-announcer voice- And now the conclusion.
SIAPNIAN: The next episode is the first one set in the past. It's got Jane Austen in it. (Yes, Kate, you can start squeeing now.) I've got the basic plotline for it, but I'm currently going through the Holy-Crap-I'm-About-To-Write-Something-Set-In-The-Past,-And-Oh-Sweet-Rassilon-It's-Got-Jane-Austen-In-It,-What-The-Hell-Am-I-Thinking stage. So it's not going to show up for a while, I'm afraid. Sorry, but I panic easily.
Disclaimer: I own the crumpled picture of an eye with a tear coming out of it sitting right next to me and the beautiful things that are currently happening with my walls, but not much else.
Non-Warning: Betad the lovely TCASM.
Random German Thingie that No-One Cares About (RGTTNOCA): Warum spielst du dieses Lied so laute? Weil wünschen wir zu! Weil wünschen wir zu!
WARNING: I've switched thingies from TextEdit, which has no pages and no word count and therefore forces me to rely on the size of the little scrolly thing to approximate the length of my chapters, to Word, which has both. If this one's a little shorter than it should be, I apologise. I tried for around 3,500 words, because I think that's generally what the average for these chapters is, isn't it? Anyway, if it's off, I'm sorry. It's not my fault.
Sort of.
-BAD WOLF-
The Doctor's somewhat happy expression abruptly changed to one of complete terror.
"What is it?" asked Rose, backing away to stand behind him. She felt a bit safer there. "What's happening?"
"Is it working?" inquired Illa hopefully.
The Time Lord didn't answer, just pulled out his sonic screwdriver and aimed it at the device. If anything, it sparked more violently and the Doctor instinctively stepped back, glaring just a bit at the screwdriver as it emitted a rapid series of beeps.
He said something that the TARDIS didn't translate, but Rose recognised from the days of her first Doctor. Something to do with sheep.
At any rate, it was bad.
"What's gone wrong?" she demanded, voice going up in both volume and pitch at his silence.
"The energy converter that I got from you wasn't completely integrated into the system," he said, glaring. "It's come loose."
"And... does this mean that the planet's just going to lose its sun, or does it mean that we're all gonna die?"
"Well," he said, all flippancy gone in the face of the danger, "what with the amount of power flooding through that thing, when it goes it'll take out half the planet with it."
"Brilliant," said Rose. No mere life-or-entire-planet-goes-boom situation would keep her from sarcasm.
"What do you need to do to fix it?" asked Vynn. There was a strange note in his voice that Rose recognised, but couldn't quite place. It gave her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"Plug the converter back in," answered the Doctor, "but I'd have to deactivate it first or it would completely atomise whoever got close, and in order to deactivate it I would have to get close." He turned to face Rose, tense with an unnameable emotion.
"I'm sorry," he told her quietly, barely audible over the screech of dying machinery, and the sheer sincerity in his voice hurt.
"Don't," she growled at him, waving her forefinger at his face. "We've had this conversation before."
The Doctor opened his mouth, but didn't have time to argue with her about anything. A split second after the conversation had been initiated, an unearthly screech erupted from Illa.
"VYNN!"
Rose flinched, the Doctor spun around, and the Time Lord's companion stopped breathing.
The human in question had taken off while the Doctor and Rose were distracted and was now charging up the hill, heading straight for the still-sparking mechanism.
Not a single one of those he left behind moved. He stumbled, but reached the device, falling on his knees beside it. Rose saw him reach inside for a moment even as he began to dissolve, and she quickly hid behind the Doctor, closing her eyes. It might not be all blood and gore, but it was a horrible way to die and she wasn't about to watch.
She could hear, though, and the scream of mortal anguish mingled and harmonised with the howling shriek coming from the amalgamation sent ice water flooding through her veins.
It wasn't easy desensitising to death.
The duelling cries abruptly ceased. Vynn was silent, the machine returned to its original hum, and Rose dared to peek over the Time Lord's shoulder to see what was happening now.
The human was gone. All that was left was a perfectly docile device, thrumming rhythmically. Bright blue rings pulsed from one end at regular intervals in time with the variations in the hum, aimed directly at the glowing gas cloud in the brightening red-tinted sky.
