Held in Trust: Chapter 3
Title: Held in Trust (3/?)
Characters/Pairings:Duplicate Doctor/Rose, Alt!Donna, the Tyler clan, and lots of OC's.
Rating: Teen
Summary: An Alt!Ten, Rose and Alt!Donna Adventure!
Join our heroes as they investigate a mysterious man from the future, an apocalyptic death cult, and the wonders of the internal combustion engine.Previous Chapters: Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
A/N: Sequel to The One True Free Life
. It's not entirely necessary to have read that, but it would probably help.
"I will never understand this." The Doctor's voice echoed out of the bathroom as Rose came up the stairs clutching two glasses of red wine.
"Never understand what?"
"This." He gestured to the water in the bathtub where he was stewing, one foot wrapped in bandages and propped up on the side. "Sitting around in your own filth."
She put one glass on the floor next to the tub and sat down on the lid of the toilet. "Once you're back to full working order, I'll see what I can do to bring you around to my way of thinking."
He cocked an eyebrow. "What way of thinking is that?"
"The slippery, soapy, naked way."
He choked a little on his wine and averted his eyes, blushing.
"Easy there, don't forget to breathe," she laughed in to her own glass. "And only one drink for you with your pain pills."
"I'm a cheap date at the best of times, it would seem."
"Not so easy keeping your wits about you now that you can't instantly metabolise the alcohol, is it? It's a lot more fun taking advantage of you, I'll say that." He blushed again and Rose had to laugh at him this time. "I never had you pegged for such a prudish sort--it's not really the impression you give. I call that false advertising."
"I wasn't aware that I was advertising anything," he sniffed. "And I'm not a prude."
"You are too. Look at you blushing--you're still doing it!" The more Rose giggled, the redder the Doctor turned, which just made her laugh even harder.
"I am not," he protested, frowning.
"Oh, you are, you are, you are!" Rose was nearly doubled over, clutching her stomach and finally forced to put her glass of wine down on the floor lest she spill it.
"Stop it," he said quietly, hiding a little behind his own glass.
But she couldn't stop. The wine and the rare opportunity to have something normal to tease him about--something that she could see herself taking the mick on any old bloke over--made her laughter come out a little too loud and forced-sounding.
"Please stop it," the Doctor said again, rather desperately, trapped as he was in the bathtub and unable to stand again without assistance.
Taking a rather sudden u-turn, Rose at first was mortified that she hadn't even noticed that the object of her mirth looking annoyed and miserable, and then became inexplicably angry at him, though it took her a few seconds to concoct a plausible reason why she should be.
"Sorry," she muttered. This now marked the third time in twenty-four hours that they had unintentionally hurt one another's feelings, and around the edges of her annoyance and anger hung a nimbus of terrifying doubt. "Scoot down and I'll wash your hair."
He didn't say anything further, but slid towards the centre of the tub as best as he could with his leg still hanging over the side. It wasn't terribly graceful and there were frightful skin-on-porcelain squeaking sounds, but Rose held her tongue, drained off the rest of her wine and rinsed the glass out in the sink.
"Would you like me to have mum come round and give you a trim next week?" Rose balanced herself on the lip of the tub and set to pouring glassfuls of water over the Doctor's head. He squeezed his eyes shut, making his nose wrinkle like a child eating Brussels sprouts.
"You reckon it's time?" he asked between dousings.
"Think so."
The Doctor leaned back on his hands while Rose threaded her fingers through the thick tangle of his hair, working in the shampoo and making sure not to miss any spots around the nape of his neck. She put a hand under his chin, gently tilting his head back for a rinsing, and found herself caught in one of those little moments of forever, an eddy of time that somehow will always be happening, even as the rest of life flows on around it.
She sat above him, his head tilted back, eyes closed, the lashes fluttering almost imperceptibly, the line of his jaw leading to the long sinewy angles of his neck, and narrow shoulders. The muscles of his arms flexed a little as he held himself up and her breath caught at the the simple way he offered himself to her. Had it really taken such a short span of time to begin to take this utterly for granted?
