Rewritten, Chapter 7
The Doctor, Rose and Jack were suddenly distracted by the sounds of gunfire in the hallway outside of the cabin. Reacting instinctually, Jack dropped to the ground and rolled to one side while he unshod a revolver from his hidden shoulder holster.
“Get down!” he commanded as Rose and the Doctor dove to the floor.
Rose stilled at the sounds of a struggle outside of the door. “Someone’s trying to get in!” she exclaimed in a loud whisper. “Roger and his cohorts!”
The Doctor’s mind reeled with potential plans before calling over to Jack. “We’ve got no way out of here and we’re outnumbered,” he began. “Do you have a lifeboat?”
Jack cocked his head and nodded curtly before pointing back toward the way Rose and the Doctor had come. “On the starboard side,” he instructed.
Rose followed the Doctor as bullets whizzed overhead, breaking through the thin walls. The sound of someone beating on the door came soon after.
“Come out Harkness!” Roger’s drunken voice rang out.
“You idiot!” an approaching voice rang out. “I told you we needed to do this discreetly!” A heated argument broke out until one more shot was fired and only one dominant voice remained: Roger’s.
“Harkness you can’t escape!” Roger cried out. “Come give me the scroll and I’ll spare your life. Either way, we’re coming in to get it.”
Jack had made his way to the back of the ship where the Doctor and Rose were climbing inside of the lifeboat. Jack sprang in after them and the Doctor released the catch that sent them plunging toward the water. By the time their pursuers broke into Jack’s cabin, they was nowhere to be found.
The Doctor silently blessed the moonless night sky filled with overhanging clouds. In the darkness, their enemies wouldn't be able see the lifeboat.
Rose sighed in relief as the Delphine drove on through the choppy waves, putting several kilometers between them very quickly.
“Oh, Jack,” she intoned. “I’m so sorry about your treasure! They’ve surely found what they were looking for.”
Jack glanced up at her with an incredulous expression. “My treasure? You don’t mean this, do you?” He pulled a weathered scroll from his jacket breast and held it out for all to see. He flashed a perfect smile at the Doctor’s surprised face.
The Doctor grinned manically. “It would seem you’ve spoiled their plot and saved the day all in one go, Jack Harkness!”
Rose suddenly swooned as she felt a dizzy sensation in her head. “Doctor,” she said. “Those pictures you showed me in my head…they’re making me feel ill.”
The Doctor rubbed at the back of her neck. “Right. Sorry about that. I just had to get my point across and well…there’s always few side effects when I need to do that quickly.”
Rose spoke heavily, as if far away. “I saw your planet and your time machine. It looked like the invention you’ve been working on. I saw you fly through space and...and I saw millions of stars swept amongst the cosmos.” Rose cut herself off for a moment before peering deeply into the Doctor’s eyes. “And I saw myself with you, traveling through time. Why can’t I remember any of that?”
The Doctor paused as Jack picked up the two wooden paddles in the middle of the boat, intending to move them out of the sea as soon as possible. As he began to row, the Doctor reflected on how best to frame his explanation.
“Rose, it is true that you are a time traveler like me. We use my ship, the TARDIS, to seek out new life and new civilizations. No wait...that’s Star Trek. But we really do. You and I were on a planet called Largas 6 when we fell under attack from the aliens that lived there. It seems they don’t like people trespassing in their holy temple…not that we knew it was a holy temple at the time. I thought it was a little shop and I wanted to get one of those little swirly lollies with the…”
“Doctor,” Jack interrupted, bringing him back to the point.
“Ooh, sorry,” the Doctor apologized. “Well we were inside the temple when the Largarians attacked, and they were blocking the way out where we’d left the TARDIS. They weren’t listening to reason, and I was afraid they were going to kill us…until I remembered a very old story about an ancient scroll housed in their temple. According to the legend, the words on the scroll, if read aloud, could serve as a kind of transportation device to the past. Unfortunately, I had no way of knowing when or where it would drop us, nor what adverse effects might occur through its use. I hope you know I had no other alternatives at the time.”
Rose only nodded because her mouth had gone dry.
“I passed out when the scroll was activated…after I read the words,” the Doctor continued. “When I woke up, I was in 1918 London. I realized quickly what had transpired, and began to work immediately to resolve the problem. It took me two years to find you, which I did here at the Port of Massawa. You can't imagine how happy I was the first time I laid eyes on you and saw for the first time that you were safe.”
“But how did you know what happened and I woke up without a thought otherwise?” Rose demanded. “I feel in my heart that I’ve lived here during this time, with this life up until now.”
“This is where it’s going to get tricky,” the Doctor admitted. “You saw in my mind that I’m a Time Lord, yes?”
Rose nodded expectantly.
“That means I’m a fixed point in time and space,” he said with some difficulty. “When I say fixed, I mean really, really fixed. I’m like a board that chess pieces move around on. They go to and fro or off the board altogether, but I stick right where I am.”
“You’re the foundation,” Rose followed up, “that everything else orbits around.”
“Perfect! Yes!” the Doctor exclaimed.
“And me?” Rose asked in a tiny voice, afraid to hear the answer.
“You!” the Doctor said as he turned his attention excitedly to Rose. “You are a human being, inundated in the intricate web of life, bound up in it if you like. I can’t explain the exact scientific properties of what the Largas scroll did to you in a way that is comprehensible other than this. It took your essence, what is Rose in you, and recoded it in order to transfer you back in time. Think of it like a book that someone cut all the words out of and then put them back together with a new binding. Same content, different cover.”
Rose stared at her fingers in horror, as if they might unravel. “I’ve been rewritten?” she asked.
“Well…that's a way to put it,” the Doctor admitted. He grabbed up her hand and held it tightly. “But not in a bad way! You’re still a lovely read! And we’ll get this all sorted, I promise! Once I get my ship rebuilt we can...oh Rose please don't do that!”
Rose started to cry. She just couldn’t help herself anymore. After a long day of drinking and dancing, finding out her husband was a womanizer, a thief and a murderer, her new boss was a 900 year-old alien, and now that she was a displaced time traveler who been effectively undone through time... It was more than enough to warrant a few tears.
The Doctor kissed her hand and squeezed Rose gently in his arms, wanting to comfort her desperately. It was all too much, and he knew it, but he couldn’t think of any easier way to break it to her. He glanced over at Jack who was frowning morosely.
“What are we gonna do, Doc?” he asked. “Should we just return the scroll and be done with it?”
The Doctor cradled his chin in his left hand and stared back at Jack, still holding onto Rose on his right side. “I’m afraid it won’t be that simple. If what I’m planning is going to work, we’ll need the scroll at the very end to send Rose and I back to the future. We’ll have to protect it and each other until that time.”
“You can count on me,” Jack offered.
“I know I can. We both can,” the Doctor said as he peered down at Rose. She had cried herself out and was now sleeping peacefully on his shoulder.
“We’re almost to the shore,” Jack said as he gripped both oars.
The Doctor nodded as the boat coasted silently toward the dock in front of the Dahlak Hotel.
“We’ll need to work quickly before Mr. Hunt and his goons show up,” the Doctor said. “Then we’ll need to get to the dig site as soon as possible. Are you ready for what lies ahead?”
Jack shot a cheeky grin at the Doctor and winked. “Always,” he said.
(Next Chapter)