Thanks again for the reviews! Sorry that this chapter was so long in coming! I have the ending all planned out in my head in great detail, just the details of how we're arriving there was wonky. I think I have it figured out now. Enjoy!
CHAPTER 8
Amy was an inquisitive new companion. She had many questions the first night: "How is it bigger on the inside? What is a police call box? Why can't it just say 'time machine', or is that too prentious? Do you ever have to change the lightbulb on the roof? What about the windows on the outside, they have to go somewhere, right? Is it a cry for help, the bowtie?"
This last question was directed solely to the Doctor, who just shrugged, straightened the apparently offensive accessory, and said, "Bowties are cool!"
Rose snorted and rolled her eyes, suppressing a giggle. Amy certainly was a talker. Rose remembered having questions her first night on the TARDIS, but she didn't remember asking so many at once, and she certainly did not criticize the Doctor's fashion sense. But then again, her first Doctor wore leather, and Rose couldn't find fault with that. Quite the contrary, actually. In fact, she found him rather...
"Still with us, Rose?" the Doctor's voice cut through her reverie. She felt her face flush. "Um... Yes. Definitely yes!"
"Do you have any idea of what I was saying?"
"Umm... bowties are cool?"
He sighed. "I was asking if you ladies would like to go and check out the future?"
"Sure! Sounds fantastic!" She internally kicked herself for using that word in particular, but if the Doctor picked up on it, he didn't say anything.
What had come over her, daydreaming about her first Doctor like that? Especially since her second Doctor was also very attractive. And when she said he was attractive, what she really meant was that he was drop dead...
"Rose!" The Doctor waved his hand in front of her face.
"Yeah?" There was that blush again.
"You coming? Pond's seeing space for the first time, and you're missing it!"
"Uh... yeah," she replied as she watched him walk to the TARDIS doors. She let her eyes wander south a bit. Yes, this new Doctor would do quite nicely!
The Doctor pulled Amy back inside. "Now do you believe us?"
"Okay, your box is a spaceship. It's really, really a spaceship. We are in space! What are we breathing?"
"I've extended the air shell. We're fine," came the reply.
"What's that?" Rose asked, pointing to a large spaceship that rather resembled a floating city.
"Now that's interesting. Twenty ninth century. Solar flares roast the earth," the Doctor started.
Rose grinned at him. "Hey, that was our first date!"
Amy looked at her skeptically. "How... romantic."
"It was," Rose sighed dreamily for effect. "We had chips, and I had to pay for everything because someone doesn't carry any money!"
"You're joshing me!" Amy replied, a grin creeping across her face.
"True story!" Rose grinned.
"Actually, Rose, that was in the year 5 billion when the sun expanded and Earth was destroyed."
"Wait, your first date really was to watch the world end?" Amy wasn't yet used to this life.
"Well, we did have chips!" the Doctor replied, defensively.
"Yeah, which I bought!" Rose teased back.
"Anyway..." the Doctor's grin gave away that he wasn't really as annoyed as he sounded. "The entire human race packs its bags and moves out till the weather improves. Whole nations. Migrating to the stars. Isn't that amazing?"
He ran back inside in his excitement and didn't realize that the TARDIS doors had shut, trapping the two women outside. He heard them calling and knocking, however, and opened the door again. Amy just gaped at him. Rose folded her arms across her chest and raised an eyebrow as if to say, did you really just do that?
"Well, come on. I've found us a spaceship."
"You found us a spaceship?" Rose replied incredulously.
But he ignored her and rambled on. "This is the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland. All of it, bolted together and floating in the sky. Starship UK. It's Britain, but metal. That's not just a ship, that's an idea. That's a whole country, living and laughing and shopping. Searching the stars for a new home."
Amy was excited. A real adventure at last! "Can we go out and see?"
"Course we can. But first, there's a thing."
"A thing?"
This oughta be good, Rose thought.
"An important thing. In fact, Thing One. We are observers only. That's the one rule I've always stuck to in all my travels. I never get involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets."
Rose suddenly started laughing so hard that she nearly fell out the open door of the TARDIS!
-DW-
"It's a spaceship, Rose! Let her have some fun! What's the worst that could happen?" the Doctor glibly responded to Rose's concerns about Amy wandering off.
She rounded on him. "What's the worst that could happen? Uh, let's see here a minute. Maybe a bitchy trampoline will take over as her planet blows up. Failing that, there could be a Jagrafess upstairs. Or Daleks. Or clockwork robots after our organs. Or France (the way she said "France" with such disgust reminded the Doctor that he was still not forgiven for how he acted around Madame de Pompadour)! Or..."
