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Inertia - Part 3
Part 3
Rose knew she was on a bit of thin ice with the Doctor, but she was able to talk him into a quick trip to a clothing store. Sure the wardrobe was full of clean stuff, but she'd be damned if she was going to wear used knickers.
After a shower and some fresh clothes, she was feeling pretty fantastic. She was still on the TARDIS and was determined to stay there. 'Keep it to yourself,' was going to be her new motto. She'd be an able aide. Brilliant buddy. Competent companion.
She stopped at the Ds.
Back in the console room, Rose nearly crashed into the Doctor who had come to an abrupt stop upon opening the TARDIS door.
"Right. This isn't Bannet Nine either."
Rose tried to peer over his shoulder. "How d'you know that?"
"For one thing, everything's blue."
Rose stepped out of the TARDIS and sucked in her breath. The landscape was a hundred different shades of blue - the ground, the plants, the sky ranged from muted and almost grey to vivid cobalt and sapphire. It was one of the more stunning sights she had seen.
The Doctor grinned and patted the TARDIS. "She probably feels right at home here."
Rose smiled. "Getting in touch with her blue side?"
"Yeah," he said still smiling. "Come on."
They started down a nearby dirt path, light-blue dirt, towards what looked like a village. Block-shaped buildings, also a light shade of blue, clustered at the end of the trail. Rose could make out people moving around between them. Well, alien-type people. Their faces were bright, almost fluorescent, yellow.
"Nature's funny," the Doctor said.
"Aside from the obvious?"
"Bet there are tons of blue animals around. Good for hiding. But this lot? In their evolutionary scheme of things they wanted to be seen."
"Show-offs."
"More likely, less developed senses. Sorta like humans," he said brightly.
Rose gave him a chuckle.
They were now close enough to the village to hear faint noises of the villagers' daily activity carrying across the rolling landscape. The Doctor had fallen silent, his evolutionary biology lesson apparently done, and Rose found her mind wandering.
Yes, this was why she wanted to stay on the wrong TARDIS in the wrong universe. Wrong though it was, she hated the thought that she almost hadn't seen this place. And she wanted to see it all.
Okay, like the Doctor had said, maybe it was partly about running away.
Maybe it was the air, or maybe it was the perspective that only 10,000 light years distance could give, but Rose thought of something that she had never thought of before.
She frowned. "Got a question for you."
"Shoot."
"You think my mum thinks I'm rejecting her just because I'm choosing a different life? One that's not hers?"
"Oh no. No no no no!" He scowled and wagged a finger at her.
"What?"
"One - I don't know your mother from a tree, and two - family. Domestic. Issues. Keep it to yourself, remember?"
"I'm not talking about him," she insisted.
The Doctor shook his head and looked up at the sky. "I should start charging! Need your head shrunk? Step right up - the Doctor is in!"
"All right," she sighed. "Didn't realize the rule covered everything. Shutting up now."
They were nearing the first building when the Doctor stopped, squinting towards the sun.
"Kids grow up and leave home. It's the natural order of things. Nature being funny again," he said with a faraway look. "We want them to be like us, but doesn't always work that way. For a parent, it hurts like hell."
Rose didn't say anything, hoping he would go on, but he didn't. His expression returned to an amiable mask and he started to walk again.
They had finally caught the attention of the inhabitants. Excited cries greeted them and curious eyes stared at them. They were now close enough to see that in addition to the bright yellow skin, the alien's hair was either blue, green or some shade in between. Their clothes varied in all different colours in slightly different styles of trousers and tunics. They were average human height, but they were much skinnier than any human. Only four fingers per hand too.
The Doctor smiled and waved at them. "Hello! I'm the Doctor and this is Rose. We're travellers from beyond the sea."
Rose grinned; it was one of the Doctor's favoured introductions. 'Travellers from beyond the sea' had a tendency to work more often than not in places like this.
Murmurings came back at them, the Doctor still smiling away. To their right, the group parted and one of the inhabitants stepped forward.
"I am Rone, Council Chairman of the Rin village of Pal," he said, caution in his bright green eyes.
"Greetings, Council Chairman Rone of the Rin village of Pal," the Doctor bubbled back.
"You say you are from across the sea?"
"Yup. Just a couple of wanderers."
Rose gave the man a smile. Or maybe it was a woman. Rose realized that gender differences weren't really apparent in this crowd.
"Are you here for the festival?" Rone asked.
"That's right. Heard loads about your wonderful festival and we just had to check it out for ourselves."
That seemed to please not only Rone, but the surrounding crowd as well. Smiles appeared everywhere. "Then you are welcome. Come." Rone motioned for Rose and the Doctor to follow him into the village. People grabbed their hands as they passed. The overwhelming hospitality was really very moving.
"Fantastic!" the Doctor said enthusiastically. "Looks like a party!"
They both turned to each other at the same second. Rose quickly spoke. "I'm not touching a drop!"
*
They tried the easy route first, locating the address of Prescott Daniels – Jack's suspicious inventor – and walking up to the front door of his mansion. But instead of the inventor, they found an estate sale in progress. Doctor waved around the psychic paper, claiming they were taxmen. They poked around through Prescott's stuff, but nothing remotely world-hopping-sphere-ish turned up.
After a bit of patented Jack Harkness charm, they discovered that the sale hadn't been as a result of Prescott's death, but rather his disappearance. He had a history of going on holiday for long periods of time, so two years had passed before someone got the notion he wasn't coming back. That and the money in his bank account had run dry, slightly irking his two ex-wives.
And so they backtracked two years. When the door to the Prescott's mansion opened, the Doctor once again used the psychic paper to become taxmen. There really were two constants in the universe - death and taxes. They were immediately ushered into a room which was meant to demonstrate the inventor's greatness - pictures with famous people, medals and mock-ups of gadgets lined the walls of the office. It all surrounded a surly-looking man behind the desk.
"You're wasting your time. You need to talk to my accountant," Prescott Daniels said as they entered the room.
"And hello to you too," the Doctor answered. "No one has time for pleasantries any more. It's a shame, really. Pleasantries make the world so...pleasant."
Martha and Jack hung back as the Doctor walked towards the man sitting at his desk.
"Look, I'm a busy man..."
"Well, I'm not," the Doctor said, leaning his hands on the desk. "Actually, you could say I have all the time in the world. And, well, I do. I could stand here for fifty years if I wanted. Oh, the boredom would kick in after about a minute, but there's always singing. I'm rather partial to 'The Sound of Music.' I do a wicked 'Sixteen Going on Seventeen' you know."
Prescott was starting to look at him like he was mad. "You're not taxmen, are you?"
"Nope."
"What do you want? Money? I don't keep it here."
"But, Mr. Daniels, money can't buy me love. Oh, can't believe I just said that." The Doctor shook his head. "No, I want Traedan's Sphere, or the Orb of Raden or whatever little name you're calling it."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"But I think you do. You see, hopping between parallel worlds is something that would stick in a man's mind."
"You're daft."
