fanfic | doctor who | the sky on fire 1/7
Title: The Sky On Fire 1/7
Fandom: Doctor Who
Series: Interaction Locations
Characters: Rose Tyler, the Doctor (eighth)
Rating: M - swearing|violence|romance
Spoilers: This is a sequel to Diamond Sea and also has spoilers for DW series 2|28 through Doomsday, EDAs, Big Finish Audios
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Betas: iansmomesq and drox
Teaspoon: As with most of my fic, this series can also be read on A Teaspoon and an Open Mind, if you prefer.
Author's Note: Given the long delays I sometimes battled with while writing Diamond Sea, I decided to go to the trouble of writing the entirety of this sequel before posting the first chapter. As a result, I can assure you that each chapter will go up on the same day, one a week, for seven weeks until the story's conclusion.
Summary: In the aftermath of the events of Diamond Sea, we pick up the story of the Doctor and Rose as they set out upon their first real adventure. Of course, still nursing wounds both physical and emotional, they may get more than they bargained for.
Chapter One
Twelve minutes and forty-five seconds later, Rose Tyler discovered that leaving it up to chance proved rather eventful. She had been leaning on the jump seat, her legs crossed at the ankle, watching the Doctor ponder the plenitude of small changes to the TARDIS console room. He’d seemed intrigued by the most unexciting of alterations - taking more time examining the digital heads-up displays than the inner workings beneath the grilles.
Every now and then, Rose would interject a comment or anecdote - something along the lines of, “oh, that bit’s really cool. Watch what happens when you do this …”
The Doctor would step back, leaning over her shoulder as she flicked and pushed and twirled the controls, making his eyes light up in concert with the TARDIS at every small revelation. Then his long fingered hands would dance across the console, taking her lead but pushing it even further, sending the displays cascading through countless calculations that left her mind whirling. Only then would he glance at her, his lips twisted into a wry smile, blue eyes dancing.
He shrugged out of his jacket seconds before it happened, rolling his crisp white sleeves to just below the elbow, his too-thin arms pale in the low light of the time rotor. It was sheer luck that they were both holding onto something when the TARDIS slammed to a halt.
Rose pushed herself upright from where she’d been bent double over the console. Her diaphragm burned as she forced air back into her lungs. Thrown to his knees against one of the coral supports, the Doctor hadn’t fared any better. He winced as he pushed himself to his feet, intent on the console displays.
“Spatial shift,” he muttered, hands flying over the unfamiliar controls, hesitating only briefly here and there.
He grabbed her hand and brought it down on a gelatinous sphere. “Here,” he said tightly. “Try and keep her steady.”
Rose felt the sphere twist and writhe against her palm, the TARDIS’ attitude fluctuating accordingly. The Doctor was already busy on the other side of the console, leaving her to make the best of things. She braced herself and closed her hand more tightly. Warmth blossomed in her palm, sending tendrils of pins and needles shooting up her arm. “Ow!” she hissed, frowning at the time rotor. “Go easy, I’m doing my best.”
“Can you reach the inverters from there?” called the Doctor.
“Inverters?”
“Ah …” he paused, his head appearing around the rotor as he realised he didn’t know what they looked like anymore. “Red things. About twenty centimetres to the right of your left hand, two rows down, third from the left.”
Well accustomed to his rapid-fire instructions by now, Rose’s hand had travelled of its own accord, alighting on a selection that caused the Doctor to wince dramatically. She adjusted by one row and he grinned at her.
“Flick them on sequentially when I tell you,” he instructed, disappearing again.
Rose’s fingers hovered over the switches while her other hand grappled with the unruly jelly blob. Around them, the TARDIS juddered and hissed steam, the lights dimming and brightening like a faulty light fitting.
The Doctor’s voice drifted up from beneath the console. “Okay … hang on.”
“You already told me to wait,” Rose called back. “I won’t flick them until you’re ready.”
The Doctor’s face appeared on the opposite side of the rotor, taking her by surprise. “No, no, no. Hang on … as in brace yourself, get ready, hold tight.”
Rose glanced from the stabiliser to the inverters. “Exactly what would you like me to hold on to?”
“Ah,” said the Doctor.
“Ah,” said Rose.
“Oh well,” he shrugged. “On the count of three …”
-:-
Rose scowled at her left elbow. It was bruised. “When and where are we?”
The Doctor ran a hand through his cropped hair and cast around for the date display. He tapped a fingernail against the mechanism but it remained stubbornly blank. With an apologetic look, he scooped his jacket into his arms and gestured towards the doors. “Call it a surprise.”
Rose swallowed against the prickling feeling at the back of her throat. She wiped her sweaty palms against her jeans and realisation hit.
