This is the last chapter I have pre-written, so from now on updates won't be as often.
Chapter 5-Questions
Rose gradually awoke, feeling well-rested and refreshed. She was snuggled up in her fluffy pink duvet (this tent had everything!) and had that feeling one gets after a particularly pleasant dream; however, it had been a strange yet familiar dream, almost like déjà vu. She assumed that was to be expected, what with the amount of weird things she and the Doctor saw every day. It was the strangest thing, though; as hard as she tried, she couldn't recall what the dream had been about.
Oh, well. She guessed it couldn't be helped and gave up trying to remember her dream. It wasn't worth the headache.
Sitting up and stretching, she yawned and glanced down, seeing that she was already fully dressed. That saved time, then.
She slowly became aware of a quiet, melodic singing. It was unlike any song she had ever heard before, with a kind of ethereal, floating tune. Rose thought it was rather pretty, and found herself softly humming along to the music as she heard it, the melody rising and falling in parts. It really was a rather beautiful song, and Rose wondered where it was coming from that she would be able to hear it. They were in the middle of nowhere, after all.
Was it the Doctor singing or something? It wouldn't be the first time she had caught him doing something odd. The other day she had walked in on him stroking the console of the TARDIS.
But this couldn't be him, anyway. No, it sounded even older than the Doctor and somehow timeless.
It also sounded strangely familiar, although Rose was sure she had never heard it before. Was it – the TARDIS? It had the same kind of feel in her mind, like Rose was sensing the time ship's personality inside of her head. It felt the same as it had on the Game Station, though Rose didn't know if that was anything to go by. For all she knew, the TARDIS felt the same in everybody's mind.
She didn't have anything to compare it to, not being a telepath herself. It was a mystery how the TARDIS was even managing to broadcast into her mind in the first place. Rose had only managed to link because the Bad Wolf had possessed her, which had heightened her senses.
Unexpectedly, the music got louder at the mention of the Game Station, then immediately quieted. This surprised Rose out of her train of thought, leaving her confused for a moment, before being overtaken with the sudden urge to go and find the Doctor.
She turned to get out of bed and then realized something she should have noticed before.
Why would she have gone to bed in her clothes? That only happened after she had been either seriously injured or just really, really exhausted after a full day of stopping evil forces. Then a thought hit her. Hadn't it already been morning? That could explain the feeling of déjà vu she was currently experiencing.
It had been, hadn't it? She distinctly remembered rolling out of bed, exhausted after that nightmare of a night last night, because she knew she had been disappointed the Doctor hadn't stayed until morning.
Yes. Rose remembered. She had gotten out of bed and gone into the kitchen to see the Doctor cooking breakfast. Cooking! Despite all of his protests, she found that he actually could do domestic when he wanted to. She suspected he liked it more than he let on.
They had eaten breakfast and then talked about… what? No matter how hard she tried, it wouldn't come to her. She had a feeling it had might be important. The Doctor had... again she felt a sort of block in her mind when she tried to remember. Almost like there was an empty space she couldn't cross, like a bridge missing.
Rose found that all of her memories since breakfast were gone, which was quite a gap, considering the length of time she'd been asleep. Strangely enough, though this was rather distressing, this didn't alarm her nearly as much as it should have. It was sad that she was almost used to these kinds of things by now, though she knew she would never give up a life with the Doctor.
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While getting out of and then making her bed, she saw that it was at least mid-afternoon, or what passed for it on this planet, anyway. Rose never had been able to tell how much time had passed on the alien planets she had visited.
"Doctor?" Rose called down the hallway as she softly padded down the hall in bare feet.
Receiving no answer, Rose tried again, a little louder. "Doctor!"
Yet again, no response. Now Rose began to worry. It wasn't unusual for the Doctor to not answer her once if he was busy or couldn't hear her, but he usually heard her after two or three times of yelling down corridors.
She came into the kitchen and looked around. The Doctor wasn't anywhere in sight, and Rose wondered where he could have gone. There were only a few likely places he could be, and Rose didn't think it was that likely that he was in the bathroom or sleeping. Even then, he would have heard her calling for him, what with his 'superior Time Lord hearing' that he claimed he had.
That left two options: either the Doctor had travelled to the TARDIS for some unknown reason, or was outside, in the middle of a warzone. Rose wanted to think it was the former, but knew that that was unlikely.
Why would he have gone out in the first place? Rose couldn't think of any reason for the Doctor's departure.
