Hello lovely readers! This chapter is the first in a new story collaboration between the-not-so-bad-wolf and myself. We will switch off every chapter, the-not-so-bad-wolf writing from Rose's POV and me writing from the Doctors. Please read, enjoy, and review! Thanks!
readingsloth
Rose:
It was a sunny day. Too sunny to be anywhere in close proximity with London or Cardiff, Rose noted curiously. The Doctor, however, seemed to know exactly what was going on, even when he stepped out of the TARDIS and was nearly flattened by an aggravated car and a driver who was even more so. Luckily, he flattened himself up against the side of the TARDIS in time and it was only then that he could truly take a look at his surroundings.
When he reentered, the Doctor tittered nervously, and strode to the console. Rose gave him a curious look upon watching him work his jiggery pokery with the lever and switches. This wouldn't be the first time he had mixed up their location, so she questioned, "Surely we're in the right place?" But without waiting for his answer, she made a move towards the door.
"Rose! No-don't-Oi! Rose!" The Doctor couldn't seem to put his words together to form a correct, cohesive warning, and ended up dragging out the vowel of her name as he swung around the console.
Despite his warnings, Rose was already out the door. Silly timelord, she thought and rolled her eyes to herself. She too opened the door and stepped out of the TARDIS. She too was greeted similarly. But the Doctor was right there for her, and he opened the door and slipped his hand over hers, pulling her back into the TARDIS as more cars flung themselves by.
Rose shot him an incredulous look, and remarked in disbelief, "You parked in the middle of a street?"
The Doctor avoided her gaze and tugged his earlobe. "It wasn't exactly the middle of the street, it was more off to the side...slightly to the left…" He flashed her a brilliant grin to compensate for nearly getting her squished, and it was enough for Rose, who enjoyed pushing his buttons much more than actually chewing out his sloppy parking job.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her back towards the console. "Allons-y, Rose! I'm gonna get it right this time!"
"And that's what you said last time too," Rose looked at him skeptically, not quite taking him seriously.
"That was last time! Have you no faith in me?" Obviously she knew he was joking, but it would still have been nice to materialize where they were supposed to, for once.
In contented silence, Rose placed her hands down on the console so she would be ready when he reassessed where they should have been. The Doctor seemed extremely engrossed in what he was doing, and he was staring intently at the screen, looking a bit flustered. That's odd, Rose thought. His happy-go-lucky had grin had slid off of his face, and it almost never did, unless something was out of the ordinary- which there almost never was. She knew what his "allons-y" face looked like, and that certainly wasn't it. The face he wore was more of a mixture of confusion and disbelief. When he whipped on his glasses, Rose was sure that something was bothering him, and if it was bothering him, it should be bothering her too.
Sliding around the console to his side, she asked with concern, "Doctor, what is it?"
Rose's voice had snapped him out of his rapidly growing perplexity. When he looked at her, it was almost as if he had forgotten she had been there, and she didn't like that thought at all. The Doctor slid the screen so it was in front of her, but the added visual wasn't doing her much good because Rose and normal science weren't always a compatible pair, much less futuristic time travel science.
The Doctor leaned over her shoulder and pointed to a spiking line that she hadn't paid mind to before.
"Rose," he paused. "Do you know where we are?"
No, she didn't and she shook her head, telling him so.
"We're in California. America. And do you know why we're here?"
Rose thought this was a silly question. As if she knew. The Doctor was the one flying.
Raising her eyebrow, she looked at him and snorted, "If I did, I would let you know."
The Doctor seemed unperturbed by her sarcasm. "Remember in Cardiff a while ago, when we were refueling on rift energy? Well we need to refill right now, and the TARDIS detected readings of a similar energy that's even more powerful, called spatio-resonance energy." He glanced her way momentarily to make sure she was keeping up before continuing.
"Normally, spatio-resonance energy is something found when orbiting black holes, or surfing solar storms, and there are large concentrations of it around objects that have been transported through time and/or space. The TARDIS practically feeds off of it, and that's probably why we wound up here. But the question is...why is all of this energy here, Rose?"
