Il Ne Faut Croire à Rien
"Il ne faut croire à rien, même à ses doutes." –as quoted by David Luke
"Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
. . . Footfalls echo in memory,
Down the passage we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.
--T S Eliot, "Burnt Norton"
Rose used to have nightmares about rooms that went on without end—her being lost in them, in the dark. Wandering the TARDIS alone had never before reawakened such anxieties. Then again, she tried not to make a habit of wandering the TARDIS alone. She'd immediately headed for the kitchen, her feet moving more or less automatically—toward tea, when she couldn't sleep. Sometimes she met the Doctor along the way, sometimes she was alone in the TARDIS' hum. She felt a pang, remembering how sometimes she'd stay up talking to Jack. Jack . . .
But this time she didn't take the tried-and-true route to the kitchen. She avoided the corridor that led down the steps to the kitchen; she didn't know exactly why. She was aware that the TARDIS could sometimes play tricks on a person, as though it enjoyed rearranging rooms. She was almost certain, though it had been the Doctor who had caused Adam's room to miraculously disappear and reappear that night before they landed on Satellite Five. She smiled at the thought of the Doctor, her first Doctor, and felt unsophisticated disappointment at the thought of Adam.
She knew where the library in the TARDIS was—the Cloister Room—various discarded console rooms—the kitchen, the wardrobe room—the Doctor had told her there was a pool somewhere, but she'd never found it. "Hmmm," he'd said thoughtfully, "maybe I jettisoned that. Can't remember." Her heart sank as she recalled running around the hallways and metal gantries with Mickey, the first day he'd spent in the TARDIS, before the whole Madame de Pompadour thing. She hoped he was happy. When she thought about him, she wasn't.
She found herself staring at a door down along hallway. Though the lighting in most parts of the TARDIS was harsh and green-tinged, here it was warm and welcoming. That put Rose on her guard, but she allowed herself to walk toward the door. It was a plain brown door with a brass knob. She cautiously put out a hand, touching what she expected to be cold metal. It was slightly warm, and she drew back. An absurd thought came to her: was someone in there? "Real smart, Rose," she chided. Only the silence answered her. What was that story, she tried to remember, about the serial killer who put all his dead wives in a room? Had that been a news feature or a morbid fairy tale?
She opened the door soundlessly. Her hand fumbled for a light switch. The light came on, warm as ever, upon two beds. "These are really girly," Rose said. She stepped into the pinks and reds in what appeared to be a bedroom for two girls. She reached down to touch the bedclothes of the nearest one. No, no one had slept here recently, but someone had lived here once—perhaps for a long time. Rose had seen "ghosts," but now it felt as if she were one: walking in on the remains of someone else's lives.
She bent down to examine a picture frame on the nightstand separating the two beds. There was no photograph in the frame. She opened a drawer in the nightstand; it was empty. She opened closet doors; there were hangers, but no clothes. It was all immaculate, with no clue to its previous owners. But Rose thought she could hazard a guess about one of them. Sarah Jane Smith. A feeling of—what? Jealousy? Curiosity? Regret? Whatever it was shimmied down her spine. She closed the closet door abruptly. Then it hit her: the sudden, powerful scent of flowers. Like perfume and yet not so artificial. Like bouquets upon bouquets of jasmine and freesias. Perhaps some other flower whose name she did not know. Had she released it when she'd opened the closet door? She grabbed an empty chair to steady herself. Why was it so powerful? It was so thick, she expected to see incense floating through the air.
Just as suddenly, the names formed in her mind. Tegan Jovanka. Nyssa. She blinked, looking for where she'd read them. But they weren't written anywhere—they'd just appeared in her head. "Oi!" she shouted, looking upward. "Who said you could do that? I didn't ask you to!" Well, maybe she had. The names raced around her mind like dogs chasing cats. Without pause, without respite, TeganNyssaTeganNyssa . . . The smell was too much; it was putting her to sleep. She opened the door and stepped out into the hall, shivering. She moved a few steps down, glancing over her shoulder at the door. She came upon another, as dull and disingenuous to the sight as the first. "Okay, let's find out wha's behind door number two," she said with a levity she did not feel.