"I'm sorry I laughed at you," she said, pouring warm water over his head and running her fingers along the edges of his hairline to rinse the soap out without getting any in his eyes.
"It's all right." He opened his eyes again and arched his back a little to look straight up in to her face, a Mona Lisa smile playing across his lips.
"I didn't know you'd be upset." She wiped a stray bit of suds from his temple with her thumb.
"Only because I can't control it."
"No one can, that's why it's funny," she explained patiently as if the entire misunderstanding were explainable via the vagaries of human comedy.
"I could. You never saw me blush before, did you?" He reached one hand up for help from Rose and grabbed the rim of the tub with the other, hoisting himself up to sit on the edge while she wrapped him in a dry towel.
"No, I guess not. I never really thought about it."
"I would have been all the time, I'm sure. Every time you touched me." Putting his pyjama bottoms on, she saw him wince as he worked them over his wrapped ankle.
"I don't think you had better come with me to Somerset," she said, eagerly changing the subject to something a little less fraught.
"So now it's gone from no one at all wanting to go with me straight to me not going but everyone else having a grand old time of it!" He grabbed his crutches from a corner and stood again, wild-haired and bare-chested. "How is that fair?"
"It'll be no fun without my Doctor, I assure you, but all in a day's work, yeah?"
"As long as you promise," he said, exiting the bathroom and giving a little sigh at every step as he propelled himself down the hall to the bedroom.
"Promise what?"
"That you won't have any fun."
***
"I've just stopped in Glastonbury now to get some coffee, but you'll have to tell me where to go from here." Rose juggled her mobile and macchiato while fumbling with the keys to the Doctor's car. He'd insisted she take his Morris Minor--as sort of a representative for himself she was certain, though he covered that up with a lot of talk about how it was imperative for her to drive a car that he personally had rebuilt.
"Do you see anything unusual? Anyone who looks like they might not exactly be from around here?"
Rose looked around at the assorted occult shops, Stevie Nicks wannabes and tourists. "Anything unusual? Doctor, have you been to Glastonbury?"
"Not since Arthur's funeral, why?"
"Never mind. I can't drive and talk to you with this bloody manual transmission so just tell me where to go and I'll ring you when I get there."
He gave her directions out of town a few miles and quite reluctantly rang off so she could drive and enjoy her coffee without needing three hands. He asked her twice if she remembered how to use the special equipment he'd given her, and then reminded her five and a half times to be careful.
Given the time of year, night came on suddenly and if she hadn't been about to pull off anyway, Rose would have needed to turn the headlamps on to continue. As it was, she aimed the little car to the side of the narrow country lane she'd been trundling down for about a mile, amidst orchards filled with gnarled, squat apple trees bare of leaves and looking quite sinister indeed.
From the glove box she pulled out what looked to be a very old mobile phone, from the days when only executives and secret agents carried them. When she shut the car door, a dog barked in response in the distance, and kept up its racket as she slipped in to the orchard.
The Doctor had been able to get what he thought was a fairly accurate location for the source of the radiation, which required her to walk about a half a mile west, through fields and orchards and hopefully not through anyone's back yard. That he'd even for a moment considered doing this on crutches was completely ludicrous, running for their lives or no.
"Doctor," she whispered into her phone when he picked up, though she had a hunch she really needn't be so secretive. As far as she could tell she was in the middle of nowhere, and even the barking dog sounded very far off.
"You've arrived then?" He was whispering too, which Rose found to be both extremely silly and utterly charming.
"I'm here, but there's not much here here. Just an orchard, some farm fields, lots of cows."
"I like cows," he whispered matter-of-factly. "Turn on that thingamajig I gave you."
"Thingamajig? That a technical term?" Rose fumbled with the frankly gigantic phone and squinted to see where the "on" button was in the dark.
"As it happens, it is. Is it on?"
The screen lit up with an amusingly prehistoric green display. "Yeah, it's on now."
"What does the display say?"
Rose looked down at it. "It's just a number. Two hundred and thirty seven."
