Chapter 2

As they stood together looking up at the screen, Ed spoke again.

"I do not recall the password, and I require urgent access to the archive!"

And the message vanished, and suddenly Rick appeared on the screen wearing his leopard print jacket.

"I understand you've forgotten the password, Doctor," he said.

Ace turned to Ed with a startled expression.

"How is he doing that? How is sounding like he's actually here, having a conversation with us?"

"I don't know," Ed replied, and he stepped closer to the screen, and Rick spoke again.

"Apologies, Doctor – But you may recall I couldn't fit all your memories into the transfer procedure. And how am I talking to you like this, as if the three of us are having a conversation? Well, it's not the first time we've left an interactive message is it? Don't blink, blink and you're dead. Remember that?"

Ed shook his head.

"I'm sorry, I don't remember it," he replied.

"And you still need the password to access the archive," Rick replied, "I'm sure the answer will come to you. Let me give you a clue."

And Rick paused, glancing away from the camera.

"Come here, Barbara."

Ed felt a vague ache in his twin hearts as Barbara stood beside Rick and he put his arm around her.

"Here's your clue," said Rick, "I'm sure you still recall her measurements."

And then Barbara stepped aside and Rick looked into the camera.

"Hurry, Doctor – I'm assuming this IS an emergency..."

Ed was thinking hard, turning over scattered memories. And then he got it.

"Thirty six C!" He announced.

"Archive unlocked," replied Rick, and a second screen lit up below the main one, along with a keypad.

Ace gave a sigh.

"I should have known, the password was her bra size!"

And then Rick spoke again.

"Now you have reached the automated service. Welcome to the Tardis intergalactic poisons archive, where you can access botanical material, computer data and necessary antidotes. Now for the part I hate..."

He gave a heavy sigh.

"If you want botanical specimens, press One. For research data regarding toxic or venomous wildlife, press Two. If you seek anti venom or other poison antidotes, press C."

Ed pressed C on the keypad and looked up at the screen.

"Now what?"

Rick looked at him through the screen.

"Now state the planet of origin and species of plant or animal responsible for the injury sustained."

Ed thought for a moment, and then frustration crept into his voice.

"Why didn't you fix my memory properly? Rose told me...just give me a minute, it will come back. It has to come back to me!"

"It was the planet of Veyama-six , it was a snake bite, breed of snake was striped sunray," Ace told him, and Ed repeated the information.

"Please wait," Rick replied, "Processing..."

And then he drew a harmonica from his pocket and began to play a tune.

Ed looked at Ace in disbelief.

"Processing? How long is this going to take, we can't afford to waste time!"

And then Rick stopped playing and put the harmonica back in his pocket.

"Before you receive directions, you must receive the following instructions – so pay close attention! The anti venom is administered via a single injection. Recovery time is slow, and once the antidote is administered the patient must rest and receive hydration and assistance with breathing until the venom is completely neutralised, this must be done under medical supervision. Do you fully understand everything I just said?"

"Yes, just tell me where to find the antidote!" Ed said impatiently.

"Corridor A, room thirty one. The unit will be unlocked and illuminated," Rick replied, and then the screen froze.

Ed grabbed her hand again and led Ace quickly down to corridor A.

"What was the room number?" he asked.

"Thirty-six," Ace replied, "And I'm so glad I'm with you, you're so forgetful sometimes!"

"The memory damage is to blame for that."

"I know it is," she told him, and then they started to check door numbers as they passed each room. As they reached an unlocked door marked thirty-six, Ed gave it a push and walked inside and Ace followed.

"We've found the room... now, where is the antidote?"

Ace looked around at the walls lined with small numbered boxes set into the stonework.

"It must have taken him years to collect all this stuff!" Ace exclaimed.

Ed caught sight of an illuminated box and pulled it out.

"It certainly did – must have taken a couple of centuries. Perhaps it's a good thing I don't remember all of this – it's not my idea of an interesting past time!"

He reached into the box, took out a sealed up, preloaded syringe and then closed the box and put the syringe in his pocket.

"Well we found what we came for, let's get back to his Tardis and hope we're not too late!"

They left the room and made their way back down the corridor towards the lift.

"So you don't remember much about your past?" Ace asked as she got into the lift.

Ed joined her, closed the door and pushed a lever and the lift began to climb.

"I have pieces of memories, I recall those I've known and loved, families, children – but so much of it was so long ago and I only have pieces of those recollections. It's not Rick's fault - my memory was too damaged, he knew he couldn't fit everything back in."

The lift came to a stop and they got out in a corridor that led through the Futuristic Zone and back towards the exit.

