Seuls - Chapter 6
Title: Seuls
Author: mtemplar
Rating: Adult
Characters: The Doctor (Tenth), Rose Tyler
Disclaimer: I do not own 'Doctor Who' and am making no profit from this fanfiction.
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Graphic Sex, Graphic Violence, Romance
Spoilers: Set mid Series 2
Author's Notes: This story follows the events in To Have And Not To Hold (first chapter of that story is here) and Not Here (the first chapter of that short follow-up is here). It is loosely based on the Fourth Doctor serial 'Image of the Fendahl', and contains elements from the 1996 TV movie and the novel 'The Taking of Planet 5'. Huge hugs to principia_coh for the amazing icon and banner!
Betas: Many, many thanks to platypus, brit_columbia and garpu!
Summary: The Doctor and Rose have been mysteriously diverted to the ice planet Seuls, located within the constellation of Canthares. It soon becomes apparent that things are not at all as they should be, and the newly-formed bond between them will be tested as the trap of an ancient enemy is sprung.
Previous Chapters:
One Two Three Four Five
Crossposted to time_and_chips, dwfiction, Teaspoon and The Zero Room.
Chapter 6
"What?" Rose exclaimed as the Doctor pressed closer to the wall, trying to avoid her touch. "I can't leave you here - why are they doing this to you?" She sat back on her heels, almost falling over the tails of the Doctor's long coat as she quickly searched through the pockets for the sonic screwdriver. Finally grasping the cold, metallic barrel, she brandished it before her as the Doctor blinked tiredly in pain and fatigue. "Doctor, what's the setting? Doctor?"
"You... you need to stay away, Rose. You can't touch me," he said, grimacing.
"I have to help you!"
"My barriers, Rose," he said with a pleading look in his eyes. "I can't control them around you, and if they were to go down -"
"You could be possessed as well?"
He nodded, swallowing hard. "This is my fault, Rose. All of this," he mumbled, his chin slumping to his chest.
Rose looked at him incredulously. "How can this be your fault? You didn't make zombies out of these people and you certainly didn't kidnap yourself!" She gave the screwdriver a twist, trying to figure out what setting might melt ice, and frowned as she saw him again trying to press against the ice to keep as much distance between them as possible. "Don't worry, I'll do my best not to touch you," she said softly, trying to reassure him.
"They've been possessed by Fendahleen," the Doctor said quietly. "This never should have happened."
Rose gave up on the screwdriver and started to tug on the attachment of the chains to the icy wall instead. "Fenda - what?"
"Fendahleen," the Doctor said as he lifted his head, gritting his teeth momentarily. "Small bits of the Fendahl gestalt. Can't allow... can't allow it to re-manifest...."
"Doctor, you're not making any sense."
He blinked at her, his eyes becoming a bit more focused. "The Fendahl was a supposedly a myth of my people, Rose. Something existing only to frighten children with, but it's not. It's real."
"What, something like the bogeyman?" Rose asked, giving the room a quick glance to see if there was anything that would help her to free the Doctor. Other than the sharp, elongated icicles that hung from the ceiling, there was nothing that she could readily see that might be useful.
"Around 12 million years ago, well, give or take a few million," the Doctor said, beginning to sound a bit more like himself. Rose started to shrug out of his coat to give it back to him, but the Doctor shook his head.
"Keep it. 'M all right. I might have a set of skeleton keys in the pockets, though. What was I saying?"
"Twelve million years ago?" Rose prompted as she started looking through the pockets of the Doctor's top coat again.
"That's right. The evolutionary process turned in on itself and created a being capable of absorbing all energy. The ultimate psychevore, if you will." He paused, swallowing hard. "In your very own neighborhood, in fact."
Rose paused in her search, looking incredulously at a toy wind-up mouse from the Doctor's coat pocket in her hand. "What, you mean on Earth?"
"Yes. No. Well, sort of," the Doctor responded. "It originated on the fifth planet in your solar system."
Rose thought for a moment. "That's Jupiter, right?"
