Echoes of Summer - Chapter Seven: The Rain
Plot Summary: He was left with his lips against her jaw, her figure pressed to him as if she belonged there. One of many moments between the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler after he breaks his own rules to retrieve her from Bad Wolf Bay. The walls between worlds begin to fall, two different realities merging. And on the horizon a threat rises that threatens to destroy everything the Doctor holds dear.
Disclaimer: Neither Doctor Who nor any characters, items or materials of any kind pertaining to Doctor Who or the Whoniverse belong to me. I’m just looking for a good time. Hee. Trying them out for a bit, see how they fit.
Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: Starts at PG. Runs the gamut straight through to NC-17.
Spoilers: Oh yes. Tons of spoilers. All over the place. Probably without even meaning to but that’s what happens when you watch all the episodes like you’re possessed. So…erm…sorry.
Timeline: AU after the end of Series 2. Spoilers up to, including and going past Series 4 though. I’ve seen all of Series 1 through 4, including the series 4 specials but am not very familiar with the Classic Who much. As such, if I happen to include anything that really touches upon Classic Who, other than it being unintentional, I’ll be surprised out of my head. Really. You’ll probably see a lot of familiar things in the fic that play into the series of DW. Bear with me, it all ties in together.
Author’s Notes: I am not from the UK. I’m American. So trying to write someone with a British accent and vocabulary is hard as hell, LOL. And I do not know, at all, the layout of London nor the surrounding areas. So bear with me if you do live in/around London and if my description doesn’t sound like home at all. Also, I basically state right off the bat how I view timelines and alternate realities. If you don’t agree with it or want to flame me that it doesn’t match the Whoniverse, be my guest. But it’s not going to change my fic mostly because my fic is basically complete at this point. Thanks for playing though!
Echoes of Summer
Chapter Seven - The Rain:
She had only really been looking about for several minutes, lost on a floor she couldn’t be bothered to remember but was almost certain was the fourth floor, when she saw him. She allowed herself a complete stunned instant, standing stock still in a cold white hallway before clenching her hands into fists at her side and stomping over to the door looking into one of the rooms.
“I can’t believe you!” she hollered at him from the doorway.
In the room and tucked away in a bed not too far from the door, clothed in jim-jams and studying a small container in his hand, his head snapped up to look toward her. “Rose!” he exclaimed with a wide smile, wild hair tousled, face brightening with an adorable grin.
“Don’t you even!” she growled at him and she entered the tiny corridor leading into the open room, storming her way in and pausing at his bedside, her cheeks flaming. “What are you playing at?”
He looked at her, wide-eyed and sporting the expression of a lost child. “Beg your pardon?”
She gestured, utterly infuriated with him. “First I see you out in the street, taking off your tie and walking off! Did you even check yourself in? What did you do, sneak out?” And she lowered her voice into a hiss. “You were supposed to be staking this place out! What the hell did you think you were doing walking around outside?”
His lips parted but nothing came out and for the life of her the look of confusion on his face was much too genuine.
“And now here you are!” she exclaimed, and she motioned to the container. “Eating…eating…what the hell is that?”
His lips moved numbly, his face struck dumb. “Banana pudding…” he murmured.
“And here you are eating banana pudding!” she cried, motioning as if it were the single most absurd thing he had ever done. As she did so he looked down at the pudding blankly, a slight frown crossing his face as if the pudding had somehow insulted him. “What were you doing outside talking to-“ She suddenly clamped down on her next words, on the name that had come to her lips.
He looked at her once more, an eyebrow arching questioningly.
Tightening her jaw, her eyes darting from his to the container of banana pudding, she felt herself tap her foot almost impatiently for a moment. And then, shaking her head she instead lowered her voice, reaching behind herself and pulling closed the curtain surrounding the bed to give them privacy. “Did you find out anything?”
He opened his mouth to speak, the container forgotten in his hand. “I…wasn’t outside today. I didn’t speak to anyone outside today.” And the tone of his voice was thoughtful, his eyes shifting sideways slightly.
