Sorry for the delay with this-it's for the same reason Spring Conditions was delayed! Since our last chapter was posted, I graduated from pharmacy school, and had to both study for (and pass!) my board exams so that I could officially start work as a licensed pharmacist. There were 2 board exams and this was a lot of pressure... ergo the massive delay. Thanks so much for your patience (and thank you to my co-author brighterthanroses for her patience as well)! We hope you enjoy the chapter! =)
"This. Is fucking amazing!" Janis says with a laugh, circling around the console room, her eyes bright and arms open.
They'd spent the past few hours exploring the TARDIS—this version of the ship doesn't have the full array of rooms as its counterpart in the other universe but all the same, it enchants her. The first stop is—of course—the music room. Janis makes a beeline for the guitar he keeps tucked away in the corner, ignoring the 33-string bazantar and the circular harp. Granted it's not as impressive a collection as the thousands of instruments he'd managed to acquire in the other universe, but even so—there are more impressive things in there than just a Fender Kingman he'd bought on sale at a store on Denmark Street just last week.
As Janis's fingers gently skim over the shellacked wood grain of the flattop acoustic though, he draws in his breath, holding back the joke he was going to make about it—the guitar would be something new to her after all. Fender hadn't started that line until well after her death—in the other universe, at least. She picks up the guitar and sits, legs crossed casually on the floor in front of her. She tunes it by ear—downtuning the 6th string into the drop D tuning that wouldn't become popularized for decades—strums experimentally, and then changes her mind, tightening the string back into a perfectly tuned E. She brushes the strings with the side of her thumb, pushing the tight metal strings on the neck of the guitar under the calloused pads of her fingers, and strokes out a few chords he recognizes straightaway—the opening to Mercedes Benz. It was the last song she'd ever recorded in the other universe, and one of the few songs she'd written herself. She pauses after a few bars, looking back up at him and Rose with a smile.
"Just something I've been playing around with," she says, her gravelly voice soft and almost shy. "I like to try new things."
"'S beautiful—more than, even," Rose says. "It makes me want to—"
Rose makes an expansive, gripping motion with her hands in lieu of finding the words she's looking for, and Janis laughs, grabbing a hold of one of Rose's outstretched hands to haul herself up.
"I'm glad you think so. That's why it's called the blues, English. You're not supposed to skim over the top of it, like your feelings are above it. You're supposed to get down into it… really feel it, you know? The instrument though—man, that's what's beautiful."
Next, they go to the zero room, where they float in a zero-gravity vacuum under a simulated constellation of stars reeling above them. It's surreal, giving a tour of the TARDIS to one of his favourite musicians of all time, but for the first time in many, many days he finds he can't keep a grin off his face. He shoves his hands in the pocket of his coat—his coat—and feels more like himself than he has in the year since he and Rose were deposited at Bad Wolf Bay.
Their next stop is the library, which has masterfully digitally restocked itself with copies of books and memory imprints from the other universe. As Janis wanders the room, bending over to peer at a collection of memory jars holding ancient Gallifreyan rites, he shoves his hands deep into his new-new-coat pockets and lets his feet wander over to the 20th century Americana music section. There, nestled beside copies of Rosemary Clooney's This For Remembrance and Bob Dylan's Chronicles is normally where he'd keep his copy of Love, Janis—the biography her younger sister had written after Janis's death.
It's not there. He doesn't even try to hold back his smile—perhaps this universe is more forgiving than their old one. Oh, it hasn't given Janis the fame she deserves—not yet, anyway—but perhaps it's intervened to spare her, and her family, the pain of—
As he turns away, he sees it, tucked slightly out of place next to Chuck Berry: The Autobiography. The binding of the book is frayed from multiple readings—so frayed in fact that he hadn't recognized it at first. But it's the same dog-eared copy he'd bought back in the other universe. Love, Janis by Laura Joplin. He stares at it… willing it to be—to be longer as if to accommodate the story of a much longer life—to be different somehow from the thin, unassuming book he remembers. And is it? Perhaps it is… he really can't tell without opening it, but if he opens it and reads it, it's as good as making it happen—
He swallows down something empty and hollow blocking his throat and doesn't reach for it, not even to move it back where it belongs.
"Doctor—" Rose interrupts his thoughts. He steals a glance over his shoulder at her and she frowns.
"You alright?"
He sniffs, crinkling his brow in a way that he's sure must come off as slightly annoyed, given her confused reaction. "Course I'm alright. Why wouldn't I be?"
"You're just a little pale," she says.