"No," he said, looking fatigued again. "The planet that used to exist between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. My people, the Time Lords, were able to weaken the Fendahl. They confined it to a single planet and destroyed it."
"I don't understand," Rose said as she continued to search through the Doctor's coat pockets. "If the Time Lords destroyed the planet, then problem solved, yeah?"
"The Fendahl was stronger than the Time Lords thought. They had put a time loop around the remains of the fifth planet - now your asteroid belt, by the way - as a precautionary measure. So that even if the Fendahl managed to survive, it and its secrets would be imprisoned forever. The Fendahl skull, capable of resurrecting the creature, somehow escaped the destruction and turned up on Earth. I was in my fourth incarnation then -"
"And you took care of it, as usual?" Rose interrupted.
"I thought I had," the Doctor said in a small voice. "The Fendahleen that had possessed several humans were destroyed, and I chucked the Fendahl skull into a supernova, but it somehow escaped destruction again and traveled to this planet. Seuls should have a thriving mining colony at this point in history. But it's gone - doesn't exist. And it's my fault."
Rose stopped her thus far fruitless search to put what she hoped was a comforting hand on his leg, frowning when he jerked it away from her. "'S not gone," she said, realizing that she'd forgotten that he didn't want her to touch him. "It's just been taken over. There's children that need their parents back -"
"Children?" The Doctor's eyes widened.
"Yeah. They don't seem to be affected by this thing, whatever it is, and the TARDIS is here, but there's something wrong with her."
The Doctor snorted. "That's from me. They tried to force me to pilot her, and I shut her down instead. She's running on emergency power only right now."
"Where did they want you to take them?"
"The Fendahl set a trap - any TARDIS passing through the vicinity of these time-space coordinates would detect and home in on the distortion, and be brought down by a psionic wave of massive proportions. The Fendahl is looking to break the time loop that's still in place around the remains of the fifth planet, to return to full power," he said, straining against the chains that bound his wrists to the wall. "And I, being the last Time Lord in existence, am the only one who can do it."
Rose pondered this for a moment, before again picking up the sonic screwdriver, worrying it with her thumb and index finger. "Couldn't we just get you out of here, grab the kids and make a run for it?"
The Doctor watched her, briefly transfixed, before shaking his head. "It'd hunt us down. It has the TARDIS's scent now, so to speak. The history of the fifth planet was time-looped for the best of reasons, and time-looped it must remain, no matter what happens," he insisted, his eyes wild. "The Fendahl is big - big and unimaginably destructive. It's capable of blotting out all life, destroying the future and irrevocably crushing infinity. It can eat entire worlds, Rose. I can't let it escape."
"What are we going to do?"
"First of all, setting 1029 should melt the ice. Might take a while, though," he said, grinning weakly at her. "Then we have to find the Fendahl skull. It's here somewhere - I can feel the buildup of temporal energy from it. If we could get it into a lead-lined box, we can cut off its telepathic power before it succeeds in taking me over."
Rose paused, sonic raised to the attachment of the chains binding the Doctor to the icy wall. "If it did take you over, would you end up like the men that attacked you?"
The Doctor shrugged as well as he could in his current position. "I've really no idea. It's been trying to possess me since our unfortunate arrival. If it succeeds, I imagine I'd have no choice but to assist. And if it had access to my knowledge...." He trailed off, shuddering. "I wouldn't even want to think what it could be capable of, then."
Rose depressed a small button on the Doctor's screwdriver, and it emitted a blue flare with an accompanying high-pitched whine. She brought it in close to the wall and watched in satisfaction as the ice slowly began to melt. "But you can keep it from possessing you? You've been able to this long, so your barriers are still protecting you, yeah?"
"As long as they hold up," the Doctor replied as he tugged at the chains that bound him. "Since the mental brute force it's been trying isn't working, I think their next plan will be to wound me badly enough to cause me to regenerate."
"What?"
