DW -- Trouble
Title: Trouble
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5,440
Warnings: unnecessary scenes with cute and fluffy animals; spoilers through about half of S2; referential jabs at 2.4
Summary: Most people probably couldn't find peril at the zoo on Alkidar One if they tried. These things just seem to happen with the Doctor.
Author's Note: Christmas in March for the all-too-lovable koneko_zero! ♥ I hope you enjoy it, bb. :3 (It was tempting to upload this icon specifically for this fic, but I managed to refrain. XD)
TROUBLE
Rose stares around her. She can’t help it.
“The entire planet is a petting zoo?” she repeats.
She knows how she must sound to him-to Monsieur Time Lord, to the man who makes the universe his playground. She knows she must be emblematic of every other human being, and she knows it’s all “Really?” and “What’s that even mean?”, and she knows he must lose patience with it now and then-with the innate rebellion, her Earthbound brain rejecting everything until she can make herself release the world she knew.
For the moment, though, he seems to be enjoying it.
“Well,” he drawls, “technically it’s not a planet-the entire moon.” He juts his chin out as he shapes the word, and the coat’s thrown back so he can shove his hands in his pockets, and he’s standing on the balls of his feet with his hips forward, like he’s waiting for a gust of wind to catch his back and carry him away.
Honestly, Rose wouldn’t be surprised by now.
He holds out his right hand, wriggling his fingers, and meets her sardonic look with a shameless grin.
“Come on,” he bids her, gesturing to the holographic directory that rises before them from nothing at all. “Deklarian Zeta-Cats, imported straight from the planet’s prairie-a whole room of them ripe for the petting.”
“What’s a Deklarian Zeta-Cat like?” she asks.
He winks. “Let’s find out,” he says.
She takes his hand.
-
There’s no glass-just a low wall of what looks like ordinary stucco. No holograms, no tricks, which makes the creatures in the pen all the more unsettling, because they must be real.
Rose stares anyway. Cats aren’t meant to be ever-so-faintly luminescent, and they certainly aren’t meant to have six legs.
One puts four paws on a scratching post in the corner and lets the coiled rope have it. Rose blinks, but the image doesn’t waver, so she takes a deep breath and steels herself to face the foreign music.
Privately, she loves this part-the moment where the impossible becomes undeniable, and she integrates it into her concept of reality, because she doesn’t have a choice.
“I’m not sure if they’re cute or creepy,” she decides.
“Crute?” the Doctor suggests bemusedly, his arms folded on the top of the wall, jogging one of his heels as a matter of course. “Or keepy. Adorasturbing?”
She watches him instead of the adorasturbing animals for a moment-new-new Doctor, who has the same wit, the same brilliance, the same sharpness, but who is so, so different past the mind. He looks like he stuck one of his regenerated fingers into an electrical socket, if his hair is any indication (that’s mad enough on its own; the Doctor with all that hair!). His eyes are brown, instead of blue-warm instead of cool, but impregnable now. Their very brightness makes them difficult to read.
And he’s skinny as a rail on a diet. That’s new.
He starts to turn, and she looks hastily at the cats again. With that bizarre insect gait, one pads over to the wall, gazing up at them expectantly with glowing violet eyes. The Doctor reaches out with his Lucky Hand-heaven help her; she’s already calling it that in her head-and scratches behind the friendly Zeta-Cat’s ear, earning a purr that sounds like the engine of a small car.
Rose is never going to get used to this, and the idea fills her with an overflowing joy so warm she thinks she might just understand regeneration after all.
The Doctor pops back up again like a jack-in-the-box-except that she doesn’t want to think of Jack, not now, when they’re happy, and things are unusually safe.
New-new Doctor flashes his new-new grin. “Brilliant,” he decides. “What else have we got?”
He bounces off, and she chases after, thinking maybe he should be one of the strange creatures tucked into one of these pens. Constant petting certainly couldn’t make his hair any wilder-Rose figures nothing short of a tornado could.
The Doctor bounds down the corridor, peering into enclosures right and left. Rose sees a tank of luminescent manta rays, a glass-walled closet full of oversized scorpions with lobsters’ tails, a blue thing that looks like a floating puffer fish and watches her with huge yellow eyes, and a dozen creatures she can’t even figure out how to describe. She pauses to pet a guinea pig the size of a real pig, which has a tuft of brownish fur that looks exactly like the Doctor’s hair-it’s extremely soft, and the giant rodent makes a chuckling noise of gratitude-before before jogging to catch up with the man himself.
He’s leaning halfway over another low wall, staring intently into the elaborate environment built in this enclosure, which is thick with trees, foliage, and vines. Rose squints at the wavering holographic plaque by the Doctor’s Lucky Hand. It reads Eleuthiac Rain Bear.
“Where is it?” the Doctor mutters, forehead furrowing. “Hang on-”
He plants one foot on the low wall, angling himself to vault over, and Rose dives forward to seize his arm.
“What are you doing?” she squeaks.
“It’s a petting zoo,” he tells her, shaking at her grip. “The petting’s the whole point; I want to pet the Rain Bear-”
“It’s hiding,” Rose points out. “It doesn’t want you to pet it.”
The Doctor pouts. “Eleuthiac Rain Bears are extinct in five galaxies. I haven’t seen one in decades; I can’t believe they’ve found one. You can’t tell me you’re not curious.”
Rose thinks of the giant Doctor-haired guinea pig. “Well-”
“Come on, then,” the Doctor chirps, jumping over the barrier, his trainers crackling on the twigs of the habitat.
Rose looks dubiously at the densest section of the miniature rain-forest. “You go ahead,” she says. “I’ll pet it after you’ve done.”
“They don’t bite,” he coaxes, once again raising and wriggling the Lucky Hand. “Or at the least, they’re not poisonous.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Right. I’ll wait here.”
“You’re missing out,” he sings, turning to tromp through the undergrowth.
She glances up and down the hall, which is blessedly empty. She can’t see any cameras either, but in a petting zoo with holograms, she doesn’t trust her naked eye.
“Doctor,” she cuts in, and he beams over his shoulder in an extremely distracting way. “If we get in trouble for this,” she says, “you’re taking me to some intergalactic ice cream shop to make it up.”
The Doctor winks. “I know just the one.”
Then he’s forging through the imitation wilderness again, and she realizes how unencouraging that is.
“Doctor,” she begins, but he’s already clambering heedlessly into the depths of the underbrush. “Maybe you sh-”
“Found him!” the Doctor crows, Converse protruding from the leaves. “Oh, look at you. How could anyone hunt you to the brink of universal extinction?” There’s a flash of the brown coat as he crouches down in front of something she can’t see. “Come on. Come on, come meet Rose. You’ll like her.”
Rose isn’t sure she wants any of this. There’s no picture on the hologram, and she can’t help remembering that this place thinks lobster-scorpions belong in a petting zoo.
But there’s nothing to be done for that, not now. Rose can only hope that Time Lords are resistant to rabies; she really rather wouldn’t have to deal with another regeneration.
