Hello fellow Whovians!
This is my second fanific ever and my first multi chapter so we'll see how this goes. I would appreciate it if you could give me some feedback on how to improve my writing. It's one of the reasons I decided to start posting. That and I need to let out my imagination. ;)
Disclaimer: does it need saying?
So without further ado, the first chapter of Across the Dark. Enjoy! :D
Chapter 1-
"Ladies and Gentlemen, if you'll kindly take notice that the Captain has turned on the seatbelt sign we are going to be experience some turbulence in a moment." I hate it when they do that. You know, make it sound like the turbulence might be fun, like it's something few get to experience and you should count yourself lucky. It's not that I don't like flying, I do. I like the rush of take off and I like going to other places, and I like looking down at the Earth below. I don't like the chaos of airports or the fake, overpaid models that they usually get as airline stewardesses. Occasionally I see a normal person doing that job, but it's rare. Very rare.
The plane shakes. A baby cries a few seats behind me. On my far right there's a man I've been eyeing for the past several hours. He looks like Moffat. He's clutching the armrest as if he can keep the plane flying steadily by doing it. Did I mention he looks like Moffat? Yeah, you can imagine what's been going through my mind. Slap. I'm sorry. You're a literary genius and my life would be boring without you...slap. "Ah!" several people cry out in fear. For the record, I didn't make a sound. I just gasped slightly. Why? Because a plane doesn't normally pitch to the side like that, that's why.
I've flown more times than I count at this point. My Dad lives in England and my Mum is in America. I'm on my way to her place. I'm thankful for the option they gave me. I do school in England where my Dad lives and summers I spend with my mum. Leaving me with American citizenship and a British accent. Unfortunately it also leaves me with a workaholic Dad, a Mum with a messed up love life, and me in the middle of it all with a headache and a need for escape. That's where my love for British sci-fi comes in.
The sound of thunder surrounds us breaking me from my thoughts. The plane goes dark and the emergency lights flash on with a ding. I close my book and place it back in the bag under my seat. People are beginning to panic around me. Not the major freak out kind of panic, but the silent kind. The one that makes you feel like you can read everyone's thoughts. It ripples through the plane like a current leaving some with short and shallow breathes and others with no breath at all. It's silent. And then I realized that it was too silent. The engines were no longer buzzing. "Ladies and Gentlemen this is your captain speaking. I ask that you would please prepare for a crash landing. Remain calm. Everything's going to be fine."
And that's when I feel it. That pull you get in your stomach when you first start falling or going down on the rollercoaster. Everything is NOT going to be fine. That is the most used lie of any adult to a child. Or in this case, a plane filled with terrified passengers. Then the unthinkable happens. There is a draft of cold air that rushes in behind me and my ears pop to a point where I hear nothing. I look back and see that the tail of the plane is gone. I feel rather than hear my own heartbeat pulsing in my ears. My breaths are coming quickly and heavily. In. Out. In. Out. We lurch again. For a second I'm blissfully unaware. When I come back to the conscious world I'm falling. No seat, no plane. Just me and the ground and lighting all around. My hearing is back but it doesn't do me any good. All I hear are the people screaming, crying, panicking.
There's a flash of lighting around me and I feel warmth course through me. I've been struck by lightning! Holy crap! And then, nothing.
The first thing I notice when I wake up is the cold. It prickles underneath my skin like a thousand needles. I open my eyes but it makes no difference. If anything it's darker than it was when my eyes were shut. There's a gnawing pain in my stomach. Almost like hunger but it isn't. It's dull like a suspended punch to my gut. I try to focus on that pain. It is the only proof I have that I am still inside my body. I can barely move. I feel like I'm trying to swim through jello. My limbs are heavy, my head is foggy. Oddly the air feels thin. All I can think is that I must be dead and that this is hell. But it's cold not hot, so maybe not or maybe everyone was just wrong.
I don't know how long I drift in the dark. Maybe minutes, but it feels infinitely longer. So many thoughts go through my head and I sing so many songs. I'm bored out of my mind and I can't see and I'm alone. So very alone. When I finally see a speck of white I can't tell if it's right in front of me or far away in the distance. As time goes on I realize that it is growing larger. I can't look directly at it because my eyes hurt too much to. So I close my eyes but I can feel myself being pulled toward it.
Eventually I no longer feel like I'm in a no place. I have a direction, and it's down. I'm falling again, and that white speck is my new gravity. They tell you not to go into the light, but I welcome it. I'm tired of the cold, in the dark. Maybe warmth and light will be better. I can feel the warmth going through me and I know that I'm falling asleep in what feels like the first time in years. My last thought before I'm gone again is that maybe death won't be so bad after all. Anything is better than this lonely and heavy nothing.
