CHAPTER 48
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WHAT IS THE SECRET OF DOCTOR WHO?
Cassiopeia Lungbarrow looked out over the vast expanse of space through the open doors of her father's TARDIS and sighed because she couldn't see the beauty of the stars or feel the majesty of the universe anymore. All she could see was the monumental task of having to protect all of that wonder from anything and everything that would seek to destroy it.
It was up to her after all as the oldest child to take up the mantle of her father and become Time's Champion in his place now that both he and her mother were gone. To say it was a daunting task was the epic understatement of all time. To Cassiopeia it already seemed to be impossible to fill her father's shoes because no one could ever replace the Doctor.
He especially couldn't be replaced by a former assassin who was never good at anything in her life but being a mindless dupe.
And yet somehow she was going to have to do this because her parents were both gone now. They had been trapped in an unknown universe by the Black Guardian, also known as Nightshade, just before he was defeated for what she truly hoped was the final time*, and Cassiopeia knew that they weren't going to be coming back to protect anyone anytime soon. In fact, they might never come back period and that thought made Cassiopeia more depressed than any other at that moment.
"How am I going to do this?" Cassiopeia said to no one in particular.
"You just take it one day at a time, Cass. The Doctor didn't seem to know what he was doing half of the time either. I think he was skating by on his ability to come up with clever ideas at a mile a minute more than anything else," Clara suddenly said from behind her.
Cassiopeia suddenly jumped as Clara laughed and said, "Did I actually sneak up on you? I thought you were supposed to be the big bad assassin. How did you ever survive this long if even a complete amateur like me could take you by surprise?"
"You have over nine hundred years of combat experience, Soufflé Girl. I don't think you can still call yourself an amateur anything after that," Cassiopeia said.
"Oi! Don't you dare start with me about being old, Lightning Girl. You're at least as old as I am. You have to be."
Cassiopeia smiled as she said, "You'll never know will you? I may actually be younger. And Lightning Girl? Really?"
"Your other name is The Storm so what else am I going to call you whenever I want to tease you. I guess I could call you Weather Girl maybe. That's not half bad actually," Clara said with an evil grin.
Cassiopeia grimaced as she said, "Lightning Girl is just fine."
"How about calling her Hurricane Cass?" Shawn said with a chuckle as he entered the Console Room.
Clara still couldn't believe that Shawn was from another universe where their entire lives had actually become a television show somehow. He had literally popped up out of nowhere right in front of Cassiopeia during a recent adventure, and neither of them had any idea how he had gotten there or how to get him back home since they didn't even know where home was.
Not that Shawn seemed to mind much Clara thought to herself as she watched him teasing Cass while at the same time looking at her like she was the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen. The two of them said that they were just friends but their body language said otherwise. In fact, Clara was in on a running bet with some of Cassiopeia's other friends about when she would finally kiss him.
So far she was winning that bet because she had bet that it would at least take months . . . if ever.
"Hey!" Cassiopeia said to Shawn indignantly.
"It's too bad that she didn't call herself the Blizzard or something. You could have had a lot of fun then singing Frozen songs to her in order to annoy her," Shawn said.
He then began to proceed to start singing a certain song about snowmen from that very movie with a malicious grin on his face. Clara burst out laughing while Cassiopeia put her fist threateningly in front of his fist as she practically snarled at him.
"If you don't shut up, I'm going to start singing 'Do you want a knuckle sandwich?' in a minute," Cassiopeia said in an extremely irritated voice.
"Oh, come off it, Cass. You'd never hurt your boyfriend no matter how much of a prick that he is sometimes and you know it," Clara said.
"He's not my boyfriend. We're just friends," Cassiopeia protested as Shawn's face turned bright red.
"Sure you are. Tell me another one, Elsa," Clara said with a giggle.
"Don't pay any attention to her, Shawn. She doesn't know what she's talking about," Cassiopeia said as she put her arm around him.
"Yeah," Shawn said as he began to blush even more now that she was right next to him.
