Chapter Thirty-Seven
"...doesn't look good, I'm afraid," Behrouz Tofighian said from the screen of the Doctor's laptop. "The hippocampal lesions are deeper than anything I've ever seen before. It's like someone went in there and scooped sections out with a spoon."
"Literally or metaphorically?"
"Metaphorically, Doctor, of course, he wouldn't be alive if someone had used a spoon on him," he said, creases of amusement appearing around his eyes. "The point stands though that the damage done to the region might make memory retrieval impossible."
The Doctor leaned back in his chair and tapped the end of his pen against the desk. "I'm not a fan of that word. Impossible. It's so final. What about partial regeneration? I know you've been doing work with biomolecular gel implants lately. Couldn't we inject them into the damaged area and see what happens?"
"It's a possibility," Behrouz agreed. "However, if your friend gets his memories back, they'll probably be fragmented, nearly incomprehensible. From a mental health viewpoint, it might be better if it's left as is. You say he hasn't been experiencing any headaches or blurred vision?"
"No, he hasn't," the Doctor said. "But he is having fractured sleep. His nightmares seem to be memories leaking through, which to me implies that there's still something there, something that can be recovered."
Behrouz ran his fingers over his lips, salt and pepper moustache twitching. "They're ghosts of memories, most likely. Shadows. You can see the outline but the substance isn't there. I'll know more when I get to examine your friend in person but, from the initial scans you've sent me, I can't say anything that'll give you hope. His memories are probably gone."
"I wish you wouldn't say that," the Doctor complained with a heavy sigh. "I was looking for some good news."
"Sorry," he apologised with a wry grin. "However, even if the memories are lost we can still heal the hippocampus. It's not a good idea to leave it scared like that for too long. Bring him in as soon as you can and we'll get to work."
"I appreciate the help, thank you," the Doctor said, shifting forward in his chair. "I'll give you a call when Jack's ready"
Exchanging farewells, the Doctor tapped the screen and ended the call, his disappointment reflected back at him in the dark of the screen. It wasn't as though Behrouz had told him things he didn't already know. Upon examination of Jack's brain scans, he had been surprised by the level of damage done to Jack's hippocampus by the memory block. Whoever Jack had gone to for the block was clearly not a licensed practitioner as no one worth a damn would consider the job done on Jack's brain a good one. The thought of Jack – careful, safety-focused Jack – opting for a back alley memory block made the Doctor's chest tighten, wondering what sort of memories drove a man like that to do something so dangerous.
"This is shit," he said, lifting his arms above his head and stretching to hear his back pop merrily. "Shit, shit, shit, sh –"
"Fuck you, Zoe!"
"Mind your fucking language!"
The Doctor froze, arms stilling above his head, and held his breath in his chest as the corridor echoed with the sound of a slammed door that followed the bright, angry burst of raised voices. Slowly, he drew his arms down and eyed the closed door cautiously. Rose yelled something rude that was muffled by the TARDIS soundproofing kicking in a moment too late, a reminder he needed to have a look at the system at some point in the near future. A wince stole over his features when Zoe's muffled anger, interspersed with colourful vocabulary, spat made the situation worse.
If he had thought that time and proximity would help settle the differences between Rose and Zoe, the last three days proved him categorically wrong.
From the moment they woke up on the morning after their departure from London, the TARDIS happily letting the currents of the Vortex buffet them along, they had been at each other's throats. Nursing a hangover, Rose hadn't been in the best frame of mind and Zoe had gone to bed angry only to wake up angrier; the combination of those two factors made that first day hell. Jack and Mickey had the good sense to lock themselves away in their room and avoid the blistering fury that crackled between the sisters; the Doctor wished he was able to do the same but he lived with Zoe and avoiding her temper in such close quarters was difficult.
In a desperate attempt to try and inject some normalcy and civility back into their relations, he had taken them to Spain the previous day, landing them in the court of Isabelle of Castile, a pious, sharply intelligent woman.
While they were able to work together when in trouble, they had reverted to sniping and bickering at each other once the danger passed. Meeting them at the door – him and Jack wisely opting to remain behind –, Mickey had given him a sympathetic look as Rose and Zoe stormed past him, fighting about everything except what they needed to fight about. After a week of not properly speaking to Zoe and the stress of what had happened to Jack, the Doctor wasn't in the mood to play referee between them and had retreated to his office to try and get some work done.
Beginning a countdown in his mind, he reached two before the door opened after a perfunctory knock, admitting Zoe in a state of flustered anger. Tension rippled through his body. Fingers tightening around his pen, his eyes tracked her warily. Driven into fits of high emotion after arguing with Rose that left her restless and fidgety, she had developed a method of exorcising those negative feelings from her in a way that he hadn't minded at the beginning, delighting when she pressed him against a wall or bundled him into the nearest empty room –
It was just that even his body had a limit before he had to tap out and beg for relief.
"Hey," the Doctor said, discreetly pushing against the balls of his toes to ease his chair away from her. "Do you want to go get something to eat? I know this great little Romanian place in Buzău you'll love. They do the single best papanaşi you'll ever eat. Best prepare yourself though because your socks will be blown off."
"We can eat after," Zoe replied, grabbing the bottom of her tight black shirt – the kind she preferred when exercising – and lifting it over her head. Letting it drop from her fingers, it covered the printouts of Jack's brain on his desk, and she reached behind her to unhook her sports bra. "Right now, I'm going to need you to take your trousers off."
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait," he said, quickly raising a knee to ward her off and reaching out to take hold of her hands. The look of surprise on her face might have made him laugh had he not felt guilty about refusing her advances, something he hadn't yet done and couldn't quite believe he was doing. "I'm sorry but I can't."
"Experience tells me you can," she said. "Very well in fact."
He grinned. "Stop it."
"Make me."
"As much as I would love to – and believe me, I would – I'm really sore right now," the Doctor admitted, grin widening at the look of delighted amusement that curled across her face and made her look smug. "And while I appreciate the renewed enthusiasm for my person, I need a break. Parts of me need to heal. That thing we did this morning with the honey and the singing pots was amazing –"
"Yeah, it was," she beamed. "Who'd have thought substituting glasses for pots would work?"
"Inspired," he agreed. "But I think I pulled a muscle. And I'm sore. Did I mention that I'm sore? Clothes are chafing right now. And this is me. I've got the superior biology. How are you not walking funny?"
"I've got youth on my side, old man." Laughter filled his office as she attempted to dodge the light slap he aimed at her side, falling into his arms and then his lap, his face pressing kisses to her bare shoulders. "If you don't want to have sex, this is giving off very mixed messages right now."
"Can't help it," the Doctor said, words muffled by her skin. "You taste good."
"Edible moisturiser."
"Really?"
Zoe laughed. "No."
"You're the worst," he told her, smiling. "Getting my hopes up like that."
"I could get something else up if you've changed your mind," she said, shifting back on him, and his hands flew to her waist, holding her in place. Freeing an arm, she draped it around his shoulder and rested her forehead against the side of his head. "I've really worn you out, haven't I? My poor Time Lord."
The Doctor's eyes fluttered closed as her fingers carded through his hair. "You have. Don't get me wrong, I love having sex with you, I just need twenty-four hours to breathe. Besides, I'm feeling a little superfluous to requirements at the moment."
"You're very much perfluous to requirements," Zoe said. "Kind of a key role actually."
"Perfluous isn't a word, you should be ashamed of yourself." She grinned. "And the sex loses some of its lustre when you're using it to make a point to your sister." The amusement dropped from her face like a brick; she sat up straighter, and he pressed a kiss her shoulder to soften what he was about to say. "You've been seeking me out for sex after every argument with Rose, and at first it was nice, who doesn't enjoy a quickie in the bathroom? And the library...and the swimming pool. Not to mention the marathon that took place after you picked a fight with her about her shoes."
Her nostrils flared. "I didn't pick a fight."
"You absolutely did," the Doctor disagreed. "She was minding her own business and you went in on her with a snarky comment. The two of you were yelling at each other for a good twenty minutes before you stormed off to find me. And as fun as that was, I'm not really loving my role in all of this."
He felt the tension ran through her body, fingers twining with the back of his collar, and he wondered if an argument was brewing. After a beat, she deflated with a sigh and pressed her lips to his temple.
"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I didn't mean to make you feel like that."
"Will you please talk to Rose?" He asked, not above using her remorse to restore peace and quiet to the TARDIS. He missed Jack and Mickey and wanted them to be able to leave their rooms without the careful air of men avoiding landmines. "Properly and without all the yelling and the weird, weird things you two have chosen to fight over? You spent ten minutes yesterday arguing over something that Mickey swears blind is from a TV show you used to watch."
"She's being a bitch," Zoe said.
"You're not exactly helping matters, love."
"I know," she complained. "It's just every time she opens her mouth she says something annoying. And if she doesn't, then it's her tone."
Jiggling his knee, he bit her shoulder lightly. "Do you think maybe you might be reading into her tone?"
"No."
He rolled his eyes where she couldn't see them. "Please try and talk to her. For me if not for yourself. Also, for Mickey and Jack. They haven't left their room in days, and I'm beginning to worry they're going to starve to death."
She snorted. "They had breakfast with us this morning."
"Jack's recovering from surgery and torture, he needs more food than breakfast, particularly since him and Micks are going at it like rabbits lately." Her nose crinkled delicately at the thought. "Do it for them."