Fortunately the Doctor caught the subtle movement, nearly obscured by the desk, of Prescott's hand reaching into the pocket of his coat, which hung over his chair. The Doctor lunged over the desk, grabbing the man by the collar, and suddenly everything shifted. He both saw and felt it. He'd experienced this before and knew they'd just jumped to another world.
The shift hadn't slowed his momentum and the Doctor slammed into Prescott, sending them both backwards over the chair. The Doctor's head made contact with the base of a potted plant, which stunned him enough for Prescott to make a break for it.
As the Doctor shook it off, he noted that the room was almost the same - minus Jack and Martha, and plus mock-ups of different gadgets. Apparently in this world, Prescott Daniels was the proud inventor of the warp drive.
The Doctor tore after him out of the room. He'd probably only have seconds before the man would have the common sense to jump back.
From the other end of the long entryway, the Doctor caught sight of him running out the front door and pushed his trainers to the limit, racing through the front door and leaping down the outside steps. Luck was on his side for once as Prescott wasn't in very good shape. The Doctor tackled him on the drive, which sent a brass-coloured orb flying, landing in the nearby grass.
Prescott tried to crawl to the sphere, but the Doctor pinned him to the ground. "Okay, I gotta ask. How in the parallel world do you keep the parallel worlds straight? You've got the same house, same furnishings, even the same plants. Do you change socks every universe or something?"
Prescott grunted at him.
"No need to be rude about it. I was just curious." The Doctor abandoned Prescott and scrambled after the orb.
It was funny, but having now seen it, the sphere looked vaguely familiar.
The Doctor scooped it up and sprinted down the drive. "Sorry, you're going to have to live with one reality's worth of wealth from now on. Ooh, hope there aren't too many ex-wives in this one," the Doctor called over his shoulder.
He doubted Prescott could catch up to him on foot, but there were always transports, and so he didn't stop running until he found a tall hedge that he hid behind.
The Doctor turned the sphere over in his hands. Now he knew where he'd seen something like it before, but he'd need the TARDIS to confirm it. This one was pocket-sized, and had movable graduated rings which made up the sphere. And the rings had markings on them, exactly like the ones from the stone tablets in New Earth and the planet of the Beast. He probably shouldn't have been surprised. He was, however, irked that he couldn't read them.
On opposite sides of the sphere, where the rings ended, were two slightly raised circles. Buttons, maybe? Since the rings were mostly likely settings, he did not want to mess with those at the moment. That left him with the buttons.
"Right. Here we go."
He pushed a button. Nothing.
He tried the other. Nothing again.
Both maybe?
'Please work please work please work,' ran through his mind as he pushed on both sides of the sphere.
The world shifted.
"YES!" He had it - the thing that would get him to Rose! He would have hugged it, but he didn't want to risk activating it again. But he needed to hug something. A ginger cat sauntered by, twitching its tail.
Oh, what the hell.
However, the cat was apparently not pleased to see a tall, grinning man bounding towards it. It hissed at him and shot off.
Right then. Cats were still on his list.
The Doctor made his way back and let himself into the mansion, really hoping that activating the sphere simply brought him back to the right universe, and he'd find Jack and Martha inside. Fortunately he heard their voices from Prescott's former office. Or was that the office of the former Prescott?
"...but we should definitely stay here." Martha's voice carried into the foyer.
"Right. Kinda like the old 'hug a tree' thing...only not, since he knows where we are," Jack responded.
"Wonder how long we should wait?"
"Five and a half hours. At least," the Doctor answered, entering the room.
Martha looked at the sphere in his hand. "You got it!"
"Five minutes. That was easy," Jack said, looking at his watch.
"Oh sure, easy. Never mind the sheer terror at the thought that I could have been stranded in another world. Or hopped back to some other world. Plus, I hit my head," he said, rubbing at it.
Martha and Jack smirked at each other and then passed him, heading outdoors.
"It hurt!" he yelled after them.
*
The festival turned out to be a harvest festival. Every table in sight was covered with food – bowls filled with fruits or vegetables, she wasn't sure which, as well as prepared dishes. Brightly-coloured flags and banners decorated the small village square. The sun had almost set, and torches were lit, surrounding the square in a yellow glow, turning the buildings a soft green. A band started playing some very loud folk-type music and people began to dance. Rose could barely hear over the music and laughter as she was offered different things to eat and drink. She only accepted the drink after a shouted exchange over the music convinced her it wasn't intoxicating. There was no way she was risking a repeat of Mexico.
After being handed a plate of what resembled a piece of pie, Rose found a porch step to sit on. Whatever was in the pie, it was really good - tasting like a cross between oranges and raspberries. She'd lost track of the Doctor about an hour ago and she scanned the crowd as she ate. He wasn't too hard to find, but Rose nearly choked upon finding him in the middle of the dancing throng.
Amused, she watched as the Doctor awkwardly followed the steps of a strange sort of dance with one of the Rin. He caught her gaze and grinned. She laughed back and gave him the thumbs-up sign.
He really was very goofy in this body. Not that he wasn't also goofy in his later body, but it was a different kind of goofy. Well, not his later body. Her Doctor's. Rose watched him do an embarrassing head-bob and wondered if she'd still be around when this one regenerated. Would he then look the same as her Doctor? Was that how that worked?
She finished off the pie, wondering what her Doctor was doing right now. Whatever it was, hopefully it was with someone. Even if it was dancing or...something. Yeah, even that, she decided. She wanted him to be happy.
Would still be nice if he thought about her every once in a while though.
The music paused between songs and Rose heard, "Would you like to dance?"
Rose looked up to a pair of very green eyes. She had no idea if the person was a man or a woman but it really didn't matter. She smiled. "Love to!"
A four-fingered hand pulled her up as the music began again, and soon Rose was dancing the same strange little dance she'd watched the Doctor bumble his way through. Hopefully she looked better doing it than he had.
Every once in a while she would bump into the Doctor or they would wave at each other from across the dancing crowd. She nearly doubled over with laughter at one point when he head-bobbed at her - probably the most powerful being in the universe, and he was a total dork.
They'd been dancing for hours now. The Doctor seemed unstoppable, but Rose had taken breaks every once in a while, where she was offered more food and more drink, most of which she felt she couldn't refuse. After a few more turns with someone in a black tunic, she was feeling very full and danced-out. She waved away her partner with a smile, and made her way back to the porch step.
The Doctor waved, and with a nod and a pat on the shoulder of his partner, joined Rose, flopping down next to her.
"Tired?" he yelled in her ear.
"A little," she yelled back.
"We can go."
"No, you're having fun."
Rose only realized the music had stopped when her voice echoed over the square. Everyone had stopped dancing, and was now staring at her and the Doctor.
The Doctor stood up. "We'd like to thank you for your lovely hospitality, but it's time we headed out."
Disappointed faces looked at them.
Rose pushed herself to her feet, feeling a bit guilty for causing the party to come to a grinding halt. "But your festival was by far the best I've ever been to on this whole entire planet!"
Pleased replaced disappointed.
"Nice," the Doctor said in a low voice.
"Walk them out!" someone shouted.