Truthfully, she wouldn’t at all. She likes new-new Doctor-a lot. More than she wants to think about. There’s something intriguing in his indiscriminate fascination; in his heedless enthusiasm; in the strange, gangly grace only emphasized by the pinstripes, by the Cons, by the crowning touch of the incorrigible hair.
The incorrigible hair has acquired three leaves and a twig when the Doctor emerges from the trees. There is a bear in his arms-a small bear, its thick black fur rippling with greenish shadows that match its attentive emerald eyes. Its paws are tipped with long, dark, curving claws, which scrabble gently at the Doctor’s lapels as its eyes roll anxiously.
“You’re all right,” the Doctor assures the animal balanced in one arm, raising the other hand to stroke at its rounded ears. “It’s just Rose. Come on, let’s see Rose.”
Rose can’t help smiling as the bright eyes turn on her. “Hello,” she offers as the Doctor comes forward, leaning against the wall to bring the bear into her reach. Slowly, hoping not to scare it, she raises her hand and gently pets its back, and the thick fur is even silkier than it looks. It’s cool and smooth beneath her fingers, deep green under the shadow of her palm, and she’s too pleased to notice their positions until her hand collides with the Doctor’s arm.
The Doctor doesn’t notice, either, because he’s too busy craning his neck trying to escape the reach of his precious Rain Bear.
“Hey,” he protests, wrinkling his nose as the bear drags a huge pink tongue sloppily up his cheek. “None of that.”
Rose grins. “So it’s all right when you do it?” she prompts.
“Do what?” he asks, leaning away from the bear, which placidly meets his accusing look.
“Lick everything in sight,” she replies.
“Certainly not everything,” he says.
Before she can tell him that recognizing the taste of human blood puts a Time Lord in a bit of a tricky defensive position, there’s commotion in the corridor, and Rose turns. The man approaching them stands tall and walks with a hint of a swagger, and he carries what looks like a police baton at his belt. Rose sees that a patch on his chest reads Personnel, and she resigns herself to another one of Those Days.
The TARDIS really needs one of those beeping keyrings so that they can find where they’ve parked it while they’re on the run.
“Good afternoon, sir!” the Doctor declares, unperturbed. He shifts the Rain Bear more fully into one arm, and it holds onto him obediently as he snatches a familiar leather wallet out of a pocket of his suit. “John Smith,” he announces, flashing the psychic paper with a grin that would probably blind the man enough to carry off the ruse on its own. “And this is my assistant, Rose Tyler.”
“Hi,” Rose says, managing a little wave.
“Animal Conditions Inspectors from the Alkidar Fauna Bureau,” the Doctor reports. “This is a surprise inspection.”
“I can see that,” the patrolman says uneasily. “Do you always pick them up when you’re inspecting?”
“Of course,” the Doctor answers, looking so appalled and offended that Rose smothers a laugh. “How else am I to know whether you’ve been feeding him right? If you’d rather bring me a set of scales, I’ll happily set him down.” He eyes the man suspiciously, tucking the psychic paper back into his pocket. “Can I have your name, sir? Just in case I talk to your manager, you understand.”
The helpless patrolman goes a bit pale. Hastily, he covers, “Eliot Spendrid, Mr. Smith, sir. Do you need those scales, or are you going to be all right here?”
“That’ll be all,” the Doctor tells him airily; “thank you, Eliot. I’ll ask after you if we need anything.”
The officer beats a rapid retreat, and Rose gives the Doctor a reprimanding look undermined by her urge to smile.
“You’re awful,” she says.
He’s grinning, possibly because he hasn’t yet noticed that the Rain Bear is chewing on his lapel. “Awfully good, you mean.”
-
The trouble starts-well, the real trouble starts; Rose rates the levels of Trouble, and by her judgment, their previous encounter was negligible-when they get to the enclosure for the Kl’avarian Spotted Lemurs.
Well, when they get to the enclosure that should be for the Kl’avarian Spotted Lemurs.
“They’re green with purple spots,” the Doctor laments, gazing woefully at the unoccupied trees spread around the space. “Extremely intelligent, and friendly, and they bounce around like you wouldn’t believe.”
Rose tries not to imagine a bunch of little purple-polka-dotted Doctors and fails.
“It says here they’re temporarily in the back while the cage gets renovated,” she reads on the sign.
The Doctor looks up. “Right,” he decides. “Off we go, then.”
She’s clearly been doing this for too long; she knows exactly what that means.
“We can’t just shove our way into the back room-” she begins.
“No shoving,” he informs her cheerfully. “Just good, old-fashioned psychic deception. At this rate, I’ll have to ask the Alkidar Fauna Bureau to send a check.”
“I’m still holding you to that ice cream shop,” Rose warns, but she follows him down the corridor until he reaches a door that reads Authorised Personnel Only.
Naturally, the screwdriver makes short work of that interdiction, and the Doctor strolls in like he owns the place, as he has done a thousand times before.
Actually, given his age and his predilection for infiltration, it’s relatively probable that his tally is closer to a million, but Rose isn’t sure she wants to wrap her head around that.
They’ve forged into some kind of back room, all right-it’s like there’s a warehouse pushed up against the backs of the enclosures, and there’s all sorts of movement and commotion as employees move back and forth, transporting food and habitat materials, pushing hand-trucks, and scribbling on clipboards. Rose thinks of an anthill or a beehive, people issuing one way and then the other, interacting and conversing, wearing coveralls or business dress or uniforms like Eliot’s. One man has a small palm tree hoisted over his shoulder.
A woman in a lab coat notices them where they stand just inside the door, looking around at the activity with interest. She strides across the space, tossing a dark braid over her shoulder, clicks her pen menacingly, and taps her glasses down the bridge of her nose, the better to look over the rims mistrustfully.
“John Smith,” the Doctor interjects brightly, flashing the psychic paper before she can speak. “AFB. Rose Tyler, my partner.”
Fancy that; she’s moving up the ranks. Maybe she’ll be a supervisor by the time they find the lemurs.
“Right,” the woman manages, glancing at the Doctor’s usual attire and then at Rose’s jeans and Cookie Monster T-shirt. Rose figures it’s better than the Union Jack one; at least the Doctor said Cookie Monster looks a bit like an adolescent Venxplar, whatever that is. “As you were, then. If you have any questions, ask for me.” She gestures to her name-tag, which displays a name that appears to be unpronounceable. Rose has to admit that’s pretty clever.
“Will do,” the Doctor responds cheerfully. His elbow pops up at his side, held out to her, and Rose links her arm with his, grinning. “Thanks very much,” he tells Administrator Something-with-Lots-of-Vowels as they start towards the heart of the place, on the lookout for lemurs, showing the psychic paper to anyone-to the rather considerable amount of people-that give them a second glance.
People pay the Doctor a lot more attention in this regeneration, but given that this regeneration is extremely fetching and runs around in a pinstriped suit and a trenchcoat, Rose can’t exactly blame them.
“Hello,” the Doctor says, turning their trajectory towards a divergent hallway he’s spotted. “What’s over here?”
“Trouble, probably,” Rose replies.
The Doctor grins, dropping her arm to take her hand. “Got my name on it, then!”
