Crossed Wires
by ErtheChilde
'You're trying to say that everything you do is reasonable, and everything I do is inhuman. Well, I'm afraid your judgement's at fault.'
FOUR
Rose spent the first fifteen minute lingering beside the TARDIS console, observing the face of the Doctor's watch and counting down the time to when he would be back.
'How does he even do that, anyhow?' she wondered to herself, considering the watch. It looked like a regular watch from Earth to her. Wouldn't it be funny if he was just pretending to consult it when they landed, just to look impressive? 'Actually, wouldn't put that past him.'
Eventually, she decided waiting was boring (and not the least bit pathetic, since she was technically waiting around for a man), and she considered other ways to spend her time. She could always take this opportunity to explore the TARDIS further – she had been meaning to for weeks now but never gotten around to it.
Somehow it seemed wrong to do it while the Doctor wasn't around, though. There might be some places that he didn't want her stumbling upon – like his room, perhaps, or some closet with private belongings – and she wouldn't know that unless he told her.
Best wait for him to get back, then.
If he came back, a sly voice at the back of her mind pointed out.
What if he got lost somewhere out there? He wouldn't be coming back – and she wouldn't be able to get home.
'Stop it,' she ordered herself. He was coming back. He had promised.
The library or multimedia room were options – though the latter would be useless to her with no translation available, and the library was only fun when the Doctor was about.
'Suppose I could give an alien telenovela a try without the translations,' she considered. By the time she managed it, the Doctor would probably be back, and everything would be fixed and she could see how well she'd done interpreting everything…
Still, she didn't make a move to visit either of those two places. She knew her thoughts would be far from the intricacies of alien languages right now.
Instead, she went back to watching the timepiece in spite of her earlier derision of it, trying to ignore the part of her that wanted nothing more than to completely disregard the Doctor's orders. He had told her to stay put for a reason, after all.
Well, actually, not really. If he had, she hadn't really understood him. He'd simply given her one of those devastating, pleading looks and she'd agreed.
'One hour,' she coached herself firmly.
However, when the watch finally ticked down that hour, he hadn't showed up. She gave him another five minutes – a painstaking wait, that – because he was notorious for being late. After another five, she tried to tell herself it was fine – he'd probably figured out what was wrong and was lingering behind to make friends or chat the way he sometimes did.
As private an individual as he was, the Doctor loved to hear himself talk. She didn't think it was possible for anyone to talk more than the Doctor, even when he wasn't saying anything at all.
Probably that was on purpose.
At fifteen minutes, Rose left the console room.
There was no such thing as being fashionably late when you were the Doctor, and he was probably in trouble. Meaning, he needed someone to bail him out, and after an hour, she was probably the only person he actually knew on this planet.
It didn't matter that she was potentially heading out onto a moon where no one would be able to understand her, and vice versa. She'd find him somehow.
Flipping through her phone, she found the one picture she had of him. She could use it to show anyone who didn't understand her that she was looking for him, if hand gestures didn't do the trick.
'If this becomes a thing, I'm gonna need to take more photos of him,' she said out loud to no one. His inevitable moodiness over that conversation could go hang for all she cared. At least she'd have a way to look for him if they ever got separated again. 'If only he'd carry a blood mobile like a normal person…'
She headed to her room, searching for some better clothing and supplies that would make helping him easier.
Rummaging through the red backpack she had brought from home, she tried to decide what she would need. She didn't know the planet or the climate or anything like that – and it wasn't even something she could find out, even if the ship's translation circuits were working. The Doctor had just told her that the information on the screens only ever came up in his language. It wasn't likely to change under normal circumstances, let alone now that they were trapped in some kind of…language prison planet.
'Okay, think logically,' she ordered herself, hands on her hips.
She'd need comfortable shoes – a given on a normal day with the Doctor, but especially important for a possible rescue. All her things should be waterproof, too, if wherever they had landed was anything like London, where the weather changed every five minutes. And she'd need clothing that wouldn't get caught on anything or was easy for someone to grab on to.
'On that note,' she mumbled, pulling her hair back and trying it so that it didn't present to easy a target to anyone's grasping hands – or, you know, tentacles.
Thinking on the last time she'd been captured by an alien and remembering the Doctor's tendency to get his sonic screwdriver taken from him, she secreted away a few bobby pins into her hair was well. As long as the locks on this planet weren't too alien, she might be able to manage to open something.