Cheers rose up from the crowd as torches were grabbed. The band stood up and began to play again, now walking. Apparently they were going to get a processional back to the TARDIS. Rose couldn't help but smile at their odd - but endearing - enthusiasm for two strangers who looked so different from themselves.
Back on the dirt road, they were now surrounded by the Rin who danced as they went. Rose got swept up by her last partner and they hopped merrily down the path in the middle of the crowd.
*
The Doctor and the TARDIS had been examining the sphere for the last thirteen hours. Every once in a while some food or a cup of tea would appear near his elbow. Since he didn't figure he was completely back in Jack's good graces, it must have been Martha.
To say that he had never seen anything like this technology before would be putting it mildly - he had never even conceived of something like it before, and that was saying something. The Beast's words of "before the universe" popped into his head, but he waved it aside. Although...he had seen something like it before, hadn't he? Just not up close and personal; never got to see how it all worked. There was no mistaking it, though - the sphere and the void ship the Daleks had used were the same technology.
He had at least discovered the reason for having to press both buttons – it was a safety feature, requiring the same genetic signature touching each button to activate. That way it couldn't be accidentally switched on, or suddenly disappear if dropped. His main goal was to decipher the characters so that he could use, and control, the sphere. Control being the important thing. Well, and making sure the universes wouldn't crack and implode if he used it. That too.
But the further he got in examining the sphere, the more he kept running into discoveries that he would have loved to ignore. In fact, he tried to ignore them, but kept bumping into the facts.
The TARDIS beeped, flashing a computation on the monitor.
"Yes! Got it!" he yelled. He grabbed the sphere and kissed it. "Oh, don't think you weren't a bit of a challenge, but I got you in the end! And you thought I'd get stuck in the parallel framework model." He wagged a finger at it.
"Hmm. Talking to inanimate objects. Good or bad?" Jack asked, entering the console room.
"Our luck? Probably bad." Martha was right on his heels.
The Doctor grinned at them. "It wasn't made by the Daleks. There's no way it could have been made by the Daleks."
"The sphere?" Jack asked.
"The void ship."
"Okay, you lost me," Martha said, pulling herself onto what the Doctor had come to consider her customary perch on the railing.
Jack leaned next to her. "Me too."
The Doctor waved dismissively at them. "The Daleks must have stumbled across the void ship, who knows where. Or maybe they captured it. Doesn't matter. Sure they figured out how to use it, geniuses and all, but in the crudest way possible. If A plus B equals C, they'll never stop to consider the hundred other variables that can get you to C, much less design something that way. Not even the Cult of Skaro."
"A plus B equals C?" Jack crossed his arms.
The Doctor ignored him, placing the sphere back on the console. "This is the same technology as the void ship, but the void ship and the sphere aren't designed to punch through universes. Well, they can punch through universes, but it would be like crashing through a wall to get inside a house, which is exactly what the Daleks did. Crude!"
He started pacing. "You see, the sphere and void ship weren't designed to explore the void, they were designed to explore the universes. The void ship to get inside and the sphere to hop between. And if I'm right," he laughed at the madness of it all, "...they were designed by something from the void."
Jack and Martha blinked at him.
"Oh, I know what you're thinking. The void is supposed to have nothing. No light, no sound, no matter, no time, nothing." He shook his head at the sphere. "But either that theory is wrong or life exists beyond known parameters." He raised his eyebrows. "There's something out there."
"That's actually kinda disturbing," Jack said. "Couldn't this being or beings be a threat?"
"Could be, sure. From the design, and an inconceivably brilliant design I might add, this entity could rip apart the universe like that." The Doctor clicked his fingers.
"Not doing anything to make me feel better here, Doctor," Jack said, obviously alarmed.
"Ah, but the universe is still here. Been here for billions of years. And will be here for billions more. I know, I've been there and back. Maybe they're just...visiting," he said, staring at the sphere. "And occasionally dropping off unwanted hell-beasts."
"Lovely," Jack replied.
Martha spoke up. "So...the writings in the cavern. How'd they know about your life? And why write it?"
"Not a clue. For all I know I could meet these beings centuries from now and tell them all myself so that I could find it, well, now." He grinned. "Quite literally a self-fulfilling prophesy. But since one of these things isn't here right now, we can't ask it."
"So, are we supposed to find these void beings?" she asked.
"Find them? God, no. They might want their sphere back. Nope, we're headed to Torchwood!" the Doctor declared as he ran over to the console, flipping a lever.
Martha hopped off the railing and moved to sphere, examining it. "So this little thing will actually get us to another world?"
"It's portable but powerful. The field on this thing could take the TARDIS," the Doctor explained, running back and forth between controls. "Come on! Faster! Yah!"
Jack jumped out of his way when he made another lap around the console. "So zap it and let's go!"
"Can't. The TARDIS won't survive in the other world. She needs to stay here. We can go on foot but since we won't be inside the TARDIS, we'll need to be in physical contact to make sure the field takes us all. Touching on arms only," he said, pointing at Jack while nimbly dodging around Martha.
Jack smirked. "So when in time do you wanna make your grand re-appearance?"
"It's going to have to be a guess. Well, a really good guess, but still. The universes fell out of sync when the Daleks and Cybermen decided to go storming through. Rose's father, well, not really her father but let's not get into that right now... Anyway, Pete said that three years had passed for them when for us only about six months had gone by, relative time. Time should have stabilized by now, but the trick will be figuring out which times line up. I'm starting at a week after it all happened."
"So we could wind up ten years down the road for them. And Rose could be..."
The Doctor didn't let him finish. "Well, we'll just have to sphere back over here, hop in the TARDIS and try again then, won't we? But let's hope we get it right the first time otherwise I'll have to pretend that I feel some sort of guilt for breaking up a future marriage or something. And I'm bad at faking guilt." He pumped the vortex loop control. "Always comes off as indifference with a slight hint of peckishness for some reason."
"We're actually going to go through in Torchwood?" Martha asked. "Not very smart, is it?"
"Oh, Torchwood loves me. Besides, the only other place I know of is Pete and Jackie's place and I'm not running into Jackie first."
The TARDIS' rotor stopped. The Doctor grabbed the sphere and bolted down the ramp, out into the giant, empty room in Torchwood. Plastic sheets covered doors at the far end, as if the place had been sealed off. Leave it to humans to ignore something frightening, pretending it never happened. It was why their history kept repeating itself.
"Come on! Coming or staying?!" the Doctor shouted back towards the TARDIS. "Come on! Come on! Come on!"
Jack and Martha scrambled over to him, grabbing his arms. The Doctor took a deep breath and activated the sphere.
Everything shifted. They were in the same room, but now people scurried around, apparently involved in something important, so much so that no one noticed three new people in the corner of the room. But the Doctor ignored them all when he spotted someone familiar bent over a computer.
"Mickey!"
Mickey turned and his mouth dropped open. "Oh my god."
Pocketing the sphere, the Doctor bounded over to him, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Never thought I'd say this, but am I glad to see you! Where's Rose? No wait. How long since she came here? Or...tell me where Rose is. No, tell me BOTH."
Mickey's mouth opened and closed.
