I just realised that my current yarr-I-don't-want-to-write-this mood isn't so much because I don't like this episode in particular, but because I don't like the one after it. Blargh. Angst. Also, it… probably would have been a good idea to start this earlier than Saturday, but… well. You know me. XD
Disclaimer: .
SIAPNIAN: I. ATE. FISH. CUSTARD. TODAY. You all needed to know that. ALL OF YOU. –flails-
Apology: I really do fail at this whole update-schedule thing, don't I?
Non-Warning: Betaed by Aelita Madeline.
-BAD WOLF-
She was dead.
The Doctor took a moment to absorb that fact. Rose Tyler, saviour of at least two universes, thoroughly extraordinary human being, his—
She was dead. Gone, in just a few seconds, without even the slightest indication that she had been there at all.
And she'd done it knowingly. Willingly. For him. Part of him was only slightly startled by that; he was a Doctor, after all, even if he wasn't her original Time Lord; hadn't she dictated, at least in part, some instances of her doing such things for him in similar circumstances? It was incredibly Rose, what she had done, and really shouldn't surprise him very much.
Besides, it had been very sensible of her. He was the only one who could fly the TARDIS, after all, and the only way to distract the Reaper sufficiently was to become its prey herself. While she would be undoubtedly useful in resetting the timeline, she wasn't technically necessary. She'd saved the world, really.
And yet, despite that, he couldn't get over the fact that she had just died out there. Probably painfully and definitely terribly, and it didn't matter that if all went well (and he would make sure it did) she never would have died at all—right now, she was gone, and that was all that mattered.
The Doctor had, of course, lost companions before in ways much more permanent than this. In the end, he knew, she would join their ranks. Technically, he would eventually lose all of them—which had been no insignificant part of his semi-solitary lifestyle following the Time War (well, that and the fact that no one really wanted to be around a creature that unshakably melancholy). He just… He hadn't expected to even get this close to that particular separation until much later in their travels together. Maybe a year or two, and then he would start wondering when her time would come, but certainly not now. Not after just a couple of months. Not like that.
Not to save his lives.
No, a thought came; it wasn't just for his sake that she had given herself up. Her death (he flinched at the word, the shock and pain of the event stabbing through him even more sharply) had bought him enough time to get to the TARDIS and therefore fix the timeline, save her.
His ribcage seemed momentarily to tighten around his lungs. Save her. She'd voluntarily gone to a horrifying demise because she trusted that he would be able to rescue her. For her to have that level of faith in him… He was used to people relying on him, of course: doing thoroughly insane things because they knew he would stop them from coming to any real harm (most of the time). He had a history of being the recipient of that kind of behaviour, but from her… From her, it was somehow different. More. He tried, and failed, to adequately explain why.
The Doctor swallowed, shaken. Rassilon, he'd watched galaxies burn—made them burn; and he was this disturbed by the death of a singular human woman he'd known for that short a time (relatively speaking)? Who was she? Why…?
The TARDIS, who had become rather attached to Rose of late (a phenomenon that still confused him somewhat), momentarily pulled herself out of her own mourning to be quietly amused at him. If he couldn't see why he was so affected by Rose's death, she certainly wasn't going to tell him.
And anyway, she added, if he was going to dwell on exactly what she had done, he needed to do it later. Time was still unravelling; they could only barely make one trip now, and if he kept waiting…
She was right, he reluctantly admitted. Shoving his tangled mess of emotions aside for the moment, therefore, he stepped over to the console.
-BAD WOLF-
Well. Um. That was unexpected.
I suppose I should have seen it coming, really. Of course, I was distracted; I was trying to do something more sensible than dying, like shoving the offending creature back into the Vortex or distract it or something—but of course she wouldn't know that. She doesn't even know that I'm a separate entity, much less that I'm still very much alive. And free of the TARDIS. That bit's important, too.
That was rather heroic of her, really. And quite useful—the temporal breach is making it difficult for me to influence events. I'd be impressed if it hadn't also been such a thoroughly annoying thing to do—in the long run, at least. Her Time Lord-related self-sacrificial tendencies hadn't been fully exhibited in front of this Doctor, and his thoughts at seeing what she's just done… Well, they're taking a rather inconvenient turn. I mean, well done for the whole saving-his-lives-and-therefore-the-universe thing, but I didn't like the way he was thinking about her before this. I don't even want to consider what he'll do once he gets her back…
And he will get her back. Rassilon knows (actually, he doesn't, nor does he care) I want her away from this Doctor as quickly as possible, but… This wasn't the plan for accomplishing that. Killing her, although very effective for half of said scheme, won't get her back to her home universe very efficiently.
Not that the Doctor would be much help at this point anyway. Last time I checked, he was in 1969 without his TARDIS. Not particularly smart, that, although I suppose he couldn't help it at the time.
Now. Let's see if we can't get the Doctor—the other one—out of this mess without blowing up the Vortex, shall we?
-BAD WOLF-
It was a beautiful morning by almost anyone's standards. The sun seemed almost intolerably cheerful, shining vividly enough to be oppressive were it not for several conveniently-placed clouds scattered about the pale teal sky. The subtle lilac overtones in the grass seemed brighter than ever, and the little birdlike mammals native to the planet screeched joyously in every silver-tinged tree.
Alice Jacobs saw it and it made her nauseous. Well, to be perfectly honest, everything made her nauseous at this point; she would have managed to be ill no matter what it was like outside. Tomorrow, she and everyone else in the facility would die. And it would be her fault.
