Chapter Two
Present time, somewhere in the universe
"Are you sure it is supposed to do that?" Ian asked his sister.
"Absolutely, don't worry about it!" Donna replied, without paying attention to the alarming beeps of the TARDIS.
She kept on pressing several levers when suddenly, a bright, white light overwhelmed the ship, which swerved abruptly. The two children were projected backwards and they heard a strange worrying noise, as if the universe itself was whining. During a moment which felt like hours, the TARDIS tossed them around so hard they could not stand up.
"I still think it's not supposed to do that!" Ian shouted while grabbing firmly the ship's console.
"Come off it! It's hardly worst than Dad's driving!" Donna replied.
A huge shock shook the whole structure of the TARDIS, and the ship finally went still. The two children stood up with difficulty and walked towards the door, while the interface muttered to itself about teenagers and their irresponsibility. Ignoring the TARDIS's mumblings, Donna and Ian opened slightly the door and peeked outside.
They were standing in the middle of space, light years away from the closest planet; yet, they had embedded themselves into a police callbox that was floating there.
"Hold on a minute, Donna… Isn't that the original TARDIS? You know, the one which belongs to Dad's double?" Ian asked.
"But what is it doing in our dimension? You know as well as I do that there's no way to go from one universe to the other anymore!" Donna answered, perplexed.
In the meantime, in the other TARDIS…
"What have you done again, Jack?!" the Doctor exclaimed when a violent tremor shook the TARDIS.
"Me? Nothing! And why would it be my fault, anyway? I'm not the one who's driving, in case you haven't noticed! I wasn't even in the commands' room!" Jack replied while entering the main room of the ship.
"What is it, then?" the Doctor wondered.
"It came from outside, didn't it?" Jack pointed out.
The Doctor nodded.
"We should go and see."
He grabbed his long brown coat, flippantly laid in a corner, before opening the TARDIS's door with a theatrical gesture. He stopped dead when he saw the cause of the shock: another TARDIS which looked like a sailboat, with two teenagers on its board, had collided with them. But what was doing another TARDIS in this dimension? This was not normal. Neither was the age of its pilots; they were far too young to know how to steer a ship.
There was a long moment of silence, during which the Doctor and the two children stared at each other, astounded. Finally, it was Jack who broke it:
"Hello!"
The Doctor spun round.
"Don't you even dare!" he exclaimed sharply.
"I was just saying hello!" Jack replied, offended. "I wasn't flirting! They're a bit young for me, all the same," he added jokingly.
"Da… Daddy?" Ian said, when he was finally able to speak again.
"What?" the Doctor exclaimed.
Jack turned to his friend: "It seems that you hid things from me, Doc…"
The Doctor ignored him and watched the children more closely. And that is when he understood: they must have been the children of Rose and his 'duplicate' – that would explain both the "daddy", the familiar features of the teenagers, and the sailboat-TARDIS. But what the hell were they doing in this dimension?
The Time Lord had a bad feeling which was confirmed when he spotted the tear in space-time, behind the other ship. That was why you must not entrust your TARDIS to children, he thought. It ended up by endangering the whole universe. With a sigh, the Doctor made the two children enter his own ship. They needed to have a little talk about their arrival in this universe.
"So, you are the children of Rose and… the Doctor?" the Doctor asked when the children had finished presenting themselves and telling their story quickly. "And you've decided to go alone in your parents' TARDIS?"
"In a nutshell, yes," Donna admitted.
"Do you only realize how irresponsible you've been?!" the Time Lord exclaimed. "You created a rift in the space-time's web! And you're putting every universe in danger because of that!"
"We didn't know," Ian apologized piteously.
The Doctor sighed.
"And now I have to repair all that."
He hesitated, then asked: "By the way… How are your parents?"
He had to ask. The last time he'd seen Rose dated back to ten years or so ago, but he kept on thinking about her almost every day. No matter how many times he said to himself she was happy with his duplicate in their parallel dimension, he still missed her so much.
"They're fine," Donna answered.
"Well, they were fine before discovering we had left with the TARDIS," Ian whispered with a grimace.
The Doctor wanted to ask other questions, to ask for details, but he didn't know how to start. Finally, he sighed and told the children!
"We have to repair what you've caused with your foolishness. To do that, I need you to bring me all these items…"
He pulled a list from his pocket and gave it to Donna, while indicating her where they'd be able to fine all the items. In truth, he did not really need them, but he simply wished to be alone for some time in order to take in all that had just happened.
"But…" Ian began.
"No talking," the Doctor interrupted him. "We've already lost too much time."
Donna took her brother by the arm and dragged him along in the TARDIS's labyrinth of corridors, leaving the Doctor and Jack alone in the controls' room.
As soon as the two children had left, the Doctor leant on heavily on the TARDIS's console.
"You alright, Doctor?" Jack asked, walking towards his friend.
"Yes, I'm alright," the latter said with a really not convincing tone.
"Doc…" Jack sighed. "Tell that to others, but not to me."
The Captain knew well that he wasn't alright – which was understandable: the Doctor had every reason of being shaken. Seeing the children that you could have had if History had been different would trouble anybody.
"They look so much like her," the Doctor said at last. "And they… they look like me, too. Well, they look like my duplicate."
He sighed.
"They remind me of her. Actually, they remind of what… what I could have had. It's harder than I thought."
Jack put his hand on the Doctor's shoulder, hoping to comfort him. He knew that his friend had never really recovered from losing Rose, and he would have liked to do more to help him; but he did not really know what to do and he was afraid of being rejected if he tried to hug the Doctor.
"I'm sorry," he said eventually.
The words rang hollow, but the Doctor nodded, grateful.
"Thanks."
Thanks for reading!
This story is planned to last eleven chapters (it may change while we write it, though).
If you have any comment or advice, please don't hesitate to post them!
