Fic: Pinstripes & Jacquard ‘Verse, Chapter 8: Long Time No See
Title: Pinstripes & Jacquard ‘Verse, Chapter 8: Long Time No See
Author: psyfi_geekgirl
BetaBabe: akkajemo
Characters/Pairings: Twelfth Doctor, Tenth Doctor, River, Jack
Excerpt: There was just one wee detail the Doctor left out: Which version of her was on the menu.
Word count: 4,313
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: Continuing Part II of Girl in the Mirror ‘Verse. Which, if you haven’t read yet, will give you important backstory and character details which are essential to this ‘verse (the link to the GitM masterlist is provided below). This series is a sort of Season Two. Also written before the end of DW season 6, so some details have gone AU.
Part I: Girl in the Mirror ‘Verse Masterlist
Part II:
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7
The Tenth Doctor hesitated inputting the coordinates the Twelfth Doctor called out. “Are you sure?” he asked.
Busy with the controls on her side, she only nodded, her streak shimmering in the light of the console. Her asymmetrically cut hair hung down further on one side, shielding her uncertainty.
With a grim face, Tenth Doctor set the coordinates for Doctor River Song…
******
“I see you’ve changed your clothes again, Sweetie,” she purred. “Very nice.”
“Yeah,” said Twelve as she steered her from her walnut paneled office into the TARDIS, “thanks… Um…” she hesitated, uncertain as how to break the next part to her. “Remember how you said I was always giving you something to look forward to? Uh-have we done that bit yet?”
River nodded.
“Well… Er… It isn’t your birthday yet or anything is it? Cos I have rather a surprise…” she replied cheekily, flashing her a naughty grin.
******
While she was very glad to be reunited with her (somehow/someday) father again and seemed genuinely surprised to see the Tenth Doctor again-and to hear the story of the circumstances of his reanimation-the Twelfth Doctor found it difficult to read River’s reaction. She could never be sure in situations like this and there was a part of her that was dying to know: Had River any foreknowledge of these events? And, if River was from her future-why didn’t she already know the story of the Tenth Doctor and herself?
Sometimes it made her crazy that she’d set these impossible rules about spoilers in the first place…
There was just one wee detail the Doctor left out: Which version of her past self was on the menu. Because both Doctors were perfectly clear that they were seeking their Eleventh self. According to their theory, they had a very good idea where he’d be-but based on their experience with their Ninth self, they weren’t exactly sure what they’d encounter once they found him. The Twelfth Doctor was hoping that taking River along with them might grease the wheels. It was sort of a dirty trick, but Mickey had been right earlier, the universe didn’t have time for sentiment…
Plus, River was another very capable pilot in the TARDIS, and could help steadying their flight through the Time Vortex.
Yes, Doctor, you keep telling yourself that, thought Twelve to herself. She pushed the guilt down. It would do little good where they were headed.
“How do you know where to look first?” River asked the Doctors.
“Weeellll, we don’t. Not for sure,” hedged Ten.
“But you have a theory,” Jack prompted.
“Emotions,” Ten answered. “We think that the TARDIS scattered the other personalities to those places that held the highest concentration of raw emotion for the individual.”
“They roost where they’re most juiced,” finished Twelve, eliciting a grimace from Ten. “And where we’re headed now was…” she hesitated, trying to find the right words. “Not the best day for us.” She glanced at Ten, who nodded his agreement.
“So what you’re saying is that it’s like a scent marker with ants,” River theorized. “The pheromones they release are like sign posts to help them find their way home. Humanoids secrete pheromones too, in highly biologically sensitive times-real basic survival events-territory, aggression, reproduction, etc.”
“And you’re saying that the TARDIS has been able to pick up on these signposts and plunk them down in the place they were most emotionally drawn to?” asked Jack.
“Pretty much,” answered Twelve. “Except I might amend that statement to: plunking them down in the place I-or for the purpose of this exercise, they-were most emotional in… Taking this into consideration, my Ninth self manifested in the Powell Estates and he,” she pointed to Ten, “appeared exactly where it had all ended for him. A regeneration I-that is to say, he-most certainly did not want.” Both Doctors shared a look across the console, remembering the universe singing and a girl in the snow.
“Then where are the other Doctors?”
“This is where you come in,” Twelve turned to River. “I’m gonna need your help with a couple of things.”
“Name it,” said River.
“Firstly, we need your help piloting the TARDIS through this bit. She’s gonna get a bit cranky”
“Why? Where are we going?”
“Oh, no place special,” Twelve minimized.
“Just the outside of the universe,” Ten explained. “Really, it’s not as hard as it sounds. Well, it is. But it’ll be fine. We just need to get rid of some excess weight… Again.”
While the Harkness Clan mentally squared themselves to what “outside the universe” might mean, the Doctors began negotiations:
“What do you say to adiosing cricket pitch three and the printing press room?”
The Tenth Doctor nodded and flipped a few switches, jettisoning them. “I’ll see you your cricket pitch and raise you the model train room-“
“Eyuchh! By all means! And how ‘bout the tiltyards, while we’re at it-“
“Ug. Haven’t used that in hundreds of years! But not the bowling alley!”
“Oh no, of course not the bowling alley! Candlepin rocks! Plus, that’s the one with the nightclub lights and disco ball!”
More switches were thrown.
“What do you think? Barbara and Jamie’s rooms?”
The Tenth Doctor glared at her. “Don’t you dare…”
She grinned and winked at him. “Wouldn’t dream of it, old man!”
The TARDIS sparked and shook and everyone braced themselves. Leaving the universe, they headed for a small, asteroid-like planet with a slightly green glow. Jostled about in reentry, the four clung to the console-both Doctors calling out instructions-and Jack and River helped them mash buttons and throw levers until finally the ship stilled.
She finally powered down on the surface with something of a moan.
Both Doctors glanced at each other and moved to stroke the console simultaneously. “I know, old girl. I’m sorry,” they muttered to the ship.