She stopped in the kitchen to get some water in case there was none on that planet, and after a considering thought, added a few of the tasteless nutrition bars from the food machine. She hated them, but the Doctor was always going on about how they had everything a body needed…
Thinking on the many homeless she'd seen on the streets back home during the worst points in each season, she decided she might also need something to keep her warm or cold depending on the alien world's climate.
After rummaging in the wardrobe for a bit, she found a section near what looked like mountaineering gear that had what she was looking for, and pulled out a blue coat. It was a futuristic model that looked like leather but felt like snakeskin, and on the inside of the sleeve there was a temperature gage that allowed her to change whether it produced heat or cold.
'S'like air conditioning for clothing,' she marvelled.
Even better, it seemed to have pockets that were – if not bigger on the inside like the Doctor's – at least voluminous enough that she could squeeze all the supplies she'd wrangled into them.
Deciding that she had everything she could think of, and trying not to dwell on the fact she was really only prepared for what an Earth-like planet could throw at her, she headed out.
She was sort of hoping that by the time she got back to the console room that the Doctor would have returned and they could have a bit of a laugh about how silly she was being.
But he wasn't.
Squaring her shoulders, Rose strode purposefully over to the door and pulled.
The door didn't budge.
'What the – ?'
She pulled again, this time using both hands, and the second time tried to get leverage using her foot.
Still, the door wouldn't open.
The TARDIS was locked. Had he locked her in? Why would he do that? Was he trying to stop her from doing exactly as she had planned?
'Come on!' she cried, feeling a little bit panicked now. It wasn't so much the idea that all of her planning had been for nothing, as the idea of having been trapped somewhere.
Another round of fruitless tugging at her backing up, running her hand through her bangs anxiously.
Maybe she should just wait until he came back, after all? No, that seemed a bit too much like giving up for her taste. But there weren't really that many options, and she didn't think the TARDIS had any other exits.
What would the Doctor do in this situation? If it were her out on some strange planet and him locked in here?
'Well, obviously, he'd sonic the door,' she told herself with a frown. Too bad she didn't really have that capability right now. Or ever.
Well, it was better he had the sonic in any case, especially if he was in some sort of trouble.
Of course, him being in trouble was the whole reason behind her trying to get out!
He might be a dab hand at this adventuring and world saving thing, but even he could get into scrapes. What if he'd gotten arrested? Or hurt? Or kill –
She jumped to her feet, not even allowing that thought to take hold.
She wasn't just going to sit there and her arse and wait while he might be dying!
She set off, intent on scaring up some kind of lever or pipe in order to pry open the TARDIS doors. She didn't care what the Doctor had said about the hordes of Genghis Khan, she was getting out of this ship!
She tripped suddenly and was sent sprawling.
Hands stinging from scraping against the floor, she glared over at the loose bit of floor panel that had knocked her down. She could have sworn that had been flat a second ago, and –
Her eyes fell on something just next to the jump seat.
It looked like a smaller version of her red rucksack, only it was yellow.
And peaking out from beneath the flap, she noticed a familiar looking object. It resembled the breathing mask she had worn when she and the Doctor visited Krakatoa. The air had been so full of pumice the Doctor hadn't wanted her to choke and had provided her with this.
Understanding dawned on her, and her eyes fell on the floor panel. It had snapped back into place, once more a smooth expanse of grating.
The ship was giving her a message.
If she had gone out of the TARDIS before, she might have suffocated mere steps from the door.
Shame washed over her, along with the staggering realization of just how out of depth she was right now.
Tentatively, she reached out and flipped the latch open.
The pack was filled with things she hadn't and probably never would have thought of – bandages and disinfectant, a device that resembled a Swiss army knife, tiny syringes and plastic bottles of liquid (all thankfully labelled in English), a Geiger counter and for some reason a thermos of tea.
She shivered, the enormity of the situation hitting her all at once. What she was about to do was dangerous, and although the TARDIS wouldn't stop her, it seemed to be trying to tell her to be careful. She could get hurt, or killed, herself.
'Thanks,' she told the ship tentatively, not really expecting a reply. It only spoke to the Doctor, after all, even under normal circumstances. 'But I still have to go.'
Although she was glad for the warning from the ship (which she still couldn't quite come to grips with being alive), she had to go out.
'We're gonna have a talk with himself when this is all over, though,' she announced decisively as she put the breathing mask on. 'We need a better plan than this one if he's ever late again.'
Either that, or he just wasn't leaving her alone on the ship again.
Decked out in her mismatched bit of gear, Rose took a deep breath and headed for the door.
This time it opened for her easily, and she stepped out onto the alien world.