HP/DW: Clarke's First Law (14/15)
Summary: Rose is stuck in Fred's World and the Doctor knows that getting her back is impossible. Then again, doesn't the universe just love to prove him wrong? Meanwhile, trouble is brewing for Rose on the other side of the wall. Sequel to Clarke's Third Law.
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or Harry Potter. I just decided that it would be a good idea to combine them (and I wasn't the first to come up with that idea, either).
Note: Sequel to Clarke's Third La
Chapter 13: Psychic Energy
Rose knelt down next to the Doctor, in complete and utter shock. This was the last thing she had expected. Just a few hours ago, her key to the TARDIS had started glowing. Before she had a chance to figure out what was happening, Saxon had come in.
“Give me the key,” he had said. The two large men behind him were pointing their wands at her, and Rose wasn’t stupid enough to try anything, so she did as he said.
Donna, growing impatient, had demanded, “Oi! Wacko! What’s goin’ on out there! You can’t just saunter off and not tell us what’s going-”
SLAM!
“-on,” Donna had finished weakly as Saxon cut her off by leaving and slamming the door behind him. Saxon didn’t come back after that, so Rose had spent the time getting Donna up to speed, answering her questions about the Doctor, and just enjoying her company. In all honesty, if the circumstances had been different
Rose had a feeling that she and Donna would be good friends. Now, all Rose was hoping to do was get herself and Donna out of this whole mess alive.
Then the door had opened and the Doctor had tumbled in and that was all she saw.
“Doctor?”
The Doctor, who had fallen on the floor, looked up at her and whispered her name.
Before she could respond, he was scrambling to his feet and pulling her with him. He held her at an arm’s distance for a minute just looking at her. Rose couldn’t help but do the same. He looked so different, in some ways- more tired, older- but at the same time, he was exactly as she remembered.
And then, suddenly, he was pulling her in close and her face wound up buried in his suit jacket. She took a deep breath, breathing in the smell of tea and old books and time itself. Looking back, Rose could’ve sworn that the Doctor, who had his cheek pressed to the top of her head, pressed a kiss to her hair.
Rose reluctantly took a step back. “How did you get here?”
The Doctor let out a puff of air. “Well, do you remember the Skasis Paradigm?”
“Sure,” Rose said immediately. “With Sarah-Jane at that high-school. What about it?”
“I solved it,” the Doctor said, preening just a bit. He had always loved showing off to her-- showing off to anybody, really. But mostly her. She’d get that look on her face and her eyes would twinkle and she would smile that tongue-between-her-teeth smile, just like she was doing now.
Rassilon, how he had missed her.
As for Rose, she believed the Doctor wholeheartedly. If anybody had the power to solve the paradigm, it was him. There was a small, romantic, part of her that told her that the Doctor had solved the Skasis Paradigm for her, but she quickly shut down that train of thought. Now was not the time for this.
Instead, Rose decided, now was the time to hug the Doctor some more.
So she did. And he did. And neither of them seemed inclined to move.
Donna, deciding to give them another few minutes, turned to the other man who had come into the room with the Doctor. He was very handsome and in a long, blue, coat.
“Donna Noble,” Donna introduced. The man smiled at her and Donna had to admit that she felt slightly weak at the knees because of it.
“Captain Jack Harkness,” he all but purred, taking her hand. Instead of shaking it, he brought it up to his mouth and planted a gently kiss on her knuckles. Despite herself, Donna felt herself growing very flustered.
“Think they’re going to let up anytime soon?” Donna asked, as she came back to her senses. She jerked her head towards the Doctor and Rose, both of whom were still hugging each other as though the world was about to end (which, at the rate things we going, Jack considered, it might).
Jack shrugged. “They better. We need to get out of here soon.”
Donna watched them and thought about everything Rose had told her. The younger blonde had never said it aloud, but Donna could see it written all over her face: Rose was in love with the Doctor
So she said, “Ah. Give ‘em another minute. I’m a sucker for a happy ending.”
Unable to do anything other than agree, Jack watched his two best friends finally be together after months and months apart. Despite his happiness for
them, though, it wasn’t long before his Time Agent training kicked in, and he knew that they would need to get to work soon if they wanted to stop Saxon.
