue beam.
“Oi, stop it.” Rose backed into the lift, out of the screwdriver’s ray.
The Doctor followed her, his face stern as a schoolmaster. “Rose, time travel should not be taken lightly.”
“No, it shouldn’t. So just think what the benefits would be of having such equipment. What if we got separated, and I was confronted with some dangerous alien, or I somehow was sucked into a black hole?”
The Doctor did not want to imagine such horrors, but he kept silent and merely slapped the second floor button. The lift quickly announced its arrival with a mechanical ding! The two ignored it and faced each other.
“If I had my own portable time machine, I could just enter a few coordinates, and presto! I’d be at home, safe and sound.” Rose’s tone softened as she wrapped her arms around his thin frame. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry about losing me.” She felt him relax in her grasp, and she took a risk that he would remain relatively composed. “That’s why you’ve been so cross lately, isn’t it? You’ve been afraid I’ll die on one of our silly adventures?”
As she feared, the Doctor grew rigid and wriggled awkwardly out of her embrace. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t changed one iota.”
Rose rolled her eyes but did not press the issue. He would confide in her when he was ready. She put on her Torchwood agent persona again. “We should decide who takes what floors.”
They both knew Boz was more likely to be on a higher level, but that was no reason to argue about who should be the one to find him. They would settle it like adults. The Doctor pulled out a coin from one of his pockets. “Heads or tails?”
“Heads.”
The Doctor tossed the pence into the air and watched it land with the bust of Harriet Jones lying face up. “Heads.”
“I’ll take floors 100-75.” Rose tried to hide her jubilant smile but to no avail. Noting her husband’s resigned expression, she added, “Don’t worry. If I get into any trouble, I’ll use this to hop to Torchwood.” She waved the apparatus on her wrist.
The Doctor swept her up in a fervent kiss. “Be careful,” he whispered, stepping out of the lift.
“You too,” she murmured as the doors slid shut. She brought her hand up to her mouth, the imprint of his lips still titillating and warm against her own. Taking in a deep breath, she pressed the button for the 75th floor.
****
The Doctor quickly decided he had gotten the short end of the stick. After thoroughly examining levels 50-70 and finding absolutely nothing of interest (though an impressive swimming pool comprised the entire 66th floor), he was feeling the slightest bit frustrated. The only interesting discovery he’d made was that his mind was growing increasingly ticklish with each floor.
He knew his itchy brain had to do with the proximity of any telepaths to him, and so the fact that he was still too far away to read any minds was no great comfort. “Where are you?” he muttered as he stepped onto floor 71.
“I am here.” The frantic reply burst into his conscious like an unwelcome guest. Instinctively, the Doctor slapped his forehead and realised with a wince that he couldn’t stop the thoughts with physical violence. Instead, he let the thoughts and fears of his unknown companion filter through the cracks of his defenses until they enveloped him like a heady perfume. “Have you come to rescue me?” a familiar female voice asked.
He squinted with concentration and felt his thoughts flee from his mind, gliding smoothly into the brain of the nearby woman. “Yes, I’m the Doctor. I’m here to petition Boz to leave this satellite and return from whence he came.” He peered around, looking for the owner of the disembodied voice. Assuming she was on the opposite end of the floor, which appeared to be an upscale shopping centre, he started walking forward. “I hope I’m not too late.”
The voice took a long moment to respond. “You have learned the art of telepathy quickly. You are not one of us?”
“No, I’m a Time Lord -half Time Lord technically speaking-from the planet Gallifrey.” The Doctor slowed his speech down. There was no point in frightening the girl with one of his rants. What if she ran away? The Doctor accelerated his pace. “It takes your kind a while to learn this craft?”
“Yes.”
“That explains why Rose has been unsuccessful in conveying her thoughts thus far,” he mused, forgetting his contemplations were all exposed.
“Who is Rose?”
“My wife.” He relished those words. It was a claim that belonged exclusively to him, the one area in which he felt infinitely superior to the other Doctor. Rose had chosen him. “She’s on one of the higher levels right now, looking for Boz.”
“But she mustn’t be!” The voice screamed in his skull, and he was almost certain he heard rapid footfalls from up ahead. “The quarantined live up there. I have only just escaped them.”
The Doctor clutched his head gingerly until the strident thoughts subsided. “I disabled the quarantine lock. That’s how you were able to escape.” He squinted into the distance as the form of a lithe girl became clearer and clearer.
“Rose is in grave danger. We must save her.” The girl stopped several feet in front of him, and the Doctor gasped. Long ebony locks framed a pale, ethereal face, while two coal black eyes blinked vapidly at him. Two familiar eyes.
