The Origin Encounters
SPOILER ALERT! DO NOT READ UNLESS UP TO DATE ON ALL EPISODES.
AN: Takes place during S1E8- Father's Day. I'm not going to bore you with recounting the entire episode, much of the events are skimmed over because they happen exactly as it happened in the episode.
Chapter 1: Encounter 9.1-23
When Rose approached him with the desire to see her deceased father, the Doctor allowed it. After seeing the tiny sliver of the universe he'd shown her, of course she'd want to visit a father she'd never met. He didn't think anything wrong about allowing it until she wanted to change events so Peter Tyler had someone with him when he died. Still, changing something like that, the particular about someone being with the man was likely in flux, though the main event, Peter Tyler's death was certainly a fixed point. She looked at him with those sad eyes of hers, telling him the story of how he died and he was punching in the date and searching for the proper spatial coordinates.
They stood on the street, and witnessed Peter's death. He prompted Rose to go to him but she was frozen in shock. He mentally kicked himself. Of course, this was likely the first time she'd witnessed someone violently killed. Instead of running to Peter, she ran off, unable to stand so close to her dying father. They leaned against the brick of the building hiding the scene. She gave him the same eyes and asked that she try again. His mouth said yes and his mind screamed. He was playing with dangerous and deadly fire. Going back into their own timelines was a disastrous idea.
As they walked back to the TARDIS, he reasoned with himself. It would be a short amount of overlap. No more than a few minutes. As long as they didn't allow themselves to be seen by themselves no dangerous paradox will be made and no hole would be made. As he punched in the new coordinates into the TARDIS, and observed his depressed companion, he remembered he had to tell Rose it was a time machine to get her to come. Was this her real goal? Did she think of this plan from the start? Surely not.
He spared a train of thought for the worst case scenario, they ripped a hole in reality. That was bad. Could he fix it? Maybe. He drummed his fingers on the console thinking it over. He wasn't sure if he could fix a hole in reality on his own. He'd feel better if he had help waiting in the wings. But that meant calling Sena.
Just thinking of the human hybrid's name made him angry. He'd begged for a different way but she's refused to answer his pleas, which forced him to do something very drastic. If he were honest with himself the anger he felt was hollow. The situation wasn't her fault, she'd flat out told him after there was nothing she could've done. As fixed points went it was one of the most important fixed points of all existence. He remembered asking why, but she told him he'd have to wait for that answer. That was all he needed to know. The version of Sena he was talking too was from his future. He remembered asking if things were better in the future. She replied by telling him to go travelling. Do what he did before, go about the universe, see what there was to see.
Sena, like the Doctor, was not her real name. He didn't know what it actually was, and he'd always assumed the reason for her secrecy had something to do with Words of Power. Though the practise had died out, it didn't mean the ability ceased. Sena's past was a bit of a mystery to him. What he did know, however, made him feel like a privileged man.
She was hybrid, her mother was human, her father was vitus. The vitus were an amphibious race, fish people or merpeople. Sena took on a more human outward appearance, differences showing themselves at her feet, hands, neck, eyes and hair. She had long webbed fingers and toes, but her feet and palms were small. There were gills up and down the sides of her neck that opened in water or an extremely moist environment. When they were closed there were faint lines indicating where they were. Easy to ignore unless under a trained eye. Her hair was coarse and a dark green. Had a tendency to snag small light objects, grass, leaves, the occasional stray bird. She normally kept it contained but there were a few moments when containing hair was not the priority. Last difference were her eyes. They were larger than a normal human's but not obscenely so. Her eyes shifted between yellow, blue and white, depending on the situation. Based on the Doctor's observations thus far, her eyes were yellow after she'd been in water, blue if she wasn't in water and white when she was thinking. When her eyes turned white, they also had a tendency to softly glow with the power she was amassing. Her physical appearance though, was not what made him feel privileged.