“What’s the matter, doesn’t she like going outside the universe?” asked Jack.
“Not even on a good day,” answered Twelve, “But this is no ordinary destination…”
“Yeeaah, I’d venture to say that she never wanted to return here,” said Ten, looking around the ship with concern, his tongue firmly implanted into the roof of his mouth. “That’s why we knew we’d need your help.”
Twelve clucked at the ship some more before turning to leave. “At least we know that what happened last time can’t happen again…”
“Hold on,” said Jack, ignoring the usual, but now twofold ambiguousness of the dual Doctors and The Subjects They Would Not Expound Upon, “If this Doctor is outside the universe, why does his existence affect the rift at all?”
“It affects it as a ripple in time,” Twelve explained. “However where he’s ended up was actually a buffering factor, thanks to the TARDIS’ quick thinking. Because just like the ghost-like Ninth Doctor took the edge off the effects, being outside the universe is just another factor that helps keep the effects from being extra disastrous-“
“It’s still pretty bad,” interrupted Ten.
“So, it’s like Original Kentucky Fried Chicken instead of Extra Crispy Recipe,” supplied Jack.
Twelve smirked, “I wouldn’t have put it that way, but yes-it’s rather like that, actually! And now you’ve made me hungry for chicken…”
River looked at Jack, shaking her head. “I never got your analogies, Dad.”
“And with that comment, I take it I never took you to America enough!”
“Spoilers, Dad…”
Getting ready to leave, the Twelfth Doctor threw a long, black, double-breasted military- type overcoat on over the whole ensemble. It had white piping details on the collar, sleeves and other seams that rather reminded her of a photonegative version of the coat she’d chosen in her fifth regeneration, but longer. It was slightly fitted at the waist, and billowed nicely. It was her new coat. Ten eyed it as she put it on.
“Coat envy?” she asked. He harrumphed and slid his familiar Joplin coat on, jamming his hands into his pockets.
Jack waved his hand around, indicating her whole person. “You’ve got a whole black and red thing going on. I like it!”
“She could wear a bin bag and you’d like it, Dad,” joked River, which made Jack splutter. “Oh, calm down. Apparently there’s plenty of Doctors to go around!”
“Quick,” said Twelve to Ten, “let’s get outta here before they start auctioning us off!”
“C’mon,” said Ten, ushering the Harknesses outside. He and Jack stepped out first, followed by Twelve.
“Oh, and Doctor?” said Ten, spinning back ‘round to face Twelve. “You left this in my coat pocket…” He held up a tube of lipstick. Twelve made a face at him and snatched up the tube, stuffing it into her new black coat. Jack sniggered and sidestepped away from Twelve, cackling as he headed away with Ten.
River didn’t react to this exchange and appeared to hesitate to leave the TARDIS. “Sweetie?” she called. Twelve hovered by the doors for her as the other two moved off, still laughing. River walked over and put her hand out on the Twelfth Doctor’s elbow, whispering, “Do you really think this is a good idea having him here?”
“Jack?”
“No, Luv…”
Twelve smirked at her. “You don’t seem to mind when it’s your birthday…”
River shut her eyes and wiggled her head imperceptibly to rid her mind of memories as her face flooded with warmth. “Don’t change the subject, Sweetie. You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Course I do. Who else do I trust more n’ me?” she said, waggling her eyebrows. “Teasing notwithstanding…” she muttered, looking after Ten.
“You are impossible,” purred River.
“Aren’t I just? But you love it.”
“Always, darling… One other thing,” she continued, “You never said.”
“I never said what?”
“The other thing I’m needed for.”
“Didn’t I?”
“Nope.”
“Sure, must’ve…”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Oh. Uh… I need someone I trust,” she hedged.
“And?”
“And what? Just that. Someone I trust implicitly,” she wrapped her arm around River’s waist and pulled her forward, out onto the asteroid. “This isn’t gonna be easy, finding me…”
“Which one?” River asked, pulling out her scanner and pressing a bunch of buttons.
“Ahhh! I thought you knew all of us! Spotter’s Guide and all!”
“Oh, well. If this is a test…”
“It’s my Eleventh incarnation,” said Twelve softly.
River stared at her in shock for a moment. The playful teasing was over. When she finally did speak, her voice was quiet, flat, and angry. “You bastard,” she said, realising. “You brought me here to trap him, didn’t you?”
Twelve shoved her hands back into the pockets of her black coat and kept her eyes down, not daring to look at her. She only nodded her acknowledgment, taking note that River was still using the masculine form of address with her…
“There’s a chance he’s from outside the timestream,” she explained quietly, carefully. “We needed to bring someone he’d trust.”
“What if he doesn’t want to come quietly?” asked River. “What if he’s just as corporeal as your precious Tenth self? What then?”
“He won’t be,” said Twelve, firmly. “And he’s not the Eleventh Doctor, River. You mustn’t think of him like that anymore. The Eleventh Doctor is gone. He regenerated into me. The one that got put on this planet is just bio-data-and likely diluted at that, cos the TARDIS weakened all the bio-data to lessen the damaging impact on the universe. So when we see him, he’ll be a ghost, just like my Ninth self. A candle in the wind…”
“Which you want me to snuff out-“
“No. I want you to help reason with him, make him comfortable. Help him understand where he is and what’s happened. He certainly won’t know me-might not even recognise Ten-probably won’t want to talk to him. But he should remember you.” She paused as she tried to read how River was taking this, but she couldn’t tell exactly. “That’s why I need you.”
River stood on the dirty planet, her eyes still cast down, refusing to look at the Doctor. Twelve just waited. Finally she spoke, her voice like water dripping on wet cardboard. “Okay…” she said. “All right.” Then she turned to Twelve and looking her dead in the eyes she pushed her words out through her teeth, “But I’m not happy about this.”
