CHAPTER TEN
Rose entered the med bay after finally having arrived at a decision. Although her expression was calm, she was anything but inside. The young Time Lady started wavering. She had enjoyed being the Master's pet, had loved the privileges it provided. Before she had met him, she was no one special. At the hands of her father and other men, she had suffered nothing but abuse, and received nothing but pain. If she risked all to step outside of her comfort zone and she failed in her objective, where would she go? What kind of life would she have?
"You've something to say?" the Doctor queried. His eyes met hers. The benevolent Time Lord's expression was unreadable as if he were waiting for something. Rose's lips parted, but no sound came out.
"That offer you made…?" Rose wanted to know. Her eyes pinned him with a look that said that their entire future depended on his answer.
"What offer is that?" the Doctor questioned.
"You told my Master that you could change me back to my human self. Is that true? Can you do such a thing?" Rose wondered.
He replied, "Yes, I could if you wanted it. I could set you up in whatever planet was best for you. You could go to England, the US, or anywhere. You wouldn't have to go back to your former life." Rose could sense the pleading behind his determination.
Rose considered the Doctor's offer. She loved the trappings of being a Mental Energy Vampire, but by the same token, she knew that if Koschei ever discovered her newfound power to feed on emotions as well as memories, he would treat her as a pariah and end things with her. If the Doctor was correct about her teacher, if her Master was ready to slam the mental door, she wanted to be the one to walk through it first. She would dictate when and on what terms their relationship would end.
Rose also wanted freedom from the constant onslaught of the voices. Where recently they had calmed her, they were now beginning to form mental maelstroms that she was finding difficult to control. She would do anything to be free of the mental hurricanes before they drowned her. She freed the Time Lord.
"Where is he?" the Doctor asked. When Rose glanced at him, he clarified, "Your Master?"
She sidestepped the question. "What about my mental…instabilities?" Rose asked hesitantly. "Would you be able to cure them?" The Doctor didn't respond right away.
"I will cure you," he said with quiet conviction. His thought touched her mind just now: I must.
"Come with me," the Doctor issued his desperate plea again, louder that time.
He scrutinized the woman before him. The Time Lord had never tried the things he was promising her, but somehow, somewhere, he knew he had to help her. So many beings in his lives either died or were ruined by his interference. He remembered his past companions, Martha, Tegan, Peri, Ace, and of course, Sarah Jane. There had been others throughout the centuries, not many, but some. Except for the occasional companions who h ad parted on favorable terms, the majority had suffered because he wasn't able to save them the way he had wanted. Here was vindication, he realized, for all of his past errors, a chance to start anew with his Rose, his Rhy'ana. The Time Lord's mind paused at that thought. When had Rose become "his"?
Are you the insane one, he questioned in his mind, or am I? Rose was contemplative as she picked up the Doctor's stray thought.
"I don't know…I'm not sure about anything anymore," she muttered. The Time Lady wouldn't let the Doctor see or feel any of her doubts about him, she steadfastly decided. Rose needed to pursue her goal as a business venture; only that way, could she achieve what she wanted most.
"What about my Time Lady memories? The Time War on Gallifrey?" Rose inquired, her voice calm as though she were discussing buying a car.
The Doctor's answer was business-like now. "They would be erased once I programmed the Chameleon Arch to change you back," he replied. "Afterwards, you would, if you wished, have new memories, or I could restore your old ones."
"What about him?" she asked. "What about my Master? Can you help him, if he wants it?"
The Doctor sighed, feeling various things in relation to Koschei, the biggest emotion being self-damnation. He wanted to help the Master more than anything, wanted almost to the point of distraction to reconnect the friendship they'd shared, but the evil Time Lord had always been emotionally beyond the Doctor's grasp. Of all his failures, of all the ones who'd separated from him in anger or had been parted from him, the Master's leaving was the worst, even worse than Lisi's death. The desperation had gone from his face, but it still raged on inside of him. If Rose said 'no', he didn't know if he could bear it.
"I give you my word that I will do my best to help him," the Doctor replied earnestly.
"I believe you," Rose ventured softly, "but I'm not sure about becoming a human again."