Reluctantly, he called, “Doctor?”
The Doctor stepped back from hugging Rose and looked at Jack with a raised eyebrow, as if to ask him what could possibly be so important that he had to interrupt his hug with Rose. Before Jack could explain that they needed to save the universe so the Doctor would have even more opportunities to hug Rose, he was interrupted.
“Jack!” There was a flash of blonde and suddenly he felt something slam into him.
When he realized what had happened, he found himself with an armful of Rose Weasley. He laughed delightedly as he hugged her. Jack had missed her too.
When stepped away from the hug, her eyes were wide and slightly wet, but she was smiling, however tremulously. “I thought you died. The Doctor said-”
“I did die, doll,” Jack admitted. “But you brought me back.”
“I did?” Rose asked. “I don’t understand.”
“The Bad Wolf,” the Doctor spoke up from behind her, looking more serious than he had a few minutes ago. “When you took the TARDIS into you, you brought Jack back to life. You just got a bit-- overenthusiastic while you did it.”
Confused, Rose looked back at Jack. He elaborated, “I can’t die.”
Before Rose could stammer out an apology, Jack was pulling in for another hug.
“Sh, it’s alright. I’m not mad at you. I could never be mad at you. Not for something like this.”
“But what I did to you-” Rose stuttered. “I mean, what the Bad Wolf did to you-”
“Right now, Rose,” the Doctor said, “I’m more concerned with what the Bad Wolf did to you.”
Jack, who had missed out on this conversation in Saxon’s office was confused. He asked, “Whad’ya mean, Doc?”
Rose knew what the Doctor was talking about. “You mean the Huon Particles.”
The Doctor seemed surprised. “You know?”
“Your good friend the Master was nice enough to fill us in,” Donna grumbled. That’s when the Doctor noticed her. During the conversation between Jack, Rose, and the Doctor, she had sat back down on the cot, arms crossed
He grinned. “Donna Noble! Blimey! I didn’t expect to be seeing you so soon again!”
“You know her?” Rose asked. At the same time, Donna was saying, “Do I know you?”
“Yes!” the Doctor exclaimed. Then he paused to consider. “Or no? Maybe. Sort of.
Oh, that’s the one: sort of. I know your parallel version. But you’re brilliant! You’re the one who convinced me to come after Rose!”
“Aw, stop looking at me like that!” Donna snapped, seeing the grateful look on both the Doctor’s and Rose’s faces. “I didn’t do anything. Rose has been telling me all about this parallel stuff. What the other version of me does there has nothing to do with me here.”
“You’re still brilliant,” the Doctor said firmly. “Just you wait and see. I met you on Christmas Eve, you know. On your wedding day.”
“I got married?” Donna asked, looking slightly excited.
“Actually, no. Turns out your husband-to-be was working with an alien trying to enslave the human race.” Donna’s face fell and the Doctor added, “Sorry ‘bout that. He was using you as a vessel for Huon Particles.”
“Like Rose,” Donna said. Rose looked at the Doctor curiously. Jack, still slightly out of the loop, did too.
“Again, sort of.” The Doctor said. “Same energy. Different everything else. You- well, not really you- were used as a vessel to contain the energy on purpose.&rdquo
Adding, for Jack’s benefit, “The Master is thankfully only taking advantage of what was already there to rebuild a TARDIS. Or at least he was. Now that he has my TARDIS key, he doesn’t have to.”
“He’s going to get into the TARDIS?” Rose gasped. The Doctor said, “The TARDIS is a big girl and can take care of herself. Even if he does manage to get inside, she’ll be able to hold him off for a while.”
“Back to these Huon things,” Donna said. She came up behind Rose and wrapped her arms around her shoulders protectively. “You said we should be thankful the Master’s been using her. Why? It’s been making her sick as a dog.”
“If the Master hadn’t been extracting the particles from her,” the Doctor admitted, “It might’ve been even worse. Humans aren’t meant to hold Huon Particles.”
“Oh,” Rose whispered.