“Lalena?”
Lalena stared at him curiously, not altogether sure what to make of him. “So you have gathered my name from my thoughts?”
“No, you told me your name when we first met. Don’t you remember?”
As her momentary pause for reflection indicated, Lalena evidently did not recall such a meeting.
“I don’t understand. Unless . . .” The Doctor wondered if the TARDIS hadn’t sent them to Lalena’s past. It was an obvious possibility. Getting the exact day right was always an estimate when time travelling, especially it seemed with this new TARDIS. Only a few weeks ago she had sent Rose and the Doctor four days into their future, and he had received an earful from Jackie for his troubles.
“This blue box . . . is it currently on the satellite?” Of course Lalena had heard his musings as clearly as if he had spoken them aloud.
“Yeah, she’s how we got here.” The Doctor fixed Lalena with a determined gaze. “And when we rescue my wife, I’ll take you to meet her.”
Author: cassandra_elise
Rating: PG
Pairing: Rose/Ten II
Summary: It's a race against time for the Doctor and Rose when they try to help a nation that has been “gifted” with telepathy. Meanwhile, the Doctor considers his mortality for the first time.
Author's notes: Thanks to shinyopals for her suggestions. And special thanks to my lovely beta worbeest for her extra help on this project.
Episode 3 of a virtual series at the_altverse, following Disappearance in Deadwood last week. Virtual Series Masterlist
Part 2
“Allons-y!” the Doctor shouted, grabbing his wife’s hand. Apparently they had already worn out their welcome on the distant planet Flibberin. Their feet pounded loudly on the aluminium floor as they made a beeline for the TARDIS, which was parked in a nearby room of the space station. Just when the Doctor thought they had got quite away, he became aware of a most unpleasant -ZING- just behind them. Turning to look over his shoulder, he saw a small furry alien chasing after them and firing his laser gun like mad. “Oh, bugger,” he muttered, pausing momentarily to devise a new strategy of escape.
Rose’s continued forward momentum caused her hand to pull away from his as she sprinted toward the blue police box just ahead. “Doctor?” she called, turning about and looking as though she had just lost a limb instead of a partner.
The Doctor’s head whipped to her surprised face and then back to the space creature behind him. The little purple creature took this opportunity to aim his gun right at Rose.
“Noooooooooooo!” the Doctor screamed, leaping ahead to shield her with his body.
ZING
The sensation came and went so quickly that for a second the Doctor thought he had imagined it. He reached out and gingerly touched the side of his duster coat. The cloth was hot to the touch, perhaps even burning, and he felt the rawness of his skin beneath it.
“Doctor, come on!” Rose was already in the doorway. She reached out her hand to him, and he took it. Together, they stumbled into the TARDIS and slammed the door on the furious monster outside.
The Doctor sat on what they laughingly referred to as his “captain’s chair” in a stunned silence. Rose looked at him for a moment, expecting him to do something. Then, she sighed, shook her head and began to fiddle with the controls. The TARDIS began to tip and twirl through time and space, grinding and moaning in protestation at each rotation.
The Doctor suddenly seemed to come to himself. “Oi! You can’t treat her that way. She’s like to get fussy and refuse to run altogether.” He jumped up and headed toward the panel where Rose was pulling levers and pushing buttons with a level of aplomb he was unused to seeing from anyone but himself. It was incredible to think that one day she would be able to handle the ship all by herself.
“I have steered her before,” Rose protested, but it was only half-hearted. She enjoyed the feel of his hand on hers as he helped her finesse the ship.
“That’s more like it,” he said in a calmer tone as the TARDIS slowed down slightly and stopped rocking as much. She turned and flashed a madcap grin at him, and he gradually lifted his hands from hers. “Where are we going in such a hurry anyway?”
Rose shrugged but said with relative authority, “I was thinking the lost moon of Poosh, you know, being it isn’t really lost at all in this universe. We did go to all that trouble to get the coordinates.”
The Doctor helped her set the bearings, and they were on their way. After a few minutes of fussing like a new mother over the control panel, he finally relinquished control of his beloved ship to Rose and sat down again. As, he did so, he felt a dull pain in his side. He turned and looked at the hole in his coat in annoyance. Why hadn’t that stupid burn healed yet? Then it dawned on him. He wasn’t a Time Lord anymore. Well, not completely. His was the mind of an alien genius trapped in the body of a human. A mortal. And if the laser had hit an inch or two to the left, it might have seriously damaged an internal organ. He gave an involuntary shudder at the thought. The wound might even have-dare he say it-killed him. And there would be no second chances, no regenerations.
