IT'S BACK!

Yeah, it's been way too long and that's kind of evident with the first little bit of this chapter, so I'm sorry about that but I was kind of just warming up there.

Hopefully the rest of the chapter makes up for it.

And the ball is like, actually rolling now, which is awesome.

And I thought it was about time I had a chapter name you actually know the meaning of without having to look it up.

Yeah so, my trip was fantastico and everything, but I'm sure you don't really want to hear about it and would rather just read the chapter.

Plain Sight
by LilyRose XD

Everything falls to dust
Past and present become blurred
And the future lies in the dark
Somehow already having occurred…

Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who or much else really.

LOOK HERE

Sorry, should have mentioned this chapter is set from the year 1993 through to 2005

XIX

Doubt

The Doctor had promised himself that he would live, but it certainly didn't feel like living when his alarm went off at some ungodly hour. He turned over and got a mouthful of carpet. Groaning, he sat up, massaging the crick in his neck. He rubbed the palms of his hands into his eyes and then ran his fingers through his hair. If it weren't for his alarm clock, he never would have known it was morning due to the lack of light filtering through the grubby windows. He looked back at the small square of carpet that acted as his pillow, and then at his wooden floorboard bed. He sighed and got up, brushing the dust from his suit and making his way out of the drunk's apartment, which had become his new hiding spot.

The past Doctor had Pete's room. His past self had almost captured the Doctor when he'd been lounging around in there when the past Doctor came back from his time being arrested by the police. The Doctor had come here, but then Jack had stumbled upon the drunk's apartment as well, and so, defeated, the Time Lord had ended up hiding in the towel cupboard in Rose's apartment.

Soon enough, he'd realised it wasn't an ideal spot to hide, and only used it when he needed to be in the apartment itself. Jack came to the drunk's apartment occasionally, but not often enough that the Doctor considered moving out of it. It was the only place he had.

And what a place it was. With the swirling streams of dust, the grubby windows and broken floorboards. The amber beer bottles that were strewn here and there throughout the place.

The Doctor exited the drunk's apartment, making his way up several flights of stairs before creeping into Rose's apartment through her bedroom window. He made his way to the towel cupboard, and hid while the sounds of Rose's and Jackie's argument drifted through the hallway from the living room.

"Rose, come on, we're going to be late."
"Doc wouldn't let you do this to me."
"Doc?" questioned Jackie. "Who's Doc?"
"No one," Rose lied quickly, horrified at herself for letting that slip.
"Rose, is Doc that toy bear of yours which you wouldn't tell me where you got?"
"Um…yeah. That's Doc, Mummy."
"Right. Now here's your lunch, sweetheart."
"Look, Rose. It's Winne the Pooh. You like Winnie the Pooh."
Rose said nothing.
"Come on, we're going to be late."
"I'm not going!" Rose shouted at her mother.
"You have to!" Jackie screamed back, momentarily losing her composure.
"Come on," Jackie said in a softer, calmer voice.

The Doctor listened to Jackie's footsteps drawing nearer as she entered the hallway and made her way to her own room to get ready to take Rose to her first day of school. Rose's footsteps padded softly to her own room, and the Doctor listened to them fade before he entered the living room himself, knowing his past self was behind the couch.

The Doctor fell back into the space between the wall and the back of the couch, leaning against the upholstery and waiting. He'd learned from experience not to come out of his hiding spot yet.
While he waited he listened to the sounds of Jackie bustling around the rest of the house, but he couldn't hear much of Rose and guessed that she was keeping out of her mother's way in her room.
He heard a low deep sigh and a sort of chuckle as well.
He got up on his knees and peeked over the edge of the couch to see the edge of a coat swishing and disappearing around a corner.
Jackie didn't have a coat like that. Neither did Rose.

The present Doctor allowed himself the low deep sigh and the chuckle he was supposed to utter at this point in time. He made his way to the door, then disappeared around it making sure his coat swished as much as possible in the non-windy hallway.