"It's the nature of things…your nature," the Doctor responded. "You were born that way; you should die that way."
Rose stared at the man before her. She knew how she should utilize the Doctor's cooperation, but he was so trapped by his convictions that she wasn't sure she could get him to do what she wished. Would he really aid her in her plans, as opposed to his? The young Time Lady thought about what she could offer him in return for his capitulation.
"In exchange for curing me, I will do something for you in return," she said.
"Agreed," he said softly.
He let his long, elegant fingers reach out to grab hers. Rose felt the warmest comfort from the Doctor's touch. Without realizing what he was doing, the Doctor's digits massaged the back of her hand. The Time Lady felt her dual pulses thrumming with a longing she had not experienced before.
The warmth crept up her spine. As he continued to stroke her hand, moving his circular motions to her palm, she gripped his hand as though it had become a lifeline. The Time Lady's eyes raked him with an unfurling desire, a sudden desire to go with him, and damn the consequences.
The Doctor felt his pulses quicken. What had started out as a simple handshake for him was rapidly becoming a romantic encounter. He told himself it was too soon, that if they ever did get to know each other that way, it should be after a long time in each other's company. He should break contact, he knew that, but he didn't…couldn't let go.
Rose closed her eyes, letting her mind wander. Her ruler had once stroked her palms, increasing her desire for him. What was it, she wondered mentally, about the palms on a Time Lord or Lady being an erogenous zone? She wondered if the Doctor had enticed other Time Ladies, ladies like Lisi, into his TARDIS this way? She also wondered why the thought of other women being seduced into his ship bothered her so much.
Keep this strictly business, she reminded herself. Rose kept repeating this mantra, careful not to let the Doctor hear it.
She decided that she needed to take control of the situation before it got out of hand. With a great effort, Rose let her fingers slip from his.
The Doctor gulped, his heartbeats returning to normal. "You said that you'd help me with something," he replied. "What?"
"I'll help you solve the circumstances behind Sarah Jane's disappearance," Rose replied. At the mention of his former companion's name, all hell broke loose. The Doctor's countenance grew stony, and his eyes were cold.
"I don't need your help!" he hissed. "How dare you! How dare you find out about her!"
"I didn't dare anything!" Rose bounced back angrily. "Your thoughts were shouting to me the few times we bonded; your emotions almost overwhelmed me!"
When the Doctor didn't respond, she continued, "I don't know who the people you were with are, or what they meant to you, but you somehow blame yourself for their deaths, especially Sarah Jane's, and Lisi's. Face it; you need me as much as I want you."
The Doctor's anger abated as a single tear ran down his cheek. Rose felt his sadness. She reached out and, after a moment's hesitation, she stroked his arm. He looked at her, somewhat shocked at her tender gesture and at the way his hand had touched hers. The Time Lady glanced at where her hand was, then pulled it back when she realized what she had done.
"I'm not trying to hurt you," she insisted. "I know you never solved the mystery behind her vanishing, and it's eating you up inside. That's why we can help each other…"
"NO! Forget I offered!" the Doctor snapped.
Rose pulled back her sleeve, revealing a silver bracelet. The Time Lord recognized it as a rd'lar bracelet. Ladies on the fashion planet, Synerrah, wore them for ornamentation, but also for protection from aggressive males. The cylindrical links in them contained miniature darts, which could, depending on the emotion of any wearer, be anywhere from a mild, bee-sting like stun to instantly fatal. With the same deadly look she had sported when they'd had their sword fight, she pointed her bracelet at him.
"That's what I thought you'd say!" she yelled.
"This is 'not hurting me'?!" the Doctor bounced back. "If you fire that right now in your highly agitated state, I just might regenerate, and I'm rather attached to my current body."
Rose continued holding him at bay with the bracelet but willed her anger into submission. "I don't want you dead," she told him. After a beat, the Time Lady added, "At least, not yet."
"How were you able to get that?" the Doctor queried.
"You and Koschei think you're the only ones who need weapons?" Rose asked, noting that that was the first time she had referred to Koschei in a term other than "my King" or "my Master". It didn't seem to bother her however. She remembered purchasing the bracelet when Koschei had taken her out to dinner on the stylish world. Although the Master had protested at first, Rose managed to finagle him into keeping the unique piece of jewelry eventually.