With an inward sigh and confusion now settling inside her, Rose reached out for the banana pudding container, yanking it straight out of his grasp and he allowed her, his dark eyes lifting to hers solemnly. And there was something there in their depths, an unspoken question. But then she was tearing the foil off the container and handing it back to him and his wide smile spread across his face immediately, adorable once more. She tilted her head as he took it from her, his eyes shifting down to the container and a finger digging out a large scoop straight away.
“Not even a spoon then, eh?” she quipped quietly and she smiled gently as he stuck his finger in his mouth and sucked the pudding clear off in child-like glee.
“Ruins the fun,” he replied as he pulled his finger out of his mouth and looked down at the container once more. “More enjoyable this way.”
“Right,” she sighed. And wearily she turned and slumped down beside him, legs hanging off the side of the bed, her shoulders settling tiredly. “Ok then, Houdini,” she said to him, looking from the banana pudding to his face as he sucked on his finger once more. “What did you find out?”
He dropped his eyes to the container once more, hesitating barely a moment before allowing his finger to take the plunge yet again. “Houdini?” he echoed quizzically, eyes obviously caught on what seemed to be more important issues to him.
She threw him a jaded look. “What did you find out?” she asked once more.
Raising his eyes to her, he merely gazed at her for a long quiet moment. And she knew what the look said. He knew there was something going on with her, something she refused to share with him, something that was happening right under him that he couldn’t get out of her. There was something almost cold in the eyes of a Time Lord, of this she had realized early on. His ninth incarnation had once housed that same winter coolness in his stare and this one, while not allowing it to shine as strongly, still had not given up entirely on sorrow and pain. Not when the proof was there in those winter moonlit eyes.
But she returned the same blank look to him. And he took it, albeit with resignation.
“Nothing yet,” he replied finally, his finger lifting once more, pudding dripping heavily from it. She reached out as it began to make its way toward his mouth, settling it for a moment and meeting his eyes still.
“Go on,” she prodded. “You’re not fooling me with that, ‘Nothing yet.’ But you’ve noticed something, yeah?”
His eyes darkened the slightest bit, sending a shiver down her spine. And she was forced to remember right then and there. He was her Doctor. He was her friend. But he was more than just cleverness in a pretty package. He was centuries of knowledge and wisdom. Of heartache and grief. Comprehension of more than she could ever understand. She was in the presence of a being older than she could even fathom and that being was gazing at her intently, studying her and almost evaluating her.
She bowed her head and held his stare.
Lifting his own head at her unspoken challenge to read her, he merely said, “Noticed, yes. There’s an undercurrent of something here. A current of…something. I can’t explain it.” And then he looked pointedly down at her fingers still staying his hand.
“Right. Sorry,” she mumbled, letting her hand drop away.
With a small smile gracing his face once more, allowing the tension to melt away with the gesture, he stuck his finger right back into his mouth, cheeks indenting as he sucked it clean of pudding.
Mirroring him with a smile of her own, she leaned forward, lifting a finger and peering at his pudding. “Sharing is caring, mate-“ And just as she almost got a fingertip into the pudding the curtain was pulled open abruptly and they were left facing a small cluster of medical students, all crowding close.
“Good morning, Mr. Smith,” one of the doctors, a stern looking older man said to him. “And how are you feeling today?”
Rose settled back a bit on the bed as he responded. “Oh, not so bad. Still a bit…bleh,” he replied with a cock of his head.
“John Smith,” the older doctor said to the medical students crowded around him. “Admitted yesterday with severe abdominal pain.”
Rose threw him a look as if to say, ‘Abdominal pain? That’s the best you could come up with?’
He responded silently with a faint mischievous smile in her direction.
And then the older man looked to his side as one of his group peeked closer and Rose stiffened, surprised. Feeling the bed shift under her with the gesture the Doctor looked toward her and stared, a frown gently crossing his face. And then his gaze shifted to where Rose’s attention was held and he again stared as Martha Jones raised her head to something the older gentleman said.