"What about your own family, when you were growing up on Gallifrey? Do you recall them?" Ace asked as they climbed the steps to the exit.

Ed paused by the hidden switch, activated it and the door slid back.

"Not much at all." he replied, and went out into the garden and Ace followed, then he activated the hidden switch on the other side and the wall slid back into place, concealing the doorway to the maze.

Then they left the garden and entered the woodland behind the house.

As Ace caught sight of the blue police box in the clearing nearby, she thought of the years she had spent travelling with the Professor.

"It looks like I remember it," she said.

"I bet it won't on the inside," Ed replied, and then they made their way through the woodland to the clearing where the Tenth Doctor's Tardis stood framed by dense trees with heavy boughs.

As Ace stepped into the vast and unfamiliar console room of the Tardis and saw the young man in the brown suit on the floor unconscious, she stared at him as she thought about regeneration and wondered how one man could have so many very different faces. Then Rose looked up from where she sat beside him and Ace saw fear in her eyes.

"Please tell me you've got it!"

"Yes we have," Ed told her, "But he can't have the anti venom until he's in a medical facility where he will need to recover for several days. He can't do that here on earth and certainly not in this century."

Rose took another anxious look at the Tenth Doctor and then she stood up.

"So what are we going to do?"

Ed glanced over at the wide console doubtfully, taking in the sight of altered controls he recalled little about from a lifetime so long ago.

"I'll have to pilot the Tardis. I can more or less work out the order of the controls – every Tardis is different, but it ought to come back to me."

Ace looked on in horror as he went over to the console and ran his hand over buttons and then thoughtfully touched levers as he struggled to recall their basic functions.

"Ed, you don't know this Tardis!"

He had been leaning over the console, working out a flight plan on a star map, and as he looked up, she saw new confidence in his eyes, it was a look that reminded her he was still very much the Doctor despite all he had been through.

"Don't worry, Ace," he told her, "My memory's not as it was but I'm confident I can fly this Tardis."

And as he smiled she did too, knowing for sure he was indeed still the Doctor – yes, he could fly this ship she could see it in his eyes, he had no doubts at all...

Then he looked back down at the star map and studied it intently.

"So...we need to go to the planet of Usscora in the constellation of Cygnus in the galaxy of Carina Zagreus. I'm setting the year of arrival at 3150. Two reasons for that – the planet is a successful colony comprising of human-cyborg technology, and also because they have highly advanced medical skills in their main facility in the town of Lilac, so called after their successful five hundred year old industry based around the mining of what?"

He continued to key in flight co ordinates and then looked up as he smiled.

"You don't know?"

"I wasn't expecting a history lesson!" Ace murmured as she realised she was starting to form a picture in her mind of what he had been like in his days as the time travelling Doctor, in the days before the great battle for Earth.

Ed finished plotting the course and smiled, forgetting the time and place as he stood at the controls and recalled the old days.

"You'll know the answer," he said, turning to the empty space beside him, "What do they mine in Lilac, Jayden?"

And then he fell silent, hearing no reply but the hum of the Tardis and he quickly turned back to the others looking slightly shocked at his own forgetfulness.

"Sorry about that...forgot where I was for a minute...Jayden would have known the answer. He knew everything about the constellations. And it was Tronlinite... they have a successful mining industry in semi precious Tronlinite stones... I'd better get on and fly this Tardis now..."

And he threw a switch and turned a dial, and the Tardis took off gracefully, leaving Earth far behind as it shifted dimension.

The Tardis travelled smoothly through the vortex, Ace looked on feeling quietly proud of the man she loved as he flew the Tardis as if he had never been away from the controls.

"Ten more minutes and we reach our destination," he said, "How is he doing, Rose?"

She was back on her knees beside the Doctor. She ran her hand over his damp hair and said his name and he murmured something she didn't catch and then shivered.

"He's still not responding."

Then Rose looked up at Ed.

"He is going to be all right? Please, tell me he's going to make it!"

He looked into her eyes.

"I promise you he will," he told her, "And I'm just another version of him and you ought to know by now the Doctor always keeps his word."

And in that moment she saw nothing but truth and reassurance in his eyes, and she looked at him gratefully.

"Thank you," she said in a hushed voice.

And as Ace saw the look that passed between them she felt a prickle of jealousy and wondered why, because Ed had done nothing more than reassure her, but some long standing bond between Rose Tyler and the Doctor seemed to spark to life in that moment and it left her feeling envious, but of what, she had no clue.

Then the Tardis reached its destination and even the familiar groan and wheeze sounded easier as he brought the Tardis to a smooth landing.

"How did you do that?" Rose said in surprise.