The Doctor combed his fingers through his hair, successfully messing it up, and even though Rose loved it like that, she couldn't deny that she had always wondered what it would feel like to smooth it down for him. Not that she would ever ask, that would be a new level of weird.
His speech was evoking interesting thoughts, however. If the Doctor didn't know what was going on, then there was little she could do to help, even though he always insisted that she knew exactly what to say and do. Rose knew that wasn't true, but she didn't bother telling him, and he seemed content in his ignorance.
"Can you trace it?" Rose worried her lip, thinking. It wasn't as if she thought it was a possibility, she was just throwing out ideas for the Doctor to chomp on and run away with.
The Doctor however, thought this was a idea. Slowly and almost inaudibly, he leaned back, staring at her with his mouth agape as if she was a god. "Rose Tyler. You are brilliant!"
He reached forward and he looked as if he was about to cup her face but instead, his hands just lingered in space, hovering and jerking around her head before they snapped back and he turned around on his heels. Muttering to himself about things she knew she wouldn't understand, he began to pace. The Doctor tugged his already wily hair.
As if the two were magnetic, the Doctor was pulled to the console where he began to monitor the screen while pulling various levers.
"Hold this for me, Rose. Don't let go."
"Why?"
He looked over at her and wiggled his eyebrows. "Because without it, the whole of time and space will come crumbling down around the TARDIS of course!"
"It's come to the point where I don't even know if you're kidding or not." After becoming a constant resident of the TARDIS, Rose had seen a lot and to her, nothing was too extreme.
The Doctor looked up from the console again and feigned insult, "Oi! You would think that happens on a daily basis by the way you put it!
She raised one of her eyebrows, challenging his previous statement.
He tilted his head slightly with a slightly resigned look on his face " Fine, if anything, it's every other day."
"Is that an observation, or a promise?" Rose quipped right back at him. In her eyes, the longer she was with the Doctor, the better she got with her retorts and thinking on her feet. It was as if by merely being in his presence some of his cleverness was rubbing off on her. For Rose, this was an added bonus of the Doctor because according to Rose, she was far from clever.
The Doctor chuckled to himself, shaking his head, and turned back to the controls of the TARDIS. It was truly fascinating how easily the Doctor maneuvered along the contours and crevices of the sentient ship. Flying her was an art form in herself, and no one knew the strokes and techniques more than the Doctor. Often Rose wondered how he remembered it all, but then she remembered that her best friend was nine hundred plus years old, and that thought alone drove her thoughts in a much different direction.
Rose was startled out of her thoughts by the resonating wheezing of the TARDIS. It would seem that she didn't want to go, and the Doctor was doing his best to coax her into landing. By the fuss the ship was kicking up, Rose had expected to arrive on some secret base, or on the top of the atmosphere, but that was not the case.
This time, she let the Doctor look outside first. When he reappeared and shut the door, he look extremely bewildered as he stared into space, and then at Rose. Biting her lip, Rose looked up at him expectantly. When he uttered not a peep, he just shrugged and motioned towards the door.
Rose nudged past him, eager to see what had left The Oncoming Storm so speechless, although she hoped it wasn't a speeding car this time. The door creaked as it opened slowly, and once it was completely open, Rose strode out the door.
She blinked, and her hand rose to shield her eyes from the intense rays of light.
Once she had her eyesight back, Rose blinked in astonishment.
Turning to the Doctor she queried, "Are you sure you got it right?" Somehow, playgrounds, trees, dog walkers, and frisbees didn't seem like the type to give off potentially life threatening energy. In fact, the only dangerous thing she could see were woodchips: the bane of the childhood playground. Seriously, though! Who thought that putting sharp sticks in the same place as roughhousing children was a good idea?
The Doctor whipped out his sonic and scanned briefly. After affirming the readings and what he already knew, he turned to Rose and said, "Yup! This is it…" He looked around. Despite what his technology said, the Doctor was skeptical of such a peaceful, mundane place, but the readings were correct, and they had no where else to start, so the Doctor took her hand in his.
"Allons-y Rose Tyler, we have a world to save."
Thank you all so much for reading, please review, favorite, and follow! The next chapter should be up by tomorrow!
readingsloth and the-not-so-bad-wolf