"So, you knocked the Master out with that, eh?" the Doctor responded. When Rose nodded, the Doctor replied, "Brilliant! Of course, if I removed the bracelet and used it against you…"
"I know you won't," Rose assured him. "For one thing, you don't have your sonic screwdriver to disarm me. For another, you wish to return to your TARDIS, and only I or the Master can link with this ship and keep it from attacking you so that you can use it to fly there. Like you said earlier, the little thing you did to escape has long since been corrected, and this ship will be on guard against such attempts in the future. The only way you can get out of here is either with me helping you, or with you leaving in a body bag."
To distract her from using the bracelet on him, the Doctor kept her talking. "If you are able to establish even a partial link with this ship, why can't you pilot it?" He asked.
Rose replied, "He never let me handle the controls. He promised he'd teach me, but we never got around to my first lesson in flying a TARDIS."
Or, knowing Koschei, he didn't want to teach so that you'd overpower him and escape, the Doctor thought, keeping his mind shielded from Rose.
The Doctor had to hand it to the Master, though; despite his failing to teach her temporal piloting, Koschei had trained her well in many things in the time the duo had been together. He glanced at the Time Lady and her jeweled weapon.
"Your arm is gonna be tired if you keep holding it aloft like that," he joked. Rose wondered again if she should simply destroy him without a preamble, but she remembered Koschei's "warning". She didn't want to be on her Master's bad side again.
"What is your decision?" Rose pressed.
The Doctor considered for a moment. If Rose really could help solve the mystery behind Sarah Jane's disappearance he would be grateful to her. His mind returned to a time in 1975, a year after his fourth self had left Sarah Jane abruptly to return to Gallifrey. He had planned to say a proper good bye to her, since she was one of the few companions who meant more to him than just a casual acquaintance.
But after months of searching, his efforts had turned up nothing. Sarah had vanished without a trace. He had even thought that some alien had taken the helpless writer of romantic thrillers off world for his own reasons. Throughout his incarnations, he had tried whenever possible to trace every step he had made since that time, and had accessed every scrap of information both on and off Earth. His efforts had proved fruitless, and every day, he damned himself for it.
If only I hadn't been called away …his mind started the familiar litany. If only I had done things differently, if only I had stayed with her …
If only, if only, if only….His mind trailed off as he realized Rose was waiting for an answer.
"I'll need my sonic screwdriver," he explained slowly so that Rose would not be antagonized. "I need it to access certain panels."
"So you will help me?" Rose asked, lowering her bracelet.
Rose could hardly contain her joy. If the Time Lord helped her, she would return to the Master a better mistress. Koschei would never turn her away or get tired of her or even fear her after that. Whatever it took, she was determined to be at the Master's side forever. If the Doctor eliminated her vampirism, well, so much the better. If not, then good riddance to him and to his TARDIS.
The Doctor nodded, affirming, "I told you that I would make you human again."
Rose adamantly shook her head. "No!" she said. "I like my life! That's not what I want from you!" Her eyes were wide, pleading, desperate like his had been before.
"I want my vampirism cured so I can be a proper Lady of Time for him!" she entreated. "I want to come back to him so he can forgive me for all the trouble I caused when I went after you. I would do anything to get him back!"
"Correct me if I'm wrong," the Doctor told her, "but it seems to me that Koschei wouldn't take you back. Your knocking him out isn't going to win any brownie points with him."
Rose responded, "I had to render him unconscious because he'd never agree to this, and he would certainly never let you go. But I know that once you make me better I can, be the ultimate mate for him. That way, he would never want to get rid of me!"
The Doctor stared at her as if she had lost her mind (which, he reminded himself, she had). "I knew you were insane, but I never thought you were crazy," he said. "Once we leave, if we leave, you can't go back to him, ever! He would kill you on sight!"
Rose said angrily, "I don't recall asking for your opinion, nor do I recall making a request!" Her mind raced as she thought of another way she could impress the Master. "You will use your sonic screwdriver to help me reprogram this ship to be compatible with my thought patterns so that it becomes my TARDIS! Then I'll return you to yours!" She commanded.