I wake with a start. Why can't I finally just stop waking up? It's making me crazy. The dull pain in my gut is now replaced with a throbbing pain everywhere else. I feel weak and stiff, like I was cramped inside a box for too long. Slowly the darkness gives way to fuzzy gray and gradually continues to lighten until it's a fuzzy but warm yellow. The silence in my ears give way to a background buzz which becomes more and more clear until I can make out voices that are way too loud. It's been too long since I've heard anything.
The light is too bright and the sounds too loud, the smells too strong and I can't concentrate. I squeeze my eyes shut and slowly move my hands to cover my ears and hold my head because if don't I'm afraid it will roll away. I feel my body cringe in on itself until I'm inside my own shell of a world. I feel a vibration in my chest and realize that I'm groaning. My throat is dry and my tongue feels like sandpaper in my mouth.
Then there's something else. Something outside of me is touching my shoulder. My body reacts like a catapult. I launch myself away with a strength I never knew I had. My back hits a wall and my hands come up defensively. I widen my eyes as much as I can and force myself to focus on what I'm seeing and hearing. I'm breathing deep and the air tastes so good. I didn't realize how stale the dark air was. It was almost like I was drowning and then ran a race. I finally breathe in long and deep. My heart slows down as much I can make it. My vision clears and then my heart stops altogether.
"You a'right?" I gap at the man in front of me. "Can ya understand me? Do ya know where ya are?" I don't know how to react. In a trance I slowly move out my left hand toward his face to see if he's real. It's his turn to act like a catapult. People dressed like they're a swat team pounce on me and sit me into a chair which I am quickly tied to. The man from before barks orders at them. "Oi, be careful with 'er. She 'asnt done anything to endanger us yet."
He looks at me with suspicious eyes. I've got to be dead, or this is the most surreal nightmare/dream I've ever had. Because the man in front of me is Mickey Smith. I can't look at him anymore so I look down at myself. A red hoodie over a loose tank with "Bow ties are cool" written on it over a pair of yoga pants capped off with my red trainers. I momentarily panic before remembering that Mickey wouldn't know that the Doctor had an obsession with bow ties. At least not yet as he knows him. And of course he already knows him, because pre-doctor Mickey wouldn't be like the stern and confident soldier in front of me. I don't look up again, and I don't pay attention for a long time. It isn't until I hear "her" that I start listening.
DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW
Rose Tyler stood watching the night sky. There were even less tonight. The stars were going out and there was nothing she could do. She needed the Doctor but he was a universe away and she would never see him again. It had been three years since the worst day of her life at Bad Wolf Bay. He had called her the Defender of the Earth that day. She didn't feel like she was doing that good of a job at all.
Her phone rang and she answered after a quick glance at the caller ID. "Miss Tyler," a young Torchwood agent said. "You're needed at the Hub." "I'm on my way," she replied. Maybe someone had come up with a way to stop this. Maybe they could make the stars come back.
She made it to the London Hub in record time. Sweeping into the room she turned to Mickey, her oldest and dearest friend, "Whaddya got?" Mickey nodded to a girl tied to a chair behind him. She looked young. Couldn't be more than eighteen. She had short coffee colored hair pulled back in a tight ponytail and had black yoga pants with a graphic tee that had a weird saying on it. She didn't strike Rose as a threat but there were many species out there that seemed nice but were decidedly not. But this girl looked human.
And then she looked up. Chocolate brown eyes peered up at her with pain and desperation. Rose gasped. Those eyes. She's seen them before. She's seen them in the face of a very broken man that she grew to love so long ago. She lost him and thought that she would never see those eyes again.
Rose turned to Mickey, her oldest friend and most trusted ally in this universe. "Where did she come from?" "She came through the wall. There was a lot of artron energy in our readings." The wall. That dreaded white wall that had come to represent the fact that she was forever cut off from the Doctor, the man she loved. But maybe it wasn't impossible. This girl had just come through the wall. The artron energy suggested time travel at least, but what about void travel. "Get me some 3D glasses." Some random agent quickly supplied them as soon as a pair was located. Rose made sure that there was always a pair nearby for a moment like this. She put them on and peered at the young creature before her. The girl looked at her with eyes that had the strangest mix of hope and dread. "Well, am I covered in void stuff for not," she asked, apparently unable to read Rose's expression.