Twelve swallowed but didn’t speak, judging from past mistakes that to talk now would only dig her hole deeper. All she could do was nod.
“Twelve!” called Ten, using their agreed-upon names for the first time. He was ahead, waving his sonic around, taking levels, and looked harried.
“I’m going off this way to search,” said River, indicating the opposite direction. “Because I don’t think I can stand to look at you right now...” Turning on her heel, River headed off, reading her scanner.
“All right,” the Twelfth Doctor called after her. “But if you get to the place your scanner indicates and nobody’s there, come back and find us. I don’t want us getting lost in this godforsaken place…”
Twelve shook her head at the bouncy blonde curls that receded into the distance and bounded off into the murky darkness after Ten. Jack was still standing several yards away on a small ridge, squinting at his surroundings and trying to get his bearings.
Like before, the asteroid-like planet was as cluttered, dirty and as miserably dark as it ever was. The only illumination came from some natural bioluminescence occurring on the planet and her companions’ torchlight, raking across the gigantic piles of mud-caked junk. She weaved her way up the path toward Ten and flashed him a look of gratitude when she reached him.
“You haven’t told her everything.” It was statement, not a question.
“No.”
“Do you think he’ll recognise her?”
She picked uncomfortably at the scarlet ruffle at her neck. What she’d neglected to tell River was that “diluted” could mean any number of things. If he were a ghost, they’d be lucky. She sniffed away her doubt. “If he does, he’ll trust us. But we’re not expecting much, are we?” He nodded. She indicated his sonic, “Works?”
“Yep.”
“Find another binary vascular system?”
He hooked his head to the left. “Over that way.”
“Ok. Just remember-don’t touch him when we find him.”
Ten nodded his agreement.
“Should I go with her, Doc?” called Jack, indicating River.
“Not just yet, Jack,” Twelve called back. “I need you for something else…” She nodded to Ten who indicated the direction he would head off towards. “I’ll catch you up,” she told Ten before going over to Jack.
******
She led Jack over to a pile of scrap parts and pulled out a few items.
“See this?”
Jack looked at the pile of stuff in amazement, recognising the pile of rubbish as a jumble of surplus TARDIS bits before he glanced around at the rest of his surroundings.
He realised he was standing in an enormous TARDIS junkyard. Maybe even a planet-wide TARDIS junkyard. They were in a valley of half-ruined TARDISes, their hulking metal corpses sticking up from the ground like ribs of decomposing whales on the sea floor. The wind echoed with a sad, doleful cry-the haunting sound of hundreds, if not thousands of wrecked TARDISes, left rotting on the planet.
This was a sad, impossible place. Jack could only guess at why the other missing Doctor would have ended up here. Whatever had happened, it couldn’t have been pleasant.
He whistled long and low. “WOW. No wonder the poor old girl didn’t wanna come here…”
“You don’t know the half of it,” replied Twelve, wrapping her billowy black coat tightly around her, “but that’s a story for another day. You’ve helped me work on the TARDIS enough to know what parts we need and what parts are junk. I especially need these bits here,” she said, picking up several valves, wires and tubes. “And some of that shielding. I also want some of this stuff to stay stored in Torchwood, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Of course,” replied Jack.
“Thanks, mate,” she replied. “You’ve got your key. Everything should be fine to put in storage off the console room. While you’re doing that I’ll help the others look. But when we come back,” she took a breath, hating to even say it. “I’m gonna need you on the Trap Box gun. That umbilical cord’ll stretch all the way past the front doors. You can get him before he gets too close.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “You got something against this one or something? I know Mickey was kinda harsh earlier, but-“
Twelve cut him off, “No, it isn’t that at all. It’s just…” she paused, uncomfortable with her thoughts of having to “bag” another version of herself, no matter how much of an echo he might be. She sighed. “We just don’t know what we’re gonna get. It’s clear to me that the TARDIS deliberately scattered the bio-data through time and space. What isn’t clear is if she diluted them equally.”
“So he could be another ghost amid the many here, haunting this horrible place?”
“Perhaps… But believe me, when the time comes I’ll need you on that Trap Box gun Jack,” said Twelve. “Because if I’m wrong and the other Doctor is from another timeline and corporeal-just a little bit-and touches us-we’ll have far more to worry about than just finding our way back to our own universe.”
“No problemo,” he answered. “Just hope the system works.”
“It should work just fine,” she said. “I just hope we’re not wrong about our theory that he’s diluted.”
Jack nodded to her, grasping up a handful of gear and began to drag it back toward the TARDIS, and grunted, “Happy hunting!”
Giving him a grim smile, Twelve took off in Ten’s direction.
******
Sure enough, they found him where the sonic had calculated-in a divot in the barren, blackened landscape, a worker ant sifting through a pile of TARDIS parts, separating them into different piles, useable from unusable. There were hundreds upon hundreds of these piles, stretching off into the distance, scarring the vast, emptiness of the asteroid.
There was no telling how long he had been there.
But there he was: their Eleventh self, shunted off to a derelict, ghost of a planet outside the universe.
Looking at him, two things were obvious: The first was that he was corporeal, since he interacted with his environment, picking through TARDIS parts. The second was that he was most likely “birthed” onto House unprotected, forced to rummage around on his own to find clothing, as he was not in his familiar tweed. Instead, he appeared to have cobbled together bits of garments from wherever he could find it, like a person living rough.
Seeing him in this state was bad enough for the Doctors, but as they got to a more observable distance they began to recognise some of the leftover clothes as having belonged to some of the long dead, trapped Timelords that House had fed on and/or “fixed.”
The whole vision looked totally incongruous. Minus his regular attire, forced to wear a grimy, patchwork concoction of other people’s lives; dirty, starved and haunted, he looked more like a ghost than their Ninth self had…
He was muttering to himself like a loon, as well. Bits of it floated toward them on the gritty breeze like a bad mobile connection.
“…not to look… she listen? No. They never-They never stay, way, wave, waist, waste---ne-er survive.”