"They're fine. Actually, what time is it?" Leaning back over his desk, she turned a small, antique clock towards her and sighed. "Damn. I promised Jack I'd meet him in the gym. He wants to start doing upper body exercise again,. I said I'd spot him with the weights and here you are distracting me with your handsomeness. Stop it."
"Can't help you there, I'm naturally like this," the Doctor said, holding her on his lap until she kissed him. "Have a good work out."
She gave him a small salute, Jack's small gesture having been picked up by the others much to his chagrin, and she pulled her shirt back on before pausing at the door, fingers rapping against the doorframe. "You'll have to let me know when you want to have sex again, by the way."
"Twenty-four hours and I'll be good to go," he promised, treasuring the smile she gave him in return.
Struggling to return his attention to his work, he gave up after twenty minutes and pushed back from his desk and stretched again, wincing when he pulled a muscle in his back. Rolling his shoulders to ease the pain, he made his way to the kitchen to make himself a pot of tea and see if there was any of the small desserts left. In a stroke of brilliance, when Zoe had placed the order for the dessert table for Jackie's party, she had ordered extra for the TARDIS and the Doctor had enjoyed picking at them over the last few days. Hoping that there were still some banana-based desserts left, he froze in the doorway when he caught sight of Rose at the counter in the process of making herself a cup of tea.
Sensing a presence, she glanced over her shoulder and the air turned chilly.
His conversation with Mickey and Jack in Mickey's flat the day after Jackie's party replayed in his mind. It had come as less of a surprise to him when it was revealed that Rose had caught feelings for him as he had slowly become more and more aware of the lingering looks that she had turned in his direction – subtler than Jack's brash and honest come-ons were – but he had misconstrued the attention. Instead of seeing it for what it was, he had worried that it was down to the fact that she was getting suspicious of how close he and Zoe were. Not for the last time, he was sure, he had put two and two together and got five. Embarrassed that his friends had had to spell it out for him, he went over his friendship with Rose in his mind and tried to view his behaviour from her eyes, ashamed of how easily his affections were misconstrued.
Giving her the wrong message was the last thing he had intended, though he knew he was guilty of flirtation, particularly early on when he and Zoe were more strangers to each other than anything else. Rose was beautiful and kind and the woman who had dragged him back into the light after the Time War; had he not met Zoe –
It wasn't worth thinking like that as he had met Zoe and that was what mattered.
His part in the distance that had grown between her and her sister and made everything messy and awful sent spasms of discomfort through him.
"Hello," the Doctor said, carefully. "How's your sunburn?"
Rose's fingers touched her once bright pink cheeks. An afternoon spent trekking through Castile on a mission from Queen Isabelle of Spain had left her with a fierce sunburn and the beginnings of heatstroke.
"Fine, thanks."
"Good, that's good." Stepping into the room, he tugged on his jacket and readjusted his tie, rumpled from an afternoon spent working. "Don't mind me. I just fancy a cup of tea and those desserts. I'm hoping there's some banoffee – oh, careful."
Ignoring the flare of hurt that passed through him when she flinched away from him, a spoon clattered to the ground, knocked off the counter by her jerked movements. Before she could bend down, he scooped it up and held it out to her.
"Careful with that," the Doctor said with a smile. "It's my favourite spoon."
"You don't have a favourite spoon." Rose took it without touching him. "It's just a spoon."
"I do too," he said, pointing. "It's that one."
She sighed, eyes meeting his for the first time in days. "Doctor."
"Is it really so bad that Zoe and I are together?" He asked, cutting through the tension that lay between them with a plaintive note to his voice.. "Enough for you to hate us?"
The kettle popped, steam rising out of the spout, and Rose turned her back to pour hot water into her mug. "I don't hate you. Either of you."
"You don't seem to like us very much at the moment," he noted. "You haven't spoken to Zoe properly since Jackie's party. Unless you count fighting as talking, which I don't."
She stirred the milk in, spoon clacking vigorously against the side, specks of tea spitting onto the counter's surface.
"Is this how it's goin' to be now?" Rose demanded, the anger in her words startling him. "Zoe gets upset an' she sends her boyfriend to make things right?"
The Doctor frowned. "That's not what –"
"If Zoe wants to tell me somethin', she can tell me herself." She picked up her hot tea and met his eyes again, mouth flat and tight. "She doesn't need to send the bloody Oncomin' Storm after me."
"Now wait just a second," he said, contrition fading into annoyance. "That's not what –"
Darkness fell over the the kitchen with an abruptness that plunged them into silence before the TARDIS shift and fell.
Rose screamed, hot tea spilling and scalding her. A loud scraping sound broke through the chaos, and the table slammed into the wall behind it, shattering two chairs under its weight. Lunging through the darkness, the Doctor's ankle turned beneath him but he grabbed hold of Rose as the cupboards burst open to rain crockery and food stuff down upon their heads, a tin of baked beans narrowly missing the top of Rose's head. Arms around her, he half-dragged and half-carried her to the heavy kitchen table that vibrated and rattled where it was pressed against the wall, shards of wood digging into his shins and knees as he shoved Rose beneath it, crawling in after her.
Covering her body with his, Rose cried out into his chest as they fell and fell and fell, the drop endless and terrifying, before the TARDIS slammed into the ground with enough force to dent wherever they had landed, teeth clacking together.
The silence was absolute, neither of them daring to breathe until –
"Are you okay?" The Doctor asked, blood in his mouth. "Rose, are you okay?"
"Yeah," she said, shakily. "You?"
"I think I bit my cheek." His tongue probed the sore flesh inside his mouth. "Don't suppose you've got a torch on you, have you?"
"Not on me, no." She squirmed beneath him, hissing at the hurt to her burnt hands, pulling her phone out of her back pocket. "Got this though."
"That'll do." The Doctor took it from her and upped the light on the screen, crawling out from under the table to angle the phone around, illuminating the broken mess the kitchen had become. "Shit."
"What the hell happened?" Rose asked, following him out. "Did we crash? Can we crash?"
"We can but not into just anything." The Doctor looked around at the wreckage of the room, noting that even the fridge light was off. He reached out and shut the door to keep the cold in, protecting the desserts that remained boxed, steadfastly refusing to notice the absence of the TARDIS in his mind. "Come on, follow me."
Rose curled her fingers around his and followed him out of the room. The corridors were dark and quiet, the normal lights absent, not even the emergency lighting available to guide their way. The Doctor peered into a few of the rooms that they passed, taking stock of the damage, before they reached the console room. Relief passed through both of them at the sight of the others, clearly having made their way through the wreckage to reach the centre of the TARDIS. Mickey was setting up battery-operated torches, balancing them precariously on the console, while Jack tended to Zoe's arm that had snapped in half, bone piercing through her skin.
"Thank God," Mickey said, catching sight of them. "You two okay?"
"We're fine," the Doctor said, checking him over. "You?"
"I was in the library," he said. "Managed to get under the coffee table before any of the books killed me. It's a bloody state in there though." He gestured to Zoe who looked grey and nauseous in the broken light. "Zo's the only one injured."
"She'll be okay," Jack assured them, setting her arm with a quick twist. She yelled out, the heels of her feet slamming into the grating, skin flashing pale. "Sorry, really sorry. Thought it was better to do it quickly."
"What happened?" Rose asked, stomach churning at the injury that came into sharper focus when the Doctor shone his light over it.
"I was holding a weight for Jack," Zoe answered, skin shining with cold perspiration, chest heaving. "I had the bar above him when the TARDIS went haywire. I managed to keep it away from his neck but it snapped my arm back. It's a miracle neither of us got hurt worse as the equipment was thrown about the room like it was nothing."
The Doctor reached into his pocket and removed a pain relief patch, slipping it onto the pulse point behind her ear. "This will help a little."
"So will this," Jack said, wrapping a thin piece of black material around her arm. They watched it form to her skin, tightening, locking her arm in place. "Plaster cast for the discerning patient. Give that twenty-four hours and your arm will be back to normal."
Zoe managed a smile. "Thank you, Dr. Harkness."
He winked at her before turning to the Doctor, wincing at the pain in his knees. "What the hell just happened?"
The Doctor pressed his fingers lightly against Zoe's calf before rising to his feet, eyes fixed on the dark Time Rotor. "We fell out of the Vortex."
"How?"
"No idea," he murmured, approaching the console. An overwhelming sense of nausea solidified in his stomach as he gently probed the back of his mind where the TARDIS lived, bile slicking his throat when he found nothing there except a blank, empty space. His mouth went dry and heat pressed against his eyes. "She's dead."
Zoe looked up, startled. "What? No, no she's not. She's just – out of power."
He shook his head, hand trembling as he passed it across his face.
"She draws her power from the universe, it's not possible for her to run out of power. She's just dead." Pressing his hands to the side of the console, he willed himself to feel something other than the gaping expanse of where his ship lived. "She's gone. She's gone. After everything – after the Time War and everything we've been through together, she's dead. I can't – she's my home and she's gone."
Zoe gestured for someone to help her up and, after a moment's hesitation, Rose stepped forward and grabbed her under her arms, heaving her to her feet. Staggering, Zoe caught hold of the console and stood next to the Doctor, her unbroken arm across his back.
"Hey, look at me." The Doctor bowed his head, emotion thick in his throat. "Sweetheart, look at me, please."
"Zo..." her name pulled from his throat on a ragged sigh, and he lifted his eyes to hers. "I –"
"We'll figure something out," Zoe promised, rubbing his back. "We just need to find out where we are. If we're on a planet, we can get help, we can build something. The TARDIS is full of stuff. We're not done yet." Doubt wavered on his face. "Don't look like that. It's only over when we say it's over, so let's think this through before we start grieving."