Clara couldn't help but laugh as she watched the two of them in action. Cass had to be blind. That was the only explanation that she could come up with as to how she couldn't see what was going on right in front of her.
Suddenly the mood in the room rapidly changed as Cassiopeia started crying while she rested her head on Shawn's shoulder. Shawn slowly and hesitantly put his arms around her to comfort her as Clara's heart instantly broke for her.
"I'm trying to put up a brave face but laughing and joking like this just seems wrong. It's just all wrong," Cassiopeia said.
"They'll come back, Cass. I know they will," Shawn said.
"How could you possibly know that?" Cassiopeia said.
"The Doctor's the star of the show. That's how. You can take the star away for a little while but they always come back sooner or later because it's their name on the show. That's just how it works," Shawn said.
"This is not a show, Shawn! This is my life! This is real! Don't you understand that? I might never see them again!" Cassiopeia screamed.
Shawn immediately stiffened in terror as he could see the anger in her eyes. It was like watching the look on the Doctor's face at the end of The Family of Blood when he was imprisoning the family for what they had done to him and Joan Redfern. It was one thing to see the fury of a Time Lord on a TV screen but to actually see it directed at you live and in person was another thing altogether.
"Cass! Calm down!" Clara shouted as she put a restraining hand on Cassiopeia's shoulder.
Cassiopeia turned to glare at her and then saw Clara pointing at Shawn. When she saw the terrified look on his face, she instantly became filled with sorrow.
She immediately hugged him tightly and kissed the side of his mouth as she said, "I may be a monster but I would never hurt you, Shawn. Never."
"I know. I already know that you wouldn't do that, Cass. It's still scary to see you like that though. Oh, and for the record you are in no way a monster," Shawn said.
Cassiopeia shook her head as she said, "If you knew the kind of things, truly horrible things, that I did while working for Kovarian, you wouldn't be saying that."
"You're not a monster, Cass. You were brainwashed. There's a huge difference," Clara said.
"Try telling that to my conscience," Cassiopeia said.
"You'll see when you go out there and start helping people. Then you'll finally realize just how good a person that you really are. You're a hero, Cass, just like your parents. Don't even bring up how the Doctor always says that he isn't one. I said that he is and my word is always final," Clara said.
"Thank you," Cassiopeia said as she hugged her.
"For saying that you were a hero?" Clara asked.
"No, for talking about Dad in the present tense," Cassiopeia said.
"That's because Shawn's right, Cass. They are coming back. It's going to happen because I said it is. Like I said, my word's final," Clara said with a reassuring smile.
"You know, Boss, when you say it like that I almost believe you," Cassiopeia said with a hopeful look in her eyes.
"Oh, you can believe it alright. They'll be back in no time. You can count on it," Clara said.
Clara smiled as Cassiopeia began to look as if she actually believed her. Now if only she could convince herself of it.
Meanwhile even as their family and friends tried their best to cope with their loss, The Doctor and Rose were doing their best trying to cope with their new lives. Luckily for them, they had immediately come across two young women who had welcomed them into their home to stay with them almost as soon as they had arrived in whatever universe that they were in now.
Well, one of them had welcomed them anyway. Eliza Newman was extremely nice and helpful towards them while her sister Crystal thought that they were both mad since they claimed to be from another universe. They could tell that Crystal really didn't want them in her home, but Eliza being the older sister had evidently overruled her in the matter.
Now they were both staying together in a small guest bedroom while they tried to come up with a way to get back home somehow since Rose no longer had her powers. Luckily money wasn't a problem since the Doctor still had his sonic and could use it to gain access to whatever amount that they needed. Unfortunately what they needed didn't seem to be available on an Earth with seemingly no access to alien technology.
The Doctor was practically fuming as he searched through the internet on Eliza's laptop. He couldn't find anything of any use to them whatsoever there.
"It's just rubbish, Rose. There's no knowledge of any serious value to be found here whatsoever. The internet is just filled with useless rubbish about people's favorite television shows, gossip about pudding brained celebrities, and . . . so-called social media. Well, that's what the apes call it anyway. I really don't see anything social whatsoever about talking through keystrokes do you?" The Doctor said with disgust.
