Chapter Two

Leaving the TARDIS where it was for the moment, they meandered down the plains till they found a path that led to town. It wasn't much of a town, thought Rose, who was trained not just by London but by a whole slew of alien civilizations, past, present and future, that delighted in building structures that reached optimistically for the sky. The Doctor usually found a way to liken these dramatically stretching spectacles to the human race and their propensity for sometimes ridiculous optimism ("The Human Race!" he would say, caressing the words with his voice so it sounded like he was head over heels in love with the whole lot of them, which was not far from the truth. "Ridiculously optimistic! Hah!") regardless of who they were built by.

The Doctor seemed to have something of a love-hate relationship with humans, Rose reflected; he was certainly reminded of them an awful lot, and they'd been touching down on Earth almost exclusively for several trips now. Even Chiswick, as mentioned by the Doctor, was meant to have been the Earth version. This particular excursion, to the planet of Second Plight, had come as an alert on the TARDIS console— code cerulean.

"What's that?" she'd asked.

"Oh, it's a sort of greeny-blue," the Doctor had replied absentmindedly, for which she'd smacked him.

"But not mauve?" she'd persisted, and the Doctor had grinned briefly at her.

"Not yet," he'd said. "Do you want to wait till it is?"

"Nah," she'd said after a moment's thought. "If you show up in the nick of time too often, sort of takes the surprise out of it."

To which the Doctor, somewhat randomly, had replied, "Knew a Time Lord named Nick, once—" Of course his name wasn't really Nick, as it turned out, but rather Niccohadratus, but it had made Rose laugh anyway, which was probably what the Doctor was going for.

Now, though, they marched on the city that was not a city, smiling and nodding left and right at the population, who were out and about in the few daylight hours and seemed disposed to be friendly.

"Do you suppose any of them know what's going on?" Rose whispered to the Doctor, getting on her toes and stretching to speak into his ear.

"Doubt it," he replied, stooping a bit, obligingly. "If anyone suspects, it'd be someone older, someone who's been around to notice the change. Trouble is, there's a fine line between old enough to remember and, well, old enough to remember, and still be of help to us. Think of that farmer, only thirty years old. Imagine the ones that have been around forty, fifty years."

"I guess," said Rose hesitantly, "life doesn't begin at fifty after all."

"No," said the Doctor. He was not smiling as he looked around them at the population, and Rose sobered in turn, feeling guilty for joking at a time like this— at a place like this. She tucked in closer to his side and he glanced at her, then gave a sudden brilliant smile.

"Good thing we're here to give them their lifespans back, eh?"

She grinned back, relieved. "What would the universe do without you?"

"Us," he corrected firmly, and before she could react, went on. "Now, what we need is someone who's been paying attention. And not only that, someone with some sort of weather records. They must keep records, don't you think?"

"Like a meteorologist?" she said.

"Exactly like," he said with an emphatic nod. "Question is, where do we find one?"

They'd reached the middle of the town, arranged on an octagon with narrow streets stretching away on all sides, some lined with shops but most with houses. The Doctor paused and looked about himself, studying the flow of foot traffic and any available signs. Rose was distracted by the fact that they appeared to use two-headed horses to draw their carts.

"Cor— Doctor, look!"

"Easier to get them to back up if they can see where they're going," the Doctor murmured absentmindedly, not looking. "Bet they don't need any kind of signal— ah! Rose, what would you say to a newspaper shop?" He turned to her and grinned. She tore her eyes away from the equine spectacle and grinned nervously back at him.

"Er, 'hello' I suppose."

"Nonsense!" he erupted, with cheerful indignation. "You say that to the newspaper boy. 'Hello, newspaper boy,' et cetera. To the shop, you say, 'Have you got any back numbers, specifically the weather section?' Come on." He grabbed her hand and tugged her down one of the lanes to the left, heading for a sign which, with a bit of squinty-eyed scrutinizing, she was eventually able to read. The letters were ornate and difficult to decipher, but it did indeed advertise Newspapers.

