Hello! As this is my premier Doctor Who fic, I find in necessary to explain this a bit. Basically, I'm like a little kid on their first trip to the amusement park: so completely overwhelmed and not sure what to do or where to go first. I have the end completely done, it's just getting there. This whole you-can-totally-make-everything-up-as-you-go-along thing is completely terrifying for me, as great as it is, so forgive me if I over did it. (I'm warning you in advance the names are wickedly difficult to pronounce, so don't kill yourself over them. They don't really matter anyway.)
I have no plans as for an update schedule, but you can probably expect an update eventually. I'm awful at that.
Anyway. Feel free to review as you feel, I promise I don't get offended easily, whether it be a critique or something else. This is unbeta-ed, so excuse any mistakes. Please enjoy!
Disclaimer: Honey, if it were mine, Billie and David would never have left and Human Nature/Family of Blood would never have happened. I hate memory loss.
The Doctor had meant to drop Rose off at her mum's for a bit and maybe explore around the neighbourhood or avoid her completely by hiding in the TARDIS until Rose was through, but, as it happened, he needn't have made any special plans of escape. The minute they'd touched down in the Powell Estate, something on the console had beeped, indicating she needed to be fueled up. Rose had been the one to suggest that he pop over to Cardiff himself for a bit while she visited her mum and did a load of laundry or two. Relief didn't even begin to describe it.
He promised her he'd be back in a few hours and winced at her lighthearted comment about "hours this time, not months, Doctor."
"That was one time!" he'd protested, but she'd just laughed at him.
He called Rose after two hours, just to see if she was finished with whatever it was she and Jackie did together, and she was. She told him she'd meet him in the usual spot in a few minutes. He decided on a whim that he was going to impress her with one trick he was almost positive he hadn't shown her. That's how he came to materialize around her in the concrete courtyard of the Powell Estates, grinning like an idiot as she stood there, stunned. Once he was sure she was fully inside, he jumped to the other side of the console and flew into action, turning dials, twisting knobs, pressing buttons, the works.
"What do you think, Rose? Where to? Forward? Backward? Sideways? Ooh, sideways. I'd love to go sideways. Sort of impossible. Well, I say impossible, more like improbable. Oh! What about Lima? The planet, not the city. Or we could go to the actual Lima. I love Peru! Beautiful country, interesting people, lots of good history, not to mention more than a few mysteries! Or what about America? The people are a bit strange, but I really think you'd enjoy New Orleans! Or Boston. Great city Boston; I was there when they founded it. They almost built a statue after me. Course that was because I saved them from the 'monster' in the Harbor. Turned out to be a distant cousin of the Loch Ness Monster. Imagine that Rose! A cousin!" He looked over at her, expecting her shock to have worn off and for her to look all impressed, but her expression hadn't changed. "What? What is it? What's wrong? Did I get the time wrong again?"
"What's wrong? I'm in a bloody space ship and I have no idea how I got here!" someone said, just behind Rose.
Well that was definitely not Rose's voice.
A girl stepped out from behind his companion. She was probably no more than eighteen; short, thin, same basic clothing style as Rose – only her jeans looked a lot tighter – a pair of stylish black boots, jet black hair with chunks of blonde streaks that the Doctor just did not understand. She looked utterly confused as well.
"Doctor," Rose started, sounding a bit like she was trying not to be amused, "this is Ryder."
He knit his eyebrows together. "What's she doing here?"
Rose rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "You materialized around us!"
Before he had any time to respond, the TARDIS lurched, knocking the girls to the floor and sending the Doctor into the console, alarms blaring over their heads. "What's that? What's happening?" the girl, Ryder, asked loudly, pulling herself up by a railing.
"We're being pulled through time and space. That's a distress call from the planet... Oh good. The planet Yarsma."
"What's Yarsma?" Rose asked, helping Ryder stand on her shaky legs.
"A planet!"
"Yes, Doctor, I know that. I meant what populates it?"
"Oh! Right. Humans! Well, mostly humans. It was originally colonized by the fourth wave of people coming off Earth in the 49th century. Generally, they're friendly, although their technology's a bit behind the times," he explained, trying his best to keep the TARDIS steady. He had one foot on a button while his hands worked to control the direction.
"So you're telling me that we're going to a planet where people from the future have colonized? And we're going there on a distress call?" Ryder asked, sounding incredulous.
He was just about to make a snappy response when he felt a Tyler glare on the back of his head and heard Rose reply, "basically, yeah."
"So when your mum said you've been travellin', she meant through all of time and space?"
"Again, basically, yeah."
"So that year you were missing–?"
"Accident. All his fault, really."
"Oh for the love of... That was one time!" he cried for the second time that day.
"Oh, keep your pants on, I'm only teasin'. I know you didn't mean it you daft man."
"Rose?" Ryder looked up at the older woman. "Why didn't you tell me before? This is the coolest thing I've seen in my entire life."
The TARDIS lurched again, and the Doctor slid off the console, hopped up, dashed to the door, grabbed his coat from a coral strut, and threw it on. He pulled the doors open dramatically and stepped away for the girls to see. "And you haven't even been outside yet," he said, excitedly. "Come on, let's see what they need help with."
"This is wicked," Rose heard Ryder mutter as they walked amongst humans and larger blue people. Those ones were about eight or nine feet tall with two sets of arms and generally very well muscled. The Doctor had called them Munik's ("not like the city; spelled with a 'k', not a 'c'") and explained that they were mostly used as enforcers because of their innate love of rules and their instinctive drive to make everyone follow those rules. They'd chatted with a few when they were on their way to the "High Chamber", which seemed to be where the distress call had originated.