The faintly crying Illa tried to stumble forwards, but the Doctor caught her arm to stop her.
"You can't go up there," he told her.
"But he could still be alive," she protested, eyes wide with pure denial. "He could have..."
"Illa, not even I could survive that," he said softly, releasing her forearm after a moment.
The girl, visibly numb, turned back towards the place where her brother had been and Rose bit her lip, unsure of what else to do.
The Doctor turned to her. "I need to get back to the TARDIS to pull the heliovore away," he said. "Are you...?"
"No, I'm coming," she assured him. He began to walk away, presumably knowing where he was going, and, with a final glance and quietly murmured apology to Illa, she followed.
-BAD WOLF-
Well, that went well. I think I'm getting the hang of this, fiddling about with events while in another universe... Should probably keep it from Q, though. He'd probably turn it into a game and then end up destroying a few galaxies.
Oh, shut up. It was Vynn or the entire bloody planet. And Rose. And the Doctor. Well, he's not the Doctor, but he is...
Never mind.
Rassilon, I hate parallel universes. And clones. Clones can be bothersome too. And that is, of course, why I caught, interrupted and eventually managed to prevent that whole Davros fiasco. Really, for the most intelligent mortal in the universe, that Time Lord isn't half thick.
Yes, a hyperintelligent pan-dimensional being uses phrases like that. And since you were wondering, I look nothing like a mouse in your dimension and without a host. Do not compare me to those children.
Seriously.
-BAD WOLF-
"Told you never to assume there wouldn't be running," shouted the Doctor.
Rose ducked quickly to avoid a threatening bramble. It whipped across her cheek instead of catching on her shirt. One of the thorns bit into her skin and she hissed with the momentary pain.
"I'll put that on the list of things never to say when with you," she called back. "Right behind, 'Nothing can possibly go wrong'." She'd decided to adopt the Doctor's tactic and had simply ceased to think about Illa's plight. She could figure that out on her own. She could not, on the other hand, save the world. Rose could, or could at least help with it, therefore she chose that option.
"That is a nasty one," he agreed amiably. "Along with, 'How could anything be worse than this?'"
"Yeah, made the mistake of saying that one a few times." As another thorny branch caught on a tangle in her hair, Rose wondered how the Doctor could avoid all the vegetation that seemed intent on causing his companion every possible discomfort.
"Do we really have to be running?" she asked him after a moment.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I don't know how far away the TARDIS is."
Rose growled quietly to herself. "Brilliant," she muttered under her breath. "If you don't know where she is, I am going to be far more of a threat to your life than any murderous gas cloud."
"Duly noted."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "You do know where she is, right?"
"She's telepathic, Rose."
"I know she's telepathic," she said, a little sulkily. "You just never used it to locate her before. I mean, other you."
He turned his head to look at her. "Really?"
She nodded. Not having run for her life on a daily basis in some time, she was a little bit out of practise and would much rather utilise her breath to avoid falling over.
"Hmm," he said as he looked around again. She was suddenly intensely jealous of his ability to turn around, keep talking, keep running, and yet still manage to avoid killing himself. "Was other me's TARDIS a particularly ornery individual?"
Rose thought for a moment. "She was a bit, yeah."
"Mine went through a bit of that too," the Doctor agreed. "Eventually figured out that if I rewired a couple of circuits and kept a room continuously filled with chocolate, she would deign to converse with me."
This comment surprised his companion sufficiently to make her very nearly trip and kill herself on something. "The TARDIS likes chocolate?"
"Who doesn't?"
She couldn't argue with that and didn't have the breath to anyway.
"So she's telling you where she is," she panted, "but not how far away?"
"Nope." He paused to inhale. "Chocolate can only do so much for an inherently stubborn spaceship."
"Have you told her," she began (Her ankle was really bothering her now. That, coupled with the ever-increasing fire in her diaphragm, gave her quite a lovely rhythm of throbbing pain. If she were a songwriter, she might have used the cadence.), "that your companion really needs that information, as she wants to know whether or not she wants to kill herself?"
"Aww, it's not that bad."
"Is if you haven't done this properly in ages, you're human and therefore susceptible to exhaustion, and you ran into an inconveniently placed hole in the ground earlier in the day."