"She's my TARDIS," he whispered, pained. "She's the only home I have."
She curled her fingers into the back of his jacket and gave him a little shake. "Sixty seconds."
"What?"
"You're allowed sixty seconds of feeling like shit and then you've got to shake it off," she told him. "We need your brain for this, so sixty seconds."
He stared at her, grounding himself in her familiarity and love. "That works for you, does it?"
"Most of the time," she said with a small smile. "If I felt sorry for myself constantly, you and Jack wouldn't be here."
Rubbing his thumb over the edge of the console, he nodded.
"All right. Yeah. Okay."
He drew in a deep breath and shoved his grief and guilt deep down inside of him to deal with later, dragging all the spikes of pain and remorse that rocketed through him and shoving it away, forcing himself to focus. Through it all, the heat of Zoe's palm bloomed across his back and tethered him to her.
"Right." Straightening, he pressed a kiss to Zoe's forehead, hand squeezing her shoulder, before he turned to face the others. "Finding out what happened is the most important thing right now because that'll give me a better understanding of whether we're in the Void or if we've passed through into something else. We've got food, water, and shelter for as long as we need it but with the power gone, she really just is a wooden box and that means anything can come through those doors."
"Okay." Jack flexed his muscles and leant heavily on the console, taking the weight from his knees. "How do we find out where we are? We could be anywhere in the universe and with the scanners down, we won't know."
"I don't know," the Doctor said. "We fell out of the vortex though. Through the Void, into nothingness. There are things that exist here but, honestly, not things we want to meet. The last time I was here..." he trailed off into a frown. "We're in some sort of no place where nothing exists, or nothing should exist. The silent realm. The lost dimension."
Sunlight slipped through the door as Mickey looked out. "Otherwise known as London."
Jack looked back. "What?"
"Did you say London?" Rose asked.
"London, England, Earth," he repeated and made the Doctor's hearts to constrict when he casually stepped outside. "Come and see."
The Doctor gaped at the open door, a frown brewing like storm as Rose looped an arm around Jack's waist to provide him support in lieu of his wheelchair and made their way out after Mickey. A slender hand tucked into his and gave a gentle tug, pulling his attention from the bright sunlight onto her.
"We'll find a way to fix this," Zoe said, softly. "I promise."
"Zo..."
"We will find a way to fix this," she repeated, the conviction in her voice bolstering his lowered spirits. "She's not gone. I refuse to accept that."
A small, faint smile curled on his lips and he nodded, leaning into her. Tilting her chin up, he kissed her lightly, fingers touching her hair before they ghosted over her shoulder. Guiding her through the tangled mess of grating and out of the TARDIS that was, miraculously, upright rather than on its side, they stepped into daylight.
Shielding his eyes against the bright light, he squinted and realised they were on the south bank of London, the Houses of Parliament standing on the other side, the grey water of the Thames rippling in the wind. Cars idled in traffic on the road, and a dog on a lead squatted down to relieve itself as people – normal, human people – walked around in jeans and jumpers, the occasional coat pulled on over the top to make up for the chill in the air that left Zoe and Jack shivering, dried sweat on their bodies that were still dressed in their exercise clothes.
"Lost dimension, the silent realm," Mickey mocked with a shake of his head. "This is London, mate. First of February this year accordin' to this paper." He gestured with the paper he had picked up off the bench. "Not exactly far flung, is it? Though we've gone and doubled back on ourselves a bit."
Jack looked up into the sky and paused. "Mickey –"
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "So this is London?"
Zoe followed Jack's gaze and her mouth dropped.
"Yep," Mickey said, hands in his pockets.
"Your city?"
Jack reached out and tapped Rose's shoulder, pointing up. She looked and gasped.
"That's the one," Mickey replied.
"Just as we left it?"
Mickey nodded. "Bang on."
"And that includes the Zeppelins?"
The Doctor pointed up.
Set against the brilliant blue sky above them, moving between the stray clouds that littered the canvas, huge Zeppelins moved glacially over the Houses of Parliament. Fat, gleaming silver airships were dotted throughout the sky, advertising splayed across the bodies of a handful of them, others bare. A sense of wonder building in her, Zoe felt a smile pull at her mouth and she let go of the Doctor's hand, moving towards the stone wall that kept people from tumbling into the River Thames, standing side by side with Rose as they stared up into the sky, fascination drenching their expressions.
"That's beautiful," Rose murmured. "It's amazin'."
Mickey blinked rapidly, taken aback. "Okay, so it's London with a big international Zeppelin festival that we missed the first time around because we were distracted?"
"Bit weak there, Micks," Zoe said, unable to tear her eyes away. "Have we done what I think we've done?"
The Doctor's hands came to rest on her shoulders. "Somehow, against all the odds, yes. I think we've done what you think we've done."
"But you said –"
"I did."
"Because the Time War –"
"It did."
"Then this is –"
"Highly unlikely, next to impossible."
Rose tore her eyes away from the Zeppelins and glared at them. "Stop talkin' in code. What's happened?"
"Oh my god." Jack staggered forwards and grasped the stone wall, eyes wide as he looked from the Zeppelins to the Doctor, pointing excitedly. "We've fallen through to a parallel world, haven't we? Tell me we have. Make my dreams come true, Doctor. Tell me this is a parallel world."
"It's a parallel world."
Jack whooped with delight, punching the air, and the Doctor let himself enjoy his friend's excitement as a parallel world was far better than being trapped in the Void where Omega would eventually find them. Once was enough for him, and the thought of his friends in Omega's hands filled him with a terror that made his hands shake as he removed them from Zoe's shoulders.
"A parallel world," Zoe repeated, folding her arms around herself, voice teetering on the edge of excitement that she kept under control for the Doctor's sake more than for anyone else. "This is something new."
Mickey rubbed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and frowned. "Does anyone else taste that? It's like...pepper?"
"Parallel worlds always taste strange," the Doctor said, sticking his tongue out to analyse the composition of the air. "Things are just different enough for your senses to recognise that you're out of place. Try not to think about it too much."
"This is so weird." Rose turned and looked back the way they had come, eyes scanning the area to see if anything looked different, entertaining herself at the realisation she was playing an inter-universal spot the difference. "It all looks normal."
"Except for the Zeppelins," Zoe said.
Rose ignored her, attention focused on an image over Mickey's shoulder, heart fluttering in her chest, a wave of dizziness washing over her. "Dad."
"What?"
"It's Dad."
Rose rushed away from the wall and crossed the pedestrianised walkway until she stood in front of an information stand: map on one side and a picture of Pete Tyler on the other. It moved like a hologram. Nothing like the sophisticated ones she had seen on her travels that popped out of the projector and had messages for all occasions. The image twitched and jerked, flickering to life when she got close enough to register on the proximity centre. She stepped back, watching as her dad smiled at the camera and raised his thumb.
"You can trust me on this."
"Oh my god," Zoe said, coming up to the screen and staring. "It is him."
"He's alive," Rose breathed, reaching out with trembling fingers, stopping short before she touched his face. "He's here.
Looking out of the TARDIS, the Doctor rested his eyes on Rose who was sat on a bench. Head bowed as she turned her phone over in her hands, a posture of defeat dragging her shoulders down after their brief and bitter argument. He hadn't meant to be so stern while laying out the facts to her but the memory of her altering the past for Pete Tyler was a potent one – the fear of finding the TARDIS hollowed out bit into him even years later – and she had decided not to join them inside for a discussion of what they needed to do.
While parallel universes were something he was able to deal with, it was going to much harder than it would have been only ten years ago. His people once strode across the universes as though moving from room to room, searching for their counterparts in universe after universe, always coming up empty. Romana had taken the time to calculate that for every billion of possible universes, there was only one Gallifrey to each. The likelihood of him finding help in this universe was slim to none. That hadn't stopped him from bonding together the multiple phones Zoe kept on the TARDIS with Jack's old blaster and the Delta Wave generator that was gathering dust and sending out a signal that he feared was too weak to make a difference.
For the seventeen minutes it took him to create the transmitter though, he had felt better.
"We're not supposed to be here," the Doctor said, cross legged on the ground, fingers steepled in front of him as he thought out loud. "Since the TARDIS draws it's power from the universe –our universe – we've got no way to refuel what was lost but this is the wrong one. It'd be like putting diesel in a petrol engine, it just chokes it and breaks it."
Jack raised his hand, comfortably seated in his wheelchair that Mickey had managed to recover from the wreckage. "Over here."
"Yeah?"
"Couldn't you just change the type of fuel the engine takes?" He asked. "Make it diesel instead of petrol."
It was Mickey who answered. "No can do. Petrol an' diesel run on different energy outputs. You'd have to strip the engine clean out an' start again. I'm guessin' the TARDIS doesn't have a spare engine lyin' around that we can transform either."
"It does not," the Doctor agreed. "And Mickey's right."
"But your lot travelled between the universes a lot," Zoe said. "Didn't they have some way to make sure this didn't happen?"
"Yeah, we used inter-universal ships," he said. "Very different design to the TARDIS. I'm a little surprised the old girl didn't get ripped apart in transit as she's absolutely not built to pass through Void space."
Jack nodded. "So we need something that's already juiced up with energy from our universe, right? Something we can transfer over. There must be something onboard that fits the bill. You've got so much junk –"
"Not junk."
"That there has to be at least one thing we could use," he finished.
