A/N: Hello and welcome to my Doctor Who story. For those of you who have read my writing before, you know that I like to keep my characters as true to form as possible, and this is no exception. Writing the Doctor has been a challenge and a pleasure, because he is one of my favorite characters. I hope you enjoy this story and the many twists and turns to come. If you like it, please leave me a review. Feel free to give suggestions and critiques. Allons-y!
XxX
Chapter 1.
The Doctor and the Ripple.
Rose Tyler was sitting by, perhaps, the biggest swimming pool in the universe. Its stadiums stretched up into the sky, past the clouds and the floating orbs that emulated sunlight; rows and rows of blue and white seats, perfectly folded and numbered, rose up along symmetrical aisles; the water was its own ocean, with increasingly threatening waves and dark shadows the further one drifted into the deep end. It was absolutely colossal, and undoubtedly impressive. She could have honestly sat there all day relaxing in the shallows, basking in the warmth and building castles in the silvery sand. It was the truest form of paradise.
If anyone else had walked into this stadium, they would never believe it was tucked away inside a little blue police box – and that was certainly the thrilling part. Her best mate, owner of said little police box, loved spouting his favorite line. It's bigger on the inside. But it never stuck, not until people saw something like this. It still took her breath away sometimes.
Beyond the pool, he had a multi-level library, seemingly endless corridors and assorted rooms, and peculiar creatures skittering about at night, all hidden somewhere in this box. Sometimes the hallways changed. Sometimes random lights came on at night, like someone was walking through a junction when there was no one to be seen. It was a living, feeling creature they were relaxing inside of, encompassing all of time and space and doing it with perfect majesty.
But the box, properly called the TARDIS, was not the most incredible thing she had come to know in the past year or so. It was the man behind it, her best mate, the Doctor himself.
He was the most peculiar and wonderful man she had ever known.
He was there now, spread dramatically by the edge of the pool, filling up a lounge chair, wearing a pinstriped suit and his duster like he was most certainly not at any sort of beach. But he was. He was sipping a drink from a coconut, occasionally lifting his shades to scan the water. In this warm light he managed to glow a little more than usual. He had that brown hair all poofed up – something she had tried to catch him doing on multiple occasions.
The Doctor was usually bubbly, an irrepressible ball of light, but their recent run-in with a parallel universe left him with a pinched brow. Rose was still feeling it, too, but somehow it meant more to him. He was letting himself get lost in what could have been.
Rose had already done her crying, hugged her mum, and spent a few days at home to make sure nothing terrible would happen to her. But the Doctor, when he chose not to share what he was feeling with her, had no one else to talk to. As far as she knew, she was his only friend. Whatever went on in his head was sealed away until he decided it should come out.
Something was wrong. She knew it.
He was uncharacteristically quiet today – no humming, no spontaneous facts about swimming pools, no explanation of the clouds hovering high above. He loved to show off how smart he was. He was just living in his head today, thinking serious thoughts.
"Doctor?"
Rose came to the edge of the shallows, leaning her arms on the soft side of the pool. Her voice echoed harshly all around them. The Doctor gave her a raised eyebrow to show that he heard her, but he said nothing.
"Do you have sharks in this pool?"
Giving him a nonsense question usually made him smile.
Now he just drew his shades up, and pursed his lips, and shrugged. "Could have. Might have. Probably have. I have a big old squid named Roy, but he's harmless. Or it might be a 'she.' I never checked. Squids are rather… ambiguous."
Rose swam right to the stairs and came out. "You might have told me that before I got in."
Finally, he smiled. "Semantics."
"Don't think you're using that right." Rose returned the smile, glad to have him talking again. The TARDIS was eerie when the Doctor was quiet. She laid in the chair beside him, nuzzling the warm plastic. "Can I have one of those orbs in my room?"
The Doctor turned on his side, popped his glasses off, and tossed them into the water. "Why was I wearing those? Seems arbitrary without sunlight. And no, you'd burn up to a crisp if you were that close. They emulate the sun, they're not space heaters."
Rose stared up at them through the clouds. "Rather burn up than get eaten by a squid."
He grinned. "Roy only eats mutant krill. Besides, I wasn't going to let anything gobble you up in there. I was watching."
"Were you? From here it looked like you were being all broody."
Rose surveyed him for a moment, getting caught up in those playful eyes of his. He changed so quickly from being deep in thought to showing off his childish side. When she had first met him, it seemed, for a time, all there was inside was darkness, with little glimmers of youthful light – and now it was the opposite. But the glimmers of darkness in him were much more profound.
She usually let it go, let it fade away, but after everything that had happened in the other world, she had to ask. "What were you thinking about, anyway?"
"Little tiny people."