“Doctor, is something the matter?” Rose looked up at him in concern and confusion.
“No, it’s nothing,” he lied, trying to hide the scorch marks on his coat.
“Are you hurt?” She removed her hand from a lever and made a move to come over to him.
“Rose, the throttle!” he sputtered in alarm as the TARDIS began to tilt dangerously to the right. “You can’t just let it go mid-flight!”
Rose clutched the lever and eased the ship back to an upright position. “You don’t have to snap at me.”
“Sorry,” said the Doctor as he looked down at his trainers. “I guess I’m just not myself today.”
Rose smiled tentatively. “Just don’t let it happen again, ok?”
The Doctor grimaced feebly back at her as she turned back to the console. Rose eyed the reading on the screen with some suspicion. “Doctor, you better have a look. I think I did something wrong.”
“What?” The Doctor scrambled to view the screen. After a quick scrutiny of the English typing, he pulled out a pair of glasses and read the information in his home language of Gallifreyan. “We entered the coordinates correctly. The Lost Moon of Poosh-which we know is not lost in this universe-should be right here!”
“Maybe the coordinates were wrong to begin with,” Rose suggested.
The Doctor glared at her over the rim of her spectacles. “Please, Rose. I got these bearings from a highly trustworthy Moldarvian.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She muttered under her breath, “But how trustworthy can an alien be that has mold growing on it?” Unfortunately, she wasn’t quiet enough.
The Doctor bristled. “How is his appearance a factor? You’re saying if I had mold growing on me that I’d be an untrustworthy alien?”
“Half-alien,” Rose reminded him with a teasing smile.
The Doctor’s eyebrows arched, and his mouth turned down into a scowl. "That was a bit unnecessary, wasn't it?"
"What? You are half-alien. No point in denying it." She wondered why her flippant remark had rankled him so much.
"Implying that I'm inferior in my current form then when I was full Time Lord?"
Rose shook her head in disbelief. "You're not inferior! You're just . . . like me now, right? Mortal and all that?" She elbowed him playfully, but he stood as immobile as a statue.
"Can we please not talk about . . . mortality?" It took him every ounce of self-control to speak calmly.
Rose clasped his hand and waited until he looked at her to speak again. "But we are mortal, and you need to realise that we both could get killed on one of these jaunts."
He pulled her hand from his and took several steps backwards, his eyes flashing with bridled fury. "You think I don't know that? You think I haven't thought about what would happen if . . ."
Before the Doctor could finish, Rose’s mobile rang. “Saved by the bell,” Rose quipped as she snapped open her phone. “Hallo, Dad. What’s going on?”
The Doctor felt his anger dissolve into alarm as he watched his wife’s eyes grow large with shock. “What’s wrong? What’s the matter?”
Rose hung up her mobile and fixed him with her most serious expression. “They’ve found an intruder . . . at Torchwood.”
****
With equal parts concern and curiosity, the pair walked the bleak, sterile hallways of Torchwood. Their concern tripled when they spotted the fretful face of Pete, glistening with perspiration and contorted in what could either be fear or agony. Rose broke her cadence with the Doctor and rushed to her father’s side.
“Dad, what’s wrong?” Rose touched his trembling arm in consolation. “Which alien invaded? Anything we know?"
Pete feebly shook his head. He seemed anxious to speak but unable to find the words.
"What did it look like?” the Doctor jumped in. "Tall? Fat? Green? Speckled? Slimy? Prickly? Humanoid? Machine?"
Before the Doctor launched into a full-out rant, Rose interrupted him. "Anything from the files?" During her several years of working at Torchwood, Rose had compiled a list of the aliens she had encountered in this and the parallel universe as reference for the lesser-informed agents. Likenesses had been drawn by a featured artist, and the sketches and list had been inputted into the computer system for easy access.
Rose eyed the physical copy now in her fathers hands, the front page bearing the inscription, "TARDIS Confidential." Couldn't we have thought of a better name? she mused.
“Oh my God, it's the Daleks." The Doctor instinctively reached for the Sonic Screwdriver in the pocket of his blue suit coat-not that a screwdriver could defeat a ruthless Dalek bent on world domination.
“No, she’s humanoid,” Pete finally sputtered. He knew enough from his daughter's frightening description of the Daleks to know that Torchwood was not harbouring a homicidal pepper pot. “And she wants to speak to the Doctor . . . alone.”
“’She’? ’Alone?’" Rose arched one of her dark eyebrows. She turned to her husband for affirmation, but the Doctor’s own brow was furrowed with worry.
