School Reunion
Rose picked up her phone and continued running. "Hello?"
"Rose?" Mickey asked, obviously confused. Rose let out a shout as she ducked a poisonous dart and ran further into the forest.
"What's up? I'm kinda busy here, Mick."
"Uh, it's just- are you sure you can talk?"
Rose ducked under a branch and kept running as fast as she could. "Yeah, it's fine."
"Okay…. Well, there's a school that's suspicious and-."
"Shit," she cursed. "Kids are getting crazy good scores suddenly?"
"Yeah, how did- how did you know?"
"Jack," she lied absently, running and jumping up a tree, holding on with one arm. Once she tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder, she carefully pulled herself up to sit on the branch and out of sight. Breathing in and out heavily, she turned back to the conversation. "We'll be on our way soon, we've just gotta finish what we're doing here and pick up some parts for something, give the Doctor time to make that something, and then we'll be on our way."
"That doesn't sound like soon. What if they're robot kids or something?"
"They're not," she rolled her eyes. "Seriously, Mickey, we'll be there tomorrow, okay? We'll even go back a few weeks to interview for jobs there to investigate, 'kay?"
"Okay," he agreed hesitantly. "What're you doing, anyway?"
"Uh… hiding from the Amazons with viruses," she answered, eyeing the drones as they continued to look for her footprints ahead of the tree she was in. "Freaky things. 2022 is a scary time. Jeff Bezos really should've been taxed."
OoOoOoOoOoOo
"What exactly is going on there?" Ross questioned as the Doctor picked up his screwdriver and used it to close up the casing on the one he'd just finished making for Rose. "What could happen at a school on earth?"
Rose shook her head, remembering exactly what was going on there. Truthfully, she hadn't understood it the first time, but after spending countless nights with the Doctor questioning him on endless subjects and pieces of the universe, she knew exactly what code they were trying to crack. "This school replaced a ton of its staff and then immediately, students were getting incredible grades the likes of which they'd never had before."
"Could they just be good teachers?" the Doctor asked absently, ducking a spark as he screwed the casing shut.
"Maybe, but I doubt it," Rose shook her head. "This school is one I went to, and it doesn't have a great record of high grades. A lot of kids dropped out from there. I did."
"Done!" the Doctor announced, dropping his sonic and holding up hers. It was clean lines of black and, when she pressed the button, the end lit up in pink, purple, and then blue. "Like it?"
Rose's lips twitched. "The colors?"
"What?" he shrugged. "It's June somewhere, and black looked better with them than silver."
"Let's go!"
OoOoOoOoOoOo
They did as Rose had promised and went back to interview. They got three positions at the school - one teacher, one lunch lady, and one janitor. From there, they went straight to the day after Mickey had called, which was to be their start day.
It was a very long time serving chips, and Rose hated it just as much as she had the first time.
"Two days," she complained, walking over to meet the Doctor and Ross, who was pretending to sweep by the Doctor's table.
"Sorry, there's just- there's a bit of gravy," the Doctor said. She narrowed her eyes at him and wiped it up.
"Two days we've been here."
"Blame your boyfriend, he's the one who put us onto this."
Rose scowled at looked at Ross. "D'you think I'd get fired for smacking a teacher?"
"Not if they don't see it."
"Hey!" the Doctor looked at him. "Don't support this."
"And he's not my boyfriend," Rose told the Doctor. "I've known Mickey since I was a baby, Doctor, and if you don't stop making fun of me for dating him, I'll throw your Milisian lotion into a supernova."
"He was right, though," the Doctor continued, ignoring her threat. "Boy in class this morning, he's got knowledge way beyond planet earth."
"How bad?" Ross wondered. "Any ideas where it came from?"
"Not a single one."
"Something off about these chips," Rose commented, picking one up to sniff it. Surprisingly, it didn't smell like a normal chip but rather something… different. It hadn't been that way last time, so she put it down to her Time Lord senses.
"It's very well behaved, this place," Ross told them as Rose sat down and took off her cap. "Even more so than the Academy."
"You went to the Academy?" the Doctor wondered, surprised. Ross nodded shortly. "Huh, I didn't realize."
"You worked together," Rose snorted. "Do you remember him at all?"
"A bit," he confirmed. "Not fondly, but it wasn't as if I enjoyed much of anything back then. Is this place different from how you remember it?"
"Very," she confirmed, eyeing the chips again. She wished they weren't creepy, smart chips because she was definitely hungry. "When I went here, it was… bad. Things were bad. About what you'd expect for this area, honestly."
"Yeah, I thought they'd all be happy-slapping hoodies," the Doctor agreed. "Happy-slapping hoodies with ASBOs and ringtones. Eh? Don't tell me I don't fit in."
"Even I can tell you that you don't," Ross chuckled, shaking his head.
"You are not permitted to leave your station during a sitting."
Rose scowled up at the lunch lady that approached them and put effort into shifting her scowl into a tight smile. "Well, he doesn't like these chips. Won't stop complaining, honestly."
The woman's gaze shifted to the Doctor, who looked at her in amusement. "The menu has been specifically designed by the headmaster to improve concentration and performance. Now get back to work."