Yet, as they got a bit closer they heard him more clearly.
“Eh? What’s this?” He bent to snatch up a hunk of metal from the earthen floor. “Hello mister Neutronium Gyrometer! Oooh, lookit you! How cute are you? Oh, I bet you always say that, don’t be so modest! I’ll put you in my pocket. Fancy a ride? Why thank you kind sir, don’t mind if I do!” He stuffed it in his pocket and sang out, “Follow me, gents! To the breech! Wheeeeee!”
Spinning off like a top he flung his hands out like a toddler imitating an aeroplane and “flew” himself over to a makeshift worktable constructed out of salvaged TARDIS walls and stacked temporal engine parts.
The Twelfth Doctor set her jaw and fought a scrap of hair back behind her ear. Her nail varnish didn’t sparkle here. Even the wind on this godforsaken planet felt soiled.
She nervously chewed on her bottom lip. He was corporeal. And that wasn’t good news.
If he didn’t know them, chances were high that he was from another timestream. If either of them accidentally touched him, the Reapers would come.
But could Reapers make it outside the universe?
She exchanged a worrying look with the Tenth Doctor and together they followed him, picking their way through the reeking sulfur labyrinth of discarded equipment cluttering the terrain-a littered tangle of an obstacle course.
Without looking up from his soldering, the Eleventh Doctor demanded, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?!”
The two Doctors stopped dead in their tracks and looked at one another, wondering if he was addressing them as they were near enough now where he’d have to be stone blind not to see them.
The Eleventh Doctor slammed his soldering iron down and turned full on them, shouting, “ARE YOU DEAF?!”
He was talking to them…
“I’m afraid there isn’t an answer to that question…” said Ten, addressing Eleven as if he were a sick person in hospital.
But when Eleven scoffed at him again, Ten lost his bedside manner, “Oh, c’mon! Carroll said so himself in the text and punctuated it in a preface to the 1896 edition of the book. You know that!”
The Eleventh Doctor looked crossly at the Tenth and puffed up his chest. “You have no imagination, that’s what wrong with you! And no Jammie Dodgers either, I’d wager. Useless! Like two left shoes-or a drive motivator without a cross channel bypass-“ He tossed aside a faulty navigational part into a very high pile of rubbish TARDIS parts and began again, at full volume: “WHY IS A RAVEN LIKE A-“
“-BECAUSE NEITHER CAN BE RIDDEN LIKE A BICYCLE!!” yelled Twelve over his question.
The Eleventh Doctor spun on his heels to stare at her with his old, bottle green eyes. “Aha! Very good!” he crowed. He leaned in to study her. “I like you,” he said, warmly. “I’ll talk to you-him? Not so much,” he continued, pointing in Ten’s direction, who harrumphed and crossed his arms impatiently, his bottom lip pushed outwards. “Ooo, cross now!” Eleven teased. “There’s nothing worse than a cross pretty boy…unless he pouts-and pouting pretty boys are just an affront to the greater aesthetic of the universe, don’t you agree?” he asked Twelve.
She tried to hide her amusement, but only was effectively able to keep the lower part of her face completely still whilst the upper half pulled away from it.
Unfortunately, the Tenth Doctor noticed.
“Oi!”
“Face it, Scooter: You pout!” Eleven turned on his mismatched heel and headed back to his pile of rubbish TARDIS parts.
This time Twelve did not hide her giggles. Ten glanced at her and mouthed the word, “Scooter?” which only made her giggle more before she whispered back, “Is that better than Trevor?”
“He doesn’t know us,” Ten hissed at her.
That stopped her giggles.
“Sorry, but do you know us?” she asked.
“Know you?” asked the Eleventh Doctor. “We haven’t met yet. You can’t rightly know someone whom you haven’t met-can you?”
“Fair point,” she muttered. “Then can you tell us what are you trying to do there?”
“Big stuff, fancy stuff, complicated stuff,” he offhanded, “You wouldn’t have the slightest idea…”
“Try me,” she said. “Are you trying to make a TARDIS?”
“Am I trying to make a what?”
“A TARDIS.”
He stopped to study her. “What’s a TARDIS?”
Now it was her turn to exchange a glance with Ten before turning back to Eleven. “Okay. Nevermind…” she waggled her finger between the two of them, “Parley-you and I-yes? Pretty Boy notwithstanding…”
“Pouting Pretty Boy now, more like…”
She bit her cheek to avoid laughing. “Forget him. This is just you and I, right?”
“Rrrrright!” he replied with a conspiratorial nod, his crazy, lopsided hair flopping in the breeze as he pulled at his borrowed, oversized collar.
“How’d you get out here, mate-all on your own, nobody for miles?”
He dismissed her question with a wave of his hand, “Awww, I’m just a bit clever… Not a big deal, it’s just a thing-“
“All right, then. Tell me this: What’s the last thing you remember before coming here?”
“Second star to the left and straight on till morning…” he muttered.
Ten’s eyes grew a little bit bigger, and a little sadder. This was difficult to see. He knew it had to be difficult for Twelve as well. Trying to keep it light he shook his head and muttered to her under his breath, “And our journey continues on through the Disney canon… But if he starts singing ‘It’s a Small World,’ I’m outta here…” However Twelve shut him down with a sharp look.
“M’sorry, you were saying?” she asked Eleven.
“How I got here…? What a funny question… I’ve always been here…”
“What? All on your own? Don’t you remember people? Friends?”
“Must have done…” he drifted off. “Sure.”
But he didn’t look sure.
There was a shuffling noise off to the side of them, on the other side of the hill. “I hate to say it,” River called as she came up over the hill, “but it looks as if your emotionally charged theory was wrong…There’s nothing ‘round that way! How have you lot-“
River stopped dead in her tracks, the Eleventh Doctor only meters away from her.
Her Doctor.
The constant breeze swallowed her startled gasp.