‘Doctor Trouble’ sounds like the name of a rather inefficient super-villain, but it’s too late to protest, because he’s drawing her into the hall, which has sterile white walls and cold fluorescent lighting and lots of doors. Perhaps ‘Doctor Trouble’ should actually be the name of a game show-though Rose tries to think of game shows as little as possible-because he is almost undoubtedly going to start opening those doors in search of prizes.
Taking “prizes” to mean “monsters and general chaos,” of course.
Sure enough, he surveys them all in turn, reading the labels on and beside the white wooden doors with their mechanical locks, which bear slots for plastic cards to be swiped. Rose isn’t entirely sure she likes this portion of the zoo-these buzzing, bleached corridors make her uneasy, and rooms that proclaim things like Paper Records and Immunisation Research and Nutritional Testing don’t help.
Naturally, the Doctor stops before the one at the end-a huge steel door, smartly painted smartly red and black and gray, with a keypad at the side and a small, square window in the middle. This door reads New/Rare Imports.
“That’s where the good ones’ll be,” the Doctor notes, squeezing her hand, presumably unconsciously in his excitement. “New-new animals. Let’s see what evolution’s up to these days.” He lets go of her hand to rummage in his pocket for the screwdriver again. Those pockets must be bigger on the-well, they probably are. He finds it, however, manages to contain the “Aha” so close to the tip of his tongue that she can almost hear it, and applies his favorite skeleton key to the number pad.
The door hisses open, clanking heavily into place, and the Doctor snaps the tool back with a flourish.
Rose peers dubiously into the dim room, glancing at the Doctor in time to see him wink.
“Allons-y?” he says.
“Mais oui,” she replies, which actually means I don’t think your sanity regenerated right.
“I thought you didn’t like France,” the Doctor remarks, but before she can answer, he’s past the threshold and poking around.
Inevitably, Rose follows, looking around her at the stacks of empty wire cages; at the blank walls with their strange patterns of rust, draping folds of color on dark gray; at the stained grating of the floor and all the ambient industrial steel. Here as well the hanging lights, bare bulbs giving off the jagged drone of electricity, cast too many shadows too harshly. She peeks into a low cage and finds it empty, scrubbed clean.
“Nothing new and rare, then?” she prompts uncertainly.
The Doctor hums, harmonizing with the lights. “Guess not.”
Rose approaches him where he’s standing before a monitor panel on the wall. He dons his glasses and touches a fingertip to the button on the screen that reads Import Schedule.
The screen makes a terrible BEEP.
The Doctor blinks, then frowns, poking another button, which promises Layout Design.
The screen beeps even louder.
The Doctor draws his glasses down his nose, squints, and then tucks them back into a pocket.
“Maybe you shouldn’t-” Rose begins.
The Doctor whips out the screwdriver, fiddles with the settings, and aims it at the unresponsive touchscreen.
This time, the deep, negative sound that emerges from hidden speakers is so loud and violent that Rose claps her hands over her ears. Even that barrier can’t muffle the monitor’s ensuing announcement, delivered in a tinny, androgynous voice:
“Unauthorized entry. Scan identification card.”
“Oh,” the Doctor says, staring. “Oh, dear.”
The screen has produced a large red arrow pointing to the laser eye at the bottom.
“Scan identification card.”
“Don’t get your circuits in a twist,” the Doctor mutters, rooting through his pockets to retrieve the psychic paper and waving it before the scanner.
“Invalid barcode.”
“Barcode?” the Doctor protests. “What century are we in?”
“Scan valid card.”
The Doctor scowls, thinks, and moves the paper slowly before the scanner once more. Rose can’t even imagine how this works-how he can psychically generate a plausible barcode to project to a computer.
“Invalid barcode.”
…apparently it’s harder than he thinks.
“System shutdown.”
“What?” the Doctor yelps. “No, you don’t!” He juggles his accouterments and points the screwdriver at the screen again.
“System tampering. Emergency lockdown.”
The screen goes black, and Rose distantly hears something click.
She and the Doctor turn in unison, so it is in unison that they see the great steel door beginning to slide shut.
Rose gets in half a breath before the Doctor shouts “Run!”
They race down the row of cages, and rust like splattered paint flashes at the corner of Rose’s eye. Her heart’s climbing her esophagus, and the Doctor catches her hand and drags her faster, and their slamming footsteps echo wildly, like short gunshots. She wishes she’d managed a whole breath; her heart-clogged throat feels dry, and her lungs burn, and the door shifts far, far, too quickly, but they might-they could-
They’ll never-
They’re so close, but she can tell they won’t make it; the Doctor’s trainers squeal, and the door shudders, mechanisms creaking, and Rose tries to push a little harder, run a little faster, hope a little more, because heaven only knows what happens if someday they just don’t make it-
And then the Doctor wrenches his hand from hers and shoves her through the dwindling gap left in the door.
The whiteness of the hall is blinding after all the gray, and she tumbles to the linoleum, banging her elbows and then her head. She lies stunned for one stuttering breath, staring dumbly up at the lights. Then the ringing in her ears subsides a little bit, and she remembers herself, scrambles to her feet, and lunges forward just as the door seals with the Doctor inside.
Rose’s whole body goes still for a long, long moment, her arm halfway extended. He’s crazy. He’s crazy, and selfish, and reckless, and a little conceited, and stupidly generous, because they both know she can’t help the universe one whit. The world-every world-needs him.
He never thinks that far ahead. He just puts other people, every other person, every other life form in this hapless, masochistic universe before himself. Someday it’ll kill him for good. He’s so brilliant, but he’s so, so, so naïve.
A puff-haired head pops up in the window, one hand rubbing at the hair in question and somehow managing to make it worse. Rose gets so close to the reinforced plastic that she can almost imagine it isn’t there.
She can’t quite hear him, but a glance at his expression and a rudimentary understanding of his habits make it clear he’s saying “Hmm.”
She taps frantically at the glass and starts to point and pantomime. “Could you-the hinges-with the screwdriver?”
He frowns thoughtfully, ruffles his hair a little more, and then ducks out of sight. Momentarily, he reappears, shaking his head, waving the screwdriver and saying something that might be “Automated Deadlock hinge pins,” whatever that means.
Then there’s a hiss audible even from outside, and the metallic voice she despises remarks, “Eliminating intruder.”
It is easy to interpret the following word: “What?”
The Doctor turns to watch a jet of noxious-looking, thick yellow smoke issue from some unseen vent. Rose’s hands are flat against the door, pressed to the steel so hard her palms ache.
“Doctor!” she calls uselessly, but he takes no notice, instead sticking his tongue out and then smacking his lips.
She’s almost certain the next thing he says is “Chlorine? That’s as obsolete as barcodes.”
She pounds her fist against the glass, and he looks over, bemused.
“What do I do?” she demands, trying to enunciate in the hopes that reading lips is among his innumerable talents.
Chewing on his bottom lip evidently is. “Ah…” he looks to be saying. “Get me out. Getting me out would be good. I’ve already-” He sucks in a deep breath and then doesn’t let it out; the tension stays in his shoulders and his chest. “-jump-started the respiratory bypass system, but a certain amount of hydrochloric acid is bound to get into my lungs either way, and that stings. Nasty stuff. Blech.”