Rose laughed at him as she said, "You sound like an out of date old man complaining about the young people these days. What's next, Doctor? Are you going to start telling people to get off the lawn?"
"I'm serious, Rose. I can't find one helpful thing anywhere. All I've found are conspiracy theories about aliens but nothing substantial. There is no secret UNIT website or even one for Torchwood. I can't find any black market sales of alien technology or even a hint that there has ever been any actual alien contact with this Earth whatsoever. The only things that I can find about aliens are a bunch of ridiculous science fiction shows and movies. They're all so incredibly inaccurate too. Every single one of them has their facts all wrong. It's almost as if there has never been any alien contact with this Earth whatsoever," The Doctor said in a frustrated voice.
"Imagine that," Rose said with an enigmatic smile.
"You know what Earth that we're on, don't you?" The Doctor said.
"I think so. Try looking up a show called Doctor Who and see what you can find, yeah?" Rose said.
The Doctor frowned even as he did so while he said, "This is Shawn's world, the one where I'm a TV show, isn't it? It figures. I finally find the world that that pudding brain belongs on, and I can't even send him back to it. It should be him here instead of us. I bet he's with Cassiopeia right at this very moment."
"I certainly hope so. She'll need someone to talk to about all of this," Rose said as she suddenly became extremely sad.
"They're all going to be alright, Rose. Clara will see to it. She'll take care of them just like she always took care of both of us. Her eyes may be far too wide for her face, but I couldn't ask for a better person to keep them all safe until we get back," The Doctor said confidently.
"If we ever get back you mean, Doctor. I was hoping that Cass would have already used the power of the Bad Wolf to bring us home by now. That means that it was all too much for her and she couldn't control it. It probably overloaded her and caused her to unconsciously just switch it all off because she has no idea how to use that much power. That's what I was afraid was going to happen, but I didn't have much of a choice, did I? I had to give the power to her to keep the Black Guardian from getting it. Now we're just stranded here on a world that has no real time or space travel technology whatsoever to even use to start to build a Dimension Cannon. I've just mucked everything up for all of us," Rose said in despair.
The Doctor shook his head vehemently as he said, "No, you didn't. It was the only choice that you could make. There was no good choice to be made in that situation just a not quite so terrible one."
"Maybe so but I still should have come up with something else. Anything else," Rose said.
Then she started to smile again as a piece of music started playing on the computer that she recognized from the days when she was still the Bad Wolf as the theme music for the Eleventh Doctor on Doctor Who.
"What is this? It's all action-y and filled with drama," The Doctor said as he listened to it with a frown.
"That's your previous self's theme music on the show about you. It must have started playing when you brought that fan site about the show up," Rose said.
The Doctor's frown deepened as he said, "It sounds like him alright. It's like the music for one of those action movies where things are constantly blowing up all the time for no rhyme or reason. That fits him perfectly."
"You can talk, Mr. Free Falling into the TARDIS," Rose said with a chuckle.
"What?" The Doctor asked.
"There was a universe where you fought Missy and went freefalling straight from an exploding plane to the TARDIS. It was just like one of those action movies that you're putting down, Doctor. Face it, Doctor. You're like an intergalactic James Bond," Rose said with an amused grin.
The Doctor snorted as he said, "I'm much better."
Then he took a look at the website that had come up and began to look completely surprised as he said, "This is incredibly accurate. They may have gotten a few things wrong like what finally ended up happening to Ace but they got the majority of my life absolutely right. How could they have done that? That can't be just a coincidence."
"You know I've always wondered about that too to be honest. I never had time to look into it though. I guess it really does just all come down to an amazing coincidence in the end," Rose said.
The Doctor looked at her skeptically as he said, "No, not with this much accuracy it isn't. Someone here must have some kind of a connection to our world somehow to know all of this. They could be like Clara and have echoes all through time and space or they could have some kind of dormant psychic ability that lets them see the events of other realities. They might even think that it's all a product of their imagination and not even realize that they're seeing something real."