The war had changed her.
Never again would she stride through the TARDIS doors into the unknown without a tingle of apprehension mixed with the excitement. Always and forever, she’d be haunted by the knowledge that the Doctor had been correct, way back when she’d first met him - it was always dangerous.
She fingered the place where her thigh holster had sat for so many years … for an eternity that few remembered and perhaps only the Doctor had shared. She caught him following her empty gesture and was grateful when he averted his eyes, saying nothing. She wasn’t sure whether she felt defensive or embarrassed by her lapse.
“Right,” he said, pointedly taking her hand and leading her through the doors. “Let’s find out where we are today.”
Rose took a deep breath of cool, thin air while the Doctor carefully closed the TARDIS doors behind them. He’d let her hand fall and she absently clasped them together, rubbing one thumb against the palm of her opposite hand. The TARDIS sat on the verge of a vast body of water. Rose squinted against the early morning sun and was able to make out a few islands in the distance.
“So?” the Doctor prompted. “Where are we, Rose?”
She caught her tongue between her teeth and gave him a sidelong glance. No doubt he’d taken one sniff and identified the planet based on the chemical composition of the air or something. Well, if he wanted her to guess, she’d play along …
“It smells different from London, but I suppose it would, wouldn’t it?” she mused, glancing around the picturesque scenery, taking in the mountains with their white sided slopes. “I’m going to say, Earth, Switzerland … two hundred and fifty million years ago?”
“It’s a good guess.”
“I’m wrong aren’t I?”
“Yes.”
Rose sighed and kicked at a tuft of grass. “Okay Einstein, where are we?”
“You were right about Earth,” he said encouragingly. “But this,” he said, kneeling in the mud, oblivious to the effect on his trousers. “This is a yareta flower,” he explained, cradling the blossom against his palm. “That coupled with the Spanish on that sign over there …”
“What sign?” Rose interrupted, turning to look behind her. “That’s cheating!”
“… coupled with the Spanish,” he continued mischievously, “and the distinctive post-glacial geomorphology, and I’d have to say we’re in the Andes. Probably Peru.”
“What about that yatera flower? You aren’t going to tell me that’s from Earth.”
“Yareta,” he corrected, straightening and brushing his hands against his thighs. “And yes, it is.”
“Doesn’t sound it,” she grumbled, good-naturedly.
“Well, twenty six consonants and five vowels in the English language alone makes over seven million, eight hundred and ninety three thousand, six hundred permutations to be had, so even if you discount the combinations that are impossible for a human to pronounce and taking into account that you don’t have to use every consonant and vowel in every word, that leaves you with over six billion options, which is probably why you humans are always coming up with weird and wonderful names for things.”
“You humans?” she asked archly.
“Yes … well …” he muttered, shoving his hands deep into his trouser pockets. “Shall we see who else is about?”
Rose tucked her hand in the crook of his arm, trying to ignore the way the plush velvet did little to hide how thin he’d become. “So, are you going to impress me and tell me exactly where we are?”
“If you like,” he grinned. “We’re currently somewhere on the southern banks of Lake Titicaca.”
She burst out laughing. “You did not just say that!”
“Say what?” he asked, bemused. When Rose just laughed harder he rolled his eyes and threw an arm around her shoulders to stop her from stumbling. She wiped away tears, leaning into his support. “Honestly, Rose,” he admonished, but a smile hovered at the corners of his mouth. “So immature.”
-:-
An hour later, she gritted her teeth and kept walking. It did little to appease her when she noticed that the Doctor had developed a slight limp. Before Cardiff … before the Time War, he’d have been more impervious than she. The universe shifted and times changed … people changed. Some more often than others.
She bit back the desire to ask how much further they had to go. She suspected the TARDIS was wilfully abstaining from translating the signs in Spanish and two other languages the Doctor had identified as Quechua and Aymara. Instead she wiped her face on the back of her sleeve and asked, “where are we going?”
The Doctor paused, his face a little flushed from exertion and his jacket slung over one shoulder. “Desaguadero is the closest town. I thought we might poke around there a little - see what’s afoot.”
Rose regarded the horizon with scepticism. “What makes you think something’s afoot?”
The Doctor pressed the dry linen of his shirt against his brow and licked his lips. “Isn’t there always?”
Rose shrugged in agreement and kept walking. She was startled from her reverie by a voice from the lake to their left.
“Buenos días!”
Rose and the Doctor stopped short, almost colliding with each other.
“Me llamo Arancaya. Adonde van ustedes?”