Rose shot the Doctor and Ross a look that begged for death as she walked back over to the kitchen. When she got back there and began cleaning the dishes, she eyed the aliens as they moved the vats back to the back room. When her phone went off, she picked it up.
"What is it?"
"Confirmation," Mickey replied. "I just got into army records. Three months ago, massive UFO activity. They logged over forty sightings. Lights in the sky, all of that. Can't get any photos, 'cause then it gets all classified, secret. Keeps locking me out."
"Three months ago, kitchen staff was replaced," Rose told him lazily, eyeing the women as they continued wheeling the vat through the kitchen. "They're definitely… odd."
"There's definitely something going on. I was right to call you home."
"I'll always come if anyone needs me," she promised. There were shouts on the other side of the kitchen and she stood on her toes to catch sight of the oil spilling on one of the women. It burned her and others rushed over quickly to help her up. Rose, instead, slipped out the back of the kitchen. "How's my mum doing?"
"Okay," Mickey answered her slowly. "Worried. She says you're different now. You sound different."
"I haven't seen you," she realized. "Yeah, I changed. I looked a bit different. Still blonde, still brown eyes, but… different. The Doctor is different, too. You'll see tonight."
"But how does that work?" he wondered. "How do you just change?"
"It's called regeneration. We can do it when our lives are threatened and we have time to change. What I did to save him, it killed both of us, so we had to change. We're okay now."
"But are you different? Are you the same person, the same Rose?"
Her immediate answer was yes, but she hesitated. Was she? She didn't think so, the more she thought about it. She'd gone through a lot since she'd last seen him. Her life had changed entirely and it had even before she'd gone off with the Doctor. For this Mickey, this one who hadn't yet gone through what he had before she died in the other universe, she was a different person the day she woke up in her pink bedroom in 2005 and broke up with him. "I've still got all of my memories and everything, but it's been a bit of time for me and I've… grown. Changed. That isn't a bad thing, Mickey."
"Right," he said, deflating. "Okay. Well… I'll see you tonight."
OoOoOoOoOoOo
Sarah Jane chased after the headmaster, barely keeping up with him as he spoke and walked quickly through the school. "It's got to be said, the transformation you've brought about, it's amazing. I mean, maybe you've been working the children a little bit too hard now and then, but I think good results are more important than anything."
"Exactly," he said, eating it up to her relief. "You're a woman of vision, Miss Smith."
"Oh, I can see everything, Mr. Finch," she assured him, gazing over the halls. Her eyes caught on a man and woman talking quietly as they walked together down the hall, passing her as they whispered. They were extremely familiar, but she couldn't place them, not while she was so distracted. "Quite clearly…"
OoOoOoOoOoOo
Rose leaned against Ross as they waited for Mickey. The Doctor was still inside, snooping about and waiting for them. When a car pulled up, she tapped her foot nervously. She'd spoken to him, sure, but he was liable to lose it when he saw her, and she wasn't sure she could handle her oldest friend abandoning her.
He got out of the car and made the short walk over to them, slowing to a stop when he was a few feet away. He looked over them slowly, spending much more time on Rose than Ross. "Your hair is curlier."
Rose let out a surprised laugh. "My hair? You noticed that first?"
"Well, what do you want me to say? You're shorter, much more… punk than before."
She glanced at her outfit of ripped jeans, a strappy bra, and a loosely knit and purposely ripped white sweater, which had black skulls and flowers on it. She wore her combat boots as well, having lost her converse in the pile of clothes that had amassed on the floor in her room. The only jewelry she wore was a tattoo choker and her locket. "Maybe a bit, yeah."
"And the Doctor," Mickey looked at Ross's dirty blonde hair and green eyes. "Different. Younger."
"Oh, that's not-,"
"Rossindherlem," Ross greeted, holding his hand out. Mickey shook it, eyeing him closely. Whatever he was thinking, he didn't say. "Or Ross."
"He's a Time Lord, like the Doctor and I," Rose explained, waving them into the school.
"Thought you said there were no more," Mickey said, confused. He followed her through the halls as she led them to the Doctor easily.
"It's complicated," she sighed, looking back at him quickly. "Something happened, I sort of kidnapped him and I can't really take him back."
"I don't particularly want to go back, if what you've told me is true," Ross admitted. "I care for Romanadvoratrelundar. I wouldn't want to see her be murdered like that and I'd probably have been killed as well."
"Horrible name," the Doctor called. "Wouldn't say it if I could. Romana is much better."
"She hated the name," Ross scowled.
"All right team!" the Doctor exclaimed before wincing. "I hate that word. Uh, gang. Erm… comrades? Anyway, Rose, go to the kitchen and get a sample of that oil. Mickey, the new staff are all maths teachers. Check out the maths department. Ross, help him. I'm gonna look in Finch's office. Meet back here in ten minutes."
After the Doctor sped off, Rose rolled her eyes and looked at Mickey, rolling up her sleeves. "Will you be okay?"
He scoffed. "Me? Infiltration and investigation? I'm an expert at this." He walked off confidently and she crossed her arms over her chest as he made his way back over. "Uh… where's the maths department? I can't remember."