She could say nothing.
To be continued in Chapter 9: Eleven O’Clock, Tick Tock
Author: psyfi_geekgirl
BetaBabe: akkajemo
Characters/Pairings: Twelfth Doctor, Tenth Doctor, River, Jack
Excerpt: There was just one wee detail the Doctor left out: Which version of her was on the menu.
Word count: 4,313
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: Continuing Part II of Girl in the Mirror ‘Verse. Which, if you haven’t read yet, will give you important backstory and character details which are essential to this ‘verse (the link to the GitM masterlist is provided below). This series is a sort of Season Two. Also written before the end of DW season 6, so some details have gone AU.
Part I: Girl in the Mirror ‘Verse Masterlist
Part II:
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7
The Tenth Doctor hesitated inputting the coordinates the Twelfth Doctor called out. “Are you sure?” he asked.
Busy with the controls on her side, she only nodded, her streak shimmering in the light of the console. Her asymmetrically cut hair hung down further on one side, shielding her uncertainty.
With a grim face, Tenth Doctor set the coordinates for Doctor River Song…
******
“I see you’ve changed your clothes again, Sweetie,” she purred. “Very nice.”
“Yeah,” said Twelve as she steered her from her walnut paneled office into the TARDIS, “thanks… Um…” she hesitated, uncertain as how to break the next part to her. “Remember how you said I was always giving you something to look forward to? Uh-have we done that bit yet?”
River nodded.
“Well… Er… It isn’t your birthday yet or anything is it? Cos I have rather a surprise…” she replied cheekily, flashing her a naughty grin.
******
While she was very glad to be reunited with her (somehow/someday) father again and seemed genuinely surprised to see the Tenth Doctor again-and to hear the story of the circumstances of his reanimation-the Twelfth Doctor found it difficult to read River’s reaction. She could never be sure in situations like this and there was a part of her that was dying to know: Had River any foreknowledge of these events? And, if River was from her future-why didn’t she already know the story of the Tenth Doctor and herself?
Sometimes it made her crazy that she’d set these impossible rules about spoilers in the first place…
There was just one wee detail the Doctor left out: Which version of her past self was on the menu. Because both Doctors were perfectly clear that they were seeking their Eleventh self. According to their theory, they had a very good idea where he’d be-but based on their experience with their Ninth self, they weren’t exactly sure what they’d encounter once they found him. The Twelfth Doctor was hoping that taking River along with them might grease the wheels. It was sort of a dirty trick, but Mickey had been right earlier, the universe didn’t have time for sentiment…
Plus, River was another very capable pilot in the TARDIS, and could help steadying their flight through the Time Vortex.
Yes, Doctor, you keep telling yourself that, thought Twelve to herself. She pushed the guilt down. It would do little good where they were headed.
“How do you know where to look first?” River asked the Doctors.
“Weeellll, we don’t. Not for sure,” hedged Ten.
“But you have a theory,” Jack prompted.
“Emotions,” Ten answered. “We think that the TARDIS scattered the other personalities to those places that held the highest concentration of raw emotion for the individual.”
“They roost where they’re most juiced,” finished Twelve, eliciting a grimace from Ten. “And where we’re headed now was…” she hesitated, trying to find the right words. “Not the best day for us.” She glanced at Ten, who nodded his agreement.
“So what you’re saying is that it’s like a scent marker with ants,” River theorized. “The pheromones they release are like sign posts to help them find their way home. Humanoids secrete pheromones too, in highly biologically sensitive times-real basic survival events-territory, aggression, reproduction, etc.”
“And you’re saying that the TARDIS has been able to pick up on these signposts and plunk them down in the place they were most emotionally drawn to?” asked Jack.
“Pretty much,” answered Twelve. “Except I might amend that statement to: plunking them down in the place I-or for the purpose of this exercise, they-were most emotional in… Taking this into consideration, my Ninth self manifested in the Powell Estates and he,” she pointed to Ten, “appeared exactly where it had all ended for him. A regeneration I-that is to say, he-most certainly did not want.” Both Doctors shared a look across the console, remembering the universe singing and a girl in the snow.
“Then where are the other Doctors?”
“This is where you come in,” Twelve turned to River. “I’m gonna need your help with a couple of things.”
“Name it,” said River.
“Firstly, we need your help piloting the TARDIS through this bit. She’s gonna get a bit cranky”
“Why? Where are we going?”
“Oh, no place special,” Twelve minimized.
“Just the outside of the universe,” Ten explained. “Really, it’s not as hard as it sounds. Well, it is. But it’ll be fine. We just need to get rid of some excess weight… Again.”
While the Harkness Clan mentally squared themselves to what “outside the universe” might mean, the Doctors began negotiations:
“What do you say to adiosing cricket pitch three and the printing press room?”
The Tenth Doctor nodded and flipped a few switches, jettisoning them. “I’ll see you your cricket pitch and raise you the model train room-“
“Eyuchh! By all means! And how ‘bout the tiltyards, while we’re at it-“
“Ug. Haven’t used that in hundreds of years! But not the bowling alley!”
“Oh no, of course not the bowling alley! Candlepin rocks! Plus, that’s the one with the nightclub lights and disco ball!”
More switches were thrown.
“What do you think? Barbara and Jamie’s rooms?”
The Tenth Doctor glared at her. “Don’t you dare…”
She grinned and winked at him. “Wouldn’t dream of it, old man!”
The TARDIS sparked and shook and everyone braced themselves. Leaving the universe, they headed for a small, asteroid-like planet with a slightly green glow. Jostled about in reentry, the four clung to the console-both Doctors calling out instructions-and Jack and River helped them mash buttons and throw levers until finally the ship stilled.
She finally powered down on the surface with something of a moan.
Both Doctors glanced at each other and moved to stroke the console simultaneously. “I know, old girl. I’m sorry,” they muttered to the ship.
“What’s the matter, doesn’t she like going outside the universe?” asked Jack.