The Doctor shook his head, saying, "I can't. The best I can do is take you with me, but it is impossible to reprogram a TARDIS once the initial isomorphic bonding has taken place between a Time Lord or Lady and it. Maybe if the ship were in its infancy it could be done, but after centuries of being linked to the Master…"
Rose held up her weapon again. "I'm running out of patience!" She yelled.
"It's impossible, I tell you!" the Doctor said firmly. "For that to be done, you would need technology only Gallifreyan temporal scientists had. It's a highly specialized skill! Only 1/100th of Time Lords and Ladies possessed it! Oh, no, no, no, no, Rose, I couldn't do it! Not only that, even if I could locate a technical journal on how to do the basics, you'd have to literally take the ship apart and rewire it bit by bit. Would take centuries! The best thing we can do is try a partial memory wipe, let the ship drift through space; or we could program a sequence where Koschei's TARDIS wouldn't be able to dematerialize or rematerialize anywhere. It would, in effect, be stuck in limbo forever."
Rose's expression just then told the Doctor that it was pointless to reason with her. Her idea was a foolish one to him, and she was a nutter, but Koschei had been right all along about the Doctor's obsession with helping people. He could no more abandon Rose than any of the humans he had valiantly tried to assist. He also found that, although they didn't trust one another yet, he still felt a kinship of sorts with Rose now that she was Gallifreyan. He wanted her for himself, human or Time Lady, in every way possible even if he wasn't completely certain why. If she was on board his TARDIS, she could be won over by him.
"Look. I can program the Master's TARDIS temporarily so that it would be no threat to either of us. After that, we can go to my ship, and no tricks," the Time Lord suggested, trying to placate her.
Rose mulled that over as the Doctor continued.
"But, if I agree," he started, then pointed his finger at her as he said, "you have to promise me that you won't feed on every Tom, Dick and Harry we come across."
Rose crossed her arms, but in the end, she said, "Very well, but you have to agree not to let me starve. I will feed when I have to, and you shall have to provide the nourishment."
"Deal," the Doctor said, holding out his hand. After they shook hands, they made their way into the console room, where the Doctor saw the Master's inert body slumped across the metal grate. Rose started pressing some dematerialization buttons on the console and the ship presently disappeared. As it flew through the temporal void, the Doctor rummaged through Koschei's pockets, extracting the watch with Rose's consciousness therein. He placed it in his pocket, along with Koschei's laser screwdriver.
"Is the force field in the med bay area still activated?" the Doctor queried. Rose gave a negative response. She followed the Time Lord, her bracelet ready as he returned to the medical area to grab his sonic screwdriver. When they came back into the console room, Koschei was starting to stir.
"He's waking up," the Doctor said. "Can you keep him out longer?" Rose nodded. Training her thoughts to stun cycle on her bracelet, she fired a dart into his arm, feeling guilt at doing what she was to her sire. The Master slumped back into total unconsciousness, his chest rising and falling.
"Since his TARDIS is partially linked to you, I'll have to guide you in what to do," the Doctor said, moving to the control panel. Rose nodded, keeping a close watch on the benevolent Time Lord.
The Doctor set the screwdriver for the access panel, and for temporary override.
This won't be easy, he thought to Rose. The ship will not allow me to interfere again. You must distract it.
Rose looked at him in silent affirmation. She aimed her bracelet at the control board, but before she could make any further moves, a minute blue beam shot out and deactivated her bracelet.
It's inoperative! She thought, her panic rising. What now? The Doctor didn't answer her. Rose's ears became aware of a popping sound which had dissipated a second later. The Doctor crossed over to one of the black hexagonal panels, oblivious to Rose's fear. He used the sonic screwdriver to undo the panel, then crossed an orange wire with a brown one.
Rose saw the ship's lights flicker on, then off, then back on again. She went over to the screen as the Doctor continued working.
OVERRIDE SEQUENCE INITIATED: COMMAND PROGRAMME ONE, the computer screen displayed. Rose punched in the override sequence the Master had given her. The Doctor was resealing the panel back in place with his sonic screwdriver.
