Fic: Girl In The Mirror ‘Verse, Chapter 13: Confederacy of Rivals
Title: Girl In The Mirror ‘Verse, Chapter 13: Confederacy of Rivals
Author: psyfi_geekgirl
BetaBabe: akkajemo
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose, Twelve
Rating: PG-13
Excerpt: She held out her hand like she’d done a thousand times before, back when she wore two other different faces, and wondered if their hands would still fit together as well as they had before. Her single heart skipped a beat as she felt Rose’s hand slip inside hers once again. Still a perfect fit. “Nice to meet you Rose…”
Word count: 4,740
Disclaimer: Until she’s Jossed, Twelve is mine-but of course based entirely on stuff that ain’t mine… All hail Auntie Beeb!
A/N: Since this was written before s6, obviously some details have gone AU. I will be cross posting the next four entries to time_and_chips since it features Ten/Rose. To reduce confusion for people who might not otherwise be following this 'verse, postings at time_and_chips will be listed as The Forgotten Day (_/5)--but I will retain continuity in the chaptering here, the main GiTM posting.
If you’re here from time_and_chips, these can stand alone, but if you’re inclined to read the rest of the series that this is a part of, links are provided. Welcome!
Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8
Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12
The Twelfth Doctor sprinted out of the alley and down Borough High Street, her legs pumping as she looked wild-eyed above her at the gigantic, gleaming ship that was now hovering over half of London, a massive metal bio-dome. A little bit in front of her she could see Rose and her previous incarnation-her Tenth-running in the same direction towards the epicenter of the action.
Everyone else was running away from it.
Like bees pouring out of a hive, people swarmed around them and rushed past the three lone figures fighting to get to the front lines. The Doctor struggled to run, buffeting the crowd, as one heart thundered in her chest. River’s injectable potassium chloride had done the trick (once she had excited the molecules to a more effective dose for a Timelord), and it had thrown the other Doctor off her scent-but she wondered how she could possibly continue this charade now that things were about to get so decidedly more complex.
She shifted the weight of River’s backpack against her hip (making a mental note to trandimensionally enhance it for her next time) and tried to fasten the buckles of the Vortex Manipulator on her wrist as she ran. Not an easy trick with one heart-and her respiratory bypass system was also pitching a fit without the extra blood pumping through her system. She was, she thought to herself, most definitely NOT wheezing…
She watched the spiky hair of her former self jerk with every footfall and she rolled her eyes as she remembered the running. All that running. She hadn’t missed it that was for sure, as she-the newest incarnation-was rather loathe to run and only did so only as a last resort. Must’ve been as a result of the overload of exercise this past incarnation had inflicted! She saw the wild excitement in his eyes and felt a pang in her chest she knew hadn’t much to do with her one inactive heart. Looking to Rose, she realised it hadn’t been long that she had allowed her vision to focus on much else since seeing her.
In an ironic moment, she wondered if she even had the heart to go through with this day, but if time was going to be rewritten-the Doctor’s time with Rose-then she was going to do all she could to make sure the timelines held together.
She was determined not to lose Rose altogether because of some stupid, random alien invasion.
The other Doctor was about a half-block ahead of them (having two working hearts and a fully functioning respiratory bypass system), and pointed up to a spot on the underside of the hull of the ship. He yelled to Rose, “There! We need to get under that bit there! I can use the sonic to reverse the polarity of the subwave and trigger the tractor beam to pull us up!” He kept running, waving his sonic around, testing other settings, searching for the right frequency.
They dodged and weaved as panicked cars careened by them, their driver’s heads twisting to get a view of the behemoth in the sky, hovering above them.
One car-piloted by a particularly frantic middle-aged woman whose vision was glued to her wing mirrors--came dangerously close to wiping out Rose as it lurched across the street seemingly drunk with fright.
Rose yelped in alarm and pirouetted out of the way, just in time. The Tenth Doctor’s head spun around to see her falter as the Twelfth instinctively reached out and grabbed her arm, righting her.
Her breath hitched as her fingers sank into the flesh that shouldn’t be there, shouldn’t be accessible…
“Thanks,” gulped Rose as she glanced up. “I coulda been a big pile of goo back there! Guess we’re the only nutters in town to actually run towards this crazy thing!”
“S’all right,” said the Twelfth Doctor, looking at her as if a dog had just walked up to her and called her Grandma, “I’ve been called worse things than a nutter in my time.”
“Hiya. I’m Rose, by the way. Rose Tyler.” She held out her hand.
The Doctor looked into the hazel eyes of the girl she’d loved and mourned and would/did leave behind and she felt the timelines shimmer.
“I’m… Jo-Janet. Janet Smith.” The Doctor stammered. She held out her hand like she’d done a thousand times before, back when she wore two other different faces, and wondered if their hands would still fit together as well as they had before. Her single heart skipped a beat as she felt Rose’s hand slip inside hers once again.
Still a perfect fit.
“Nice to meet you Rose…”
Rose glanced at River’s survival pack on her back. “You look like a girl who’s used to a fair amount of trouble, Janet.”
The Doctor smirked, remembering with pride how wise and perceptive his girl had always been. “And you, Rose Tyler,” she said, “look like a girl that’s used to running for her life.”
Rose grinned up at her-her special naughty smile that she saved for only very special occasions, and days ending in ‘y…’
“Y’could say that-“ she beamed.
The Doctor’s secret reunion was interrupted by the dulcet tones of her former self, hollering at the top of his lungs as he continued to run down the street--“C’MON, ROOOOSE!!”
“See?” smiled Rose.
“¡Vámonos!” yelled the Twelfth Doctor, pulling Rose after her.
“Whaaat??”
“Ruuunn!”
Running hand-in-hand down the tangle of roads to King William Street, they had just neared the start of London Bridge. The Tenth Doctor had already beat them there, his incessant muttering obscured by the whirring of his sonic as he continued to search for the ideal frequency. Suddenly, a low, ominous noise-something between a buzz and a hum-was emitted from the ship above them.
The daft stupid fool was going to get himself killed.
“NOOOOOOO!” screamed the Twelfth Doctor and she grabbed him around the waist, yanking him backwards. Activating the Vortex Manipulator with the hand that still held Rose’s, they disappeared with a whirr of static electricity and a loud buzzing pop. A pop which was nothing compared to the percussive booming THWACK as mortar, tar, rebar and shrapnel from cars rained down on the space the three had just occupied-evidence of a protective strike by the spaceship above them.
