Chapter 10: The Undefeated Goddess
The gas lamps flicked, casting shadows upon their faces
The Doctor and Rose stared at each other from across the room.
All those years of waiting, of yearning, of simply trying to stay alive just to have this one moment, for both. All that anticipation seemed to be overshadowed by the Doctor and one single reckless decision that had caused a man's death.
All for his Rose.
The reminder that Mr Dawson's death was indeed his fault sent a shiver of mind numbing guilt through his tired body. Pain shot up from his leg, his body's answer to the new stain. Still, in that moment, it didn't matter. Rose was here. Just the way he remembered her. Just as beautiful, just as trusting. Always saying the right thing.
"Hello." Said the Doctor, not taking his eyes off Rose.
"Hello" she echoed, the same even voice as the Doctor, the edges of her mouth slowly curling.
And then Rose smiled. Really smiled.
The same look on her face after he asked her where she wanted to go next. Or when he took her to a place that made her so happy, she glowed. The tip of a pink tongue in-between her teeth, her lips wide. Even among all this death and danger, she was still smiling.
And that made him smile too.
Before they knew what was happening they were in each others arms. To anyone who didn't know them, the pair would seem completely mad. And, maybe they were. Was it possible to be mad with happiness?
"Hello." Murmured the Doctor, his lips in Rose's hair, holding her so tight he was sure she would get pins and needles from the waist up. He couldn't find it in him to care, though. She was here! In his arms! And he never wanted to let her go.
"Hello again." Said Rose, her voice muffled by the Doctor's shoulder. She made no move to pull away.
An undetermined amount of time later found the Doctor and Rose standing next to the closed doors. The banging against wood had finally stopped, but the Doctor doubted that meant anything good. Now there was just eerie silence. Rose chanced a glance over at Jack and Gwen from across the room, who held each other in such a way that almost border lined indecent. Rose smiled. That must have been what she and the Doctor had looked like.
"Well, she could have said they were a couple. Not just played the 'he's my boss' card." The Doctor spoke scornfully. Rose turned and saw he was still locking the doors. "I mean, come on! 'I care because he's my boss'... who'd believe that!"
"I think they're friends." Replied Rose, quietly scanning the room. "Besides, Torchwood Three's closed off, if you're not close to the people who you count on to keep you alive, then, you're as good as dead."
There was far too much experience in her voice for the Doctor to ignore. He turned, his task now complete, and looked at Rose's green tinted brown eyes.
"What about you?" he asked. Rose averted her eyes. Her gaze flited around the room until they came to rest upon the distraught Mrs Dawson, who had learnt only half an hour previously, how her husband had met his terrible end. Their children assured safety, however, seemed the only thing she could now think of. "What's it like working for Torchwood?" the Doctor forced his voice to sound lighter. "Defending the Earth? Fighting for peace and love?"
"More like chips, chocolate and Christmas." Rose smiled, still not looking at him. "I quit a few years back. Wasn't really my thing." She tried to put the same light heartenedness in her voice as he did.
She failed.
And in doing so, looked old.
So very old.
Her long fingernails scratched at the light blue material of her dress. Her long brown hair, long since taken down from her styled do, now sat just about her shoulders. No make up, no African braids to hold her hair, no modern Rose like normalities of any kind. She wasn't the same, as he had first thought. She was different, far too different from the teary girl he last saw on that cold beach.
Suddenly, the Doctor became very afraid.
"Rose." The Timelord whispered her name, gaze searching hers so intently she could feel his eyes demanding her attention.
However, once he looked in her deep brown eyes, the same way he had hundreds of times before, he was side stepped. Every memory of every moment when he was about to kiss her, but lost his nerve or wanted to tell her just how much she meant to him, and stumbled over his words came to the forefront of his overcrowded thoughts.
Once their eyes locked, the Doctor was reminded that, regardless of the little changed details, she was still Rose.
His mouth changed at the last minute what it was going to say, making the words come out stumbled and, not for the first time, rude.
"How old are you?" Rose's eyes widened, and he wasn't surprised, this question was new to him too.
"Twenty eight." She replied after a frown.
"Seven years?" he looked at her in dismay. All that time. Minutes, hours, days, months, years... closer to the end. Time lost; ultimetily less to have her by his side. Humans were out so very fast. But she had gone on, lived on, like he had told her to do. And seven years of her life were spent without him.
"Yeah, sure, what about you?" she hadn't thought this conversation was strange, just his shocked reaction.
"Three." Answered the Doctor, wishing it had been the same for her.
"Oh." His shock reached her. "Well…that's not fair." She had learnt so well during those years apart to laugh and make light of a situation, before the sheer pain of it ripped you apart and ate you from the inside out. Rose Tyler had learned to survive.
"Hey, guess what?" the Doctor changed the subject, a classic fail safe diversion tactic his new body seemed fond of. "We're in an old fashioned room with two exits, a weird monster outside looking for a female authority figure in the 1800s with a load of people in fancy dress who think we're barking mad." Cried the Doctor so loudly the people in the room (who did indeed think they were barking mad) turned to them, startled. Maybe it wasn't the best thing to make such light work of a situation such as this, where someone was already dead, but the serious conversation was making him feel uncomfortable. To cover this feeling, he had yelled the first thing that came into his head, really fast.