“All right,” Rose replies helplessly, looking around. Then she sees- “There’s-there’s a keypad! Um-” She mimes pushing the buttons, and them points to it, hoping desperately.
“Brilliant!” he decides. “Just-” His face falls. “Oh.” He raises the sonic screwdriver, which is definitively stuck on his side of the door.
Rose winces. The Doctor could solve this with a metal spring and an authoritative tone of voice, but what’s she supposed to do? She’s no space-hopping savant with endless vaults of knowledge and experience; she’s no alien aficionado, no improvisational genius, no miracle-worker in disguise. She’s Rose Marion Tyler-that’s it. She couldn’t even get a better job than one in a shop with evil mannequins. The only time she works miracles is when she accidentally does something right. She’s human. She’s useless. She’s scared.
The Doctor whirls as a jet of wispy white smoke appears at his other side, mingling in the middle with the yellow stuff. The Doctor’s mouth goes into an O of unpleasant surprise, and all the interested amusement is gone as he flattens his hands against the window and leans in until the tip of his nose touches the pane.
“Rose.” That word’s clear enough. “Given the era, it should be a nine-digit code.” He holds up nine fingers, pressing them to the plastic, his flesh going bone-white.
“You just want me to guess?” Rose is trying not to panic, but that’s a difficult thing to do when panic is the most logical emotional response. “How-”
“Rose,” he repeats, and she almost thinks she can hear him through the plastic this time. “That-” He shoves a finger at the white cloud billowing from behind. “-is very, very bad news. I need you to slow down and think of a way to get me out.”
She’s still reeling from the run, and the fall, and the terror, and what can he possibly expect her to think of? He’s doing it again, presuming like he does, believing that everybody’s like him; everybody can feed off of the danger and be all the bigger and smarter and quicker for it, but she’s not like that. She can’t jury-rig complex machinery or bend the course of things by sheer force of will, and she can’t transmute fear into frenetic energy.
“Rose,” he says, just once more, his eyes dark and sharp with intensity as the pale, butter-colored fog creeps in around him, curling in his hair and then obscuring him completely.
His hand stays pressed to the glass for a moment, and then it disappears.
Rose’s heart is pounding too fast, too fast, making her head spin; she’s not sure whether to be more terrified or guilt-stricken at that last look of his-like there are two roads from here, one where she fails, and one where she earns her place.
She stumbles back from the door, staring first at the keypad and then at the window. There must be a million possible nine-digit combinations, and she doesn’t even have a hint. She could run for the administrator woman, or for Eliot, just scream until someone listened-but she doesn’t have time; who knows how long he’ll last in there? She can’t leave him-she won’t. She doesn’t even know how.
If the Doctor dies, Rose’s life is over.
If the Doctor dies, she will be stuck on Alkidar One, and the universe will crumble to dust without its white knight.
If the Doctor dies, there will be nothing worth living for anyway, because blue wooden doors opening out onto indescribable new-new worlds is the whole point now.
Something clicks into place inside of her. Some part of her remembers a whisper of a soft, eerie song; remembers blinding, endless golden light; remembers all the clustered atoms and the power to alter every one.
Rose swings her leg up and brings her heel down on the very top of the keypad, where it’s attached to the wall. It makes a dull thump, which isn’t good enough. She steps back, breathes deeply, focuses, and tries again-a sharp crack this time. Better.
Rose drops her shoulders, sets her jaw, and kicks high again, slamming her scuffed heel into the device that stands between her and the future of the universe-between her and her Doctor.
With a forlorn snapping sound, the casing of the keypad pops loose, and then she’s upon it, prying the broken metal free and turning her attention to the apparatus she’s exposed. She scrapes the rubber number keys off of the sensors, making room to dig her fingers in around the metal plate spacing them apart. Gritting her teeth as its edges cut into her knuckles, she wrests that off, too, tossing it heedlessly aside. Now it’s just her and a tangle of varicolored wires, knotted and intertwining like the entrails of some robotic beast.
This bit? This Rose can handle.
She delves her hands into the densest knot of wires and starts ripping them out.
“System-” the awful voice says, haltingly. “System-compr-”
There’s a fizzling sound, and it goes silent.
Praying the Doctor’s heard that-praying he can hear it; praying that he’s holding on just a little longer-Rose plants her bloodied hands against a ridge on the steel door and shoves with all her might.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, as she pants and strains and fights for traction on the floor, the door starts to yield.
She thinks she’s imagining it at first, but then choking smoke starts pouring from the sliver of leeway that she’s made, and she coughs, her eyes watering, and pushes harder.
When there’s a substantial space, she pauses for breath-carefully, holding her sleeve over her mouth against the outpouring of smoke-and squints through it, looking for him, for a flap of his coat or a trainer sole or a lock of gravity-defying brown hair, but there’s nothi-
“Rose!” the Doctor howls triumphantly, darting through the gap, like threading a needle. He has somehow contrived to turn his paisley tie into a makeshift mask, holding it over his nose and mouth, though he drops it to help her haul the door closed again. Steel slams into place, and the choking gas in the air starts to dissipate, and the Doctor bounces on the balls of his feet and then throws both arms around Rose in a jubilant hug.
She is none too pleased to discover that she is utilizing this opportunity to cough into his shoulder.
He draws back, his hands settling on her arms, and beams. His undone tie dangles around his neck, and his shirt is rumpled, and he’s a little pale, and his hair is in even more disarray than usual, but he hasn’t looked quite this delighted in a while.
Rose manages a shaky smile and raises her hand, because coughing into her fist sounds better than coughing into the Doctor’s face. Seeing, however, that she’s been bleeding all over the floor, he starts and catches her wrist before she can clear her lungs.
“This whole place is a deathtrap,” he decides, smoothing his thumb just below a shallow gash on her palm. “That must be how they do it-lure you in with adorasturbing animals and then try to kill you. I’ve got some nanogenes in the TARDIS, but for now…”
He takes up his tie and starts wrapping it around her right hand, which is still halfheartedly bleeding, and she tries to shy away. “You’ll ruin it!” she tells him, tugging against his grip.
He grins, pulling back. “Doesn’t matter,” he declares. “I’ve got a thousand of them-literally a thousand. I’ve got an entire armoire full of ties.” He loops this one around her palm, securely enough, and then takes her sort-of-bandaged hand in his, the better to lead the way back out towards the proper zoo. “No idea where they came from. Neckties, bow-ties, cravats… Must have been that week with the Provailic wine. Would you believe it-one sip, and an entire week was gone. Blacked-out! And then I wake up in the TARDIS in nothing but my trousers and that leather jacket, covered in flowers, and there’s a tank nearby with a jellyfish. Still have the jellyfish; her name’s Samantha.”
Even more people are staring at them this time as they pass through the warehouse, but the Doctor’s hand is warm around Rose’s, and his voice is rambling in her ears, and there really isn’t anywhere she’d rather be.
“You know what I could go for?” the Doctor asks, breaking into his own train of thought.
“Provailic wine?” Rose innocently suggests.
He grins. “How about some intergalactically-renowned ice cream?”