"Keep on walking in the direction you were going and tell me if the number goes up or down."
Rose reached the edge of the orchard and made loud and squeaky progress through a stile, whereupon she promptly stepped in to a cow pie.
"Shit!" she hissed, which was of course both metaphorical and literal.
"What? What is it? Rose?" The Doctor's voice went up an octave, which Rose didn't notice for a split-second as she tried to wipe her boot off in the grass.
"Nothing, sorry, I just stepped in shit. The number's going up by the way."
"Keep walking in the same direction then, as long as that number keeps going up. What does it say now?"
"Four hundred and thirteen, but Doctor, there's a bit of a problem."
Rose stopped at the far side of the field and strained her eyes to see if she could ascertain how serious of a barrier the chain-link fence before her would be.
"What?" he asked finally after she failed to narrate her discovery.
"There's a fence. Eight feet with..." she squinted in to the darkness, "yeah, that's razor wire. Seems to run a long way in either direction. Shall I follow it?"
She had already started walking before he came back in the affirmative. "The number's holding steady now. It's not going up or down. Still four hundred and thirteen."
"Mm," the Doctor mused, and it sounded as if he were possibly engaging in some sort of four-dimensional arithmetic, or maybe was just googling himself to pass the time.
And so, he wasn't paying complete attention, until he heard Rose cry out suddenly, and it was almost certain, given the clattering sounds he then heard, that she'd dropped her phone. There were other voices, but nothing they were saying was distinct.
The Doctor stood suddenly, papers fluttering off to either side as he reached for his crutches while shouting into the phone. "Rose? Rose, are you there? Are you all right?" He looked around the room frantically as if he might find some gadget therein that would transport her home instantly, or him there to find her. "Rose? Rose, answer me!"
He heard scratching, someone wiping the handset off, and then the sound of breathing, before the line went dead. He stared in disbelief at his own mobile, which was steadfastly indicating that the call had ended, and began punching buttons to reverse the call.
There was no answer. Not the first time he rang, nor the tenth, nor the twenty-third.
(To Chapter 4: Running, to and from)
Characters/Pairings:Duplicate Doctor/Rose, Alt!Donna, the Tyler clan, and lots of OC's.
Rating: Teen
Summary: An Alt!Ten, Rose and Alt!Donna Adventure!
Join our heroes as they investigate a mysterious man from the future, an apocalyptic death cult, and the wonders of the internal combustion engine.Previous Chapters: Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
A/N: Sequel to The One True Free Life
. It's not entirely necessary to have read that, but it would probably help.
"I will never understand this." The Doctor's voice echoed out of the bathroom as Rose came up the stairs clutching two glasses of red wine.
"Never understand what?"
"This." He gestured to the water in the bathtub where he was stewing, one foot wrapped in bandages and propped up on the side. "Sitting around in your own filth."
She put one glass on the floor next to the tub and sat down on the lid of the toilet. "Once you're back to full working order, I'll see what I can do to bring you around to my way of thinking."
He cocked an eyebrow. "What way of thinking is that?"
"The slippery, soapy, naked way."
He choked a little on his wine and averted his eyes, blushing.
"Easy there, don't forget to breathe," she laughed in to her own glass. "And only one drink for you with your pain pills."
"I'm a cheap date at the best of times, it would seem."
"Not so easy keeping your wits about you now that you can't instantly metabolise the alcohol, is it? It's a lot more fun taking advantage of you, I'll say that." He blushed again and Rose had to laugh at him this time. "I never had you pegged for such a prudish sort--it's not really the impression you give. I call that false advertising."
"I wasn't aware that I was advertising anything," he sniffed. "And I'm not a prude."
"You are too. Look at you blushing--you're still doing it!" The more Rose giggled, the redder the Doctor turned, which just made her laugh even harder.
"I am not," he protested, frowning.
"Oh, you are, you are, you are!" Rose was nearly doubled over, clutching her stomach and finally forced to put her glass of wine down on the floor lest she spill it.
"Stop it," he said quietly, hiding a little behind his own glass.