A spaceship they were now inside of…
The two Doctors and Rose gasped and groaned in pain as they materialized inside of the unwelcome spaceship, all reeling considerably from their sudden jump. The Tenth Doctor slapped his hand against the metal wall of the non-descript hallway as he strained to gain equilibrium. The Twelfth Doctor-only slightly more used to this mode of transport, but compromised in her hindered physical state and constant headaches-thrashed about in agony. Rose, completely unused to the effects of the manipulator, fell to her knees, gasping for breath.
Meanwhile, the Twelfth Doctor looked around for the Reapers she thought should be swarming after she’d touched her former self-but they were nowhere to be found. Instead, all she saw was a long, brightly lit, interior corridor like one that would be found on a cruise ship. The corridor went off in both directions, however a T-intersection was about a meter away from them, leading off into the unknown.
Once they had all gathered themselves, the Twelfth Doctor braced herself for some serious Oncoming Storm Action from the tall, thin and intense man she once was.
“Who. Are you…?” he asked icily, his chestnut eyes-a perfect match to her own-boring into hers. It was more of an indictment than a question, really.
Ah, she thought. A Patented Doctor Intimidation Move: Barely-Holding-Back-The- Possessive-Anger-Mode. I’d have gone with that one, too. A little predictable that, but still good at throwing people off. In return, she gave him the passive, slightly bored stare, with a slight whiff of coldness back, slightly disappointed in him/herself.
She thought about all the things she might say, could say, shouldn’t say, but as it turned out, Rose answered before she could.
“Doctor, this is Janet Smith. She saved me from getting squashed like a bug by that car back there, and I think, just saved us overall. So I’d say she gets a great big ‘thanks’ from both of us. Don’t ya think, Doctor?” She elbowed him.
Ah, yes. Rude and not ginger, thought Twelve. I remember it well…
The Doctor broke off his staring contest to glance at his blonde Goodwill Ambassador who was attempting to save him from his rudeness, yet again. “Yeah, I guess so. Thanks… was it-Janet?”
“Yep.” She popped the ‘p.’ She couldn’t help it.
“You’re a… Time Agent?” He said skeptically, looking at her Vortex Manipulator.
“And you’re the infamous Doctor,” answered the Doctor without answering him.
“Yep.” He popped the ‘p,’ which made her smirk.
“Do you two know each other?” Rose asked, warily.
“Only by reputation,” answered the Twelfth Doctor.
Ten’s eyebrow went up.
“Ohmigod! Time Agent! Do you know Jack Harkness?” Rose squeaked, the worry about her friend clearly knit into her furrowed brow and large eyes.
Twelve eyed Rose. She knew it would be a long time before Rose would understand exactly what happened to Jack, and almost as long before she would see him again. It made her twinge with guilt, knowing that her own bias and petty fears had made her keep that information from her all of those years. “I don’t think there’s a man, woman or multiform in any galaxy that doesn’t know Captain Jack Harkness…” she said, silkily.
Rose giggled behind her sleeve. The Timelord looked between the two ladies, trying to gauge where and when this Time Agent had come from.
“So you’ve seen him?” asked Rose eagerly.
‘Janet’ nodded. “I know him very well. We once spent a very long year together…”
“You’ve seen him recently? Jack’s alive?!”
“Ummm hmm,” the Doctor hummed in singsong, ignoring her predecessor. “Very.”
“He… used to travel with us,” continued Rose. “An, well. We… We got… separated,” she stammered as she glanced back at the Tenth Doctor, who was looking at his shoes. “I worry about him,” she said.
“Well, a Time Agent is a time traveler-just like the two of you-so when you ask me if I’ve seen him lately that’s all a bit relative, isn’t it? But yes, I’ve seen him, and he’s fine.”
“See?” brightened Ten, “He’s fine! Quit worrying! You know Jack, he’s a big boy, and he can look after himself. Off seeing the sights. I told you he’d wanted to strike off on his own.”
“But I never got to say goodbye…” Rose murmured, and the Twelfth Doctor thought that the amount of sadness contained within that one remark could rival the voluminous capacity of the TARDIS itself. She glanced at Ten, who was too busy chewing on his lip to notice her staring daggers at him, the complete wanker…
“Well,” continued ‘Janet,’ without thinking her next thought through before she said it, “if it’s any consolation, he talks about you all the time.”
“He does?” asked Rose.
“Can’t get ‘em to shut up about Rosie and the Doc. Although…” she pointed to Ten, “he did mention you had some truly epic ears… But I don’t see ‘em,” she said, squinting.
Rose squealed, pointing and laughing at the Doctor, who looked very uncomfortable.
“Oi!” he protested. “You always said you liked the ears!”
“So, you’ve regenerated,” said Twelve. “I’m sure Jack will want to hear of it-and he’d be very pleased with the result…” she said, indicating his whole person.
More squealing from Rose.
“Yes. Ok… Well… Thank you, Agent Smith… You’re very kind.”
Twelve’s eyebrow went up. It was actually kind of cute how flustered he’d become. Was I really this obtuse? she thought.
“So. You know me, you know Rose, you know Jack. What brings you here now? Were you looking for us?”
“I was looking for milk.”
“M’sorry-what?”
She pressed her thumb to her forehead. “I have no idea what’s going on or why,” she sighed, rubbing her index finger on her thumb of her other hand-a trick her Eleventh self used to do when he was thinking. “As far as I know, when I arrived today something like this was never supposed to have happened. But it has and now I’m stuck in the timeline-same as you-with no way out. And I’m also separated from my---“ She stopped, double thinking her choice of terminology and then trying to form the word, “p a r t n e r…” It came out, slowly-molasses dripping from a cold jar, rolling the consonants and vowels around in her mouth like it was the first time she had ever said the word. She felt herself flush a bit and babbled quickly to cover it up. “Rubbish, really-this whole alien invasion thing-a bit passé, don’t you think? I mean, who shows up hovering over London anymore in the 21st century after everything that’s happened? Did they not pick up a recent copy of Lonely Planet or something??”
She stopped suddenly. Blimey, she was doing it again! She was aware that she had lost her train of thought-and worse yet-perhaps her mind. But if she was going to survive this day with herself-the nosiest bugger in the universe-she would have to keep control of herself!
Of course it was no help that she had one of her ubiquitous headaches dogging her.
Rose looked between both Doctors. “So, you two really don’t know each other?”
“No,” they said simultaneously, looking uneasily at each other.
Twelve decided to change the subject and give her Tenth self something to focus on other than herself: “So, Doctor-what do you think is going on? Who are our unexpected guests?”
“Dunno,” he said. “But tell you what, I’d like to have a word with them about their dinner choice on the reception card. I don’t remember seeing Earth as an option… Why don’t we see what we can find out about our gate crashing friends?” With a swirl of his coat tails, he headed off around the T corner into the unknown.