The Doctor shook his head. "It doesn't work like that. The things onboard that aren't connected to the TARDIS are things that have their separate power sources. There's nothing that's charged from the TARDIS directly."
"Actually," Zoe said, removing her phone. "This is. Our phones are. All of them. We charge them straight from the TARDIS all the time."
"This might just work. Maybe." The Doctor took it and turned it over in his hands, mind whirring. "It won't be enough juice though, even if all of them are fully charged. We might be able to access the systems for a few minutes but not enough to power flight. What we need is an active power cell linked to the ship."
"I don't get where the energy went though," Zoe said. "We fell with what I assume was a full-ish tank of energy. Why don't we still have it now?"
"She probably used it all to keep the atmosphere and shields going to keep us safe," the Doctor said, hand rising to touch the console again. "Last thing she did was try to make sure we'd be okay."
"Oh," she murmured, a sudden sweep of emotion misting her eyes. Clearing her throat, she pulled herself back together. "Power cell then. Where will we find those?"
The Doctor jumped to his feet in one smooth motion and pointed down at the floor, directing them all to search and do so as quick as possible. Unable to get onto his hands and knees, Jack made sure that there was light beneath the grating by pointing two torches into the dark underbelly of the console.
Holding her broken arm closely against her side, Zoe pried away the grating and lay flat on her stomach, hanging into the opened chamber, searching through the wiring to see if anything was active. On the other side of the console, Mickey was on his hands and knees pulling apart the grating to access the base of the TARDIS console that was partially hidden by thick wires. The Doctor held a torch between his teeth, dangling off on of the coral struts, as he pried open the round protective coverings that were placed over the Chameleon Arch and searched for anything that looked alive and active within.
"Didn't you say that the the walls between the universes were closed when Gallifrey fell?" Zoe asked, speaking louder than normal so the Doctor would hear her.
"I did." Banging his head against a protective covering that popped free, the Doctor grunted. "And they did. What we've done should've been impossible, and that's actually impossible not just improbable."
"It's like when you crack a glass," Mickey said, short of breath as he heaved a heavy wire out from under the grating.
The Doctor twisted his head back to look at him. "It's like what now?"
"You know when you drop a glass but it doesn't break?" Zoe shuffled back from under the console and leaned around the console to stare at Mickey. "But it leaves this crack in the glass? You can't put water in it because the water will come through, right?" The Doctor nodded, bewildered. "Well, way you tell it, your people used to go back an' forth like no one's business, through doors or somethin'. When they died, there would have been cracks, wouldn't there? Where the doors were."
From his wheelchair, Jack beamed with pride.
"Mickey, that's actually an excellent point and possibly explains what happened," the Doctor said, stunned. "How the hell do you know that though?"
He rolled his eyes. "You think I was doin' nothin' after you took Rose with you that first time? I read up on all the scientific theories about space travel an' time travel, an' I came across a lot about parallel universes as well. I'm not thick."
"Yeah, no, I see that," the Doctor said, dropping back to the grating with a thump. "I think you've hit the nail on the head. I still don't know exactly what the consequences of the Time War are. With Gallifrey gone it's hard to get a proper handle on it. But it makes sense – the more we travelled between the universes, the more worn the paths became. Just because the walls closed doesn't mean that those passages stopped existing. There are probably fissures all through space. Some big, some small. We must've accidentally slipped through one."
"This was just an accident?" Jack asked.
"Looks like it." The Doctor's eyes snagged on Zoe who was angling herself awkwardly to check the underside of the console. "Careful, love. You'll stress your arm leaning like that. Let me."
"I've got it," she grunted.
"You're going to make it worse, just –"
"Doctor, stop fuss –"
"Found something," Mickey called out, interrupting them. Jack turned both torches onto him, dust smeared across his nose as he squatted, peering into the darkness. "It's somethin' small but it's definitely got juice. Get over here an' have a look."
The Doctor sidestepped Zoe and scooted around the console to lie on his stomach on the floor, leaning over into the whole as he braced himself on Mickey. Pulling the wires back, the Doctor grinned at the sight of the small, green light nestled amidst a tangle of cables.
Jack examined it from his elevated vantage point and clicked the torches off, looking around the room, searching for another source of light that might be causing it.
"I don't think it's a reflection of anything," he said.
Zoe peered over the edge. "It looks like a light."
"It is," the Doctor said, Mickey out of the way in his excitement – Zoe reaching in to help him climb out – before he dropped into the nest of cables with a soft oof. Bending and gently scooped the light source up, he held it up to them. "It's alive!"
Zoe laughed.
"Frankenstein," Jack recognised.
"Right on the money," the Doctor said. "This is it. This is all we need. We've got power, baby!"
"Is that a generic baby or are you callin' Zoe baby?" Mickey asked. "Because I'm not sure I'm comfortable with either."
"Definitely a team baby," he grinned. "This is teamwork right here. This tiny, little insignificant power cell that no one ever thinks about as it goes about its day just chugging away and minding its own business. This little thing is clinging to life with one teeny-tiny speck of our universe tucked up in its circuits. This is home."
Zoe pressed her lips together, hiding a smile. "You want to name it, don't you?"
"I really do," the Doctor beamed. "Pathfinder?"
"Doctor..." warmth bloomed through her, her hand pressed against her chest. "Is that a Star Trek reference?"
"Starfleet created the Pathfinder project to bring the USS Voyager home from the Delta Quadrant," he said with a nod. "Pathfinder. Fitting, don't you think?"
Zoe stared at him. "I am so in love with you."
"This is gross," Mickey muttered, turning away to rub his eye with the heel of his hand. "Jack, make 'em stop."
"Not a chance, this is adorable," Jack said, watching them with a bright smile. "You two are so cute talking Star Trek to each other. Is this what passes as foreplay between you? The Doctor quotes Star Trek and Zoe quotes Harry Potter?"
"Hey," she protested. "No kink shaming."
"Can we please focus on gettin' back to our universe?" Mickey asked, desperately. "Is there enough fuel in that thing –"
"Pathfinder," the Doctor said.
"To get us home?" Mickey said, ignoring him.
Holding it between his thumb and forefinger, the Doctor eyed it. "Not yet. I need to charge it up first. I just need a minute."
Hands cupped around their one hope at returning home, he took a deep breath. Far down inside of him on a cellular level, he triggered his regenerative process. The power built and made his hair stand on end. Skin crackling with his cells coming alive, warmth flooding through his veins, he felt the aches and pains of Zoe's attentions over the last few days fading and the small twinge in his ankle from where he had twisted it disappearing as his body healed itself. Focusing on the power source, he pursed his lips and exhaled directly onto it.
The light grew stronger and stronger as it absorbed his energy until it was full.
Breathing in again, he looked up and smiled, triumphant. "Et voilà. Now it's charging."
"That's it?" Jack asked. "That was a little anticlimactic, wasn't it?"
"Sorry, captain," he said, not sorry in the least. "It's on a recharging cycle. It'll loop round, power back up and be ready to take us home in about twenty-four hours."
Zoe frowned down at him. "What did you just do?"
"I put a little bit of me in it," he explained. "It took about ten years off my life –" he flicked his eyes up at her and saw the look of displeasure that settled on her face. "But it's more than worth it to get us all home."
Her jaw worked before she nodded. "You're still an idiot."
"Probably," he agreed.
Pushing the Doctor's self-sacrificing stupidity to one side, the threat of being stranded in another universe lessened in the face of good news. Zoe allowed excitement to creep back into her.
"If we're going to be here for twenty-four hours," she said. "Then I want to go to a library and check out the history section and find out how our worlds diverged. I'm going to assume that the Hindenburg didn't happen."
Jack looked to her. "The Hindenburg?"
"Big airship, went boom in the 20s –"
"30s," the Doctor corrected. "1937, to be precise."
"Big disaster," Zoe said. "It's where oh, the humanity comes from."
Jack pointed at her. "That means nothing to me, but thanks. Still, this is great. We're on a parallel Earth. Inter-universal travel was only ever a rumour at the Agency but it's something we thought about when we were drunk, but I'm actually standing in another universe." He looked to Mickey and beamed. "There are so many things I want to do first, I don't know where to start. Test the water? Or the soil? Birds! Maybe the birds are different."
Mickey frowned in confusion. "Why d'you want to test the soil an' water?"
"To find out if the periodic table is the same here or if it diverges," he replied. "The laws of physics and chemistry are standard across the board in our universe but what about other ones? Are these laws truly the building blocks of everything, or does each universe have their own laws?"
"They can vary," the Doctor said. "I was once in a universe where the laws of physics were made by a mad man. Wasn't the best trip of my life."
Zoe glanced at him. "Omega?"
"Uh-huh."
"You're a complete nerd an' I can't believe I'm with you," Mickey said to Jack. "But if you want to test the water, we'll test the water."
Jack beamed before locking his wheels in place to help pull the Doctor out of the hole who brushed himself off and carefully pocketed their ticket home, patting his pocket gently. He reached out for Zoe and took her uninjured hand in his, smiling happily at her, the weight of being trapped and the grief of losing the TARDIS lifted from his shoulders. With a bounce in his step, they left the TARDIS to tell Rose the good news, approaching the bench where she remained seated.
"There you are," the Doctor greeted, swinging his and Zoe's hands between them as Mickey wheeled Jack over the smooth path. "Hold the applause, please, but I fixed it with help from Mickey who, despite not being so for a long time, shall no longer be known as Mickey the Idiot, but rather Mickey the Genius and Astute instead." He glanced over at Mickey, amused. "I might get you a T-shirt with that on."
