The One True Free Life 21/26
Title: The One True Free Life (21/26)
Characters: Alt!Ten/Rose, and everyone else I can cram in to the Alt!Verse, plus several OCs
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: Everything
Disclaimer: It would be a very different, and possibly quite upsetting, world if I owned these characters. For the sake of the world's children, I don't.
Summary: When Rose and Alt!Ten return to Pete's World, after a much longer absence than planned, they find that things have begun to go a bit pear-shaped there. Can Our Heroes save the British Republic while at the same time working out their own Byzantinely complicated personal issues?
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26/ Epilogue | Whole story on Teaspoon
Of all the vehicles that Donna Mott had expected the mysterious heiress Rose Tyler and her possibly-alien lover to arrive in for their clandestine meeting in a shady Sussex wood, a robin's egg blue 1969 Morris Minor was not on the list. Yet there they were, trundling down the country lane and coming to a creaking stop next to her own practical saloon car.
Rose immediately ran towards Pete and enveloped him in a great hug that even he looked to be surprised to be on the receiving end of. The man she was with, whom Pete on their drive from Surrey to this location kept referring to as "the Doctor" with no surname, meanwhile came to a halt about 20 feet away from her and just dumbly stared with the most unreadable look on his face. Half of him looked like he wanted to turn around and run away, while the other half appeared to want to take her down to the pub immediately and buy her several rounds. In the time that he spent looking at her in this way, the Tylers exchanged a number of questions and answers regarding family members and where they had been and for how long. The longer the moment stretched on, the more unsettling the Doctor's look became.
"Doctor." Pete who was now disengaged from Rose, held out a hand for him to shake, though it took the Doctor several moments, and a prodding from Rose, to turn from Donna and greet him.
"Donna tells me you've met," Pete said to Rose, and Rose looked uneasily at the scene between the Doctor and Donna.
Donna didn't want to take her eyes off this strange man, feeling increasingly uncomfortable under his gaze, and just mumbled, "Yes, right, we've met." She finally broke the spell and turned to Rose. "You going to introduce me to your friend, or is he just going to stand there like an idiot all day?"
He visibly jumped up a bit and Donna was sure she even heard him squeak as he strode forward hand extended, face beaming. "I'm sorry; I've got terrible manners. I'm the Doctor. You must be Donna. I've...heard so much about you."
While Donna puzzled out what on Earth the Doctor was on about, Rose smiled warmly off to the side, watching them like a mother hen. Pete coughed a little to get their attention.
"I think we'd better get down to business," he said rather seriously. "Donna contacted me today regarding a memo she found at Liberty Systems."
The Doctor bounced up and down on the his heels and jammed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "Oh, Brilliant! I knew she'd find something out for us. Didn't you know, Rose?"
Rose kept her teeth clenched together in a smile that was becoming more and more for show and gritted out, "Keep a lid on it, please."
"Sorry. I just mean, ah, I knew someone would find something incriminating." He looked at Pete. "It is incriminating, isn't it?"
Pete nodded to Donna who pulled out a ragged looking piece of A4 from her bag and handed it to the Doctor. Rose moved closer to him to read it as well, and their faces were inscrutable as they did so. When they'd finished, they looked at one another conspiratorially, indeed as if they were the only two people in the entire universe at that moment, but then broke the spell and handed the paper back to Donna.
"So, you're an alien, then?" Donna asked the Doctor bluntly.
"Don't be daft, of course not." The Doctor gave her an unconvincing half-smile, and Donna shot him an arch look that seemed to completely wither all of his powers of dissembling right on the spot. "Well, maybe just a little bit."
"A little bit alien?" Donna asked incredulously. "How can you be a little bit alien? You either are or you aren't!"
"It's complicated!" the Doctor shot back confrontationally.
Rose cleared her throat pointedly. "Getting back to the matter at hand."
Donna and the Doctor both turned to her simultaneously with the same precise look on both of their faces and Rose nearly passed out from trying to suppress a gale of laughter.
"Doctor, do you have any more idea what is going on here?" Rose asked him, though he kept shooting distracted glances over at Donna.
