Fic [Doctor Who]: Encircled (1/7)

Mar 24, 2013 17:55

Title: Encircled
Rating: PG-13 
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose, First Doctor, Eighth Doctor, Ninth Doctor, Other Doctors, the Children of Time
Beta: fannishliss; thank her if it makes sense!
Warnings: Major character death, violence, minor language.
Note: This story references certain elements of the extended Whoniverse, particularly the novel Lungbarrow, and blatantly ignores others. If I made mistakes, pretend I did it on purpose. :)
Summary: All his long life, the Doctor has never really known what he's running from--or running towards. And then, on a dirty street at the end of the Earth as we know it, Rose takes a Dalek disruptor blast for him. AU from The Stolen Earth.

Gallifrey
2004716.44 RE
Theta is eight

Just as the shaky vid-image of Rassilon enters the Panopticon, his chamber door crashes open. He knows who it is even before the intruder speaks. Nobody else crashes through anything in the House of Lungbarrow.

“Oh, Thete, why are you watching that again? It’s just a history lesson. Boooo-ring.” A dirty hand snakes around his shoulder and stops the video. He sighs dramatically and turns to face the dark-haired boy behind him.

“History is interesting, Kosch. I can’t wait-”

“-until you have your own TARDIS and you can go see it for yourself,” Koschei recites with a long-suffering eye-roll. “We’re eight. We’re not even initiated yet and then we’ll be lucky if they let us out of the Academy in thirty years. Come outside while we still can.”

Theta rolls his eyes in return and gestures at his heavy red robes. “My Lord Father confiscated all of my ordinary clothes. I ruined the cloak I was meant to wear for Examinations yesterday in the Monoliths, and I’m not allowed out.”

A slow, sly grin spreads across Koschei’s face. “Then I suppose you’ll have to ruin that set of ceremonial robes as well. Think of it this way: the Patriarch has asked for it.”

Theta’s face twists with indecision. “Kosch, I can’t-”

“Because you’d rather watch history? Or because you’re scared? Bet you’re scared,” Koschei jeers, shifting with impatience.

“My Lord Father-”

“Isn’t your master, Thete!”

“But I want to honor his wishes. I don’t want to cause...trouble,” Theta lies unconvincingly.

Koschei sighs in disappointment. “He treats you like you’re an Outsider, just because you’re womb-born.”

Theta says nothing. Koschei isn’t wrong.

“I’ll be in the forest if you change your mind about being perfect.”

“At the hideout?” Theta smiles a little.

“Yeah.”

He turns back to his desk and fumbles under the sleek surface. “Will you take something there for me?”

“Bring it yourself. Then you’ll have to come, right? See you.” Koschei scowls-the hideout isn’t as much fun alone-and flounces from the room, radiating annoyance. He slams the door just as loudly on his way out.

Theta pulls his hand from beneath the desk silently and sets the datacube in front of him. He stares at it. It’s not allowed. That’s why he has to hide it. It’s not the standard history vid, and his House would disown him if they found out he had stolen it from the Great Library. No one would find it in the hiding place. His family doesn’t think he’s clever enough to have a hiding place inside his hideout, and it would be safe there when he goes away to the Capitol. If Kosch won’t take it for him, he’ll have to break the rules to get it there.

He gestures at his screen to start the video one more time, putting off both the violation and the humiliation of having his father shout at him about dishonor in front of the assembled Cousins again. The archaic two-dimensional recording flows: Rassilon stands in the atrium outside the Panopticon with his retinue, preparing to announce his plan to create a temporal power source so immense the people of Gallifrey would become the Lords of Time. The doors fly open and Rassilon enters first, imposing in his velvet regalia and mirror-bright headdress and looking every bit the pompous idiot to Theta’s eyes. A train of awed engineers, aides, and Council pages scuttles along in his shadow. After him comes Omega, who looks terribly uncomfortable. Even the drape of his cloak seems tense with worry, and Theta wonders if he knew even then what he would sacrifice in creating the Eye.

His tutors have taught him well, and Rassilon and Omega are figures as familiar as the current Lady President. It’s the third person, the one who comes after Omega’s small crew of technical assistants, who fascinates Theta.