"There now!" he crowed. "Not a bad job if I say so myself!"
"What happened?" the Time Lady asked.
"Used a sonic disruption to distract the Master's ship," the Doctor answered proudly. "The popping sound you heard just now? That was cause by an ultra high frequency which only a TARDIS will respond negatively to. It confused the ship long enough for you to affect an override."
After checking the display screen, Rose confirmed, "You should be able to pilot the TARDIS without any opposition."
"Grrrreat!" the Doctor shouted like Tony the Tiger and grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat. He punched in a code for the world they would take Koschei to. In addition, the Time Lord opened a smaller panel on the dashboard and put one oddly shaped device in his pocket. The device was silver and shaped like a small bolt but with jutting points resembling a miniature star. He selected a green, triangular shaped device and placed it into his other pocket. Taking some rope out of his left pocket, the Doctor handed it to Rose.
"Bind him," he instructed. Using the string, Rose tied the Master's wrists together. She also tied his ankles together, although not too tightly. She hesitated for a moment, still feeling upset that she had to do this to the Master. Again, she wondered at the reason she had trouble remembering the evil Time Lord as her Master, rather than the Master.
The Doctor punched in a second code and, minutes later, the Master's TARDIS materialized on a planet. The Doctors smile widened as he noted that they'd landed in precisely the correct place and time.
"Where are we, exactly?" Rose queried. She stared at the viewing screen. It showed a barren world with red skies and dark hued, jagged peaks. The ground was also red, albeit a darker shade than the sky, which also had traces of pink in it. Clouds, golden colored, blew by at alarming speed.
"Pon'parynia," the Doctor replied. "It's a harsh world, totally devoid of any intelligent life forms. Oh, there are some animals, but nothing too fierce, more like timid rabbits, actually."
"The environment here is not too harsh, I hope," Rose said. She worried about the Master being stranded here forever. What if the Doctor meant to do just that? The young Time Lady didn't know if she could live with that possibility.
"Not to worry, Rose," the Doctor assured her cheerfully. "I promise I'll give him enough supplies to live off of for awhile. But, we don't want him using any technology to either retrieve his TARDIS and escape in it too soon, or get away using a ship from this planet. That's why I brought him here."
As Rose looked on, the Doctor continued. "This world won't be colonized by any sentient life for at least 300 years, and it won't be industrialized for another 500. He won't be able to utilize any creatures to escape."
He left the console room to go to the galley for some food and water. When he had gone, Rose went to her quarters and grabbed a sack with supplies, including two weapons, one being a pen shaped weapon; the other being a second laser screwdriver. Deciding that Koschei should have some way of defending himself if he needed it Rose placed the laser screwdriver in the Master's pocket before the Doctor returned to the console room. Presently, the Doctor returned with a cooler. He opened it, taking out contents to show to Rose.
"He's got a small fishing tool," he said, putting that back inside, "and he has bread, meat, water, protein bars and seeds for growing plants which will sprout in a matter of seconds! And, of course, the most important food of all…".
"What is that?" Rose wanted to know. The Doctor held up a yellow fruit in his hands and looked at it reverently.
"Why, a banana, of course," he replied with enthusiasm. "Potassium for his hearts, sweet goodness, and such a lovely shade of yellow! Koschei will be very glad we included this!"
Rose's head swung back and forth and she laughed. The Doctor thought he'd never heard a more pleasant sound than her giggle.
"I take it you love bananas," Rose stated the obvious.
"Immensely!" the Doctor crowed.
"We have something in common, then," Rose replied. The Doctor smiled one of his most charming grins, and she found herself smiling back. He thrust the cooler and then a basket at her, explaining that the basket had a change of clothes in it.
"You're sure that there are not any life forms here?" Rose queried, frowning. She peered once more at the screen. She could have sworn she felt a tremor of some kind, but she decided against saying anything, she could have imagined it.
"Koschei's ship didn't register any," the Doctor said. He looked at the screen and the readings once more, reading them to her. "Life forms, none, except for plant life, a few sea creatures, as well as some animals called 'rbitynes', which are the timid rabbits I spoke of earlier; technology, level one, extremely primitive; air and water, able to support Gallifreyan life…potable; winds whipping, but not at more than 30 kilometres per hour in any direction despite their fierce appearance and no hurricanes, earthquakes, or unusual floods or snows; gravity, roughly about 9.8226 to the fourth power, which is comparable with that of Earth," he commented.