He retreated to the drunk's apartment, trying to remember the next point in time he had to be somewhere to maintain the continuity of the timeline.

*********

The drunk's apartment reflected his mood. Or maybe it created it. Maybe the drabness and oppressing atmosphere caused him to constantly run through past memories. Or maybe it was his blanket of suppressive feeling, of numbness, that had created the drunk's apartment in the first place. Maybe it was really a palace, and yet he, he had ruined it, as he had ruined so many lives.

He began to doubt this theory of his when he realised something that drew him out from under this blanket, into the light of the future and the light of hope and forwardness. He'd get to talk to Rose. He knew he'd talk to her one last time. Even if he was never allowed to again. Because there was that one time. On New Year's. Maybe that's why that Doctor from New Year's had looked in pain. Because it was the last time. It could be the last time he ever talked to her.

The Doctor became confused with himself. He was looking to the future, to this meeting, but if it was the last time he'd ever talk to her. Ever talk to anyone. Ever be touched upon by the mundane and ordinary which he so seemed to crave, then maybe he didn't want to talk to her. His time here had changed him. He was more selfish. Less giving. Thought twice before throwing himself into the line of danger and the path of the present. He preferred the path of the future, in which he knew he would go on, for better or for worse. Didn't want to end what he had.

He remembered how, in the Void, only a short time ago, he'd thought about just giving up, about never seeing Rose or the TARDIS again and letting the little flame of hope that was shielded by his emotional walls go out. But he had pressed to the future. And that meant he'd have to face it. He'd have to face the end.

If it was the end, then it was approaching faster than he could have ever believed. Yes, a few years were a short time to a Time Lord, but even though he seemed to cling onto every second, to beg it not to leave him yet, they slipped through his fingers like the sand in an hourglass.

There was darkness. Some could say there was nothing, but even darkness was something. Darkness was safe. You knew what you were in for, it there was light, the Doctor would have suspected a hidden danger, but darkness revealed it all to him.

There was a voice. Crackling and rough, as jagged and jaded as Time itself.

"The ending approaches."

There was a flash and his past selves all appeared, stretching into the distance, which existed and didn't exist in the darkness. Rose flickered into being beside the past selves of the Doctor. There were many selves of her as well, all at different ages, but the oldest Rose was only twenty-one, the real Rose.

"People and planets and stars will become dust, and the dust will become atoms…"

His past selves exploded into jagged pieces, the Roses shattered into shards.

"…and the atoms will become…nothing."

And then there was nothing, nothing at all.

And the Doctor awoke, screaming harsh unworldly cries and clawing in the air at his future and at his unknown fate and wishing he hadn't just accepted it.

He shivered, although he was not cold, on the drunk's apartment's floor, his first nightmare in so so long disrupting him, frightening him. It was only a few hours ago that he'd thought about his future and the end of him and now, he wished he hadn't, because he was sure that was what had brought about the nightmare.

********

It was later, much later, that he was in the courtyard of the Powell Estate on New Year's Eve. Shivers still ran through his body like electric currents, and his breaths were shaky and jagged. He was aware of the hairs standing up on his arms, even with his coat shrugged over his shoulder, and he was desperately trying to convince himself that his condition was just so because of the cold and the snow around him. But deep down, right deep inside the festering wound inside him he knew that it wasn't.

He had situated himself in the shadows where he remembered that he should be. He looked around at the swirling snow and knew that this was the end, even though it hadn't been confirmed by anyone. He just knew. This would be the very last time he'd see Rose, talk to Rose, the very last time he'd talk to anyone. He had no idea what was going to happen to him, but something would, of that he was certain.

In fact, now that he thought about it, the nightmare he'd had confirmed it. He remembered how confused he'd been at the state this future Doctor was in. Pained and paled. The nightmare had weakened him. With each visit, it stole some of his being, some of his future and his hope, until he'd have nothing left but an empty shell of himself, without feeling and emotion.