Pete stepped forward from where he'd been leaning against a tree. "You should also know that this morning Vincent Heths announced that this Phoenix process would be introduced in to all British schools. Donna has a brochure about it." He looked over at Donna, who was still scrutinising the Doctor. "Donna?"
She snapped to attention again and produced a glossy pocket folder emblazoned with the Liberty Systems logo and the friendly words "Phoenix Learning Empowerment Process" and handed it over to the Doctor and Rose, who divided the various brochures and papers within between themselves for investigation. They muttered amongst themselves as they read.
"What do you think?" Rose asked him. "Krillitane again?"
The Doctor shook his head. "No, there's no computation going on here, at least not that I can tell."
Pete finally cut in. "So? Any ideas?"
The Doctor started patting the pockets of his jacket as if looking for something, and Rose elbowed him. "You don't have them any more, remember? We'll get you some new, I promise. Just as soon as we get this sorted, and then you can look all clever and important again."
The Doctor just sighed a long-suffering sigh. "Right, then. Well, from what I can tell, the Phoenix process is a system of recitation that is supposed to improve children's memory and ability to learn new material. They're rather vague about the ins and outs of it in the literature, but they also claim that this process improves student discipline."
Rose listened intently, nibbling on a finger nail and nodding. "You think it's some kind of mind control maybe?"
"Could be," said the Doctor. "It's hard to say. Certainly there's some sort of telepathic link involved at some point along the way, or they wouldn't have involved me."
Rose turned to Donna and jabbed a thumb to indicate the Doctor. "He's slightly psychic."
"Slightly psychic. A little bit alien. You are both completely bonkers."
"So I've been told," the Doctor said with a barely suppressed grin. "But the thing of it is, if we're going to figure out what's going on, and stop it, I think I need to know more. We won't have a lot of time to make our move, and no quick TARDIS getaway either. We need to do reconnaissance. Blimey, I don't think I've ever had to do that before."
"So you do this sort of thing often then, Doctor?" Donna pursed her lips and gave him a sidelong look.
"If I said yes, would you believe me?"
"Yes. I don't know why, but there's something about you. I trust you, lord help me." Her features warmed slightly and she stepped forward towards them. Pete, off to the side, followed her movements closely with his eyes.
"And if I said we needed your help, couldn't do it without you, would you believe me about that too?"
Donna looked in to the Doctor's eyes. They were like open books, terrifying really in the information they contained and offered to her. "I must be insane," she said finally.
Rose stood next to Pete and watched the scene between the Doctor and Donna with a growing lump in her throat. Even Pete, who had no idea at all really what the connection between the two was, felt an electric crackle in the air.
"You're not insane," Rose said. "You're brilliant. I have that on high authority.
Donna blushed and looked down at her shoes, suddenly quite speechless and disarmed.
"You're the only one who can help us," said the Doctor, stooping a little to catch Donna's downcast eyes.
"What do you need me to do?"
The next thirty minutes were spent laying some papers out on the bonnet of Donna's car, exchanging mobile phone numbers, synchronising watches and drawing maps. She turned out to be highly efficient and business-like when given an explicit task, and as she drove away, leaving the two Tylers and the Doctor standing by Ianto Jones's old car, Pete asked Rose where on earth she'd found such a contact inside this organisation. Rose declined to answer but reached out and took the Doctor's hand and squeezed it.
"As in the other universe, in this one as well. You and Donna make a wonderful team," she remarked fondly.
The Doctor remained silent, dark clouds moving across his normally bright eyes. He clenched his jaw so hard that it began to ache after a while.
"Right," said Pete, cleaning up the few bits of paper and various odds and ends left on the bonnet of the Minor. "When we leave here, I'm afraid you two will have to ride in the boot. I had one of these when I was a kid though--it's a lot bigger in there than it looks. Please do not ask me how I know."
The Doctor continued to look desultory and now Rose joined him in that sentiment, both staring at where they'd soon be spending a very friendly couple of hours. "I hope you're not claustrophobic," she said. "Are you claustrophobic?"
He sucked on his lips for a second before answering. "Do you think my people would have spent all that time making things bigger on the inside if we did well with small spaces?"