"Simple as that?" she marveled. "Really?"

The Doctor looked up at the sign, then back down at her, frowning thoughtfully. "Yes, really. Well, almost. Why shouldn't it be?"

Rose scoffed. "Well, it certainly doesn't fit the pattern, does it?"

"Rose Tyler—" He put his hands on his hips. "Are you suggesting that I deliberately go out of my way to find unnecessarily complicated and indeed ridiculously convoluted and round-about ways of accomplishing tasks and doing things?"

"In a word—" she hinted delicately, and he grinned at her again, like he couldn't help it, and pushed open the door to the news shop.

"After you."

The shop smelled of dust and ink; the Doctor breathed in deep with every sign of satisfaction and appreciation. "Nothing quite like a printing location," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and proceeding to nose around. "Think of it, Rose— the origin of news, of rumors, of words themselves, propaganda and outright lies, the more entertaining the better— can't say I agree with all of it, myself, especially as to why the papers always seem to have an extensive portion dedicated to gardening, gardening's got to be self-taught I always say, no sense in writing out long diatribes about the proper way to trim your hedges, best just give the public their own trimmers and let them work out which is the sharp bit—"

"Doctor—"

"Then again there's probably a knack to it that I will simply never get a handle on, because other than roses in the Cloisters and that one Bat-Tree in the belfry I've never really had what you would call a green thumb— still, there's always the funnies—"

"Doctor—"

"Rose, do you smell barbeque?" The Doctor turned about quickly, frowning and sniffing, to observe Rose smiling apologetically at the middle-aged man who'd emerged some monologues ago from the back and who was now smiling perplexedly at both of them. He was covered in charcoal smudges, on his face and hands and his once-white apron, and had a wide pad of paper in one hand.

"Sorry," he said politely, "I was just doing the illustrations. For the, er, gardening section."

The Doctor froze for one enigmatic moment, then leapt to action with a suddenness that obviously startled the little man, who took a step backwards in self-defense from the lanky alien who now advanced on him for the purpose of shaking his hand.

"Hi!" said the Doctor. "Right! Illustrations! For gardening! Wonderful, definitely something we wouldn't get along perfectly well without, I don't think! Nice to meet you, I'm the Doctor and this is Rose, tell me— you wouldn't happen to keep back issues, would you? Only we're doing research."

The man blinked a few times, pleasant but confused, and detached his hand from the Doctor's enthusiastic grip. "Research? Well, I'd be happy to help you, of course, but— you know, of course, that we keep pretty quiet around 'ere. I can't imagine what you'd need to do research on."

"The weather, actually," said the Doctor promptly. "I understand you do have weather here?"

The newsman made a modest little face and admitted that they did.

"Brilliant!" said the Doctor. "That's just what we're looking for— weather! I suppose you do note it down in the papers now and then, eh?" He waited with beady eyes and bated breath for the illustrator's reply, which came in the affirmative and garnered much appreciation from the Doctor.

"Wonderful! So, shall we come in the back, or wait right here for you to bring out the back issues? Only I'm afraid we're going to have to look at several years' worth," he added.

"Several years' worth?"

"Yes, I'm afraid we're only really interested in very old weather. Older the better, say— maybe over the last seven or eight years? Would that be possible?" The newsman opined that it would and, still looking quite bemused, meandered back into the rear section of the shop to dig for back issues. The Doctor pulled a face and turned to Rose with a beleagured sigh.

"Now there is a man I pity."

"I shouldn't wonder. I pity him too, having to haul out all those old papers for you."

"Us," the Doctor corrected her once more. "And that's not what I pity him for. Can you imagine, living for five hours from morning til night and putting out a newspaper for each day? It must make him loony, trying to find things to write about. I'd be stark raving mad by now, scuttling around to people's gardens, asking for tips, trying to come up with something funny for the comics on such a tight deadline—"

"I hope that's the most of his problems," said Rose, pushing her hair out of her eyes and sighing. The Doctor turned a serious look on her, dark eyes staring with something unfathomable until she returned his gaze at last.