Janis looks from the Doctor to Rose and tips her head in a slight nod towards him. There's something in her gaze he can't quite read and it's discomforting. "She's got a point. You look like you've seen a ghost there."
Something bitter drops in his stomach at her words and he almost wants to laugh. He looks from one to the other, both women that the universe may—or may not—intend to be snatched too soon, and he shrugs, the image of nonchalance. "Probably just the lighting. Let's show our guest something a little more exciting than some stuffy old books, shall we?" he says. He forces a bright grin onto his face and leads them out of the library.
The women are silent behind him as he strides from the library into the console room, and he wouldn't call the silence awkward exactly but it's still far from the hazy, jovial camaraderie of the past few days. Janis clears her throat.
"So you haven't told me… does it fly?" Janis asks, eyeing the central column of the ship.
"Sure she does," Rose says, her voice warm with pride as she glances over at the Doctor. "She can go anywhere."
"So we can get closer to the stage? I missed the Joan Baez set…" Janis asks, her voice hushed conspiratorially.
The Doctor laughs. "Yeah. Yeah we can do that," he says.
"S'not crossing our own timeline?" Rose asks, her eyes flicking up to meet his. She's still smiling but he can hear the concern etched into her voice, a sensitivity to timelines born from years of Torchwood training and TARDIS travel.
He shakes his head, dismissing her concern with a sniff.
"You're sure, Doctor?" she reiterates, and he doesn't need to look at her to know that the expression on her face is likely a mixture of both casual and plaintive.
Even so, he smiles over at her, reassuring.
"Nah. No harm. Just a spot of fun, eh?" he says. He whirls back around towards the console, coat pirouetting behind him, and glances back at Rose and Janis. Janis is all smiles, running her hand up a strut of coral—and Rose's smile is brighter now, eased. She trusts him after all, and he grins back at her. With a wink he flips a switch near the dematerialization lever, then cranks it clockwise and the ship shudders beneath their feet. It's a flashy move—once he used to do all the time when they were traveling together in the other universe, and it would often send them sprawling onto the floor in a fit of giggles as the ship groaned its protestations around them. Time and a new universe has barely muted the effect—Rose laughs, clinging to the jumpseat with one hand and Janis's outstretched palm with the other as the ship rocks under them.
Within moments they're suspended in midair in front of the stage at Woodstock—two days in the past and half a kilometer away from where their past selves are are currently walking hand in hand through the crowd. He opens the front door of the TARDIS and moves back, letting Janis have the honours of the first view outside. Janis steps forward slowly, her hands clutching the doorframe as if for balance. He smiles—he loves this part, seeing new friends find their own magic in the universe, helping to push them away from the confines of little the blue and green ball they call home. It's moments like these he remembers why he always loved traveling with companions in the first place—they were always brilliant, always helped him save the world of course—but he was the Time Lord and it fell to him to show them their ability to be so brilliant. Not ever as brilliant as him, of course, but even so.
He swallows, hoping not for the first time that evening that the singer before him has a long, long life in which to continue to shine.
Janis's eyes dance, enchanted with the sight before her. Her gaze is riveted on the stage, and after a moment she turns to him and Rose with a chuckle.
"Damn. Damn!" she says over a laugh.
"Like it, then?" he grins back at her.
Janis doesn't answer at first—not in words at least—but the hazy, awestruck look on her face is answer enough, and he smiles. She plops down, her calves dangling over the edge, watching the crowds dance and sway beneath her.
"From up here we're so tiny, we barely look like people," she says, squinting.
"All too easy to forget sometimes," he says softly, with a slight nod of assent.
"Can they see us?" Janis asks, her gaze still riveted on the crowd below.
"Nope. Perception filter," Rose answers. She sits herself down gingerly beside Janis, leaning her weight back on her hands and stretching her lean torso as she mimics the singer's posture, her legs hanging casually over the edge of the doorframe as well. His stomach lurches at the sight—not that there's inherently anything dangerous about the way the women are sitting, of course—he'd never have allowed this idea in the first place otherwise. He's had companions sit the same way over the course of centuries, sitting half-outside, half-inside the TARDIS as they observed everything from the birth of nebulae to Sarah Bernhardt's performance as a minstrel at Le Théâtre de L'Odéon… but it's at least a ten metre drop to the ground and—
Rose tosses her head to grin at him over her shoulder, and the speed of the movement makes his pulse hammer in his throat.
"We can scoot over, Doctor—want to join us?"
"Nah," he shakes his head. "I'm fine back here."