"Down there, turn left, through the fire doors, on the right," she answered, shaking her head fondly. She glanced at Ross. "Play nice. He doesn't do much of this."
OoOoOoOoOoOo
Rose slammed into the Doctor as she ran down the hall, and he grabbed her to steady her, immediately looking her over for injuries. "I'm good, I'm- Sarah Jane!"
"It's you!" Sarah Jane exclaimed, eyes wide. "I knew I recognized you."
Rose grinned, slipping her hand into the Doctor's. "Hello. Not dying this time. Well, not yet. Sorry for crashing your adventure last time. Did you ever get it figured out?"
"The- no, we didn't," Sarah Jane laughed. "You haven't aged a day!"
"Well, that was recent," Rose told her. "But also, I am a Time Lady."
"Okay, this is nice, but let's go," the Doctor said, waving them on. They moved again, running after where they found Mickey picking things up off the floor. Ross leaned against a wall, his arms crossed, and rolling his eyes at Mickey.
"Dead animals," he announced. "We were in absolutely no danger and he screamed."
"They told us to investigate!" Mickey defended. "I started looking through these cupboards and all of these fell out on me."
"And you decided to scream?" the Doctor asked, staring at Mickey.
"It took me by surprise!"
"Like a little girl."
"It was dark! I was covered in rats!" Mickey defended hotly.
"Nine, maybe ten years old. I'm seeing pigtails, frilly skirt."
"He's being rude again," Ross told Rose, who shrugged.
"It's just Mickey. He'll be fine."
The Doctor tossed a vacuum packed rat at Mickey. "Everything started when Mr Finch arrived. We should go and check his office."
"Where's your other friend?" Sarah Jane asked Rose and Ross curiously, referring to River.
"Oh, she doesn't travel with us really," Rose said before pausing. "Well, not yet. We keep meeting out of order. That entire thing was an accident, anyway, and totally her fault."
"And you are…?"
"Rossinherlem," Ross introduced himself for the second time that night. "Call me Ross. I do travel with them, at least for now."
"So now that you're not traveling with the Doctor, what do you do?" Rose wondered with a kind smile, one that Sarah Jane returned. It was much better than the last time, when her jealousy had clashed against Sarah Jane's.
"I'm a reporter," she explained. "But I look for things like this. I still do what we did back then, just without him."
Rose grinned excitedly when they reached the door and pushed her way to it, grabbing her sonic from her pockets. She unlocked the door and looked back at them happily before opening it. The Doctor stood behind her and looked over her shoulder at the ceiling just a moment before she closed the door and turned around to look at them. "So we probably shouldn't go in there."
The group of five ran out of the school together, stopping only when they got to the parking lot and there were no signs of the aliens that they'd found in the office.
"I am not going back in there!" Mickey exclaimed. "No way!"
"Those were teachers," Sarah Jane said in surprise.
"Finch brought in seven new teachers, four dinner ladies, and a nurse," Rose confirmed. "There were thirteen of those things in there… hanging from the ceiling."
"Come on," the Doctor nodded, turning back to the school. Rose went with him, as well as Ross and Sarah Jane, but Mickey looked at them like they were crazy.
"You've got to be kidding!"
"I need the TARDIS," the Doctor said as if it were obvious. "I've got to analyze that oil from the kitchen."
"I might be able to help you there," Sarah Jane smiled. "I've got something to show you."
"K-9!" the Doctor exclaimed when they opened the boot of her car. "Rose Tyler, Ross, Mickey Smith, allow me to introduce K-9! Well, K-9 Mark 3, to be precise. What's happened to him?"
"One day, just… nothing," Sarah Jane shrugged.
"Didn't you try and get him repaired?" the Doctor asked, somehow offended that she'd just left him to rot.
"Doctor, you left her in the twentieth century," Rose blinked at him. "How could she? You - and now Ross and I - are the only people who could repair him."
"Besides, technology inside him could rewrite human science," Sarah Jane agreed. "I couldn't show him to anyone."
"Ooh, what's the nasty lady done to you?" the Doctor cooed to the broken robot dog.
"Perhaps we should fix him up and analyze this oil," Ross suggested, stepping closer to the dog. With that suggestion in mind, Sarah Jane drove them all to get some food and away from the school.
"All this time, you've been giving me this 'he's different' when the truth is, he's just like any other bloke," Mickey told Rose as they made their way to a table where Ross sat. She gave him a dirty look.
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Maybe I don't," he allowed. "But if I were you, I'd go easy on the chips."
Rose narrowed her eyes at him. "You're an arse. I'm not worried about Sarah Jane, okay? She's moved on. This is the first time she's seen him in… a very long time, okay? He just dropped her here and ran for Gallifrey."
"And how do you know he won't do that to you, too?"
"Because I'm like him."
"Yeah, I've heard that before," he rolled his eyes. Rose tensed.
"Don't. I've already got my mum's snarky comments about him to deal with and I don't need yours, too."
"I'm just saying, you got yourself into something you couldn't handle before," he pointed out, leaning back in his chair. "What's to say you haven't done it again?"
"You are extremely rude," Ross told Mickey when Rose didn't reply. "Aren't you supposed to be her friend?"