“She asked specifically for me?” He spoke in a tone that indicated he was deadly serious and no one ought to meddle with him. Rose understood the implication. This intruder from a parallel universe somehow knew of the Doctor. This could be bad.
Pete once again mutely nodded. Rose had rarely seen him this perturbed. What exactly was going on? “She’s down in a holding cell right now,” Pete managed to get out. “I’ll-”
“That’s all right. We can find it on our own.” Rose spoke louder than she had intended. Her voice softened as she took in her terrified father. “You take it easy, ok?”
During their stint at Torchwood, the Doctor and Rose had been to the holding centre many times, sorting out banal alien/human miscommunications and preventing the occasional evil alien from unleashing a deadly assault on the world. It was Rose’s considered opinion that they had seen it all-in fact, the Doctor had boasted something to that effect the other day. There was little left in this vast universe that would come as a surprise to them, and yet fear followed them down the corridor, its thick pall pervading the air until Rose felt ready to choke.
And then a new sensation crept in: a sharp, prickling in the back of her head, as if some microcosmic creature was tickling her brain with a feather. “Do you feel that?” she whispered hoarsely.
The Doctor gingerly touched the back of his skull to reassure himself that nothing was there. “Yes, it seems to be emanating from the nearest holding cell.”
Two guards were stationed outside the door, each clutching their heads and bearing an expression of excruciating pain. “Make it stop!” one guard moaned.
The Doctor examined him for any physical contusions, but it seemed to be strictly an internal problem. “Make what stop?”
“Get out of here,” the other guard shouted at Rose. “It’ll only get worst the longer you remain.”
Rose looked to the Doctor for guidance, and then she felt the itch in her head spread across her entire mind. And . . . were those distant voices she heard? But where were they coming from?
The Doctor grabbed Rose by the arm and dragged her away from the cell. “I agree with the guard. This is no place for you.”
Rose yanked herself out of his grasp. “Oi! We’re a team now. You can’t just boss me around like you used to.”
“You never used to listen, anyway,” the Doctor snapped.
“Well, there’s no point in playing the lone hero. You’re just as susceptible to that tingling-brain-syndrome as the rest of us humans, remember?”
The Doctor pursed his lips together, fighting the urge to spew out several unsavoury maledictions. Why must she remind him of his weaknesses at a time like this? “I’m also part alien, remember? I can better withstand physical attacks than you lot.”
Rose crossed her arms over her chest, her usually plucky smile turned down in a scowl. The Doctor waited for her to disagree with him, but she turned her attention to the guards. “This way, gents! Let the Doctor do his superhero thing alone.” The mockery was evident even to the tortured guards. They left their post and followed meekly behind Rose, casting askance looks at the Doctor, as if to determine what sort of trouble he was going to be in once this was all over.
The Doctor ignored them, ignored Rose and ignored the niggling itch in his brain that could not be scratched. Instead, he concentrated on the distant voice which grew louder as he stepped into the cell.
The alien was definitely humanoid. In fact, the Doctor wondered if she was 100% human simply gifted with alien abilities. She was a pale creature with long dark hair the colour of a midnight sky. Her eyes were the same ebony, and they seemed to bore a hole into his very being.
The Doctor had seen many wonders during his travels through time and space, and this woman was no exception. Something about her made him feel in deep, reverent awe. “Who are you?” he managed to say.
“I am Lalena.” The words reverberated in his mind. Surprised, the Doctor stared at the stranger. Her mouth had not opened as she spoke.
“How do you know me?” The Doctor thought the phrase, but somehow the words took life and echoed aloud in the chamber . . . or were they still in his head, only the volume was magnified?
“I was told to ask for the Doctor. We need his help.” The girl stood as motionless and mute as a statue, and yet he heard her voice.
The Doctor concentrated all his efforts into speaking with his mind again. “Are you a telepath?” He tried not to grin when he succeeded in his task. "Blimey, I haven't met one in quite some time. This is a treat."
“My people have been given the gift of telepathy by a great and powerful creature called Boz.”
“That was generous of Boz.” The Doctor grinned and bounced from one foot to the other, evidently overjoyed at the arrival of such a talented being. “And how is it that I can now use telepathy?”
“Telepathy spreads like a virus. Boz chose me as his disciple, and I, little knowing the terrible side effects, let him infect my mind day in and day out for weeks on end. And as my power grew, I found I could infect those around me with a mere thought. A single word.
“Now we all suffer.”