The room was smaller and gone were the frilly girly trappings. It was sober, with one bed, though the abundance of bright colors and geometric shapes suggested it was the room of a child. A boy's room. The smell she could not describe. It was too alien to her, but somehow not unpleasant. She tingled in half-fearful expectation. Then it came. The name was Adric. She assumed it was a boy's name. Why was the TARDIS giving her all this? She hadn't exactly liked the idea of the Doctor having had companions before he got to her, but she'd gotten used to it. She knew the Doctor wouldn't want to talk about it, but she wasn't going to let him off the hook this time.
When she stepped out of the room, the light in the hallway was cold and artificial again. She knew she'd probably never find this place again, the bedrooms of Tegan and Nyssa and Adric, even if she tried. Looking into the shadow, she was sure there were doors and rooms left, waiting to be seen, but she decided she needed the familiarity of the kitchen, of a good cup of tea—and she needed it now. She made her way back toward her room, refusing to be intimidated by the idea of her nightmare, that she would be lost forever in the bowels of the TARDIS. She debated stopping off at her room to get a jumper, she was starting to feel cold. But she didn't stop until she found the kitchen door, in all its strangely comforting kitsch.
She wasn't really surprised to see the Doctor. He was sitting at the table, feet up on the chair next to him, devil-may-care. He had a steaming cup of tea on the table in front of him, and he was reading. Rose looked at the book. My 900 Year Diary, it said. Before she could get a closer look, he put his feet down and removed his glasses in the same motion. "Rose! Hello!" he exclaimed, getting to his feet. "Came for a cup of tea, I reckon?" She nodded. He leapt to the cabinets before she could even take a step. "Luckily for you, I've just boiled a pot." He poured the dark, scented liquid into a flowery, delicate cup.
She took it from him shyly. "Ffanks." He grinned at her. She nodded toward the book. "You keepin' a diary?"
He crossed in front of her before she could move an inch. "Well, I, uh . . ." He cleared his throat and smiled again, dazzlingly. "Couldn't sleep?" She shook her head. He nonchalantly picked up the diary and stuffed it in his inside jacket pocket. "I seem to remember you had a penchant for wandering around at night." He was staring at the brown betty teapot now, as if it were a lot more interesting than she was.
She warmed her hands around the tea cup he'd given her. "Doctor," she said, "do you remember Sarah Jane?"
He rubbed a spot on the teapot with a handkerchief. "Of course I do!" His voice got inexorably tighter: "Why do you ask?"
She set down her teacup and walked toward him. "I found some rooms tonight. Bedrooms, I mean. They must have belonged to someone. You . . . never showed them to me, in the grand tour."
He gave the teapot a final vigorous shine, favoring her with a short look, his voice deceptively aloof. "Well, if I didn't, there was a reason behind it."
She reached out and placed his hand over his. "Doctor, please. I'm not angry. Just curious."
He lifted an eyebrow. "You know what they say, don't you?" He turned and moved toward the door, squeaking on his trainers. "About cats."
"Who was Tegan?" Rose said loudly, stopping him at the door. "Tegan Jovanka? And Nyssa?"
He leaned against the door frame, dropping his head to one side, as if inexpressibly weary. "I suppose the TARDIS told you their names."
She moved toward him slowly. "The TARDIS led me to the room." She cracked a smile. "It must have had a reason."
He spun around, his brown eyes accusatory. "Oh, reason's got nothing to do with it." Rose shook her head sadly, eyebrows drawing together. The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. "If I say anything, you're going to get angry. Don't think I've forgotten how you got when you found out about Sarah Jane."
Rose flushed. "I don't care . . . I mean, not like that. I just wanted to know who they were." He looked away and said nothing. She scoffed loudly and went back to sit down at the table. She sipped her tea in silence.
"Tegan . . . was an air stewardess," the Doctor said finally. He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.
Rose tried not to sound as interested as she felt. "Like a flight attendant?"
The Doctor clicked his fingers. "Yes! You call them flight attendants. She, um, liked to argue." Rose smiled. "And she was Australian."
"Really? I thought she was an alien."
The Doctor laughed. "What gave you that impression?"
"The name, I guess," Rose said quietly.
"Nah, Nyssa was the alien," he replied, moving back toward his tea. "She was a princess of Traken. Great at maths, too."