"He's just mad because the last time I saw him, I broke up with him," Rose informed him.
"Yeah, and what's protecting you from Jimmy now, Rose? Huh? Because the Doctor won't cut it, will he?"
"Stop it," she snapped, this time loudly and gaining the attention of everyone else in the small shop, including the Doctor and Sarah Jane. She lowered her voice and leaned closer so he could still hear her. "The Doctor did more for me than you ever did. He took me away from here, away from him. You're just an arse that doesn't know how to let go of a grudge."
"Oh, hey, now we're in business!" the Doctor exclaimed, saving them from continuing their small fight. Grateful for the interruption, Rose and Ross hurried over without waiting for Mickey.
"Master!" K-9 greeted, nodding his head.
"He recognizes me," the Doctor grinned happily, grabbing Rose's hand when she came to stand by his side.
"Affirmative."
"Rose, the oil," he requested. She pulled the small container out of her pocket and handed it over.
"The dinner lady got burned by it," she told them, watching him poke it and rub it on a sensor K-9 pushed out for him.
"I'm no dinner lady," the Doctor informed her. "And I don't say that often. Here we go. Come on, boy, here we go."
"Oil… extract… analysing…"
"Listen to him, man," Mickey laughed. "That's a voice!"
"Careful, that's my dog," Sarah Jane warned him, offended.
"Confirmation of analysis," K-9 announced. "Substance is Krillitane oil."
"Oh," Ross muttered softly. "I've heard of them."
"Bad?" Mickey wondered.
"Very," the Doctor nodded. "Think how bad things could possibly be and add another suitcase full of bad."
"And what are Krillitanes?" Sarah Jane questioned.
"They're a composite race," Rose said, glancing at the Doctor. "Right?"
"Yeah. Just like your culture is a mixture of traditions from all sorts of countries, people you've invaded or been invaded by. You've got bits of Viking, bits of France, bits of whatever. The Krillitanes are the same, an amalgam of the races they've conquered. But they take physical aspects as well. They cherry-pick the best bits from the people they destroy. That's why I didn't recognize them. The last time I saw Krillitanes, they looked just like us, except they had really long necks."
"Why're they here, then?" Ross questioned.
The Doctor considered that question. "It's the children. They're doing something to the children."
OoOoOoOoOoOo
While Ross and Mickey helped Sarah Jane put K-9 into the car, the Doctor grabbed Rose's arm gently and looked her over in concern.
"What happened?" he asked her carefully. She was still anxious, still upset, and she hadn't bothered to tell him why yet. She looked at him hesitantly.
"Mickey was just… implying some things."
"Like?"
She stared at him, unsure. She knew he'd be angry, but she also knew he was already upset that Mickey had clearly upset her. "He implied that you're like Jimmy."
The Doctor's eyes flashed angrily. "How did he reason that?"
"He was just being an arse about Sarah Jane," she screwed up her face, annoyed. She really did love the woman. She was kind and fierce and deserved a better goodbye than the one she'd gotten those years ago. "He asked me how I knew you wouldn't… leave me behind."
The Doctor glanced at his old friend and then back at her. "What did you say?"
"Well, I… I told him I didn't think you would because I'm like you, I'm a Time Lady and-,"
Screeching interrupted her and something flew at them. They ducked and once it was away from them, they watched it fly away.
"Was that a Krillitane?" Sarah Jane asked, hurrying over to them.
"It didn't touch you," Mickey exclaimed. "It flew away. Why?"
"We need to go," the Doctor said, staring at the sky. "Now. We can keep working on this tomorrow."
"You can stay with me," Sarah Jane said, looking at the three Time Lords. "I've got an extra room and a couch."
No one wasted time getting home after that. Mickey went back to his flat for the night since it was nearby, while the Doctor, Rose, and Ross went to Sarah Jane's. Ross took the spare room and Rose and the Doctor sat back on the couch together and turned on the tv, mostly for noise, and eventually fell asleep together, sitting close and leaning against one another.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
"Rose, Sarah, go to the maths room with Ross and crack open those computers," the Doctor directed, tossing his sonic to Ross, who grabbed it easily. "I need to see the hardware inside. Mickey, surveillance. I want you outside."
"Just stand outside?" Mickey asked, offended.
"Here, take these," Sarah Jane said, tossing him her car keys. "You can keep K-9 company."
"Don't forget to leave the window open a crack!" the Doctor called as they made their way into the school.
"He's metal!"
"I didn't mean for him."
Rose let out a short laugh, covering her mouth to hide it. She knew the Doctor was only annoyed with Mickey because he'd upset her so much, but it still helped to know she wasn't alone. It also helped to know that Mickey wouldn't be in her way, making snide comments.
"Are you going to talk to Mr Finch?" Rose wondered, concerned. He shot her a comforting smile.
"Yep! Don't worry, I'm a big boy. I can handle Krillitanes, Rose."
OoOoOoOoOoOo
They were standing around the indoor pool, which was the Doctor's idea. If the Krillitane decided to try killing him by drowning him, he could just engage his respiratory bypass and wait for him to leave. That was, assuming the creature knew little to nothing about Time Lords.
"Who are you?" the Doctor asked as soon as the Krillitane stood across the pool from him.