“You mean there’s no getting rid of it?” The Doctor wasn’t sure if he liked that idea. True, knowing what Rose was always thinking would be intriguing for a while, but any level of privacy would be completely eliminated. As a self-respecting human/alien hybrid he couldn't justify abusing powers in that way. And then imagine if he heard Jackie’s thoughts? That was a punishment he wouldn’t inflict on any of his enemies.
“Yes, you are one of the infected.”
The Doctor frowned, trying to wrap his mind around this news. “Why do you refer to it as a virus? Isn’t it more of a gift?”
“For my people it is a virus. We are too weak to utilise it properly. My people are going mad, unable to think or sleep but always hearing the voices of their neighbours echoing in their heads, day and night. It kills and destroys.”
“Does Boz know?”
“I cannot say.”
The Doctor shook his head in disbelief. “But if he can read minds . . .”
“Boz is a much superior being. He has the ability to filter and block thoughts. He has not heard our pleas.”
The Doctor found himself pitying this poor humanoid race, but he doubted he could do much to help.
“I hear your thoughts. You want to know what you can do to stop the telepathy.”
“Well, yes. But if your own people can’t control it, how do you expect me-“
Lalena smiled knowingly, which made her ethereal appearance ten times as intimidating. “You are well known to me, Doctor. You and your wife have seen unimaginable things throughout time and space.”
The Doctor gawked. “WHAT?”
“Your true name is hidden from the universe, scattered with the destruction of your home planet.”
“WHAT?”
“You are a . . . . Time Lord.”
The Doctor stared at her darkly. “What?”
****
Rose led the two guards down the maze of corridors to her father’s office. Besides a brief moment of English propriety wherein they had introduced themselves as Smithy and Franklin, the two men were grimly silent. Rose knew enough about human nature to respect their unsaid wishes for quietude, which was why she was somewhat bemused when Smithy spoke up.
“Thank God, her voice is gone from my head.”
She wheeled around to face him. “Is that what was bothering you? Voices in your head?”
Smithy gave her a wary look. “I didn’t say anything.”
“She must have read your mind.” Franklin sighed in resignation. “We weren’t quick enough to save her.”
Rose planted her feet firmly into the floor and spread her arms to halt her comrades. “Wait. You’re saying that alien gave us telepathy?”
The two exchanged worried glances, as if afraid they’d said too much, and then nodded. Rose placed her hands on her hips, hoping she exuded authority. “Then why can’t I hear your thoughts now?”
“You weren’t in the presence of the telepath long enough to develop strong powers,” a third voice answered.
Rose pivoted yet again to face the newest arrival, her father. “Were you infected, too?”
Peter smiled wanly. “Don’t worry. I’ve only felt that intolerable prickle in my brain. I haven’t actually read anyone’s mind . . . yet,” he added in an almost jocular tone.
Rose found little humour in his feeble attempt at a joke. “What does she want with us? How did she know about Torchwood-and the Doctor? How did she get here? What is-”
Pete tossed a mechanical device at Rose’s gesticulating hands, and she nimbly caught it before it hit the ground. At first glance, the contraption had the appearance of a wristwatch-a band of synthetic material wound around a square face-but further inspection revealed it to be the most rudimentary form of a time machine.
“I haven’t seen one of these since Captain Jack,” Rose marvelled as she pressed a button. Digital coordinates flashed onto the face. “Set for this time and location. She knew exactly where to find us. But where did she come from?”
“Her name’s Lalena, and she’s a 22nd century girl from Satellite 223 in the Ripple Ridge Galaxy, some four thousand light years from here. Her people need our immediate assistance.”
Rose found herself swivelling for a third time to face her husband. “You got a lot of information out of her.”
“More like she put a lot of information into me.” The Doctor approached her, fear darkening his brown eyes to near obsidian. “Are you all right?” He stroked her blonde trusses gently, as if she was as delicate as her namesake.
Rose felt herself relax under his loving gaze and touch. She nodded almost imperceptibly, not removing her eyes from his. “What about you?”
“Other than the-“he counted the heads in the room, “-four voices running through my head on top of my own, yeah, I’m brilliant.”
“The telepathy should subside shortly,” Pete assured him.
The Doctor did not acknowledge this statement, as he was staring at the device in Rose’s hand. “Where did you get that?” he demanded.
“From your friend.”
Sensing the tension, Pete summoned his guards to his office. “Rose, Doctor, come find me when you’re through.”
The Doctor dug his Sonic Screwdriver out and aimed it at the machine. “You haven’t dismantled it yet, I see.”
Rose stepped away from his reach. “And you’re not going to. How is Lalena supposed to get home if you destroy her time hopper?”
“TARDIS. Time Lord. Ring any bells?”