“Jones, why don’t you see what you can find. Amaze me.”
With a small smile, Martha came round the bed, stethoscope in hand. “That wasn’t very clever running around outside, was it?” she asked the Doctor as she circled around Rose, causing her to stiffen away from the medical student even more.
“Sorry?” the Doctor asked Martha and he glanced at Rose as she looked at him with the expression of someone who had just been proven right and wasn’t the least bit happy about it.
“On Chancery street, this morning?” Martha reiterated, leaning over him and pressing the cold disk of the stethoscope down to his chest. “Came up to me and took your tie off.”
With a dark glare as he looked toward her once more, Rose crossed her arms over her chest, arching a brow. “Really?” he breathed, seeming struck dumb at the revelation. “What’d I do that for?”
“I don’t know. You just did,” Martha stressed with a slight shrug.
“Not me,” he said with a shake to his head. “I was here in bed. Ask the nurses.” And that last bit was also directed at Rose who frowned slightly, her eyes darting from him to Martha.
“That’s weird. Do you have a brother?” Martha asked him in confusion.
He shook his head. “No. Not anymore,” he replied.
“Not anymore?” Rose demanded, ignoring the telling look he sent her. Whipping about to face Martha, she suddenly stuck her hand out. “I’m Rose, by the way. Martha, isn’t it?”
Both the Doctor and Martha hesitated, Martha looking decidedly more awkward. “Well, yeah actually. How did you know?” And she almost managed to shake her hand.
Without a pause, Rose motioned over her shoulder at the older man, dropping the handshake before it had even been initiated and literally leaving Martha hanging. “He told me. Have we met before? Maybe outside my old flat?” She asked feigning familiarity and pointing at her thoughtfully.
Martha stared at her. “Not…that I recall,” she replied, slowly drawing back her hand.
“Have you met him before?” Rose continued on, motioning this time to the Doctor who was now looking at her as if she had grown another eye smack dab in the middle of her forehead. “Maybe…outside my old flat?”
Martha glanced toward him quickly. “I…thought I saw him outside today. But I guess I could be wrong-“
“Hear that?” Rose said to the Doctor loudly, turning her attention to him and she reached over to pat his hip cheerfully. “Outside today! Could be wrong though. Something you’re not telling me?”
The Doctor looked from her to Martha and then back again. “N…no…”
Rose glared at him. “Right.”
“Well!” the older man cut in as Rose sent the Doctor another scathing look. “Let’s just have a look here at the chart and see what it-“ And as soon as he lifted it into his hands and touched the metal of the clipboard a current shot through him, visible even to the crowd surrounding him.
“That happened to me this morning,” Martha piped up, motioning and nodding as someone else chimed in, in agreement.
“That’s to be expected,” the older gentleman said dismissively. “There’s a thunderstorm moving in and lightning is a form of static electricity as was first proven by…anyone?” And he looked about at his crowd, prodding expectantly.
“Benjamin Franklin,” the Doctor replied, Rose immediately giving him the, ‘Don’t start,’ look.
“Correct.” The older man seemed surprised.
The Doctor inhaled thoughtfully. “My mate Ben. That was a day and a half. I got rope burns off that kite.” He nodded, remembering it almost vividly. “And then I got soaked-“
“Quite,” the man cut him off, Rose dropping her head into her hand wordlessly.
“And then I got electrocuted,” he topped off with a cheeky smile.
“Moving on,” the older man said then and there. And as he ushered his group away he leaned into one of the students. “I think perhaps a visit from Psychiatric.”
The Doctor watched them go, smile widening. As they left Martha looked over her shoulder with a smile of her own at him, one Rose caught as she lifted her head once more in embarrassment. “What was that then?” she demanded of him, watching Martha as she turned away. “And do you always have to do that?”
“What?” he asked her quizzically. And he held out his container. “Banana pudding?”