"My name is Brother Lassar. And you?"
"The Doctor," he answered easily. "Since when did Krillitanes have wings?"
"It's been our form for nearly ten generations now. Our ancestors invaded Bessan. The people there had some rather lovely wings. They made a million widows in one day, just imagine."
"And now your shape's human," the Doctor hummed disapprovingly.
"A personal favorite, that's all," Lassar told him.
"And the others?"
"My brothers remain bat form. What you see is a simple morphic illusion. Scratch the surface and the true Krillitane lies beneath," he explained. The Doctor tried not to feel offended at the assumption that he didn't know what a morphic illusion was. "And what of the Time Lords? I always thought of you as such a pompous race. Ancient, dusty senators."
The Doctor couldn't exactly disagree with the description, if he was being honest. It was a bit spot on.
"So frightened of change and chaos… and of course, they're all but extinct. Only you and the girl. The last."
"This plan of yours," the Doctor said, meeting him at the other end of the pool. He wanted to get his mind off of Rose as quickly and completely as possible. "What is it?"
"You don't know?"
"That's why I'm asking."
"Well, show me how clever you are," Lassar instructed. "Work it out."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow as Lassar stepped closer. "If I don't like it, then it will stop."
"Fascinating," Lassar whispered, getting closer. "Your people were peaceful to the point of indolence. You seem to be something… new. Would you declare war on us, Doctor?"
The Doctor looked at him, really looked at him, and saw him. He was young, a child compared to the Doctor- no, an infant. He was impatient in the way that meant he thought he was stronger, better, wiser than the others around him. Lassar was ready for a fight, that much was clear. Suddenly, the Doctor was just exhausted with him. He knew this man - he used to be this man. "I'm so old now. I used to have so much mercy. You get one warning. That was it."
"But we're not even enemies," Lassar called as the Doctor turned to leave the room. The damage was done, however. This man reminded him far too much of the reckless person he used to be, the person that only changed from the Time War. "Soon you will embrace us. The next time we meet, you will join with me. I promise you."
OoOoOoOoOoOo
Sarah Jane smacked the side of the computer lightly before glaring at the sonic. "It used to work first time! It's not working."
"The Doctor was messing with it the other day," Rose sighed, grabbing it from the woman. She pointed her own sonic at it and made a face. "Ross, what does this mean?"
Ross leaned over her shoulder and let out a short laugh. "That means that your TARDIS is upset with the Doctor."
"The TARDIS did this?" Sarah Jane blinked at them as Rose rolled her eyes.
"It's that stupid mallet! I keep hiding it, but he either finds it or buys a new one. Next time he tries to use it on the TARDIS, I'm gonna whap him upside the head with it and see how he likes it."
"So… can I ask you a question?" Sarah Jane wondered. Rose tossed the Doctor's sonic back to Ross, who began messing with it, and ducked under the table to work on the computers.
"I don't really think I could stop you if I wanted to," Rose said with a smile. "Sure, go ahead."
"What exactly are you, then? Human?"
"Time Lady," she answered, cursing colorfully in Old High Gallifreyan when the computer didn't cooperate.
"Rose," Ross said, eyes wide. She turned back to blink at him.
"Oops," she blushed. "I forgot it's not just the Doctor and I now."
"Why in Rassilon's name did he teach you such words?"
"The TARDIS did," she answered, turning back to Sarah Jane. "It's sort of a long story. I was human, now I'm not. Time Lady Plus."
"Time Lady Plus?"
"Rose is a Time Lady, plus Bad Wolf," Ross explained, handing the sonic back over. "Might work better now I've temporarily cut it from the TARDIS."
"Can I give you a bit of advice?" Sarah Jane requested. Rose hummed her response. She didn't want to hear this just as much as she hadn't wanted to hear it the first time. "I don't want you to feel like I'm intruding-,"
Rose shook her head. "You have every right to have a friendship with the Doctor, too. That isn't intruding. He left you without so much as a goodbye and that's wrong. Whatever feelings you've got on him, on the situation, they're all valid and have nothing to do with me. You're not intruding."
"I'm not interested in picking up where we left off," Sarah Jane told her honestly. "But it's hard to adjust back to a- a normal life, after everything he shows us. A relationship with the Doctor can be intense and I don't want anyone else, any other young girls to be blindsided when he… leaves."
Rose didn't reply to that. Truthfully, her conversation with Mickey had left her feeling quite unsure. Assuming she got through Canary Wharf, who was to say he'd still want to be with her? On Marial, the Doctor - her old Doctor - had told her that he'd traveled with a woman named Martha. What if he met her and decided he didn't need her anymore?
But those thoughts were fought by the floppy haired Doctor who had shown up more times than was truly reasonable. If he was there, she had to still be traveling with him at least until his next regeneration, right?
She supposed that wasn't quite right. It was entirely possible that she, at some point, told him of those encounters and he'd simply gone back to finish the time loop that had begun. She could have still ended up in Pete's World after Canary Wharf. It could have all been for nothing.
And as ridiculous as it was, as many feelings she had about considering that idea, the one that stood out to her was imagining the sadness and disappointment of the TARDIS. She'd worked so hard to get them together again. Rose couldn't stand the idea of it all being for nothing.