Rose protectively hugged the gadget to her chest. “And why are we the only beings in the universe allowed to have a time machine?”
“Because I’m the only one who understands the full ramifications of time travel. You put a time machine into the incompetent hands of creatures like . . .” he trailed off.
“Say it,” Rose hissed.
The Doctor obliged. “Like humans, and the whole universe could implode!”
Rose jutted out her chin. “You’re human too, you know.”
The Doctor was suddenly glad Rose could not read his thoughts, or she would have read the terror he felt every time he remembered a lethal laser had almost killed him. The panic that arose every time he remembered he had more than Rose's life to worry about. He managed to keep his voice steady as he retorted, “Well, of course not all humans are incompetent. Like you and me. We know what we’re doing.”
“If we know what we’re doing, then we can teach others as well.”
The Doctor pulled at his hair in frustration. “Rose, just hand it over.”
Rose’s doe eyes flashed, and with a smirk of defiance, she snapped the contraption onto her wrist. “This conversation isn’t over.”
The Doctor stared at Rose in astonishment. Would she have been this insolent with his Timelord self? A vestige of self doubt gnawed at him, reminding him vaguely of the prickling in his brain. Sometimes he was certain she found his human self as inferior as he did.
Rose interrupted his internal self-deprecation with a simple rhetorical question. “Satellite 223, eh?” She was clearly trying to break the tension, and despite his current anger, the Doctor had to appreciate her efforts. The Doctor was keenly aware that she wasn’t apologising for her actions but for the discomfort they had caused. Despite himself, he felt the rest of his frustration abate .Finding she had garnered her husband’s attention, she smiled tentatively. “So when are we leaving?”
****
After a brief consultation with Peter, the duo returned to the TARDIS. It was decided that Lalena would remain at Torchwood until they were able to determine if they could actually do anything about the telepathy and its originator. As it was quite late, Rose wanted to get a good night’s rest before taking off. The Doctor, though reticent at first, finally succumbed to his own human needs. The two agreed to head out for Satellite 223 first thing in the morning.
The strain between them was still palpable, but Rose took charge of the situation by slipping into a powder pink Baby Doll. Their energies were soon expended in a far more pleasant manner, and between crushing lips and tangling limbs, their squabble from the afternoon was momentarily forgotten. They slept soundly that night.
The next morning, Rose awoke to find the space next to her empty and cold. This discovery did not faze her, as she knew that even as a human, the Doctor needed far less sleep than her. Wrapping a robe around herself, she made her way to the console room and found the Doctor already busy at the controls. She watched as he entered the bearings for the satellite without any hesitation.
“No fair,” she sighed melodramatically. “You heard those coordinates once and you remember them with no trouble at all.”
He didn’t mention that the data had become embedded in his brain, the numbers branded underneath his eyelids with a fiery certainty. And neither of them mentioned the tingle in the back of their minds, a dull trickle slowly weathering away the solid wall of sanity protecting them from the full onslaught of its power.
****
The TARDIS materialised on the ground floor of the Satellite in what appeared to be the docking area. Surprisingly, the traffic was nonexistent; not a single spaceship was coming or going. A few dockhands were straggled about the empty bay, plodding at the lethargic rate of a snail. They completely ignored Rose and the Doctor’s arrival, and though this was rather odd, the Doctor and Rose did not stick around to investigate further. They were after an alien.
They took the lift to the first floor and stepped out into what could only be described as the reception lobby. Much to Rose’s surprise, Satellite 223 didn’t even begin to reach the mayhem and magnitude of Satellite 5, the base she had visited in the alternate world with the Doctor way back in the days when he was leather-clad and big-eared. Satellite 5 had been more a metropolis suspended in space, whereas this station bore a heavy resemblance to a lavish cruise ship, sans the amenities of pressed bed sheets and grovelling concierge.
“Yes, you’ll find this station is vastly superior in décor compared to the later models,” the Doctor said as he passed his hand over an immaculately polished handrail. “As the universe became more populated, the builders learned to concentrate on the bare necessities of living instead of on the luxuries.” He paused, noting that Rose was staring queerly at him. “What?”
“I didn’t say anything and you just started talking a mile a minute-.”
“You did too. I distinctly heard you remark on the sheer opulence of the satellite and . . .” The Doctor trailed off. “I heard your thoughts, didn’t I?”
Rose nodded slowly, feeling as if she was agreeing to a death sentence. “Your telepathy is getting stronger.”
“Which means the source of the power is nearby.” The Doctor scanned the room for any signs of life and frowned. “Or is it?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Look around,” he ordered, his voice urgent and strained. “Do you notice anything odd?”
