Chapter 21: Out Of Sync
Warning: swearing
Rose had just finished taking her shower and was drying her hair when she heard one of the Doctors come in her bedroom. She heard flop on the bed. It was like old times, she half expected him to be out there, fully clothed with his coat on, tapping his foot and being impatient to do something. She wondered idly which Doctor was out there, but then decided that it didn't matter, so long as that Time Lord got some sleep.
She still felt flushed. It had been a couple of hours since the flowers came off, shouldn't the effect be wearing off by now? She finished drying her hair and put her pajamas on, trying not to think about how nervous she was. Did she really just deliberately invite both of them into her bed at once? The image that popped into her mind was enticing. One in front of her, cupping a breast and kissing her, while the other was behind her, licking up her neck, a hand trailing down closer and closer to-
'Stop it', the logical part of her mind told the animalistic part. She stepped out of her en-suite, into her room, where she was greeted by an...interesting sight. He was on her bed, sitting up against the headboard, legs crossed at the ankles. He was in white with blue pinstriped pajamas, looking exactly like he had so long ago when he opened the double doors of the TARDIS and cheekily said, "did ya miss me?" For all she knew, they might have actually been the same pajamas. She fought the impulse to go to her bed and climb up him.
He put a book down on the bed stand, and left his glasses on top, and she realized from the glasses that the man on her bed in his jim jams had two hearts.
Just after this realization, his counterpart walked in, wearing gray sweat pants and nothing else. Both men looked at each other, a look she couldn't decipher passing between them. Then the part human Doctor looked at Rose, and his smile became predatory. She couldn't help but sweep her eyes across his bare chest, down to the smattering of hair just above his waistband. He took note of the look she was giving him, and smirked. They both then looked over at the man who was laying on the bed, who had been observing them.
"You know, those flowers were in everything we all ate and drank." He got up off of the bed and continued, "It was just tiny bits, but I could taste the oil from the flowers in everything."
"You ate a bit of everything," Rose observed.
"I did," he nodded his head. He looked back and forth between his shirtless counterpart and Rose. She could see the gears turning in his mind.
"Out with it," she commanded.
Looking down, he asked, "have you two-?"
"No," the part human replied, not letting him finish his thought.
He raised an eyebrow at them, surprised. "Why not?" he asked, truly confused.
Both of the people in the room with human DNA looked at him with an 'are you serious?' look.
"What?" A thought occurred to him, "you're not waiting on me, are you?"
The newer Doctor scoffed at that. "Did it look like we were waiting on you the other night? There's been no waiting, just interruptions and bad circumstances."
"I thought about it," Rose confessed, crossing her arms and not looking either one in the eye, "but I've learned that you never know what's going to happen, and life can be too damned short and 'm not wasting another moment waiting on anyone."
The part human Doctor reached out to Rose, putting his hand on the side of her face and giving her a small smile. She leaned into it and returned his smile. She was surprised when she felt the Time Lord's hand slip into hers, fingers interlocking. She looked over to him and saw the sad smile he was giving her.
Both men looked at each other for a moment, then the Time Lord let go of Rose's hand and flopped back to where he was before, picking up the book and his oh-so-sexy spectacles and putting the thick rimmed glasses on. "Story?" he asked.
Rose just smiled and stepped closer to the bed, asking, "what's the story?"
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It's about time we finished it, don't you think?"
"Yeah," she breathed out. She nervously climbed into bed next to him, and the newer Doctor climbed in behind her with a yawn. They settled down, Rose listening to him reading the story, and making all of the voices, which really helped the story come alive. This was one of the pleasures that she terribly missed.
It wasn't long before the shirtless Doctor behind her was asleep, arm draped over her waist, one of his legs between hers. She was comfortable, with her head on the Time Lord's chest, listening to his double heartbeat and his voice, slowly drifting off to sleep.
When she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer, he placed a kiss on the top of her head and said something in Gallifreyan. Then she knew no more.