"You sure?" Janis asks. There's a smile in her voice, but one eyebrow is raised, and he shakes his head once again. Best not to all be crammed into the doorframe, as if they were sardines in a tin. If anything happens he can just as easily make a grab for Rose from his current position—and without the added worry of accidentally shoving her off-balance if he were to sit precariously beside her. Janis he's not so worried about for the moment—whatever her fate ends up being, she has enough of a story left to tell to get a book written about her, but Rose…
Janis is still staring at him, and he's saved from answering her question as the crowd below goes mad—even from this distance he can see them clapping, waving their arms as a dark-haired woman in a blue shirt, her belly swollen in the mid stages of pregnancy, takes the stage begins to play the opening strains of Oh Happy Day on her acoustic guitar.
Janis claps, turning her attention back towards Joan Baez, and he sighs inaudibly, taking a seat behind the women on the grating.
—
Joan Baez's set lasts for another hour, and she's brilliant—truly she is—but folk music has never been something Rose has been interested in, and the soothing lull of the acoustic guitar combined with the late hour and the pitch black sky has her yawning before the set is half-over.
"Sorry, it's just—" Rose says by way of apology.
Janis laughs, swinging her legs from her perch in the doorframe. "It's fine, English. You can bug out—go on and crash."
Rose leans her head against the side of the doorframe, relaxed—too relaxed, in fact—and he reaches a hand down to her, scooching in between the two women and drawing Rose up close against him. Rose smiles, pillowing her head against his chest, and stroking the cuff of his coat with a soft smile.
"You shouldn't fall asleep here… it's dangerous," he murmurs.
Rose pauses the movement of her hand to smile lazily up at him. "Nah. You'd catch me wouldn't you? Course you would." The last words of her sentence trail off, and within moments, she's asleep.
Janis eyes them contemplatively, and they sit in silence for the next few minutes, the gentle rise and fall of Rose's breath in time with Let Me Wrap You In My Warm and Tender Love. The deep blue blue spotlight on stage washes over Joan Baez like an halo of light, an aurora in the darkness. For the first time tonight he finds himself able to relax into the music and the moment and just… be. Rose is secure in his arms—she's not going anywhere, and Time Lord that he is, he'll fight the universe itself to ensure that she stays that way. Alive. And safe. With him. He shifts his posture, pulling his coat around them both, despite the warm midsummer night.
Janis leans her head against the doorframe, her face hidden like a secret by the long brown hair she hasn't bothered to tie back. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a brown bag and tears off a piece of paper from within its depths. With a confidence that comes only from practice, she sprinkles the mix onto the paper and places the roach at one end, then folds it with her thumbs, using her thigh for leverage.
"Want one?" she says, as she wets and seals it. Her head has dropped forward for a better view of her work, and he wants to tell her that whatever drugs she does, just keep it to marijuana, to do nothing else, ever again—but the words die on his lips.
He only manages to muster up a shake of his head. "Nah."
She lifts the joint to her lips with a small motion he construes as a shrug, and lights it.
"So what happens?" she says, the words slightly muffled through her lips, slightly pursed around the joint.
"Pardon?"
"To her."
He raises an eyebrow, the one arm instinctively drawing Rose closer. "I don't know what—"
She looks at him then, the curtain of hair failing to obscure her piercing blue gaze. "You've been jumpy, English. This whole time we've been hanging out—talking about timelines and futures and how you can't look. How that would make bad things happen. And look at you," she says, inhaling a puff of smoke, motioning towards him with her free hand. "You're so scared she'll fall from here, or get lost in a crowd. And then in the library, you'd said all that stuff was from another universe, that all of us were from another universe, and it was like—"
She cuts herself off, searching his face. It's an expression he hasn't seen on her before, like she's steeling herself up for something. He's not sure what she's looking for, but he presses his lips together—he definitely doesn't want to know what she thinks she sees, and he can't meet her gaze, ducking his eyes down towards the stage. The crowd is fading—even the youngsters below them, hopped up on alcohol and sex and rock and marijuana though they are—are getting tired. Joan Baez's next song doesn't get nearly the applause he'd expect from a daytime crowd, and she begins the opening strain of her next song—the second to last song, if he remembers correctly. Which is just as well—it's almost 2am now, and they need sleep—all of them need sleep. Clearly Rose does.
"It'll be over soon," he murmurs, nodding towards the stage.
Janis makes a sound halfway between a sigh and a cough, and from the corner of his eye he sees her shake her head.
"Yeah. I feel you, English," she says, flicking the ash from her joint out the door. The dust scatters on the slight breeze, disappearing almost instantaneously into the sea of darkness below them.
Her next words are soft, as if they were an afterthought. "For what it's worth, I wouldn't want to know, either."