Rose screwed her eyes shut and tried to make sense of the words. Their meaning hovered at the edge of her awareness, like some half-forgotten poem or the lyrics to a song for which she could only remember the tune.
“Buenos días!” said the Doctor quickly. “Me llamo el Doctor y ella es mi amiga, Rose. Estámos viajando a Desaguadero. Por favor, puede usted decirnos cuánto más lejos?”
The weathered, brightly clad man seemed to consider what the Doctor had said before punting his reed boat to the shore. He gestured towards them, smiling. "Por favor, dígame porqué ustedes están aquí. No hay muchos extranjeros en esta parte del lago de Titicaca."
The Doctor glanced at Rose and raised his eyebrows. “Shall we?” he asked, inclining his head towards the boat.
“No arguments here,” she replied, shifting from one aching foot to another.
The Doctor stepped neatly into the boat and held out a hand to steady Rose as she joined him. She was perversely pleased to be able to ignore his proffered assistance. Her sense of balance and awareness of her own body was greatly improved by her time with Torchwood. Those skills, so costly to hone, were strangely valuable now. The easy sway she adopted as she found her seat was cause for some small pride. Surely it was only right that small goodness could be found in so much suffering.
Their host pushed off from the shore and offered them a smile proficient in missing teeth. “Llegaremos Desguadero antes de cena. Dígame cómo usted vino caminar aquí, por favor. No muchos extranjeros vienen a esta parte del lago Titicaca.”
“I’d like to be able to tell him what we’re doing here,” the Doctor sighed, “but that’s always tricky when you’re not quite sure yourself. Luckily, it’s earlier in the day than it seems, so should be in Desaguadero before dinner.”
“Perfect,” sighed Rose. “What will we do for lunch?”
The Doctor rummaged around in his pockets and produced an apple, a cucumber sandwich and a wheat biscuit.
Rose eyed the sandwich warily. “What’s the storage temperature of your pockets?”
He just waved the sandwich at her.
“Doctor,” she said around a mouthful of apple. “How come I’m out of the loop here?”
He paused, a biscuit halfway to his lips. “What do you mean?”
Rose nodded her head in the direction of their new acquaintance. “It’s all Spanish to me.”
“Entiendes?” the Doctor asked her, the biscuit forgotten in his lap.
“No, I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
“But …”
“Lucky guess,” Rose interrupted.
The Doctor turned and frowned in the direction of the TARDIS. “Curious.”
TBC ...
Fandom: Doctor Who
Series: Interaction Locations
Characters: Rose Tyler, the Doctor (eighth)
Rating: M - swearing|violence|romance
Spoilers: This is a sequel to Diamond Sea and also has spoilers for DW series 2|28 through Doomsday, EDAs, Big Finish Audios
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Betas: iansmomesq and drox
Teaspoon: As with most of my fic, this series can also be read on A Teaspoon and an Open Mind, if you prefer.
Author's Note: Given the long delays I sometimes battled with while writing Diamond Sea, I decided to go to the trouble of writing the entirety of this sequel before posting the first chapter. As a result, I can assure you that each chapter will go up on the same day, one a week, for seven weeks until the story's conclusion.
Summary: In the aftermath of the events of Diamond Sea, we pick up the story of the Doctor and Rose as they set out upon their first real adventure. Of course, still nursing wounds both physical and emotional, they may get more than they bargained for.
Chapter One
Twelve minutes and forty-five seconds later, Rose Tyler discovered that leaving it up to chance proved rather eventful. She had been leaning on the jump seat, her legs crossed at the ankle, watching the Doctor ponder the plenitude of small changes to the TARDIS console room. He’d seemed intrigued by the most unexciting of alterations - taking more time examining the digital heads-up displays than the inner workings beneath the grilles.
Every now and then, Rose would interject a comment or anecdote - something along the lines of, “oh, that bit’s really cool. Watch what happens when you do this …”
The Doctor would step back, leaning over her shoulder as she flicked and pushed and twirled the controls, making his eyes light up in concert with the TARDIS at every small revelation. Then his long fingered hands would dance across the console, taking her lead but pushing it even further, sending the displays cascading through countless calculations that left her mind whirling. Only then would he glance at her, his lips twisted into a wry smile, blue eyes dancing.
He shrugged out of his jacket seconds before it happened, rolling his crisp white sleeves to just below the elbow, his too-thin arms pale in the low light of the time rotor. It was sheer luck that they were both holding onto something when the TARDIS slammed to a halt.
Rose pushed herself upright from where she’d been bent double over the console. Her diaphragm burned as she forced air back into her lungs. Thrown to his knees against one of the coral supports, the Doctor hadn’t fared any better. He winced as he pushed himself to his feet, intent on the console displays.