"Yes, yes. You never thought you'd see me again. Snap out of it!" He gave Mickey's shoulders a shake.
"Well, it's been almost a year since that whole thing with the Cybermen and the Daleks," Mickey finally said.
"Okay, a year. That's doable. Probably."
"And Rose..." Mickey looked decidedly uncomfortable, which made the Doctor uncomfortable.
"What?" He gave Mickey another shake for good measure.
"Rose is with the Doctor."
The Doctor dropped his hands from Mickey's shoulders. "Sorry?"
"Yeah, three days ago Jackie gets this call. Turns out Rose ran into the Doctor and so she takes off. Pretty much the same old same old."
"That's impossible."
"Hey, I'm just telling you what Jackie told me."
"But I'm here now," the Doctor said. "Why would I go back in time to get her earlier? It would only serve to annoy me and I make it a policy never to annoy me."
"Thing is," Mickey said, swallowing hard. "She said it was this universe's Doctor. You know, two Mickeys, two Jackies, two Doctors? Said he looked like the old you."
The Doctor stared at Mickey. It wasn't possible. Time Lords existed outside of dimensions and so there was just no way. None.
But at the end of the war the walls of reality had closed to him and the worlds sealed. Had something else happened? With Gallifrey gone, was he now part of a dimensional existence just like everyone else? And was that why he had survived - instead of destruction had he fractured over realities?
It all seemed mad. Of course, up until a few minutes ago he had thought the void was just a big ball of nothing...
"Right. Three days ago? That's all?" the Doctor asked.
"Yeah."
The Doctor reached over the desk, grabbed the phone and began to dial Rose's number. He was not going to think about her problems with alternate versions of people and he most definitely was not going to think about the two of them off on some adventure at the moment.
It rang.
He still wasn't thinking about it.
Voice mail.
Just bloody brilliant.
The Doctor wondered if this was going to show up in the legend. 'And lo, the Lonely God did wait for the tone...'
*
They reached the TARDIS, many of the Rin dancing right past it, apparently determined to escort them to the sea, however far that was. Those clustered right around them, including Rose's dance partner, watched with puzzled expressions as the Doctor and Rose waved and stepped into the TARDIS.
It was only after the TARDIS door was shut that Rose realized her mobile phone was beeping at her. She pulled it out of her jacket pocket as the Doctor headed up towards the console. She stared at the screen.
Six messages.
Mum? The baby? What?
Rose felt the panic rise as she poked at her phone and listened.
"Trouble?" the Doctor asked.
"Take me back right now!"
When he just stared at her, she jumped up and gestured at the console. "It's the Doctor! He's here! He's in this universe! Please, you have to take me back! He said three days after we left, one in the afternoon. Level fifty of Torchwood."
"Torchwood?"
"Canary Wharf!"
As the Doctor bent over the controls and started turning knobs, Rose ran back down the ramp and stood by the door, ready to open it the second the TARDIS landed, which was taking forever.
After what seemed a lifetime, the TARDIS finally stopped moving and Rose yanked the door open, racing out into a corridor where she glanced at a sign. "Not level fifty!" she yelled, running towards the lift.
"Forty-nine's close enough!" the Doctor shouted back, running behind her.
Rose slapped the lift button as the Doctor caught up to her. "Not fast enough," she said, taking off for the nearby stairway, the Doctor on her heels.
She burst out of the stairwell into a corridor, the large room just ahead. In one of those weird time things that she tried not to think about too hard, she could hear the Doctor, her Doctor, saying, "We'll not talk about the leaving for a whole year thing, all right?" which had been his last message.
She flew into the room, instantly finding him even though his back was to her. "Doctor!"
He barely had time to turn around before Rose crashed into him, jumping into his arms and wrapping her arms around his neck. She both heard and felt him laugh as he swung her completely around before setting her down. His hands moved to her face and then he was kissing her, a kiss she could feel all the way down to her toes. She felt his smile against her lips, and he pulled away, but still held her face in his hands. She placed her hands on top of his, and nearly nose-to-nose now, he looked into her eyes with the biggest smile she had ever seen. "Did you miss me?"
Rose laughed and threw her arms around him again. "Absolutely not!" She was lifted off the ground again to the sound of his laughter, the best sound she had ever heard.
Rose felt herself tearing up in spite of wanting to break out the champagne. She dropped her head on his shoulder, trying to blink away the irksome tears. And then she was sniffling. Dammit. The Doctor held her tighter, moving one hand to the back of her head.
"Can't say as I missed you either," he said softly.
She clutched the back of his coat, afraid that if she let go he would vanish. "Not a dream, right?"
"Nope. Not a dream. Or a projection."
"Good. Hate those. A lot." Thankfully having gotten the sniffling under control, she sighed and then smiled, loving the feel of his arms around her again.
"Really?" the Doctor asked.
It took a moment to realize he wasn't talking to her. It was only then that she was even aware of the fact that Mickey was saying things like 'invasion' and 'space slugs' behind her. It figured that the universe, even a parallel one, wouldn't give them a minute before some cosmic shakedown. But hold on...
She let go of the Doctor and spun around, still holding the back of his coat with a hand. "Wait? Really? The slugs?"
The Doctor leaned his head towards her. "Familiar?"
"As I was leaving, some people were talking about a report of slugs. But they thought it was just a pest problem."
Mickey was back to pecking at the computer. "Yeah, it's a pest problem all right. They've been sucking the minerals out of the ground, so not Earth slugs. Not only are plants destroyed, but no more minerals means the ground's destroyed too."
"Sounds like you got a case of Urillites. Oh, nasty little buggers," the Doctor said.
"Oh. Right." That was the other Doctor, who Rose had quite frankly forgotten about. Was it just her, or was he looking sheepish?
"The plasma signature. Meant to take a look at that," he said as he ambled over to them.
Her Doctor was staring at the other incredulously. "You ignored a plasma signature?!"
"Hello!" He waved in Rose's direction. "Fainting blonde distraction!"
"Fainting? Really?"
Rose closed her eyes. "Yeah, thanks. Thanks very much. Never going to live that one down."
"Here I come out of the TARDIS, all set to check out this strange little signature, when I run into her and she decides to hit the ground."
"Great. Just keep going," Rose said dryly, giving him a glare which only made the other Doctor smirk at her.
"Should I tell him about the tequila?"
"Tequila?" Her Doctor was now raising an eyebrow at her.
"SPACE SLUGS," Rose yelled, clapping her hands. "Let's focus, people!"
*
Part 4
Rose knew she was on a bit of thin ice with the Doctor, but she was able to talk him into a quick trip to a clothing store. Sure the wardrobe was full of clean stuff, but she'd be damned if she was going to wear used knickers.
After a shower and some fresh clothes, she was feeling pretty fantastic. She was still on the TARDIS and was determined to stay there. 'Keep it to yourself,' was going to be her new motto. She'd be an able aide. Brilliant buddy. Competent companion.
She stopped at the Ds.
Back in the console room, Rose nearly crashed into the Doctor who had come to an abrupt stop upon opening the TARDIS door.
"Right. This isn't Bannet Nine either."