What if- Oh, God. What if he hadn't left willingly? The thought made her sick. Just this once, could they get through a trip without one of them getting injured, arrested, or otherwise detained? She scoffed at that. Fat chance.
Rose used her irritation to distract herself from the worry clawing at her stomach. She was torn between dashing outside and looking for him, and knowing that she was probably jumping to conclusions and should wait a little longer.
She decided to wait before she rushed into any potentially dangerous situations. It wouldn't be helpful at all if he turned out to just be going out for a walk, and she got arrested or something.
"Always wait five and a half hours," the Doctor had said. Well, that was she would do, then. If he wasn't back by then, she would go out to look for him.
Five and a half hours turned out to be a really long wait.
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Cold. He was so cold. Why was it so cold in here? He was on a hard surface. Metal, as his brain identified it. He also knew his head hurt. A lot. That was unusual. He didn't normally get something as mundane as a headache, but the fact that he couldn't remember why disturbed him more than the headache itself. Why would he be lying on a cold, hard surface, with a massive headache and no recollection of how he got there?
He needed some answers, and for that, it might help if he knew where he was. He cracked open an eye, only to immediately shut it again as a bright light blinded him momentarily, causing his head to pound harder.
He groaned and rolled over onto his hands and knees. He noted randomly that he was wearing a suit, of all things. Suddenly, he was overcome with a bout of nausea, and gagged, trying not to throw up. When it had passed, he slowly got to his feet, vision blurring through squinted eyes.
He was dizzy, but not so dizzy that he couldn't think straight. He saw that he was standing on a shiny metal surface, and surrounded on three sides by metal walls. The remaining side seemed like it had nothing blocking it, but when he walked over towards it, he nearly broke his nose by walking straight into what he now knew was a force field. It flashed blue once, then faded away from sight again, until he looked closer. It was nearly impossible to see except for a slight rippling of the air in front of him, like a sidewalk on a hot summer's day. It was also emitting a faint buzzing sound, almost too low to hear.
Beyond that, he saw a hallway extending in both directions away from him, with another room directly across the hallway. It had the same sparse furnishings that his cell had (he had elected to call it a cell, since there was no clear way of getting out), just a threadbare mattress on the ground that he had woken up on and, in the corner, a small wall jutting out which he assumed hid a toilet or something like it.
The only difference was that a man was lying on the other cell's mattress, asleep or possibly knocked out. He was wearing a dark grey greatcoat with boots and suspenders. The whole ensemble had a sort of World War II look about it. The man in the other cell also had messy dark brown or black hair; he couldn't tell which.
He was overtaken with the urge to talk with the strange man in the coat, to feel a little less alone in this strange new world he had been thrust into with no memory of his past, even though he clearly couldn't hear him.
"Hello? Can you hear me?" he said, noting the way his voice didn't echo. Good, that meant the force fields weren't soundproof.
The black-haired man didn't stir. He tried again, a little louder.
"Hello?" Still no answer.
Oh, well. The stranger would wake up soon enough. Until then, he would just have to wait until either someone came or the strange man woke up for company. In the meantime, he opted to telling the stranger all about this new place they had found themselves in.
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It was two hours, thirty-six minutes, and forty-eight seconds later that the strange man woke up. He seemed to have the same unpleasant symptoms that he'd had earlier, and when the man stood up in alarm, he followed suit.
"Hello! Welcome to our new home! Although, I certainly hope it's not permanent. I don't really care for this place, especially because it gets rather lonely when you don't see anybody, and you don't even remember anything!" The pinstripe man started out cheerful, but was angrily shouting at the ceiling by the end of his little speech.
The stranger just stood there, staring, unsure of what to think of the occupant of the neighboring cell. He finally asked, "Who are you?", wanting to know if this man was to be trusted or not. He noted that the man had an American accent.
He turned to look at him, smiling disarmingly, and confessed, "I don't actually know. Courtesy of our brand-new friends, I suppose."
"Oh. Well, I need something to call you. You can't even remember your name?" the man asked dejectedly.
"Nope!" the pinstripe-clad man answered cheerfully. "I suppose we could always make up names for ourselves. How about I call you Jackson, and I'll go by Johnson."
'Jackson' seemed to think about this for a moment before answering. "That'll work, I guess. I'm guessing you don't remember anything, either?"
"Unfortunately, no," Johnson sighed. "We'll just have to wait until somebody comes." He knew, however, that he had at least one ally in this unfamiliar place.
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