“Spatial shift,” he muttered, hands flying over the unfamiliar controls, hesitating only briefly here and there.
He grabbed her hand and brought it down on a gelatinous sphere. “Here,” he said tightly. “Try and keep her steady.”
Rose felt the sphere twist and writhe against her palm, the TARDIS’ attitude fluctuating accordingly. The Doctor was already busy on the other side of the console, leaving her to make the best of things. She braced herself and closed her hand more tightly. Warmth blossomed in her palm, sending tendrils of pins and needles shooting up her arm. “Ow!” she hissed, frowning at the time rotor. “Go easy, I’m doing my best.”
“Can you reach the inverters from there?” called the Doctor.
“Inverters?”
“Ah …” he paused, his head appearing around the rotor as he realised he didn’t know what they looked like anymore. “Red things. About twenty centimetres to the right of your left hand, two rows down, third from the left.”
Well accustomed to his rapid-fire instructions by now, Rose’s hand had travelled of its own accord, alighting on a selection that caused the Doctor to wince dramatically. She adjusted by one row and he grinned at her.
“Flick them on sequentially when I tell you,” he instructed, disappearing again.
Rose’s fingers hovered over the switches while her other hand grappled with the unruly jelly blob. Around them, the TARDIS juddered and hissed steam, the lights dimming and brightening like a faulty light fitting.
The Doctor’s voice drifted up from beneath the console. “Okay … hang on.”
“You already told me to wait,” Rose called back. “I won’t flick them until you’re ready.”
The Doctor’s face appeared on the opposite side of the rotor, taking her by surprise. “No, no, no. Hang on … as in brace yourself, get ready, hold tight.”
Rose glanced from the stabiliser to the inverters. “Exactly what would you like me to hold on to?”
“Ah,” said the Doctor.
“Ah,” said Rose.
“Oh well,” he shrugged. “On the count of three …”
-:-
Rose scowled at her left elbow. It was bruised. “When and where are we?”
The Doctor ran a hand through his cropped hair and cast around for the date display. He tapped a fingernail against the mechanism but it remained stubbornly blank. With an apologetic look, he scooped his jacket into his arms and gestured towards the doors. “Call it a surprise.”
Rose swallowed against the prickling feeling at the back of her throat. She wiped her sweaty palms against her jeans and realisation hit.
The war had changed her.
Never again would she stride through the TARDIS doors into the unknown without a tingle of apprehension mixed with the excitement. Always and forever, she’d be haunted by the knowledge that the Doctor had been correct, way back when she’d first met him - it was always dangerous.
She fingered the place where her thigh holster had sat for so many years … for an eternity that few remembered and perhaps only the Doctor had shared. She caught him following her empty gesture and was grateful when he averted his eyes, saying nothing. She wasn’t sure whether she felt defensive or embarrassed by her lapse.
“Right,” he said, pointedly taking her hand and leading her through the doors. “Let’s find out where we are today.”
Rose took a deep breath of cool, thin air while the Doctor carefully closed the TARDIS doors behind them. He’d let her hand fall and she absently clasped them together, rubbing one thumb against the palm of her opposite hand. The TARDIS sat on the verge of a vast body of water. Rose squinted against the early morning sun and was able to make out a few islands in the distance.
“So?” the Doctor prompted. “Where are we, Rose?”
She caught her tongue between her teeth and gave him a sidelong glance. No doubt he’d taken one sniff and identified the planet based on the chemical composition of the air or something. Well, if he wanted her to guess, she’d play along …
“It smells different from London, but I suppose it would, wouldn’t it?” she mused, glancing around the picturesque scenery, taking in the mountains with their white sided slopes. “I’m going to say, Earth, Switzerland … two hundred and fifty million years ago?”
“It’s a good guess.”
“I’m wrong aren’t I?”
“Yes.”
Rose sighed and kicked at a tuft of grass. “Okay Einstein, where are we?”
“You were right about Earth,” he said encouragingly. “But this,” he said, kneeling in the mud, oblivious to the effect on his trousers. “This is a yareta flower,” he explained, cradling the blossom against his palm. “That coupled with the Spanish on that sign over there …”
“What sign?” Rose interrupted, turning to look behind her. “That’s cheating!”
“… coupled with the Spanish,” he continued mischievously, “and the distinctive post-glacial geomorphology, and I’d have to say we’re in the Andes. Probably Peru.”
“What about that yatera flower? You aren’t going to tell me that’s from Earth.”
“Yareta,” he corrected, straightening and brushing his hands against his thighs. “And yes, it is.”
“Doesn’t sound it,” she grumbled, good-naturedly.