"Okay, okay," the Doctor interrupted her litany. "I suppose that a few nasty things have been known to happen on spaceships, but that doesn't mean that that's going to happen here! Besides, you're just jeopardy friendly!"
"Oi! And have you ever set foot on a spaceship and not found trouble?" she teased.
He knew she was just teasing, but still his mind wandered: getting possessed by a sun, getting turned into an old man by the Master, running from Vashta Nervada in the Library (though that was techincally a planet), and creepy creatures made from water on Mars (okay, that was a planet as well) - and that was just since he'd lost Rose at Canary Wharf! He didn't like being reminded of those times, the last two, especially. Though it was the Mars incident that still haunted him. He'd very nearly become a monster himself. This was why he was so eager for Amy to go and explore: he needed to talk to Rose.
"Rose, there's something I need to tell you..." he started, but was quickly interrupted by Rose who told him to shush as she grabbed a glass of water off of a nearby table and set it on the ground.
His eyes widened as he saw what she was getting at. Count on Rose to notice the details that he'd missed. Soon the Time Lord Victorious was all but forgotten as a mystery lay before them. How was the ship moving if it had no engines? He scratched his head in puzzlement before looking up and noticing that Rose was no longer at his side. She had run to the assistance of a young girl who was crying - silently. Torn between bafflement and pride for the woman he loved, he briefly wondered if this new him was a bit daft. Rose was starting to be a better Doctor than he was, and this, this would just not do!
-DW-
Amy proved to be the hero of the day. She'd made a very risky decision that could have killed everyone on board the ship, but instead saved them all as well as the life of the Starwhale who was carrying the ship on his back. When asked why she did it, she'd just shrugged and said that the Starwhale reminded her of someone else who was very, very, old and very, very, kind. Rose had smiled softly to herself. She couldn't have said it better herself.
Later, as Amy slept soundlessly in her new room, the last Time Lord and his Lady sat side by side under the new console, marveling at her beauty. Or at least Rose was. The Doctor was marveling at beauty of a completely different sort. Twelve years may have gone by for her, but Rose Tyler was newly blessed with the Time Lord aging process, and as such looked just as lovely at 37 as she had at 25, or even 19 for that matter. Rose had lived almost as many years since meeting the Doctor as she had before she'd met him, but they had really only been together for the first two of them. His hearts broke at the time they'd lost, and he wished again more than anything that he could fix it.
Rose seemed to sense his thoughts and turned her gaze away from the TARDIS's underbelly to gaze at him instead. "What are you thinking?"
"Oh, Rose. I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For... everything. I can be a right git at times."
"Yeah, not arguing with that," she grinned, her tongue poking through her teeth in the way that makes his knees go weak.
"But you do know that I love you, right? And I would never intentionally hurt you, right?"
"Yes, my Doctor. I do know that. But... you do seem to make a habit of unintentionally hurting me." She sighed.
"And yet, you're still here. I'd have left me a long time ago. And I certainly wouldn't do everything that you have to get back to me. Why are you still here?"
"Do I really need a reason besides I love you, you daft alien?"
He grinned. "You know, you technically can't call me that anymore."
"Says who? Is an alien someone who is a different species or from a different place? It'd have to be a place, right? Humans share their planet with animals of all kinds, but you never hear them call, say, a dog, an alien, right? Dogs and humans aren't the same species. (Though, I've heard it said that some men are dogs... but lets not go there right now.) I'm still from Earth. You're still from Gallifrey. Ergo... alien!"
He laughed at that. "Okay. You win." But then he sobered. "But, Rose. I've got something to tell you that you're not going to like."
"You're not sending me away again!"
He blinked at her. "What?"
"You're about to remind me that River Song is not yet sorted out and that keeping me round will hinder your future wedded bliss, yeah?"
"Oh.. that. That's sorted. I don't remember anything, but I know that when I looked into the TARDIS's heart that I learned something about her that means everything's gonna be ok, and she is no longer an issue."
"What?"
He shrugged. "Yeah, so... yay?"
She blinked at him.
"So... there's something else I need to tell you that's more important."
-DW-
Rose laid alone in her own bed that night, staring at the ceiling. She wasn't going to sleep. But she did have to think. The Doctor had played loose with the laws of time while on Mars and nearly destroyed the universe. The reason: she wasn't there to stop him. Time Lord Victorious, he'd called himself. She shuddered. She wondered how she could so easily forget that he could be a dangerous man. And what's this about River? He looked into the heart of the TARDIS, and they don't have to worry anymore? Rose felt something settle like lead into the pit of her stomach. Something didn't feel right. It didn't feel right at all. Suddenly, she knew what she needed to do. She had to talk to Jack. She pushed a couple of buttons on her borrowed vortex manipulator, and was gone.