What made him feel privileged was what she was. One, possibly the only person, to figure out and master the Skasis Paradigm. She knew how to make all of reality dance and do her bidding. She had an infinity number of universes to take her attention but she chose to give him her communicator, phone, number. She wasn't interested in him that way, just friendship. Several of his previous companions questioned if she was trying to gain his affections. She'd shot them down each time saying, "I don't have a TARDIS to bring my friends on adventures with. Besides, he's taken by someone else. I'd be an idiot to get between a couple and clearly I'm no idiot." Then she'd say she was engaged to reality or the universe.
Now, because they met so often, they had a naming system in place for each of their encounters. The first time he'd ever met her the name was 1.1-9. Meaning, it was the first time he'd met her in his first regeneration and it was her ninth time meeting him. This helped to figure out who was further ahead than the other without giving away anything. It made conversations easier and helped to explain little quirks or changes in the other, such as changes in dress, demeanour even the change in the Doctor's companions. It was Sena who taught him this code, at the beginning of 1.1-9, but she said it was the other way around, he'd taught her it. At the Doctor's current moment, he'd yet to have to teach Sena the code. Their first meeting from Sena's perspective was still to come.
Despite meeting thirty times now, she never really stuck around long. Either appeared out of the blue or came when summoned, then found a reason to escape just as fast. She had a tendency to show up when the universe was in some serious danger of not existing anymore, and a few times when his life was in danger. She didn't show up every time, so far only the truly hopeless times.
As he landed the TARDIS, with surprisingly little complaint from the old girl, and led Rose outside, he couldn't help but wonder if today was going to be encounter 9.1. He warned Rose that it would be a very bad idea if the past them saw the future selves and instructed her to go to her father once their past selves left. When she started to panic, he gave her a way out, but told her they couldn't come back again. It was far too risky. Then she'd gone and broke all of his instructions.
She ran to save her father's life. Their past selves saw her, Rose and her father rolled out of the way of the car, even the vase was saved. The Doctor was angry. She'd disobeyed his instructions. They're past selves dissolved, events were now falling apart. Damn it. The worst case scenario. He should've sucked up his feelings and just sent Sena a message.
Wait a moment. The man's death was a fixed event, and they were talking in the epicentre of the hole like it didn't exist. He remembered witnessing the man's death from moments ago, time wove around Pete in a fixed knot. Somehow that knot was loose, looser than he'd thought. Perhaps the flexible details around his death extended to the location of his death as well. The lack of destruction around them seemed to lend itself to that theory as well.
They were looking at him. His thoughts about the situation were put on hold as Pete showed them to his and Jackie's apartment with the offered ride to some wedding. The Doctor didn't trust himself to talk so he just went along with whatever was happening. When Pete left to go change Rose started to point out different things. The trophies, the water, something about solar power, all inventions he never had a chance to work on. He was about to explain to her the danger they were in when she made a comment that brought a previous thought back.
"Mum said he was going to do that, now he can." Rose said giving him a small smile. She'd saved a life, this was something to be happy over. The Doctor was still frowning at her, she hoped he wasn't angry at her for saving her father. "Kay, look I'll tell him you're not my boyfriend."
The thought was burning in his head, he needed to know, was he used by this human?
"When we met I said 'travel with me through space', you said no. Then I said time machine."
"It wasn't a plan." Rose protested. "I just saw it happening and thought I could stop it."
The Doctor was simultaneously relieved and angered by her answer. He was relieved she didn't have this plan from the beginning but angered that he'd picked a greedy human. Why did no one understand the universe didn't owe anyone anything? "I did it again." He vented. "I picked another stupid ape. It's not about showing you the universe, it's about the universe doing something for you."
Rose blinked, "So it's alright for you to go to other times and save lives but it's not ok for me to save my dad?"
"I know what I'm doing, you don't. There's now two sets of us who are aware of each other at the same moment. That's a vulnerable point in reality."
"But he's alive now."
She wasn't getting it. Her head was still clouded by the prospect of her father being alive, she wasn't seeing the potential damage, which should be appearing any moment now.