He was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, he almost sounded surprised.
"She really likes you," he said.
Rose swallowed to try and moisten her throat. It didn't work. "She told you, then?"
"No."
"And that means that she likes me?" she asked, incredulous.
He glanced at her. "She didn't tell me how far away she was," he said. "She moved closer."
Had the ship been within reach, Rose probably would have hugged her. "Where is she now?"
He pointed, indicating a hill before them. The forest had thinned out considerably, so the Time Lord's companion was able to ascertain the degree of the slope— which didn't appear to be that difficult to scale— and, nestled like a beacon of safety and comfort underneath the treacherous branches of a particularly evil-looking tree, there stood the most beautiful object the human had ever seen in her life.
As the Doctor stuck his key in the lock of the door, Rose leaned her cheek against the worn wood, feeling the spaceship's welcoming thrum against her skin. The warm pulse in her mind shifted slightly, expressing a sort of apology.
"She says she's sorry she couldn't come closer," clarified the Doctor as the door creaked open. She could have sworn he sounded a little sulky.
She stroked the smooth surface gently. "It's all right," she told the ship directly. "I would have had a hard time finding a decent place to land too."
The strands of the timeship's consciousness shifted again and the vague sadness vanished.
"Come on," said the Doctor, stepping back. Rose reluctantly removed herself from the solidity of the TARDIS exterior to walk inside, and he followed.
"Why does she never do that sort of thing for me?" he asked no-one in particular.
Human and timeship laughed. Human saw Time Lord approaching the controls of timeship and very wisely decided to sit down.
He was heard to mutter something along the lines of, "Dear Rassilon, what have I got myself into?" just before he pulled a lever and sent them shuddering into the Vortex.
After a moment, Rose spoke. "If Kvneerie—"
"Qvnaerie."
"Whatever. If it was deserted because of the heliovore, than doesn't that change history? I mean, if the rockets left before overpopulation and all the stuff you said?"
"Nope." The Doctor circled the console. "Travelling more quickly than the speed of light is very carefully monitored. They'd have to get permission first and by the time that started to go through, someone would have noticed that the heliovore wasn't there any more."
"And how long would we have to stay here before the heliovore isn't here any more?"
"Ordinarily? A very, very long time. But I've basically put things on fast-forward so we can be done in a few minutes."
Rose shifted, wincing a little bit. "And then what?"
He turned to look at her.
"Wanna go check up on Illa?"
-BAD WOLF-
"What are you going to name him?"
Illa looked down at the baby in her arms— her firstborn, a son. If she'd been much for Old Earth tradition, she would have counted that extremely lucky. He had finally settled down and gone to sleep, and everything seemed to be in working order; all he needed was a name.
Really, there was no choice; she'd brought it up a long time before and her husband— to use the old term— had had no problem with it. It wasn't a particularly bad name and it was the name of the man who saved the planet when all hope was lost.
She looked out the window at just the right moment to see two familiar figures, one in brown pinstripes and the other wearing an outfit that looked oddly like it came from the early 21st century. She smiled softly; they returned the gesture, and she looked down at her son.
"Vynn," she said after only a moment's hesitation. "His name's Vynn."
When she glanced up again, her observers were gone.
-BAD WOLF-
Rose, being too unsteady to keep her balance amidst the renewed shaking of the TARDIS's flight, fell and landed ungracefully. She did, however, manage to keep from sustaining any form of serious injury and had been planning on not standing any more anyway, so she remained quite peacefully in her spot on the grating while the ship shook all around her.
The Time Lord made a few final adjustments— which Rose knew kept them hovering in the Vortex— and walked around to the human still sitting on the floor. Despite her protests, he helped her to her feet.
"Now," he told her, "I haven't had the coral theme for long, but I have sat on that floor for long enough to tell you that it is by no means as comfortable as the previous one." He led her to the battered chair by the console. She settled down on that and he sat next to her.
She glanced over at him and her heartbeat unexpectedly quickened. Not her Doctor he might be, but he seemed to have inherited the faintly hypnotic talent his counterpart had always unwittingly used on her.
He'd also inherited the eyes.
