Rose walked through to the library as she rubbed her hair dry. She had scrubbed herself pink in the shower but still could feel echoes of Cassandra inside her. It was horrible. She wondered how the Doctor felt, he always seemed more perceptive of things, and he was telepathic. Did that make things worse or better? Did his brain get scrambled as much as her insides? She was not going to ask, not after the worried looks he gave her over the pink polka dot theory.
She walked through the vast room and peered up at the tomes there. Surely, somewhere here was a book that she could read about time that would make sense. She checked that the Doctor was not in his favourite chair, or his current favourite section, presently history of the fifty-first century, with a dash of green gold-tooled books in his circular language in the far corner or the mystery novels of some alien species she had yet to meet. They were weird, she could read them, but the plot was vague and she felt she missed half the context and all of the subtext. She left them to him, she was working her way through twenty-second century earth space romances, which were an odd mixture of gothic adventure and soap opera that she found hilarious.
Jack was a Time Agent, wasn't he, from the fifty-first century, perhaps the Doctor had books of theirs. She gasped sharply at the shudder of loss that wrenched through her; Jack had died so that they could live, so that she could save the Doctor. He would have made this fun. He and the Doctor would have argued about Time Travel for hours, and the Doctor would have gone off in a huff, only to sneak back when he thought they were flirting too much. He couldn't stay away. Now Jack wasn't there, and the Doctor was not hovering protectively. Did this new Doctor even hover? She hated how desolate that made her feel. She straightened her shoulders; she owed it to Jack, and all those other brave souls that had defended them, to see if she could learn anything.
.
It took her three days to find the books by the Time Agency. The Doctor had a bit of a routine, if they weren't off visiting worlds and places he had found, he would read after tea and potter about the library if she were in it. Yet he would spend the morning tinkering with the TARDIS or working in his lab to fix parts. The decorative prints above his workbench in one of his smaller labs were task listings of scheduled repairs. 'So I don't get too far behind on the really urgent stuff' he had explained months back when she had realised the circles were more of his writing. They were really untidy scrawls when compared to the printed books he had. She was glad she found the book in the morning as she could sneak it out of the library and under her pillow. She had chosen their equivalent of a primer. She finished the book rather quickly as she skipped all the maths, and read the bits she could. It made time sound so boring. As if it were one long fixed rope and the Vortex Manipulators that the Time Agency used skipped from point to point on the rope. Paradoxes and time loops were knots and loops in the rope. The picture didn't hold right in her mind though. It was almost like a river, only time was not actually moving, from the source to the ocean, it floated like a flock of butterflies in a moonbeam, people's perceptions shaping it into a most beautiful lacework that flowed in and out.
It took two days of skipping the maths and reading the words before she finished all the Time Agency books. In a fit of pique, she stomped into the console room and set the tea tray beside the grating where the Doctor had ensconced himself amidst repairs.
"If Jack's vortex manipulator hops along a rope of time, and the TARDIS dips like a Swan in the Thames, to sometimes fly off and find another place further up or down the river, but it is really like a lace made of floating butterflies of seen and unseen time, how do you know where to go?"
He turned off his sonic screwdriver and wriggled out to sit up and stare at her. He had a smudge of grease across his jaw that gave him a rakish look. She swallowed down a giggle.
"Long ago," he said softly, "my people drew a map of the rope, the river and the flight path of the butterflies. We have a map. It's as easy as getting from Powell Estate to Buckingham Palace."
"But it's moving and the soft places are changing to now and not now and then now and maybe now and wait for now."
He blinked. He opened his mouth then closed it. To her delight he spoke in his own language again, the twinkle in his eyes growing.
"That's how you properly describe it."
"Only I don't know what you said, the TARDIS is keeping secrets."
"Oh, she doesn't translate Gallifreyan, standard security protocol. Not that she'd fly without a Time Lord's directive, I'm part of the circuit, as you might say."
"Yeah, we worked that out with the Sycorax, and I said a bunch of 'borrowed words' as they called it until you woke up and made the translation work again."
"Regeneration takes quite a bit out of me, well, when I say quite a bit, I mean it knocked me out, shut down the mental connection if you like, and then you took me out of the TARDIS. I had to re-establish it, took a bit as I needed a cuppa and didn't know to ask for some tea, being asleep and in need of tea without knowing. Stuck in a cycle of cause and effect. I should have put myself in the Zero Room, best place for such a tricky regeneration but that's long gone, so tea and make do as always, so how about it Rose Tyler, is that tea for us?"
He ate more than his share of Jammy Dodgers and she let him, because she was working up the nerve to ask her next question.
"So," she sipped at the last of her tea, "can we find it?"
"Find what?" he asked, distracted from his blathering on about their latest visit to collect gold in the mountain streams, it had been for the TARDIS repairs, he had looked scandalised that she thought he would use it for money.
"A soft place at now, a place to slip out at the right time in the right place."
He blinked and scrunched up his forehead as if thinking deeply about it.
"I've not had to do this since my Academy days," he murmured with an odd expression of nostalgia and disgust on his face.
"Did I jus' ask you to do the two times table instead of the usual algebra?" she asked teasingly.
"No, no, this is," he turned the cup around in his fingers, "this is like improv theatre for a seasoned actor," a bright grin covered his face. "Let me finish up my repairs and we'll go hunting down a soft spot for the TARDIS to slip through!" He set down his teacup, snatched up his sonic and wriggled enthusiastically back to his repairs as if he couldn't wait.
.
This new Doctor, she realised, was not only as bad as the old one at navigating, he was not particularly good at finding soft spots.