“Blimey,” said Twelve to Rose, “he’s got a black belt in dramatic exists, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Rose laughed as she started to follow after the Doctor. “But that’s nothin’ compared to The Pout.”
“Oh. He pouts, does he?” she said, skipping after her.
“Like a champ! But don’t ever tell him. He says Timelords don’t pout.”
“I’ll have to remember that, thanks.”
They had found themselves in some sort of atrium that ran above and below them for multiple floors in what might have been the center of the ship. They found the Doctor looking over a railing on the side of their metallic grated hallway into the depths below. Steam rising from the lowest floors obscured a clear vision of the bottom decks, and added humidity to the air. But once again, they were in another hallway, several storeys up, seemingly floating on its metal grated flooring. Stairwells placed in four-meter increments along the interior walls provided the nearest ways up and down to other levels.
“Is anybody else smelling this?” asked Rose, looking over the railing into the steam below.
It was just a little bit rank.
“Must be near the mess hall. However, very interesting, this ship!” The Tenth Doctor carried on exuberantly. “Metal grated floors with walkway widths roughly one and a half meters across and an internal gravitational force that equals the gravitational acceleration produced by the Earth--”
“And for those of us who don’t have our A-Levels, Doctor?”
The Twelfth Doctor guffawed at Rose’s comment. “Yeah! Thanks, Professor,” she said to him dismissively, which only made him wince-which of course she knew he would, remembering Ace. “He means we weigh the same on this ship as on the surface of the planet. Our physical make-ups must be similar to whoever’s on this ship, cos the hallways are roughly the same standard as ours. So you think these beings are humanoid, Doctor?”
“Either that or they’re all incredibly obese…”
“Like that Disney movie!” exclaimed Twelve. “Are we on The Axiom?! HA! That would be brilliant!”
Ten giggled. “Awww! WALL·E! ‘Eeeev-va! Eeeev-va!’ Loved that movie!”
“’Please remain motionless, a robot will be with you to assist you in a moment,’" quoted the Twelfth Doctor.
“’Define hoedown?’”
Dissolved into giggles, the two Doctors shook with laughter until they noticed Rose staring at the two of them. Their laughter abruptly gave way to awkward coughing. Rose’s eyebrow went up as the two attempted to contain themselves.
“WALL·E, Rose-you remember!”
Twelve coughed, conspiratorially: “Two-thousand eight…”
“Oh. Right. Um… Got it in the TARDIS. We’ll watch it later. It’s brilliant! You’ll love it!”
“M’sure I will… Can’t wait,” Rose’s voice was tight as she struggled to take in that Agent Janet Smith seemed to be so much more brilliant and sophisticated than her-and an experienced time traveler to boot.
“Oooh-what do we have here?” breathed the Tenth Doctor. He went over to a rather large, hinged door on the interior wall that looked like a garbage chute. He soniced it and looked inside. “Huh. Garbage chute? Goes down to the lowest levels of the ship.”
“Doctor, is that what I smell?” They sniffed the air. It was sweet and gamey.
Ten pulled a face. “Smells like… Compost fuel?”
“No, it’s pork…” groaned Rose, “D’ya smell it? It smells like pork! Lots of pork”
“Ew. No, really. Just… Ew.” Twelve shook her head. “Pork is evil…no, no, no-that’s beans. Beans are evil, but bacon is pretty awful, too. And who would want to have that much bacon on hand?”
“Let’s try and focus and figure out what we’re dealing with here,” directed Ten.
Rose was good at this game.
“Oo! Right! Ah…” She snapped her fingers, “They can pick up on sonic technology!”
“Yes!”
“Um… They’re used to the same gravity as Earth…”
“Uh huh…”
“They recycle.”
“Yep.”
“They like pork!”
“Nope. They don’t like pork, they are pork!”
“Waaat?” Ten and Rose turned to Twelve.
“A porcine race called The Moog Naheth. Cousins to the Hoix,” explained the Twelfth Doctor as she put it together: “Half humanoid, half porcine. They come from a temperate, muddy, resource-poor world that has two moons and a single ring surrounding it. They are omnivores and their home planet’s economy is dependent on one technology: recycling, as they live off the consumerist waste of other nearby planets. But it looks like they’re expanding their GNP to include foreign fuels….”
“Really?” asked Rose, gobsmacked.
“Don’t believe me, ask him.” Twelve pointed to a large, human-shaped, pig-like creature running pell-mell for them about 30 meters away. It would have been comical if it hadn’t been so alarming, as it wore an almost stereotypical, puffy silver lamé jumpsuit with a tiny dark blue bolo jacket with military insignia over the top. It had human hands and cloven hoofed feet. Running at them, its pink ears flopping and its repulsive snout gleaming in the downcast lighting, it looked more like an overgrown Muppet on steroids.
Pigs In Space, indeed…
The Tenth Doctor pulled his sonic and urged Rose behind him as the rotund alien swine bared giant, hooked, tusk-like canines and increased his speed, squealing his head off. “Oh. Now, that’s new…”
“That’s one portly piggy,” quipped Twelve.
“Porco rotundo…” continued Ten.
The pig thing’s squealing only got louder.
“Yeah, uh, think it can hear ya…” hissed Rose. “And we’re kinda stuck here. Any bright ideas?”
Wanting to protect Rose and her former self, the Twelfth Doctor moved to stand in front of them. “I’ll hold it off, you two go.”
“We’re not going anywhere.” Ten said and then called out loudly to the advancing pig: “We seek peaceful audience with the Moog Naheth according to Convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation!”
“Doesn’t seem to care much!” called Rose.
“Oh, pigs-why is it always pigs?” muttered the Twelfth Doctor to herself whilst ruefully shaking her head. It was about ten meters away, barreling down on them. She could see the spittle dripping from its quivering snout and hear the gnashing of its teeth. “Rose! Doctor! Go!” she yelled.
Ten raised his sonic, which Twelve knew would do little more than annoy it. She reached into the back band of her trousers and pulled out River’s squareness gun.
“Don’t you DARE!” screamed Ten, seeing her gun. At the last second, Twelve aimed in front of it and with one shot, took a big chunk out of the catwalk, trapping the pig temporarily.
Ten angrily turned on ‘Janet.’ “Agent Smith,” he hissed, harshly, “I really don’t care who you are or where you come from, but if you want to get out of here you are going to need to control your impulses and follow my lead...”
“Could you two do this dance later?” Rose exclaimed. She pointed to the temporarily hindered pig-thing as it searched for another way across to them, “Our native is getting restless!”