The Doctor grimaced. "That's probably the quickest way for the Fendahl to get through my mental barriers. When I regenerate, my barriers fluctuate, however briefly. The Fendahl might just be able to get inside my head if it happens - but don't worry. I've switched off the hormonal and subhormonal triggers that would fire the engines of regeneration, so to speak."
Rose nearly dropped the sonic. "What? You wouldn't regenerate? But... if you're injured... you'd just die?"
"I can't let the Fendahl take me over, Rose," he said in a quiet voice. "It could destroy the entire universe. I can't let it escape. If it knows I won't let myself regenerate, then maybe it won't try to force me. If I die, then it's trapped forever. My ace in the hole, if you like. I can keep the healing mechanisms in my body working at top speed, but once they can't keep up, it's over, I'm afraid."
"But... you can't! You can't just die!" she exclaimed, alarmed.
"I'm sorry, Rose," he said, not looking at her. "I'll do my best not to - promise."
"If... if that does happen," Rose asked, feeling a familiar pricking at the corners of her eyes at the thought. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she was unable to finish, the thought of his dying overwhelming her.
"Small chance at best, really," he said, smiling softly. "I'm quite motivated to stay alive, you know."
Rose snorted, giving the Doctor a wry smile in return. "But if it does... what should I do?"
"The TARDIS will take you home. I don't know why the Fendahl hasn't registered your presence yet, but - "
"But it has," Rose interrupted. "I had a horrible vision of you being hurt... and I can feel things... feelings that aren't mine!"
The Doctor looked sheepish. "I think that'd be from me," he said. "Maybe broadcasting through the bond what the Fendahl was bringing up when it was trying to break through my barriers? Whatever it was, it's just another reason to get you away from here as quickly as possible." He tugged hard at the chain that Rose had been sonicking, finally pulling it free from the wall. It landed on the rocky floor with a loud clank. Rose moved around where he sat to start working on the other attachment.
"So maybe this Fendahl thing hasn't picked me up because I'm not telepathic, unlike the rest of the human race, yeah? Maybe I can help you - "
"No!" the Doctor exclaimed. "It's far too dangerous!"
"We've been through this before, remember?" Rose retorted angrily. "I can take care of myself!"
The Doctor hung his head before replying in a quiet voice. "You don't understand - it'd be far too dangerous for me. I can't... I can't control my barriers around you and I don't understand why that is. And if you were to be captured, Rose...." He paused, swallowing hard. "If I had to choose.... I can't let the Fendahl escape, Rose, regardless of what happens to me. Or you. Do you understand? The choice I'd have to make?"
Her heart in her throat, Rose nodded and went to work with the sonic on the second chain while the Doctor waited quietly. Her hands shook, but she managed to keep the device focused on the ice that bonded the chain in place. After a few moments, he tugged at the attachment, but it held fast.
"Almost there," he murmured, then he looked toward the door, listening intently.
"What is it?" Rose whispered.
"Someone's coming," the Doctor murmured. "You need to hide - quick!"
Rose slipped the screwdriver back into a pocket and swiftly ducked behind one of the pillars that supported the room's ceiling. She pressed close to the cold, metallic surface, her ankle throbbing anew with the sudden movement. Shuffling footsteps were coming closer and she tried to keep from panicking. She'd been so close to freeing the Doctor!
Keys jingled, and she heard the sounds of metal on metal as the Doctor's chain was released from the wall.
"What's this, then?" she heard the Doctor say. "Are you letting me go? I'll have you know that I intend to register a formal complaint about this establishment of yours, doesn't even have a little shop - "
A slapping noise hung in the air, followed by a heavy thud. Rose bit her lip to keep herself from running to the Doctor's aid. She could hear the chains clanking as if they were being drawn up.
"You will come with us, Time Lord."
Rose recognized the voice - that was the man who'd originally captured the Doctor. Maybe if it were just him, they'd have a chance! She risked looking around the pillar and her heart sank as she saw there were three men and one woman - and one of the men was in the process of chaining the Doctor's hands together behind his back as the Doctor struggled ineffectually.
"And if I refuse?" the Doctor said between clenched teeth.