XxXxXxXx
She was standing on a familiar beach that gave her the chills, wearing her blue jacket, staring at a square depression in the sand. The Doctor came up beside her, taking her hand. She looked over at him. He looked exactly the same, sounded exactly the same, but he was warmer, and he was wearing a blue suit that she had never seen before that day.
They stood like that for a long time, when he finally said, "we really are the same, Rose."
She yanked her hand out of his and took a step back. "I know, so how long will it be until you leave me too?"
XxXx
"...because there are laws. There are Laws of Time. Once upon a time there were people in charge of those laws, but they died. They all died. Do you know who that leaves? Me! It's taken me all these years to realize the Laws of Time are mine, and they will obey me!..."
The Doctor was standing in the middle of chaos, water and fire everywhere. He was wearing the orange spacesuit they got from the Sanctuary base on Krop Tor. The glint of madness was in his eyes.
"...And there's no one to stop you?"
"No"
"...I don't care who you are, the Time Lord Victorious is wrong."
XxXxXxXx
She woke up with a start, looking right into the same eyes she had just seen glinting with madness in her vision. Because that's what it was: a vision. It was a time line that would no longer happen. What would have happened if she hadn't gone back to her past self and gave herself the letter.
"Hey Rose, you're just having a bad dream." He reached up and rubbed the line of tears from the corner of her eye with his thumb. "Mind telling me about it?"
She turned her head to look at the other Doctor, who was still deeply asleep, laying on his stomach, arms under his pillow. The Doctor noticed her look and said, "come on, we'll go make a cuppa and let him sleep."
She got out of bed and followed him to the galley, where he made some Darjeeling. Her head was pounding, and she rubbed her temples. He put her tea down in front of her and sat down next to her.
"Ta," she thanked him, taking a sip.
"No problem," he replied. He took a sip of his own and asked, "same dream as last night?"
"No, it wasn't a dream," she told him, shaking her head.
"A memory, then?"
"Sort of."
"Well, if it isn't a dream, and isn't a memory, then what was that?" His eyes narrowed, studying her.
"A vision," she admitted, "something that will no longer happen, not with the letter paradox."
His eyes got a little wider, and he leaned forward. "You, you're...seeing time lines?"
"I'm not sure, I think it's memories of things I saw when I saw everything." She closed her eyes and clenched her cup. "Whatever it is, I get an awful headache when it happens, though it's not nearly as bad as it used to be." She took another sip.
He was still staring at her with wide eyes. Finally, he asked her, "what did you see?"
She ran her finger along the top edge of the cup, took a deep breath, and told him, "You went mad, you were on Mars, on some base with just a few people, and there was water and fire everywhere. You were yelling something about the Laws of Time, and how they'd obey you. You claimed to be Victorious, That was the new name you took."
He had gone pale. "Bowie Base One," he whispered.
Her head shot up, looking him in the eyes. Had she read the feel of the vision wrong? Was this something that had actually happened?
He saw the look she was giving him, and explained, "Bowie Base One, the first Martian colony. It's a fixed point in time. The entire crew died there. I don't see why I'd go there."
She had a pretty good idea of why he would be there, remembering that he was on Krakatoa when it exploded, on the Titanic when it sank, both sea version and space version, and any number of places that were fixed points with a large loss of life after the War, but when she wasn't traveling with him. She remembered what the other Doctor said, "You'd have to be truly mad to mess with a fixed point in time." In that time line, he had went mad.
"How's your head?" he asked her, remembering that she said that these visions gave her headaches.
"It's getting better already, thanks."
Neither of them wanted to talk about the elephant in the room, but Rose knew that it would need to be addressed. To her surprise, however, the Doctor got to it first.
"I'm sorry, Rose, I'm sorry you ever had to see me like that. I-"
"If you say the word 'sorry' again, 'm gonna give you a smack," she interrupted him in an irritated voice.
He just sat back and regarded her. She calmly took another sip. Suddenly, he asked, "how?"
"How what?"