She shuddered, closing her eyes and clenching her fists against the wave of horror that crashed through her. It wasn't supposed to be like this, she lamented. She wasn't a murderer. She wasn't! She wouldn't have even considered doing this if not for… for…
A choked noise escaped her lips. Everyone else had managed to get over his (she skipped over his name in the hopes that it would dull the loss. It didn't) death, but she… He was one of the strongest people she'd ever known and, by the end of it, he had wanted death. Welcomed it.
And he, she knew, wouldn't be the first to die as a result of the project. Far from it. Which was why, she told herself firmly, she had to do this. If she didn't, the human race would destroy all of history, in the end.
Alice whimpered quietly to herself and glanced at the clock. Eleven hours until the test, and she had been up for most of the night going over her plan. Sleep might be a good idea; she wanted to mess up the timeline, yes, but only in a very specific and controlled way. Passing out in the middle of it would not be helpful.
She sighed, checked to make sure the revised plans for the device were still safely tucked away, and went to bed.
She was too distracted to worry about the box materialising in the middle of the street.
-BAD WOLF-
The flight was, impossibly, even worse than expected; sometimes, the Doctor was barely able even to cling to the console, much less pilot the ship properly. Fortunately, the TARDIS knew what she was doing (probably better than he did, but he wasn't going to admit that), and they managed to disentangle themselves from the breach with only six explosions and two electrocutions.
As the Time Lord coughed violently and waited for the smoke to clear, she wearily apologised about that. While she was fond of utilising such tactics as disciplinary measures against him, she didn't like it so much when he'd done nothing wrong.
"Thanks," he muttered sarcastically. Somehow, he managed to forget about what had just happened for long enough to half-expect Rose to giggle quietly at the exchange.
When he remembered half a second later, he had to take a moment to lean against the console and close his eyes.
It had only been a couple of minutes and already he missed her terribly. He hoped that he'd arrived as early as he thought he had; he could use the period of waiting for something to happen to try and get his emotions under control. This felt like a complex enough rift to fix if Rose had been safe; having to deal with the effects on top of it…
But there was still a chance that he didn't have that much time, the TARDIS reminded him. She'd tried to give him a few extra hours, but…
"Type 40s aren't supposed to fly through that, I know," he interrupted, perhaps a little sharply.
She briefly expressed her displeasure before she valiantly attempted to turn her lights back on. With their spasmodic assistance, he managed to get to the door; instinctively, he glanced behind him to see where Rose was, knowing even as he did it that she wouldn't be there.
This was ridiculous.
Trying his best to ignore the event and its associated effects, he yanked open the door and exited the TARDIS.
He wasn't particularly surprised that, when he got outside, the first thing he saw was a gun.
Or six.
-BAD WOLF-
Alice awoke feeling even worse than when she had, finally, gone to sleep. Before, she had at least had her exhaustion to distract her from her inner turmoil—but she'd managed to remove that obstacle, and was now panicking uninhibited.
One hour. She shook slightly as she pulled her hair back, deciding not to pay any particular attention to her appearance beyond that. She'd be dead before the day was out anyway.
She fished the plans out of their hiding place, shoved them quickly in her satchel, and swung it over her shoulder. A flash of blue accosted her vision as she exited the house, but the box slid into the back of her mind as soon as she looked away. If she hadn't been as distracted as she was, she might have worried about that; but as it was, it was forgotten.
Living as close to the facility as she did, she didn't need any secondary transportation to get to it. Or she wouldn't, if she'd awakened a little earlier.
She decided to forego it anyway, and walked into the building several minutes after she was supposed to be preparing for the test. She felt muddled, somehow, and every instinct she had was shrieking at her to run away, to stop herself from doing this; each step forward increased the level of adrenalin swimming around her system.
"You're late," commented Stephen as she passed his desk. Was he the first person to talk to her? She wasn't sure.
"I know."
There was a slightly awkward pause, and Alice wondered if she should have said something else. "There's someone asking for you, by the way," he said, frowning absently at the computer.
She froze. "What?"
"Said he was a time traveller and needed to talk to you." He looked at her. "Any idea what that's about?"
A time-traveller wanted to see her when she was about to incite a paradox. That… wasn't good. "No," she lied quietly. So… she failed? Or did she? Or…
He glanced back down. "Miranda doesn't want you to see him," he continued absently. "Which settles it, I suppose."
"What?"
Stephen's eyes returned to her. "When was the last time you did anything Miranda wanted you to? And are you sure you're alright?"
Right. She had forgotten about that particular bit of ongoing rebellion. Funny, the things that slipped one's mind when going to one's death. "Yeah," she replied, slightly dazed. "Just nervous."
"They fixed the problem with the initiator," he reminded her. "They're completely sure that nothing will go wrong with this one."
"They were completely sure about the last one, too," she replied. Let him think that was the only reason she was out of sorts.
He made a noncommittal noise.
Alice swallowed. "Where is he, then?"
Stephen grinned at her. "Knew you wouldn't be able to resist."
-BAD WOLF-
Just in case you didn't see it the first time, I ATE FISH CUSTARD TODAY. OMR.
Also, did you people hack into my computer and disable The Sims 3? Because it went all "I'm not going to work anymore kthxbai" at a very convenient time, fic-writing-wise. –eyenarrow-
Also also, last chapter was the halfway point. Approximately. Well, halfway through the last chapter was the halfway point. Yay! Unless you count the Christmas episode as part of the rest of the series. Whereupon… somewhere between next chapter and the one after that is the halfway point. …except the Christmas episode has 6 or 7 chapters, instead of 5… so… Oh, whatever. Anyway, we're somewhere around a Point of Halfway! –cheers-
Aaaand… I apologise in advance for the next episode, because, again, it's… kind of a cop-out.
And and I'm afraid this chapter's a bit of a disappointment. Rawrgh. I'm sorry.
