Kallisti
Chapter 10: Polyjuiced Polyfather
"Doctor," Rose thought, desperately, horribly afraid, "are we about to be swamped with Reapers?"
The Doctor soothed her trembling little form with the image of himself wrapping her in a warm blanket in her own room in her own bed in the TARDIS. "No," he whispered in her mind. "It's all fine. Even a Time Lord can run into a doppelganger. No trace of the Imprintur on him."
"Imprintur?" she questioned.
This evoked thoughts of the Vortex, its seething golden light shining with all the promise and all the potential of the entire history of the Universe. Rose was filled with awe and a sense of strange purpose. The Doctor thought that was odd for a moment, but remembered that she'd seen something very similar before. He closed down the thought completely, wondering idly if something as simple as a memory could awaken the time goddess who created herself as Rose Tyler.
"Look at his eyes," he suggested, drawing her away from the awful chasm of her almost-memory. Rose did exactly as he suggested and studied the huge, merry brown eyes watching them with no little amusement and a great deal of calculation. She realized that, although these eyes were those of one accustomed to power and weary from the weight of it, there was something missing.
She turned and compared them. There was a sparkle in the Doctor's eyes, the suggestion of Eternity, the hazy hint of eons, the half idea that these eyes could change color, shape, anything at any given second and remain the same. She saw something she had never ever seen before there, something truly alien and utterly, unmistakably powerful as well. She looked into his eyes and saw him, just him, always him, and so completely beyond her that she could never ever really touch him.
The feeling that rushed over her should have been xenophobia. The Doctor knew that. She saw something that only a few of his companions had ever seen and it always made them bolt and run. Only two of them had tried to stay after seeing it and only one had actually done so. But Rose, Rose's mind flowed over him with feelings so scrambled and confused and delighted that he was utterly staggered by it. Not one of those feelings, not one, was fear. But quite a few of them were possessive, and one of them was a firm conviction. She was only human, she could never truly touch him, but for as long as she drew breath, she would try.
It was the strangest, most poignant moment in his entire life. This was the girl who did impossible things, who had defied everything either of them had ever known or understood just so she could return to die by his side. He separated himself from her abruptly, before his love for her came crashing through his barriers and crushed them both.
And all this, this amazing, world-shattering, titanic moment had taken place in exactly that, one brief moment, the span of a few small heart beats. He brought himself under strict control and reached out for her again, because he could see the tears starting to pour unchecked down her face. "Oh, Rose, my Rose," he thought, "don't cry."
"They probably will think I'm crying 'cause she stole you. Don't worry about it." She paused. "My Doctor."
Abruptly, the magical moment came to an end, with the sound of the Polyfather laughing. "Oh, you do get yourself into the most ridiculous fixes, don't you?" he said. "Well, Rose Tyler, you're the injured party, and you've been challenged. You get to pick the contest. Oh, please, make it something entertaining. I've been bored to tears, you see, tears." He snapped his fingers and the guards ignored him studiously. "Ah, bugger, are we gonna do this again? Someone get his chain, please. Goddess knows there's enough going on here without her chivvying off with the stolen loot."
Tiff reached for the chain, but a priestess appeared abruptly from the outskirts of the party, wearing another of those elegant white and gold robes. The Doctor had to stop himself from gaping at her, because she was another doppelganger, the memory of a woman long dead. He didn't even have to look for the imprintur to see that she wasn't who she looked like, because she was grinning ear to ear, and if he had ever seen more than a simple smile crack that beautiful, haughty face, he'd probably passed out from shock.
Of course, the planet wasn't done dealing out the shocks to him yet. The priestess gently removed his chain from Yesple's suddenly slack hand and cinched it to a belt at her waist, not holding it, because he wasn't property, the sign indicating clearly to anyone who could read it that he was currently under the protection of the goddess. "The Priestess Fred will guard the goods," announced the Polyfather. "Royal goods, no doubt."
The Doctor was interrupted from the shock of Romana's first face on a woman called Fred by Rose's voice whimpering in his mind. "No A-levels, can't very well play 'Name that Intergalactic Threat', no doubt she's as good as I am at gymnastics, no chance in a chess match – can't leave it to chance at all. Please, Doctor, what do I do!?"
"You could sing," he suggested, calling forth the memory of her singing in the shower while clamping his barriers down hard on the memory of everything that followed. "Something pretty, light, entertaining, or heart-rending, whatever you like. I got the idea that they don't have a lot of fun where they're from, so singing for entertainment may be completely beyond them."
"But I'm not that good," she whimpered.
"You're the best at everything, Rose," he assured her. "Besides, you put your soul in your singing. Everyone will know."
"Ok, what do you suggest. I can't sing with an orchestra, I've never done before. Just in the shower, and in the Tiki Bar on Cameroon." She was staring at the priestess all through this, having clearly noticed the Doctor's start of recognition.
"She's not who she looks like, either," he assured her. "It's weird."
"It's like something out of Harry Potter," she agreed. "You know, poly-whatsits potion and people turning into other people."
"I imagine the Polyjuice potion would kill you if you tried to use an alien's hair, though," the Doctor replied thoughtfully. "Completely rewriting your DNA structure is probably bad even with magic. Probably one of the reasons for Voldemort's… nevermind, you have to announce your decision."
"Oh, right." She smiled and observed to herself that he even babbled when thinking as she turned to face Yesple. A moment of concentration and the fury light was back in her eyes. "I challenge you to a singing contest."
Yesple's face went completely white as Rose smirked at her triumphantly. The Polyfather was clapping behind them. "Fantastic!" he shouted, and Rose turned again to gape at him. "Thirty minutes, everyone. We'll meet back here after the ladies have had time to warm up and they can enthrall us with their charming songs." He grinned the Doctor's grin, his all-too human eyes sparkling as he turned them on the Doctor.
"And I can have a quick family reunion while we wait." He turned and went through an ornate door by the dais.
One of the violinists from the Orchestra came over to take Rose and Yesple off somewhere to practice. The Doctor nodded and waved at her and she gave him a nervous little half wave back as she followed. Tiff moved to go with them, but the guards stepped up and surrounded him, somehow aware that he was the cause of the whole mess.
The Priestess jangled the chain cinched at her waist. "He said we're supposed to go with him, remember?" she said sharply. The crowd parted easily for her and they walked through, while the party goers turned back to whatever they were doing before this disaster started. The Doctor stopped and turned to watch Rose disappear into a room at the back of the hall. He was sure she would be safe, but he couldn't help worrying about her all the same.
There was a sharp jerk against his neck, and then a quick, quiet curse from the priestess in front of him. She stopped walking and sighed heavily. "I swear to Eris, Thete, you're going to be the death of us."
The Doctor rounded on her, wild eyed and astonished, and striving desperately to tell himself he didn't hear that name.