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5,440
Warnings: unnecessary scenes with cute and fluffy animals; spoilers through about half of S2; referential jabs at 2.4
Summary: Most people probably couldn't find peril at the zoo on Alkidar One if they tried. These things just seem to happen with the Doctor.
Author's Note: Christmas in March for the all-too-lovable koneko_zero! ♥ I hope you enjoy it, bb. :3 (It was tempting to upload this icon specifically for this fic, but I managed to refrain. XD)
TROUBLE
Rose stares around her. She can’t help it.
“The entire planet is a petting zoo?” she repeats.
She knows how she must sound to him-to Monsieur Time Lord, to the man who makes the universe his playground. She knows she must be emblematic of every other human being, and she knows it’s all “Really?” and “What’s that even mean?”, and she knows he must lose patience with it now and then-with the innate rebellion, her Earthbound brain rejecting everything until she can make herself release the world she knew.
For the moment, though, he seems to be enjoying it.
“Well,” he drawls, “technically it’s not a planet-the entire moon.” He juts his chin out as he shapes the word, and the coat’s thrown back so he can shove his hands in his pockets, and he’s standing on the balls of his feet with his hips forward, like he’s waiting for a gust of wind to catch his back and carry him away.
Honestly, Rose wouldn’t be surprised by now.
He holds out his right hand, wriggling his fingers, and meets her sardonic look with a shameless grin.
“Come on,” he bids her, gesturing to the holographic directory that rises before them from nothing at all. “Deklarian Zeta-Cats, imported straight from the planet’s prairie-a whole room of them ripe for the petting.”
“What’s a Deklarian Zeta-Cat like?” she asks.
He winks. “Let’s find out,” he says.
She takes his hand.
-
There’s no glass-just a low wall of what looks like ordinary stucco. No holograms, no tricks, which makes the creatures in the pen all the more unsettling, because they must be real.
Rose stares anyway. Cats aren’t meant to be ever-so-faintly luminescent, and they certainly aren’t meant to have six legs.
One puts four paws on a scratching post in the corner and lets the coiled rope have it. Rose blinks, but the image doesn’t waver, so she takes a deep breath and steels herself to face the foreign music.
Privately, she loves this part-the moment where the impossible becomes undeniable, and she integrates it into her concept of reality, because she doesn’t have a choice.
“I’m not sure if they’re cute or creepy,” she decides.
“Crute?” the Doctor suggests bemusedly, his arms folded on the top of the wall, jogging one of his heels as a matter of course. “Or keepy. Adorasturbing?”
She watches him instead of the adorasturbing animals for a moment-new-new Doctor, who has the same wit, the same brilliance, the same sharpness, but who is so, so different past the mind. He looks like he stuck one of his regenerated fingers into an electrical socket, if his hair is any indication (that’s mad enough on its own; the Doctor with all that hair!). His eyes are brown, instead of blue-warm instead of cool, but impregnable now. Their very brightness makes them difficult to read.
And he’s skinny as a rail on a diet. That’s new.
He starts to turn, and she looks hastily at the cats again. With that bizarre insect gait, one pads over to the wall, gazing up at them expectantly with glowing violet eyes. The Doctor reaches out with his Lucky Hand-heaven help her; she’s already calling it that in her head-and scratches behind the friendly Zeta-Cat’s ear, earning a purr that sounds like the engine of a small car.
Rose is never going to get used to this, and the idea fills her with an overflowing joy so warm she thinks she might just understand regeneration after all.
The Doctor pops back up again like a jack-in-the-box-except that she doesn’t want to think of Jack, not now, when they’re happy, and things are unusually safe.
New-new Doctor flashes his new-new grin. “Brilliant,” he decides. “What else have we got?”
He bounces off, and she chases after, thinking maybe he should be one of the strange creatures tucked into one of these pens. Constant petting certainly couldn’t make his hair any wilder-Rose figures nothing short of a tornado could.
The Doctor bounds down the corridor, peering into enclosures right and left. Rose sees a tank of luminescent manta rays, a glass-walled closet full of oversized scorpions with lobsters’ tails, a blue thing that looks like a floating puffer fish and watches her with huge yellow eyes, and a dozen creatures she can’t even figure out how to describe. She pauses to pet a guinea pig the size of a real pig, which has a tuft of brownish fur that looks exactly like the Doctor’s hair-it’s extremely soft, and the giant rodent makes a chuckling noise of gratitude-before before jogging to catch up with the man himself.
He’s leaning halfway over another low wall, staring intently into the elaborate environment built in this enclosure, which is thick with trees, foliage, and vines. Rose squints at the wavering holographic plaque by the Doctor’s Lucky Hand. It reads Eleuthiac Rain Bear.
“Where is it?” the Doctor mutters, forehead furrowing. “Hang on-”
He plants one foot on the low wall, angling himself to vault over, and Rose dives forward to seize his arm.
“What are you doing?” she squeaks.
“It’s a petting zoo,” he tells her, shaking at her grip. “The petting’s the whole point; I want to pet the Rain Bear-”
“It’s hiding,” Rose points out. “It doesn’t want you to pet it.”
The Doctor pouts. “Eleuthiac Rain Bears are extinct in five galaxies. I haven’t seen one in decades; I can’t believe they’ve found one. You can’t tell me you’re not curious.”
Rose thinks of the giant Doctor-haired guinea pig. “Well-”
“Come on, then,” the Doctor chirps, jumping over the barrier, his trainers crackling on the twigs of the habitat.
Rose looks dubiously at the densest section of the miniature rain-forest. “You go ahead,” she says. “I’ll pet it after you’ve done.”
“They don’t bite,” he coaxes, once again raising and wriggling the Lucky Hand. “Or at the least, they’re not poisonous.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Right. I’ll wait here.”
“You’re missing out,” he sings, turning to tromp through the undergrowth.
She glances up and down the hall, which is blessedly empty. She can’t see any cameras either, but in a petting zoo with holograms, she doesn’t trust her naked eye.
“Doctor,” she cuts in, and he beams over his shoulder in an extremely distracting way. “If we get in trouble for this,” she says, “you’re taking me to some intergalactic ice cream shop to make it up.”
The Doctor winks. “I know just the one.”
Then he’s forging through the imitation wilderness again, and she realizes how unencouraging that is.
“Doctor,” she begins, but he’s already clambering heedlessly into the depths of the underbrush. “Maybe you sh-”
“Found him!” the Doctor crows, Converse protruding from the leaves. “Oh, look at you. How could anyone hunt you to the brink of universal extinction?” There’s a flash of the brown coat as he crouches down in front of something she can’t see. “Come on. Come on, come meet Rose. You’ll like her.”
Rose isn’t sure she wants any of this. There’s no picture on the hologram, and she can’t help remembering that this place thinks lobster-scorpions belong in a petting zoo.
But there’s nothing to be done for that, not now. Rose can only hope that Time Lords are resistant to rabies; she really rather wouldn’t have to deal with another regeneration.