But then, then there was a whirring. A whirring and a flurry so familiar he felt a physical ache inside him upon hearing it. The calm falling of the snow was disrupted. It was hurtled in all directions, and if they'd been leaves they would have been blown away by an unseen wind. And then it appeared. In full blue health. There was the TARDIS.

Words tried to form themselves on his lips, but what he would say, he had no idea. Whether English or Gallifreyian, or if in some other language, he was even less certain. All he managed was a sort of croak, a rough noise at the back of his throat. He was about to rush to it, his shivers and haunting memories of the nightmare and of his past forgotten. But then he heard the oh so familiar creaking of the door.

He had no choice but to bolt to the other side of the courtyard, smuggling himself into the depths of the shadows to the left of the TARDIS. He watched silenced and frozen, as he himself emerged from the TARDIS, stole across the courtyard, not even noticing the footprints the present Doctor had just made and situated himself in the shadows where the present Doctor had previously been.

The Doctor had been certain, certain, that this was the time. That he was the Doctor who was supposed to talk to Rose now. But there were three of him, apparently. But he had no time to dwell more on his confused thoughts as Rose and Jackie were making their way into the courtyard, and the past Doctor was trailing further behind in the shadows at the edge of the courtyard.

"Late now, I've missed it," Rose said to Jackie. "Midnight. Mickey's gonna be calling me everything, this is your fault."
They walked past the TARDIS without glancing in its direction.
"No it's not. It's Jimbo. He said he was gonna give us a lift and then he said his axle broke. I can't help it," Jackie retorted fiercely.
"Get rid of him, Mum, he's useless," Rose replied.
"Listen to you, with a mechanic."
The Doctor watched as his past self retreated further into the shadows as the two women passed him.
Jackie stopped walking. "Be fair though, my time of life, I'm not gonna do much better."
"Don't be like that," Rose patted Jackie's shoulder and tucked a strand of Jackie's hair behind her ear. "Never know, could be someone out there."
"Maybe," Jackie said doubtfully. "One day." Rose's face lit with a small smile.
"Happy New Year!" Jackie suddenly exclaimed.
"Happy New Year!" Rose replied and Jackie hugged her daughter.
Rose drew back. "Don't stay out all night," she told her mother, walking over to the stairs.
"Try and stop me!" Jackie replied, going off in the other direction.

The present Doctor heard the cry of pain once again from the future Doctor lurking in the shadows. Their conversation played out again exactly how it had happened the first time, exactly how he remembered it from the vantage point of the past Doctor.

"You right mate?" Rose asked the future him.
"Yeah." He managed to reply, leaning on the wall behind him.
"Too much to drink?" Rose grinned knowingly.
"Something like that," the other Doctor nodded.
There was a pause.
"Maybe it's time you went home," Rose said, and the past Doctor smiled sadly, while the present Doctor just watched with a frown.
"Yeah…" the future him replied vaguely, the same sad smile just visible on his shadowed face.
"Anyway," Rose smiled, "Happy New Year!"
"And you," he replied.
Rose turned away and continued her walk towards the stairs. The future Doctor got a bit of a desperate look on his face.
"What year is this?" he asked suddenly.
Rose turned back, surprised, but then smiled as she took in his question.
"Blimey, how much have you had?"
The future Doctor tilted his head to the left and back again and made a non-committal sort of noise.
Rose looked thoroughly amused, "2005. January the First."
"2005," the future Doctor echoed.
Rose nodded, readjusting her crossed arms.
"Tell you what," the future Doctor said, smiling slightly. "I bet you're gonna have a really great year."
"Yeah?" Rose grinned.
The future Doctor smiled properly now. A smile that was both sorrowful and joyful and the past Doctor couldn't help but copy his expression.
Rose nodded again and turned away, before turning back and grinning widely.
"See ya," was all she said before she walked back to the stairs and disappeared.