Rose continued to frown. She felt…something, but it was still so faint that she wondered if she had heard the mental pulses correctly, if at all. The Doctor seemed oblivious. Together, they carried the Master's body outside to a cave not too far from Koschei's TARDIS. By the time the duo started walking back, the pulses stopped. Rose thought she needed to relax her mind. She was obviously imagining things.
"He'll be fine," the Doctor assured her. "Trust me: I know him better than you do. He has come out of worse predicaments than this, and escaped unscathed."
"Of course…" Rose responded absently. She entered the console room first, followed by the Doctor. He peered at the Time Lady intently.
"Is something wrong?" he asked, feeling concern. Rose fed on his emotion, shaking her head. He programmed the sequence for Earth as she looked on.
"Just hungry, I guess," Rose replied, shaking off any misgivings about the Master. The Doctor realized which hunger she spoke of. Wordlessly, he took her hand in his and let her mind touch his. Rose fed on his mental energy hungrily, savoring each thought impulse she received. As she received some memories from him, she saw the men she'd felt the other day in her meditation chamber. Questions were coming to the surface for her just then. Who were they? Why were they in the Doctor's memories? She broke off the contact with him so suddenly that he reeled from the severing of their thoughts.
"Rose?" he ventured tentatively. The Time Lady looked at him, her hazel eyes confused.
"I…sorry…" she said, leaving him alone and bewildered in the console room. Rose went into the Master's garden, her mind searching for answers. For her, the garden was calming like the Zero room. In the aftermath of her questions, she probed until she was rewarded with one of the men, the one with the scarf, appearing in front of her.
"I want some answers!" She demanded. "Who are you? Who are the others? Why are you in the Doctor's mind?"
The old man materialized just then. "Such a tone will not get you any answers, young lady!" he said angrily.
"She has a right to be confused, even a little annoyed," the Byronesque man was saying as he joined the other two strangers.
Rose heard the voice belonging to the man in the Cricketer's suit just then. "Forgive him," he said, appearing and pointing at the old man. "He gets tetchy every now and then."
The old man harrumphed, disappearing. "Why all the mystery? Why won't you tell me who you all are?" she cried to the one in the scarf, frustrated.
"It doesn't suit our purpose to reveal who we are just yet, or share our contacting you with him," the man replied.
"You mean the Doctor doesn't know you?" Rose wanted to know.
"He knows," the man with the coat of many colors said, appearing beside her. "He just doesn't know we've connected with you."
"Why don't you want him to know?" Rose asked. The little, baggy trousered man appeared.
"Because the timing isn't right for him or you to know everything," he responded. The man glanced at the hallway leading to the gardens.
"He's coming," he told Rose, disappearing. The others followed suit, leaving her alone. The current Doctor came inside, running his hands through his big hair.
"What's going on?" he asked. "Why did you leave?" Rose disarmed him with a smile.
"I would have thought you didn't want me around, in as much as I did kidnap you," she said in a teasing tone. The Doctor looked at her incredulously, thinking that if they spent a thousand years in each other's company, he would never get used to her mood swings.
"I offered to help you," he said finally. "There is a difference."
"But I also had to use a weapon to get you to capitulate," she debated.
"I would have gotten it from you eventually," the Doctor replied, shrugging.
Rose crossed her arms and pinned him with a stare, thinking, Arrogant git!
I heard that! The Doctor's mental comment bounced back.
You were meant to! She rejoined. The Doctor pouted, but didn't say anything. The Master's TARDIS materialized moments later. They both looked at the display screen.
"Ah, hah!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Powell Estates, London, early twenty-first century! We made it!"
"You doubted that we would?" Rose asked somewhat disdainfully. He gave her a look, wondering suddenly if their partnership was a good idea.
XXXXXXXXX
After the Doctor set the Master's ship on the automatic command for limbo, the pair grabbed the things they had packed and left. The pinstriped Time Lord's long legs propelled him toward the TARDIS, and as he got closer, he could feel his body rejuvenating.