"I know!" cried Rose, catching on as quickly as ever. "Any minute now a werewolf's going to drop though the ceiling!"
They both seemed to find this hilarious. No one else laughed.
They stopped too, suddenly, and looked up at the ceiling.
No skylight.
Might as well make sure.
"Oi, you two!" bellowed Donna.
She stormed towards the pair, fire in her eyes. The past half hour had been spent listening to a terrified women's grieving tears, with nothing but a pat on the back and a 'there, there' to help her. Rose was right though, Mrs Dawson had been carrying a large flask of gin.
"I think we need to leave before we get stabbed to death by the lizard thing with the pointy swords. I don't want to die in eighteen whatever!" bellowed Donna, throwing her hands wildly in the air.
"You always did take me to the best places." Said Rose, shooting a sneak glance at the Doctor. This whole situation was too much like all those times before.
See a mystery, almost get killed, solve the mystery. So on, so forth.
Go back to the TARDIS and travel until you get a chance to repeat it all over again.
"Of course I did." The Doctor hadn't done that bad, had he?
"That morgue in Cardiff." Answered Rose, turning around fully to face him.
"We met Charles Dickens… lovely bloke." Donna had a feeling she was being ignored.
"That planet that was collapsing and everyone thought we were gonna get eaten by the Devil?" Rose blinked at him owlishly.
"That planet was orbiting a black hole, real anomaly that was, never gonna see that again." Donna raised her eyebrows at that statement, did the Doctor sound proud?
"The bunker in Utah?" Rose regretted saying that instantly.
"Oh ok, that was bad, but how was I supposed to know there was a Dalek in there? Besides you're the reason we got out alive."
"But I'm the reason it got out in the first place." The screams as they realise their guns were useless, the lives lost.
"No, never." The Doctor locked eyes with Rose, hiding his confusion as to when the conversation had gotten back to the life or death issues that seemed to haunt his life.
"Never ever?" Fire works, orange squash and ball bearings. Those two words that always come before something bad.
"No, just never. And I'm the one who locked you in." Regret; he had left her to die. Nineteen years old, still living at her mums and he nearly got her killed. He would never forgive himself for that.
"Yeah, if you didn't want to travel with me anymore, you could have just said." Rose grinned and put a lighter, almost twisted point of view, of that one and only day Rose had seen the Doctor point a gun he was intending to use.
"What and get slapped by your mum again?" the Doctor grinned back. "No thanks."
"Excuse me, but are you two quite finished?" Rose and the Doctor turned back sheepishly, neither admitting they had both forgotten about her.
"Donna, relax!" the Doctor put both his hands up in a submissive surrender. "I'll get us out of here, you wait and -OWWHHWA-!" the Doctor made a noise of pain as he took a step forward.
"Doctor!" yelled Rose.
"I'm fine, really, don't worry." The Doctor stood on one foot, raising his injured leg to hang in the air. "Really its ok, Rose." The Doctor stumbled to the dinning table and sat on one of the chairs. Rose helped him get there and pulled a chair to rest his leg on.
"Screwdriver." Demanded Rose after she had taken his now soaked tie off his leg and exposed it to the light of the room.
Surprisingly, the Doctor handed Rose his screwdriver without argument.
Rose turned the object from side to side for a minute then she must have found the setting she wanted, because next thing anyone knew, she was using the laser to hack away at the end of her dress.
The Doctor sat, open mouthed, as Rose took the top layer of her blue dress and turned it into shreads from the knee down. She did the same to the underskirt, until she had two piles of expensive pale blue bangeds. Thin white stockings, covered her legs, the blue high healed shoes looking out of place in the scandalous open, for once not covered by her large outfit.
Her dress riped and her hair a mess, Rose was starting to look familiar.
The scene had attracted attention. Now Donna, Jack, Gwen and Mrs Dawson, who sniffed loudly from her corner all stared at Rose and the Doctor. Doctor and patient, respectively.
"What do we know about these lizard things?" asked Gwen suddenly, Jack to her right. The question seemed more directed at him than the Doctor. The poor man was smiling dumbly at Rose playing nurse perched on another chair beside him.
"Well, the males have the babies." Said the Doctor, more to himself than anything.
"Like seahorses. I like it." Nodded Gwen. With the pregnancy horror stories surrounding women, it was a wonder the human race hadn't died out before the invention of alcohol.
"The egg is passed from the female to the male and then the male gives birth." Added Jack smiling, as he reminisced about past times. Times of which the others were thankful not to hear about. "What we have is a load of warrior males, none of them expecting."
"Right idea, if you ask me." Remarked Donna.
"I'm afraid I'll have to disagree, with humans it could get messy." The Doctor nodded in satisfaction as Rose leaned back, her work complete.
"And they want me." The Doctor snapped his head up suddenly to look at Rose. "For whatever reason, they want me. They went to kidnap me, not Jack." She looked the Doctor dead in the eye. "So why me?"