But she couldn't stop. The wine and the rare opportunity to have something normal to tease him about--something that she could see herself taking the mick on any old bloke over--made her laughter come out a little too loud and forced-sounding.
"Please stop it," the Doctor said again, rather desperately, trapped as he was in the bathtub and unable to stand again without assistance.
Taking a rather sudden u-turn, Rose at first was mortified that she hadn't even noticed that the object of her mirth looking annoyed and miserable, and then became inexplicably angry at him, though it took her a few seconds to concoct a plausible reason why she should be.
"Sorry," she muttered. This now marked the third time in twenty-four hours that they had unintentionally hurt one another's feelings, and around the edges of her annoyance and anger hung a nimbus of terrifying doubt. "Scoot down and I'll wash your hair."
He didn't say anything further, but slid towards the centre of the tub as best as he could with his leg still hanging over the side. It wasn't terribly graceful and there were frightful skin-on-porcelain squeaking sounds, but Rose held her tongue, drained off the rest of her wine and rinsed the glass out in the sink.
"Would you like me to have mum come round and give you a trim next week?" Rose balanced herself on the lip of the tub and set to pouring glassfuls of water over the Doctor's head. He squeezed his eyes shut, making his nose wrinkle like a child eating Brussels sprouts.
"You reckon it's time?" he asked between dousings.
"Think so."
The Doctor leaned back on his hands while Rose threaded her fingers through the thick tangle of his hair, working in the shampoo and making sure not to miss any spots around the nape of his neck. She put a hand under his chin, gently tilting his head back for a rinsing, and found herself caught in one of those little moments of forever, an eddy of time that somehow will always be happening, even as the rest of life flows on around it.
She sat above him, his head tilted back, eyes closed, the lashes fluttering almost imperceptibly, the line of his jaw leading to the long sinewy angles of his neck, and narrow shoulders. The muscles of his arms flexed a little as he held himself up and her breath caught at the the simple way he offered himself to her. Had it really taken such a short span of time to begin to take this utterly for granted?
"I'm sorry I laughed at you," she said, pouring warm water over his head and running her fingers along the edges of his hairline to rinse the soap out without getting any in his eyes.
"It's all right." He opened his eyes again and arched his back a little to look straight up in to her face, a Mona Lisa smile playing across his lips.
"I didn't know you'd be upset." She wiped a stray bit of suds from his temple with her thumb.
"Only because I can't control it."
"No one can, that's why it's funny," she explained patiently as if the entire misunderstanding were explainable via the vagaries of human comedy.
"I could. You never saw me blush before, did you?" He reached one hand up for help from Rose and grabbed the rim of the tub with the other, hoisting himself up to sit on the edge while she wrapped him in a dry towel.
"No, I guess not. I never really thought about it."
"I would have been all the time, I'm sure. Every time you touched me." Putting his pyjama bottoms on, she saw him wince as he worked them over his wrapped ankle.
"I don't think you had better come with me to Somerset," she said, eagerly changing the subject to something a little less fraught.
"So now it's gone from no one at all wanting to go with me straight to me not going but everyone else having a grand old time of it!" He grabbed his crutches from a corner and stood again, wild-haired and bare-chested. "How is that fair?"
"It'll be no fun without my Doctor, I assure you, but all in a day's work, yeah?"
"As long as you promise," he said, exiting the bathroom and giving a little sigh at every step as he propelled himself down the hall to the bedroom.
"Promise what?"
"That you won't have any fun."
***
"I've just stopped in Glastonbury now to get some coffee, but you'll have to tell me where to go from here." Rose juggled her mobile and macchiato while fumbling with the keys to the Doctor's car. He'd insisted she take his Morris Minor--as sort of a representative for himself she was certain, though he covered that up with a lot of talk about how it was imperative for her to drive a car that he personally had rebuilt.
"Do you see anything unusual? Anyone who looks like they might not exactly be from around here?"
Rose looked around at the assorted occult shops, Stevie Nicks wannabes and tourists. "Anything unusual? Doctor, have you been to Glastonbury?"