"There she is!" he cried.
Rose spied an old, worn blue box, and checked to see if anyone was walking in their general direction. The Doctor pointed ahead, his excitement infectious. His fellow female acquaintance relaxed, letting herself feel his joy.
He ran up to the door, feeling the wooden structure. Rose heard a pleasant humming, as if the TARDIS was welcoming them (which it very well might have been).
"She looks fine!" the Doctor shouted. He flung open the doors and, upon seeing the console room, let the familiar sounds of his TARDIS wash over his mind. Rose took that moment to study the room. Unlike the Master's TARDIS, which had a black colored console room, this one had a less harsh, brown room with tinges of green on its walls. Although the roundels looked similar to the Master's, their round, white spheres cast a warmer glow than his ship. The Time Lady also sensed a female, rather than male, presence. Rose wondered if that could pose a problem. She didn't want this TARDIS to view her as a rival for the Doctor's attention.
"You missed me, didn't you, old girl?" he asked, running his hand up and down the main control board. In affirmation, the TARDIS tinkled a pleasant, xylophonic-sounding string of tingles.
"You traveled in this?" Rose queried.
"And if I did?" the Doctor returned, his question clearly having an edge to its tone.
"Jus'…it's so…old," Rose commented. The Doctor shifted from one area of the control board to another, stroking his beloved ship and murmuring words of comfort in Gallifreyan. The Time Lady swore she could hear a mewling sound in the background.
"She's one of the oldest ships around," the Doctor explained, "a Type 40. The Time Lord scientists were going to take her apart and melt her down. 'Too expensive to repair,' they said. 'Lots of structural damage. Better to just use the parts to outfit a Type 60 or higher.'"
"I can see why," Rose said somewhat snobbishly. "Look at her! What a piece of junk!"
The Time Lady felt a bee sting of an electric jolt on her arm just then.
"Ouch!" She cried. The Doctor grinned, but didn't laugh.
"Guess she showed you," he remarked, a twinkle in his brown eyes. Rose's response was to give him a mental bee sting. He touched his temple as he felt the twinge of a headache. When he glared at the young woman, she raised a brow, a mischievous glint in her brown eyes.
"If you want to get along with my ship, two things you should remember," the Doctor advised. "One, don't ever say that she is a piece of junk. Two, and most important, she is not an 'it'. She is a 'she'.
Rose took that moment to change the subject. "Why does this TARDIS resemble a blue box with the words 'Police Box' on it?"
The Doctor responded, "Long time ago, when I first visited Earth, she disguised herself as a Police Box because they were plentiful in the 1960's in England. Necessary for summoning bobbies back then."
"But why does it still look like that now?" Rose wanted to know. "We're in 21st century Earth you said, right?"
"Yep," the Doctor told her.
"So, why does it resemble something that doesn't exist anymore?" she asked. "Wouldn't your ship be too conspicuous?"
"Not really," the Doctor replied. "It has been my experience that humans tend to ignore what's right in front of them. Case in point: I've been separated from the TARDIS for approximately ninety-five and seventh eighths hours now, and no one has tried to either steal her to collect her, or to put her on the conveyor belt for scrapping."
"Well, doesn't this rust buck—" Rose began, but she amended her question when the Time Lord glared at her –"ship have a Chameleon Circuit?"
It does have one," the Doctor declared. "I've tried to repair or replace the circuit when I could, but the old girl keeps rejecting it. I know it's the right variation, a Model 'T 4-0', so why doesn't she want one?" When Rose didn't respond, the Doctor surmised, "my guess is that she likes looking that way."
Rose decided to ask what she hoped was a neutral question. "Where will my room be?" she queried.
"Where would you like it to be?" he asked, walking through the corridors which the TARDIS dutifully folded back for him. Rose followed as he suggested over his shoulder, "Northern exposure? An Eastern view? Or are you a—" he did a very poor male imitation of Vivien Leigh—"Southern gal?"
Rose placed her hands on her hips, her expression indicating that his sense of humor left much to be desired. "Yep," he told her, popping his "p", "West wing, I think." She followed him out of the room, trying to keep up with him. The ship folded back corridors until they reached a chamber with double doors.