“Not even on a good day,” answered Twelve, “But this is no ordinary destination…”
“Yeeaah, I’d venture to say that she never wanted to return here,” said Ten, looking around the ship with concern, his tongue firmly implanted into the roof of his mouth. “That’s why we knew we’d need your help.”
Twelve clucked at the ship some more before turning to leave. “At least we know that what happened last time can’t happen again…”
“Hold on,” said Jack, ignoring the usual, but now twofold ambiguousness of the dual Doctors and The Subjects They Would Not Expound Upon, “If this Doctor is outside the universe, why does his existence affect the rift at all?”
“It affects it as a ripple in time,” Twelve explained. “However where he’s ended up was actually a buffering factor, thanks to the TARDIS’ quick thinking. Because just like the ghost-like Ninth Doctor took the edge off the effects, being outside the universe is just another factor that helps keep the effects from being extra disastrous-“
“It’s still pretty bad,” interrupted Ten.
“So, it’s like Original Kentucky Fried Chicken instead of Extra Crispy Recipe,” supplied Jack.
Twelve smirked, “I wouldn’t have put it that way, but yes-it’s rather like that, actually! And now you’ve made me hungry for chicken…”
River looked at Jack, shaking her head. “I never got your analogies, Dad.”
“And with that comment, I take it I never took you to America enough!”
“Spoilers, Dad…”
Getting ready to leave, the Twelfth Doctor threw a long, black, double-breasted military- type overcoat on over the whole ensemble. It had white piping details on the collar, sleeves and other seams that rather reminded her of a photonegative version of the coat she’d chosen in her fifth regeneration, but longer. It was slightly fitted at the waist, and billowed nicely. It was her new coat. Ten eyed it as she put it on.
“Coat envy?” she asked. He harrumphed and slid his familiar Joplin coat on, jamming his hands into his pockets.
Jack waved his hand around, indicating her whole person. “You’ve got a whole black and red thing going on. I like it!”
“She could wear a bin bag and you’d like it, Dad,” joked River, which made Jack splutter. “Oh, calm down. Apparently there’s plenty of Doctors to go around!”
“Quick,” said Twelve to Ten, “let’s get outta here before they start auctioning us off!”
“C’mon,” said Ten, ushering the Harknesses outside. He and Jack stepped out first, followed by Twelve.
“Oh, and Doctor?” said Ten, spinning back ‘round to face Twelve. “You left this in my coat pocket…” He held up a tube of lipstick. Twelve made a face at him and snatched up the tube, stuffing it into her new black coat. Jack sniggered and sidestepped away from Twelve, cackling as he headed away with Ten.
River didn’t react to this exchange and appeared to hesitate to leave the TARDIS. “Sweetie?” she called. Twelve hovered by the doors for her as the other two moved off, still laughing. River walked over and put her hand out on the Twelfth Doctor’s elbow, whispering, “Do you really think this is a good idea having him here?”
“Jack?”
“No, Luv…”
Twelve smirked at her. “You don’t seem to mind when it’s your birthday…”
River shut her eyes and wiggled her head imperceptibly to rid her mind of memories as her face flooded with warmth. “Don’t change the subject, Sweetie. You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Course I do. Who else do I trust more n’ me?” she said, waggling her eyebrows. “Teasing notwithstanding…” she muttered, looking after Ten.
“You are impossible,” purred River.
“Aren’t I just? But you love it.”
“Always, darling… One other thing,” she continued, “You never said.”
“I never said what?”
“The other thing I’m needed for.”
“Didn’t I?”
“Nope.”
“Sure, must’ve…”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Oh. Uh… I need someone I trust,” she hedged.
“And?”
“And what? Just that. Someone I trust implicitly,” she wrapped her arm around River’s waist and pulled her forward, out onto the asteroid. “This isn’t gonna be easy, finding me…”
“Which one?” River asked, pulling out her scanner and pressing a bunch of buttons.
“Ahhh! I thought you knew all of us! Spotter’s Guide and all!”
“Oh, well. If this is a test…”
“It’s my Eleventh incarnation,” said Twelve softly.
River stared at her in shock for a moment. The playful teasing was over. When she finally did speak, her voice was quiet, flat, and angry. “You bastard,” she said, realising. “You brought me here to trap him, didn’t you?”
Twelve shoved her hands back into the pockets of her black coat and kept her eyes down, not daring to look at her. She only nodded her acknowledgment, taking note that River was still using the masculine form of address with her…
“There’s a chance he’s from outside the timestream,” she explained quietly, carefully. “We needed to bring someone he’d trust.”
“What if he doesn’t want to come quietly?” asked River. “What if he’s just as corporeal as your precious Tenth self? What then?”
“He won’t be,” said Twelve, firmly. “And he’s not the Eleventh Doctor, River. You mustn’t think of him like that anymore. The Eleventh Doctor is gone. He regenerated into me. The one that got put on this planet is just bio-data-and likely diluted at that, cos the TARDIS weakened all the bio-data to lessen the damaging impact on the universe. So when we see him, he’ll be a ghost, just like my Ninth self. A candle in the wind…”
“Which you want me to snuff out-“
“No. I want you to help reason with him, make him comfortable. Help him understand where he is and what’s happened. He certainly won’t know me-might not even recognise Ten-probably won’t want to talk to him. But he should remember you.” She paused as she tried to read how River was taking this, but she couldn’t tell exactly. “That’s why I need you.”
River stood on the dirty planet, her eyes still cast down, refusing to look at the Doctor. Twelve just waited. Finally she spoke, her voice like water dripping on wet cardboard. “Okay…” she said. “All right.” Then she turned to Twelve and looking her dead in the eyes she pushed her words out through her teeth, “But I’m not happy about this.”
Twelve swallowed but didn’t speak, judging from past mistakes that to talk now would only dig her hole deeper. All she could do was nod.