"What makes you think I'd know?" the Doctor replied coolly.
"You're not surprised they're here." Which was true, the Doctor had to admit. It was doubtful that they had brought Jack and Rose here just to leave them alone and forget about them, but he didn't think it was time for an argument. He had a feeling that would come later.
"Let me tell you a story." If she knew the facts, than it wouldn't be so bad. Right?
"I'm not in the mood for fairytales." Rose lifted an eyebrow at the Doctor.
"Who said this is fiction?"
"I'm sitting comfortably." It wasn't a conversation, it was a challenge.
"Then I'll begin." And he did.
Many years ago, the Leer Lizzhard reptile were fighting an ancient war that would soon spread through all of the Easteris region. They fought for the honour and pride they believed it stood for, announcing themselves unique, with strong metal armours and weapons given to them by the Gods of War. They used swords and shields believing their power stood in the ancient methods of war, not in the technology. Disorganised, the oncoming army needed a leader who was as immortal and undefeated as their race vowed to be.
One day, an Issta came to their planet. The last of her kind, all but she had perished in a war that had spread throughout all of time. The Time War.
Free to walk between worlds but never to be part of them. The non corporeal being existed on the fear of other people and their sacrifices of blood and death. The Issta taught the Lizzhards about space and time travel. Brought them from their ancient war methods into a more threatening murderess undefeated race. Each world they defeated they claimed for their holy one, their Goddess.
The religion insisted the leader be unforgiving and unstoppable. She was their undefeated God.
Yet still, she had no body, walking through the worlds, the dimensions and the universes, true. She was a legend and the last of her kind. All the power in the world, though, couldn't give her what she most desired: a body. A body worthy of her. If she was whole, a full solid being, she could raise herrace from its ashes and rule more than an infinite number of dimensions.
And then a man came, a man who, like her, was the last of his kind. He was the Oncoming Storm.
He told her a story, the story of the BAD WOLF.
The Goddess could travel between words, so why not get her back?
The last of her kind listened carefully. Inhabit her body just for a short time, bring her to this universe. To Issta, it would have been easy. No dangers of rips in time and space or fractures to the very heart of the universe. What would she receive in return?
The Oncoming Storm was given a deal, a choice.
One week, the Issta would spend in the BAD WOLFs body.
One whole week.
In that time The BAD WOLF would be given a choice.
To go back to the other world to return and never see this universe again, the Issta back to living in a ghost like form as before. Or to stay in this universe. And let the Issta choose her own body. One that she saw worthy, take that body, take over that person inside. Whoever she chose and whoever she saw fit.
For the BAD WOLF to stay in this world, someone's body had to be given in for it, whoever the Goddess saw worthy.
A sacrifice.
"So, it could be anyone? You were sentencing someone out there to death, with someone else living inside them for as long as this Issta lives?" Rose paced, fire in her eyes, even if her words sounded calm.
"Yes." The cold, simple remark she got in return was worth nothing, the Doctor's voice only fuelled her anger.
"And you think that's ok? Sacrificing someone's life just so I can get back, with someone like Cassandra living inside them like that, slowly killing them by crushing their brains." Rose stopped and looked hard at him, as the Doctor got steadily to his feet.
"Yes." One word spoken so coldly from someone so familiar; that was what made it sound so alien and cold.
"Why!?" bellowed Rose, losing her composure in a flash. "Why did you do this, go to all this trouble?" her fists clenched and rage was in her eyes, "What's the point?"
Sudden and an equally powerful result came from the Doctor. In a flash, he was by her side and yelled at her in a way he hadn't done since his last regeneration. Pink cheeks and eyes wide.
"The point!?" He was near hysterics. "The point! The point is Rose… I'm on my own, completely on my own, there is no one left, really no one, and even if there were, it would have to be someone like the Master, wouldn't it?.. I am so alone and the only time, the only time when I didn't feel so alone, so completely isolated…was when I was with you."
The door furthest away crashed open.
Furniture scattered uselessly to the sides, wood and metal so dangerously close.
Dust from shattered pottery and other priceless and broken objects filled the air. No doubt plaster from the sides of the walls crashed with it as the heavy double doors were thrown from its hinges.
The people in the room ducked in shock as the dust cleared.
The army of Lizzhards entered.
Sorry for the delay, coursework and other boring things.
But the good news is that tomorrow is my last day of college before the Summer!!
Write and sleep is my month and a half plan. (My parents aren't aware of this yet)
I'm also very sorry if I clogged your inbox with useless crap (you maybe pleased to know I clogged my own up in the process). Somebody pointed out something wrong with chapter 4, so I deleted it changed it then added it. But I couldn't get it back in, without deleting all the later chapters. After I had added them all back someone told me I had added chapter 4 twice and missed out chapter 5. To remedy this I had to repeat the whole thing again, yey!
Thanks to the people who emailed me to tell me I'd messed up, without you the whole thing would have been a waste as no one would be able to understand it.
Saturdays Doctor Who?
Hee!