The One True Free Life (2/26)
Title: The One True Free Life (2/26)
Characters: Alt!Ten/Rose, tand everyone else I can cram in to the Alt!Verse, plus several OCs
Rating: This chapter is teen, for a very tiny amount of innuendo
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.
Beta: The lovely and talented jaradel
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
Pete Tyler rung the Vitex zeppelin crew immediately after it became clear that he wasn't going to be able to raise Jackie or Rose again on their mobiles. The weather report looked like the North Sea passage would be imminently doable for the next couple of days and, if all went to plan, Tony would have his mum and sister back at home by tea tomorrow. Jackie would doubtless be glad he'd been forced out of Torchwood, doubly glad for what that would mean for Rose's future employment there, and it was a relief to not have to fear her wrath. He had a hunch, however, that Secretary Heths would be struck off of the Tyler family social planner for good.
He exhaled and sat back in his big leather chair. He'd seen a lot of strange things at Torchwood, travelled through dimensions himself, and had not even come close to writing Jackie, Rose and Mickey off as gone for good, but those around him were beginning to do so, and that was quite unsettling. The house staff had taken to giving Tony sympathetic looks, and tutting amongst themselves when they thought they were out of ear-shot.
He hadn't been the least bit surprised when Jackie stepped in to the dimension cannon with Mickey, but he was quite surprised to hear now that Rose had apparently returned to this world again. Had they not actually located the Doctor? Had some other solution to the problem of the Darkness been found? Perhaps the Doctor had rejected her. He'd seemed rather dodgy and impulsive the few times they had met, but Rose insisted that he was waiting for her, that he'd want her back, and Pete soon learned not to argue. It was useless trying to disagree with the Tyler women anyway, on any topic. He counted his blessings on a daily basis that he and Jackie had had a son. He only hoped that Rose would not descend in to a deep depression again, as she had last time.
He decided to drive himself to the zeppelin port rather than bother the grounds keeper who doubled as his driver, and to take Tony along as well. He'd never hear the end of it from Jackie if he did not reunite them as soon as humanly possible, and it would be nice to finally see his odd little family together again. He hit the button on the house intercom.
"Lucy? Please have Deepa bring Tony up to my office."
A crackle of acknowledgement came down the line and he made a note on the blotter to arrange for Tony's erstwhile nanny to get some holiday time and a bonus in her next pay packet. He tried, not for the first time in the last three months, to think like Jackie with regards to keeping a home, and hit the intercom again.
"In fact Lucy, please do come up as well. I've had some news."
Both Lucy and Deepa appeared after a few minutes--without Tony, which prompted Pete to look at his watch and realise that it was Tony's usual nap time--both of them wearing very dour, solemn faces. Pete smiled and stood as they entered.
"For heavens sake, ladies, not that kind of news. Put your sad faces away."
~o0o~
Sometimes needs all compete with one another. Waiting for Jackie to get some rooms at the Hotel Havnekontoret at the edge of Bergen's harbour, Rose checked her watch and calculated that it had been over 36 hours since she'd slept, longer than that since she'd showered, and she couldn't remember the last thing she'd eaten that wasn't bar-shaped and wrapped in foil. She felt hollowed out, paper-thin, as if just the slightest breeze would carry her away. She couldn't be sure if she was thinking straight or not, and her vision seemed to blur and carry a white light around the edges. Torchwood special ops officers had trained her to recognize the symptoms of exhaustion, and more and more of the boxes on that list seemed to be getting ticked.
She sat down on a settee in the lobby next to the Doctor, who was looking petulant and cranky. Her tongue began to feel thick in her mouth, such that when she spoke it sounded strange to her.
"Doctor, I think...I'm really not feeling so great. Right now."
His features snapped out of irritability and in to concern.
"Can you see what's taking mum so long, please?" She tried to enunciate every word very carefully, but they still came out slurred.
It wasn't necessary, however, for the Doctor to do anything of the kind, as at that moment Jackie turned back towards them with key cards in one hand. The Doctor stood and began to walk towards the lifts. Rose just sat there, staring.
"Rose, sweetheart, let's go." Jackie also looked tired and annoyed, but seemed to be doing a better job of hiding it.
"What?" Rose's eyes came back in to focus, and she looked at Jackie, then the Doctor, then back at Jackie again. "I'm sorry, I just can't seem to..." She tried to stand, but her legs and hands were shaking now, and she could only get as far as leaning forward before stalling and sitting back down again. She looked confused.