“C’mon, shake your bacon!” cried Twelve as they turned and ran down the hallway past where they had come in. As they neared the stairs they heard more infernal squealing below. Looking over the railing, they saw a herd of about twenty of the plump pink piggies coming up the stairs towards them, several storeys down.
“Why can’t I hear what they’re saying?” asked Rose as she leaned up against a closed door gasping for breath. “Why isn’t the TARDIS translating?”
“Because they’re not saying anything,” the Tenth Doctor answered as he spun around, looking for alternate routes. “They’re just squealing!”
“So we can add interesting conversationalists to your list of species characteristics, Doctor!” added Twelve, 'helpfully.'
The Tenth Doctor glared at her, obviously not thinking it so helpful.
Rose abruptly yelped and jumped away from the metal door next to her. “Doctor!” she yelled.
As both Doctors spun around, Ten glanced quickly in Twelve’s direction.
Rose pointed to the door. They could hear angry scuffling and snuffling noises behind the door. “They’re coming!”
“Got any other tricks, Agent Smith?” snapped Ten.
“Dunno. But you could deadlock the door while I’m working on it! Or are you just going to stand there looking all pretty and intense?”
Ten made quick work of the door and grimaced at the sounds of enraged hooves pounding on metal while Twelve rummaged through River’s backpack, all the while mumbling something about all the junk in it and how River would probably kill her into next week for messing with it, until: “Ah-ha!” She pulled out a mechanized grappling gun with an ascender attached to hoist them up, complete with two footloops.
With her tongue firmly implanted in the roof of her mouth for concentration, she aimed it above her and shot. The hook quickly imbedded itself into the metal grating of the catwalk eight floors above them. “Rose!” she called and moved to grab her around the waist until she remembered that a) she was not supposed to be the Doctor and b) with only one functioning heart she was less capable of hauling Rose to safety than her counterpart. With a small grimace of defeat, she handed the contraption over to her previous incarnation. “Here. Take Rose to safety and then drop it down to me.”
The pounding on the other side of the door and noisy creaking of buckling metal increased. Rose looked with concern at ‘Janet’ while the Tenth Doctor helped Rose into her footloop. “But they’re coming through! There’ll never be enough time!”
“Oh” sighed Twelve. “I’ll manage. Really, it’s my main thing. There’s always a Plan B. I’ll be fine.”
“Sure you will,” said Ten as he checked the ascender. “Cos you’re coming with us.”
The Twelfth Doctor stared at the hand he offered her.
“I can carry both of you! C’mon, hop on…”
The buckling door began to crack, ripping open like a giant bag of crisps, issuing forth a terrible squealing. The crack in the metal revealed a sliver of giant, glistening pig snouts that quivered as they inhaled their scent. The beasts continued to ram the metal shards outwards, enlarging the hole.
Mortified, and with nowhere else to go, Twelve wrapped her arms around the Tenth Doctor’s slight, pinstriped waist and he depressed the button. As the ascender yanked them off their feet, the hefty metal door broke off its hinges and clattered to the floor. A throng of hulking, angry Moog poured into the hallway, but they were too late.
The trio shouted their relief on their way eight floors above them, both Doctors positively loving the ride and shouting with childish, manic glee.
Once they got on their feet to safety, eight floors up, Rose flung herself around the Tenth Doctor for one of their patented, celebratory hugs.
“Ah ha HA! You were brilliant!” Ten crowed into Rose’s hair as she happily squealed back.
Meanwhile, the tightness in the Twelfth Doctor’s chest and behind her eyes made it somewhat difficult for her to concentrate on the startling lack of Reapers. Instead, she could only look on as the tightness grew to a pang, watching a hug she never remembered receiving from Rose.
She still didn’t understand why she had no memory of this day.
But before she had a chance to think any further about it, she suddenly felt Rose’s arms around her as she was pulled into a hug, too.
A hug. A hug from Rose!
The Doctor shut her eyes and gathered Rose’s small frame-that was now almost the size of her own-into the hug of a lifetime, willing time to stop and be forever enveloped in the warm, strawberry-scented cloak of her heady softness. She purposefully spun away from her former self to hide her indulgence in the moment.
The hug was over far too soon.
“Not a bad team, eh, Agent Smith?” the Tenth Doctor boasted as he pumped the Twelfth’s hand in an enthusiastic handshake. “You certainly think well on your feet.”
“Thanks,” said Twelve cagily, eying him-still Reaper free. “Glad you approve...” Gosh, she thought, was I always this condescending?
Seemingly oblivious to her little dig, he bounded over to a terminal imbedded in an alcove in the wall and began pressing and sonicing buttons. “Now, if we can just find the command centre to this giant garbage truck in the sky we’ll be in business…”
“Guess who’s coming for dinner?” asked Rose.
“Rose,” chided the Doctor, “we’re not going to eat them, we’re just going to talk to them.”
“Sure,” chirped Twelve. “And make ‘em cry ‘whaa, whaa, whaa,’ all the way home!”
“Ah-HA!” shouted Ten. “There’s a command deck on the prow of the ship. Ship’s manifest says they’re here on a research and reconnaissance mission… Oh no. No, no, no, no! They’re not just here to mine the garbage of the planet. They’re here on a harvesting mission, too!”
“Humans, the other white meat…” scoffed Twelve.
“What do you mean, Doctor?”
‘Janet’ turned to Rose. “Pigs are omnivores, Rose. They eat anything and everything--”
“Vegetable matter, grain, wood, tin cans.” Ten continued, “their teeth can grind up anything and their stomachs digest everything. Put a human body in a pen with a few pigs and they’ll consume it in its entirety in a matter of hours…”
“Eeeww!”
“Basically,” continued Ten, “they’re here to gorge themselves off of this planet-“
“And take a doggie bag back home,” finished Twelve.
“Yep,” he said, popping the ‘p.’
“Gross.”
“Not if we have anything to say about it,” said Twelve darkly as she finished spooling up the ascent rig and stuffed it back in River’s bag. “Where’s the command bridge? I’d like to have a word with them.”
The Tenth Doctor consulted the computer monitor as the other two peered in behind him. “The thirtieth floor.”
“Well we’ll go there, then.”
“Great. The next corridor should get us close. C’mon...” He moved to his right and disappeared through the doorway into the ship.
Twelve yelled after him. “No wait! I have the Vortex Manip-“ Her words cut off as a big heavy metal door fell shut, blocking the exit he had just used, separating them from him.
“Doctor!!”
Suddenly the Twelfth Doctor felt a heavy object strike the back of her head and she began to fall over. She heard Rose cry out next to her.