“No, I don’t want banana pudding!” she rapped out at him.
“You did a second ago,” he said to her with a small frown. “Almost bit off my hand-“
“I did not!” she cried in mock outrage. And she broke off, her shoulders falling heavily. Everything was so strange. And the look Martha had given him on the way out did nothing to cheer her up. Humans always fell for the Doctor, it was a fact. If one could get past the attractive exterior there was the reality that he was intriguing because of his alien person. If one stared long enough at him, just long enough, they could see it about him, something different in the air surrounding him. He was not normal and it made him captivating.
Wordlessly, switching hands with which to hold the banana pudding, he reached out with his free hand and clasped hers in a heavy movement, plunking it down on top of hers. And when she looked at him wearily he merely studied her for a long moment before smiling at her cheerily.
She returned his smile, feeling suddenly exhausted.
“I have seen her, by the way,” he added on dismissively.
Rose gaped at him for a moment. “Where?” she asked him.
Leaning his head back against the pillow under his shoulders he fixed her with a blank look. “Outside your old flat,” he replied, echoing her early suggestion. And he just stared at her silently.
She returned the look, feeling her insides clench for a thick moment. He meant just the other day when he had followed her into the alley and she had avoided his questions. Still silent but with a resigned sigh she shifted to let both legs slide down heavily to the floor and she pulled his hand into her lap, absentmindedly playing with his fingers as she allowed herself a moment to think.
She had no idea what was going on. Either this Martha Jones knew exactly what had transpired days earlier and was beating around the bush about it or this Martha Jones was not the same Martha Jones she had run into before. But if she was the same, there was the chance that she was hiding knowing her altogether for the simple fact that it could possibly interfere with the timeline. But if the Martha Jones she had seen in the street and now here in the hospital was not the same girl, why hadn’t she acknowledged the Doctor in the street earlier? Assuming it hadn’t been her Doctor she had run into, seeing as how he had been in the hospital since the day before. Was it possible there was yet another Martha Jones running around in this cryptic timeline? Was it possible even the Doctor was now making frivolous trips in his line?
Her head hurt.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked her quietly.
She bowed her head, tracing the creases of his hand gently. “No,” she whispered.
His fingers closed around hers, trapping them against his palm and when she glanced at him he was smiling again. She sent him back a ghost of her own smile, a mere twitch to the corners of her lips. And then he was dragging his hand free and shoving aside the sheet of the bed. “Well, come on then,” he said to her. As she looked at him with a frown at his suddenly jumpy exuberance he tossed her the container of pudding. Catching it on the fly and barely believing she had actually accomplished it she let out a small sound as he pulled his robe closed then yanked on her free wrist, pulling her after him.
“Where are we going?” she asked in a gasp, barely managing to set the pudding aside before she was hauled behind him.
“We’re going to find out where this current is coming from,” he replied and he paused at the doorway of the hospital room, glancing back over his shoulder and toward the window at the back of the room. “Well, he was right about the storm coming in. But look at the rain…”
“The rain?” Rose asked, looking as well. And she stiffened as she focused on the storm that had risen. “Doctor…the rain…”
“Is going up,” he finished for her and he smiled at her. “Hospital. Strange. I love the TARDIS.”
With a full smile now curling her lips she giggled and went to follow him out of the room just as a brilliant light flashed outside. Whirling back toward the window, Rose gasped, backing up into the wall and then a large crack sounded, the light wavering and pulsing. “Doctor-“
A moment later the entire hospital shook, throwing the two of them forward into the opposite wall of the tiny hallway leading out of the room. With a cry she crashed into the surface, the Doctor’s hand tight in hers and he yanked her back into him as the hospital shook once more, the beds sliding, the door swinging to shut on them. Slamming the door open once more, the Doctor took hold of her with his free hand as well, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and dragging her back into the room, his eyes wide under a confused frown.