He reached up, fingertips grazing the cheek that had suffered the wrath of the vegetation. She told herself, very firmly, to breathe. He wasn't her Doctor— never had been, never would be. He was a Doctor, just one of the many definite-article Time Lords there were in the multiverse, and she should most definitely not be having this sort of reaction to his proximity.
"You're bleeding," he informed her, voice soft.
She blinked. "Am I?" She touched the still-stinging flesh herself and brought it into view. The faint crimson line on her skin was an almost-successful distraction from the presence of the Time Lord before her.
"I am," she acknowledged.
As her honey-coloured eyes left his to gaze at the blood on her fingers, the paralysis that had seized the Doctor's diaphragm melted away and he managed to take a jerky breath. He had honestly been merely concerned about the scratch on her cheek— no telling what even such a minor injury could do to a creature with such an insufficient metabolism as a human— but… And if she had been any other companion it would have remained pure, friendly concern, but… dear Rassilon, the simple act of breathing and speech and heartsbeat hadn't been that affected by anything since he was injected with a deadly neurotoxin a few regenerations back.
Inherent telepathic talents directed towards him, he told himself.
"Where'd you get it from?" he inquired of her. Good, he told himself. Objective. Needed to know if she was poisoned.
"Thorny branch." She glanced up at him. The greenish light from the console fell on her face, giving her features a mysterious air and putting glittering green highlights amongst the gold-tinted honey colour of her eyes, and the paralysis set in again.
"Is it dangerous?"
"Could be." Was it just him, or had his voice gone down an octave?
"Should we check?" It must have just been him. Hers had softened and dropped a bit as well.
"Probably best," he agreed. He wanted to clear his throat but it was suffering the same form of paralysis as his diaphragm.
This did not bode well for his survival.
A thought, a memory, came up from the deep dark where he had locked it away and hit him right between the eyes.
"What I can do with this thing is nothing compared with what you've already done without one."
The sudden starburst of pain jumpstarted his ability to breathe and think. As quickly as he could, he scanned the wound with his sonic screwdriver and got up, going over to the console and flicking some switches. He wasn't sure what they did and didn't much care.
He'd figured out that he wasn't upset with her. He had figured out some time ago whom he was upset with; he just wasn't sure how he felt about it.
"It's all right, then?" she asked him. Her voice was back to normal, if it sounded a little bit hesitant.
"Fine."
She was silent, and pain throbbed in his right heart. It wasn't her fault.
She stood up, weaving slightly on much-abused legs, and stepped carefully over to him. He didn't look at her, even when she leaned on the console to ascertain his expression.
"I'm sorry," he said eventually.
She blinked; this had obviously not been what she was expecting. "What?"
He looked at her and repeated the statement.
She put a hand to her heart, feigning astonishment. "The Doctor is apologising?"
He rolled his eyes.
"Now," she continued, a wicked light beginning to form in her clear eyes, "I have seen everything."
He raised an eyebrow at her, vaguely affronted.
She tucked a strand of unruly hair behind her ear and looked down. "'M sorry too."
Without any conscious order from himself, his legs had taken him the short distance needed to enfold her in his arms. She sighed and relaxed in the loose embrace, the physical and emotional tension almost tangibly flooding away from her.
He was a little surprised— at himself for the unexpected need to hug her, her for her instant reaction to the hug and the fact that she had understood he had been speaking of his behaviour towards her weapon. After a moment, however, he decided that the answer to all three of those questions was very simple: she was Rose Tyler.
That was all the reason he would ever need.
-BAD WOLF-
Thank God that's over and done with. Thought the cursed episode would never END!! -falls over-
Right, few… announcements, for lack of a better term. ONE. In honour of me surviving yet another revolution around Sol (On 24 August, specifically), I am planning an update!spam. Every single unfinished story, except this one, will be updated. TWO. Once again, the next pseudo-episode will have Jane Austen in it. I am still panicking about this. C. I like cheese. D. Please keep up the reviewing. Last chapter, or maybe it was the chapter before, was fantastic when it came to feedback. E. Is it just me, or do all the people who love Billie Piper's music, including myself, have no idea why they love Billie Piper's music? SIX. There is NO Rule Six.
May the Force be with you.
(PS: Why you gotta play that song so loud?)