“I promise Rose,” the Doctor said seriously, reaching for her hand, “As soon as we get out of here and stop the Master, I will fix this. I burned up a supernova to say good-bye, then tore the worlds apart to say hello again. Do you really think I’d let something as little as Huon Particles tear us apart?”
Rose felt dangerously close to crying at that.
“First thing we need to do,” Jack said, thankfully stopping her, “Is get out of here.”
“How’d you suggest we do that?” Donna demanded, hands on her hips. “Rose and I have been stuck in here for days. You don’t think we’ve tried to escape?”
“Of course you lovely ladies have,” Jack said, easily placating Donna. “I just happen to have something you don’t.”
“If the next word out of your mouth is “pe-””
“Donna!” Rose blushed. Jack just laughed
“Oh, I like you!” He exclaimed. “But now, that’s not what I was going to say.
Although now that you mention it, mine is pretty impressive. I can give you a demonstration later, if you’d like.”
“Stop it,” the Doctor ordered. Rose was too busily giggling to say anything, but she squeezed his hand to calm him down. It worked. He looked between their entwined hands and her several times, as though still disbelieving. Rose couldn’t blame him. She kept expecting to wake up in bed, only to find out that this was all a dream, too.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Donna assured him.
The Doctor muttered, “I do.”
“As I was saying,” Jack stressed. He held something out in his hand. “I have this.”
Rose blinked. “That’s one of your-”
“Sonic blasters, yes.”
“The Master had his men frisk us,” the Doctor gaped. “Where were you hiding that?”
Jack just smirked. Donna was unable to stop herself from asking, “Do you have any other weapons hidden away?”
Jack shot back, “Why don’t you search me and find out?”
Donna sighed, exasperated. “Merlin’s snaggletooth, do you ever stop?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Jack snorted.
Rose giggled, too. “Merlin’s snaggletooth?”
“Well, I’d say ‘Merlin’s pants’, but he would probably try to get into them,” Donna said dryly.
“Too late,” the Doctor deadpanned. Rose laughed, recalling their conversation on the true Merlin. Donna and Jack, sensing that they were missing out on something, just looked at each other shrugged their shoulders. Jack was already used to the Doctor and Rose having inside jokes and Donna was starting to realize how things worked between the two of them.
“They always like this?”
“Oh, yea,” Jack said. Rose and the Doctor blushed.
Clearing his throat, the Doctor said, “Well, alright then! Let’s get out of here!”
“Right,” Jack said, planting his feet and bracing himself. He pointed his blaster to the door and warned, “You might wanna stand back.”
Donna couldn’t contain her shriek as the the blast Jack shot out hit the door, sending debris everywhere. The Doctor did the best he could to shield the both of them the best he could, wrapping his arms around Rose and turning her away towards Donna, putting himself between them the door. Jack was gone before the smoke cleared, his blaster held in front of him in a defensive position.
Only a moment later, he stuck his head out from the side of the door (or what remained of the door). “We’re in luck,” he said. “The blast managed to knock out the guards.”
“That was loud. It won’t take too long before the Master’s got some of his goons after us,” Donna said.
“We better hurry then,” the Doctor ordered. “Just-- any idea where we’re going? We’re looking for the origin of the Master’s psychic field.”
“All his tech-y stuff was downstairs in the basement,” Rose said immediately. The Doctor couldn’t help but smile at her.
“‘Tech-y stuff?’ Is that the technical term?”
Rose giggled. “I learned from the best.”
“Are we goin’ or not?” Donna complained. The Doctor looked apologetic, but from the way his hand reached for Rose’s and squeezed tightly, Donna doubted that he was entirely sincere. Grumbling to herself, she turned and headed towards the direction of the elevator, trusting that the others would follow her.
They did. Much to their surprise, they didn’t meet anybody on their way to the elevator. Nobody dared to say anything, though, not wanting to jinx their luck. When they got into the elevator, before the Doctor could bemoan the loss of his precious Sonic Screwdriver, Donna was punching in the code for the basement.
As the elevator began to descend, the Doctor couldn’t resist saying, “Oh, Donna Noble! I told you! You are brilliant.”
“Nah,” Donna muttered, looking suddenly bashful. “I’m just a temp. I’m not important.”