Rose tried to peer over his shoulder. "How d'you know that?"
"For one thing, everything's blue."
Rose stepped out of the TARDIS and sucked in her breath. The landscape was a hundred different shades of blue - the ground, the plants, the sky ranged from muted and almost grey to vivid cobalt and sapphire. It was one of the more stunning sights she had seen.
The Doctor grinned and patted the TARDIS. "She probably feels right at home here."
Rose smiled. "Getting in touch with her blue side?"
"Yeah," he said still smiling. "Come on."
They started down a nearby dirt path, light-blue dirt, towards what looked like a village. Block-shaped buildings, also a light shade of blue, clustered at the end of the trail. Rose could make out people moving around between them. Well, alien-type people. Their faces were bright, almost fluorescent, yellow.
"Nature's funny," the Doctor said.
"Aside from the obvious?"
"Bet there are tons of blue animals around. Good for hiding. But this lot? In their evolutionary scheme of things they wanted to be seen."
"Show-offs."
"More likely, less developed senses. Sorta like humans," he said brightly.
Rose gave him a chuckle.
They were now close enough to the village to hear faint noises of the villagers' daily activity carrying across the rolling landscape. The Doctor had fallen silent, his evolutionary biology lesson apparently done, and Rose found her mind wandering.
Yes, this was why she wanted to stay on the wrong TARDIS in the wrong universe. Wrong though it was, she hated the thought that she almost hadn't seen this place. And she wanted to see it all.
Okay, like the Doctor had said, maybe it was partly about running away.
Maybe it was the air, or maybe it was the perspective that only 10,000 light years distance could give, but Rose thought of something that she had never thought of before.
She frowned. "Got a question for you."
"Shoot."
"You think my mum thinks I'm rejecting her just because I'm choosing a different life? One that's not hers?"
"Oh no. No no no no!" He scowled and wagged a finger at her.
"What?"
"One - I don't know your mother from a tree, and two - family. Domestic. Issues. Keep it to yourself, remember?"
"I'm not talking about him," she insisted.
The Doctor shook his head and looked up at the sky. "I should start charging! Need your head shrunk? Step right up - the Doctor is in!"
"All right," she sighed. "Didn't realize the rule covered everything. Shutting up now."
They were nearing the first building when the Doctor stopped, squinting towards the sun.
"Kids grow up and leave home. It's the natural order of things. Nature being funny again," he said with a faraway look. "We want them to be like us, but doesn't always work that way. For a parent, it hurts like hell."
Rose didn't say anything, hoping he would go on, but he didn't. His expression returned to an amiable mask and he started to walk again.
They had finally caught the attention of the inhabitants. Excited cries greeted them and curious eyes stared at them. They were now close enough to see that in addition to the bright yellow skin, the alien's hair was either blue, green or some shade in between. Their clothes varied in all different colours in slightly different styles of trousers and tunics. They were average human height, but they were much skinnier than any human. Only four fingers per hand too.
The Doctor smiled and waved at them. "Hello! I'm the Doctor and this is Rose. We're travellers from beyond the sea."
Rose grinned; it was one of the Doctor's favoured introductions. 'Travellers from beyond the sea' had a tendency to work more often than not in places like this.
Murmurings came back at them, the Doctor still smiling away. To their right, the group parted and one of the inhabitants stepped forward.
"I am Rone, Council Chairman of the Rin village of Pal," he said, caution in his bright green eyes.
"Greetings, Council Chairman Rone of the Rin village of Pal," the Doctor bubbled back.
"You say you are from across the sea?"
"Yup. Just a couple of wanderers."
Rose gave the man a smile. Or maybe it was a woman. Rose realized that gender differences weren't really apparent in this crowd.
"Are you here for the festival?" Rone asked.
"That's right. Heard loads about your wonderful festival and we just had to check it out for ourselves."
That seemed to please not only Rone, but the surrounding crowd as well. Smiles appeared everywhere. "Then you are welcome. Come." Rone motioned for Rose and the Doctor to follow him into the village. People grabbed their hands as they passed. The overwhelming hospitality was really very moving.
"Fantastic!" the Doctor said enthusiastically. "Looks like a party!"
They both turned to each other at the same second. Rose quickly spoke. "I'm not touching a drop!"
*
They tried the easy route first, locating the address of Prescott Daniels – Jack's suspicious inventor – and walking up to the front door of his mansion. But instead of the inventor, they found an estate sale in progress. Doctor waved around the psychic paper, claiming they were taxmen. They poked around through Prescott's stuff, but nothing remotely world-hopping-sphere-ish turned up.
After a bit of patented Jack Harkness charm, they discovered that the sale hadn't been as a result of Prescott's death, but rather his disappearance. He had a history of going on holiday for long periods of time, so two years had passed before someone got the notion he wasn't coming back. That and the money in his bank account had run dry, slightly irking his two ex-wives.
And so they backtracked two years. When the door to the Prescott's mansion opened, the Doctor once again used the psychic paper to become taxmen. There really were two constants in the universe - death and taxes. They were immediately ushered into a room which was meant to demonstrate the inventor's greatness - pictures with famous people, medals and mock-ups of gadgets lined the walls of the office. It all surrounded a surly-looking man behind the desk.
"You're wasting your time. You need to talk to my accountant," Prescott Daniels said as they entered the room.
"And hello to you too," the Doctor answered. "No one has time for pleasantries any more. It's a shame, really. Pleasantries make the world so...pleasant."
Martha and Jack hung back as the Doctor walked towards the man sitting at his desk.
"Look, I'm a busy man..."
"Well, I'm not," the Doctor said, leaning his hands on the desk. "Actually, you could say I have all the time in the world. And, well, I do. I could stand here for fifty years if I wanted. Oh, the boredom would kick in after about a minute, but there's always singing. I'm rather partial to 'The Sound of Music.' I do a wicked 'Sixteen Going on Seventeen' you know."
Prescott was starting to look at him like he was mad. "You're not taxmen, are you?"
"Nope."
"What do you want? Money? I don't keep it here."
"But, Mr. Daniels, money can't buy me love. Oh, can't believe I just said that." The Doctor shook his head. "No, I want Traedan's Sphere, or the Orb of Raden or whatever little name you're calling it."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"But I think you do. You see, hopping between parallel worlds is something that would stick in a man's mind."
"You're daft."
Fortunately the Doctor caught the subtle movement, nearly obscured by the desk, of Prescott's hand reaching into the pocket of his coat, which hung over his chair. The Doctor lunged over the desk, grabbing the man by the collar, and suddenly everything shifted. He both saw and felt it. He'd experienced this before and knew they'd just jumped to another world.
The shift hadn't slowed his momentum and the Doctor slammed into Prescott, sending them both backwards over the chair. The Doctor's head made contact with the base of a potted plant, which stunned him enough for Prescott to make a break for it.
As the Doctor shook it off, he noted that the room was almost the same - minus Jack and Martha, and plus mock-ups of different gadgets. Apparently in this world, Prescott Daniels was the proud inventor of the warp drive.