"Rose?"
She looked up to find Ross standing in front of her, concern written across his face. She shook herself and plastered on a smile. "I'm good. Have we got the computers?"
"Not yet," he shook his head. "Do you know of any other settings on these things that would help?"
Rose went through them in her head for a moment before she nodded and glanced at Sarah Jane. "Try 9064-C."
"9064," Sarah Jane repeated as she did as she was told. "He's certainly found more use for this thing, hasn't he?"
"Still doesn't do wood," Rose sighed dramatically, getting to her knees again to work at the computers. "It's not like it's even that impossible, you know? He just thinks it's a waste of time. It wouldn't be."
"I know," Sarah Jane rolled her eyes. "If he could get wood, we'd have gotten out of that cave on Harmharas before the giant cats bit me! He had to give me a shot for it, did you know?"
"I could've escaped the room with the Gelth! But no, he wants me to get murdered by the gas creatures that wanted to kill the entire planet."
"Does he still stroke bits of the TARDIS?" Sarah Jane asked after a moment. Rose let out a laugh and looked at her.
"All the time," she confirmed before grinning. "But I do it, too."
Sarah Jane laughed and shook her head at her. "Are all Time Lords as odd as you two?"
"Ross is pretty normal," Rose offered.
"He is not," the Doctor disagreed, entering the room. "How's it going in here?"
"You've got to stop hitting the TARDIS with that stupid mallet," Rose scolded immediately and held up his sonic. "She's sabotaging us now."
"She did not," the Doctor muttered in disbelief. "That- that- that traitor!"
"Look, I wouldn't want to be beaten into letting you work on me, either," Rose rolled her eyes. "As for the computers, not great, but it could be worse. Luckily, she left my sonic alone."
"What? She can't play favorites!"
"She can when I'm not hitting her with a mallet," Rose rolled her eyes. "We'll have this done soon, don't worry. Everything go okay with Mr Finch?"
"Could've gone better."
"Could have been worse."
OoOoOoOoOoOo
"I can't shift it," the Doctor complained, frustrated. Rose tugged the cords off of his neck and set them on the table, moving to work on a different computer, a laptop she'd brought to see if she could hack in that way.
"I thought the sonic screwdriver could open anything," Sarah Jane said in disbelief.
"Anything except a deadlock seal. There's got to be something inside here… what are they teaching those kids?"
"Doctor!" Rose exclaimed, jumping out of her chair and backing up from her computer. "Doctor!"
He dropped the computer on the table and rushed over to her, stopping to spot the programme rushing across the screen. "It's some sort of code…"
"Doctor, that's-,"
"The Skasis Paradigm," Ross finished for her, staring at it in equal amounts awe and horror.
"They're trying to crack the Skasis Paradigm," the Doctor breathed without the awe and only the horror.
"The Saksis what?" Sarah Jane asked, lost.
"The god-maker," Rose answered in a whisper. "Universal theory. If you get this equation, you have control of the building blocks of the universe. Time, space, matter, it's all… yours."
"The children, they're doing this?" Sarah Jane asked when no one else did.
"Yes," the Doctor confirmed. "And their learning power is being accelerated by the oil. That oil from the kitchens! It works as a conducting agent - makes the kids cleverer."
"But why use children?" Sarah Jane wondered. "Why not adults? It would be much simpler than invading a school and bringing about suspicious test scores."
"It has to be kids," Rose said, her eyes beginning to glow the longer she stared at it. "The god-maker, it needs imagination to crack it."
"Rose," the Doctor said, frowning at her. She didn't look back at him, still staring ahead at it.
"They're not just using the children's brains to break the code," Ross continued for the Doctor. "They're using their souls."
"Rose, you need to look away," the Doctor said sharply. She didn't, so he tugged her gently until she lost her balance and turned away from the screen and the computers. Her eyes faded slowly, going back to normal just when Lassar entered the room.
"Let the lesson begin," he said, looking and sounding very much like a villain. "Think of it, Doctor. With the paradigm solved, reality becomes clay in our hands. We can shape the universe and improve it."
"Oh yeah, the whole of creation with the face of Mr Finch," the Doctor said sarcastically. "Call me old-fashioned, but I like things as they are."
"You act like such a radical, and yet all you want to do is preserve the old order," Lassar accused. "Think of the changes that could be made if this power was used for good."
"What, by someone like you?" the Doctor asked, amused.
"No. Someone like you."
The Doctor froze. He felt Rose's hand slip into his and pulled on it, letting it ground him. Letting her ground him.
"The paradigm gives us power, but you could give us wisdom. Become a god at my side. Imagine what you could do. Think of the civilisations you could save. Perganon, Ascinta, your own people, Doctor, standing tall. The Time Lords… reborn."
"We've already got a goddess," Ross said, earning himself an empty glare. "We don't need this. This sort of power is meant for no one."
Doctor, this isn't right. Even you shouldn't have that. You could destroy time by saving people.
I could make it work, if I had this power.
Rose looked at him in concern.