Mickey laughed. "Please don't."
"We've got twenty-four hours before we can be on our way again," he said, pleased.
Zoe watched Rose's face as the Doctor rattled off his triumph. Rose wasn't listening. She was staring down at her phone, hair blowing in front of her, an expression on her face that spelt trouble. Heaving a great sigh, Zoe released the Doctor's hand and sat down next to her sister, crossing one leg over the other and spreading her arms out over the back of the bench.
"You've got a face on," she said. "What is it?"
Rose tapped her phone against her knee before offering it to her. "My phone connected. There's this Cybus Network thing, it finds your phone. It gave me Internet access."
"Rose," the Doctor grimaced. "He's not your dad."
"Shit a brick, he's rich," Zoe exclaimed, scrolling through the universe's equivalent of Pete Tyler's Wikipedia page. "And not just rich but rich. Listen to this: Tyler is estimated to be Britain's wealthiest businessman with an estimated net worth of £9.8 billion. Holy shit, this universe's Mum must be living it up."
"Jackie with all that money," Mickey said, horror dawning across his face. "She'd be unbearable."
"We don't exist," Rose said, taking the phone back from Zoe. "Here. In this universe. We were never born. There's Pete an' Jackie Tyler, even Sabrina an' Joel, but no Rose or Zoe Tyler."
"I figured I didn't exist here," Zoe said, though it was disorienting to hear it said out loud. "With Pete alive, this Jackie wouldn't have had that one-night stand that got her pregnant with me."
"They're still married though," Rose continued with a deep exhale, shoulders rising and falling. "They've got a house an' cars and everythin' they want. But they haven't got me...us." Her eyes settled on the Doctor. His stomach sank, the same sensation she had inspired in his years before when she had asked to see her father alive just once formed inside his chest. "I've got to see him."
"No," the Doctor said. "You can't. We've been over this."
"An' we're goin' over it again," she argued. "I just want to see him."
"I can't let you."
"You don't let me do anythin'." The words clipped out of her, harsh and true. She stood up, startling Zoe whose ankle dropped her knee, foot smacking into the ground. "You said twenty-four hours, right? I'll be there an' back in plenty of time."
"You can't become their daughter," he told her. "That's not the way it works. Zoe, tell her."
"What makes you think she's going to listen to me?" Zoe shrugged, unhelpful.
"Nah, hold up, Rose's got a point," Mickey said, a thought taking root. The Doctor spun to look at him, betrayed, while Jack twisted around, unsure of what was happening. "Twenty-four hours. We might as well have a look around, check in on things. Zo, keep an eye on Jack, would you?"
"Oh, no you don't." Jack reached out and grabbed hold of Mickey's belt, stopping him before he was left behind. "I'm coming with you, like it or bump it."
"Lump it," he corrected automatically. "You sure? You might be better off stayin' where Zoe can see you. I don't even know if what I'm lookin' for is there."
"Where you go, I go," Jack said, unlocking his wheels and placing his bare hands on the rubber, pushing himself forward with a quick, semi-apologetic glance in the Doctor's direction. "We'll be back before time's up. Don't fret."
"No!" The Doctor threw himself in between Mickey and Rose, arms extended, one foot braced against Jack's wheelchair. "Absolutely not. This is unacceptable, and I expect better behaviour from every one of you. We are all staying together. Stop it. That's final. My word here is final, so...there."
"Rose is leaving," Zoe said, pointing after her. "Doctor, Rose is leaving."
"Then stop her!"
"What am I supposed to do, rugby tackle her?"
"Stop moving! Rose Marion Tyler, stop it right now!" The Doctor staggered back when Mickey poked him in his chest and lightly tapped him off balance, freeing Jack from his temporary restraints. "Mickey, where are you even going?"
"Just going to check on somethin', that's all," he shrugged, pushing Jack forwards. "I won't be long."
"Stay where you are, all of you," the Doctor ordered, infuriated by the unexpected mutiny. "Rose, come back here! Mickey, come back here right now! Jack!"
"Sorry, Doc, where he goes so goes my nation and all that."
"That you know but the Hindenburg's a mystery to you," Zoe said, amused. "You're an odd man, Jack Harkness."
His grin flashed at her over his shoulder.
"I just want to see him," Rose apologised, walking backwards away from them, hand in her hair to keep it from her face. "I've got the address an' everythin'. I'll be back with loads of time to spare. Promise."
"Sorry," Mickey called back. "But I've got to do this."
"Do what?" The Doctor demanded, weight shifting between his feet, uncertain who he should chase after. "Mickey!"
Zoe rubbed her jaw, surprised by how quickly the situation had spiralled out of his control. "I think you're screaming into the abyss right now, love."
"Humans." He dropped his arms to his side and looked furious. "I don't suppose you're going to go off and do something stupid, are you?" She raised her eyebrows at him, and the anger drained from him. "Sorry, I didn't mean that. These parallel worlds are like sherbet to humans."
"Sherbet?"
"You know, sherbet." She stared at him in confusion. "When you have a pack of sherbet, one taste isn't enough and you've got to finish the whole thing but then you regret it because you feel sick. It's like that."
Her mouth twitched. "Do you have a sherbet addiction that I don't know about?"
"That'd be a bit awkward, wouldn't it?"
"Better than cocaine, I suppose." Their laughter filled the air around them, causing Rose to look back over her shoulder before she disappeared around a corner. "Look, you go after the boys, I'll go with Rose."
"Zoe –"
"Go, it's fine," she urged. "I can look after me and Rose. You just stick close with Mickey. Rose has a better understanding of what happens if she messes with things she shouldn't, Mickey doesn't and Jack's a right proper soft touch when it comes to him. They both might end up eating the whole pack of sherbet."
"Dammit," he huffed, patting himself down. "I really need to get you your own one of these. " Finding the psychic paper, he pressed it into her hands. "Be careful. I mean it. You might not think there are any temptations for you here, but you can never know."
"You're the only temptation I'm susceptible to," Zoe said. "Particularly when you wear those silk boxers of yours."
His face lit up. "The ones with the bananas?"
"Those are the ones."
He grinned. "I knew you liked them."
Zoe stepped into his space and kissed him, hand on the back of his head, thumb stroking the line between his hair and neck.
"I'll see you soon," she promised.
"Back here in twenty-four hours," he said, holding her waist to keep her against him for a moment longer, eyes flickering over her, memorisingher just in case. "We can't miss our window."
"Daleks won't be able to keep me away," Zoe said.
Softening into a smile, he pulled her closer and gave her a firmer kiss that made her toes curl in her trainers. "I love you."
"Love you too," she said, stepping back from him. "Now go, before you lose them."
Reluctantly parting from him, she touched the black material wrapped around her arm and winced at the tender pain that radiated from under it before running along the embankment and up the steps. Looking around the corner that Rose had turned, she feared she had lost her. And then, bobbing like a ball caught on a wave, her blonde head appeared. Weaving in and out of the pedestrians that clogged the side of the street where tourists pausing to take photographs with the green plaques on the wall, Rose made her way down the street.
Rose jumped when she appeared at her side. "What're you doin'?"
"Coming with you," Zoe said, falling into step. "Didn't think I'd let you go off and see parallel Mum without me, did you? What do you think she's going to be like? Since she's rich, I bet she's going to Mum but like on steroids or something."
"Go away," Rose said, voice brittle. "I can do this on my own."
"But I want to come with you."
"I don't want you to come with me," she snapped. "Go back to the Doctor."
Zoe's expression shuttered, fighting against the anger that filled her chest. "Can we talk about what happened, please?"
"No."
"Rose, please." She hated the cracked plea that fell from her and despised the way her throat closed up, eyes heating with the telltale sign of tears. She had always hated fighting with Rose and found herself reverting to her teenage self in the face of their problems. "You haven't given me a chance to talk about it, not properly."
"You an' the Doctor are shaggin'," Rose said, words as sharp as a knife's edge. "What more is there to get?"
"It's not just that," she said. "We're not just having sex. If you'd let me talk about this then you'd know that we're in love."
"Spare me the Disney shit," Rose snapped. "You hid it from me. That's all that matters."
"I didn't – it wasn't intentional, not at first," Zoe said, wondering if it would have been better to be open right from the start but she still felt that the timing was awful – the Doctor's regeneration, fresh back from the Game Station, and so soon after Mondas for everyone but her. She maintained, even now, that it would have been one thing too many. "I wanted to keep it quiet because it was new."
"No you didn't," she argued, turning to face Zoe who took a small step back at how swiftly Rose had pivoted on her heels. "You just didn't want to tell me because you know how I feel about him."
Shame settled over Zoe like a cloak. "Yeah, that too."
"Look, good for you for shaggin' the Doctor," Rose spat. "All power to you. Just don't expect me to be singin' about it."
"Rosie, please –"
Rose walked away from her. "Just shut up an' leave me alone!"
"No!" Zoe stormed after her. "We're in a universe full of temptations and the last time you were in a situation like this, I ended up not existing."
"Oh, nice!" Rose spun and faced her, pale skin flushed with anger. "Way to throw that in my face! That was ages ago."
"It was months ago for you!"
"But over a decade for you, so let it go!"
"My god," Zoe exclaimed, frustrated. "Can you stop being a brat for five seconds?"
"I'm not bein' a brat!"
"Yes, you are!"
"No, I'm not!"
Rose shoved her, hard.
Zoe's eyes went wide. Surprise shifted to hurt before turning into anger.