"My entire planet died, my whole family." He said, "Do you think it never occurred to me to go back and save them?"
"But it's not like I've changed history." Rose insisted. "I mean, he's never going to be a world leader, he's not going to go start world war three."
She still hadn't gotten it.
"Rose. There's a man alive in the world when he should be dead. Ordinary or not, the whole world is different now he's alive."
"So you'd rather him dead?"
"I'm not saying that-."
Rose's expression changed. She was angry. "No, I get it now. For once, you're not the most important man in my life."
This conversation wasn't going anywhere. It was spiralling out of control. They were both angry at each other, Rose wouldn't listen to him and the Doctor was only getting angrier.
"Fine let's see how you get on without me then. Give me the TARDIS key." The Doctor said, holding out his hand. Rose looked shocked. "If I'm so insignificant give me the key back."
"Alright then here." Rose said, pulling the key from her pocket and handing it over.
"You've got what you wanted so this is goodbye." The Doctor said, then headed for the door.
"You don't scare me!" Rose said, cutting him off. He was about to abandon her in the past, and be alone again. "I know how sad you are. You'll be back in a minute, or you'll wait around outside the TARDIS for me."
The Doctor didn't trust his mouth again. She didn't understand what she'd done. He pushed past and left, ignoring whatever Rose shouted at him. He headed straight to where he'd parked the TARDIS. He was going to fix this, somehow. First he needed his TARDIS.
"So is this what we've come too now? To get my attention you'll cause rips in reality?" A voice asked. The Doctor stopped at the first word and turned to face the person speaking. Sena was sitting on the other side of the iron fence of the park he was going around. She looked very out of place in this time on earth. She wore loose light brown pants and a loose brown wide necked t-shirt, bordering on ridiculously oversized. Underneath the shirt was a tight white long sleeve shirt. She wore a scarf over her hair and around her neck, hiding her gills and green hair. She also wore gloves and boots that also hid her amphibious ancestry. The three part communicator was there, thick cuff on her wrist, tight module secured around her neck by her voice box and if he wanted to check there would be a nub behind her right ear. She was looking at him with white eyes.
"What are you talking about?" The Doctor responded. "It's me who's angry at you!"
She blinked once, then again, eyes switching from white to blue. "Sorry. Wrong you, wrong body even. What's this encounter?"
"Nine point one." He replied.
"Twenty-three."
"I'm ahead of you." The Doctor said. Sena scoffed.
"You would think that." She stood, heading over to the fence. "Back to the problem at hand. You, well more accurately, your companion saved someone, a fixed someone, from dying."
"Yes." He conffirmed. "Hang on, were you following us?"
"Nope." Sena shook her head. At his look she explained. "You're stalking towards the TARDIS, alone, looking angry, coming from a residential area of, whatever city this is, on Earth. If you were the one who'd saved the dead person you'd have done it a different way or not done it at all. Now you understand the consequences of changing a fixed point so you'd have to be forced into doing it, while that explains the anger, it doesn't explain the lack of running. So you didn't actually save the someone, your companion did and they don't understand why it was a bad thing."
"Do you really have to be such a know-it all?!" The Doctor asked. His bad mood wasn't giving him much patience with the show off attitude Sena seemed to want to display. Sena blinked.
"Sorry. Am I going to do something that will make you angry?" Sena quickly asked. The Doctor closed his eyes, thinking back on the events. He remembered the beginning of the fight they got in. She'd said twenty-five. The Sena he was talking too wasn't the Sena he was angry at.
"Yes you do." He admitted.
"I'm sure I had a reason why I made you angry." She tried to console him. She wouldn't apologize for her future actions.
"And it was a perfectly good reason." He replied. "Now, enough digging into your future. How bad is the damage?"
"Erm. In terms of the universe existing, not bad actually. The universe is already in the process of fixing everything. It's ready to accept the change that the death never happened, and everything's underway to smoothen this wrinkle out." Sena told him. The Doctor frowned.