Do you really know what I can do? I could destroy the entire universe if I wanted. I could remove the time vortex entirely so that we can move and change whatever we want. These things exist for a reason, Doctor. It isn't our place to disagree. I disagreed once before and Jack is immortal now. He dies over and over and comes back because I let my emotions cloud my judgement and couldn't live with the thought of losing him. He hurts to be around, right? That's what happens when we try to do things that we both know we shouldn't do. It just hurts.
"Doctor, don't listen to him," Sarah Jane spoke up from behind him.
"And you could be with him for eternity," Lassar told her, stepping around the Doctor to look at her. "Young, fresh. Never wither, never age, never die. Their lives are so fleeting. So many goodbyes. How lonely you must be, Doctor."
"He's not alone," Rose spoke up finally. "He's got me. Ross is here. He's not alone and he doesn't need this- this perversion of sacred power, a power that does not and never will belong to you or to the Doctor."
"I could save everyone," the Doctor said, really thinking about it. "I could stop the war…"
Rose groaned when a piece of her that she had given away pulled tight as the timeline was called into question. His decision there would change everything and it hurt. It was a bit like a fixed point on steroids. She felt Ross put his hand on her shoulder and used it to focus on anything else. It was a weird sort of pain, but it was intense.
"No," Sarah Jane declared bravely, gathering the Doctor's attention again. "The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world or a relationship. Everything has its time and everything ends."
The Doctor looked between her and the screen. Rose felt the timeline relax only a moment before he charged at the screen, throwing a chair at it to shatter it.
"Out!"
When they got down the stairs, they ran into Mickey and a student, who looked about just as panicked as they felt.
"What is going on?" Mickey asked, eyeing the hall where one of the Krillitane was jumping from wall to wall toward them. The group of six spun around and scrambled out of the hallway, rushing past the stairs and into a new hall and then the cafeteria.
When the Krillitanes and Lassar entered the room, the kid stared up at them. "Are they my teachers?"
"Yeah, sorry," the Doctor answered.
"We need the Doctor, the young girl, and that man alive. As for the others, you can feast."
The announcement from Lassar led to the batty monsters flying at them from every angle. After only a minute of fighting, a laser hit one of the Krillitane, sending it to the floor.
"K-9!" Sarah Jane exclaimed excitedly.
"Suggest you engage running mode, mistress," K-9 told her.
"Come on!" the Doctor yelled, leading them back out the way they came. "K-9 hold them back!"
"Affirmative, master. Maximum defence mode!"
The group ran into a new room and behind them, Rose locked the door with her sonic. All of them were fine and without a single scratch on them, much to their relief and disbelief.
"They can't stand the oil," Rose announced, mostly to the Doctor. "It hurts them. Why?"
"That's it!" he said excitedly, jumping up from his place on the teacher's desk. "They've changed their physiology so often, even their own oil is toxic to them. How much was there in the kitchen?"
"Barrels of it," she answered.
Screeching sounded from behind the door only moments before claws began digging into it, beginning to break it apart.
"Okay, we need to get to the kitchens," the Doctor said. "Mickey-,"
"What now? Hold the coats?"
"Get all the children unplugged and out of the school," the Doctor ordered. "Now then, bats, bats, bats… how do we fight bats?"
The kid, the brilliant child, walked over to the fire alarm and pulled it.
The Doctor grinned and laughed as he sped from the room with everyone following behind him. K-9 rolled out into the hallway.
"Master!"
"Come on, boy!" the Doctor called, leading him to the kitchens. "Good boy."
When they got to the kitchens, Rose and the Doctor both tried to open the vats of oil but found that they couldn't. Rose threw her head back. "They're deadlocked."
"Finch must've done it," the Doctor realized. "We can't open them."
"The vats would not withstand a direct hit from my laser," K-9 announced. "But my batteries are failing."
"Right, everyone out the back door," the Doctor instructed. "K-9, stay with me." Once everyone was gone, the Doctor set to work rearranging the vats. They were heavy, so it was hard and took longer than he'd hoped.
"Capacity for only one shot, master," K-9 told him. "For maximum impact, I must be stationed directly beside the vat."
"But you'll be trapped inside," the Doctor said as if he didn't already know.
"That is correct."
"I can't let you do that."
"No alternative possible, master," K-9 insisted. Screeching sounded nearby that prompted the Doctor to look over his shoulder. He had to work quickly - decide quickly. He stared at the dog that he'd missed, the dog he hadn't seen in so long. It really felt like his luck that the day he finds his dog again, he loses him.
"Goodbye, old friend."
"Goodbye, master."
The Doctor leaned forward seriously. "You good dog."
K-9's tail began to wag slightly. "Affirmative."
The Doctor touched his face and then got to his feet, grabbing his sonic from his coat as he did so. He sped out of the school and locked the doors behind him.
"Where's K-9?" Sarah Jane questioned.
"You need to run," the Doctor ordered.
"Where is he?" she continued, not moving. "What have you done?"
The Doctor grabbed her and pulled her quickly away from the building and guided her out to the parking lot. Just as they got there, there was an explosion and part of the school blew up, glass, paper, and bricks flying everywhere. They stared at the screaming kids together for a moment before he turned to look at his old friend. "I'm sorry."