The Doctor looked at her seriously. “900 years of time and space, me. And you know what? I’ve never met anybody who wasn’t important.”
Unsure of how to respond to that, Donna instead interrupted, “We’re here.”
When they all got to the labs, they were exactly as Rose remembered: test tubes, computers, and equipment that Rose would never know what to do with. The Doctor seemed quite at home and headed straight to the computer, immediately turning it on and using the Sonic Screwdriver to bypass security
“Well?” Rose asked, looking over the Doctor’s shoulder. “Did you find anything?”
Donna had a better question. “What exactly are you looking for?”
“I don’t know,” the Doctor muttered. “Something-anything- that will help me fix al
these fractures in time.”
“I thought you didn’t know where they were coming from,” Jack protested.
“No, I don’t. The Master didn’t seem to know either and- Oh! Oh! Oh!”
Jack raised an eyebrow suggestively. “You alright there Doctor?”
“The Master used a psychic field!” He said excitedly.
“Right,” Rose said. “He mentioned that. What about it?”
“Quite a while ago,” the Doctor said, typing rapidly, “On the planet of Hakol, there was this war machine. The Malus, it was called. It was rumored to have the ability to use psychic energy to connect time-zones. It was just a theory of course, never tested, but I might be able to convert this psychic field into psychic energy...” The Doctor trailed off.
“But you think you can do it?” Donna asked nervously
“Only one way to find out!” The Doctor said. With a flourish, he pressed a key on the keyboard, while his other hand held on firmly to Rose. He hadn’t let go since they’d all left the holding cell. Rose was grateful, since the moment the Doctor pressed the key, the ground began to shake.
The Doctor pulled Rose down to the ground, covering her as best he could, as debris from the roof began to fall. Rose wasn’t really sure what happened next, because the next thing she new a blinding headache erupted behind her eyes and she was blinded by flashes of light. She heard screaming- she wished the person would stop screaming-- and then she realized that it was her, and that the shaking had stopped, and that the Doctor had her head in his lap and was trying to talk to her.
“Rose, Rose. You’re alright, Rose. Just breathe. It’s over.” The Doctor said, speaking as softly as he could and guiding her breathing. As Rose calmed down, she began to realize that the headache was gone and that the shaking had stopped
“Did you do it?” She asked the Doctor. He nodded, his face still taught with worry
Rose smiled a bit, “That was easier than it usually is.”
“Easy?” The Doctor asked, voice high. Donna, next to him, nodded emphatically and said, “You were screaming bloody murder!”
“It hurt,” Rose said, trying to sit up. The world spun and her stomach churned, but then everything settled. The Doctor kept a supporting hand on her back regardless. Rose took in the faces of her friends. “None of you felt it?”
“No, doll,” Jack said, shaking his head.
The Doctor told her, “We need to get you back to the TARDIS infirmary.”
“What about the Master?” Rose protested, partially because she really was worried, but also because she never liked going to the infirmary.
“He’s headed that way, anyway. If we’re lucky, we can cut him off,” the Doctor said, in a tone that booked no arguments. He and Jack each went to help Rose up.
Much to her shame, she stood on slightly shaky legs.
“Al and Hugo are probably back in Diagon Alley, wondering where we are,” Jack said urgently to the Doctor. The Doctor pursed his lips, thinking, as Rose’s heart thudded loudly in her chest.
Albus and Hugo are here?
“I’ll go find ‘em,” Donna volunteered. The Doctor shook his head and said that it would too dangerous
Donna snorted. “Can’t be any more dangerous than sticking with you three.
Besides, I want to see if I can find my mum and my granddad.”
“It’s very brave, what you’re doing, Donna,” the Doctor said seriously.
Donna looked bashful for the first time in her life. “Yea, well. It ain’t nothin like what you three do. Rose’s been telling me ‘bout it.”
The Doctor shook his head to show that he disagreed with her words, but said nothing else on the subject. Instead, he asked, “You can meet us back at the TARDIS. Hugo and Al will know where it is.”
After Donna left, the Doctor turned to Rose and Jack. “Back to the TARDIS we go, then! Allons-y!”