Chapter 12: Donna's World
Warning: mentions of character death, reversed character death, but they still died.
The Doctor woke up with a start. This was the first time since the Time War that he had slept and dreamed and not had his head filled with death, destruction, damnation, devastation, demolition, desolation, deterioration -lots of d words really. No, instead of the usual tormentors, he had his head filled with images of a golden goddess, tormenting him in a different way.
It was a good thing he hadn't slept in the same bed as her last night. He got out of the bed and hopped in the shower, letting the hot water invigorate him.
He got out of the shower and considered his mug in the mirror. At least with this new body, he didn't have to learn to recognize himself, which was good, because he really liked this shape. It was a shame he had to share it with the stuck up prick who thought he knew what was best for everyone. But then again, he noticed the looks Rose gave them out of the corner of his eye when he was near his other self. Pure lust that was. He didn't understand it himself, but he was part human now, give it some time and he might.
He picked up the straight razor and shaving cream and started shaving the new growth away. Apparently, this body's hair would grow faster. He was going to have to shave every day.
He finished drying his hair, and went to work on it. When it stuck up like he liked it, he then left the en suite and got dressed. No tie today- he was going to wear a black jumper with the suit.
He was just about to the console room when he could hear Rose's voice. "Jus' wait, It'll be any moment."
What was going on? He walked into the console room to see Rose looking at the scanner, watching what was happening outside, she then gave a big sigh and walked towards the door, opened it, and stepped outside, unaware that he had entered the room.
He walked over to the scanner, which was closer to where he was than the doors were, and took a quick look at it in hopes of finding out what his other self and Rose were up to. What he saw made him laugh. His other self was lying on the ground with a blonde woman wearing a very familiar blue leather jacket on his back. And Rose was standing to the side watching it happen, shaking her head.
Oh, they were taking care of the paradox. The Doctor was very glad he had went to look at the scanner instead of popping his head out of the door. It wouldn't do to have the younger Rose see him yet. Older Rose had been shocked to discover two of him existed in the same time frame.
He watched the causality loop being closed, which had apparently included his other self having his "superior" arse kicked by a short, blonde girl. Apparently, the Rose of their time line hadn't seen fit to inform his other self that might happen- and he thoroughly approved. No wait, he shouldn't approve, but then again...
He felt intense jealousy when the younger Rose pulled his other self in for a quick snog. And surprise when his other self reciprocated in kind.
And then the Rose they had come to stop finally noticed the Rose of his time line. Two Roses. And that's when it hit him, why Rose seemed to like the fact that there was two of him now.
He watched the rest of the paradox play out silently. Just when he realized that maybe he should get some sound on the screen, the two that were left outside were coming back in. When the door closed, Rose leaned against it with her eyes closed, then slid down the wall, letting her happy mask drop. Oh no, he hadn't thought about how this paradox might affect her.
"What happened out there?" he asked her, wishing he had put the sound on after all, "are you okay?"
Her eyes spoke of seeing much more than her years. How old was she? 23? No, that wasn't right, her little brother was 3 now, so they had been in Pete's world at least 4 years. So 25? With anyone else, he'd be able to tell down to the minute how old they were, but this was Rose, and he'd never been able to see her time line. The only person that he had never been able to see any of their personal past or future no matter how much he tried. Probably because of how much her time line ran with his. Well, there was his mind wandering off again.
"No, I'm not, but I will be," Rose answered the Doctor in blue's question. She then got up off of the floor, walked over to the jump seat, and sat . "Jus' bein' stupid, " she said.
"You're not stupid, Rose. Don't say that," he said to her. "What happened?" this time, the Doctor directed his question to his Time Lord self.
"We closed the time loop," he told his newer self.
"I just sent myself to send all of my friends to their deaths in a parallel world created around Donna," Rose replied.
"But that never happened." the Doctor in brown reassured her.
"Yes, it did, maybe not to others, but I remember it in vivid detail, and Do-" she swallowed the woman's name, "sh-she remembered it to."
"What happened there?" the blue-suited Doctor gently asked.
"Donna turned right," Rose said. "It was the most normal day in the world. Donna had a choice between two different career paths, and she went right, where in this world, she went left.
"And what else changed?" The Time Lord Doctor prompted her to continue.
"You died," she said, "there was a flood, and you...didn't, you know. I got there just in time to see UNIT wheeling your...body out." her voice broke.