Rose couldn't tell if the fondness coming through was from remembered friendship or more, but she was surprised to find herself uninterested in that at the moment. "So you traveled with two people at the same time?"
"There've been loads of people in the TARDIS at once—remember, I told you about Ben and Polly?"
At the time, he'd said nothing about Ben and Polly traveling with him for any extended period of time—just that they made time in the TARDIS tricky. "How could I forget?"
His smile faded. "Oh, that was ages ago. I was so young then . . ."
She found it difficult to reconcile his words with his youthful appearance. "What did you look like then?"
"Me?" He pointed to his face. "Blonde."
She laughed. "You—blonde?"
"I was blonde for years—didn't even need peroxide."
"Oi!" She punched him in the shoulder. "Be nice."
"You're the one who asked."
She took a long gulp of tea. "So, where are they now?"
"Who?"
"Nyssa and Tegan."
The Doctor looked down. "I'm sure they're having the time of their lives, away from this crazy box and . . . me." His smile was gentle and unconvincing.
"Were they like Sarah Jane?" Rose asked quietly. "Did you leave them off somewhere, when they really expected you to come back for them?"
The Doctor swallowed. "Rose, you have every right to ask these questions." He turned and walked through the door. "And I have every right not to answer them."
"What about Adric?"
She ran through the door and past him, blocking his path. She had never seen him go so white. "Don't ask," he breathed, "about Adric."
She flinched. She wasn't sure what this reaction meant, but she had a pretty good idea. The Doctor—saver of worlds, hero, mentor, friend—conqueror of nightmares. The love of her life. It somehow hadn't occurred to her before that he'd let the good guys die—the people who'd been in her very place. How many? she wondered. It wasn't the possibility of death that scared her. She'd long grown past that. It was not knowing this man she entrusted her life to. Knowing that she would never know him, not really. "Doctor . . ."
"Just stop," he said coldly. "I knew this would happen. I tried to warn you—"
"Why don't you just erase people's memories?" she blurted out. She could see that she'd startled him. "The people who've traveled with you." She turned away from him. "So they don't have to be like Sarah Jane, lamenting over a life wasted waitin' for you to come back. You're dooming them to a life of disappointment, Doctor! Why do you do it?"
"Their minds were erased!" he shouted, suddenly toweringly angry. "Jamie and Zoe, the Time Lords did erase their memories! The TARDIS, the universe, all of that was lost to them!" He strode through the corridor, gesticulating wildly. "Nobody asked them if they wanted it, it was just done to them! Now they're wandering around, with no idea they traveled with a Doctor, or any idea what a time machine is!" His eyes were blazing. "And I miss them, Rose—I don't just forget! That would be too easy. I can never forget, I'm a Time Lord, remember?"
She looked down, taking his blows with patience. "If you miss them, then why don't you talk about them?"
"They sleep in here," he shouted, pointing to his forehead, "so I don't have to. Think it's fun, Rose, dredging up all of this?" She crumpled, shook her head. "So, how about it?" he asked. "You want me to give you the choice when the time comes? To remember, or to forget?"
"Doctor . . ." She tried not to let her voice break.
He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry." He hesitantly opened his arms. Was he offering explanation through open palms? Or did he want her to hug him?
"Yeah, I'm sorry, too," she said. "I shouldn't have said anything."
He encircled her in a hug. "It was only natural." He sighed. "I forget how potent human curiosity is." He gave a glare upward.
Even when she hugged him, she never felt warm. "I miss . . . Mickey, Doctor. I'm sorry."
"I know," he said softly. "I know."
"I want to say somefink." She straightened up, gazed into the dark eyes, now emotionless.
"Go ahead."
"I don't want to ever forget."
He looked down, forehead wrinkling. "You're sure about that? Take it from someone who knows—"
"Whatever happens, I want to remember."
He nodded, then let her go. "Better get to sleep. Who knows where the morning will find us?"
" 'Kay." She waited until he had walked off. She hoped one day he'd say a little more about Tegan and the others. She should really feel jealous, threatened, by the fact he'd done all of this before. But instead, it made her feel less alone. And the universe was so large, it was easy to feel alone.