A/N: You know what? Thank you all so much for your groovy comments and support for the previous chapter. All the fighting I had with it, all the deletions and the rewrites ... oh it made it worth it.
Stuff happens here. It starts off all serious and ya know ... but then it ends on what I think is a much more light and humourous manner. I needed to step off the D'n'M stuff for a bit and just add something weird and out there... It helps that I read some stuff by RTD today, and I may have been inspired by that man's amazing sense of humour toward certain things over the years...
So if you don't like the end ... sorry ... but I needed some levity after all the shit I'm reading, writing, watching...
If you haven't read it, please read the prequel and the sequel to Rose... Holy crap. THAT is some damn good writing. No matter what that man writes, I'm always instantly hooked! I miss him... so much...
~~oooOOOooo~~
Her belly had contracted tightly, and her head swam with an indescribable ache, but Rose Tyler had enough clarity inside her to make sure that she kept her head down and pulled her sleeves down to cover the welts and scrapes with her sleeves. He was here, her Doctor, and the less he saw of this the better. Calming one of them down was hard enough, but two? No. They'd draw that guilt strength from each other and become an unstoppable force of unreasonable fury.
So. Best to hide for now, she surmised.
She did look up at him, though, toward the younger Doctor. Through a split in the curtain of the hair covering his face, she saw his slightly staggered gait as he entered the hangar. He held at his belly, and there was a wince on his face…
…So he'd felt it too; the pain of a kiss from his elder self?
He looked her way, an expression of query on his face that asked several questions: Are you hurt? Are you okay? What in Rassilon just happened?
Rose answered in the only way she was capable of doing right now while still trying to hide herself from him. She lifted a hand and gave him a very clumsy, and very well covered thumbs up.
The pinch of his brows and the downturn of his lips told her that it was not quite the answer he had been expecting from her. The twitch in his hands as he began to straighten up now that pain was waning suggested that he expected that she run to him for shelter and safety instead of staying put. And as he shifted his eyes away from her to look toward his elder self and then toward the remaining family members, she could see the grind in his jaw; the telltale sign that he thought she was still mad at him and so now he had to multitask between not getting them all killed and determining just how to make his wife not upset with him anymore.
Prioritise, Thete…
Martha dropped at her side, her voice quiet and concerned. "Rose? You okay?"
Rose quickly turned her head to look up at her; thankful to see her friendly face. She pulled her hair behind her ear, displaying both the bruises along her jaw and the raw scrapes on her wrist. "He can't see this," she warned along a hiss.
Martha's face contorted into a wince as she nodded. She lifted a hand to hold Rose's hair from her face with the backs of her fingers. She traced the marks with an analytical eye, and then gave her a nod of agreement. "Yeah. You're right." Her eyes flicked up to look across at him. "At least not right now at any rate. He's already not in the best of moods, and this might push him over the edge just a bit." She put her arm around Rose's back to help her to her feet and again looked toward the two Doctors. "Best we get out of here before this whole scene blows up."
Rose chuckled. "That's usually the best part."
Martha grinned. "Isn't it, though?"
~~oooOOOooo~~
The Doctor's hands clenched and release, clenched and released again as he stepped up next to his elder self. Hew as quite clearly irritated and didn't bother to acknowledge either Tom or Jack when they stepped up at his other side, both of them with guns raised in warning. He did, however, take a moment to greet the man to his other side.
"Human?" he asked gruffly. "Or are you Time Lord now?"
Ten sniffed indignantly. "If I was still Human,' he gruffed. "Then that would be an awkward question for you to expect an answer to."
"Right," he breathed out. "Welcome back, then."
"Is Rose okay?"
"She appears to be," he replied softly. "No outward sign of any injury that I can see."
"Then you weren't really looking all that closely at her," he drawled with accusation. "You could be blind and still see it."
Eight swung his head quickly toward him. His eyes pinched and he turned to where Rose was only moments ago. She was gone now – no doubt taken outside by Martha – and so he looked back to his elder self. "Is she hurt?"
Ten didn't look at his younger self. Instead his eyes were front and locked on the wolf, who had his prey on his back on the concrete with his paws on his chest as he snarled dangerously into his face. The side of his cheek dimpled and he swallowed. "More important things to be concerned with right now," he stated firmly. "Such as a Dahrama ready to tear Steve's throat out. Dare I ask?"