The Doctors were both in shock. She had seen that. They both remembered occasions where they thought that Rose was dead for sure, particularly when they had been stuck in games at the end of his leather life. The part human Doctor came over to Rose and pulled her into a hug.
"I'm- we're right here, Rose. That never happened," he tried to reassure her.
Rose pulled back from him and looked him in the eyes. "It did there. It could have here, it almost did, dinnit it?" she accused. "You see, I worked it out. You wouldn't 'ave even tried to get out if you 'adn't 'ad Donna right there, would you 'ave?" Her voice had started to become shrill by the end of the last sentence. The more upset she got, the thicker her native accent became.
"We'll never know," The full Time Lord Doctor spoke. He had his head hung low.
Rose looked at him and said in a low voice, "Well, after that, everything started falling apart. The following April, The Royal Hope Hospital was transported to the moon, and only one person survived,"
"The next Christmas, a replica of the Titanic dropped out of the sky and landed on London." her voice broke as she continued, "I had actually transported myself up there to try to stop it, before it fell, but it didn't work, all I was able to do was get the poor guy up on the bridge to eject the main drives before we entered the atmosphere." She faltered, "I had to get out before it crashed, and my transport could only take one reliably. I had to leave the guy there, he was called Frame."
The part human Doctor was thinking about the instructions Rose had just given to her younger self, how hard that must have been. He had known that Rose was involved in sending Sarah Jane to the hospital, that she had gotten Donna out of London. He knew that she had been involved in getting the Torchwood team to the Sontaran ship and taking care of the clone feed. Knew the feelings she was and would be going through. He spoke up, trying to make Rose feel better. He put his hands on her shoulders and said, "That was brilliant, Rose, if those drives hadn't been ejected, they would have taken out the entire planet. You saved billions. Remember that."
The Doctor in Brown just stood there, anguish radiating from him.
Rose finally found her voice again. "After that, there was the fat baby invasion. London was gone, so it all 'appened in America, over the whole of America. Sixty million people died that day."
"Wait, the Adipose breeding happened there?" the two hearted Doctor asked.
Rose nodded.
The Doctor wearing the blue suit caught on a second after his counterpart had. "But the breeding only happened because Adipose 3 was taken by the Daleks. The Daleks only-" he stopped, thinking about this.
"What?" Rose asked.
"The Cult of Skaro had escaped Canary Wharf, from there, they went to 1929 New York and were doing experiments on people. A whole new race of Dalek-human hybrids was created, and it-ended badly," he explained.
The Doctor in brown then added, "At the end of it, there was only one Dalek left standing, Dalek Caan, and he used an emergency temporal shift to get out of there."
Rose caught on, "Right into the War," she whispered, grabbing the brown suited Doctor around the waist and giving him a squeeze. She then pulled back, looking back and forth between the both of them.
"Something must have happened with their experiments in that time line for them to have wound up pulling the same stunt with the planets there. I knew that what was happening here would happen there too, but they would succeed if things were allowed to continue."
There was silence for a few moments, as all three of them remembered the events just 2 days prior. The silence was broken by the part Time Lord prodding, "What happened next?" He was sure he knew which event was next.
"There was poisoned gas coming out of cars all over the world. As far as I can tell, though, events with that mostly ended the same. Just with Jack and his team instead. After the incident with the 'Space Titanic,' Britain was put under marshal law. The refugees from that day were put into empty houses, and several families would be placed in one house. After a while, a law was passed, and anyone who wasn't a British national was to be placed in labor camps."
She shuddered at the thought, both Doctors paled, and the part Time Lord Doctor whispered, "no, they couldn't, no..."
Rose finished with, "Two days after the law was passed, the stars started going out. And that's when Donna came with me. I ki-killed 'er, I sent 'er to what I knew would be 'er death to right the time lines."
Another moment of silence, then the Doctor in Blue came forward and cradled Rose's face in his hands, putting his forehead to hers and sending her calm. "Rose," he implored her, "listen to me, you saved so many people, you put the universe to rights. I-we know it doesn't make it any easier to bear the things that you had to do to make it right, but you did the right thing."
He then gave her a gentle kiss and wrapped his arms around her, her head to his chest. He looked over to his counterpart, who was standing there, staring at the sight in front of him with a stony look on his face, swallowing hard. "Get over here, you idiot," he thought to his other self. All he got in return was a look of despair. "Get over here and let her know you don't hate her" he practically shouted to his other self.