"I thought Peter Tyler's death was a fixed point. It looked like a fixed point."
Sena nodded. "Oh yes it was. But the universe is willing to let him live, he dies in a year anyway. Brain aneurysm, had it since birth."
"So Rose saved him on for-, wait." The Doctor said, walking to the fence and grabbed two rails. "I thought you said you didn't follow us."
"Oh please. Time is going to rewrite itself, of course I'm going to witness the moment that causes it." Sena replied. "I didn't lie! I never followed you. You were already there when I showed up. When you left the street I found your TARDIS then sat here. I didn't follow you, I waited for you."
"Fine, you said time is going to rewrite itself? What changes?"
"Yes. Not much changes just a little-," She blinked, eyes changing from blue to white. She jerked around. "Something is wrong."
Taking her cue, the Doctor started to look around. The hairs were standing on the back of his neck. He couldn't see anything.
"What is it?"
"Something's taking advantage of the rewrite, using it as a gateway to this time." She hurriedly spoke. "They've stopped the process."
The Doctor needed no more words, he broke into a run, hand going for the TARDIS key. On the other side of the fence, Sena followed. He twisted the key and opened the doors to find the box was, for once, exactly as it appeared. The TARDIS was gone. Sena climbed the fence, not pausing when she ripped her pant leg and collided with the Doctor inside the wooden box.
"What?!" She exclaimed. "Is this some new trick of hers?!"
"No it's not, the TARDIS is gone." The Doctor replied, knowing Sena was referring to the mutual disagreement between Sena and his TARDIS. The TARDIS didn't like Sena, always complained when she was on board and never let the hybrid touch any controls without a hostile zap. Sena, therefore, didn't like the TARDIS. "Rose!"
He was about to run off when Sena caught his arm. "Where?"
"Church, not far."
"I'll stop anymore from coming through. Depending on how many are here, I don't know if I can get the rewrite safety started." She warned.
"Then hurry up." The Doctor replied. She let go, and he ran off.
That was the end of encounter 9.1-23. He didn't see or hear of Sena when he was at the church, trying to figure another way out. He saw the car that was supposed to kill Pete, and he recognized the distortion pattern around the car when it appeared and disappeared around the corner. Wherever Sena was, she'd decided the rewrite wasn't possible, so she'd re-created the instrument of Pete's death. She must be holding back, or possibly holding together this timeline otherwise she'd have shown up and told him.
After they got back to the TARDIS, a tiny bell on the console started ringing. It didn't stop ringing until the Doctor hit a switch and looked at the monitor.
"What was that?" Rose asked, not remembering the bell ever ringing before.
"It's a bell that rings when I've got a message." The Doctor replied.
"A message? Who is it?" She asked, coming over to the screen. The display wasn't translating for her. The Doctor was silent for a moment while he read.
Everything has reverted safely. It's no longer a vulnerable point. Lucky everything else about his death was in flux. Don't worry about any stray Reapers, I'm personally escorting them back. Oh! I came across an advertisement a bit ago, Hedgewick's World of Wonders. Supposed to be some amusement park world. Have you been there? Apparently its the best theme park of the Hashtay galaxy. Opened 4571/398x12561/cup.
"What does it say?" Rose asked again.
"It's an ad." The Doctor replied. "For some amusement planet. It's claiming to be the best in the Hashtay galaxy. They're advertising a few rides and such."
Rose suddenly started to smile. The Doctor copied, not sure what had brought the good feeling on. "What?"
She gave him a chuckle. "Not even Time Lords are free of junk mail."
AN: Maybe Confused? Good. I'm trying to explain everything in a coherent manner but it's hard when the beginning is in the middle of the middle near the end. If I'm losing you, please say so. I've got so many timelines stuck in my head I don't know if I've got everything straight. (Seriously, try sorting out River Song's timeline, it gets confusing.)
Find any typos or loopholes? Have any questions or comments? PM or review to ask.