"It's all right," she replied softly, obviously still sad. "He was just a… a daft metal dog. Fine, really."
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"You've redecorated."
"Do you like it?"
"Oh, I- I do, yeah," she answered, walking around the console. Rose pressed a few buttons, preparing them for their next trip. "I preferred it as it was, but it'll do."
"I love it," Rose grinned softly, thinking to the different versions of the TARDIS that she'd seen on her unfortunate and accidental trip. "Yours was good, too, though. The white, the round things- what are those round things, actually?"
"You know, I've no clue," the Doctor laughed.
"You know, you're very clever," Sarah Jane declared, looking at Rose fondly. "More than a match for him."
"You and me both," Rose winked.
Doctor?
The Doctor looked up from what he was doing in surprise. "Um, we're about to head off, but you could come with us."
Sarah Jane looked for a moment like she very much wanted to. She looked like it was her dream. And then the look faded and she just seemed very overwhelmed. "No. I can't do this anymore. Besides, I've got a much bigger adventure ahead! Time I stopped waiting for you and found a life of my own."
"Can I come?"
Rose groaned internally at Mickey's question.
"Not with you," he said in a hurry to the confused Sarah Jane before glancing at the Doctor. "I mean with you. 'Cause I'm not the tin dog and I wanna see what's out there."
"Oh, go on, Doctor," Sarah Jane smiled encouragingly. "Sarah Jane Smith and Mickey Smith, you need a Smith on board."
"Okay, then, I could do with a laugh," the Doctor agreed. Rose just stared at him. What the hell was he doing? She was almost certain that he wouldn't do it this time around. Truthfully, she wasn't sure why he had before. She was clearly unenthusiastic about the idea, and this time, he could literally feel her irritation.
"Rose, is that okay?" Mickey questioned. She shot him a forced smile.
"Of course," she nodded. "But you've got to listen to us, okay? A lot can happen and it can be dangerous. For the most part, one of the three of us knows what we're doing."
"I can do that."
"Rose, can I have a moment?"
She nodded and waved Sarah Jane out of the TARDIS. They walked a bit away so that the Doctor couldn't spy on them before either of them spoke.
"I can't tell you what will happen," Sarah Jane began. "I can't even pretend to understand whatever relationship you and the Doctor have. But if anything happens, if you ever need anywhere to go for whatever reason, you can always come to me."
Rose's lips twitched. The woman in front of her was so kind and so brave that she couldn't help but wrap her up in a hug. "Thank you."
"And always feel free to call me if you need," she added quickly. "I know he can be a handful and it's always helpful to have someone to talk to. I get the feeling you don't want Mickey around, and Ross is… interesting. I'm always here."
"D'you wanna know what a very wise woman once told me?" Rose asked softly. Sarah Jane nodded. "Some things are worth getting your heart broken for. I think… I agree."
OoOoOoOoOoOo
"So, are we going to talk about what happened in the lab?" Ross wondered, placing himself down next to Rose. They were in the kitchen eating while Mickey explored one of the gaming rooms on his own. The Doctor, who had been very focused on putting the exact right amount of cream in his tea, looked up.
"I have a theory on that," he told them. "Rose- Bad Wolf is already able to control the building blocks to the universe. She can destroy and create as she pleases with limits. She doesn't need the Skasis Paradigm because she's already got what it's trying to crack."
"So then why did my eyes start glowing?" Rose questioned. "Why did Bad Wolf start to… go all Bad Wolf?"
"Think of it this way," the Doctor said, leaning back. "Bad Wolf is above the Skasis Paradigm. She can do anything. She is precise and careful and set her own limits. But the Skasis Paradigm, it's like… like crudely destroying these boundaries Bad Wolf has set. It's like a wrecking ball compared to the order she's created. When she saw it, Bad Wolf wanted to be released to do something about it. The Skasis Paradigm is probably the biggest actual threat to Bad Wolf's existence and the order she's put so much effort into."
"You make it sound like Bad Wolf created the universe, or the laws of it," Ross scoffed. The Doctor just shrugged.
"In a way, she did. Bad Wolf is connected to time itself, she is time itself. In that sense, it was all her."
"That makes no sense."
"It does to me," Rose muttered. "The only reason I was able to destroy those Daleks is because I knew how they were created, how their atoms were created. I do everything I can do because I know how it works… instinctively."
"So you're saying that if someone cracked the Skasis Paradigm, they could… do what to her?"
The Doctor's eyes darkened. He didn't answer for a minute as he tried to rid himself of the ideas flooding his mind. "We don't want to find out."
"Which is why we're taking these computers to throw them in a sun," Ross nodded. They'd gone back into the school the next day to pick up whatever computers hadn't been destroyed. They were all sitting in the console room at the moment, waiting to be thrown out and destroyed.
"After that, we can head to see Jack," Rose told them. The Doctor looked at her like she'd just kicked his puppy and she rolled her eyes. "He called, Doctor. I promised I'd come when he called. I can just go alone if you want-,"
"No!" he exclaimed. She blinked at him and he forced himself to relax. "No, it's fine. We'll go help him out and then we can take a break, go somewhere relaxing, yeah?"
"Yeah."
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