It took Rose only a second to spot the problem. “There’s nobody down here.”
“And why build a space station for people, if there are no people?” The Doctor mused.
“There were the workers in the docking area. Should we go ask them?”
“Might not be a bad idea.”
The twosome returned to the ground floor and confronted the nearest man. Of course, when it came to the Doctor, confrontations took on a different nature than the typical “good cop/bad cop” scenario of the movies. “Hello,” he said brightly, “this here is Rose Tyler, and I’m the Doctor. What’s your name?”
The man’s dark eyes gazed listlessly out of pale, gaunt face. His arms hung limply at his side, two sticks with a translucent cover of flesh. His hair resembled a mess of bristly raven feathers. Rose didn’t want to say anything, but he looked like a skeleton.
His black eyes locked with Rose’s. “Yes, I am near death.”
Rose jumped as the thought invaded her mind.
The Doctor recovered quicker from the mental intrusion. “Where is Boz?” he asked aloud.
The man turned his gaze to him. “Boz is everywhere. In all our thoughts. In all our dreams.”
“Yes, we know.” Rose placed a gentle hand on his emaciated shoulder. “But where is he on this base?”
“He is above us.”
Rose leaned in to whisper to her husband. “Is he talking literally or figuratively?”
The answer came before she could finish. “We have quarantined the upper floors-those floors closer to Boz and his power. There the people are mad.”
“And you’re not?” The Doctor thought it before he could stop himself. Fortunately his own psychic connection was weak at the moment, and his thoughts went unheard.
“But that’s not right,” Rose protested, “trapping all those people. Someone should’ve let them leave the base.”
“I think they did let some of them go.” The Doctor pointed towards the empty docking. “All space stations are equipped with emergency escape pods. As you can see, they’re all missing.”
“Thousands fled,” the strange man intoned, “but hundreds remain.”
“Including you,” Rose observed. She turned to her husband, determination spread across her visage. “That settles it. We’ve got to stop that alien and save these people. Now.” She didn’t wait for a response but marched resolutely back to the lift, the Doctor trailing behind her.
“It might come in handy if we had a plan,” the Doctor said. “For instance, do you realise what the intergalactic protocol for quarantining a space station is?”
Rose concentrated her efforts on reading his mind for the answer, but all she got was a faint buzz. Clearly she and the Doctor had not been exposed long enough to the source to communicate through telepathy.
Fortunately the Doctor supplied the answer for her. “They lock the lifts so we can’t get to the quarantined floors.”
Rose bit her lip in frustration at this news, but her mood quickly shifted as her husband whipped out his Sonic Screwdriver. “Fortunately, you come prepared,” she remarked.
The Doctor grunted in agreement, his hands flying meticulously about the control panel, the screwdriver humming as he soldered wires. After a brief moment where the wires started smoking ominously, Doctor shut off his screwdriver and surveyed the end result. “That should do it.”
“Right.” Rose called for the lift. “There are 100 floors and we’ve seen only two of ‘em."
"But Boz and the rest of the passengers are purportedly on the higher levels, so we can skip--say the first 49 floors," the Doctor added.
"That leaves 50 more to search.” Rose spoke with precision and authority, her days as a top-ranking Torchwood agent coming to good use. "We split up, we search for anything suspicious, and we meet back in the lobby at 14:00.” She glanced down at her watch to confirm the time but discovered Lalena’s time travelling device securely fastened to her wrist instead.
The Doctor followed her gaze and glowered, aiming the screwdriver at Rose’s wrist. “Why do you still have that thing?” The screwdriver began pulsating, quickly engulfing its target with a blue beam.
“Oi, stop it.” Rose backed into the lift, out of the screwdriver’s ray.
The Doctor followed her, his face stern as a schoolmaster. “Rose, time travel should not be taken lightly.”
“No, it shouldn’t. So just think what the benefits would be of having such equipment. What if we got separated, and I was confronted with some dangerous alien, or I somehow was sucked into a black hole?”
The Doctor did not want to imagine such horrors, but he kept silent and merely slapped the second floor button. The lift quickly announced its arrival with a mechanical ding! The two ignored it and faced each other.
“If I had my own portable time machine, I could just enter a few coordinates, and presto! I’d be at home, safe and sound.” Rose’s tone softened as she wrapped her arms around his thin frame. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry about losing me.” She felt him relax in her grasp, and she took a risk that he would remain relatively composed. “That’s why you’ve been so cross lately, isn’t it? You’ve been afraid I’ll die on one of our silly adventures?”