"How do you do it? How do you...? How can you...? After all I've done, to you, to others in front of you, that you know about. You've seen me lose control. You've seen glimpses of what I'm capable of becoming, and you sit here, calmly drinking tea, no fear, no judgment, only irritation at my apologies." His voice rose the whole time he was speaking.
"How can I not? You apologize too much. Shit happens, Doctor. Can't judge you for something you never really did and won't do, and can't blame you for things out of your control. I also have no fear of you, only for you. You're a good man, Doctor."
"No, I'm not," he denied, shaking his head.
"Yes, you are," she reiterated.
"Good men don't need rules, I have so very many."
"Good men have rules to help them stay good."
"I break my rules."
"Everyone has their moments."
They had been replying rapidly back and forth. She had an answer for everything he said, and he had another statement as to why he wasn't good.
"I have an awful lot of moments."
"You've had an awful lot of time to accumulate moments," she told him, placing a hand on the side of his face.
"I'm a broken old man."
"Mosaics are made of broken things, they're still beautiful. 'Sides, 'm a bit cracked up myself. What happened to not pushing me away?" She pulled her hand away from him and drank the last of her tea.
"I'm not pushing you away, I'm trying to show you reason."
"Oh, now why would I want to see reason? That's so boring. Do you have to be so contrary?"
"Oh, but you still love me."
She kissed him hard and quick. She pulled back and said, "finally, you say something I agree with." She then got up and took her mug to the sink, quickly washing it out.
He came up behind her and told her, "you should get some more rest, Rose."
"How long was I asleep?" she queried, not feeling tired at all.
"5 hours, 34 minutes," he replied.
"That's plenty. I'm good on 5 to 6 hours now, unless I've been up a really long time, or 'm particularly wore out."
"So, no more sleeping half your life away?" he joked.
She rolled her eyes. "It was never half, more like a third, now it's only a quarter."
"Is this just what you're used to, or do you really not need that much sleep?" he asked.
"I don't need it anymore," she told him, "took me a while to realize that I was actually sleeping too much."
He grinned, and she knew he had some cheeky reply that he was about to pop off. She decided that he wasn't going to get it out.
"When I learned better, I suddenly had three more hours every day to work on whatever I needed to work on. Used most of the time on learning thing I needed to make my transport work. I read textbooks and papers on temporal physics, engineering, mathematics, and theoretical physics. If I had bothered, I'm sure I'd have PhDs in several sciences."
All those hours of reading were worth it just to see the smile that spread across his face. It was a cross between pride, and incredibility.
He decided to test her. "Does the number zero count in determining whether a number is 'happy' or not?"
She thought for a moment. "No, except for in the case of a zero all by itself."
He grinned and asked, "what's 78 times 45?"
She rolled her eyes. "Reading a bunch of books isn't Krillitane oil, Doctor. And 'm not some hyper-intelligent being. I've probably forgotten most of what I read." This seemed to please him, judging by the goofy grin he gave her, probably because she had just practically called him a hyper-intelligent being.
"Goofball." She laughed and changed the subject, "about how long until we can expect him to be in?"
"I expect him to wake in about a half hour, when he shows up is another story. I'll be back in a few moments, get outta these jim jams."
She gathered up ingredients for breakfast for them. A basic fry up, nothing too special, or complicated. While she was working on it, the Doctor came back in, wearing his brown suit and cream Chucks, hair spiked back up, a dark blue oxford and a floral pattered tie. He saw what she was doing. "Are you sure about that?" he asked.
"What? Why? You want something else?" she asked.
"Oh, no, that's fine, it's just that your cooking generally defies the laws of physics. You'd have to be making an effort to be that bad," he joked. "Which is something to be proud of," he hurriedly added.
"I'm so gonna kill you," she said.
"No, you won't, you like this me, and why wouldn't you, look at me," he straightened his tie and have a haughty sniff. "Besides, you never know, my next self could be old, ugly, a prickly grouch, or even cheekier."
She threw some potato at him. "I said 'kill,' not 'regenerate.'"
He grabbed his chest, one hand over each heart. "You hurt my hearts, Rose Tyler, you really do."