In a room full of bright velvet and gold that covers all but the face, her robe is grey-blue, simple, and sleeveless, her black hair uncovered and loose. In a room full of people who can change face, race, and sex, she is different, singular, like her skin is truly hers instead of a mask she wears. In a room full of pretense and posturing, she walks alone, confident and enigmatic, and, all those thousands of years ago, as she passes the camera, she sweeps just a little too close and winks.

At him.

She is last in a long line, and as she passes the image pans so he can see her walking away, off into the lost reaches of history. Aside from a tiny glimpse in the background of Omega’s speech, it is the last recorded image of her: a grey robe, black hair, and icy pale skin, a perfect canvas for the tattoo of twining green vines and strange blood-red flowers that embraces the back of her shoulder.

Rassilon begins to speak, but Theta pays no attention: this part is in the official vids--in fact, it is the official vid. He’s checked. The mysterious woman, the only person who walked with Rassilon and Omega as though she had at least as much of a right to take the floor of the Panopticon as they did, has vanished. Rassilon, Omega, and, he guesses, the Other. His favorite legend, given a face.

Theta wonders who she was really, what she did that caused her to be deleted from history, from the Matrix, from any record but invincible myth and one secret vid. It intrigues him, the thought that anyone could cause so much trouble and still look funny and kind. But most of all, he wonders what it will be like to meet her once he has his own TARDIS.

He glances out the window. The sky over Perdition is growing redder by the minute. He’ll have to hurry. Perhaps if he doesn’t get too dirty… Catching up the datacube, he throws his oldest tunic over his robes and slips out the door to Koschei and the place where they keep their secrets.

* * * * *

London, Earth
2008
The Doctor is 904

He means it when he tells Donna this could be the end of everything. But for him, that is not nearly enough.

Bad Wolf.

She is everywhere, and he is right that the walls between universes must be dissolving, and it may be the greatest danger he has ever faced. It is horrific, simply the thought of it. But every impossible space between the atoms of the world is suddenly full of her, and he knows it is only a matter of time.

Then there is a momentary lull in the fight, and she is at one end of the street, and he is at the other. Ask her yourself. And they run.

He sees it too late, the telltale gleam along a shiny edge angled just so, glinting off a metal that does not, should not, exist on Earth. With a shout, he veers left, arms outstretched--run, Rose, run!--but the Dalek is already compensating, its weapon already tracking him. And Rose is still moving, and then she dives, shoving him to the ground beneath her as she rolls, raises her rifle, fires.

The Dalek smolders. But as he crawls to his feet and stares unexpectedly into the appalled face of Jack Harkness, it hits him: there were two shots.

He crashes back to his knees beside the huddled figure in blue leather only seconds before Jack reaches them, Donna close on his heels. The Doctor reaches for Rose’s shoulder and forces himself to roll her down onto her back.

Alive.

Her head is thrown back in an arch of pain, teeth gritted and tears tracking down her cheeks. “Doctor?” she manages.

“Oh God, Rosie,” Jack murmurs, as Donna takes her hand. “We’re here.”

Jack crouches by the Doctor and starts taking vitals. His face is unreadable, which means...it means what he already knows it means. The Doctor’s brain refuses to think, to take in the situation, the three of them crouched around Rose in the middle of a dark street as the world shatters. The dark, oozing energy burn along her left shoulder.

“Get her inside,” he blurts without meaning to. Jack and Donna look up sharply. “We need to get her inside, I mean. She shouldn’t...be here. Not here. Not in the street.”

“In the infirmary, I think I can help-” Jack begins, standing up with him, but the Doctor shakes his head and the other man breaks off. He stares fixedly at the remains of the Dalek smoking on the asphalt.

Together the three of them carry Rose home to the TARDIS.

Notes:

First of all, thanks for reading!

I am picking, choosing, and making up various bits of Gallifreyan history and the Doctor's personal history. The only thing I'm really grateful for in regard to the cancellation of Classic Who (which I am new to, but enjoying very much) is that Andrew Cartmel never had the chance to canonically demystify the Doctor. The Doctor should always be mystifying. And, in this case, mystified. :)

fandom: doctor who, fiction: timey-wimey, era: multi, pairing: ten/rose, story: encircled, rating: pg-13

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