Everything went dark.
To be continued in Chapter 14: Oaths in the Dark
Author: psyfi_geekgirl
BetaBabe: akkajemo
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose, Twelve
Rating: PG-13
Excerpt: She held out her hand like she’d done a thousand times before, back when she wore two other different faces, and wondered if their hands would still fit together as well as they had before. Her single heart skipped a beat as she felt Rose’s hand slip inside hers once again. Still a perfect fit. “Nice to meet you Rose…”
Word count: 4,740
Disclaimer: Until she’s Jossed, Twelve is mine-but of course based entirely on stuff that ain’t mine… All hail Auntie Beeb!
A/N: Since this was written before s6, obviously some details have gone AU. I will be cross posting the next four entries to time_and_chips since it features Ten/Rose. To reduce confusion for people who might not otherwise be following this 'verse, postings at time_and_chips will be listed as The Forgotten Day (_/5)--but I will retain continuity in the chaptering here, the main GiTM posting.
If you’re here from time_and_chips, these can stand alone, but if you’re inclined to read the rest of the series that this is a part of, links are provided. Welcome!
Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8
Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12
The Twelfth Doctor sprinted out of the alley and down Borough High Street, her legs pumping as she looked wild-eyed above her at the gigantic, gleaming ship that was now hovering over half of London, a massive metal bio-dome. A little bit in front of her she could see Rose and her previous incarnation-her Tenth-running in the same direction towards the epicenter of the action.
Everyone else was running away from it.
Like bees pouring out of a hive, people swarmed around them and rushed past the three lone figures fighting to get to the front lines. The Doctor struggled to run, buffeting the crowd, as one heart thundered in her chest. River’s injectable potassium chloride had done the trick (once she had excited the molecules to a more effective dose for a Timelord), and it had thrown the other Doctor off her scent-but she wondered how she could possibly continue this charade now that things were about to get so decidedly more complex.
She shifted the weight of River’s backpack against her hip (making a mental note to trandimensionally enhance it for her next time) and tried to fasten the buckles of the Vortex Manipulator on her wrist as she ran. Not an easy trick with one heart-and her respiratory bypass system was also pitching a fit without the extra blood pumping through her system. She was, she thought to herself, most definitely NOT wheezing…
She watched the spiky hair of her former self jerk with every footfall and she rolled her eyes as she remembered the running. All that running. She hadn’t missed it that was for sure, as she-the newest incarnation-was rather loathe to run and only did so only as a last resort. Must’ve been as a result of the overload of exercise this past incarnation had inflicted! She saw the wild excitement in his eyes and felt a pang in her chest she knew hadn’t much to do with her one inactive heart. Looking to Rose, she realised it hadn’t been long that she had allowed her vision to focus on much else since seeing her.
In an ironic moment, she wondered if she even had the heart to go through with this day, but if time was going to be rewritten-the Doctor’s time with Rose-then she was going to do all she could to make sure the timelines held together.
She was determined not to lose Rose altogether because of some stupid, random alien invasion.
The other Doctor was about a half-block ahead of them (having two working hearts and a fully functioning respiratory bypass system), and pointed up to a spot on the underside of the hull of the ship. He yelled to Rose, “There! We need to get under that bit there! I can use the sonic to reverse the polarity of the subwave and trigger the tractor beam to pull us up!” He kept running, waving his sonic around, testing other settings, searching for the right frequency.
They dodged and weaved as panicked cars careened by them, their driver’s heads twisting to get a view of the behemoth in the sky, hovering above them.
One car-piloted by a particularly frantic middle-aged woman whose vision was glued to her wing mirrors--came dangerously close to wiping out Rose as it lurched across the street seemingly drunk with fright.
Rose yelped in alarm and pirouetted out of the way, just in time. The Tenth Doctor’s head spun around to see her falter as the Twelfth instinctively reached out and grabbed her arm, righting her.
Her breath hitched as her fingers sank into the flesh that shouldn’t be there, shouldn’t be accessible…
“Thanks,” gulped Rose as she glanced up. “I coulda been a big pile of goo back there! Guess we’re the only nutters in town to actually run towards this crazy thing!”
“S’all right,” said the Twelfth Doctor, looking at her as if a dog had just walked up to her and called her Grandma, “I’ve been called worse things than a nutter in my time.”
“Hiya. I’m Rose, by the way. Rose Tyler.” She held out her hand.
The Doctor looked into the hazel eyes of the girl she’d loved and mourned and would/did leave behind and she felt the timelines shimmer.
“I’m… Jo-Janet. Janet Smith.” The Doctor stammered. She held out her hand like she’d done a thousand times before, back when she wore two other different faces, and wondered if their hands would still fit together as well as they had before. Her single heart skipped a beat as she felt Rose’s hand slip inside hers once again.
Still a perfect fit.
“Nice to meet you Rose…”
Rose glanced at River’s survival pack on her back. “You look like a girl who’s used to a fair amount of trouble, Janet.”
The Doctor smirked, remembering with pride how wise and perceptive his girl had always been. “And you, Rose Tyler,” she said, “look like a girl that’s used to running for her life.”
Rose grinned up at her-her special naughty smile that she saved for only very special occasions, and days ending in ‘y…’
“Y’could say that-“ she beamed.
The Doctor’s secret reunion was interrupted by the dulcet tones of her former self, hollering at the top of his lungs as he continued to run down the street--“C’MON, ROOOOSE!!”
“See?” smiled Rose.
“¡Vámonos!” yelled the Twelfth Doctor, pulling Rose after her.
“Whaaat??”
“Ruuunn!”
Running hand-in-hand down the tangle of roads to King William Street, they had just neared the start of London Bridge. The Tenth Doctor had already beat them there, his incessant muttering obscured by the whirring of his sonic as he continued to search for the ideal frequency. Suddenly, a low, ominous noise-something between a buzz and a hum-was emitted from the ship above them.
The daft stupid fool was going to get himself killed.
“NOOOOOOO!” screamed the Twelfth Doctor and she grabbed him around the waist, yanking him backwards. Activating the Vortex Manipulator with the hand that still held Rose’s, they disappeared with a whirr of static electricity and a loud buzzing pop. A pop which was nothing compared to the percussive booming THWACK as mortar, tar, rebar and shrapnel from cars rained down on the space the three had just occupied-evidence of a protective strike by the spaceship above them.
