DW/HP: Clarke's First Law (15.3/15)
Title Clarke's First Law
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
Note: Some minor liberties taken with Merope Gaunt's death. Nothing major. Promise! And thanks for sticking with the story all this way!
(Chapter 15 part 2 here)
Chapter 14 (part 3): How It Ends And Where It All Begins
“You okay?” Al asked her. He was leaning against a coral strut. Rose nodded, so turned to the Doctor. “Home?”
“Of course,” the Doctor said.
“Wait!” Rose said suddenly, as the Doctor headed over to the console. He looked over at her apprehensively. She didn’t understand why, at first, until she realized that he was worried that she had changed her mind. Well, she couldn’t let that continue. “The Master mentioned his TARDIS.”
“Oh, she’s long gone, Rose,” the Doctor said softly. “I can’t feel her in my head.”
“The Master was so adamant that she was alive,” Rose whispered.
“He was driven mad,” the Doctor said. “Or maybe he was always mad, from the moment he looked into the Untempered Schism.”
“Speaking of the Master,” Hugo asked, “Where is he now?”
“I gave him a bottle and put him to sleep,” Jack said. Judging by their expressions, Rose assumed that Jack had filled everybody in the TARDIS in while she was in the sick bay
“What are we going to do with him?” Rose asked the Doctor. The Master was his friend (sort of), so it should be his decision
“I’ve been thinking about that,” the Doctor said. “We can bring him back to our world. Drop him off in an orphanage and let some people raise him well and check in on him every now and then, make sure he stays out of trouble.”
“I think that’s an excellent plan.” Strangely enough, it was Fred who said this. “Everybody deserves a second chance.”
“Right,” the Doctor said. “Let’s get out of here before something else goes wrong, shall we?”
With that, the Doctor launched them into the vortex and through the universes.
Jackie and Fred left first, leaving with their son in Cardiff. The Doctor gave some Earth money (when Rose asked him where he had gotten it, he mentioned something about using his sonic on an ATM a few weeks back) and bid them farewell.
Then, Al and Hugo were dropped off with the promise that the Doctor would bring Rose back as soon as they were done dropping off the Master. When they landed wherever the Doctor had taken them, Jack left to go get the Master.
While Jack went to go wake up the baby, Rose stood next to the Doctor and asked, “Where are you thinking of putting him?”
“I like 1926,” the Doctor said with a shrug. “New Year’s Eve. There’s an orphanage in London called Wool’s Orphanage.”
The name struck Rose for some reason, but she couldn’t place why. At that moment, Jack returned carrying a swaddled Master. Rose and the Doctor got their first good look at him. He was pink and tiny. A newborn.
“He looks familiar,” Rose said
“All babies look the same,” the Doctor pointed out. “How can you tell?”
Rose sputtered. “Don’t be rude!”
“He’s a baby! It’s not like he understands what I’m saying!”
“Let’s just get this over with,” Jack grumbled. He and the Doctor stopped only to put their coats on from the coat hanger that hung by the door, while Rose put on her cloak. She was grateful that she had because as soon as she stepped outside, she was hit in the face with what felt like a bucketful of freezing water.
It was pouring rain and dark. Jack wrapped the baby more tightly in his blankets. They began heading down the street towards where the Doctor had said the orphanage was. The streets were deserted, but squinting through the rain, Rose managed to make out an odd lump on the sidewalk. She ran over to it was shocked to see that it was a woman wearing tattered clothes and bleeding profusely. She didn’t seem to know what was going on around her.
Rose knelt down and tried to find where she was hurt, but she didn’t seem wounded anywhere. She was wearing an old style cloak and was no doubt a witch.
“Doctor!” Rose called back. The Doctor, no doubt hearing the urgency in her voice, ran towards her. When he saw the woman bleeding on the ground, he sprang into action. Rose stepped back to let him work. Jack stepped up next to her and handed her the baby. She took it and he leant down to the help the Doctor.
Despite their best attempts, it was in vain. In the end, on that street in the pouring rain, they were left with not one, but two, dead bodies.
“A miscarriage,” the Doctor said softly. Rose conjured up another blanket and knelt down next to him. “A baby boy.”
She took the dead baby and wrapped him in the blanket. She was crying at this point, holding both babies, but the rain made her face wet and she couldn’t distinguish it from the tears running down her face. The Doctor wasn’t crying, but he was as serious as she had ever seen him. She knew he couldn’t stand it when he couldn’t save somebody.