(To Chapter 22)
Characters: Alt!Ten/Rose, and everyone else I can cram in to the Alt!Verse, plus several OCs
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: Everything
Disclaimer: It would be a very different, and possibly quite upsetting, world if I owned these characters. For the sake of the world's children, I don't.
Summary: When Rose and Alt!Ten return to Pete's World, after a much longer absence than planned, they find that things have begun to go a bit pear-shaped there. Can Our Heroes save the British Republic while at the same time working out their own Byzantinely complicated personal issues?
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26/ Epilogue | Whole story on Teaspoon
Of all the vehicles that Donna Mott had expected the mysterious heiress Rose Tyler and her possibly-alien lover to arrive in for their clandestine meeting in a shady Sussex wood, a robin's egg blue 1969 Morris Minor was not on the list. Yet there they were, trundling down the country lane and coming to a creaking stop next to her own practical saloon car.
Rose immediately ran towards Pete and enveloped him in a great hug that even he looked to be surprised to be on the receiving end of. The man she was with, whom Pete on their drive from Surrey to this location kept referring to as "the Doctor" with no surname, meanwhile came to a halt about 20 feet away from her and just dumbly stared with the most unreadable look on his face. Half of him looked like he wanted to turn around and run away, while the other half appeared to want to take her down to the pub immediately and buy her several rounds. In the time that he spent looking at her in this way, the Tylers exchanged a number of questions and answers regarding family members and where they had been and for how long. The longer the moment stretched on, the more unsettling the Doctor's look became.
"Doctor." Pete who was now disengaged from Rose, held out a hand for him to shake, though it took the Doctor several moments, and a prodding from Rose, to turn from Donna and greet him.
"Donna tells me you've met," Pete said to Rose, and Rose looked uneasily at the scene between the Doctor and Donna.
Donna didn't want to take her eyes off this strange man, feeling increasingly uncomfortable under his gaze, and just mumbled, "Yes, right, we've met." She finally broke the spell and turned to Rose. "You going to introduce me to your friend, or is he just going to stand there like an idiot all day?"
He visibly jumped up a bit and Donna was sure she even heard him squeak as he strode forward hand extended, face beaming. "I'm sorry; I've got terrible manners. I'm the Doctor. You must be Donna. I've...heard so much about you."
While Donna puzzled out what on Earth the Doctor was on about, Rose smiled warmly off to the side, watching them like a mother hen. Pete coughed a little to get their attention.
"I think we'd better get down to business," he said rather seriously. "Donna contacted me today regarding a memo she found at Liberty Systems."
The Doctor bounced up and down on the his heels and jammed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "Oh, Brilliant! I knew she'd find something out for us. Didn't you know, Rose?"
Rose kept her teeth clenched together in a smile that was becoming more and more for show and gritted out, "Keep a lid on it, please."
"Sorry. I just mean, ah, I knew someone would find something incriminating." He looked at Pete. "It is incriminating, isn't it?"
Pete nodded to Donna who pulled out a ragged looking piece of A4 from her bag and handed it to the Doctor. Rose moved closer to him to read it as well, and their faces were inscrutable as they did so. When they'd finished, they looked at one another conspiratorially, indeed as if they were the only two people in the entire universe at that moment, but then broke the spell and handed the paper back to Donna.
"So, you're an alien, then?" Donna asked the Doctor bluntly.
"Don't be daft, of course not." The Doctor gave her an unconvincing half-smile, and Donna shot him an arch look that seemed to completely wither all of his powers of dissembling right on the spot. "Well, maybe just a little bit."
"A little bit alien?" Donna asked incredulously. "How can you be a little bit alien? You either are or you aren't!"
"It's complicated!" the Doctor shot back confrontationally.
Rose cleared her throat pointedly. "Getting back to the matter at hand."
Donna and the Doctor both turned to her simultaneously with the same precise look on both of their faces and Rose nearly passed out from trying to suppress a gale of laughter.
"Doctor, do you have any more idea what is going on here?" Rose asked him, though he kept shooting distracted glances over at Donna.