Truthfully, she wouldn’t at all. She likes new-new Doctor-a lot. More than she wants to think about. There’s something intriguing in his indiscriminate fascination; in his heedless enthusiasm; in the strange, gangly grace only emphasized by the pinstripes, by the Cons, by the crowning touch of the incorrigible hair.
The incorrigible hair has acquired three leaves and a twig when the Doctor emerges from the trees. There is a bear in his arms-a small bear, its thick black fur rippling with greenish shadows that match its attentive emerald eyes. Its paws are tipped with long, dark, curving claws, which scrabble gently at the Doctor’s lapels as its eyes roll anxiously.
“You’re all right,” the Doctor assures the animal balanced in one arm, raising the other hand to stroke at its rounded ears. “It’s just Rose. Come on, let’s see Rose.”
Rose can’t help smiling as the bright eyes turn on her. “Hello,” she offers as the Doctor comes forward, leaning against the wall to bring the bear into her reach. Slowly, hoping not to scare it, she raises her hand and gently pets its back, and the thick fur is even silkier than it looks. It’s cool and smooth beneath her fingers, deep green under the shadow of her palm, and she’s too pleased to notice their positions until her hand collides with the Doctor’s arm.
The Doctor doesn’t notice, either, because he’s too busy craning his neck trying to escape the reach of his precious Rain Bear.
“Hey,” he protests, wrinkling his nose as the bear drags a huge pink tongue sloppily up his cheek. “None of that.”
Rose grins. “So it’s all right when you do it?” she prompts.
“Do what?” he asks, leaning away from the bear, which placidly meets his accusing look.
“Lick everything in sight,” she replies.
“Certainly not everything,” he says.
Before she can tell him that recognizing the taste of human blood puts a Time Lord in a bit of a tricky defensive position, there’s commotion in the corridor, and Rose turns. The man approaching them stands tall and walks with a hint of a swagger, and he carries what looks like a police baton at his belt. Rose sees that a patch on his chest reads Personnel, and she resigns herself to another one of Those Days.
The TARDIS really needs one of those beeping keyrings so that they can find where they’ve parked it while they’re on the run.
“Good afternoon, sir!” the Doctor declares, unperturbed. He shifts the Rain Bear more fully into one arm, and it holds onto him obediently as he snatches a familiar leather wallet out of a pocket of his suit. “John Smith,” he announces, flashing the psychic paper with a grin that would probably blind the man enough to carry off the ruse on its own. “And this is my assistant, Rose Tyler.”
“Hi,” Rose says, managing a little wave.
“Animal Conditions Inspectors from the Alkidar Fauna Bureau,” the Doctor reports. “This is a surprise inspection.”
“I can see that,” the patrolman says uneasily. “Do you always pick them up when you’re inspecting?”
“Of course,” the Doctor answers, looking so appalled and offended that Rose smothers a laugh. “How else am I to know whether you’ve been feeding him right? If you’d rather bring me a set of scales, I’ll happily set him down.” He eyes the man suspiciously, tucking the psychic paper back into his pocket. “Can I have your name, sir? Just in case I talk to your manager, you understand.”
The helpless patrolman goes a bit pale. Hastily, he covers, “Eliot Spendrid, Mr. Smith, sir. Do you need those scales, or are you going to be all right here?”
“That’ll be all,” the Doctor tells him airily; “thank you, Eliot. I’ll ask after you if we need anything.”
The officer beats a rapid retreat, and Rose gives the Doctor a reprimanding look undermined by her urge to smile.
“You’re awful,” she says.
He’s grinning, possibly because he hasn’t yet noticed that the Rain Bear is chewing on his lapel. “Awfully good, you mean.”
-
The trouble starts-well, the real trouble starts; Rose rates the levels of Trouble, and by her judgment, their previous encounter was negligible-when they get to the enclosure for the Kl’avarian Spotted Lemurs.
Well, when they get to the enclosure that should be for the Kl’avarian Spotted Lemurs.
“They’re green with purple spots,” the Doctor laments, gazing woefully at the unoccupied trees spread around the space. “Extremely intelligent, and friendly, and they bounce around like you wouldn’t believe.”
Rose tries not to imagine a bunch of little purple-polka-dotted Doctors and fails.
“It says here they’re temporarily in the back while the cage gets renovated,” she reads on the sign.
The Doctor looks up. “Right,” he decides. “Off we go, then.”
She’s clearly been doing this for too long; she knows exactly what that means.
“We can’t just shove our way into the back room-” she begins.
“No shoving,” he informs her cheerfully. “Just good, old-fashioned psychic deception. At this rate, I’ll have to ask the Alkidar Fauna Bureau to send a check.”
“I’m still holding you to that ice cream shop,” Rose warns, but she follows him down the corridor until he reaches a door that reads Authorised Personnel Only.
Naturally, the screwdriver makes short work of that interdiction, and the Doctor strolls in like he owns the place, as he has done a thousand times before.
Actually, given his age and his predilection for infiltration, it’s relatively probable that his tally is closer to a million, but Rose isn’t sure she wants to wrap her head around that.
They’ve forged into some kind of back room, all right-it’s like there’s a warehouse pushed up against the backs of the enclosures, and there’s all sorts of movement and commotion as employees move back and forth, transporting food and habitat materials, pushing hand-trucks, and scribbling on clipboards. Rose thinks of an anthill or a beehive, people issuing one way and then the other, interacting and conversing, wearing coveralls or business dress or uniforms like Eliot’s. One man has a small palm tree hoisted over his shoulder.
A woman in a lab coat notices them where they stand just inside the door, looking around at the activity with interest. She strides across the space, tossing a dark braid over her shoulder, clicks her pen menacingly, and taps her glasses down the bridge of her nose, the better to look over the rims mistrustfully.
“John Smith,” the Doctor interjects brightly, flashing the psychic paper before she can speak. “AFB. Rose Tyler, my partner.”
Fancy that; she’s moving up the ranks. Maybe she’ll be a supervisor by the time they find the lemurs.
“Right,” the woman manages, glancing at the Doctor’s usual attire and then at Rose’s jeans and Cookie Monster T-shirt. Rose figures it’s better than the Union Jack one; at least the Doctor said Cookie Monster looks a bit like an adolescent Venxplar, whatever that is. “As you were, then. If you have any questions, ask for me.” She gestures to her name-tag, which displays a name that appears to be unpronounceable. Rose has to admit that’s pretty clever.
“Will do,” the Doctor responds cheerfully. His elbow pops up at his side, held out to her, and Rose links her arm with his, grinning. “Thanks very much,” he tells Administrator Something-with-Lots-of-Vowels as they start towards the heart of the place, on the lookout for lemurs, showing the psychic paper to anyone-to the rather considerable amount of people-that give them a second glance.
People pay the Doctor a lot more attention in this regeneration, but given that this regeneration is extremely fetching and runs around in a pinstriped suit and a trenchcoat, Rose can’t exactly blame them.
“Hello,” the Doctor says, turning their trajectory towards a divergent hallway he’s spotted. “What’s over here?”
“Trouble, probably,” Rose replies.
The Doctor grins, dropping her arm to take her hand. “Got my name on it, then!”
