FIC: The Noble Girl: The End of the World (1/6)
Title: The Noble Girl - The End of the World
Rating: T
Author: tkel_paris
Summary: Jenny Noble and Mickey Smith's first TARDIS adventure? The Earth's Death. Time to see just how alien the universe is. Written for cassikat.
Disclaimer: Hugely AU. So no, I own nothing.
Dedication: cassikat, of course. Happy birthday, my friend! :D And tardis_mole and bas_math_girl, for beta-reading.
Author's Note: This idea was floating around in my head because I thought that a certain character looked more like another character than the one who was her (sole) parent in canon. And I know cassikat wanted a Nine story without Rose. So we both get our wish here! :D
Everyone has had the idea of taking a character and putting them into a different family situation. So, take one character from Who, transform the circumstances of her birth into something normal (or as normal as one can get in DW), and give her a different family. What do you get? Possibly this story. If you eliminate one other character...
cassikat, Merry Christmas! I hope to hear from you soon. Been a while. Also, when I watched a few minutes of TEofW to fill out the details, I was once again not pleased with Rose Tyler. And I haven't gotten to her worst moments in this episode yet.
Part 2 - The End of the World
Chapter 1 - You Brought Us Where?!
Started June 6, 2012 (D-Day anniversary!)
Wilf stared around at the room they walked back into. “What's this?” he asked as Jenny closed the doors behind them. “The Flight Room?”
“The Control Room,” the Doctor answered as he flipped levers and pressed buttons.
Mickey laughed. “And just where does that lead to? The Engine Room?”
He pat the huge cylinder, with something going up and down inside it, running up to the ceiling. “This is my ship's time rotor. The engine is below us.”
Jenny smiled. There was something amusing about watching the alien move about. He looked so human, but he clearly didn't think like any human did. “Is it always this green in here? Or do you like green lights?”
The Doctor shrugged. “It's been this way since... well, longer than I care to think.” He cleared his throat and continued to work the console.
“Oh!” Wilf sighed. “Jenny, you're going to the stars! D'you remember how I always wanted to be an astronaut?”
“You've said loads of times.” Her voice was filled with fond memories of nights up the hill.
Wilf hugged her tightly. “Wish I wasn't such an old man. I'd have given anything for a look at Earth from orbit.”
The Doctor looked up at him.
“Now,” Wilf continued, unaware of the new attention, “you go find a way to bring a little bit of the stars back for me and your mum. You know she'd love it, too.”
Jenny nodded, her face glowing with possibilities. “I will!”
“Slight change of plans,” the Doctor announced. They felt the ship jerk mildly to a halt, but the humming hadn't quite gone down to its landed state.
The other blinked as he walked to the doors. “Wilfred Mott, how's this?” He opened the doors, and three jaws instantly dropped.
Outside was the Earth. They were in space, looking over what looked like the British Isles and Europe.
Wilf moved forward a bit, right to the edge of the doors. “Oh, my!”
Mickey shook his head. “We're still breathing.”
“The TARDIS has an atmospheric field. She's protecting us.” The Doctor folded his arms, leaning against the other side of the doors. “What do you think?”
Wilf's face was lit like a child with Christmas Morning Syndrome. “It's barmy, but it's wonderful! I'm in space!”
The Doctor hadn't seen that much pure joy on display in... far longer than he cared to think about. Probably the last time he had a companion traveling with him. His lips drifted into a gentle smile.
Jenny was beaming just as much. “Is it as great as you imagined, Great-Grandy?”
“Better,” he whispered.
Even Mickey was getting infected by the enthusiasm. It was amazing.
“Bye, love!” Wilf called from the car, waving from the open window. He knew he had to make a call to Donna, but he would hopefully help her understand why Jenny did it.
“Bye!” Jenny and Mickey waved, her more vigorously, as the old man drove away. The car ran smooth, so it wasn't damaged by the Autons. Relief, Jenny thought.
Only when he was out of sight did they step back inside. Mickey took a big breath. “Well, this is going to be crazy.”
From his place at the controls, the Doctor quirked a grin. “Right then, Jenny Noble and Mickey Smith - you tell me, where do you want to go? Backwards or forwards in time. What's it going to be?”
They looked at each other. “What do you think, Mickey?” she asked with a grin, not caring.
He shrugged. “I don't even know where to begin.”
Jenny pursed her lips in deep thought. “Well, let's go one way, then the other. So.... forwards first!”
The Doctor put something round down on the console and flipped a few levers. “How far?”
Now they both looked puzzled. “I don't know,” Mickey said. “One hundred years?”