Pete stepped forward from where he'd been leaning against a tree. "You should also know that this morning Vincent Heths announced that this Phoenix process would be introduced in to all British schools. Donna has a brochure about it." He looked over at Donna, who was still scrutinising the Doctor. "Donna?"
She snapped to attention again and produced a glossy pocket folder emblazoned with the Liberty Systems logo and the friendly words "Phoenix Learning Empowerment Process" and handed it over to the Doctor and Rose, who divided the various brochures and papers within between themselves for investigation. They muttered amongst themselves as they read.
"What do you think?" Rose asked him. "Krillitane again?"
The Doctor shook his head. "No, there's no computation going on here, at least not that I can tell."
Pete finally cut in. "So? Any ideas?"
The Doctor started patting the pockets of his jacket as if looking for something, and Rose elbowed him. "You don't have them any more, remember? We'll get you some new, I promise. Just as soon as we get this sorted, and then you can look all clever and important again."
The Doctor just sighed a long-suffering sigh. "Right, then. Well, from what I can tell, the Phoenix process is a system of recitation that is supposed to improve children's memory and ability to learn new material. They're rather vague about the ins and outs of it in the literature, but they also claim that this process improves student discipline."
Rose listened intently, nibbling on a finger nail and nodding. "You think it's some kind of mind control maybe?"
"Could be," said the Doctor. "It's hard to say. Certainly there's some sort of telepathic link involved at some point along the way, or they wouldn't have involved me."
Rose turned to Donna and jabbed a thumb to indicate the Doctor. "He's slightly psychic."
"Slightly psychic. A little bit alien. You are both completely bonkers."
"So I've been told," the Doctor said with a barely suppressed grin. "But the thing of it is, if we're going to figure out what's going on, and stop it, I think I need to know more. We won't have a lot of time to make our move, and no quick TARDIS getaway either. We need to do reconnaissance. Blimey, I don't think I've ever had to do that before."
"So you do this sort of thing often then, Doctor?" Donna pursed her lips and gave him a sidelong look.
"If I said yes, would you believe me?"
"Yes. I don't know why, but there's something about you. I trust you, lord help me." Her features warmed slightly and she stepped forward towards them. Pete, off to the side, followed her movements closely with his eyes.
"And if I said we needed your help, couldn't do it without you, would you believe me about that too?"
Donna looked in to the Doctor's eyes. They were like open books, terrifying really in the information they contained and offered to her. "I must be insane," she said finally.
Rose stood next to Pete and watched the scene between the Doctor and Donna with a growing lump in her throat. Even Pete, who had no idea at all really what the connection between the two was, felt an electric crackle in the air.
"You're not insane," Rose said. "You're brilliant. I have that on high authority.
Donna blushed and looked down at her shoes, suddenly quite speechless and disarmed.
"You're the only one who can help us," said the Doctor, stooping a little to catch Donna's downcast eyes.
"What do you need me to do?"
The next thirty minutes were spent laying some papers out on the bonnet of Donna's car, exchanging mobile phone numbers, synchronising watches and drawing maps. She turned out to be highly efficient and business-like when given an explicit task, and as she drove away, leaving the two Tylers and the Doctor standing by Ianto Jones's old car, Pete asked Rose where on earth she'd found such a contact inside this organisation. Rose declined to answer but reached out and took the Doctor's hand and squeezed it.
"As in the other universe, in this one as well. You and Donna make a wonderful team," she remarked fondly.
The Doctor remained silent, dark clouds moving across his normally bright eyes. He clenched his jaw so hard that it began to ache after a while.
"Right," said Pete, cleaning up the few bits of paper and various odds and ends left on the bonnet of the Minor. "When we leave here, I'm afraid you two will have to ride in the boot. I had one of these when I was a kid though--it's a lot bigger in there than it looks. Please do not ask me how I know."
The Doctor continued to look desultory and now Rose joined him in that sentiment, both staring at where they'd soon be spending a very friendly couple of hours. "I hope you're not claustrophobic," she said. "Are you claustrophobic?"
He sucked on his lips for a second before answering. "Do you think my people would have spent all that time making things bigger on the inside if we did well with small spaces?"
(To Chapter 22)