"Hey!" She shoved her sister back and Rose stumbled. "Don't push me!"
Regaining her balance, Rose lashed out but her aim was off. Instead of striking Zoe on the arm, her fist lanced across her left breast and Zoe pressed her hand to it, shocked.
"Did you just punch me in the boob?"
"I –" taken aback by her own actions, Rose hesitated before nodding. "Yeah, I did. You lie to me, I punch you in the boob. That's what happens now."
"You utter bitch," Zoe said, heat bleeding into her voice. "God, get over yourself, Rose. I'm fucking the Doctor, so what? We fell in love just like millions of other people every single day. And just because you fancy him doesn't mean that I'm going to sacrifice my happiness to spare your feelings."
"There's a code," Rose shot back. "Sisters don't do this to each other."
"He was never going to be with you like that!"
"You don't know that!"
"Yes I fucking do," Zoe shouted, startling an elderly couple who passed them. Lowering her voice, she stepped closer. "He loves you, you're his friend, but he never, ever would've crossed that line with you. I still don't know why he did it with me and I kind of don't want to ask, but he wouldn't have with you. And I'm sorry that hurts and makes you feel less special or whatever, but that's the truth."
Rose's nostrils flared. "Fuck you."
"Sorry," she said with a smile like broken glass. "The Doctor's already doing that."
Rose's eyes narrowed and the urge to hurt Zoe like never before swept through her, gripping her, and playing on all of her worst traits. Even as she heard herself speak, she wanted to drag the words back into her mouth and bury them in the dark.
"It didn't take you long to forget about Reinette, did it?"
She heard the slap before she felt it. Her head snapped to one side. Her cheek bloomed with pain that made her eyes water and her jaw ache. A distant part of her mind that wasn't horrified by what she said reminded her to be grateful that Zoe hadn't punched her, certain her jaw would have broken if she had. Eyes blurred with tears, the gum-speckled ground disappearing in a mess of hazy colours, she touched her fingers to her cheek and felt the heat that burned there.
"Don't you ever question my love for Reinette again." The ice in Zoe's voice sent fear shooting down her spine. She raised her eyes from the ground to find her sister pale with rage that made her shake, hands clenched into tight fists at her side. Rose was relieved that the boys weren't there to hear her cruelty. "Don't you dare."
Painfully aware that she had vaulted across a line she shouldn't have been close to, Rose opened her mouth to apologise. "Zoe, I'm –"
The sudden silence that covered the street stole the apology from her mouth, a loud beeping sound serving as an interruption. Around them, everyone froze. Those who had been openly observing their fight with interest went blank as their attention was drawn elsewhere, eyes gazing at nothing.
"What the hell?" Zoe muttered, reaching out and passing a hand in front of the nearest person's face. "This is some weird Stephen King shit right here."
Cradling her cheek, Rose stepped up to the closest person and peered into their unseeing eyes, not even blinking. "What're they doin'?"
"I have no idea," Zoe said. "But I don't like it. We should head back to the TARDIS."
"I –"
The laughter that burst out of the frozen crowd made them jump, Zoe hands clenching into fists before releasing when whatever fugue the people had fallen into lifted, returning to their daily business as though nothing had happened. Those that had crowded around Rose and Zoe as they argued dispersed. Zoe exhaled, white mist forming in front of her mouth, hand reaching for her phone.
"Go back to the TARDIS if you want," Rose said, delicately rubbing her cheek. "But I'm goin' to go an' see Dad."
"He's not your dad," Zoe said, exasperation coating her words. "He's just someone who has the same name and face as him. He doesn't even have a daughter in this universe."
"I want to see him!"
"I hate everything about what you are choosing to do right now," she snapped. "You're acting like a little child who wants to get her own way. This is dangerous, Rose. Properly dangerous. We should go back, meet the boys, and –"
"You'd do the same," Rose argued. "If this was –" she stumbled on Reinette's name, not daring to speak it so soon after having weaponised it. Zoe's eyes turned sharp, warning, and Rose swallowed it back. "Someone you loved. You'd do the same."
"You don't know that," she said. "And what do you even want from him? He's not going to be your dad. You can't even tell him we're from a parallel universe because that sounds completely fucking insane. So what do you want from him?"
"I don't want anythin' from him," Rose said, heatedly. "Look, I can't explain it. I just know I need to see him. An' – an' I'd like my sister to come with me too."
Zoe held up a hand. "Don't. You don't get to play me like this after what you just said. You don't get to make me feel guilty for not supporting you when you –" the words choked her, and she turned away. "I'm really, really pissed at you right now."
Rose worked her jaw, lowering her hand from her cheek. "I know. An' I'm sorry, for what I said about Reinette. I'm mad at you too though. Really mad."
"Yeah," she said, passing a hand over her face. "I know."
"So what're we goin' to do?"
Sighing heavily, Zoe swiped open her phone and pulled up the Doctor's name, quickly tapping out a message. Her thumb hovered over the screen, the desire to ask him to leave Mickey and Jack and come find her made her hesitate, before she sent the message and tucked her phone away again.
"We'll go see Dad," Zoe said, frowning when Rose smiled. "We're only going to see him. We're not going to do anything else. You see him and that's it, okay? I don't want to have to break us out of a psychiatric hospital because you got talkative about parallel universes and dead dads."
"I promise, I just want to see him," she said, rolling forward onto the ball of her toes. "That means you're comin' with me?"
"Mum'd kill me if I let you get arrested just because you're being a bitch," Zoe replied, rubbing her arms. "Now, come on. I'm bloody freezing out here. Where's Dad's place?"
Pete and Jackie Tyler in the parallel universe lived in what many people might have called a mansion but Zoe referred to as a big, fucking house. Look at it!
From their spot in the bushes on the outskirts of the house's property, Rose and Zoe watched as a gleaming black stretch limo crunched over the gravel drive, slowly moving past them. It approached the house and paused in front of the decorated front door, beautiful lights strung up and candles in lanterns dangling from the branches of the trees nearby while flowers bloomed beautifully along the bottom of the house. A large water fountain was set in the middle of the drive, forcing the cars to circle it before leaving through the large, iron-wrought gates that felt both ostentatious and plain in equal measure, the size of them impressive but the bland design left Zoe critical.
The house itself was large. The outside walls painted a pale cream colour that Zoe was sure had a ridiculous name – eggshell white, ivory cream, or something similar – and there was staff waiting to greet the attendees. The physical proof of how differently her mother's life had gone without children tripping about underfoot stunned her into silence.
"It's Mum's birthday," Rose whispered. "Trust her to still like a party in this universe."
"Mum wouldn't know what to do with something like this," Zoe replied, thinking that the party on the estate was much more to Jackie Tyler's taste than this. "At least this makes it easier for us to sneak in and get a look at Dad. Have to think of a new plan though, mine was just to knock on the front door and pretend we were lost."
Rose twisted and looked at her. "That was your plan?"
"Do you have a better one?" She asked, pointedly. "Didn't think so."
Rose cast her eyes over the clothes they were wearing: Zoe was still dressed in her exercise clothes with a jumper that looked suspiciously like one of the Doctor's old ones thrown over the top – fine for wandering around London but not necessarily for anything else; and Rose was dressed in jeans and a zip-up top. Hardly the black tie ensembles they saw enter the house.
"We're not dressed for a party," she said. "Should we go back to the TARDIS an' change?"
"With the state the TARDIS is in, we won't be able to find the wardrobe let alone something to wear." Zoe removed a familiar black wallet from the pocket of her leggings, refusing to wear anything that didn't come with at least one pocket these days."The Doctor gave me this to me earlier."
Rose ignored the stab of jealousy that gave her. "The psychic paper."
"Psychic paper," she agreed, rapping it against her knee. "And, as we've discovered, the easiest way into any fancy party is through the back door."
"No." Reluctance and disappointment swept through Rose. "Not the serving staff. C'mon, Zo. We could be anyone."
"And we're going to be the serving staff," Zoe told her before standing up, stretching her knees out. "Come on if you're coming, we've got canapés to deliver."
They made their way carefully across the slope of dark lawn, taking care to keep to the shadows where they concealed themselves from the security guards that patrolled the perimeter. Circling around the back of the mansion where Zoe briefly paused to admire the large gardens, they knocked on the back door that was opened by a harried looking woman who barely glanced at the fake credentials the psychic paper produced before they were ushered inside and made to change into a black and white uniform that closely resembled a French maid's outfit.
"Shit," Zoe muttered, unable to carry two trays due to her broken arm, waving Rose off when she moved to help her. "Go. Mingle. Try and get a look at Dad. As soon as you do, we're out of here, okay?"
Rose nodded and Zoe watched her go walk away, trepidation rattling in her chest. There was so much that could go wrong, and the Doctor wasn't there to keep things in order as he normally did. She knew it was a bad idea. Rose had proven once before that she wasn't to be trusted when it came to Pete Tyler, the brief period when Zoe hadn't existed as a consequence of her sister's previous actions was something that she tended to ignore because of how strange it felt to remember. She should have refused to come. Knocked Rose out and carried her back to the TARDIS, especially after the comments about Reinette that made her burn with anger, but she was Zoe's sister at the end of the day and there was nothing she wouldn't do for her family, even if it meant standing to one side and watching a disaster happen.
She could hate Rose and make sure she was safe all at the same time.