He seemed honest enough.
Rose laughed. "You could be more specific."
"I could. And I will." He scooted closer, leaning in importantly. "I found a planet once with a whole race of tiny little people – no bigger than a foot high each – who lived on the coast, on beaches with black sand."
"You're makin' that up."
"I am not!" His flashed a broad, beautiful grin. "I forgot where I found them, though, so I was thinking about it. I might have it. I see you doubting me, but listen, they make these tiny little drinks – out of tiny little coconuts – that taste divine. Like if satin were served liquid with a little paper umbrella. You have to have thirty or forty to really get the taste, but you can't miss it. Oh, and live music, with a tiny little saxophone and tiny little sunglasses on tiny little blind man. I swear by it, Rose, that tiny man is a genius!"
Rose nodded along, glad he had his spark back, and also weary of his description. It sounded strange, even for the two of them. In the past they had dealt with werewolves and ghosts and Daleks, and not one of those adventures started on purpose.
Was she really ready to jump back into the frying pan?
She answered him with faux caution, because the smile on his face had already tempted her. He had to know by now she would follow him anywhere.
"It sounds… farfetched."
"Right?"
"I suppose that is our style."
"Besides, what could possibly go wrong on a beautiful beach with little tiny people and coconut drinks? Oh, no, shouldn't have said that. Never say that. Just for future reference. Jinxes are real. Anyway, there's no chance with this, I swear. Not even a little tiny one."
Sometimes she wondered if he planned their excursions specifically to run into trouble. It was nice to have the promise of peace for once. Just her and the Doctor, relaxing on a beach with tiny little people. "So the little tiny people are completely safe?"
"Certified."
"And no one will spike our drinks, or try and turn us into robots?"
"That is correct."
Rose tilted her head back and forth, pretending to sort out her choices. The Doctor already knew her answers – she could see it in those big bright eyes – but he played the waiting game, and smiled, tilting his head with her and making her laugh. He must have known how cute he was, because no one ever really said no to him.
When she nodded, he perked up and held out his hand. "Come on, then."
Rose reached out to him.
Before their hands touched, and before the smiles had even gone from their faces, the whole room lurched, the walls turned sideways, and water billowed around her.
She was in the pool.
But not just in the pool.
She was in the deep end, where shadows prevailed. Her eyes popped open and she saw the surface sinking further and further away from her, like she was weighted with led, like the whole ship was upside down, like someone had pulled the drain and she had gotten caught in the current.
It was gone in a blink. Just a little light up above, snuffed out.
Bubbles surged against her neck, through her sleeve, over her nose.
Rose hit the bottom.
The pressure was impossible. It was like someone had taken hold of her head with both hands, and they were pressing her skull as hard as they could. It was cold, and dark, and it was impossible to see anything save a parade of colors dancing before her eyes.
A light popped on beside her.
Rose twisted violently, mashing her nose into it, trying to phase through it to safety. It was only a pool light, reacting to her presence. It showed her an image of her terrified eyes, and the motion of something swimming behind her.
She turned back, kicking off, putting all of her strength into finding the surface. Her time was running out. Her lungs burned. Inside her chest there was a timer slowly ticking away, counting down the moment when her mouth would open, and she would inhale the water, and lose this unexpected battle for survival.
Something brushed her bare legs.
Rose lurched away, but the water barely gave. She was weak. Her muscles were giving up on her. With no means of escape, she drifted, hoping she was rising, hoping the Doctor was up above, and he would get to her before whatever was in the water with her.
Limbs, gangly and slimy, started winding around her arms.
The squid. A monstrous squid. It had found her in its domain.
When it had the right grip to rip her down into the depths, into whatever abyss waited once the last of her breath ran out, it did just the opposite. Rose rocketed toward the surface. She passed through a slew of bubbles and got a whole breath of air before the choppy water sent her tumbling.
She also got a glimpse at the chaos in the TARDIS.
It was like there was a hurricane going on indoors. The room rocked back and forth, teetering like it had lost all sense of balance. Chairs and tables bobbed around in the violent water, which poured over the sides, up the walls and the stands, and then back into the pool. Up above the fake sky had gone dark. The lights flickered. The stadium seats were tumbling down and water jumped between them like a fountain.
The pool had no edges, but she started swimming anyway, hoping to find a way out of the churning water. Random bits of furniture bobbed in her path. A chair whacked her in the back. Her knees struck the edge and her panic was renewed. Just as she found her footing, a wave surged up behind her and rolled her into a pile of chairs like a bowling ball.
The Doctor appeared and grabbed her hand. "We have to get out of here!"
His voice was barely audible above the sloshing water.