"You cannot refuse. You will soon be one of us."
Author: mtemplar
Rating: Adult
Characters: The Doctor (Tenth), Rose Tyler
Disclaimer: I do not own 'Doctor Who' and am making no profit from this fanfiction.
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Graphic Sex, Graphic Violence, Romance
Spoilers: Set mid Series 2
Author's Notes: This story follows the events in To Have And Not To Hold (first chapter of that story is here) and Not Here (the first chapter of that short follow-up is here). It is loosely based on the Fourth Doctor serial 'Image of the Fendahl', and contains elements from the 1996 TV movie and the novel 'The Taking of Planet 5'. Huge hugs to principia_coh for the amazing icon and banner!
Betas: Many, many thanks to platypus, brit_columbia and garpu!
Summary: The Doctor and Rose have been mysteriously diverted to the ice planet Seuls, located within the constellation of Canthares. It soon becomes apparent that things are not at all as they should be, and the newly-formed bond between them will be tested as the trap of an ancient enemy is sprung.
Previous Chapters:
One Two Three Four Five
Crossposted to time_and_chips, dwfiction, Teaspoon and The Zero Room.
Chapter 6
"What?" Rose exclaimed as the Doctor pressed closer to the wall, trying to avoid her touch. "I can't leave you here - why are they doing this to you?" She sat back on her heels, almost falling over the tails of the Doctor's long coat as she quickly searched through the pockets for the sonic screwdriver. Finally grasping the cold, metallic barrel, she brandished it before her as the Doctor blinked tiredly in pain and fatigue. "Doctor, what's the setting? Doctor?"
"You... you need to stay away, Rose. You can't touch me," he said, grimacing.
"I have to help you!"
"My barriers, Rose," he said with a pleading look in his eyes. "I can't control them around you, and if they were to go down -"
"You could be possessed as well?"
He nodded, swallowing hard. "This is my fault, Rose. All of this," he mumbled, his chin slumping to his chest.
Rose looked at him incredulously. "How can this be your fault? You didn't make zombies out of these people and you certainly didn't kidnap yourself!" She gave the screwdriver a twist, trying to figure out what setting might melt ice, and frowned as she saw him again trying to press against the ice to keep as much distance between them as possible. "Don't worry, I'll do my best not to touch you," she said softly, trying to reassure him.
"They've been possessed by Fendahleen," the Doctor said quietly. "This never should have happened."
Rose gave up on the screwdriver and started to tug on the attachment of the chains to the icy wall instead. "Fenda - what?"
"Fendahleen," the Doctor said as he lifted his head, gritting his teeth momentarily. "Small bits of the Fendahl gestalt. Can't allow... can't allow it to re-manifest...."
"Doctor, you're not making any sense."
He blinked at her, his eyes becoming a bit more focused. "The Fendahl was a supposedly a myth of my people, Rose. Something existing only to frighten children with, but it's not. It's real."
"What, something like the bogeyman?" Rose asked, giving the room a quick glance to see if there was anything that would help her to free the Doctor. Other than the sharp, elongated icicles that hung from the ceiling, there was nothing that she could readily see that might be useful.
"Around 12 million years ago, well, give or take a few million," the Doctor said, beginning to sound a bit more like himself. Rose started to shrug out of his coat to give it back to him, but the Doctor shook his head.
"Keep it. 'M all right. I might have a set of skeleton keys in the pockets, though. What was I saying?"
"Twelve million years ago?" Rose prompted as she started looking through the pockets of the Doctor's top coat again.
"That's right. The evolutionary process turned in on itself and created a being capable of absorbing all energy. The ultimate psychevore, if you will." He paused, swallowing hard. "In your very own neighborhood, in fact."
Rose paused in her search, looking incredulously at a toy wind-up mouse from the Doctor's coat pocket in her hand. "What, you mean on Earth?"
"Yes. No. Well, sort of," the Doctor responded. "It originated on the fifth planet in your solar system."
Rose thought for a moment. "That's Jupiter, right?"