The Doctor quickly rolled something circular on the console, pulled a few more levers, pumped something that looked like it used to be for inflating things, and turned a knob. The engines made the ship lurch before he stopped them after a few seconds. “There you go, step outside those doors, it's the twenty-second century.”
Jenny and Mickey stared at him. “No!” she exclaimed.
“You're kidding,” Mickey muttered, noting that there was a little smoke coming from the console.
They got a smirk in answer. “That's a bit boring though, do you want to go further?”
Jenny shrugged. “How far do you think? It is your ship.”
The Doctor fired the engines again, pumping the same item. They stopped several seconds later when he turned the same switch that stopped the engines before. “Ten thousand years in the future. Step outside, it's the year 12004, the New Roman Empire.”
Mickey's eyes went wide. “What?!”
“New Roman Empire. There are a few different empires in humanity's future.”
Mickey felt out of his depth already.
Jenny raised an eyebrow. “So this is how you impress people? Take them to random points in time, to test how much they believe? You really think you're the most impressive being alive.”
His eyes narrowed. “I AM so impressive!”
Mickey flinched over the shout. “Jenny,” he cautioned.
She wasn't fazed. “Fine then.” She walked around to stand next to him. “Out there would impress us both, but you're dying to show off. I can tell. So go on then. Really blow our minds out of the water!” She finished with a grin, to let him know she was teasing a bit. He looked like he needed to remember how to laugh - especially at himself.
His face quirked with being challenged. “Right then, you asked for it. I know exactly where to go.” He turned up the engine's power and pumped that same lever furiously. “Hold on!” he called out as the ship rocked back and forth.
Jenny and Mickey held on the nearest things they could. They listened to the cacophony of noises and sounds that accompanied the journey, and watched as the Doctor kept doing all sorts of busywork. With a pinging noise as he hit an object, the TARDIS suddenly stopped.
“Oi,” Jenny breathed, “was that just to announce our arrival?”
The Doctor pouted.
Mickey took a deep breath. “Where are we? What's our there now?”
The Doctor gestured towards the doors, a grin on his face.
Jenny, nervous as she was, smiled excitedly. “Come on! Tell us!”
The Doctor gestured again.
Mickey frowned. “Oi! We're not going out before you do!”
Jenny scowled at him, but she didn't challenge him. She raised another eyebrow at the Doctor, who sighed and led them outside.
They stepped outside into what looked like some kind of wooden room. There was a door and some control behind them, and something that looked like metal imitating wood over a large area. The Doctor waited for Jenny to shut the doors. Then, with his sonic screwdriver, he buzzed at the gowing control. It made the metal items move down. They were shutters, covering an enormous window. It showed the Earth, just like they'd seen it just moments before. They looked oddly at him.
“You lot,” he chided as he led them down the steps below to look more closely.” You spend all your time thinking about dying. Like you're going to get killed by eggs or beef or global warming or asteroids.”
“I figure disease or old age will get us,” Jenny interrupted. “I know all sorts of things can kill any one person,” she added quietly. She shook herself a moment. “What are you on about?!”
The Doctor looked intently at her, contemplating her seriousness. “You think about rather deep things for one so young.”
Mickey barely pulled his eyes from the Earth. “You should hear her debating with some of her teachers. The way her mum tells it, she thought this one woman was going to tear up her doctorate.”
“Innocence and intelligence combined,” the Doctor complimented. Then he turned to look at the Earth, arms folded yet again. “But you never take time to imagine the impossible - that maybe you survive.”
There was something odd in the Doctor's tone. Something tightly wound. Jenny blinked.
But he didn't give her much time to think about it. “This is the year 5.5/Apple/26. Five billion years in your future.”
Jenny's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. Mickey just blinked, not having read as many science materials as she had.
“And this is the day... ” The Doctor looked at his watch, which Jenny didn't remember seeing before. “Hold on.”
He looked back up as a low rumbling hit the structure, and then they saw the sun send out a huge burst of energy. What had been effectively yellowish-white suddenly distorted into something on the orange side of red, and it seemed to be growing.
Jenny gasped. It couldn't be!
“This is the day the sun expands,” the Doctor announced, calm-as-you-like.
Now Mickey's jaw fell.
The Doctor looked at them both. “Welcome to the end of the world.”
Mickey felt his body go cold.
Jenny was aghast. “All of time and space, and you bring us here?!”
The Doctor stared at her in shock.
(OPENING CREDITS:
Christoper Eccelston
Georgia Moffet
Noel Clarke
“The End of the World”
based on the episode written by Russell T Davies)
Chapter Two: Aliens! Real Aliens!