‘Doctor Trouble’ sounds like the name of a rather inefficient super-villain, but it’s too late to protest, because he’s drawing her into the hall, which has sterile white walls and cold fluorescent lighting and lots of doors. Perhaps ‘Doctor Trouble’ should actually be the name of a game show-though Rose tries to think of game shows as little as possible-because he is almost undoubtedly going to start opening those doors in search of prizes.
Taking “prizes” to mean “monsters and general chaos,” of course.
Sure enough, he surveys them all in turn, reading the labels on and beside the white wooden doors with their mechanical locks, which bear slots for plastic cards to be swiped. Rose isn’t entirely sure she likes this portion of the zoo-these buzzing, bleached corridors make her uneasy, and rooms that proclaim things like Paper Records and Immunisation Research and Nutritional Testing don’t help.
Naturally, the Doctor stops before the one at the end-a huge steel door, smartly painted smartly red and black and gray, with a keypad at the side and a small, square window in the middle. This door reads New/Rare Imports.
“That’s where the good ones’ll be,” the Doctor notes, squeezing her hand, presumably unconsciously in his excitement. “New-new animals. Let’s see what evolution’s up to these days.” He lets go of her hand to rummage in his pocket for the screwdriver again. Those pockets must be bigger on the-well, they probably are. He finds it, however, manages to contain the “Aha” so close to the tip of his tongue that she can almost hear it, and applies his favorite skeleton key to the number pad.
The door hisses open, clanking heavily into place, and the Doctor snaps the tool back with a flourish.
Rose peers dubiously into the dim room, glancing at the Doctor in time to see him wink.
“Allons-y?” he says.
“Mais oui,” she replies, which actually means I don’t think your sanity regenerated right.
“I thought you didn’t like France,” the Doctor remarks, but before she can answer, he’s past the threshold and poking around.
Inevitably, Rose follows, looking around her at the stacks of empty wire cages; at the blank walls with their strange patterns of rust, draping folds of color on dark gray; at the stained grating of the floor and all the ambient industrial steel. Here as well the hanging lights, bare bulbs giving off the jagged drone of electricity, cast too many shadows too harshly. She peeks into a low cage and finds it empty, scrubbed clean.
“Nothing new and rare, then?” she prompts uncertainly.
The Doctor hums, harmonizing with the lights. “Guess not.”
Rose approaches him where he’s standing before a monitor panel on the wall. He dons his glasses and touches a fingertip to the button on the screen that reads Import Schedule.
The screen makes a terrible BEEP.
The Doctor blinks, then frowns, poking another button, which promises Layout Design.
The screen beeps even louder.
The Doctor draws his glasses down his nose, squints, and then tucks them back into a pocket.
“Maybe you shouldn’t-” Rose begins.
The Doctor whips out the screwdriver, fiddles with the settings, and aims it at the unresponsive touchscreen.
This time, the deep, negative sound that emerges from hidden speakers is so loud and violent that Rose claps her hands over her ears. Even that barrier can’t muffle the monitor’s ensuing announcement, delivered in a tinny, androgynous voice:
“Unauthorized entry. Scan identification card.”
“Oh,” the Doctor says, staring. “Oh, dear.”
The screen has produced a large red arrow pointing to the laser eye at the bottom.
“Scan identification card.”
“Don’t get your circuits in a twist,” the Doctor mutters, rooting through his pockets to retrieve the psychic paper and waving it before the scanner.
“Invalid barcode.”
“Barcode?” the Doctor protests. “What century are we in?”
“Scan valid card.”
The Doctor scowls, thinks, and moves the paper slowly before the scanner once more. Rose can’t even imagine how this works-how he can psychically generate a plausible barcode to project to a computer.
“Invalid barcode.”
…apparently it’s harder than he thinks.
“System shutdown.”
“What?” the Doctor yelps. “No, you don’t!” He juggles his accouterments and points the screwdriver at the screen again.
“System tampering. Emergency lockdown.”
The screen goes black, and Rose distantly hears something click.
She and the Doctor turn in unison, so it is in unison that they see the great steel door beginning to slide shut.
Rose gets in half a breath before the Doctor shouts “Run!”
They race down the row of cages, and rust like splattered paint flashes at the corner of Rose’s eye. Her heart’s climbing her esophagus, and the Doctor catches her hand and drags her faster, and their slamming footsteps echo wildly, like short gunshots. She wishes she’d managed a whole breath; her heart-clogged throat feels dry, and her lungs burn, and the door shifts far, far, too quickly, but they might-they could-
They’ll never-
They’re so close, but she can tell they won’t make it; the Doctor’s trainers squeal, and the door shudders, mechanisms creaking, and Rose tries to push a little harder, run a little faster, hope a little more, because heaven only knows what happens if someday they just don’t make it-
And then the Doctor wrenches his hand from hers and shoves her through the dwindling gap left in the door.
The whiteness of the hall is blinding after all the gray, and she tumbles to the linoleum, banging her elbows and then her head. She lies stunned for one stuttering breath, staring dumbly up at the lights. Then the ringing in her ears subsides a little bit, and she remembers herself, scrambles to her feet, and lunges forward just as the door seals with the Doctor inside.
Rose’s whole body goes still for a long, long moment, her arm halfway extended. He’s crazy. He’s crazy, and selfish, and reckless, and a little conceited, and stupidly generous, because they both know she can’t help the universe one whit. The world-every world-needs him.
He never thinks that far ahead. He just puts other people, every other person, every other life form in this hapless, masochistic universe before himself. Someday it’ll kill him for good. He’s so brilliant, but he’s so, so, so naïve.
A puff-haired head pops up in the window, one hand rubbing at the hair in question and somehow managing to make it worse. Rose gets so close to the reinforced plastic that she can almost imagine it isn’t there.
She can’t quite hear him, but a glance at his expression and a rudimentary understanding of his habits make it clear he’s saying “Hmm.”
She taps frantically at the glass and starts to point and pantomime. “Could you-the hinges-with the screwdriver?”
He frowns thoughtfully, ruffles his hair a little more, and then ducks out of sight. Momentarily, he reappears, shaking his head, waving the screwdriver and saying something that might be “Automated Deadlock hinge pins,” whatever that means.
Then there’s a hiss audible even from outside, and the metallic voice she despises remarks, “Eliminating intruder.”
It is easy to interpret the following word: “What?”
The Doctor turns to watch a jet of noxious-looking, thick yellow smoke issue from some unseen vent. Rose’s hands are flat against the door, pressed to the steel so hard her palms ache.
“Doctor!” she calls uselessly, but he takes no notice, instead sticking his tongue out and then smacking his lips.
She’s almost certain the next thing he says is “Chlorine? That’s as obsolete as barcodes.”
She pounds her fist against the glass, and he looks over, bemused.
“What do I do?” she demands, trying to enunciate in the hopes that reading lips is among his innumerable talents.
Chewing on his bottom lip evidently is. “Ah…” he looks to be saying. “Get me out. Getting me out would be good. I’ve already-” He sucks in a deep breath and then doesn’t let it out; the tension stays in his shoulders and his chest. “-jump-started the respiratory bypass system, but a certain amount of hydrochloric acid is bound to get into my lungs either way, and that stings. Nasty stuff. Blech.”