"Not since Arthur's funeral, why?"
"Never mind. I can't drive and talk to you with this bloody manual transmission so just tell me where to go and I'll ring you when I get there."
He gave her directions out of town a few miles and quite reluctantly rang off so she could drive and enjoy her coffee without needing three hands. He asked her twice if she remembered how to use the special equipment he'd given her, and then reminded her five and a half times to be careful.
Given the time of year, night came on suddenly and if she hadn't been about to pull off anyway, Rose would have needed to turn the headlamps on to continue. As it was, she aimed the little car to the side of the narrow country lane she'd been trundling down for about a mile, amidst orchards filled with gnarled, squat apple trees bare of leaves and looking quite sinister indeed.
From the glove box she pulled out what looked to be a very old mobile phone, from the days when only executives and secret agents carried them. When she shut the car door, a dog barked in response in the distance, and kept up its racket as she slipped in to the orchard.
The Doctor had been able to get what he thought was a fairly accurate location for the source of the radiation, which required her to walk about a half a mile west, through fields and orchards and hopefully not through anyone's back yard. That he'd even for a moment considered doing this on crutches was completely ludicrous, running for their lives or no.
"Doctor," she whispered into her phone when he picked up, though she had a hunch she really needn't be so secretive. As far as she could tell she was in the middle of nowhere, and even the barking dog sounded very far off.
"You've arrived then?" He was whispering too, which Rose found to be both extremely silly and utterly charming.
"I'm here, but there's not much here here. Just an orchard, some farm fields, lots of cows."
"I like cows," he whispered matter-of-factly. "Turn on that thingamajig I gave you."
"Thingamajig? That a technical term?" Rose fumbled with the frankly gigantic phone and squinted to see where the "on" button was in the dark.
"As it happens, it is. Is it on?"
The screen lit up with an amusingly prehistoric green display. "Yeah, it's on now."
"What does the display say?"
Rose looked down at it. "It's just a number. Two hundred and thirty seven."
"Keep on walking in the direction you were going and tell me if the number goes up or down."
Rose reached the edge of the orchard and made loud and squeaky progress through a stile, whereupon she promptly stepped in to a cow pie.
"Shit!" she hissed, which was of course both metaphorical and literal.
"What? What is it? Rose?" The Doctor's voice went up an octave, which Rose didn't notice for a split-second as she tried to wipe her boot off in the grass.
"Nothing, sorry, I just stepped in shit. The number's going up by the way."
"Keep walking in the same direction then, as long as that number keeps going up. What does it say now?"
"Four hundred and thirteen, but Doctor, there's a bit of a problem."
Rose stopped at the far side of the field and strained her eyes to see if she could ascertain how serious of a barrier the chain-link fence before her would be.
"What?" he asked finally after she failed to narrate her discovery.
"There's a fence. Eight feet with..." she squinted in to the darkness, "yeah, that's razor wire. Seems to run a long way in either direction. Shall I follow it?"
She had already started walking before he came back in the affirmative. "The number's holding steady now. It's not going up or down. Still four hundred and thirteen."
"Mm," the Doctor mused, and it sounded as if he were possibly engaging in some sort of four-dimensional arithmetic, or maybe was just googling himself to pass the time.
And so, he wasn't paying complete attention, until he heard Rose cry out suddenly, and it was almost certain, given the clattering sounds he then heard, that she'd dropped her phone. There were other voices, but nothing they were saying was distinct.
The Doctor stood suddenly, papers fluttering off to either side as he reached for his crutches while shouting into the phone. "Rose? Rose, are you there? Are you all right?" He looked around the room frantically as if he might find some gadget therein that would transport her home instantly, or him there to find her. "Rose? Rose, answer me!"
He heard scratching, someone wiping the handset off, and then the sound of breathing, before the line went dead. He stared in disbelief at his own mobile, which was steadfastly indicating that the call had ended, and began punching buttons to reverse the call.
There was no answer. Not the first time he rang, nor the tenth, nor the twenty-third.
(To Chapter 4: Running, to and from)