About twenty minutes later, just a couple of minutes after Rose finished making everything, the other Doctor came shuffling in, looking just a bit like a zombie. "Morning," she greeted him, brightly.
"Err. Morning." he replied, "breakfast smells good."
"It's brains." Both the properly dressed Doctor and Rose said together. They then looked at each other and burst out laughing.
"You thought so too?" Rose asked.
"He even sounds like a movie zombie."
The part human Doctor glared at the two of them. "How long have the two of you been up?" he asked.
"A while," Rose answered, "why?"
"You're awfully chipper."
She held up her mug and explained, "third cuppa." He just glared at her and loaded up a plate.
When Rose was finished eating, she excused herself to go get dressed.
"Meet us in the infirmary when you're ready." The Time Lord said.
She sighed. "Fine," she said.
"What? You wouldn't let me do anything more than one scan!" the shirtless Doctor complained.
"I knew that when he found out, he'd want to do the whole workup, whether or not you already had. Didn't want to go through it twice, thank you much." She gave him a quick kiss, then walked out of the room.
XxXxXxXx
After finishing his breakfast, the Doctor went back to his and his counterpart's room to get dressed, he went with the t shirt under his suit jacket again, a really dark blue this time.
He shaved and did his hair, which took a little longer now than it used to. The hair was thinner, microscopically, barely, minutely, hardly thinner, but it was enough to make it harder to manipulate.
When he was ready, he met his other self in the infirmary, and the two started getting the list of tests and scans they wanted to check together.
Rose came in, wearing comfortable black yoga pants and a yellow tank top, her hair pulled up in a ponytail. She wasn't wearing any jewelry, probably in anticipation of having to take it off. "Okay, let's get this over with," she grumpily said.
They did various scans, took a saliva sample, and three tubes of blood. She was very cooperative with all of their questions and what they wanted her to do. He suspected that it was because she wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.
It was 44 minutes, 38 seconds after she hopped up on the table before they proclaimed her part finished. As soon as they did, she hopped down, and got out of there as soon as possible.
When she was gone, they poured over various scans while the various DNA tests were done.
Her scans showed her to be human, with denser muscles and bone, like the first set of scans had.
When they got to more in depth things, they started noticing oddities. When her cells divided, they didn't have the same minor mutations and tolomere shortening that humans usually did that caused them to age over time.
It was when they got to full gene sequencing that they started noticing several really off things. It led them to run one last test on the last bit of blood, with a temporally aligned scanner.
She had a third strand of genes that were temporally out of sync, and were slowly coming into sync with everything else. That's how they hadn't noticed anything before.
XxXxXxXx
She always hated tests, and left the infirmary as fast as she could, before they could decide that they wanted more of her. She knew that she needed to let them do this, or they'd worry forever about her. Plus, there was also the fact that she was extremely curious herself.
She knew that they'd be a while, running every conceivable test, even running some tests multiple times, and she would just be in the way, or poked and prodded more.
She ran her hand against the wall again, walking down the hall with her eyes closed, letting the ship take her somewhere where she could work out her frustration. She knew there were all sorts of rec rooms on the TARDIS, many of which she had never seen, and even multiples of some rooms. Why did he even need 7 squash courts?
When she was prodded to stop and open her eyes, she opened her eyes and opened the door that she found herself at.
At first, she thought she was in a room made for someone to practice gymnastics in, until she noticed the way the equipment was set up, there was an area where one could practice defense techniques, a large mat where one could practice floor exercises, the walls had handholds and rails of various kinds on them, and there was various gymnastics equipment and mats of all thicknesses all over the place that could be moved. Everything was new, and had a somewhat almost organic look to it.
She realized that this room was made for someone who could fight, do gymnastics, use a sword, and parkour. The TARDIS had made this room specifically for her. She went over to the coral wall, and patted it gently, sending her eternal gratitude to the sentient ship. She wondered how long it had taken her architectural reconfiguration center to make it, and if the Doctors knew about it.
The ship hummed at her, pleased that she loved it. Rose then got to work.