The Doctor tore after him out of the room. He'd probably only have seconds before the man would have the common sense to jump back.
From the other end of the long entryway, the Doctor caught sight of him running out the front door and pushed his trainers to the limit, racing through the front door and leaping down the outside steps. Luck was on his side for once as Prescott wasn't in very good shape. The Doctor tackled him on the drive, which sent a brass-coloured orb flying, landing in the nearby grass.
Prescott tried to crawl to the sphere, but the Doctor pinned him to the ground. "Okay, I gotta ask. How in the parallel world do you keep the parallel worlds straight? You've got the same house, same furnishings, even the same plants. Do you change socks every universe or something?"
Prescott grunted at him.
"No need to be rude about it. I was just curious." The Doctor abandoned Prescott and scrambled after the orb.
It was funny, but having now seen it, the sphere looked vaguely familiar.
The Doctor scooped it up and sprinted down the drive. "Sorry, you're going to have to live with one reality's worth of wealth from now on. Ooh, hope there aren't too many ex-wives in this one," the Doctor called over his shoulder.
He doubted Prescott could catch up to him on foot, but there were always transports, and so he didn't stop running until he found a tall hedge that he hid behind.
The Doctor turned the sphere over in his hands. Now he knew where he'd seen something like it before, but he'd need the TARDIS to confirm it. This one was pocket-sized, and had movable graduated rings which made up the sphere. And the rings had markings on them, exactly like the ones from the stone tablets in New Earth and the planet of the Beast. He probably shouldn't have been surprised. He was, however, irked that he couldn't read them.
On opposite sides of the sphere, where the rings ended, were two slightly raised circles. Buttons, maybe? Since the rings were mostly likely settings, he did not want to mess with those at the moment. That left him with the buttons.
"Right. Here we go."
He pushed a button. Nothing.
He tried the other. Nothing again.
Both maybe?
'Please work please work please work,' ran through his mind as he pushed on both sides of the sphere.
The world shifted.
"YES!" He had it - the thing that would get him to Rose! He would have hugged it, but he didn't want to risk activating it again. But he needed to hug something. A ginger cat sauntered by, twitching its tail.
Oh, what the hell.
However, the cat was apparently not pleased to see a tall, grinning man bounding towards it. It hissed at him and shot off.
Right then. Cats were still on his list.
The Doctor made his way back and let himself into the mansion, really hoping that activating the sphere simply brought him back to the right universe, and he'd find Jack and Martha inside. Fortunately he heard their voices from Prescott's former office. Or was that the office of the former Prescott?
"...but we should definitely stay here." Martha's voice carried into the foyer.
"Right. Kinda like the old 'hug a tree' thing...only not, since he knows where we are," Jack responded.
"Wonder how long we should wait?"
"Five and a half hours. At least," the Doctor answered, entering the room.
Martha looked at the sphere in his hand. "You got it!"
"Five minutes. That was easy," Jack said, looking at his watch.
"Oh sure, easy. Never mind the sheer terror at the thought that I could have been stranded in another world. Or hopped back to some other world. Plus, I hit my head," he said, rubbing at it.
Martha and Jack smirked at each other and then passed him, heading outdoors.
"It hurt!" he yelled after them.
*
The festival turned out to be a harvest festival. Every table in sight was covered with food – bowls filled with fruits or vegetables, she wasn't sure which, as well as prepared dishes. Brightly-coloured flags and banners decorated the small village square. The sun had almost set, and torches were lit, surrounding the square in a yellow glow, turning the buildings a soft green. A band started playing some very loud folk-type music and people began to dance. Rose could barely hear over the music and laughter as she was offered different things to eat and drink. She only accepted the drink after a shouted exchange over the music convinced her it wasn't intoxicating. There was no way she was risking a repeat of Mexico.
After being handed a plate of what resembled a piece of pie, Rose found a porch step to sit on. Whatever was in the pie, it was really good - tasting like a cross between oranges and raspberries. She'd lost track of the Doctor about an hour ago and she scanned the crowd as she ate. He wasn't too hard to find, but Rose nearly choked upon finding him in the middle of the dancing throng.
Amused, she watched as the Doctor awkwardly followed the steps of a strange sort of dance with one of the Rin. He caught her gaze and grinned. She laughed back and gave him the thumbs-up sign.
He really was very goofy in this body. Not that he wasn't also goofy in his later body, but it was a different kind of goofy. Well, not his later body. Her Doctor's. Rose watched him do an embarrassing head-bob and wondered if she'd still be around when this one regenerated. Would he then look the same as her Doctor? Was that how that worked?
She finished off the pie, wondering what her Doctor was doing right now. Whatever it was, hopefully it was with someone. Even if it was dancing or...something. Yeah, even that, she decided. She wanted him to be happy.
Would still be nice if he thought about her every once in a while though.
The music paused between songs and Rose heard, "Would you like to dance?"
Rose looked up to a pair of very green eyes. She had no idea if the person was a man or a woman but it really didn't matter. She smiled. "Love to!"
A four-fingered hand pulled her up as the music began again, and soon Rose was dancing the same strange little dance she'd watched the Doctor bumble his way through. Hopefully she looked better doing it than he had.
Every once in a while she would bump into the Doctor or they would wave at each other from across the dancing crowd. She nearly doubled over with laughter at one point when he head-bobbed at her - probably the most powerful being in the universe, and he was a total dork.
They'd been dancing for hours now. The Doctor seemed unstoppable, but Rose had taken breaks every once in a while, where she was offered more food and more drink, most of which she felt she couldn't refuse. After a few more turns with someone in a black tunic, she was feeling very full and danced-out. She waved away her partner with a smile, and made her way back to the porch step.
The Doctor waved, and with a nod and a pat on the shoulder of his partner, joined Rose, flopping down next to her.
"Tired?" he yelled in her ear.
"A little," she yelled back.
"We can go."
"No, you're having fun."
Rose only realized the music had stopped when her voice echoed over the square. Everyone had stopped dancing, and was now staring at her and the Doctor.
The Doctor stood up. "We'd like to thank you for your lovely hospitality, but it's time we headed out."
Disappointed faces looked at them.
Rose pushed herself to her feet, feeling a bit guilty for causing the party to come to a grinding halt. "But your festival was by far the best I've ever been to on this whole entire planet!"
Pleased replaced disappointed.
"Nice," the Doctor said in a low voice.
"Walk them out!" someone shouted.
Cheers rose up from the crowd as torches were grabbed. The band stood up and began to play again, now walking. Apparently they were going to get a processional back to the TARDIS. Rose couldn't help but smile at their odd - but endearing - enthusiasm for two strangers who looked so different from themselves.
Back on the dirt road, they were now surrounded by the Rin who danced as they went. Rose got swept up by her last partner and they hopped merrily down the path in the middle of the crowd.
*
The Doctor and the TARDIS had been examining the sphere for the last thirteen hours. Every once in a while some food or a cup of tea would appear near his elbow. Since he didn't figure he was completely back in Jack's good graces, it must have been Martha.