“All right,” Rose replies helplessly, looking around. Then she sees- “There’s-there’s a keypad! Um-” She mimes pushing the buttons, and them points to it, hoping desperately.
“Brilliant!” he decides. “Just-” His face falls. “Oh.” He raises the sonic screwdriver, which is definitively stuck on his side of the door.
Rose winces. The Doctor could solve this with a metal spring and an authoritative tone of voice, but what’s she supposed to do? She’s no space-hopping savant with endless vaults of knowledge and experience; she’s no alien aficionado, no improvisational genius, no miracle-worker in disguise. She’s Rose Marion Tyler-that’s it. She couldn’t even get a better job than one in a shop with evil mannequins. The only time she works miracles is when she accidentally does something right. She’s human. She’s useless. She’s scared.
The Doctor whirls as a jet of wispy white smoke appears at his other side, mingling in the middle with the yellow stuff. The Doctor’s mouth goes into an O of unpleasant surprise, and all the interested amusement is gone as he flattens his hands against the window and leans in until the tip of his nose touches the pane.
“Rose.” That word’s clear enough. “Given the era, it should be a nine-digit code.” He holds up nine fingers, pressing them to the plastic, his flesh going bone-white.
“You just want me to guess?” Rose is trying not to panic, but that’s a difficult thing to do when panic is the most logical emotional response. “How-”
“Rose,” he repeats, and she almost thinks she can hear him through the plastic this time. “That-” He shoves a finger at the white cloud billowing from behind. “-is very, very bad news. I need you to slow down and think of a way to get me out.”
She’s still reeling from the run, and the fall, and the terror, and what can he possibly expect her to think of? He’s doing it again, presuming like he does, believing that everybody’s like him; everybody can feed off of the danger and be all the bigger and smarter and quicker for it, but she’s not like that. She can’t jury-rig complex machinery or bend the course of things by sheer force of will, and she can’t transmute fear into frenetic energy.
“Rose,” he says, just once more, his eyes dark and sharp with intensity as the pale, butter-colored fog creeps in around him, curling in his hair and then obscuring him completely.
His hand stays pressed to the glass for a moment, and then it disappears.
Rose’s heart is pounding too fast, too fast, making her head spin; she’s not sure whether to be more terrified or guilt-stricken at that last look of his-like there are two roads from here, one where she fails, and one where she earns her place.
She stumbles back from the door, staring first at the keypad and then at the window. There must be a million possible nine-digit combinations, and she doesn’t even have a hint. She could run for the administrator woman, or for Eliot, just scream until someone listened-but she doesn’t have time; who knows how long he’ll last in there? She can’t leave him-she won’t. She doesn’t even know how.
If the Doctor dies, Rose’s life is over.
If the Doctor dies, she will be stuck on Alkidar One, and the universe will crumble to dust without its white knight.
If the Doctor dies, there will be nothing worth living for anyway, because blue wooden doors opening out onto indescribable new-new worlds is the whole point now.
Something clicks into place inside of her. Some part of her remembers a whisper of a soft, eerie song; remembers blinding, endless golden light; remembers all the clustered atoms and the power to alter every one.
Rose swings her leg up and brings her heel down on the very top of the keypad, where it’s attached to the wall. It makes a dull thump, which isn’t good enough. She steps back, breathes deeply, focuses, and tries again-a sharp crack this time. Better.
Rose drops her shoulders, sets her jaw, and kicks high again, slamming her scuffed heel into the device that stands between her and the future of the universe-between her and her Doctor.
With a forlorn snapping sound, the casing of the keypad pops loose, and then she’s upon it, prying the broken metal free and turning her attention to the apparatus she’s exposed. She scrapes the rubber number keys off of the sensors, making room to dig her fingers in around the metal plate spacing them apart. Gritting her teeth as its edges cut into her knuckles, she wrests that off, too, tossing it heedlessly aside. Now it’s just her and a tangle of varicolored wires, knotted and intertwining like the entrails of some robotic beast.
This bit? This Rose can handle.
She delves her hands into the densest knot of wires and starts ripping them out.
“System-” the awful voice says, haltingly. “System-compr-”
There’s a fizzling sound, and it goes silent.
Praying the Doctor’s heard that-praying he can hear it; praying that he’s holding on just a little longer-Rose plants her bloodied hands against a ridge on the steel door and shoves with all her might.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, as she pants and strains and fights for traction on the floor, the door starts to yield.
She thinks she’s imagining it at first, but then choking smoke starts pouring from the sliver of leeway that she’s made, and she coughs, her eyes watering, and pushes harder.
When there’s a substantial space, she pauses for breath-carefully, holding her sleeve over her mouth against the outpouring of smoke-and squints through it, looking for him, for a flap of his coat or a trainer sole or a lock of gravity-defying brown hair, but there’s nothi-
“Rose!” the Doctor howls triumphantly, darting through the gap, like threading a needle. He has somehow contrived to turn his paisley tie into a makeshift mask, holding it over his nose and mouth, though he drops it to help her haul the door closed again. Steel slams into place, and the choking gas in the air starts to dissipate, and the Doctor bounces on the balls of his feet and then throws both arms around Rose in a jubilant hug.
She is none too pleased to discover that she is utilizing this opportunity to cough into his shoulder.
He draws back, his hands settling on her arms, and beams. His undone tie dangles around his neck, and his shirt is rumpled, and he’s a little pale, and his hair is in even more disarray than usual, but he hasn’t looked quite this delighted in a while.
Rose manages a shaky smile and raises her hand, because coughing into her fist sounds better than coughing into the Doctor’s face. Seeing, however, that she’s been bleeding all over the floor, he starts and catches her wrist before she can clear her lungs.
“This whole place is a deathtrap,” he decides, smoothing his thumb just below a shallow gash on her palm. “That must be how they do it-lure you in with adorasturbing animals and then try to kill you. I’ve got some nanogenes in the TARDIS, but for now…”
He takes up his tie and starts wrapping it around her right hand, which is still halfheartedly bleeding, and she tries to shy away. “You’ll ruin it!” she tells him, tugging against his grip.
He grins, pulling back. “Doesn’t matter,” he declares. “I’ve got a thousand of them-literally a thousand. I’ve got an entire armoire full of ties.” He loops this one around her palm, securely enough, and then takes her sort-of-bandaged hand in his, the better to lead the way back out towards the proper zoo. “No idea where they came from. Neckties, bow-ties, cravats… Must have been that week with the Provailic wine. Would you believe it-one sip, and an entire week was gone. Blacked-out! And then I wake up in the TARDIS in nothing but my trousers and that leather jacket, covered in flowers, and there’s a tank nearby with a jellyfish. Still have the jellyfish; her name’s Samantha.”
Even more people are staring at them this time as they pass through the warehouse, but the Doctor’s hand is warm around Rose’s, and his voice is rambling in her ears, and there really isn’t anywhere she’d rather be.
“You know what I could go for?” the Doctor asks, breaking into his own train of thought.
“Provailic wine?” Rose innocently suggests.
He grins. “How about some intergalactically-renowned ice cream?”