Chapter 6
AN: All. this. Dialouge. It's killing me. I really, really hope I did good job of keeping it IC. If there's something really OOC, tell me and I'll fix it.
To KarouYamisaki: what exactly made it so hard to read? I'd love to fix it if you could be a little clearer.
Next: the chapter I've been wanting to write since I started this. First bit of the story I came up with, actually. And I'm gonna go ahead and warn you, Chapter 8 is going to be on the marathon side. As in "It'll probably take me a week to write it if school doesn't eat my life." And school is about to eat my life. So be patient, okay?
Thanks to PMB for letting me use her account. DFTBA, all!
Chapter 6
January 24 ,2012
Cardiff
Rose
"Tea always makes everything better." pronounced Martha, handing Rose a cup.
"You sound like my mum." she scoffed. But she took it anyways, drinking deep as she sat back on the sofa. God, she was tired. After all that sleeping you'd think she wouldn't be, but no.
"So this is Torchwood." Rose said. "Interesting choice, Jack. Kind of...dark. And underground."
"Exactly, who builds a base underground?" said the Doctor. He was perched awkwardly on the edge of a chair, seeming a little unsure of himself, like he didn't know what to do.
"Ok, enough babble, Rose. As happy as we all are to see you again, we know there's a very good-well, probably bad- reason you're here. What's going on?" Jack, professional as always, took the lead.
She sighed and put down her tea. "Alright. It was about twelve years ago. We'd been in the parallel world for a good six or seven years, never noticed anything weird. Then, one day, the TARDIS starts getting this...signal."
"So you did grow a TARDIS. Did Donna's idea work, or did you-"
"Yeah, but that's a bit irrelevant, isn't it? Anyways, it's not even words. Just these four little beeps, over and over. Completely untraceable. John- the metacrisis clone, that's what he was calling himself- tried to go after it, but nothing. It just kept coming in."
The Doctor leaned back. "Four beeps."
"All in a row, sort of like a pattern. John mentioned the Master, don't look at me like that,I'm getting there. So anyways, after that started coming through, he insisted on setting up a system to monitor to any potential rift activity. It was quiet for a while, and then the really strange crap started happening."
"What?"
"The beeps, they weren't just beeps. They started to sound different, so I played around with the audio file of them a bit. Reversed, they made a message."
"He didn't." hissed Jack. "The Master-he didn't-"
"He did. It was a message from him, asking for help. 'The timelock is collapsing, he said. Rassilon's meddled too much. Help me.' Broadcast across every known planet, seeping through the cracks into our dimension,the Master, of all bloody people, sending out a distress signal.
And then, after a couple hours of the loop, it just stopped. No more beeps. No more messages. It just stopped.
"About three week later, the rift monitor picked up some serious activity. It wasn't on our side, or yours, but somewhere in between. Almost like...whatever made the rift crawled out from the Void, cracking both sides as it went."
"So you didn't make the hole."
"We just came through. Doctor, I don't know what made it, but it had more power than the hole the Daleks made. The Dalek's hole was neat, this was like a rip, a violent tear in the fabric of reality. At that point, Torchwood was having to deal with outrageous amounts of alien activity, way more than they should have. There was one last thing, too; the last thing that made us leave."
"What?"
"Those two words started appearing again, Doctor. Bad wolf. Everywhere we looked, they kept cropping up. A signal for the end of the universe, and it wouldn't go away. We had to go, we had to find you, had to warn you about what was happening with the universe. It should have been simple, really. The Rift was open, we had the TARDIS, it should have been a simple jump through. But something went wrong. Halfway through the Rift, the gates closed on us. The TARDIS couldn't handle it; she started to collapse. John activated an emergency setting on her to turn it into a Void ship. He hadn't told me he'd put it on when we grew the TARDIS, and now I realize why."
Her breath caught mid-sentence, and Jack reached out and took her hand. Rose wiped her face and kept going.
"The transformation-it took these massive amounts of energy. It sucked up every last bit of his life force. Even then, it wasn't quite enough. The ship came out pretty damaged, fires everywhere, not pretty. I nearly died keeping her going."
She sighed, burying her face in her hands. "Spent the next twelve years in stasis, mostly. Missed a lot. It was only about a week ago that Jalen brought me out. Said he'd found another hole. We slipped through the crack, and as far as I know it closed behind us."