To say that he had never seen anything like this technology before would be putting it mildly - he had never even conceived of something like it before, and that was saying something. The Beast's words of "before the universe" popped into his head, but he waved it aside. Although...he had seen something like it before, hadn't he? Just not up close and personal; never got to see how it all worked. There was no mistaking it, though - the sphere and the void ship the Daleks had used were the same technology.
He had at least discovered the reason for having to press both buttons – it was a safety feature, requiring the same genetic signature touching each button to activate. That way it couldn't be accidentally switched on, or suddenly disappear if dropped. His main goal was to decipher the characters so that he could use, and control, the sphere. Control being the important thing. Well, and making sure the universes wouldn't crack and implode if he used it. That too.
But the further he got in examining the sphere, the more he kept running into discoveries that he would have loved to ignore. In fact, he tried to ignore them, but kept bumping into the facts.
The TARDIS beeped, flashing a computation on the monitor.
"Yes! Got it!" he yelled. He grabbed the sphere and kissed it. "Oh, don't think you weren't a bit of a challenge, but I got you in the end! And you thought I'd get stuck in the parallel framework model." He wagged a finger at it.
"Hmm. Talking to inanimate objects. Good or bad?" Jack asked, entering the console room.
"Our luck? Probably bad." Martha was right on his heels.
The Doctor grinned at them. "It wasn't made by the Daleks. There's no way it could have been made by the Daleks."
"The sphere?" Jack asked.
"The void ship."
"Okay, you lost me," Martha said, pulling herself onto what the Doctor had come to consider her customary perch on the railing.
Jack leaned next to her. "Me too."
The Doctor waved dismissively at them. "The Daleks must have stumbled across the void ship, who knows where. Or maybe they captured it. Doesn't matter. Sure they figured out how to use it, geniuses and all, but in the crudest way possible. If A plus B equals C, they'll never stop to consider the hundred other variables that can get you to C, much less design something that way. Not even the Cult of Skaro."
"A plus B equals C?" Jack crossed his arms.
The Doctor ignored him, placing the sphere back on the console. "This is the same technology as the void ship, but the void ship and the sphere aren't designed to punch through universes. Well, they can punch through universes, but it would be like crashing through a wall to get inside a house, which is exactly what the Daleks did. Crude!"
He started pacing. "You see, the sphere and void ship weren't designed to explore the void, they were designed to explore the universes. The void ship to get inside and the sphere to hop between. And if I'm right," he laughed at the madness of it all, "...they were designed by something from the void."
Jack and Martha blinked at him.
"Oh, I know what you're thinking. The void is supposed to have nothing. No light, no sound, no matter, no time, nothing." He shook his head at the sphere. "But either that theory is wrong or life exists beyond known parameters." He raised his eyebrows. "There's something out there."
"That's actually kinda disturbing," Jack said. "Couldn't this being or beings be a threat?"
"Could be, sure. From the design, and an inconceivably brilliant design I might add, this entity could rip apart the universe like that." The Doctor clicked his fingers.
"Not doing anything to make me feel better here, Doctor," Jack said, obviously alarmed.
"Ah, but the universe is still here. Been here for billions of years. And will be here for billions more. I know, I've been there and back. Maybe they're just...visiting," he said, staring at the sphere. "And occasionally dropping off unwanted hell-beasts."
"Lovely," Jack replied.
Martha spoke up. "So...the writings in the cavern. How'd they know about your life? And why write it?"
"Not a clue. For all I know I could meet these beings centuries from now and tell them all myself so that I could find it, well, now." He grinned. "Quite literally a self-fulfilling prophesy. But since one of these things isn't here right now, we can't ask it."
"So, are we supposed to find these void beings?" she asked.
"Find them? God, no. They might want their sphere back. Nope, we're headed to Torchwood!" the Doctor declared as he ran over to the console, flipping a lever.
Martha hopped off the railing and moved to sphere, examining it. "So this little thing will actually get us to another world?"
"It's portable but powerful. The field on this thing could take the TARDIS," the Doctor explained, running back and forth between controls. "Come on! Faster! Yah!"
Jack jumped out of his way when he made another lap around the console. "So zap it and let's go!"
"Can't. The TARDIS won't survive in the other world. She needs to stay here. We can go on foot but since we won't be inside the TARDIS, we'll need to be in physical contact to make sure the field takes us all. Touching on arms only," he said, pointing at Jack while nimbly dodging around Martha.
Jack smirked. "So when in time do you wanna make your grand re-appearance?"
"It's going to have to be a guess. Well, a really good guess, but still. The universes fell out of sync when the Daleks and Cybermen decided to go storming through. Rose's father, well, not really her father but let's not get into that right now... Anyway, Pete said that three years had passed for them when for us only about six months had gone by, relative time. Time should have stabilized by now, but the trick will be figuring out which times line up. I'm starting at a week after it all happened."
"So we could wind up ten years down the road for them. And Rose could be..."
The Doctor didn't let him finish. "Well, we'll just have to sphere back over here, hop in the TARDIS and try again then, won't we? But let's hope we get it right the first time otherwise I'll have to pretend that I feel some sort of guilt for breaking up a future marriage or something. And I'm bad at faking guilt." He pumped the vortex loop control. "Always comes off as indifference with a slight hint of peckishness for some reason."
"We're actually going to go through in Torchwood?" Martha asked. "Not very smart, is it?"
"Oh, Torchwood loves me. Besides, the only other place I know of is Pete and Jackie's place and I'm not running into Jackie first."
The TARDIS' rotor stopped. The Doctor grabbed the sphere and bolted down the ramp, out into the giant, empty room in Torchwood. Plastic sheets covered doors at the far end, as if the place had been sealed off. Leave it to humans to ignore something frightening, pretending it never happened. It was why their history kept repeating itself.
"Come on! Coming or staying?!" the Doctor shouted back towards the TARDIS. "Come on! Come on! Come on!"
Jack and Martha scrambled over to him, grabbing his arms. The Doctor took a deep breath and activated the sphere.
Everything shifted. They were in the same room, but now people scurried around, apparently involved in something important, so much so that no one noticed three new people in the corner of the room. But the Doctor ignored them all when he spotted someone familiar bent over a computer.
"Mickey!"
Mickey turned and his mouth dropped open. "Oh my god."
Pocketing the sphere, the Doctor bounded over to him, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Never thought I'd say this, but am I glad to see you! Where's Rose? No wait. How long since she came here? Or...tell me where Rose is. No, tell me BOTH."
Mickey's mouth opened and closed.
"Yes, yes. You never thought you'd see me again. Snap out of it!" He gave Mickey's shoulders a shake.
"Well, it's been almost a year since that whole thing with the Cybermen and the Daleks," Mickey finally said.
"Okay, a year. That's doable. Probably."
"And Rose..." Mickey looked decidedly uncomfortable, which made the Doctor uncomfortable.
"What?" He gave Mickey another shake for good measure.
"Rose is with the Doctor."
The Doctor dropped his hands from Mickey's shoulders. "Sorry?"
"Yeah, three days ago Jackie gets this call. Turns out Rose ran into the Doctor and so she takes off. Pretty much the same old same old."
"That's impossible."