As she feared, the Doctor grew rigid and wriggled awkwardly out of her embrace. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t changed one iota.”
Rose rolled her eyes but did not press the issue. He would confide in her when he was ready. She put on her Torchwood agent persona again. “We should decide who takes what floors.”
They both knew Boz was more likely to be on a higher level, but that was no reason to argue about who should be the one to find him. They would settle it like adults. The Doctor pulled out a coin from one of his pockets. “Heads or tails?”
“Heads.”
The Doctor tossed the pence into the air and watched it land with the bust of Harriet Jones lying face up. “Heads.”
“I’ll take floors 100-75.” Rose tried to hide her jubilant smile but to no avail. Noting her husband’s resigned expression, she added, “Don’t worry. If I get into any trouble, I’ll use this to hop to Torchwood.” She waved the apparatus on her wrist.
The Doctor swept her up in a fervent kiss. “Be careful,” he whispered, stepping out of the lift.
“You too,” she murmured as the doors slid shut. She brought her hand up to her mouth, the imprint of his lips still titillating and warm against her own. Taking in a deep breath, she pressed the button for the 75th floor.
****
The Doctor quickly decided he had gotten the short end of the stick. After thoroughly examining levels 50-70 and finding absolutely nothing of interest (though an impressive swimming pool comprised the entire 66th floor), he was feeling the slightest bit frustrated. The only interesting discovery he’d made was that his mind was growing increasingly ticklish with each floor.
He knew his itchy brain had to do with the proximity of any telepaths to him, and so the fact that he was still too far away to read any minds was no great comfort. “Where are you?” he muttered as he stepped onto floor 71.
“I am here.” The frantic reply burst into his conscious like an unwelcome guest. Instinctively, the Doctor slapped his forehead and realised with a wince that he couldn’t stop the thoughts with physical violence. Instead, he let the thoughts and fears of his unknown companion filter through the cracks of his defenses until they enveloped him like a heady perfume. “Have you come to rescue me?” a familiar female voice asked.
He squinted with concentration and felt his thoughts flee from his mind, gliding smoothly into the brain of the nearby woman. “Yes, I’m the Doctor. I’m here to petition Boz to leave this satellite and return from whence he came.” He peered around, looking for the owner of the disembodied voice. Assuming she was on the opposite end of the floor, which appeared to be an upscale shopping centre, he started walking forward. “I hope I’m not too late.”
The voice took a long moment to respond. “You have learned the art of telepathy quickly. You are not one of us?”
“No, I’m a Time Lord -half Time Lord technically speaking-from the planet Gallifrey.” The Doctor slowed his speech down. There was no point in frightening the girl with one of his rants. What if she ran away? The Doctor accelerated his pace. “It takes your kind a while to learn this craft?”
“Yes.”
“That explains why Rose has been unsuccessful in conveying her thoughts thus far,” he mused, forgetting his contemplations were all exposed.
“Who is Rose?”
“My wife.” He relished those words. It was a claim that belonged exclusively to him, the one area in which he felt infinitely superior to the other Doctor. Rose had chosen him. “She’s on one of the higher levels right now, looking for Boz.”
“But she mustn’t be!” The voice screamed in his skull, and he was almost certain he heard rapid footfalls from up ahead. “The quarantined live up there. I have only just escaped them.”
The Doctor clutched his head gingerly until the strident thoughts subsided. “I disabled the quarantine lock. That’s how you were able to escape.” He squinted into the distance as the form of a lithe girl became clearer and clearer.
“Rose is in grave danger. We must save her.” The girl stopped several feet in front of him, and the Doctor gasped. Long ebony locks framed a pale, ethereal face, while two coal black eyes blinked vapidly at him. Two familiar eyes.
“Lalena?”
Lalena stared at him curiously, not altogether sure what to make of him. “So you have gathered my name from my thoughts?”
“No, you told me your name when we first met. Don’t you remember?”
As her momentary pause for reflection indicated, Lalena evidently did not recall such a meeting.
“I don’t understand. Unless . . .” The Doctor wondered if the TARDIS hadn’t sent them to Lalena’s past. It was an obvious possibility. Getting the exact day right was always an estimate when time travelling, especially it seemed with this new TARDIS. Only a few weeks ago she had sent Rose and the Doctor four days into their future, and he had received an earful from Jackie for his troubles.
“This blue box . . . is it currently on the satellite?” Of course Lalena had heard his musings as clearly as if he had spoken them aloud.
“Yeah, she’s how we got here.” The Doctor fixed Lalena with a determined gaze. “And when we rescue my wife, I’ll take you to meet her.”