A spaceship they were now inside of…
The two Doctors and Rose gasped and groaned in pain as they materialized inside of the unwelcome spaceship, all reeling considerably from their sudden jump. The Tenth Doctor slapped his hand against the metal wall of the non-descript hallway as he strained to gain equilibrium. The Twelfth Doctor-only slightly more used to this mode of transport, but compromised in her hindered physical state and constant headaches-thrashed about in agony. Rose, completely unused to the effects of the manipulator, fell to her knees, gasping for breath.
Meanwhile, the Twelfth Doctor looked around for the Reapers she thought should be swarming after she’d touched her former self-but they were nowhere to be found. Instead, all she saw was a long, brightly lit, interior corridor like one that would be found on a cruise ship. The corridor went off in both directions, however a T-intersection was about a meter away from them, leading off into the unknown.
Once they had all gathered themselves, the Twelfth Doctor braced herself for some serious Oncoming Storm Action from the tall, thin and intense man she once was.
“Who. Are you…?” he asked icily, his chestnut eyes-a perfect match to her own-boring into hers. It was more of an indictment than a question, really.
Ah, she thought. A Patented Doctor Intimidation Move: Barely-Holding-Back-The- Possessive-Anger-Mode. I’d have gone with that one, too. A little predictable that, but still good at throwing people off. In return, she gave him the passive, slightly bored stare, with a slight whiff of coldness back, slightly disappointed in him/herself.
She thought about all the things she might say, could say, shouldn’t say, but as it turned out, Rose answered before she could.
“Doctor, this is Janet Smith. She saved me from getting squashed like a bug by that car back there, and I think, just saved us overall. So I’d say she gets a great big ‘thanks’ from both of us. Don’t ya think, Doctor?” She elbowed him.
Ah, yes. Rude and not ginger, thought Twelve. I remember it well…
The Doctor broke off his staring contest to glance at his blonde Goodwill Ambassador who was attempting to save him from his rudeness, yet again. “Yeah, I guess so. Thanks… was it-Janet?”
“Yep.” She popped the ‘p.’ She couldn’t help it.
“You’re a… Time Agent?” He said skeptically, looking at her Vortex Manipulator.
“And you’re the infamous Doctor,” answered the Doctor without answering him.
“Yep.” He popped the ‘p,’ which made her smirk.
“Do you two know each other?” Rose asked, warily.
“Only by reputation,” answered the Twelfth Doctor.
Ten’s eyebrow went up.
“Ohmigod! Time Agent! Do you know Jack Harkness?” Rose squeaked, the worry about her friend clearly knit into her furrowed brow and large eyes.
Twelve eyed Rose. She knew it would be a long time before Rose would understand exactly what happened to Jack, and almost as long before she would see him again. It made her twinge with guilt, knowing that her own bias and petty fears had made her keep that information from her all of those years. “I don’t think there’s a man, woman or multiform in any galaxy that doesn’t know Captain Jack Harkness…” she said, silkily.
Rose giggled behind her sleeve. The Timelord looked between the two ladies, trying to gauge where and when this Time Agent had come from.
“So you’ve seen him?” asked Rose eagerly.
‘Janet’ nodded. “I know him very well. We once spent a very long year together…”
“You’ve seen him recently? Jack’s alive?!”
“Ummm hmm,” the Doctor hummed in singsong, ignoring her predecessor. “Very.”
“He… used to travel with us,” continued Rose. “An, well. We… We got… separated,” she stammered as she glanced back at the Tenth Doctor, who was looking at his shoes. “I worry about him,” she said.
“Well, a Time Agent is a time traveler-just like the two of you-so when you ask me if I’ve seen him lately that’s all a bit relative, isn’t it? But yes, I’ve seen him, and he’s fine.”
“See?” brightened Ten, “He’s fine! Quit worrying! You know Jack, he’s a big boy, and he can look after himself. Off seeing the sights. I told you he’d wanted to strike off on his own.”
“But I never got to say goodbye…” Rose murmured, and the Twelfth Doctor thought that the amount of sadness contained within that one remark could rival the voluminous capacity of the TARDIS itself. She glanced at Ten, who was too busy chewing on his lip to notice her staring daggers at him, the complete wanker…
“Well,” continued ‘Janet,’ without thinking her next thought through before she said it, “if it’s any consolation, he talks about you all the time.”
“He does?” asked Rose.
“Can’t get ‘em to shut up about Rosie and the Doc. Although…” she pointed to Ten, “he did mention you had some truly epic ears… But I don’t see ‘em,” she said, squinting.
Rose squealed, pointing and laughing at the Doctor, who looked very uncomfortable.
“Oi!” he protested. “You always said you liked the ears!”
“So, you’ve regenerated,” said Twelve. “I’m sure Jack will want to hear of it-and he’d be very pleased with the result…” she said, indicating his whole person.
More squealing from Rose.
“Yes. Ok… Well… Thank you, Agent Smith… You’re very kind.”
Twelve’s eyebrow went up. It was actually kind of cute how flustered he’d become. Was I really this obtuse? she thought.
“So. You know me, you know Rose, you know Jack. What brings you here now? Were you looking for us?”
“I was looking for milk.”
“M’sorry-what?”
She pressed her thumb to her forehead. “I have no idea what’s going on or why,” she sighed, rubbing her index finger on her thumb of her other hand-a trick her Eleventh self used to do when he was thinking. “As far as I know, when I arrived today something like this was never supposed to have happened. But it has and now I’m stuck in the timeline-same as you-with no way out. And I’m also separated from my---“ She stopped, double thinking her choice of terminology and then trying to form the word, “p a r t n e r…” It came out, slowly-molasses dripping from a cold jar, rolling the consonants and vowels around in her mouth like it was the first time she had ever said the word. She felt herself flush a bit and babbled quickly to cover it up. “Rubbish, really-this whole alien invasion thing-a bit passé, don’t you think? I mean, who shows up hovering over London anymore in the 21st century after everything that’s happened? Did they not pick up a recent copy of Lonely Planet or something??”
She stopped suddenly. Blimey, she was doing it again! She was aware that she had lost her train of thought-and worse yet-perhaps her mind. But if she was going to survive this day with herself-the nosiest bugger in the universe-she would have to keep control of herself!
Of course it was no help that she had one of her ubiquitous headaches dogging her.
Rose looked between both Doctors. “So, you two really don’t know each other?”
“No,” they said simultaneously, looking uneasily at each other.
Twelve decided to change the subject and give her Tenth self something to focus on other than herself: “So, Doctor-what do you think is going on? Who are our unexpected guests?”
“Dunno,” he said. “But tell you what, I’d like to have a word with them about their dinner choice on the reception card. I don’t remember seeing Earth as an option… Why don’t we see what we can find out about our gate crashing friends?” With a swirl of his coat tails, he headed off around the T corner into the unknown.