'You may not," Eight gruffed. He looked to Tom and Jack, turning to address them properly. "I only count three, and the family always travel in a group of four…"
"Daughter is dead," Ten cut in. He tipped his chin to a messy heap on the floor just slightly hidden in the shadow. "Attacked, I suspect, by the Dahrama's mate." He looked to Eight. "Who I don't see here. Is she okay?"
"She will be." He pursed his lips and let out a shrill whistle. "Soliarn, stand down."
The Wolf turned his head toward the Doctor. There was fury in the beast's eye and a curl in his lip. He had no intention of doing any such thing as stand down. To prove that unspoken point, he pounded one of his front paws on Steve's chest, ripping at his shirt with his sharp claws. Beneath him, the man let out a yell.
"I said stand down!" the Doctor clarified with a firm yell. He pointed to the ground at his feet. "Now!"
Soliarn immediately turned back to Steve, dropping his nose to within touching distance of his. He let out a long growl that shifted to a snap, then he stepped back off. He turned to walk back to the Doctor, eyeballing him with annoyance and keeping that eye connection locked as he gave a kick with his back paw along Steve's thigh, snagging his jeans with his claws. He lifted his muzzle into the air and half strutted toward the Doctor.
Eight narrowed his eyes at the animal. "You insolent little…" He huffed. "Protect Rose and Martha, please."
To his left, Tom snorted in amusement around the sight of his gun. He quickly shoved down that amusement. "What's the order, Sir?" he asked with his face quickly falling into threat toward the man he held his weapon on. "I've got solution."
Ten stepped forward. He held up his hands in a request for calm, turning to walk backward while facing the group. "No guns, please." He looked to his younger self with an annoyed expression. "Since when do we support bringing weapons to the fight?"
"Since when shouldn't we?" Tom muttered dryly. Still with his gun aimed to the forehead of the Family's father, he shifted his eyes toward Ten. "Try repeating your question in your head once or twice, Sir."
Ten pointed at him. "Don't call me Sir." He sniffed and looked away. "Although I admire how you manage to say it with enough disdain to make it facetious." He looked to his elder self with annoyance. "Travelling with soldiers now." He turned to face the enemy, heading up his own group by at least two metres. "Oh do we have a lot to discuss when this is over, you and I."
All annoyance in his voice ceased, replaced by a smile and cheer as he clapped his hands and then rubbed them together.
"Right!" he called out. "Let's do this. Someone find me a shopvac and the keys to one of these trucks."
~~oooOOOoo~~
Martha and Rose waited outside the shed under the orange glow of the carpark's floodlight. They were silent for the most part, each of them worried about the people who remained inside. It was a companionable silence, though, existing only because neither knew where to start, not because they had no desire to speak.
Rose leaned against a dirt-stained pickup truck with her arms folded loosely across her chest. While her jaw and chest ached with their bruising, her wrists hurt much more, stinging with the bite of dust and iron blowing in from the mine. She pulled at her sleeves and winced with a hiss to try and cover them.
Martha pulled from the lean she had on the car beside her. She opened the car door, and retrieved a red first aid kit from the back seat. "Here," she said gently. "Let me see what I can do about that."
Rose relaxed her stance and walked toward her. "Do you have a dermal regenerator handy?"
Martha smirked as she unzipped the kit. She made a show of searching through all of the items. After a moment she clicked her tongue and shook her head. "I'm afraid they're missing one of those from this kit. Someone call Occupational Health ad Safety and let them know."
Rose chuckled and held out her hands, the underside of her wrists facing upward. It was there that the scrapes and bruising were most painful and prominent. She winced at the same time that Martha hissed. "It looks worse than it is," she offered gently.
Martha shook her head. "Abrasions always feel worse, though," she said. "Bit like a papercut compared to a wound incision." She lifted her eyes thanked with amusement. "Which one hurts more?"
"Which one gives you drugs to dull the pain," Rose replied with a chuckle.
"Yeah, true," Martha said as pulled on a pair of latex gloves from the kit and ripped open a small packet containing a wet wipe soaked in a yellow-brown antiseptic solution. She held one of Rose's hands and looked up at her with an apologetic expression. "Sorry, but this is going to sting a little. Apparently in the early 90's they still used iodine as their choice of disinfectant."
Rose nodded, wincing in preparation for the pain that would race across the scrape when Martha cleaned it. The wince wasn't a waste of time, it deepened and she let out a hiss and a whimper.
"Sorry," Martha breathed out. "Stings, but it works."