Leaving the kitchen, she entered the main room and smiled to herself at the thought of what Reinette would have said if she had seen her serving others. They had discussed jobs over the years but Reinette hadn't been able to understand the service industry and hospitality in general – the idea of McDonald's confused her – and an image of her late wife dressed in a French maid's uniform made Zoe cough to cover her amusement.
Years had passed since she had worked behind the till at McDonald's – or worked any job – and part of her had forgotten how rude people were when faced with serving staff. She pulled a face at the back of one particularly unpleasant individual and a pretty blonde caught sight of her, face lit up with a silent laugh.
Zoe winked. "Don't tell the boss."
"My lips are sealed," she promised, eyes dipping over Zoe's body appreciatively. "I'm Lucy."
"Zoe," she said, sliding around so that they were standing next to each other, gesturing delicately at their surroundings. "This is a bit fancy, isn't it?"
"One of the fancier ones I've worked at," Lucy agreed. "I haven't seen you around before. Are you new?"
"New and temporary," she said, politely ignoring her disappointment. "Just saving up some money to go travelling. Who are all these people?"
Lucy laughed as though she had said something funny. "You're kidding right?"
"Only sometimes," Zoe said with a half-smile that pressed a small dimple to the corner of her mouth. "But not right now. Do they all work for Pete Tyler or something? That Vitex thing that's advertised everywhere?"
Her tray wobbled as she gave Pete's thumb's up, a small giggle leaving Lucy.
"Some of them, I think, but most of them work for Cybus," Lucy said. "But, I mean, who doesn't work for Cybus these days? They own everything." She leaned in close, and Zoe received a gentle hit of cinnamon from Lucy's perfume. "Some say that they even own the president."
A slow grin spread across her face. "Now that sounds like gossip and I love gossip. I thought Cybus just operated in Britain and Europe. Bit impressive to have the president of America in their pocket."
Lucy laughed again. "I meant the president of Britain."
"Right, yeah, of course." Zoe mimed hitting herself on the head. "Sorry. My brain went a bit blank there. Is – er – is the president here?"
"Somewhere." Lucy peered through the crowd before subtly pointing. "There he is."
Zoe took in the sight of an older, handsome black man with greying hair dressed in a well-tailored tuxedo, a small brush of disappointment that it wasn't Harriet's counterpart.
"Decent enough, although no one really likes the curfew he's implemented," Lucy continued, tucking her hair behind her ear and letting her eyes trail over Zoe, blanketing her with the warmth of attraction. "There's actually a rave tonight if you're interested. You know, a way to stick it to the man –"
"I love a good rebellion," Zoe said, "but my sister and I have plans. We're meeting some friends after. Thanks for the offer though."
Giving her a final smile, she slipped away and looked around curiously. The presence of the president didn't necessarily mean that a person was well-connected – the prime minister had attended Jackie's birthday party in their universe after all – but given the wealth on display, Zoe wouldn't be surprised if the other people in the room were the movers and shakers of this universe's Britain. Her eyes narrowed as a thought struck her. It wasn't just a birthday party for Jackie but an opportunity to do business. In France, Louis had hosted parties with double meanings all the time, wining and dining his guests in order to obtain support from them for one cause or another. The desire to start talking to people and to find out more information pressed at her skin.
Annoyed and amused at the Doctor's influence on her, she valiantly ignored it. It wasn't her world and no matter what was going on, she and Rose needed to get back to the TARDIS before morning. The Doctor would never leave without them, but she didn't want to deal with his lecture if they missed their departure window.
Eventually, she and Rose circled back to each other, and her sister started whining. "We could have been anyone."
Zoe sighed. "Not this again. It got us in the building, didn't it?"
"You're in charge of the psychic paper," she accused. "We could've been guests, celebrities – Dame Zoe and Dame Rose. We end up servin' though. We've done enough of this back home."
"Dressed in jeans and T-shirts?" Zoe rolled her eyes. "You said it yourself, we weren't dressed for a party and the point is to not draw attention to ourselves. Anyway, have you seen Pete yet? I want to get the hell out of here."
"I can't get close enough to him," she said, nodding in the direction of the balding ginger head that was moving through the party, greeting his guests with a loud, booming laugh that set Zoe's teeth on edge with how fake it was. "He's popular."
"Apparently." She pointed to the president. "That's the President of Great Britain there."
"President? Not Prime Minister?"
"One of the few differences between our universes, that and the Zeppelins." Her eyes caught sight of Pete as he bounded up the flight of stairs. "Ey up, Dad's about to make a speech."
Standing on the wide staircase, Pete Tyler attempted to command the attention of the room, a smile on his face that was flushed red with the heat of the room and whatever alcohol he had consumed. Zoe stared at him and tried to find the similarities between him and Rose. Having only ever seen pictures of him in the family photo album, Zoe had always thought that Rose more closely resembled Jackie but seeing Pete in the flesh highlighted the features Rose had inherited from him – the pale skin that flushed easily and burnt even easier and the red that tinged Rose's natural hair colour both came from Pete.
It was strange to see her sister reflected back at her from a man who was a stranger to them.
"Thank you, thank you very much!" Pete beamed out at the crowd, the edges of his grin fixed in place and refusing to meet his eyes. Beneath the soft light, his skin glistened with sweat, and Zoe tracked his hands and took note of how they trembled lightly; clearly, not a man accustomed to public speaking. "I'd just like to say thank you to you all for coming on this very special occasion...my wife's thirty-ninth."
There was a ripple of laughter at the polite lie, and Rose and Zoe exchanged a look.
"Trust me on this," Pete said, lifting his thumb, earning another smattering of polite laughter that made him tug on the bottom of his suit jacket. "And so, without any further ado, here she is. The birthday girl. My lovely wife, Jackie Tyler."
Zoe's breath caught in her throat as Jackie Tyler emerged from the top floor and made her way down the stairs, manicured hand ghosting over the banister as the light bounced off the jewels that glittered at her throat and in her ears. Smoother, tighter, and more polished, it was like looking at a woman she recognised but having trouble placing her at the same time. All the elements were the same, yet there was something off about the entire picture that forced her to ignore the creeping sense of coldness at how wrong it all was.
This Jackie had never had children. She had never suffered the loss of her husband. Or experienced the indignity heaped upon her as a single mother from a council estate. She was someone who had known wealth and comfort, and it showed in the well-tailored cut of her skintight black dress and the lean muscles of her toned arms. Jackie – the proper Jackie, not the strange alternate version of her – hated showing her arms, despising what she thought were flabby upper arms and freckled skin. She tended to toss a cardigan over the top when people were in the flat, not yet comfortable enough with the boys to let all her bits and bobs hang lose.
This Jackie didn't seem to have that problem.
"Jesus," Rose muttered. "She looks..."
"Wrong," Zoe finished, and Rose nodded her agreement.
"Now, I'm not giving a speech," Jackie said to the gathered partygoers, voice more refined that what Zoe was used to hearing, London sanded off. "That's what my parties are famous for. No work, no politics, just a few good mates and plenty of black market whisky." The crowd laughed before she noticed the president. "Pardon me, Mr President. So, yeah, get on with it. Enjoy, enjoy."
"It's like Mum but not," Zoe mused, glancing at Rose who was staring at their parents together, alive and in the flesh, for the first time in her life, and she sighed again. "Will you stop doing this to yourself? It's getting really annoying. They aren't our parents. Our mum is back home probably wondering when Sabrina's going to leave because she's sick of babysitting Leia. You're not going to get what you want from those people over there."
Rose tore her eyes away from her parents who were speaking quietly to each other. "I know, I know. It's just...they've got each other, Mum's got no one."
"Yeah," Zoe said, turning sombre "I worry about that too."
"You do?"
"Course I do," she said. "I don't want Mum to be alone forever but she's rubbish at choosing the right bloke. At least Howard was decent, if a bit boring. Seriously, I get that he liked vegetables but I didn't really care about the shape of them."
Rose had experienced Howard's long monologues on the virtues of fruit and veg and sympathised, eyes following Pete and Jackie as they stepped down into the crowd. "You think she'll ever find someone like Dad again?"
"I don't know, maybe, yes, I hope so," Zoe said, uncertainly. "Anything's possible. I thought I'd never find someone after Reinette but I did."
Rose's face tightened at the reminder and Zoe tensed, bracing herself for another sharp comment. There was no time for them to hurt each other as Jackie paused at the bottom of the stairs and – "Rose!"
Rose and Zoe turned in surprise before delight spread across Zoe's face when a small dog with a pink bow in its hair came running down the stairs and leapt into Jackie's arms who cradled it close, cooing to it..
"There's my little girl! Who's a good girl?"
Zoe sucked her cheeks in, desperately trying to fight the laughter that bubbled inside of her. It took only a small glance from Rose to break the dam. She wasn't in the least bit sorry when Rose stormed away from her.
Seething from her sister's laughter, Rose refreshed her tray of champagne. She supposed she deserved it considering her callous words about Reinette earlier. Her cheek still stung from the slap, though the mark had faded, and shame had made itself at home in the memory of the blank look of pure hurt on Zoe's face before she responded. She needed to apologise for it – properly and without excusing her behaviour – and she intended to do it as soon as she stopped being so angry at her for the lies and the secrecy and the sneaking around.
Pausing by a couple draped in fake jewels, she let them take some champagne from her before she worked her way into a corner. Her thoughts consumed her, worming their way through her body, and she felt her chest constrict at how awful everything was. Between her and Zoe fighting every time they set eyes on each other and Drew texting her on what felt like a constant basis, the mess that her personal life was kept her awake at night. It had been a mistake to have sex with Drew. She knew that as she was doing it. He clearly believed it was something more than it was, and she was at a loss of how to let him down gently, responding to his messages late and with a half-heartedness that had to come across.