Jack nodded. "Thanks. Sorry about that-"
"Oh, it's quite alright-"
"Doctor?" Amy asked. "What do you think?"
"Ah, yes." He popped up out of his chair like weed. "So. Something's making weird cracks between dimensions, the Master sent a distress call from time-locked Gallifrey, the timelock doesn't seem to be working anymore, and everything that ever hated me is showing up on my doorstep. This is..interesting. Very interesting. Probably life-threatening, definitely universe-threatening. Fun."
He said the last word half-sarcastic, rubbing his hands together nervously. Rose was watching him, watching intently, trying to take in every last bit of his new body. She wasn't sure what to think, just yet.
"Doctor, what about this Nightmare Child?" asked Martha. "What is it?"
"Don't ask, you don't want to know. It is very dangerous, took out nearly fifty Timelords last time I fought it. We don't stand a chance when it's at its full power, but, if we can catch it just as it comes through the rift, we'll be able to delay it, buy ourselves a little time."
Sarah Jane looked straight at the Doctor. "How will we know when it comes through? Jack, what usually happens when you get aliens here?"
"Well, I doubt it'll use our rift, but trust me, you'll know. If it's big as the Doctor says, you'll know."
He clapped his hands together. "Okay! I need you lot upstairs, we've got a little work to do. Not you, Doctor. You can stay."
Rose mouthed a silent thank you in Jack's direction, and he shot her one of his trademark smiles.Harkness. Even if he wasn't directly involved in the relationship, he was always trying to hook someone up.
She put her tea down, grinning like a schoolgirl.
"Hello."
"Hello."
He smiled straight back at her, a genuine smile, and Rose got the idea that he didn't smile like that much. Oh, his little excited smile showed up a lot, but it was only half there. He was like her first Doctor a good bit, darker and damaged, but he liked to hide it behind that half-smile and childish attitude.
"How did-how did you regenerate?" It's the only thing she can think of to break the awkward silence.
"One of the higher-ups over on Gallifrey tried to crack the time lock, drove the Master insane doing it. Sent them back,saved the world, but it was just too much, you know? But before I changed, before I regenerated, I went back, and I saw all of you. Every last one of my companions, living beautifully without me. Even you, Rose. Do you remember? New Year's Day 2005?"
"The drunk man in the shadows." she whispers.
"But it wasn't you, not really. You hadn't met me yet. And look at you now. You're brilliant, piloting that Void ship all the way back here, and so brave, for being able to go on for so long out there. You have this life that I know nothing about, you have this son, for God's sakes, who makes absolutely no sense half the time he's around but is still incredible all the same. You're fantastic, and this whole time I've been sitting here, doing nothing, fighting aliens and laughing like it's all just a game."
She tapped he fingers on the edge of the chair, watching him pace back and forth like a roaming tiger.
"You know when you miss somebody," she finally said, "and you think for days about what you're going to say when you see them again, play it over in your mind like a movie. But then you run into them again, and suddenly, what you were going to say before doesn't matter anymore, because they're not the same person you remember. It doesn't matter how little they've changed, but now what you were going to say is totally irrelevant, and you just don't know what to say anymore?"
The Doctor spun on his heels to face her, a stupid grin plastered to his face. "Rose Tyler, you magnificent creature."
She smiled right back at him, getting to her feet. He pulled her deep into a hug, nearly cutting off her breathing he was holding her so tight. She'd started crying again, dammit. Never could control her emotions at time like this.
"I am never letting you out of my sight again." he whispered. She just half-smiled. That would never be true. It was never that easy.
He finally let her breathe again. "So! I've got a brand-new TARDIS which you haven't seen yet, and I think you could do with a trip."
She shook her head, a little sad. "We can't."
"Why not?"
"What's happening here, right now- Doctor, we need to stay here. We can't just run off and pretend it's all gone. Maybe another time, but not right now."
The Doctor looked at her, caught somewhere between disappointment and pride. "Rose Tyler, you've grown up."
"I didn't grow up. I just got old."
The ground shook beneath their feet.
"What was that?" asked Rose.
"The Nightmare Child. She must be coming through." He dashed off towards the stairs. "Come along, Tyler!"
He hasn't changed anywhere as much as he thinks he has, really.