"Bit like telling me if it tastes bad it's going to work," she replied with a sigh. The sting was still there, but at least now she was finding herself able to stand it without wanting to stomp her feet and cry about it. "I'm guessing that the Doctor arranged for Mark to be cared for before you all came looking for us?"
"He's on Gallifrey with the Doctor's brother," she answered as she focused on trying to remove small strands of hessian from the wound. "The Doctor gave him a call when we found Tiallu. Had him bring the male – Soliarn is it?"
Rose nodded. "Tiallu, is she…?"
Martha nodded. "She'll be fine. The Doctor used that regeneration trick that my Doctor did to yours back on that Dalek infested planet a few weeks ago." She chuffed. "Years for you."
Martha tossed the piece of paper towel into a large 50 gallon drum repurposed into a track bin. "Anyway," she continued. "When he saw Tiallu, the Doctor decided he wasn't going to mess about. He called Brax, who popped 'round with Solairn. The Doctor asked him to take Mark back with him to keep him safe." She opened another package and reached for Rose's other wrist. "He leapt on the chance. Seems that Romana wants to take him to the zoo."
Rose chuckled. "He'll love that. Romana spoils that kid rotten, I've no doubt that he'll end up coming home with a six-foot teddy bear of the most terrifying looking creature at the place." She let out a sigh, trying hard not to wince at the fresh sting against her skin. Looking at it with the yellow stain of iodine, what was once a raw patch of broken skin now looking like a festering gaping mess. "God, Martha, it looks worse now."
"I know," she admitted with a frown. "But really, as bad as it looks, this is better than it was. At least the muck and germs are out of them and we're not looking at infection setting in before the Doctor can treat it back a the TARDIS."
"Yeah, but if he sees this," Rose murmured worriedly. "Like this. He'll flip out. He's already in a mood, I don't want to make it worse." She held both her wrists up. "Can we cover them up with a bandage or something, then you'n me can hit the medbay and erase all the evidence?"
"I'd really prefer we didn't cover it," she answered as she pulled off the gloves and tossed them into the bin. "This needs to dry out." She looked with distaste toward the gauze and bandage packets in the kit, none of which were without at least one rip of tear. "I doubt that I'd have too much faith in any of those being sterile."
"Please?"
Martha lifted her head and then slid her hand underneath the curtain of Rose's hair to hold it just out of the way of her jaw. Her touch was soft as her thumb lightly touched the area to assess the swelling. "How will you hide this from him, Rose?" She caught her eyes in hers and gave her a smile. "He's not going to be mad at you, you know that, right?"
"If it was only the threat of him getting' mad, then it wouldn't worry me as much," Rose said with a sigh. "But that man has one of the biggest guilt complexes in the universe. He'll find some way to blame himself for this."
"Don't I know it," Martha answered with both her brows high with agreement. She let her hand fall from Rose's hair and lightly took hold of the fingers of one of Rose's hands in a supportive gesture. "So you know what you need to do, then? You need to think of ways to counter off every single excuse he can come up with to make this all his fault. And if you've got to take this whole thing back to the day you were born to counter them all off, then you do it."
"Wise suggestion," Rose said with a grin.
Martha shrugged. "I have a guilt-ridden mother who likes to make it all about her as well, I've become a master at pulling out the straw from underneath her on it." Her eyes rolled widely. "And trust me. Sometimes it can take an entire day to counter her every attempt at it."
She laughed through her nose. "Then don't walk too far away, I might need you to help me out."
"I think you have it covered," Martha replied with a wink and a smile.
"But to be sure,' Rose peeped with a small whine. "Can we cover it for now?"
Martha gave a small nod. "Yeah, okay." She turned to retrieve a small wrapped cylinder of bandage gauze. "Okay."
"I'm glad he has you," Rose said softly as Martha took her wrist gently. "I know I should be all territorial and stuff being replaced, but I really think you're good for 'im."
"I haven't replaced you, Rose," she answered softly. "He made sure I knew that the moment I stepped on board the TARDIS. You're not replacing her," she repeated in her best impression of him. "Just so you know. Me and Rose; we were … together..."
"He didn't say that," Rose said with shock. "Tell me he didn't say that to you."
Her eyes lifted and pinched in the hope that she would understand. "Rose. He loves you. He made that clear right from the start." Her lips pursed and she paused her movements to begin wrapping her wrist. "I'll be honest with you, Rose. In the beginning, I was taken by him. I had hoped that maybe, just maybe, he'd be interested in me and we might explore something…"
"I see."