"It says here that the show has had several writers over the decades, Doctor, so I don't think that's it," Rose said.
"There has to be some kind of connection, Rose. Maybe it's even one that we can use to get back home," The Doctor said.
"Maybe," Rose said without much enthusiasm.
"Look, Rose! The actor that they have playing me looks remarkably similar to the real me. I mean he's not quite as good looking and his eyebrows aren't as big but he's close enough. In fact, all of these actors for the previous mes look uncannily like them. This can't be a coincidence. Someone had to do the casting calls for the actors based on what I actually look like," The Doctor said as he began to get more and more excited.
"Why would they go to all of this trouble though?" Rose asked.
"They did it to send me a message in order to let me know that they're here. Someone wanted to make sure that I couldn't miss them. The question is who and why and how can I use them to get us back home?" The Doctor said already thinking about exactly that.
"So it's all about you is it?" Rose said with a grin.
"Of course it is. I am the star of this show after all," The Doctor said proudly.
"You're still just as full of it as you were on the day that you blew up my job," Rose said in amusement.
The Doctor gave her a small brief smile as he said, "Possibly but I know that I'm right. I'm sure of it."
"Well, what do you intend to do about it then? Go to the studio and talk to every single person there? Talk to everyone who's ever been on the show? That's going to take a while," Rose said.
"No, I'm going to talk to the one person who I'm sure can give me answers," The Doctor said as he suddenly stared in fascination at one picture on the website in particular.
"Whoa! She doesn't just look like her. It is her!" Rose said with surprise as she looked at the picture along with him.
"You're right, Rose. The actress who plays Clara actually is one of Clara's echoes. She has to be. The entire show must have been created by our Clara somehow in order to get my attention so that I would get in touch with her echo when I finally got here. It has to be Clara's plan to rescue us," The Doctor said confidently.
"I'm not so sure about that, Doctor. She could just be another echo who has no idea what's going on or it could just be Spatial Genetic Multiplicity like with Gwen and Gwyneth," Rose said.
"We'll soon see but I'm sure that I'm right. I'm always right," The Doctor said confidently as he closed the computer and started towards Eliza's bedroom.
Rose looked at him with a frown causing him to quickly say, "Well, almost always."
"Of course you are," Rose said as she started smiling again while she followed him to Eliza's room.
The Doctor then knocked on the door and Eliza came out of it with a warm smile as she said, "Was the computer helpful?"
"Very helpful. As a matter of fact, it may have just shown me the way back home. I'll need to go to the studio where they make this show called Doctor Who. Take us there immediately, Eliza," The Doctor said in a commanding tone.
As she saw the annoyed look on Eliza's face, Rose quickly said, "What he means is that we would very much appreciate it if you could take us there. Don't you, Doctor?"
"What? Oh, yes! Yes, of course," The Doctor said impatiently.
Eliza still looked angry as she said, "Look, I like the two of you. I really do. I even feel like I need to help you for some reason that I don't quite understand but I'm not your taxi service. I don't have the gas money or the time to take you all the way to Wales. I have a job you know?"
The Doctor looked like he was in front of a firing squad as he put on a tight smile and said in a polite tone, "Would you please take us to the studio?"
Eliza shook her head as she said, "No, I just can't, Doctor. I'm sorry but I can't."
"Please, Eliza. I would consider it a great favor if you would do this for us," The Doctor said.
"No, Doctor," Eliza said firmly.
"Why not?" The Doctor protested.
"Because I said so that's why! Is that good enough for you? I have a job and responsibilities here that I need to meet. I don't have an entire day to waste driving you hundreds of miles away," Eliza said in an angry voice.
"Eliza, I'm sorry. He didn't mean to come off so rudely. He just wants to go home so badly. We both do," Rose said in a heartfelt tone.
Eliza's face softened as she said, "I know and I'd like to help. I really would. I just can't though. I have limited resources and time. I'm really sorry. Maybe you could find another way to go there. You said it's a television show, right?"