Rose sighed and removed the glasses. "You are." A flicker of pain crossed the girl's face before it was replaced with something else. (Acceptance? Resignation?) "You know about different dimensions. You want to tell me how you got here." "I don't know." The girl suddenly decided not to look at anyone in the eye anymore. "It doesn't just happen by accident. Who are you? Why are you here?" "I don't know how I got here," she repeated. "Who are you," Rose asked with a little bit more force and desperation. She needed answers. This girl was the key to getting back home. She was the key to solving the darkness problem before it was too late and the universe was nothing. "Answer me!" "I can't! I don't know how I got here! I don't know what the consequences of my presents here will be. I don't know if it's safe for me to say anything, whether it's my name, where I'm from or what I know about anything. As to why I'm here, I'm chalking that up to be some kind of sick and twisted joke that the universe is playing on us!" The girl was flushed with her angry outburst. She sagged in the confines of her chair and releases a single, strangled sob before finding her composer again.
Rose sent a pointed look at Mickey who nodded and immediately cleared the room. He stayed by the door, but more to keep others out. Rose had always been good at compassion. And right now, this girl before her was in need of a lot of it. Rose recognized that look. That was the look of someone who had lost everything and didn't know what to do. She had seen that look on the Doctor, and she had seen it in the mirror everyday for three years.
She knelt down in front of the girl and asked softly, "Are you alright?" "I'm always alright." How many times had she heard him say that? Who was this girl and why was she such a reminder of him? "Are you sure you can't tell me your name?" Those brown eyes looked back at her. "I'm not sure of anything anymore. But you need something to call me so...Jane will be fine. You can call me Jane." "Hello Jane. My name's Rose." The girl just nodded. "Can you tell me what 'appened Jane?" "I was on my way to visit family in America. The plane must have taken a wrong turn. We were ripped apart. I was falling and it was dark, and then I was here. People freaked out and tied me to a chair. End of story."
Rose didn't know what to make of this. The void should be sealed. Interdimensional travel should not be possible. Yet this girl was clearly from somewhere else. "You'll get back." Rose looked at Jane sharply. "Back where?" "Back to him. The Doctor. The stars are going out aren't they? Let me help. I know what to do. I have no other purpose any more. This isn't my world. My goals are gone. My family is gone. My faith has shattered. Let me help you. Maybe then it won't hurt so much." Jane was pleading. "How do you know about the Doctor," Rose asked in a dangerously quiet tone. Jane hesitated slightly before answering, "I know both the Doctor and you in my universe."
Rose was surprised by this. She hadn't expected this. But it made sense with why Jane was reluctant to say much. It also explained the comment she made about knowing stuff "Do you know us well?" "I know from the word 'run,'" she said softly. Rose looked at her in contemplation. "Are you me?" "No," Jane said in surprise. Then she paused. "Well, in a way maybe. We're similar in a way I guess. But no. I'm not you. I'm me. I will only ever be me since I've got nothing else left anyway. Wow. Never thought I could be so cryptic. I'm like that mysterious character in a TV show that never really has a back story. They just help and talk in riddles and do awesome stunts. I wonder if I'll do awesome stunts." The slight babbling tone made Rose smile despite herself. "I think you hung out with himself a little too long. You kind of sound like him." "I was fourteen when I started w...traveling with you. So yeah. I guess maybe I picked up a few of his habits."
Rose looked at her carefully before making her decision. "Mickey! Come let this girl out will ya?" "You're the boss babe." Mickey let the girl out and Rose heard him give the girl, Jane, an apology for being so rough with her. Jane seemed unbothered by the whole thing but Rose knew better. The girl was too calm about it all.
"So...are you going to let me help you?" Jane looked tired and Rose felt for her. "Yeah, but first you need to eat and get some rest. You can stay with me until we can find your own place." Mickey shot a warning look at her. "Are ya sure that's such a good idea Rose? We don't know anything about this girl." Jane nodded in agreement. "He's got a point." Rose looked her in the eye and asked, "You gonna murder me in my sleep?" "No," she replied with a furrowed brow. "Then I don't see the problem. It's late. There's no time to find you somewhere else and you look like you're about to fall over so you need to rest as soon as possible. Beside," she then turned to Mickey. "I can take care of myself just fine." "I know that babe. But your mum worries ya know?" Rose sighed. "Yeah. I know."
Jane shifted uncomfortably. "Come on Jane. Let's go have a cuppa and then go to bed." Jane nodded and allowed herself to be led out of the lab with Mickey watching warily as they went.