"Don't hate me for that," she pleaded.
Rose shook her head. "I don't. He's an easy man to fall for." She let out a breath. "I'm not part of his life now." She exhaled and looked up across Martha's head. "And I won't be." She looked back down to her. "Stay with him, Martha. He needs you."
Martha's mind corrected her quietly with a soft "it's not me he needs", but she didn't say it out loud. Instead she lightly shifted Rose's hand and readied to wrap it. "I really don't want to do this, Rose."
"Please? I don't want him to see it…"
Martha nodded slowly. Her eyes lifted up over Rose's shoulder and softened apologetically at the man standing behind her. His soulful eyes showed an expression of hurt, but not of anger. He moved around her and mouthed words of thanks. "Here." he said softly as he took the gauze from her hands and stepped in between she and Rose. "Let me,"
Rose's eyes winced at the quietness of her husband's voice. More upsetting was the way his eyes refused to meet hers. When he took her hands in his, she made a rather poor effort of trying to pull them away. "Doctor…"
He hushed with a soft shush through his teeth. He didn't want to speak. Not now. Definitely not right now. There'd be very little way for him to maintain any of his composure if he did. Right now, remaining silent, he could keep that carefully crafted calm exterior of his. He swallowed as he held her wrists in his and let his eyes trace over the scrapes and burns left from the ropes. He was able to see past the ugliness of the iodine to focus only on the damage itself. He turned her wrists to look over the backs. His teeth grit to see that the burns circled her wrists completely. He could see that the ropes had been tied in three loops around her wrists with alternating figure eights to prevent her being able to free herself.
…How very appropriate.
The damage was only superficial, and Martha was right, they shouldn't be covered. He could repair the damage well enough in the TARDIS med bay in only a few tingling and uncomfortable minutes.
He lifted his eyes to finally meet with hers. His lips parted to let he know that he'd repair her wounds back at the TARDIS, but all that escaped him was an exhale of upset when he saw the bruising at her jaw. He lifted a shaking hand to skim him fingers in between her hair and her cheek and tenderly held her hair back with the backs of his fingers. Bruises and swelling in the shape of fingerprints spread from both cheeks across her chin, darker at the edges of her lips.
"Oh my hearts," he whispered hoarsely, mirroring the reaction of his elder self when he'd seen the same thing earlier.
"I'm fine," she insisted as she took his hand away from her face and held it down in between them. "More cosmetic than anythin' else. Nothing serious, you hear me?"
He stared at her, but said nothing.
"Look at me properly and not as the Doctor with a capital D," she pleaded. "Look at me like you would any patient on Gallifrey, like their doctor with the little d."
"You know I can't do that," he answered back quietly. "Like it or not, Rose, I'm your Doctor both of the big and little D varieties." He lifted his hand to gesture toward her face. "And when I see something like that on you, I can't remain purely objective. I want someone to pay for it." He breathed out a breath. "And I want to kick myself for not stopping you when you walked out the TARDIS. If I had, then this wouldn't have happened."
Her eyes flicked to Martha, who looked at her with wide eyes and a nod of her chin to tell her she knew how to handle this. She looked back at him. "And maybe," she began slowly. "Maybe if I hadn't let Mark get into the TARDIS, then we wouldn't have been here in the first place. Hmmm? You wanna play that game?" Her eyes narrowed. "Then game on, I'm ready for it."
His brow lifted. His wife was issuing a challenge in an attempt to stave off the oncoming guilt. This was new. He slid his eyes to Martha, noting the tail end of a fist pump she was trying to hide from him. His brows flicked and he licked at his lip, holding his tongue at the corner of his mouth for a moment. He flicked a finger between the two ladies.
"I approve," he said with a smile. "You two can continue to play together."
Rose looked perplexed. "What?"
He moved forward quickly. He slid both hands either side of her face, and stooped with a bend in his knees to lower himself to kiss her. As was typically the case when the Doctor drove forward to kiss his Rose, what he had intended it to be was not what it ended up being. He had a smile of amusement and pride in her strength when he shifted in. He pressed his lips to hers firmly, but not really anything more than to just press up against her mouth. But then she gasped, whimpered, and her arms came up underneath his arms to grab at his shoulders and keep him firmly in place … in fact, pulling him closer. She was the one to deepen their connection this time around, flaring their bond, and therefore he had no control over it and simply had to ... oh so begrudgingly of couse… ehm … go along with it.