“Well, twenty six consonants and five vowels in the English language alone makes over seven million, eight hundred and ninety three thousand, six hundred permutations to be had, so even if you discount the combinations that are impossible for a human to pronounce and taking into account that you don’t have to use every consonant and vowel in every word, that leaves you with over six billion options, which is probably why you humans are always coming up with weird and wonderful names for things.”
“You humans?” she asked archly.
“Yes … well …” he muttered, shoving his hands deep into his trouser pockets. “Shall we see who else is about?”
Rose tucked her hand in the crook of his arm, trying to ignore the way the plush velvet did little to hide how thin he’d become. “So, are you going to impress me and tell me exactly where we are?”
“If you like,” he grinned. “We’re currently somewhere on the southern banks of Lake Titicaca.”
She burst out laughing. “You did not just say that!”
“Say what?” he asked, bemused. When Rose just laughed harder he rolled his eyes and threw an arm around her shoulders to stop her from stumbling. She wiped away tears, leaning into his support. “Honestly, Rose,” he admonished, but a smile hovered at the corners of his mouth. “So immature.”
-:-
An hour later, she gritted her teeth and kept walking. It did little to appease her when she noticed that the Doctor had developed a slight limp. Before Cardiff … before the Time War, he’d have been more impervious than she. The universe shifted and times changed … people changed. Some more often than others.
She bit back the desire to ask how much further they had to go. She suspected the TARDIS was wilfully abstaining from translating the signs in Spanish and two other languages the Doctor had identified as Quechua and Aymara. Instead she wiped her face on the back of her sleeve and asked, “where are we going?”
The Doctor paused, his face a little flushed from exertion and his jacket slung over one shoulder. “Desaguadero is the closest town. I thought we might poke around there a little - see what’s afoot.”
Rose regarded the horizon with scepticism. “What makes you think something’s afoot?”
The Doctor pressed the dry linen of his shirt against his brow and licked his lips. “Isn’t there always?”
Rose shrugged in agreement and kept walking. She was startled from her reverie by a voice from the lake to their left.
“Buenos días!”
Rose and the Doctor stopped short, almost colliding with each other.
“Me llamo Arancaya. Adonde van ustedes?”
Rose screwed her eyes shut and tried to make sense of the words. Their meaning hovered at the edge of her awareness, like some half-forgotten poem or the lyrics to a song for which she could only remember the tune.
“Buenos días!” said the Doctor quickly. “Me llamo el Doctor y ella es mi amiga, Rose. Estámos viajando a Desaguadero. Por favor, puede usted decirnos cuánto más lejos?”
The weathered, brightly clad man seemed to consider what the Doctor had said before punting his reed boat to the shore. He gestured towards them, smiling. "Por favor, dígame porqué ustedes están aquí. No hay muchos extranjeros en esta parte del lago de Titicaca."
The Doctor glanced at Rose and raised his eyebrows. “Shall we?” he asked, inclining his head towards the boat.
“No arguments here,” she replied, shifting from one aching foot to another.
The Doctor stepped neatly into the boat and held out a hand to steady Rose as she joined him. She was perversely pleased to be able to ignore his proffered assistance. Her sense of balance and awareness of her own body was greatly improved by her time with Torchwood. Those skills, so costly to hone, were strangely valuable now. The easy sway she adopted as she found her seat was cause for some small pride. Surely it was only right that small goodness could be found in so much suffering.
Their host pushed off from the shore and offered them a smile proficient in missing teeth. “Llegaremos Desguadero antes de cena. Dígame cómo usted vino caminar aquí, por favor. No muchos extranjeros vienen a esta parte del lago Titicaca.”
“I’d like to be able to tell him what we’re doing here,” the Doctor sighed, “but that’s always tricky when you’re not quite sure yourself. Luckily, it’s earlier in the day than it seems, so should be in Desaguadero before dinner.”
“Perfect,” sighed Rose. “What will we do for lunch?”
The Doctor rummaged around in his pockets and produced an apple, a cucumber sandwich and a wheat biscuit.
Rose eyed the sandwich warily. “What’s the storage temperature of your pockets?”
He just waved the sandwich at her.
“Doctor,” she said around a mouthful of apple. “How come I’m out of the loop here?”
He paused, a biscuit halfway to his lips. “What do you mean?”
Rose nodded her head in the direction of their new acquaintance. “It’s all Spanish to me.”
“Entiendes?” the Doctor asked her, the biscuit forgotten in his lap.
“No, I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
“But …”
“Lucky guess,” Rose interrupted.
The Doctor turned and frowned in the direction of the TARDIS. “Curious.”
TBC ...