The Doctor rushed over and put an arm around her shoulders. "Okay, standing up. Here we go. Nice warm comfy bed, hot meal, allons-y!" He braced her against him, helped her to standing, and led her, glassy-eyed, towards the waiting lift.
On their way up to the tenth floor, Jackie fussed over Rose. "She hasn't been taking care of herself, even from before.... Bound to happen. She just needs some food, and some sleep." She stared daggers at the Doctor whose eyebrows shot straight up in to his hairline. "Oh just don't, you knob. You know what I'm talking about." She looked him up and down. "'Sides, you look knackered as well."
The lift doors opened and they helped a stumbling Rose down the hall to where Jackie opened the very last door and entered a well-appointed suite. The Doctor deposited Rose on a bed and removed her shoes and jacket while Jackie rang up room service and had a fairly comical conversation in which increased decibels seemed to be her solution for communicating with Norwegians. What had always amazed the Doctor about Jackie Tyler was the terrifyingly fierce love she had for her only daughter. He'd never admit it to her of course, but the sounds of her caring for Rose now, urging her to drink a little water before going to sleep, arranging pillows and blankets just so (even though she herself had to be just as exhausted as her daughter), comforted him, as much as if he were the one being fussed over.
The Doctor stretched out on a couch, his feet dangling off one end (until Jackie came over and, smacking his legs, took him to task over not taking his shoes off first). So many competing needs, none of them particularly familiar, and all seemingly turned up to top volume. The need for sleep felt like being suspended in a vat of marmalade, forcing everything to move slower than it really ought. Being hungry felt so much more urgent, like he could happily eat the first thing that passed under his nose, regardless of what it was, and perhaps covered with the sleepy marmalade. The need to touch Rose again and, frankly, do unspeakable things with her, was shocking in its urgency yet at the same time pleasant. It made the edges of his mouth curl up of their own accord, and it made him rub his stocking feet together where they dangled, flexing and pointing his toes.
Had he been conscious to value judgements at the time, he would have found the strange amalgamated visions of sleepy marmalade and Rose Tyler that flitted about in his head as he dozed off to be quite disturbing. Jackie, propping her head up on her hands and trying to stay awake long enough to receive room service, wondered how someone could look so much like the cat who ate the canary, even in repose.
(To Chapter 3)
Characters: Alt!Ten/Rose, tand everyone else I can cram in to the Alt!Verse, plus several OCs
Rating: This chapter is teen, for a very tiny amount of innuendo
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.
Beta: The lovely and talented jaradel
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
Pete Tyler rung the Vitex zeppelin crew immediately after it became clear that he wasn't going to be able to raise Jackie or Rose again on their mobiles. The weather report looked like the North Sea passage would be imminently doable for the next couple of days and, if all went to plan, Tony would have his mum and sister back at home by tea tomorrow. Jackie would doubtless be glad he'd been forced out of Torchwood, doubly glad for what that would mean for Rose's future employment there, and it was a relief to not have to fear her wrath. He had a hunch, however, that Secretary Heths would be struck off of the Tyler family social planner for good.
He exhaled and sat back in his big leather chair. He'd seen a lot of strange things at Torchwood, travelled through dimensions himself, and had not even come close to writing Jackie, Rose and Mickey off as gone for good, but those around him were beginning to do so, and that was quite unsettling. The house staff had taken to giving Tony sympathetic looks, and tutting amongst themselves when they thought they were out of ear-shot.
He hadn't been the least bit surprised when Jackie stepped in to the dimension cannon with Mickey, but he was quite surprised to hear now that Rose had apparently returned to this world again. Had they not actually located the Doctor? Had some other solution to the problem of the Darkness been found? Perhaps the Doctor had rejected her. He'd seemed rather dodgy and impulsive the few times they had met, but Rose insisted that he was waiting for her, that he'd want her back, and Pete soon learned not to argue. It was useless trying to disagree with the Tyler women anyway, on any topic. He counted his blessings on a daily basis that he and Jackie had had a son. He only hoped that Rose would not descend in to a deep depression again, as she had last time.
He decided to drive himself to the zeppelin port rather than bother the grounds keeper who doubled as his driver, and to take Tony along as well. He'd never hear the end of it from Jackie if he did not reunite them as soon as humanly possible, and it would be nice to finally see his odd little family together again. He hit the button on the house intercom.
"Lucy? Please have Deepa bring Tony up to my office."