“Blimey,” said Twelve to Rose, “he’s got a black belt in dramatic exists, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Rose laughed as she started to follow after the Doctor. “But that’s nothin’ compared to The Pout.”
“Oh. He pouts, does he?” she said, skipping after her.
“Like a champ! But don’t ever tell him. He says Timelords don’t pout.”
“I’ll have to remember that, thanks.”
They had found themselves in some sort of atrium that ran above and below them for multiple floors in what might have been the center of the ship. They found the Doctor looking over a railing on the side of their metallic grated hallway into the depths below. Steam rising from the lowest floors obscured a clear vision of the bottom decks, and added humidity to the air. But once again, they were in another hallway, several storeys up, seemingly floating on its metal grated flooring. Stairwells placed in four-meter increments along the interior walls provided the nearest ways up and down to other levels.
“Is anybody else smelling this?” asked Rose, looking over the railing into the steam below.
It was just a little bit rank.
“Must be near the mess hall. However, very interesting, this ship!” The Tenth Doctor carried on exuberantly. “Metal grated floors with walkway widths roughly one and a half meters across and an internal gravitational force that equals the gravitational acceleration produced by the Earth--”
“And for those of us who don’t have our A-Levels, Doctor?”
The Twelfth Doctor guffawed at Rose’s comment. “Yeah! Thanks, Professor,” she said to him dismissively, which only made him wince-which of course she knew he would, remembering Ace. “He means we weigh the same on this ship as on the surface of the planet. Our physical make-ups must be similar to whoever’s on this ship, cos the hallways are roughly the same standard as ours. So you think these beings are humanoid, Doctor?”
“Either that or they’re all incredibly obese…”
“Like that Disney movie!” exclaimed Twelve. “Are we on The Axiom?! HA! That would be brilliant!”
Ten giggled. “Awww! WALL·E! ‘Eeeev-va! Eeeev-va!’ Loved that movie!”
“’Please remain motionless, a robot will be with you to assist you in a moment,’" quoted the Twelfth Doctor.
“’Define hoedown?’”
Dissolved into giggles, the two Doctors shook with laughter until they noticed Rose staring at the two of them. Their laughter abruptly gave way to awkward coughing. Rose’s eyebrow went up as the two attempted to contain themselves.
“WALL·E, Rose-you remember!”
Twelve coughed, conspiratorially: “Two-thousand eight…”
“Oh. Right. Um… Got it in the TARDIS. We’ll watch it later. It’s brilliant! You’ll love it!”
“M’sure I will… Can’t wait,” Rose’s voice was tight as she struggled to take in that Agent Janet Smith seemed to be so much more brilliant and sophisticated than her-and an experienced time traveler to boot.
“Oooh-what do we have here?” breathed the Tenth Doctor. He went over to a rather large, hinged door on the interior wall that looked like a garbage chute. He soniced it and looked inside. “Huh. Garbage chute? Goes down to the lowest levels of the ship.”
“Doctor, is that what I smell?” They sniffed the air. It was sweet and gamey.
Ten pulled a face. “Smells like… Compost fuel?”
“No, it’s pork…” groaned Rose, “D’ya smell it? It smells like pork! Lots of pork”
“Ew. No, really. Just… Ew.” Twelve shook her head. “Pork is evil…no, no, no-that’s beans. Beans are evil, but bacon is pretty awful, too. And who would want to have that much bacon on hand?”
“Let’s try and focus and figure out what we’re dealing with here,” directed Ten.
Rose was good at this game.
“Oo! Right! Ah…” She snapped her fingers, “They can pick up on sonic technology!”
“Yes!”
“Um… They’re used to the same gravity as Earth…”
“Uh huh…”
“They recycle.”
“Yep.”
“They like pork!”
“Nope. They don’t like pork, they are pork!”
“Waaat?” Ten and Rose turned to Twelve.
“A porcine race called The Moog Naheth. Cousins to the Hoix,” explained the Twelfth Doctor as she put it together: “Half humanoid, half porcine. They come from a temperate, muddy, resource-poor world that has two moons and a single ring surrounding it. They are omnivores and their home planet’s economy is dependent on one technology: recycling, as they live off the consumerist waste of other nearby planets. But it looks like they’re expanding their GNP to include foreign fuels….”
“Really?” asked Rose, gobsmacked.
“Don’t believe me, ask him.” Twelve pointed to a large, human-shaped, pig-like creature running pell-mell for them about 30 meters away. It would have been comical if it hadn’t been so alarming, as it wore an almost stereotypical, puffy silver lamé jumpsuit with a tiny dark blue bolo jacket with military insignia over the top. It had human hands and cloven hoofed feet. Running at them, its pink ears flopping and its repulsive snout gleaming in the downcast lighting, it looked more like an overgrown Muppet on steroids.
Pigs In Space, indeed…
The Tenth Doctor pulled his sonic and urged Rose behind him as the rotund alien swine bared giant, hooked, tusk-like canines and increased his speed, squealing his head off. “Oh. Now, that’s new…”
“That’s one portly piggy,” quipped Twelve.
“Porco rotundo…” continued Ten.
The pig thing’s squealing only got louder.
“Yeah, uh, think it can hear ya…” hissed Rose. “And we’re kinda stuck here. Any bright ideas?”
Wanting to protect Rose and her former self, the Twelfth Doctor moved to stand in front of them. “I’ll hold it off, you two go.”
“We’re not going anywhere.” Ten said and then called out loudly to the advancing pig: “We seek peaceful audience with the Moog Naheth according to Convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation!”
“Doesn’t seem to care much!” called Rose.
“Oh, pigs-why is it always pigs?” muttered the Twelfth Doctor to herself whilst ruefully shaking her head. It was about ten meters away, barreling down on them. She could see the spittle dripping from its quivering snout and hear the gnashing of its teeth. “Rose! Doctor! Go!” she yelled.
Ten raised his sonic, which Twelve knew would do little more than annoy it. She reached into the back band of her trousers and pulled out River’s squareness gun.
“Don’t you DARE!” screamed Ten, seeing her gun. At the last second, Twelve aimed in front of it and with one shot, took a big chunk out of the catwalk, trapping the pig temporarily.
Ten angrily turned on ‘Janet.’ “Agent Smith,” he hissed, harshly, “I really don’t care who you are or where you come from, but if you want to get out of here you are going to need to control your impulses and follow my lead...”
“Could you two do this dance later?” Rose exclaimed. She pointed to the temporarily hindered pig-thing as it searched for another way across to them, “Our native is getting restless!”