"Hey, I'm just telling you what Jackie told me."
"But I'm here now," the Doctor said. "Why would I go back in time to get her earlier? It would only serve to annoy me and I make it a policy never to annoy me."
"Thing is," Mickey said, swallowing hard. "She said it was this universe's Doctor. You know, two Mickeys, two Jackies, two Doctors? Said he looked like the old you."
The Doctor stared at Mickey. It wasn't possible. Time Lords existed outside of dimensions and so there was just no way. None.
But at the end of the war the walls of reality had closed to him and the worlds sealed. Had something else happened? With Gallifrey gone, was he now part of a dimensional existence just like everyone else? And was that why he had survived - instead of destruction had he fractured over realities?
It all seemed mad. Of course, up until a few minutes ago he had thought the void was just a big ball of nothing...
"Right. Three days ago? That's all?" the Doctor asked.
"Yeah."
The Doctor reached over the desk, grabbed the phone and began to dial Rose's number. He was not going to think about her problems with alternate versions of people and he most definitely was not going to think about the two of them off on some adventure at the moment.
It rang.
He still wasn't thinking about it.
Voice mail.
Just bloody brilliant.
The Doctor wondered if this was going to show up in the legend. 'And lo, the Lonely God did wait for the tone...'
*
They reached the TARDIS, many of the Rin dancing right past it, apparently determined to escort them to the sea, however far that was. Those clustered right around them, including Rose's dance partner, watched with puzzled expressions as the Doctor and Rose waved and stepped into the TARDIS.
It was only after the TARDIS door was shut that Rose realized her mobile phone was beeping at her. She pulled it out of her jacket pocket as the Doctor headed up towards the console. She stared at the screen.
Six messages.
Mum? The baby? What?
Rose felt the panic rise as she poked at her phone and listened.
- You have six new messages.
- Yeah, Rose?
- Here I come all the way to another universe and I find out you're travelling around with someone who is not me. Not that you could resist me in any universe naturally, but, you know, NOT ME. Did I mention the not me part? Just making sure so there's no confusion. Okay, there may be a question of how much of me he actually is... I suppose I didn't really need to tell you all that. Just for your sake, he's not me, all right? So get back here or...I'm taking off.
*BEEP*
Okay, I'm not taking off. Well, that is an option but only to circumvent the whole not-me thing. Although I have to say I'm more than a bit curious. Let's just call that Plan B. This is Plan A, by the way. The plan where you get back here.
*BEEP*
Right. Sorry. Here. Here's Torchwood.
*BEEP*
Time would be helpful. Three days after you left, one in the afternoon.
*BEEP*
OH! Have the not-me park in the big, long, former dimension-hole room. More dramatic that way. For the, uh, legend. I'll explain later.
*BEEP*
Right. Since nothing has materialized yet, I'm going to assume that not-me is a moron. Really, I'm not sure what kind of Time Lord he thinks he is. I'd watch out for him. I would have been able to do it. Well, probably been able to do it. Maybe. We'll not talk about the leaving for a whole year thing, all right?
*BEEP*
"Trouble?" the Doctor asked.
"Take me back right now!"
When he just stared at her, she jumped up and gestured at the console. "It's the Doctor! He's here! He's in this universe! Please, you have to take me back! He said three days after we left, one in the afternoon. Level fifty of Torchwood."
"Torchwood?"
"Canary Wharf!"
As the Doctor bent over the controls and started turning knobs, Rose ran back down the ramp and stood by the door, ready to open it the second the TARDIS landed, which was taking forever.
After what seemed a lifetime, the TARDIS finally stopped moving and Rose yanked the door open, racing out into a corridor where she glanced at a sign. "Not level fifty!" she yelled, running towards the lift.
"Forty-nine's close enough!" the Doctor shouted back, running behind her.
Rose slapped the lift button as the Doctor caught up to her. "Not fast enough," she said, taking off for the nearby stairway, the Doctor on her heels.
She burst out of the stairwell into a corridor, the large room just ahead. In one of those weird time things that she tried not to think about too hard, she could hear the Doctor, her Doctor, saying, "We'll not talk about the leaving for a whole year thing, all right?" which had been his last message.
She flew into the room, instantly finding him even though his back was to her. "Doctor!"
He barely had time to turn around before Rose crashed into him, jumping into his arms and wrapping her arms around his neck. She both heard and felt him laugh as he swung her completely around before setting her down. His hands moved to her face and then he was kissing her, a kiss she could feel all the way down to her toes. She felt his smile against her lips, and he pulled away, but still held her face in his hands. She placed her hands on top of his, and nearly nose-to-nose now, he looked into her eyes with the biggest smile she had ever seen. "Did you miss me?"
Rose laughed and threw her arms around him again. "Absolutely not!" She was lifted off the ground again to the sound of his laughter, the best sound she had ever heard.
Rose felt herself tearing up in spite of wanting to break out the champagne. She dropped her head on his shoulder, trying to blink away the irksome tears. And then she was sniffling. Dammit. The Doctor held her tighter, moving one hand to the back of her head.
"Can't say as I missed you either," he said softly.
She clutched the back of his coat, afraid that if she let go he would vanish. "Not a dream, right?"
"Nope. Not a dream. Or a projection."
"Good. Hate those. A lot." Thankfully having gotten the sniffling under control, she sighed and then smiled, loving the feel of his arms around her again.
"Really?" the Doctor asked.
It took a moment to realize he wasn't talking to her. It was only then that she was even aware of the fact that Mickey was saying things like 'invasion' and 'space slugs' behind her. It figured that the universe, even a parallel one, wouldn't give them a minute before some cosmic shakedown. But hold on...
She let go of the Doctor and spun around, still holding the back of his coat with a hand. "Wait? Really? The slugs?"
The Doctor leaned his head towards her. "Familiar?"
"As I was leaving, some people were talking about a report of slugs. But they thought it was just a pest problem."
Mickey was back to pecking at the computer. "Yeah, it's a pest problem all right. They've been sucking the minerals out of the ground, so not Earth slugs. Not only are plants destroyed, but no more minerals means the ground's destroyed too."
"Sounds like you got a case of Urillites. Oh, nasty little buggers," the Doctor said.
"Oh. Right." That was the other Doctor, who Rose had quite frankly forgotten about. Was it just her, or was he looking sheepish?
"The plasma signature. Meant to take a look at that," he said as he ambled over to them.
Her Doctor was staring at the other incredulously. "You ignored a plasma signature?!"
"Hello!" He waved in Rose's direction. "Fainting blonde distraction!"
"Fainting? Really?"
Rose closed her eyes. "Yeah, thanks. Thanks very much. Never going to live that one down."
"Here I come out of the TARDIS, all set to check out this strange little signature, when I run into her and she decides to hit the ground."
"Great. Just keep going," Rose said dryly, giving him a glare which only made the other Doctor smirk at her.
"Should I tell him about the tequila?"
"Tequila?" Her Doctor was now raising an eyebrow at her.
"SPACE SLUGS," Rose yelled, clapping her hands. "Let's focus, people!"
*
Part 4