"Well, that's the problem, of course," he admitted. "It isn't."


Rose slapped the last of the papers down on the counter, and followed it down to rest her forehead on it. "I've still got print swimming around on the inside of my eyelids," she said indistinctly, muffled by the stacks of paper.

The Doctor was seated next to her, one elbow on the counter and his chin in his hand. He'd fished his black spectacles out of his pocket at the commencement of their investigation, and they were steadily slipping down his nose, bowing to the inexorability of gravity. "Who'd have thought," he said, somewhat dreamily, glancing at the doorway to the backroom to make sure the newsman wasn't listening to them. "An honest-looking little man like that, making up all these things just to write about?"

"Can't really blame him." Rose picked herself up and sighed, framing her face in both her hands and keeping her eyes closed. "Dinky little place like this, nothing ever going on— just like you said. Finding something to write about must be awfully hard. Still— wish we wouldn't've had to wade through it, when all's said and done."

"At least he stuck to gardening," said the Doctor, somewhat regretfully. "Falsified information on how to grow carrots is one thing, but imagine if he'd tackled interplanetary politics, Rose. Take this one, for instance—" He picked up one of the earlier editions, near the bottom of the stack. He had to wrestle it out of its place, and the remainder of the stack promptly collapsed in on itself, sending newspapers slithering and skating across the counter and onto the floor. The Doctor eyed the tide for a moment, nonplussed, then went on regardless. "This is from seven years ago, around the time that the daylight started shortening. 'Mine Closing Due To Energy Loss.' All about the energy shortage in this vicinity, specifically on the next planet over, Tel-Athra. It was a long hard fight involving lots of people, unions versus the environmentalists— sacrifice a few environmentalists for the good of the economy, the unions thought, which would have worked except the environmentalists themselves were forward thinkers and had guns." He clicked his tongue. "Environmentally friendly guns, of course, but guns nonetheless. This article must have had lots of political connotations— it's just as well for him he didn't start making stuff up about that."

Rose tilted her head. "How do you know he didn't?"

"I was there," admitted the Doctor frankly, and Rose smiled.

"I should have known."

"Never saw the media coverage of the aftermath before," the Doctor went on, digging through the slew of papers to find another one. "This one's from a few weeks later. 'Environmentalists Claim Guns Were Meant To Have Real Bullets— "We're Not Kidding," Says Leader. 'We're Really Serious About The Environment And Nobody's Going To Stand In Our Way."'" He twitched his nose and sniffed. "They were trying awfully hard. Not their fault that the guns turned out to shoot nothing but little flags that said, 'Bang.'"

"Oh really? And whose fault was it?"

He looked at her and said nothing, but grinned.

"Ha! Knew it."

"Anyway, the mine ended up staying open after all. They found an alternative energy source, it seems."

"And the environmentalists?"

He squinted at the papers, which chose that moment to buckle to the call of gravity and slide into his lap. "Started a street theatre group, I think. At any rate, I was right. The weather has been steadily changing for the worse as the days have been getting shorter. Very little rain, the crops are drying out, it's getting colder—" He scrabbled through the pile of paper on his lap, found one and held it up to show her. "And there's been fire falling from the sky."

It wasn't a photograph— they didn't seem to have cameras here. But the artist's rendering, done in charcoal, was very detailed and rather graphic. Rose looked at the flames, at the terrified expressions on people's faces, and shivered despite herself. It wasn't just the terror— it was the ages of the people captured in the illustration. All of them ruthlessly pulled out of youth, past the prime of life with nothing more than an acknowledging nod, and deposited swiftly into old age, moving quickly to death before their time.

"Doctor, what's going on? What's happening here?"

He shook his head slightly and adjusted his spectacles, catching them just before they gave up and slid off his face. "I don't know, Rose. But I'm going to find out."