It was the same story in the hall. Everything heaved back and forth. Water rushed from one side to the other, knocking Rose off her feet. She ended up on the floor, sliding around, while the Doctor slammed the pool doors shut. Just as they closed, the hall twisted violently. Rose held onto a light fixture, keeping herself from being thrown into the ceiling, and the Doctor dangled from the doorknobs. Water sprinkled past her like rain, gathered briefly in one corner, and then sloshed back to the ground as the hallway righted itself.
It remained that way for a precious second. The Doctor grabbed her hand, and they started running, sometimes wading. He had to shout to be heard.
"You alright?"
Rose stayed close to him, and away from the doors. Inside every room furniture was sliding around, beating against the walls, groaning eerily. "What's happening?"
"I don't know!"
"Are we crashing?"
The Doctor looked offended at the idea. "The TARDIS doesn't crash!"
As soon as those words were out, his eyes grew wider. Rose got a jolt. It had crashed once, and almost as severely as this, when they landed in the other universe. Shortly after that, the whole thing just died, and they were almost stranded there forever.
The Doctor shook himself. "Go! Get to the control room!"
"I'm in my bathing suit!"
He rolled his eyes. "Fine! Stop by your room!"
"Are you coming with me?"
He groaned. "Come on! Make it quick!"
It was a hard journey to her room, but, gradually, the TARDIS began to settle down. It still lurched every minute or so, throwing her onto her bed and making the Doctor thunk into something in the hallway, but Rose got into the pattern of it and learned when to grab onto something. When she had changed, the Doctor grabbed her hand again, and they waited out another shift.
Rose was dangling when she asked, "Why didn't you get thrown into the water?"
Her question, at this time, in this panic, was silly, but the two of them were a bit more accustomed to danger than others.
"My chair was bolted down!"
"Why aren't all of them bolted down?"
The hall settled and they ended up on their knees, clinging to the railing. He jumped up, dragging her along. "Come on. We can discuss furniture policy later!"
"I think your squid saved me!" she added.
"Oh, Roy? Good boy! I'll give him a treat if we survive!"
The control room was normally her favorite place to pass the time, watching the Doctor tinker with the circular console, or climb around in the rafters only to find something he had left there centuries ago, but today it was the worst place in the TARDIS. It was loud. It was panicking. Everything whirred and beeped, twirled and squealed, sparked and smoked. It went well beyond its usual drama, when the Doctor would hit it with a mallet and order it to behave – it was responding catastrophically to something.
The Doctor ran up to it like it was his child and it had skinned its knee. He tried to touch the console and it blew steam at him. Rose clung to the seats – old, ratty things, sort of like car seats, mounted near the rails – and watched the lightshow on the domed ceiling. She had never seen some of them before. Were they under attack? Was the TARDIS dying on them?
Her questions were answered when the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver. He always seemed to point it at things and get answers from the buzzing sound it produced. He scanned different parts of the console. "We're being pulled through space and time! Literally, pulled! Something has grabbed onto the TARDIS and its just ripping us toward it. But that's impossible!"
Rose had to shut her eyes as the room heaved again. She was feeling sick.
The Doctor shouted. "You can't just… just… hack the time vortex like that! It risks everything! It risks unwinding the very fabric of time! It tears holes in the universe!"
"Make it stop!"
"I can't! Hang on!"
Rose opened her eyes and found him holding onto the console, staring at his little monitor, still shaking his head like it could see his disapproval.
"How are you doing that?" he demanded of it.
Rose sunk down to the ground, holding onto the base of the chairs. She tried to focus on the Doctor to stop the room from spinning. "Doctor!"
He twisted the monitor, his voice taking on a worried edge. Something was terribly wrong. "We're being pulled toward Earth, 2558. Very close to the Orion War. Close to a lot of wars. This was the age when human expansion was stunted. I can't be here. We have to go." He banged on the console, raising his voice above the sirens. "We have to leave!"
It stopped.
Suddenly, eerily, like the entire universe had finally relaxed after a terrible quake, everything stopped. The lights went out. The sounds cut off. Rose barely heard a metal ping over the sound of her heart racing. It was silent, and cold, and dark, and the only thing she could really see was the Doctor, standing at the console and looking completely dumbfounded. He had the same grief in him as when they landed in the other universe. He feared for his TARDIS, for the last piece of his home world. It seemed to have heaved and died.
He spoke lowly. "Rose… the only other time I've seen it do this is when we landed in the other universe. If we… I'm not sure we can make it back this time."
Rose staggered upright, one hand on her stomach to settle it. "You said we were on Earth."
"But this doesn't happen on Earth." He ran his fingers over one of the handles, appearing mystified. She hated to see him so confused. He was the Doctor. He was supposed to know everything. "No, no. This is something else."