“What’s going on?” she asked him loudly, barely heard over the sound of the hospital shaking, items smashing and slamming about behind them from the sterile corridors outside their room. “What’s happening-“
Pulling her back toward the bed he sat her down and wound around her as she reached to hold on to him. And as the hospital shook once more he slipped on something and staggered, quickly looking down. “Oh, no!” he groaned, grimacing. “Banana pudding!”
Rose stared at him. “Doctor!” she shouted at him in disbelief.
“Bright light, right! On it!” Composing himself and circling around the spilled pudding, he slid toward the window just as the hospital gave a final shake and then fell eerily silent. Pausing beside the window and looking back toward Rose in the quiet, he was very aware of her heaving breaths and her hands clumping the bed sheets as the glow dwindled away and was replaced by the dim lights of the hospital.
Swallowing loudly, Rose hesitated before asking, “Is it over?”
And looking over his shoulder once more he stared out the window at the darkness that had suddenly taken over the gray morning. Eyes widening a bit he was greeted by the Earth, a misty blue in hue, close enough to touch if he had reached out the window. Looking outside and down he registered the uneven ground four stories below and the stars twinkling in the black night. And he paused for a long moment, thoughts whirling furiously.
“Oh…my God,” Rose whispered from the bed. “We’re on the moon.”
At her shaky statement the Doctor stepped away from the window and toward the bed, yanking off his robe and pulling his side of the curtain closed. “My clothes, please,” he ordered her as he began to unbutton his pajama top.
Looking at him dumbly for a moment as he started down the row of buttons she snapped to herself a moment later. Hurrying to the closet she opened the door, reaching in to pull out the blue suit and white shirt, the red tie twisted around the hangar. And tossing it on the bed as he got to the end of the buttons she yanked shut her side of the curtain and circled around the hidden bed, floating toward the window to stare.
The moon. They were on the moon. There was moon rock under the hospital and stars glittering in the sky. And the Earth. “The Earth. ‘s so big,” she murmured as she stared, lifting her hands to the window and resting them on the glass. She couldn’t even think straight, just gazing out and seeing what she was. She couldn’t form a single coherent thought other than, “We’re on the moon!” A second later she uttered, “Without the TARDIS!” And she whirled toward the sectioned off space the Doctor was changing in, realizing at that moment. “Doctor-“
There was a shuffle behind her and she looked over as Martha entered the room once more, followed by another medical student. “We’re on the bloody moon!” she uttered to Rose as she came up beside her and Rose stared at her, lips parted around words but none coming out. As her friend came close to the window the three of them looked back out, silent for a long moment in awe.
“It’s…amazing,” Rose whispered solemnly in the never-ending quiet.
Beside her Martha looked at her and smiled in agreement. “Beautiful.” And she lifted a hand toward the clasp of the window.
“Don’t!” her friend cried. “You’ll let out all the air!”
Martha looked at her friend. “But these windows aren’t exactly airtight,” she protested, motioning. “All the air would’ve been sucked out already but it wasn’t-“
“Very good point,” the Doctor said, yanking aside the curtains, now fully clothed and looking at Martha. “Brilliant, in fact. What was your name again?”
“Martha,” she replied, her eyes trained on him as he waited, a smile almost making it to her lips.
“Jones, wasn’t it?” And as Rose looked toward him he was hopping up beside Martha, looking out and then studying the windows themselves. “Well, question is now, how are we still breathing?” And he glanced down at Martha as she returned the look. “Is there a balcony on this floor? Or a veranda?”
“By the patient’s lounge, yeah,” she replied, motioning back over her shoulder.
“Lovely!” the Doctor said with a cheery smile. And he pulled away, holding a hand out toward Rose. “Wonderful meeting you then, Martha Jones! Come on, Rose.”
Throwing her an uncomfortable look Rose reached out, taking hold of his hand and following wordlessly as he led her toward the doorway. “Careful with the banana pudding,” he called back and then they were both gone out the door.
Martha was left looking after him, her friend beside her, and feeling that something had somehow just gone very wrong.