The shivers and convulses returned as soon as Rose was gone, and the present Doctor lost awareness of his surroundings as the questions circled in his head and the nightmare played itself out in the background, the Roses shattering in his mind's eye.

He was confused in the truest sense of the word. He'd thought this was the end of him, the last time he'd talk to Rose, but there was another Doctor who saw it fit to come back to his place and talk to Rose himself, even with hundreds of other moments to choose from. Why would he do that? There were already two of him in this moment, why add another? What could make him tread so dangerously on the carpet of Time? And would it slip out from underneath him? Why was the TARDIS so healthy looking, when the future Doctor looked so sick? Sick at heart and mind, but with no physical symptoms.

The future Doctor looked tired, looked old, but he couldn't be too old unless he managed to stay out of trouble and not regenerate for a few centuries. And he didn't have a strong enough mind for that. He wasn't able to stop himself from going forth and saving a planet or a person to try and redeem himself, but from what? He wondered. Was there something he'd done much earlier in his life that had caused him to begin trying to redeem himself in the first place that he'd now forgotten about? And if so, why had he forgotten? He began to wonder whether he was the Doctor anymore, when so much of his past had become hidden to him recently. Was he only Doc now? Was he only Doc?

He came back to himself to find that both the future Doctor, along with his TARDIS, and the past Doctor had gone. It was only him left. He was left wondering why. Some part of him longed to go after the past Doctor, to ask him about himself, about the things he'd forgotten, for them to put their brilliant heads together to work it out. Another part of him wanted to go after the future Doctor. To completely disobey the laws of time and demand to get answers of his future off him. He wanted to know the end of a story before it even finished. Maybe even before it had even begun. Had he really changed that much that he would do that? Would disobey Time just to get answers which he didn't even deserve.

But then he realised something. Something he should have realised a long time ago. Something to bring him back to himself and to delay the ending of his story. He would meet Rose again in the future. He had no idea how far off that was, whether he'd have gotten out of her childhood first or whether he wouldn't and some cruel twist of fate would throw him back into this moment again. But he would meet her. And until then, he couldn't die. It was no matter what happened after he'd seen Rose, but up to that moment, he wouldn't be in such danger so that he would regenerate or just die completely.

For once, he could look to the future and know that he had a place there.

I reckon this chapter needs another explanation. I know most of you said you only wanted explanations for the confusing chapters, but I think this chapter falls under that category with the three Doctors and all that.

- Doctor is hiding in drunk's apartment because the past Doctor is in Pete's room (see previous chapter)

- Has to let past Doctor see his coat again because he remembers it happening and if he didn't there would be a paradox.

- He's all sad because the past Doctor can hang out with Rose and he can't.

- He becomes excited/sad/confused because he remembers that he's going to talk to Rose on New Year's Eve, but he thinks that his death will follow immediately after.

- He has a nightmare (which I'm not going to say too much about, because I wanted it to be kind of open for interpretation) about the future and darkness.

- The nightmare scares him (you know when you're scared by a nightmare but can't really explain why because it wasn't that scary? It's like that)

- Goes to courtyard of Powell Estate on New Year's Eve 2004 because he thinks he's going to get to speak to Rose.

- Future Doctor appears and the present Doctor is confused and goes to hide in the shadows.

- The scene plays out in exactly the same way as in Chapter 14 – Effectuation.

- Present Doctor wonders why the hell there are three Doctors in one place.

- He realises that he has a sort of future and that he can't die or regenerate until he talks to Rose as the Future Doctor

I promise the next chapter won't be as confusing as this one was.

Sometimes I look at the entire plan for SSR and think "WHAT. THE. HELL?"

So you've got that to look forward to.

Oh and thoughts on the Beast Below, the Eleventh Hour, Victory of the Daleks and the Time of the Angels?

Don't complain about not having seen it yet in your country. There is such invention as the internet for this.

Oh and with Victory of the Daleks, everyone's kind of like

'If Apple made Daleks…'

Next chapter up next week =D