“She was very young,” Jack said. He pulled the woman’s grimy hair from her face and straightened her tattered cloak.
Her expression was peaceful, but that wasn’t what made Rose gasp.
“I know her,” Rose muttered. “I mean, I recognize her.”
“Who is she?” Jack asked.
“It’s Merope Gaunt,” Rose said. “It’s Voldemort’s mum. This must be the day she took him to the orphanage, and the day she died. I don’t understand, though. Her baby...”
Rose paused and looked down at the two babies in her hands. One was fair haired, reminding her of the Tom Riddle back in the parallel universe. He looked nothing like the pictures of Tom Riddle Rose had ever seen.
The other baby, though, the Master- he was dark haired and suddenly Rose realized what had happened and what she needed to do.
“Doctor,” she said as calmly as she could. Her voice shook only barely. “Take her baby.”
The Doctor took it unquestioningly, but watched, confused, as Rose stood up. He followed her and looked down at her through the rain. “Rose? What’s wrong? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”
Neither he or Jack had realized yet.
“The war against Voldemort has to happen, right, Doctor?” Rose asked.
The Doctor said slowly, “Yes. It’s a fixed point. One of the biggest there is.”
“How can it happen when Merope’s son, Tom Riddle, is dead?” Rose asked. The Doctor looked down at the baby with his lips pursed. “I’ll tell you,” she continued. “Because Tom Riddle as we know him- Voldemort- was not Merope’s son. He was the Master.”
“Rose,” Jack began, aghast, but Rose spoke over him before he had a chance to say anything else.
“This has to happen,” Rose said. “It’s always happened like this. Don’t you understand? That’s why there was no Voldemort in Fred’s World. Tom Riddle was never really Voldemort and we took the Master here.” Rose looked down at Merope and her blonde hair and her dark colored cloak. “You don’t have to do this,” the Doctor denied. “We can find another way-”
“No,” Rose protested. “I remember. They found Merope’s body the day after Riddle was dropped off. It was me who takes the baby to the orphanage and tells them to name him Tom Marvolo Riddle. It always was. I can do this. I have to do this. Just, please. Meet me back at the TARDIS.”
Jack and the Doctor exchanged glances in the dark. Jack finally said, “Alright, doll. We’ll see you in a few.”
Rose nodded and turned, holding the Master (Tom?), and headed toward the orphanage. She could feel the Doctor’s and Jack’s eyes on her until she turned the corner. She could see, just across the street, Wool’s Orphanage. She pulled her hood over her face before she made her way to the doorstep.
Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door.
A moment later, the door was opened by a woman. “Goodness me! Can I help you?”
Rose didn’t hesitate in thrusting the baby toward the woman, he took it, surprised. “Take care of him. Call him Tom Marvolo Riddle, after his father.”
Before the woman could protest, Rose was running, almost tripping on the slicked steps in front of the door. She ran and and ran and ran, lungs burning, but she couldn’t stop right now. She couldn’t think about what she’d just done, the fate she had just handed to so many of the people she’d loved to. The number of people she had just indirectly sentenced to death.
The TARDIS, bright blue even in the darkness, called to her like a beacon and she rushed through the doors and slammed them behind her. She shrugged her cloak off and let it fall against the floor, ignoring the concerned looks of the Doctor and Jack. Rose took a few steps and leaned against a coral strut.
“Oh, Rose,” the Doctor said. He pulled her into a tight hug and she buried herself in it, realizing only just then that those sobbing sounds were coming from her. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Rose sniffled. She wasn’t really sure what she was apologizing for and it didn’t really make her feel better, but she repeated it anyway. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” the Doctor muttered. He led her down to the floor so they could both sit down, which was most likely a good idea since her legs felt weak after her long sprint.
“Merope’s baby is in the infirmary,” Jack said quietly, sitting down next to them. “We can skip forward a week or so and bury him next to his mother. How does that sound?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Rose muttered. For some reason, that, at least, made her feel better. At least Merope would get to be with her son, wherever they were.
“Will you be alright?” Jack asked hesitantly.
Rose thought about for a moment, then nodded. “Yea.”
“Do you want to go home?” the Doctor asked.
Rose couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that escaped from her then. “You idiot. I am home.”