"No," he said, looking fatigued again. "The planet that used to exist between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. My people, the Time Lords, were able to weaken the Fendahl. They confined it to a single planet and destroyed it."
"I don't understand," Rose said as she continued to search through the Doctor's coat pockets. "If the Time Lords destroyed the planet, then problem solved, yeah?"
"The Fendahl was stronger than the Time Lords thought. They had put a time loop around the remains of the fifth planet - now your asteroid belt, by the way - as a precautionary measure. So that even if the Fendahl managed to survive, it and its secrets would be imprisoned forever. The Fendahl skull, capable of resurrecting the creature, somehow escaped the destruction and turned up on Earth. I was in my fourth incarnation then -"
"And you took care of it, as usual?" Rose interrupted.
"I thought I had," the Doctor said in a small voice. "The Fendahleen that had possessed several humans were destroyed, and I chucked the Fendahl skull into a supernova, but it somehow escaped destruction again and traveled to this planet. Seuls should have a thriving mining colony at this point in history. But it's gone - doesn't exist. And it's my fault."
Rose stopped her thus far fruitless search to put what she hoped was a comforting hand on his leg, frowning when he jerked it away from her. "'S not gone," she said, realizing that she'd forgotten that he didn't want her to touch him. "It's just been taken over. There's children that need their parents back -"
"Children?" The Doctor's eyes widened.
"Yeah. They don't seem to be affected by this thing, whatever it is, and the TARDIS is here, but there's something wrong with her."
The Doctor snorted. "That's from me. They tried to force me to pilot her, and I shut her down instead. She's running on emergency power only right now."
"Where did they want you to take them?"
"The Fendahl set a trap - any TARDIS passing through the vicinity of these time-space coordinates would detect and home in on the distortion, and be brought down by a psionic wave of massive proportions. The Fendahl is looking to break the time loop that's still in place around the remains of the fifth planet, to return to full power," he said, straining against the chains that bound his wrists to the wall. "And I, being the last Time Lord in existence, am the only one who can do it."
Rose pondered this for a moment, before again picking up the sonic screwdriver, worrying it with her thumb and index finger. "Couldn't we just get you out of here, grab the kids and make a run for it?"
The Doctor watched her, briefly transfixed, before shaking his head. "It'd hunt us down. It has the TARDIS's scent now, so to speak. The history of the fifth planet was time-looped for the best of reasons, and time-looped it must remain, no matter what happens," he insisted, his eyes wild. "The Fendahl is big - big and unimaginably destructive. It's capable of blotting out all life, destroying the future and irrevocably crushing infinity. It can eat entire worlds, Rose. I can't let it escape."
"What are we going to do?"
"First of all, setting 1029 should melt the ice. Might take a while, though," he said, grinning weakly at her. "Then we have to find the Fendahl skull. It's here somewhere - I can feel the buildup of temporal energy from it. If we could get it into a lead-lined box, we can cut off its telepathic power before it succeeds in taking me over."
Rose paused, sonic raised to the attachment of the chains binding the Doctor to the icy wall. "If it did take you over, would you end up like the men that attacked you?"
The Doctor shrugged as well as he could in his current position. "I've really no idea. It's been trying to possess me since our unfortunate arrival. If it succeeds, I imagine I'd have no choice but to assist. And if it had access to my knowledge...." He trailed off, shuddering. "I wouldn't even want to think what it could be capable of, then."
Rose depressed a small button on the Doctor's screwdriver, and it emitted a blue flare with an accompanying high-pitched whine. She brought it in close to the wall and watched in satisfaction as the ice slowly began to melt. "But you can keep it from possessing you? You've been able to this long, so your barriers are still protecting you, yeah?"
"As long as they hold up," the Doctor replied as he tugged at the chains that bound him. "Since the mental brute force it's been trying isn't working, I think their next plan will be to wound me badly enough to cause me to regenerate."
"What?"
The Doctor grimaced. "That's probably the quickest way for the Fendahl to get through my mental barriers. When I regenerate, my barriers fluctuate, however briefly. The Fendahl might just be able to get inside my head if it happens - but don't worry. I've switched off the hormonal and subhormonal triggers that would fire the engines of regeneration, so to speak."