Normally Jack would have been her first port of call to help her right things, but he didn't understand why people regretted sex and was no use.
What she really wanted to do was talk to Zoe.
Lifting a glass of champagne from her tray, she swallowed it down with and let it rush through her system, warming her lightly.
"I remember her twenty first." Rose jumped, nearly dislodging the glasses from the tray that she hurriedly set down, and her heart hammered painfully against her ribcage as Pete Tyler glanced at her. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."
"No, no, that's fine," she said. "Sorry. What were you sayin'?"
"Just that I remember her twenty-first," he said, gesturing at Jackie who rested her hand on the president's arm and laughed. "Pint of cider in the George. Hell of a difference to all this nonsense, but she does love a party does my wife."
In Rose's universe, Pete Tyler was already dead by the time Jackie turned twenty-one. Jackie had celebrated that birthday in hospital with Rose who had an ear infection that sent a fever racing through her. She had stayed awake all night staring at the tiny body of her daughter attached by wires to various machines, only months after her husband's death, believing that she was about to lose the only thing she had left of Pete's that was worth anything.
Rose drank down the rest of her champagne and remember the way he had felt he hugged her before running to his death; how his cheap suit had crinkled on the tarmac of the road, stained with his spreading blood.
"Big night for you," she said.
"For her," he corrected. "Still, she's happy."
"She should be," she said, palms clammy. "It's a great party."
"You think?"
Rose attempted to mimic his Vitex sign. "You can trust me."
He laughed. "You can trust me on this."
"That's it, sorry." Now that he was next to her, she didn't know what to say or do. "How long have you two been married?"
"Twenty years," he said, gazing out to where Jackie was laughing with someone new. "Can't really believe it's been so long. Don't know where the time's gone."
Rose tugged on her ear. "No kids?"
"We kept putting it off," Pete said, eyes falling onto his champagne, watching the bubbles rise as his fingers shifted around the flute, regret running along his features. "She said she didn't want to spoil her figure. I don't know. I wouldn't have minded. There was a time, once, when we thought –" he shook his head. "Doesn't matter. It is what it is. What about you? You got any kids?"
"God no," she said, taken aback. "No. I'm only twenty. I'm not even seein' anyone."
"Oh, come on, pretty girl like you." He gave her a small, friendly nudge with his elbow. "You must've loads of bloke coming after you."
Rose thought of the Doctor. "No one I want."
"Ah." Pete tapped his nose. "Got it. Well, nothing much you can do about unrequited love, I'm afraid, except for riding it out. Besides, you're young. It's not too late to find someone who appreciates you."
A small smile played across her lips. "Thanks. Same to you, y'know? It's not too late for kids if you really want them. She's only forty."
"Thirty-nine."
Rose rolled her eyes and smiled. "Of course."
"It's still too late though," Pete said, rubbing his thumb over the side of the crystal flute. "I moved out last month but we're keeping it quiet. It's bad for business and all that." He paused, almost as though he was able to hear the sound of Rose's heart breaking. Even with Pete Tyler himself, Jackie wasn't able to find the love she deserved; he looked at her, confused. "Why am I telling you all this? We haven't met before, have we? I don't know, you just seem sort of..."
She swallowed and met his eyes. "What?"
"I don't know. Just sort of right." He shook his head and set his glass down, clearly uncomfortable with how much he had revealed to her, and he left her side quickly, calling out to an acquaintance, not looking back. "Stevie! How's things? How's it going at Torchwood?"
Rose turned away and swiped at her eyes.
"Too many people," Zoe sang off-key under her breath. "There are too many people here."
Twisting around a small group of well-dressed attendees admiring an antique vase, Zoe slipped out of the house through the French double doors and enjoyed the fresh air that rolled over her. Fancy parties were fun when she was in the mood for them – and not working – but they tended to get inordinately hot. Not helped by the fact that she was wearing a tight uniform that dug into her with an unpleasantness that recalled to mind the stays Reinette used to force her into, she relished the cold air on her skin, eyes automatically drawn to the night's skin. The light pollution made it difficult to make out the stars, only a handful poking through, and the thought that there were other universes to explore as well as her own made her want to live forever to try and see everything.
It was no wonder the Doctor never stopped. With so much to see and do, stopping felt like a waste of time.
Popping a crab puff from the tray into her mouth, she turned to look for a place to sit and stilled in surprise at the sight of Jackie sitting on a lovely iron-wrought bench, a cigarette held between her fingers.
"Sorry," Zoe apologised. "I didn't mean to disturb you."
"You're not," Jackie said, quietly. "I'm just getting some fresh air."
"Yeah, me too." She hesitated, not particularly wanting to talk to this Jackie Tyler but her arm was aching and she wanted to rest for a minute. Seating herself next to Jackie, ignoring the flash of surprise at her familiarity that passed over Not-Mum's face, she made herself comfortable by putting two crab puffs into her mouth. "Happy birthday, by the way. I hope it's been a nice one."
"It's been all right," Jackie said, rolling her neck and closing her eyes, exhaustion etched onto her features. "Do you ever think you've wasted your life?"
"No," Zoe said without hesitation, unbothered by strange question. "I've got a great life. I travel to places people can't even imagine with the best people in the universe. I've got a great mum, a cracking sister when she's not being an absolute cow to me, two best friends that I love like brothers, and a really weird boyfriend."
Jackie opened an eye. "Weird boyfriend?"
"Seriously, if you met him, you'd get it."
She removed her phone from her bra and swiped it open, searching for the most recent picture she had of the Doctor, which happened to be one where he was eating a banana split that size of a penguin. He was smiling at her with cream and chocolate smeared across his mouth, hair wild as it was the middle of the night and the two of them had stopped off for something sweet while the others slept.
"This is him," she said. "He's got this really strange obsession with bananas that I don't really like to encourage because there's only so many bananas I can eat before I want to smack him with one, but, honestly, bananas are just the tip of the iceberg with him."
Jackie examined at the picture, a small smile tugging at her mouth as smoke from the end of her cigarette curled up. "He's a bit of all right, isn't he?"
"I think so."
Zoe flicked to the next picture of him, slightly more risqué simply because he was sat up in bed without a shirt, glasses on his nose as he read. It was one of her favourite pictures of him, and the only reason she didn't use it as her screensaver was down to the fact she didn't want the others catching sight of it.
"Skinny though," Jackie said. "Like a lamppost."
"He's actually bigger than he looks. He's kind of all lean muscle," Zoe said, putting the phone away. "What about you, by the way? Do you think you've wasted your life?"
Jackie lifted the cigarette to her mouth and sucked on the end, smoke filling her lungs before pluming out in front of her.
"Definitely the last twenty years." She turned her ring over on her finger and Zoe realised with a shiver that she must have inherited that particular quirk from her mother. "You know, I used to want to be a nurse."
In her world, Jackie had also wanted that but then she fell pregnant with Rose and then again with Zoe and the dream slipped from her grasp.
Eating another crab puff, she cleaned her fingers on her uniform. "What stopped you?"
"Life, I suppose," Jackie said. "Marriage." She released her ring. "You happy with that boyfriend of yours?"
She nodded, mouth full. "Very much so."
"How long have you been together?"
"We've been friends for years," Zoe said, quickly doing the maths in her head. "But together for about seven months now."
"Enjoy the honeymoon while it lasts," Jackie advised. "Before you know it you'll be strangers to each other and wondering where your life's gone and what would have happened if you'd chosen differently." Unexpectedly, she reached out and grabbed hold of Zoe's hand, startling her, a crab puff dropping from her fingers and bouncing beneath the bench. "Don't let him consume you, love."
Zoe blinked. "What?"
"Your boyfriend," she urged. "Don't let him become everything about you. Live your own life because that's all you've got. Don't be like me. Don't wake up one morning and realise that you've poured everything of yourself into a man to help him achieve his dreams and left nothing for yourself. You won't be happy for it. Don't let him be the most interesting thing about you."
Unsure what to say in response to Jackie's impassioned speech, the sound of metal feet echoing against the ground was a welcome distraction. Looking away from Jackie, she squinted out into the darkness and was able to make out a mass of large, hulking shapes that moved towards them. Her first thought was that it was a bear – ridiculous since they were in London but Zoe knew the foibles of the rich well and if a king had once thought a bear was a good idea for entertainment for his court, a billionaire might also think the same – but the heavy metal thuds grew louder and louder.
Jackie's hand tightened around hers. "What the hell's that? If Pete's bloody gone and ruined my lawn for some bloody surprise, I'm going to –"
"I don't think it's a birthday surprise," Zoe interrupted, rising to her feet and letting the tray clatter to the ground. "Inside, quickly."
Jackie squawked at the manhandling as Zoe pushed and prodded and shoved her back into the house, locking the French doors behind her, though she doubted they would do anyone any good as a defensive barrier. Releasing Jackie, she pressed herself against the window and shielded her eyes from the glare, breath fogging the glass in front of her. Suspicion started to grow as the dark forms became clearer, coalescing into humanoid shapes with handles in the place of ears, and the word Cybus floated to the front of her mind. Jumping at a hand that rested on her back, she knocked her forehead into the window before turning to find Rose at her side, a worried look on her face.
"What is it?"
"Trouble," Zoe said, memories of Mondas washing over her as the forms moved into the light. "It's the Cybermen."