The planet itself seemed to be one big building, though. There were silvery-blue metallic walls as corridors with doors all along them that the Doctor explained were mostly houses or apartments. He said that restaurants and other attractions had bigger doors and looked more exciting. He told them how the actual surface of the planet was far from ideal for humans to live on for longer than a few weeks at a time because of the atmospheric gases or whatever, so the founders rotated in shifts to build this immense structure for the people to live in.
Ryder was so fascinated by all of it, she hardly questioned anything. She looked like she was soaking up the culture like a sponge. Rose was rather impressed by how quickly she seemed to process the whole situation.
"Ah, here we are," the Doctor said at last. They were about thirty meters in front of a set of doors, guarded by two, quite large, Muniks holding what looked like some sort of fancy guns. Rose narrowed her eyes.
"So what's the plan? How do we get in there?" Ryder asked, looking up at the Doctor, caramel eyes sparkling with adventure. "Ambush? Tuck and roll?"
"Not the Doctor's style," Rose shook her head, amused.
"Nah, we'll just talk our way in. Just follow my lead," he told them, reaching into one of his pockets and taking out what looked like a credentials case. He waltzed up to the guards with the girls behind him and waved the thing in their face. "I'm Inspector John Smith, these are my assistants. We were called here on official business."
When the Muniks decided whatever he had shown them was good enough, one pressed a button behind him and the doors slid open. They all stepped through into a room about the size of a football pitch with desks on either side of a walkway that lead to the far back of the room. A chair stood in the middle of it behind a desk, against the far wall, almost like a king's throne. An ordinary looking man sat there, looking over many pieces of paper and not even sparing them a look. Around them, other people rushed around or answered phones or busied themselves with paperwork as well.
Ryder, instead of taking in the world around her, turned to the Doctor. "How did you get them to let us in? What was on that thing?"
"Psychic paper. Tells the reader exactly what you want them to see. Have a look, if you like." He tossed it in the air for her to catch, not even looking at her as he continued down the way to the man behind the desk. Rose followed, Ryder lagging behind a bit, flipping the psychic paper over and over again, once again fascinated.
Once at the desk, the Doctor wrapped his knuckles on the top. It, too, was metallic. "I'm the Doctor, this is Rose, that's Ryder over there. My ship locked onto a distress call that we have reason to believe originated here. What's the problem?"
The man looked up at him, seeming genuinely confused. "Distress signal? I didn't send out a distress signal. Are you sure it came from here?"
"My ship is the most sophisticated ship in the universe; I'm absolutely positive it came from here."
"If it didn't come from in here, is there anywhere else that it could have come from?" Rose asked, softly from beside the Doctor.
The man looked even more puzzled. "I'm sorry. I am Kolq Tarvx, Garvat of Yarsma. I know everything that goes on on my planet. I think I would know if someone sent out a fake distress signal."
Just then, another man came up to the desk, bowing his head a little. He had a much stronger build than the feeble looking Garvat. "Excuse me, Kolq, but they've just arrested Vlne; he sent out a distress signal from the main control booth down the way," he said, in a low voice, as if it did anything to deter the Doctor or Rose from listening.
The Doctor lifted an eyebrow at Garvat Kolq, who had shut his eyes. "Thank you. Ykvro Nzeg, this is the Doctor, Rose, and Ryder. They will be accompanying you down to go see Vlne."
The new man looked surprised, but didn't argue. "Yes, sir," he said, and gestured for them to follow.
"So, 'garvat'," Ryder said, having pocketed and lost interest in the psychic paper, "is that like, what, a king? Prime minister? President?"
"More like a planetary king, although he's usually voted in. He sees over all that happens on the planet and is in charge of laws and the works," the Doctor explained quietly as they followed Nzeg down many turns and corridors. "A ykvro is like a techie. Deals with all things technological all over the planet as well. Assigned directly by the garvat himself. In most cases the cleverest person on the planet at any one time, although that's a bit hard to judge. And never as clever as me." Ryder looked a bit taken aback by this, but Rose just shook her head and shoved his arm.
"Rude."
"Here it is," Nzeg said, halting his motions a few meters in front of two blue Muniks holding an arm of a small, wiry looking man with small, wire-framed glasses and dark, too large for his body clothes. "Vlne, why did you send out that distress call? Why did you bring these people here?"
His eyes brightened as he looked over the three travellers. "You've come! I wasn't sure, but I hoped... Oh, I'm so glad you've come. You have to save us!"
"Save you from what?" the Doctor asked, turning his head a little.
"Them," he said, enigmatically.
"Who's 'them'?" Rose asked with a frown.
"You'll know. But you have to save us before it's all too late. They're trying to–"
"That's quite enough, Vlne!" Nzeg cut him of, holding up a hand. "I don't know why you've disobeyed me like this, and I don't know who you think you're protecting us from, but I do know that you are going to spend the next ten years in a lovely prison cell in between a rapist and a hacker. Take him away." He waved a hand and the Muniks dragged the flailing man away. He then turned to them. "I am very sorry that he brought you here unnecessarily, but I assure you there is no real trouble here. You are free to leave as you please."
"I wouldn't say it's completely unnecessary. I'd say there's something going on around here that he knows and you don't. I think we'll stick around for a little bit."
Nzeg only nodded, turned on his heel, and walked away.