Rose nearly dropped the sonic. "What? You wouldn't regenerate? But... if you're injured... you'd just die?"
"I can't let the Fendahl take me over, Rose," he said in a quiet voice. "It could destroy the entire universe. I can't let it escape. If it knows I won't let myself regenerate, then maybe it won't try to force me. If I die, then it's trapped forever. My ace in the hole, if you like. I can keep the healing mechanisms in my body working at top speed, but once they can't keep up, it's over, I'm afraid."
"But... you can't! You can't just die!" she exclaimed, alarmed.
"I'm sorry, Rose," he said, not looking at her. "I'll do my best not to - promise."
"If... if that does happen," Rose asked, feeling a familiar pricking at the corners of her eyes at the thought. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she was unable to finish, the thought of his dying overwhelming her.
"Small chance at best, really," he said, smiling softly. "I'm quite motivated to stay alive, you know."
Rose snorted, giving the Doctor a wry smile in return. "But if it does... what should I do?"
"The TARDIS will take you home. I don't know why the Fendahl hasn't registered your presence yet, but - "
"But it has," Rose interrupted. "I had a horrible vision of you being hurt... and I can feel things... feelings that aren't mine!"
The Doctor looked sheepish. "I think that'd be from me," he said. "Maybe broadcasting through the bond what the Fendahl was bringing up when it was trying to break through my barriers? Whatever it was, it's just another reason to get you away from here as quickly as possible." He tugged hard at the chain that Rose had been sonicking, finally pulling it free from the wall. It landed on the rocky floor with a loud clank. Rose moved around where he sat to start working on the other attachment.
"So maybe this Fendahl thing hasn't picked me up because I'm not telepathic, unlike the rest of the human race, yeah? Maybe I can help you - "
"No!" the Doctor exclaimed. "It's far too dangerous!"
"We've been through this before, remember?" Rose retorted angrily. "I can take care of myself!"
The Doctor hung his head before replying in a quiet voice. "You don't understand - it'd be far too dangerous for me. I can't... I can't control my barriers around you and I don't understand why that is. And if you were to be captured, Rose...." He paused, swallowing hard. "If I had to choose.... I can't let the Fendahl escape, Rose, regardless of what happens to me. Or you. Do you understand? The choice I'd have to make?"
Her heart in her throat, Rose nodded and went to work with the sonic on the second chain while the Doctor waited quietly. Her hands shook, but she managed to keep the device focused on the ice that bonded the chain in place. After a few moments, he tugged at the attachment, but it held fast.
"Almost there," he murmured, then he looked toward the door, listening intently.
"What is it?" Rose whispered.
"Someone's coming," the Doctor murmured. "You need to hide - quick!"
Rose slipped the screwdriver back into a pocket and swiftly ducked behind one of the pillars that supported the room's ceiling. She pressed close to the cold, metallic surface, her ankle throbbing anew with the sudden movement. Shuffling footsteps were coming closer and she tried to keep from panicking. She'd been so close to freeing the Doctor!
Keys jingled, and she heard the sounds of metal on metal as the Doctor's chain was released from the wall.
"What's this, then?" she heard the Doctor say. "Are you letting me go? I'll have you know that I intend to register a formal complaint about this establishment of yours, doesn't even have a little shop - "
A slapping noise hung in the air, followed by a heavy thud. Rose bit her lip to keep herself from running to the Doctor's aid. She could hear the chains clanking as if they were being drawn up.
"You will come with us, Time Lord."
Rose recognized the voice - that was the man who'd originally captured the Doctor. Maybe if it were just him, they'd have a chance! She risked looking around the pillar and her heart sank as she saw there were three men and one woman - and one of the men was in the process of chaining the Doctor's hands together behind his back as the Doctor struggled ineffectually.
"And if I refuse?" the Doctor said between clenched teeth.
"You cannot refuse. You will soon be one of us."