“Twelve!” called Ten, using their agreed-upon names for the first time. He was ahead, waving his sonic around, taking levels, and looked harried.
“I’m going off this way to search,” said River, indicating the opposite direction. “Because I don’t think I can stand to look at you right now...” Turning on her heel, River headed off, reading her scanner.
“All right,” the Twelfth Doctor called after her. “But if you get to the place your scanner indicates and nobody’s there, come back and find us. I don’t want us getting lost in this godforsaken place…”
Twelve shook her head at the bouncy blonde curls that receded into the distance and bounded off into the murky darkness after Ten. Jack was still standing several yards away on a small ridge, squinting at his surroundings and trying to get his bearings.
Like before, the asteroid-like planet was as cluttered, dirty and as miserably dark as it ever was. The only illumination came from some natural bioluminescence occurring on the planet and her companions’ torchlight, raking across the gigantic piles of mud-caked junk. She weaved her way up the path toward Ten and flashed him a look of gratitude when she reached him.
“You haven’t told her everything.” It was statement, not a question.
“No.”
“Do you think he’ll recognise her?”
She picked uncomfortably at the scarlet ruffle at her neck. What she’d neglected to tell River was that “diluted” could mean any number of things. If he were a ghost, they’d be lucky. She sniffed away her doubt. “If he does, he’ll trust us. But we’re not expecting much, are we?” He nodded. She indicated his sonic, “Works?”
“Yep.”
“Find another binary vascular system?”
He hooked his head to the left. “Over that way.”
“Ok. Just remember-don’t touch him when we find him.”
Ten nodded his agreement.
“Should I go with her, Doc?” called Jack, indicating River.
“Not just yet, Jack,” Twelve called back. “I need you for something else…” She nodded to Ten who indicated the direction he would head off towards. “I’ll catch you up,” she told Ten before going over to Jack.
******
She led Jack over to a pile of scrap parts and pulled out a few items.
“See this?”
Jack looked at the pile of stuff in amazement, recognising the pile of rubbish as a jumble of surplus TARDIS bits before he glanced around at the rest of his surroundings.
He realised he was standing in an enormous TARDIS junkyard. Maybe even a planet-wide TARDIS junkyard. They were in a valley of half-ruined TARDISes, their hulking metal corpses sticking up from the ground like ribs of decomposing whales on the sea floor. The wind echoed with a sad, doleful cry-the haunting sound of hundreds, if not thousands of wrecked TARDISes, left rotting on the planet.
This was a sad, impossible place. Jack could only guess at why the other missing Doctor would have ended up here. Whatever had happened, it couldn’t have been pleasant.
He whistled long and low. “WOW. No wonder the poor old girl didn’t wanna come here…”
“You don’t know the half of it,” replied Twelve, wrapping her billowy black coat tightly around her, “but that’s a story for another day. You’ve helped me work on the TARDIS enough to know what parts we need and what parts are junk. I especially need these bits here,” she said, picking up several valves, wires and tubes. “And some of that shielding. I also want some of this stuff to stay stored in Torchwood, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Of course,” replied Jack.
“Thanks, mate,” she replied. “You’ve got your key. Everything should be fine to put in storage off the console room. While you’re doing that I’ll help the others look. But when we come back,” she took a breath, hating to even say it. “I’m gonna need you on the Trap Box gun. That umbilical cord’ll stretch all the way past the front doors. You can get him before he gets too close.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “You got something against this one or something? I know Mickey was kinda harsh earlier, but-“
Twelve cut him off, “No, it isn’t that at all. It’s just…” she paused, uncomfortable with her thoughts of having to “bag” another version of herself, no matter how much of an echo he might be. She sighed. “We just don’t know what we’re gonna get. It’s clear to me that the TARDIS deliberately scattered the bio-data through time and space. What isn’t clear is if she diluted them equally.”
“So he could be another ghost amid the many here, haunting this horrible place?”
“Perhaps… But believe me, when the time comes I’ll need you on that Trap Box gun Jack,” said Twelve. “Because if I’m wrong and the other Doctor is from another timeline and corporeal-just a little bit-and touches us-we’ll have far more to worry about than just finding our way back to our own universe.”
“No problemo,” he answered. “Just hope the system works.”
“It should work just fine,” she said. “I just hope we’re not wrong about our theory that he’s diluted.”
Jack nodded to her, grasping up a handful of gear and began to drag it back toward the TARDIS, and grunted, “Happy hunting!”
Giving him a grim smile, Twelve took off in Ten’s direction.
******
Sure enough, they found him where the sonic had calculated-in a divot in the barren, blackened landscape, a worker ant sifting through a pile of TARDIS parts, separating them into different piles, useable from unusable. There were hundreds upon hundreds of these piles, stretching off into the distance, scarring the vast, emptiness of the asteroid.
There was no telling how long he had been there.
But there he was: their Eleventh self, shunted off to a derelict, ghost of a planet outside the universe.
Looking at him, two things were obvious: The first was that he was corporeal, since he interacted with his environment, picking through TARDIS parts. The second was that he was most likely “birthed” onto House unprotected, forced to rummage around on his own to find clothing, as he was not in his familiar tweed. Instead, he appeared to have cobbled together bits of garments from wherever he could find it, like a person living rough.
Seeing him in this state was bad enough for the Doctors, but as they got to a more observable distance they began to recognise some of the leftover clothes as having belonged to some of the long dead, trapped Timelords that House had fed on and/or “fixed.”
The whole vision looked totally incongruous. Minus his regular attire, forced to wear a grimy, patchwork concoction of other people’s lives; dirty, starved and haunted, he looked more like a ghost than their Ninth self had…
He was muttering to himself like a loon, as well. Bits of it floated toward them on the gritty breeze like a bad mobile connection.
“…not to look… she listen? No. They never-They never stay, way, wave, waist, waste---ne-er survive.”
Yet, as they got a bit closer they heard him more clearly.