Three words fled across his mind in great big mauve letters: Two weeks. Mine.
His eyes flashed open. With a gasp and an unhappy, disappointed sound, he shoved himself backward. He took a long stride backward, staggering and struggling to take a breath. "Stop," he begged. "Stop."
Rose looked absolutely mortified, as did Martha, who looked at him with wide eyes. She'd seen what happened when her Doctor had kissed Rose … was the same happening to him? Was there an illness or a virus that was preventing him from being able to be affectionate with his wife? Time Lord meningitis or something?
She rushed forward to him. "Doctor, is there something wrong?" She looked to the door of the shed, where her own Doctor was exiting beside Jack and Tom, swinging the cannister of what looked like a shop vac by the hose. She looked back at him. "I'll go get the Doctor, maybe he'll…"
"Nope," he squeaked out with an embarrassed wince in his brow. "No need for that."
"But…"
He shook his head. "Really no need at all for you to bring him in. Best you don't, really."
"Jack?" she queried. "Tom?"
His eyes were horrified by the suggestion about the latter person. "By Rassilon's crest no. Don't being the Cerulean anywhere near me right now." He looked toward Rose and noted that she was chuckling into her hand. He narrowed his eyes at her. "Oh, I'm glad you're finding humour in this."
She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I forgot – I didn't think." She looked toward Martha with apology and slight embarrassment. "He hasn't seen me in a while, two weeks in his time, and when we kissed just now I might've activated a section of our bond…"
"Activated? No, Rose. You lit a fuse,' he corrected sharply. "A very large and dangerous fuse that can't simply be unlit by a pair of wet fingertips."
"Well, when you put it that way, it sorta can," Rose huffed out with a suppressed smile.
Beside her, Martha snorted. "How bad is it, really?"
"We occasionally mate guard,' the Doctor warned her. "In certain circumstances, and under certain activations – thank you Rose - a Gallifreyan male becomes very territorial over his mate. And just so you're up to speed in my quandary, there are two Gallifreyan males over there and it really doesn't matter than one of them is me."
"Oh, shit." There was no hiding the humour in her voice.
He looked between them, then he looked at his mate. His eyes narrowed, and he quickly reached out to grab her hand. "Come on," he demanded. "It we run, we'll get ahead of them by at least a half hour. I'm pretty sure we can fix this in that time-frame."
Martha held up a set of keys, jangling them in his face. "If you drive," she offered. "You could probably get an hour in. I mean, an hour ahead of them." she flicked her head to the trio talking in the doorway of the shed, no doubt cheering themselves on over the catch of the day. "Don't' worry. I'll make them all walk back. Slow."
He snatched the keys from her hand and kissed her on the cheek. "I certainly chose the best when I chose you, didn't I, Martha? Thank you."
"I didn't just hear you say that,' Rose sang as she snatched the keys from him and jumped into the driver's seat. She hung out the window to Martha waiting for the Doctor to get in the passenger seat. "Don't let him leave before I get to talk to him properly."
"Promise," she vowed. "I think he'll want to speak with you anyway. Now off you pop. See you in an hour."
Rose slapped the door with her hand. "Soliarn, in the back!" She waited for the wolf to leap into the bed of the truck and then floored it with a wave out the window.
Martha stepped back and shielded her eyes with her forearm and a slouch in her frame as the car sped away with a kick of dust and gravel. There was a smile on her face when she turned to face the three remaining men.
"What the hell?" Jack barked out incredulously. "Where did they go?"
"Emergency," Martha spoke out slowly. "A Gallifrey thing, I think. They, ehm. Well. There was something that needed to be addressed rather swiftly, and so I told them to be on their way. Said we'd meet at the TARDISes in an hour or so."
The Doctor narrowed his eyes at her with suspicion. "Why do I get the feeling that you aren't being entirely upfront about that?"
"Because I'm not," she replied with a shrug. "But their business is their business and not yours, so you just have to trust me, yeah?"
"Ri-ight," he drawled. He then grinned and held up the canister by the hose, looking to Martha like a poorly dress Ghost Busters cosplayer. "Well, it took a minute, but we got em!"
Martha stepped in close to him. She threated her arms around his waist and stepped in to press her ear against his chest. She sighed when she felt him loosely drop his arms around her. "What's that for?" he queried with a smile.
"It's just good to have you back, Doctor," she answered. "I missed you."