"I go easy on the brakes, unlike my many other incarnations of the past, I always did, because I'm the last Doctor and my Tardis is a very old girl, needed careful handling - and old habits die hard."

Rose briefly smiled.

"You'll have to teach him to handle her more gently," she said, looking down at the Tenth Doctor, "After a landing like that I bet she appreciated your gentle touch."

And Ace felt that sting of jealousy again, but quickly dismissed it.

The Ed turned away from the console and looked at Ace and Rose.

"Let's get him out of here," he said, "He needs that anti venom."

An hour later Rose sat in a waiting area at the end of a long white corridor saying nothing as she looked out at a landscape where lilac gems sparkled in sunlight on faraway hills.

"Are you okay?" Ace asked her quietly, and then she sat down next to her.

Rose ran her fingers through her fair hair and blinked away tears.

"I know your Doctor said he would be okay – but what if he's not? What if the anti venom doesn't work?"

"The poisons archive is massive," Ace replied, "Seriously, you could get lost down there – and it's full of antidotes. I don't doubt it's going to work, he collected all those cures to make sure his travels were safer. Ed told me Rick loved to explore tropical planets. That's probably when he started to collect the antidotes too."

Rose paused for a moment, and then she turned her head and looked into her eyes.

"I really love him."

And again Ace felt a prickle of envy.

"Who?"

"The Doctor. He was a different man when I first met him, then he regenerated and I got to know him all over again. You'd think that would be difficult, that it would take a long time, but it hasn't taken me long at all – I love him even more now."

And relief ran through her as Ace realised Rose was talking about the Tenth Doctor.

"Of course you do," she replied, "But I don't have all that to deal with – Ed can't regenerate. He's the last one."

"Does that worry you?"

"Not any more," Ace replied, ""The Tardis can't fly so we stay put on Earth. It's a lot safer, no nasty surprises around the corner to worry about. We live a quiet life."

"I can't imagine the Doctor ever wanting to do that," Rose replied,

"Give him a few more thousand years of wandering and he'll be ready to settle down," Ace told her, "He does in the end – with me, this is how he spends his last lifetime."

"Well I hope I have many years with my Doctor," Rose replied, "I couldn't imagine losing him, but obviously I do one day...or maybe I get old and die and he goes on without me – do you know what happens? What about Ed? He's the last Doctor, he must know everything about the future!"

Ace held up her hand.

"Stop that, Rose – I promise you, he doesn't remember much at all. He was trapped in the Tardis power core for a century after the great battle for Earth. Removing him from the core damaged his memory. He's lost a lot and he can never get it back."

Rose gave a sigh.

"This is crazy – he's a time traveller who can't remember the future!"

"And it's not his fault," Ace told her, "He almost died, Rose. I'm just thankful he's still here, I don't care if half his memories are missing, he's still the Doctor and he's still the man I fell in love with, nothing changes that."

And then a door opened further down the hall and Ed walked up to join Rose and Ace.

Rose got up and looked at him anxiously.

"Is he okay?"

"Yes, he's going to be fine," he told her, "The venom was sending his heart rate crazy – and with twin hearts that really can be difficult to control, but after he had the anti venom he started to improve. He's going to take several days to fully recover and he's still in a lot of discomfort so he's on pain relief and sedatives, he's going to spend most of the time sleeping until he feels better, but yes, he is going to make a full recovery."

"Thank you so much!"

Rose threw her arms around him, giving Ed a hug he was not expecting.

He put his arms around her and briefly hugged her too and then let go as he caught a spark of jealousy in the eyes of Ace McShane, and he wondered why, because she had no way of knowing that hug he had just received had made his hearts skip a beat as memories came rushing back at him of a life time lived so long ago...

"I want to see him," Rose said.

"Of course you can" he told her, "But the staff here told me he needs peace and quiet and rest, so you can't stay long."

And they walked together up the corridor.

"What are we going to do?" Ace asked, "I mean, if he's here for a few days, do we need to stay too? It seems a bit pointless if he's going to be resting all the time."

Rose looked at her sharply.

"I'm not leaving him!"

They reached the doorway and Ed paused, giving a weary sigh.

"Rose, please listen to me – he's out of danger, he just needs rest. He won't get much of that with you constantly at his side. Go and see him, reassure yourself that he's on the mend and then come with us – me and Ace are going back to Earth in the Tardis, we'll come back for him in five days when he's ready to leave."

Rose stared at him.

"You seriously think I'm going to leave him here on his own?"

"Rose, this is a medical facility. The town of Lilac is divided between two industries – medicine and mining. There are no hotels or guest houses between here and the next town and the only place you'll be sleeping is on a couch in the waiting area. Do you really want to do that for five nights when you know he's going to be perfectly all right?"