"You've never heard of it?" Rose asked.
"No, never. I don't like science fiction though so that's no surprise," Eliza said.
Rose smiled realizing that that was why that she hadn't recognized them. She wasn't a fan.
"What was your idea on how we could get there, Eliza?" The Doctor asked impatiently.
"Well, these popular shows always have conventions, don't they? The stars of the shows come to the conventions to talk to the fans, right?" Eliza asked.
"Yeah, they do. Mickey used to take me to some of them," Rose recalled with a fond smile since The Doctor had just given Eliza a blank look.
The Doctor became excited once again as he said, "I see your point now, Eliza. If we can't go to them, then we wait until they can come to us. We'll just have to see where and when they're holding a convention in this area and go to it. Then we can talk to whoever shows up and have them help us. It's not as good as the TARDIS or Bessie, but I suppose it will have to do. I just hope that another one of these conventions is coming soon. I'm not sure that I can take the waiting. How do you people cope, Eliza? Hooray for the Idiot. He came through for us once again."
Rose gave him a dirty look as she said, "I told you to stop calling him that. You've already gotten me back a long time ago. You don't have to do that anymore just because you're jealous of him."
"Why? It's not like he's here or anything. Besides that, I was actually complimenting him. As for me being jealous, I think that there would be far more reasons for it being the other way around," The Doctor said with a smug look plastered all over his face.
"You heard me, Mister," Rose said.
"I'm sorry," The Doctor said in a low voice.
"What was that?" Rose said smiling once more.
"I said I was sorry," The Doctor said in a louder voice.
"Good. Now don't let me catch you doing it again, got it?" Rose admonished him with a huge grin on her face.
"You're enjoying this far too much," The Doctor said with a frown.
Rose only smiled while Eliza said, "You two are definitely married alright. Just let me look up the next convention on my computer while I'm at it."
She smiled a minute later as she said, "Well, it looks like you two are in luck. It's going to be held tomorrow, and it's just a few miles away from here. I think that maybe I could actually take you to it and still have time to go to work if I really pushed it."
"Thank you, Eliza!" Rose said happily as she hugged her tightly.
Eliza looked at her in surprise as Rose said, "Sorry. I'm just a very affectionate person."
"See, Rose? I told you and Clara both that not everyone likes to hug. It's not just me," The Doctor said.
Eliza smiled and said, "No, it's alright. I just wasn't expecting it because we don't know each other that well."
"I won't do it again. I wasn't trying to freak you out or anything," Rose said.
"It's okay, Rose. Really. I know you were just being grateful and I've definitely noticed what a loving person that you are. It's one of the things that made me decide to help you. You seemed too nice to be up to anything."
The Doctor snorted as he said, "Typical human reaction. Base everything on emotions. It's not as if someone out to destroy you wouldn't be nice if they had to in order to do it."
"Doctor, not helping," Rose said through gritted teeth.
Eliza laughed as she said, "He really was born with his foot in his mouth wasn't he? He just can't help it."
Then Rose noticed the convention that Eliza had spotted on the computer and smiled as she said, "Doctor, we've really lucked out this time around, yeah? Look who's going to be there tomorrow."
The Doctor did as she asked and he too began to smile for once as he said, "It couldn't have worked out better if I had planned it myself. Well, it could have actually but it will do. Tomorrow, Rose. Tomorrow we will see this other Clara in person!"
*See War of the Guardians: The Eye of the Storm for the full story of how he came back.
Next: The Doctor and Rose go to a Doctor Who convention and meet the actress who plays Clara. Will she have any clue whatsoever as to what they're even talking about or just dismiss them as complete madpeople like everyone else? Does she have any connection at all to the original Clara? Was the entire show really just created as a means of finding the Doctor or is its remarkable accuracy because of something else entirely? Plus back at home a badly wounded Cassiopeia suddenly finds herself completely at the mercy of the Matriarch. It seems our Cass is already up to her neck in trouble just like her Dad.