"Why are you doing this?" his other half asked. "Why? Just take what I'm offering you, give her the amazing life she deserves. If she wants to roam the stars, I could help you grow a TARDIS. Donna figured out a way to make it grow in 36 months."
"Don't play stupid with me, Sunshine. Surely you've noticed, hell, we've both dropped enough hints. But seeing as how your brain seems to be in a coma, I'll tell you in words even YOU can understand. She loves both of us, Dumbo. She won't be happy if she knows one of us is alone. And If you know what's good for you, you'll take everything she offers, cause-" he stopped his thoughts right there, determined to keep his promise to Rose.
"Cause what?" The brown suited Doctor asked, eyebrows raised.
"Let's just say that I've seen the error of our ways," he told his two hearted self. He then broke off the telepathic connection with his other self before Rose could notice that the two were conversing.
He pulled back from Rose and told her, "I'm going to go get something real quick, and then the three of us are going to go anywhere, any when, your choice." He gave her a smile, then walked to the corridor, just before he got to the opening, he turned around and pointed at the brown suited man standing there, then pointed at Rose. He turned and waled out.
XxXxXxXx
Rose's thoughts were swirling, but not as bad as they should have been. She knew that the Doctor who had just left had helped calm her when he was holding her, and she was grateful for it, as she was about to lose it.
Rose was left alone with the original Doctor again. This Doctor had been distant since she had come back home, with the occasional moment where he seemed like himself. Then there was the kiss in the alley. She remembered that kiss well. The encounter in the alley was what kept her going through her time in Donna's World.
Kiss aside, from the way he acted, she was wondering if he even wanted her here. He usually didn't look back. She knew he only offered to take Sarah Jane back aboard the TARDIS because Rose asked it of him.
And there were two of him now. She knew what she wanted, and the Doctor with only one heart seemed to be fine with it, but could she really do it? Could she actually carry on a relationship with both Doctors? And how did one go about having two lovers anyway? Of course, this was a moot point if the man she was currently alone with didn't even want her anyway.
"Rose," the Doctor said from behind her, breaking her thoughts, "he's right. You did brilliantly. I just wish you had never had to deal with that."
"It happened though," Rose almost whispered. "It happened, even though it didn't. It happened, because you gave up."
The Doctor then "I'm sorry, I know you don't like me saying that to you, but it's true. You shouldn't have ever been in the situation. Hell, you should have a normal life with normal thoughts."
"Yeah, right. Me? Normal? Like that's ever gonna happen!" Rose scoffed.
"I'm serious," he replied, "Y-you should go home, you should have that normal life while you still can." He was descending into his self hatred again, and she wouldn't let him.
"My home is right here, Doctor, in the TARDIS with you," she told him softly.
"For as long as you want it to be," the Doctor confirmed.
"For forever," Rose corrected. "'M not going anywhere."
"Oh, Rose," he despaired, "you mean it now, but what about in ten years, fifteen? When you wish you had settled down in a proper house with doors and carpets and mortgages and kids. And growing old together. I can give you all of time and space, but that's the one thing that I can't give you." He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, steeling himself, and let Rose know that, "He can."
"Doctor, I know about him having a more human sized lifespan now, but it doesn't change anything. I'm still not leaving you behind."
The Doctor was about to reply to that when his blue suited counterpart walked in, carrying Rose's blue leather jacket. "I've got a surprise for you," he sang out.
Rose turned away from the man she had been talking to and smiled. "What's that then?" She then noticed the jacket in his hands and joked, "you know, I already have one like that."
"The cheek on you! I'll have you know that the surprise is inside." He handed her the jacket. "Put it on and check inside the pockets."
He was practically bouncing with his excitement, which put a real smile on her face. Rose complied and put on the leather jacket she had worn while jumping the universes. She then reached into the pocket on the right side and... woah. She then checked the other side.
"You've made them bigger on the inside!" she squealed and hugged him. She heard him chuckle softly and hug her back tightly.
When they pulled from one another, he asked her, "did you figure out where and when you wanted to go?"
"Yeah, I did actually." She looked back and forth between the Doctors. "Our talks just now had me needing to see an old friend. Can we visit Jack, not long after we last saw him?"