She shook her head.

"I'm not sure. All I know is, I need to see him, excuse me!"

And she pushed past him and went into the room where the Tenth Doctor lay in bed with an IV connected to his arm.

He was breathing much easier than she expected and his fever was fading away.

"Doctor," she whispered, and he slowly opened his eyes.

"Rose?"

She smiled.

"You're going to be okay. You need to rest here for a few days but you're going to be fine. And I'm staying right here -"

"No..." he said weakly, finding enough strength to grasp her hand, "Go back to Earth with him."

And he looked to the doorway where Ed stood with Ace.

"But I want to stay with you!"

"Rose, I need to rest. I have to sleep. Spend some time with that other me over there. Get to know Ace. I remember Ace..."

And as he looked at her he smiled, then he closed his eyes and gave a sigh.

"I just want to sleep... and I want to do it without worrying about you, okay?"

Rose blinked away tears.

"If that's what you want," she said reluctantly, "I'll do it."

And she leaned over him and kissed his cheek, but the gesture was lost to him as he slept soundly and deeply. Then Rose got up and left his bedside. She walked halfway across the room, turned back and looked at him again, and then she left the room and closed the door behind her.

"Okay," she said, "It's what he wants me to do – so I'll come back to Earth with you."

"It's for the best," Ed told her, "And you'll like my Tardis, it's even got a maze!"

"Sounds great," she said quietly, and then she turned for the exit and they left the facility together, as Ace silently decided she would go along too when Ed showed Rose around the maze. She was still feeling jealous, even a little insecure to see him in the company of Rose Tyler, but she was still not quite sure why...

When they got back to the Tardis Ace watched in silence as Ed set the co ordinates and took the Tardis on its return journey, handling the Tenth Doctor's with such ease that it seemed he had never been away from the controls.

Rose said nothing as she watched stars flash by, her thoughts were with the Tenth Doctor – and her heart too, at least, Ace hoped so, because she was still feeling a little uneasy about Rose being so close to Ed...

The Tardis landed gracefully and smoothly once more and the controls fell dark.

Ed paused to key in the return flight.

"Everything is set to go and pick him up again in five days," he told her, "Then he can drop us off back on Earth and you and him can be on your way."

And then he turned away from the console and headed for the door and Ace and Rose followed.

They stepped out into the woodland behind the house, and Ed indicated to the door set in the back of the brick wall.

"Right back where we started," he said, "All we have to do is go through that gate and we are home – in MY Tardis. She's unfolded into the house gardens and maze."

"But we won't be showing you the maze today," Ace said as Ed opened the gate.

"Why not?" he asked her.

"What's the rush?" Ace replied.

He caught a look of envy in her eyes again.

"There is no rush," he told her, and they went into the garden and Ace closed the gate behind them.

As they walked up the path towards the house, Rose slowed her pace, turning her head and looking over at the marble head stone beneath the shade of a willow tree.

"Who was Jayden Drake?"

"A very close friend and travelling companion. He died in the great battle to save Earth."

Rose frowned.

"This great battle – why did it happen, and when?"

And Ed hesitated.

"You are the companion of an old regeneration of me from many centuries back," he reminded her, "Too much information could be dangerous. I'm sorry, its for the best if I don't answer that question."

And Rose gave a sigh of frustration.

"You could at least tell me why you buried a friend in your garden, I mean, it's a bit weird, having a grave out here."

"Jayden was frozen in time moments from death," he said in a hushed voice, "The Tardis matrix could not bear to let him go. And we tried to bring him out of stasis and revive him but his wounds were too severe and he died, so she buried him here."

"Who did?"

"Idris. The matrix in human form."

"Why did she do that?"

Ed was growing weary of her questions.

"Because she loved him!"

His reply stunned her.

"Okay..." she said quietly, and then she said no more as they continued to walk back towards the house.

As they reached the back door Ace opened it and went inside, Ed followed but as the breeze picked up Rose hung back, pausing to sweep her hair off her face as she turned and looked back down the path towards the gate at the back of the garden that led to the woodland.

"Is something wrong?" Ed asked her.

She was still looking back.

"Rose?"

She turned back, feeling uncertain.

"I'm not sure," she replied, "I just got this weird feeling, like someone was out there, beyond the garden...watching us."

"You've been through a lot," Ed replied, "Come inside, you need rest and a strong cup of tea after they day you've had."

And she went inside, but he lingered for a moment, looking out towards the woodland beyond the house. He saw and felt nothing unusual, but he recalled Rose Tyler well enough to know that if she thought she felt something lurking, then she was probably right...