“Eh? What’s this?” He bent to snatch up a hunk of metal from the earthen floor. “Hello mister Neutronium Gyrometer! Oooh, lookit you! How cute are you? Oh, I bet you always say that, don’t be so modest! I’ll put you in my pocket. Fancy a ride? Why thank you kind sir, don’t mind if I do!” He stuffed it in his pocket and sang out, “Follow me, gents! To the breech! Wheeeeee!”
Spinning off like a top he flung his hands out like a toddler imitating an aeroplane and “flew” himself over to a makeshift worktable constructed out of salvaged TARDIS walls and stacked temporal engine parts.
The Twelfth Doctor set her jaw and fought a scrap of hair back behind her ear. Her nail varnish didn’t sparkle here. Even the wind on this godforsaken planet felt soiled.
She nervously chewed on her bottom lip. He was corporeal. And that wasn’t good news.
If he didn’t know them, chances were high that he was from another timestream. If either of them accidentally touched him, the Reapers would come.
But could Reapers make it outside the universe?
She exchanged a worrying look with the Tenth Doctor and together they followed him, picking their way through the reeking sulfur labyrinth of discarded equipment cluttering the terrain-a littered tangle of an obstacle course.
Without looking up from his soldering, the Eleventh Doctor demanded, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?!”
The two Doctors stopped dead in their tracks and looked at one another, wondering if he was addressing them as they were near enough now where he’d have to be stone blind not to see them.
The Eleventh Doctor slammed his soldering iron down and turned full on them, shouting, “ARE YOU DEAF?!”
He was talking to them…
“I’m afraid there isn’t an answer to that question…” said Ten, addressing Eleven as if he were a sick person in hospital.
But when Eleven scoffed at him again, Ten lost his bedside manner, “Oh, c’mon! Carroll said so himself in the text and punctuated it in a preface to the 1896 edition of the book. You know that!”
The Eleventh Doctor looked crossly at the Tenth and puffed up his chest. “You have no imagination, that’s what wrong with you! And no Jammie Dodgers either, I’d wager. Useless! Like two left shoes-or a drive motivator without a cross channel bypass-“ He tossed aside a faulty navigational part into a very high pile of rubbish TARDIS parts and began again, at full volume: “WHY IS A RAVEN LIKE A-“
“-BECAUSE NEITHER CAN BE RIDDEN LIKE A BICYCLE!!” yelled Twelve over his question.
The Eleventh Doctor spun on his heels to stare at her with his old, bottle green eyes. “Aha! Very good!” he crowed. He leaned in to study her. “I like you,” he said, warmly. “I’ll talk to you-him? Not so much,” he continued, pointing in Ten’s direction, who harrumphed and crossed his arms impatiently, his bottom lip pushed outwards. “Ooo, cross now!” Eleven teased. “There’s nothing worse than a cross pretty boy…unless he pouts-and pouting pretty boys are just an affront to the greater aesthetic of the universe, don’t you agree?” he asked Twelve.
She tried to hide her amusement, but only was effectively able to keep the lower part of her face completely still whilst the upper half pulled away from it.
Unfortunately, the Tenth Doctor noticed.
“Oi!”
“Face it, Scooter: You pout!” Eleven turned on his mismatched heel and headed back to his pile of rubbish TARDIS parts.
This time Twelve did not hide her giggles. Ten glanced at her and mouthed the word, “Scooter?” which only made her giggle more before she whispered back, “Is that better than Trevor?”
“He doesn’t know us,” Ten hissed at her.
That stopped her giggles.
“Sorry, but do you know us?” she asked.
“Know you?” asked the Eleventh Doctor. “We haven’t met yet. You can’t rightly know someone whom you haven’t met-can you?”
“Fair point,” she muttered. “Then can you tell us what are you trying to do there?”
“Big stuff, fancy stuff, complicated stuff,” he offhanded, “You wouldn’t have the slightest idea…”
“Try me,” she said. “Are you trying to make a TARDIS?”
“Am I trying to make a what?”
“A TARDIS.”
He stopped to study her. “What’s a TARDIS?”
Now it was her turn to exchange a glance with Ten before turning back to Eleven. “Okay. Nevermind…” she waggled her finger between the two of them, “Parley-you and I-yes? Pretty Boy notwithstanding…”
“Pouting Pretty Boy now, more like…”
She bit her cheek to avoid laughing. “Forget him. This is just you and I, right?”
“Rrrrright!” he replied with a conspiratorial nod, his crazy, lopsided hair flopping in the breeze as he pulled at his borrowed, oversized collar.
“How’d you get out here, mate-all on your own, nobody for miles?”
He dismissed her question with a wave of his hand, “Awww, I’m just a bit clever… Not a big deal, it’s just a thing-“
“All right, then. Tell me this: What’s the last thing you remember before coming here?”
“Second star to the left and straight on till morning…” he muttered.
Ten’s eyes grew a little bit bigger, and a little sadder. This was difficult to see. He knew it had to be difficult for Twelve as well. Trying to keep it light he shook his head and muttered to her under his breath, “And our journey continues on through the Disney canon… But if he starts singing ‘It’s a Small World,’ I’m outta here…” However Twelve shut him down with a sharp look.
“M’sorry, you were saying?” she asked Eleven.
“How I got here…? What a funny question… I’ve always been here…”
“What? All on your own? Don’t you remember people? Friends?”
“Must have done…” he drifted off. “Sure.”
But he didn’t look sure.
There was a shuffling noise off to the side of them, on the other side of the hill. “I hate to say it,” River called as she came up over the hill, “but it looks as if your emotionally charged theory was wrong…There’s nothing ‘round that way! How have you lot-“
River stopped dead in her tracks, the Eleventh Doctor only meters away from her.
Her Doctor.
The constant breeze swallowed her startled gasp.
She could say nothing.
To be continued in Chapter 9: Eleven O’Clock, Tick Tock