“C’mon, shake your bacon!” cried Twelve as they turned and ran down the hallway past where they had come in. As they neared the stairs they heard more infernal squealing below. Looking over the railing, they saw a herd of about twenty of the plump pink piggies coming up the stairs towards them, several storeys down.
“Why can’t I hear what they’re saying?” asked Rose as she leaned up against a closed door gasping for breath. “Why isn’t the TARDIS translating?”
“Because they’re not saying anything,” the Tenth Doctor answered as he spun around, looking for alternate routes. “They’re just squealing!”
“So we can add interesting conversationalists to your list of species characteristics, Doctor!” added Twelve, 'helpfully.'
The Tenth Doctor glared at her, obviously not thinking it so helpful.
Rose abruptly yelped and jumped away from the metal door next to her. “Doctor!” she yelled.
As both Doctors spun around, Ten glanced quickly in Twelve’s direction.
Rose pointed to the door. They could hear angry scuffling and snuffling noises behind the door. “They’re coming!”
“Got any other tricks, Agent Smith?” snapped Ten.
“Dunno. But you could deadlock the door while I’m working on it! Or are you just going to stand there looking all pretty and intense?”
Ten made quick work of the door and grimaced at the sounds of enraged hooves pounding on metal while Twelve rummaged through River’s backpack, all the while mumbling something about all the junk in it and how River would probably kill her into next week for messing with it, until: “Ah-ha!” She pulled out a mechanized grappling gun with an ascender attached to hoist them up, complete with two footloops.
With her tongue firmly implanted in the roof of her mouth for concentration, she aimed it above her and shot. The hook quickly imbedded itself into the metal grating of the catwalk eight floors above them. “Rose!” she called and moved to grab her around the waist until she remembered that a) she was not supposed to be the Doctor and b) with only one functioning heart she was less capable of hauling Rose to safety than her counterpart. With a small grimace of defeat, she handed the contraption over to her previous incarnation. “Here. Take Rose to safety and then drop it down to me.”
The pounding on the other side of the door and noisy creaking of buckling metal increased. Rose looked with concern at ‘Janet’ while the Tenth Doctor helped Rose into her footloop. “But they’re coming through! There’ll never be enough time!”
“Oh” sighed Twelve. “I’ll manage. Really, it’s my main thing. There’s always a Plan B. I’ll be fine.”
“Sure you will,” said Ten as he checked the ascender. “Cos you’re coming with us.”
The Twelfth Doctor stared at the hand he offered her.
“I can carry both of you! C’mon, hop on…”
The buckling door began to crack, ripping open like a giant bag of crisps, issuing forth a terrible squealing. The crack in the metal revealed a sliver of giant, glistening pig snouts that quivered as they inhaled their scent. The beasts continued to ram the metal shards outwards, enlarging the hole.
Mortified, and with nowhere else to go, Twelve wrapped her arms around the Tenth Doctor’s slight, pinstriped waist and he depressed the button. As the ascender yanked them off their feet, the hefty metal door broke off its hinges and clattered to the floor. A throng of hulking, angry Moog poured into the hallway, but they were too late.
The trio shouted their relief on their way eight floors above them, both Doctors positively loving the ride and shouting with childish, manic glee.
Once they got on their feet to safety, eight floors up, Rose flung herself around the Tenth Doctor for one of their patented, celebratory hugs.
“Ah ha HA! You were brilliant!” Ten crowed into Rose’s hair as she happily squealed back.
Meanwhile, the tightness in the Twelfth Doctor’s chest and behind her eyes made it somewhat difficult for her to concentrate on the startling lack of Reapers. Instead, she could only look on as the tightness grew to a pang, watching a hug she never remembered receiving from Rose.
She still didn’t understand why she had no memory of this day.
But before she had a chance to think any further about it, she suddenly felt Rose’s arms around her as she was pulled into a hug, too.
A hug. A hug from Rose!
The Doctor shut her eyes and gathered Rose’s small frame-that was now almost the size of her own-into the hug of a lifetime, willing time to stop and be forever enveloped in the warm, strawberry-scented cloak of her heady softness. She purposefully spun away from her former self to hide her indulgence in the moment.
The hug was over far too soon.
“Not a bad team, eh, Agent Smith?” the Tenth Doctor boasted as he pumped the Twelfth’s hand in an enthusiastic handshake. “You certainly think well on your feet.”
“Thanks,” said Twelve cagily, eying him-still Reaper free. “Glad you approve...” Gosh, she thought, was I always this condescending?
Seemingly oblivious to her little dig, he bounded over to a terminal imbedded in an alcove in the wall and began pressing and sonicing buttons. “Now, if we can just find the command centre to this giant garbage truck in the sky we’ll be in business…”
“Guess who’s coming for dinner?” asked Rose.
“Rose,” chided the Doctor, “we’re not going to eat them, we’re just going to talk to them.”
“Sure,” chirped Twelve. “And make ‘em cry ‘whaa, whaa, whaa,’ all the way home!”
“Ah-HA!” shouted Ten. “There’s a command deck on the prow of the ship. Ship’s manifest says they’re here on a research and reconnaissance mission… Oh no. No, no, no, no! They’re not just here to mine the garbage of the planet. They’re here on a harvesting mission, too!”
“Humans, the other white meat…” scoffed Twelve.
“What do you mean, Doctor?”
‘Janet’ turned to Rose. “Pigs are omnivores, Rose. They eat anything and everything--”
“Vegetable matter, grain, wood, tin cans.” Ten continued, “their teeth can grind up anything and their stomachs digest everything. Put a human body in a pen with a few pigs and they’ll consume it in its entirety in a matter of hours…”
“Eeeww!”
“Basically,” continued Ten, “they’re here to gorge themselves off of this planet-“
“And take a doggie bag back home,” finished Twelve.
“Yep,” he said, popping the ‘p.’
“Gross.”
“Not if we have anything to say about it,” said Twelve darkly as she finished spooling up the ascent rig and stuffed it back in River’s bag. “Where’s the command bridge? I’d like to have a word with them.”
The Tenth Doctor consulted the computer monitor as the other two peered in behind him. “The thirtieth floor.”
“Well we’ll go there, then.”
“Great. The next corridor should get us close. C’mon...” He moved to his right and disappeared through the doorway into the ship.
Twelve yelled after him. “No wait! I have the Vortex Manip-“ Her words cut off as a big heavy metal door fell shut, blocking the exit he had just used, separating them from him.
“Doctor!!”
Suddenly the Twelfth Doctor felt a heavy object strike the back of her head and she began to fall over. She heard Rose cry out next to her.
Everything went dark.
To be continued in Chapter 14: Oaths in the Dark