The doors resembled a wooden portal with rectangular panels set in it. The Doctor pushed them open, revealing an empty, if large, space. Rose stared at what was to be her new home.
"Looks a little bare, don't you think?" she asked. The Doctor snorted.
"You know as well as I do that you have to specify what kind of furniture you want," he explained. "She's not a mind reader, you know, at least not where you're concerned."
Rose looked up at the high ceiling and requested, "I'd like a four poster bed, Queen sized, with a nightstand from the Baroque period. I'd also like an oil lamp from the Victorian era on the stand." The TARDIS readily complied. Rose put her knapsack on the bed and started putting some of her clothes in a closet that had materialized.
"Where's the bathroom?" she wanted to know. The Doctor pointed to a room next to the closet. Rose went through it, stepping into a bathroom twice the size of what she had had on the Master's TARDIS. It had white and black marble floors, with a Jacuzzi next to a sunken four claw bathtub. Next to the tub was a huge shower stall, complete with a viewing screen inside. The shower had white curtains covering it.
"I think I'll shower and change clothes," Rose said. The Doctor nodded, murmuring something about doing the same.
XXXXXXXXXXX
Moments later, Rose emerged from the shower, feeling refreshed and also happy that the TARDIS didn't do anything mean spirited to her. She went into the bedroom and, pulling out a brown vest with a white blouse and pants, began to dress. She combed out her now-almost-brown hair, making certain that she didn't look unkempt. Rose found the console room minutes later, but noticed that the Doctor had not returned.
The female time traveler decided to wait. Spying some chairs out of the corner of her eye, Rose squatted, but before she could sit in the chair, whe cried, "Oooph!" as she landed on her bum. She looked up, seeing that the chair had vanished.
"What's the big idea?" she cried to the TARDIS.
As Rose stood up rubbing her bum, the ship said in her mind, you and I need to talk.
About what? Rose thought back, still very annoyed.
I am not as naïve about you as the Doctor is, the TARDIS telegraphed. I discretely scanned your thoughts the minute you entered me. You may think you can charm your way into his affections and get him to do anything you want, but understand this: your feminine wiles though they might entice him will not sway me! If your intentions are anything less than honorable, and you seek to lead my Doctor in a fool's paradise, you will pay dearly.
Rose didn't doubt that the TARDIS meant every word. She couldn't afford to have the Doctor's ship tormenting her, so she mentally responded, they are honorable. My association with the Doctor is strictly business. Once our transaction is concluded, we will go our separate ways.
I'm glad you feel that way, the TARDIS responded, because if you ever break his hearts, I won't hesitate to break your face!
Before Rose could respond, the object of their discussion swept in with a hunter green suit which, though not pinstriped, still cut a dashing figure on him. It had a red shirt beneath it which would have looked slightly garish on any other man, but for some reason, Rose decided it suited him to a tee. The Doctor even had a matching green tie, and he still wore his red Converses with white trim. When the Doctor saw her staring at him, he glanced down at himself.
Nope, he mentally thought, didn't confuse my sock colors this time. Aloud, he asked her, "Something wrong with my attire?"
Rose swallowed, saying, "No. You look fine."
The Doctor smirked, saying, "Seems like, if you're tongue tied, I'm better than just 'fine'". His eyes told her that he liked her choice of clothing, too.
"What about me?" Rose pressed.
"You look fantastic!" the Doctor praised her. He punched several buttons on the dashboard in front of him for dematerialization. As the TARDIS wound its way through the void, she jerked, throwing the young Time Lady against the display screen on the wall. Rose finally sat down, looking at her crazy companion.
"Oops! Forgot to tell you: strap in, this could be bumpy!!" the Doctor cried, bouncing around and checking levers and cranks. His hair flew over his face as he rushed to the captain's chair to join her. Grabbing one of Rose's hands, the Time Lord held it as he reached over and took the seat belt in his free hand. He strapped her in as she glared at him.
The Doctor didn't pay attention to her reaction, but instead yelled, "Welcome aboard, Rose Tyler! Talley-ho!"