A crackle of acknowledgement came down the line and he made a note on the blotter to arrange for Tony's erstwhile nanny to get some holiday time and a bonus in her next pay packet. He tried, not for the first time in the last three months, to think like Jackie with regards to keeping a home, and hit the intercom again.
"In fact Lucy, please do come up as well. I've had some news."
Both Lucy and Deepa appeared after a few minutes--without Tony, which prompted Pete to look at his watch and realise that it was Tony's usual nap time--both of them wearing very dour, solemn faces. Pete smiled and stood as they entered.
"For heavens sake, ladies, not that kind of news. Put your sad faces away."
~o0o~
Sometimes needs all compete with one another. Waiting for Jackie to get some rooms at the Hotel Havnekontoret at the edge of Bergen's harbour, Rose checked her watch and calculated that it had been over 36 hours since she'd slept, longer than that since she'd showered, and she couldn't remember the last thing she'd eaten that wasn't bar-shaped and wrapped in foil. She felt hollowed out, paper-thin, as if just the slightest breeze would carry her away. She couldn't be sure if she was thinking straight or not, and her vision seemed to blur and carry a white light around the edges. Torchwood special ops officers had trained her to recognize the symptoms of exhaustion, and more and more of the boxes on that list seemed to be getting ticked.
She sat down on a settee in the lobby next to the Doctor, who was looking petulant and cranky. Her tongue began to feel thick in her mouth, such that when she spoke it sounded strange to her.
"Doctor, I think...I'm really not feeling so great. Right now."
His features snapped out of irritability and in to concern.
"Can you see what's taking mum so long, please?" She tried to enunciate every word very carefully, but they still came out slurred.
It wasn't necessary, however, for the Doctor to do anything of the kind, as at that moment Jackie turned back towards them with key cards in one hand. The Doctor stood and began to walk towards the lifts. Rose just sat there, staring.
"Rose, sweetheart, let's go." Jackie also looked tired and annoyed, but seemed to be doing a better job of hiding it.
"What?" Rose's eyes came back in to focus, and she looked at Jackie, then the Doctor, then back at Jackie again. "I'm sorry, I just can't seem to..." She tried to stand, but her legs and hands were shaking now, and she could only get as far as leaning forward before stalling and sitting back down again. She looked confused.
The Doctor rushed over and put an arm around her shoulders. "Okay, standing up. Here we go. Nice warm comfy bed, hot meal, allons-y!" He braced her against him, helped her to standing, and led her, glassy-eyed, towards the waiting lift.
On their way up to the tenth floor, Jackie fussed over Rose. "She hasn't been taking care of herself, even from before.... Bound to happen. She just needs some food, and some sleep." She stared daggers at the Doctor whose eyebrows shot straight up in to his hairline. "Oh just don't, you knob. You know what I'm talking about." She looked him up and down. "'Sides, you look knackered as well."
The lift doors opened and they helped a stumbling Rose down the hall to where Jackie opened the very last door and entered a well-appointed suite. The Doctor deposited Rose on a bed and removed her shoes and jacket while Jackie rang up room service and had a fairly comical conversation in which increased decibels seemed to be her solution for communicating with Norwegians. What had always amazed the Doctor about Jackie Tyler was the terrifyingly fierce love she had for her only daughter. He'd never admit it to her of course, but the sounds of her caring for Rose now, urging her to drink a little water before going to sleep, arranging pillows and blankets just so (even though she herself had to be just as exhausted as her daughter), comforted him, as much as if he were the one being fussed over.
The Doctor stretched out on a couch, his feet dangling off one end (until Jackie came over and, smacking his legs, took him to task over not taking his shoes off first). So many competing needs, none of them particularly familiar, and all seemingly turned up to top volume. The need for sleep felt like being suspended in a vat of marmalade, forcing everything to move slower than it really ought. Being hungry felt so much more urgent, like he could happily eat the first thing that passed under his nose, regardless of what it was, and perhaps covered with the sleepy marmalade. The need to touch Rose again and, frankly, do unspeakable things with her, was shocking in its urgency yet at the same time pleasant. It made the edges of his mouth curl up of their own accord, and it made him rub his stocking feet together where they dangled, flexing and pointing his toes.
Had he been conscious to value judgements at the time, he would have found the strange amalgamated visions of sleepy marmalade and Rose Tyler that flitted about in his head as he dozed off to be quite disturbing. Jackie, propping her head up on her hands and trying to stay awake long enough to receive room service, wondered how someone could look so much like the cat who ate the canary, even in repose.
(To Chapter 3)