"You missed one!" She pointed to the wall of the TARDIS, but it was long gone, a thousand years and more to their starboard, if the door was the fore of the ship.
"How are you doing that?" he asked, frustrated.
"I'm not doing anything! It just feels soft. Look for the place that feels soft."
"Fine, here," he grabbed her hand and placed it over the leaver. "The next soft spot you feel, pull the leaver."
She concentrated, but that just made it all slip away and go fuzzy. She breathed out and went through Shareen's Yoga breathing pattern until she could feel the soft spots again. There were a few, but she was waiting for one that made the TARDIS purr. It reminded her of the Tubby the old tom cat they had had when they had moved into the flat. He would sit in the sun and purr wildly if you rubbed his belly. There. A soft spot. She yanked the leaver and the TARDIS materialised out of the vortex. The Doctor stopped at the door.
"It's your Mum's flat," he said, unimpressed.
Rose grinned and darted out, then gasped. There on sofa was old Tubby, his back arched and his tail puffed and spitting at them.
"This must have been before I was five," Rose marvelled. "That's Tubby, he would scratch the blokes my mum brought home. I'd let him escape from my room if I didn't like a bloke," she grinned.
"You wanted to see your cat again."
"Yeah, he's not too impressed with us though,"
"Cat's usually aren't, I mean, they can sense things most animals can't, just look at that fluff he has standing on end. Being out of your time would do it, bottle brush tail and all."
She slipped back into the TARDIS and tugged him after her.
"Your turn, Mister Time Lord."
He fidgeted around the console as the TARDIS dematerialised once more. She caught his sleeve.
"Relax. Breathe. I couldn't feel it when I was stressin'."
He went absolutely still and she laughed and poked him off balance.
"That's worse than the fidgets!"
Five minutes later found them seated cross-legged on the console room floor.
"I don't need to learn how to breathe like a Yogi," he complained. "I already know—"
"Then do it properly and relax and quit whining, if you're not going to use that Time Lord brain of yours to think of another way, then shut it all down and do it the human way. Breathe. The TARDIS is singin' yeah? Breathe with that rhythm. 's what I did, yeah?"
"Whining?"
"Yeah," she giggled, "what ya call tha' tone, mister?"
He sheepishly wriggled where he sat and then melted into the most relaxed stance she had ever seen, his breathing synced with the TARDIS's soft sounds like nothing she could ever achieve. After he had been sitting there for five minutes, she nudged him. He didn't respond.
She fetched more tea after an hour.
After two she fetched a book and a sandwich. She didn't do much reading. She texted Shareen and Mickey and her mum. She sent a photograph of the meditating Doctor to her mum as well, not quite believing he could sit so still or look so peaceful. She fell asleep and woke when her book thumped to the floor. He blinked as if roused from a deep sleep.
She was shocked to see him blink away a tear then he grinned as if nothing had happened. She wondered if he'd felt the yen to return somewhere back home, or in the past where he couldn't go. He stood slowly and stretched, then snapped back to his usual energetic self.
"I've a just the soft spot for us! The TARDIS has been circling it for a while now. Ready old girl?" He grabbed the leaver and they materialised on a beach right beside a row of wooden beach huts. Oddly, the TARDIS didn't look too out of place there.
"Earth," Rose said with surprise and a little disappointment.
"Oh don't sound so downhearted, but look, there are some beach combers," he stepped to the side and hopped onto the sand. Rose followed, slipping her hand in his as he offered it. The doors closed behind them and they walked. It took her a few minutes to realise what she was seeing.
"That's mum and dad! Blimey, they look so young!" She whispered and stared as Pete grabbed Jackie and spun her around so that the water wouldn't lap at her ankles. "An' happy," her voice wobbled away. He squeezed her hand.
"This is why we don't use soft spots to navigate the vortex," he murmured to her. "While beautiful things are to be found, they're also almost always the most heartbreaking in that unfulfilled longing kind of way."
"But they're there, all these times that are 'just right'" she whispered.
"For a human, yes they are," he said, "but for a Time Lord, I have to choose between the soft just right moment and the precisely required moment."
"The difference between the head and the heart," Rose murmured. "Doesn't mean you can't do a few trips with your heart instead of your head, in fact, I think your TARDIS makes the executive decision on that, don't she?"
"Oi, I'll have you know my piloting is—"
"Right rubbish!"
"Oi! Are you insulting me?"
"O'course not, jus' that where did we land again? New New York, and before that there's these, wha' ya call them Daleks, and befores them, there's the Jagrafess, and, 'nother Dalek…"
"Okay, okay," he grumbled, "in my defence, however, you will agree that we needed to be there and we made a difference!"
"Not complainin' about that, it's the driving that's a tad…"
"It's a very long walk home Miss Tyler," he threatened, his dark eyes filled with exasperated mirth.
"Too true, as me mate Shareen says—"
"Don't argue with the designated driver!" he finished for her and she laughed.
They stayed until Pete and Jackie had walked the full length of the beach then had left via a stair to the car park on the cliff above.
"Thank you," she whispered as they headed back to the TARDIS.
"No," he murmured, "thank you, I've not done that in almost a thousand years and I properly reconnected with the TARDIS again. When I say properly connected, we were properly connected before, but this time it's deeper, calming, soothing, dreamy and wonderful and tingling all over. I think things will go just a little smoother from now on."
Rose snorted with laughter, despite the look of obliviously happy bliss on his face.
"Long walk," he cautioned, raising his chin haughtily.
"Oh, we know the TARDIS loves me, she'll not let you leave me behind. Besides, I'm not criticising her flyin'"
"Very long walk!"
Rose hung onto his arm and laughed until she'd drawn him into it with her.
.
Fin.