Rose went to the doors, since the Doctor seemed incapable of taking a step. He watched her with those dark, serious eyes, like he was waiting for the world to implode. She ran her fingers over the wood, now cold to the touch, and tipped them open.
Snow fluttered inside. Rose looked back at the Doctor to confirm he was seeing the same thing she was – a snow-covered forest with tall, black trees.
She was suddenly regretting her decision to wear her 'sassy' pink shorts.
The Doctor ventured closer, frowning.
"Is it… our Earth?" Rose asked.
"It appears so." The Doctor looked at the screen again, but it was blank. He swallowed. "We should use caution. Nothing hits the TARDIS like that. Nothing."
Rose stepped outside, enjoying the crunch of snow underfoot. It had been a while since she heard it. It seemed very much like Earth – beautiful and tranquil, a cascade of white, a harsh contrast of black, a beautiful sky up above, and little snowflakes dancing around her cheeks. It was nothing like the terror they had experienced in the TARDIS. What in the world had caused that?
"Does this look alright to you?" Rose turned, but found herself looking at more trees. Right where the TARDIS had been, there was a square impression in the snow. Her heart sank. "Doctor?"
Silence.
He was gone.
Rose reached out and touched the empty air. It was impossible. She had been traveling with him for a long time and the TARDIS was incapable of just disappearing. It wheezed, the light on top glowed, and it faded slowly from view. It never just vanished.
"Doctor?"
She waited. She stood there for several minutes.
Nothing happened. Not even a whisper. The forest was unnaturally still, save the constant snow. But as she stood there she noticed that the snow was not gathering. Her coat was still dry. It had no ice on it, no little pile of snowflakes.
And that spot where the TARDIS had been, where the square imprint in the snow had been, was just snow now. No imprint. It was like it was never there.
It was really gone. Not just disappeared, but gone.
She was really alone.
Rose zipped her jacket all the way up and pulled her hood tight, trying to trap the warmth in. She looked all around herself, trying to catch a glimpse of a blue box among the trees, but the forest went on and on, the branches uniform overhead, the ground free of footprints, save her own. It was terribly quiet to be 2558. Something was wrong. She could sense it.
She started walking, choosing a direction and keeping at it. She reasoned that there had to be something other than a snowy forest on this planet. It was much more than that in the time she came from – it must have grown. Where were the hovering cars? Where were the skyscrapers? Where were the robot dogs? She expected so much more, and all she got was an endless stream of trees, and the same old lumps of snow, and the same sky.
"Rose?"
She heard him calling for her, but it was like an echo, like he was on the other side of a veil of water. She twisted, staring the way she had come. His voice came from all sides, but that seemed the most logical place to look for him.
Her footprints were gone.
Rose looked down, at where she had only been standing a moment ago, and the snow was perfectly undisturbed. Only where she stood, right beneath her feet, looked trampled. Everywhere she turned the snow was perfect. It gave her a chill worse than the cold could.
"Okay, okay. Haunted forest. I must be dreaming." Rose swallowed the frozen lump in her throat and carried on the way she had been going. There was a clearing up ahead.
She wanted to go back and check to see if the Doctor had returned, but the clearing caught her attention. It was brighter up there. She got to the edge of the tree line and turned back to check if her footprints were still there – they were gone again – and then ventured out into the open.
In the middle of the meadow, her eyes caught on a lump of snow.
It was a toddler, just lying there.
Rose ran to the motionless boy, hardly understanding what she was seeing.
He was in an indent, in the middle of a perfectly untouched patch of snow. It was like he had fallen out of the sky. His skin was pale, almost translucent, and so frigid that at first, and in horror, she thought he was dead. But his chest rose and fell with steady breaths, and when she touched him, he stirred, and his eyes opened. He looked right at her.
His lip trembled and he held his arms out for her.
Rose picked him out of the snow, holding him flat against her chest and sharing her warmth. She bundled him into her coat, looking around instinctually for someone to claim him.
But she was alone.
"Okay. Hey. Hi." She got a good look at the boy, deciding he was definitely human, and no more than a year old. "Hello there. My name is Rose. Can you tell me your name?"
He stared at her. His fist was closed so tightly around her jacket that his knuckles were white.
"Okay then. That's alright." Rose stood, clutching the baby tightly. She turned around and around, conflicted, realizing her footprints were gone and she didn't know where she had come from. All the trees looked the same. It was a uniform pattern all around her.
Rose decided to stay there. She sat where the boy had been, holding him securely against her, and looked around for hours. It wasn't tiring. She didn't get hungry, or thirsty. She sat there, and her mind raced, and the snow fell all around them without ever landing. She knew the Doctor would come for her, but it had to be soon, or both of them would freeze.