Text Key

"Audible speech."

'Directed thought, telepathic speech.'

Chapter 25 – Second Opinion

The Doctor had assumed that I'd be fully recovered within a few days. He had been wrong, and every time he brought out another scanner to tell him that he was - without a good answer to show why, of course -, his frustration became more and more obvious.

I couldn't blame him. Of course he'd be frustrated. I'd been in his position more times than I cared to recount - and known exactly how it felt whenever the latest attempt to help failed to do anything. Just because the Doctor was less likely to vent his frustration by punching a wall didn't mean the emotion behind it was any different.

Physically, everything was sound - the Doctor had good equipment on the TARDIS and the roughing up I'd gotten hadn't been bad enough to require anything truly exotic to correct - but on a level beyond that, I was exhausted and in pain, even if I tried to mask it, and there was no way he could miss that.

What he was missing was the context of what the hell was causing that in the first place.

The Doctor made an annoyed noise as an alien doodad gave him yet another unsatisfactory answer before giving me a wave over with the sonic screwdriver again.

"Right - still not sure what the problem is, only that it's still going on and that it's not as bad as it was, which is still not enough for me to feel comfortable taking you on another trip in the TARDIS for a while. Which means you get to stay here and keep Jackie company for a week or two - ideally without getting into trouble."

I made a face at that. Two weeks of low activity? For someone who could barely stand to sit still for five minutes? It already sounded like a nightmare.

"Oh, I know, I know - it's a snail's age of domestic mundanity in a not particularly interesting part of Earth's history. Couldn't stand it myself, if I was in your position," the Doctor agreed, not quite identifying my issue with the prescription. "But that's what you get for getting yourself hurt like this - and if I can't even figure out what it is, you know it's bad."

"Just sum it up as a twinge of cosmic angst or something - it'll make just as much sense," I said, waving off his concern, my hand appearing out of and then slipping back out of sight into the overlong sleeve of the borrowed rainbow coat I was wearing.

It didn't go quite right with the dark pajama bottoms and black t-shirt I was wearing - though, did it really properly go with anything? -, but it was comfortable, so that was what mattered.

His mouth quirked up in a momentary flash of amusement. "A twinge of cosmic angst - I've actually had that. Tried to walk it off, even, right up until I fell down and started fading through the floor. Not a fun day, even before I ended up beside myselves."

"That upsetting, was it?"

"Tremendously - but not as upset as I will be if I come back and found out you've managed to hurt yourself. I don't need another go of you speaking… Bostonian at me."

Ugh. I was hoping he'd forgotten about talking to Duke, but that had been one of those hopes that I'd known immediately wasn't going to happen; nobody ever fucking forgot their first meeting with J. 'Duke' Henderson. "I'll make an effort to avoid that then."

"Good. Not that I would mind if you do it at Jackie - she'll be the one you'll be seeing the most of for a while. I'll pop in to check on you in… oh, a week, week and a half, and we'll reassess your condition and look at getting you travelling again," he said before coming to a pause, an odd look on his face. "You'd think my medical license hadn't been revoked, with me talking like that."

"That's really not a sentence a patient wants to hear, Doctor," I said, even as I dropped back into bed, closing my eyes as I let the smell of Six's coat and the sound of the TARDIS de-materializing wash over me, the rope of connection between us not so much disappearing as stretching across Time and Space to tangle with the hundreds of thousands of million space-time coordinates she'd could, would, and might be at some point in the future/present/past of both her own timeline and that of the surrounding universe.

The sensation might have been intimidating, especially to the uninitiated. Instead, it felt like a safety net, loosely tangled around my body and applying just enough pressure to make me feel just a little more grounded in this universe, instead of a tumbleweed one good breeze away from rolling away.

None of this surprised me. Expecting the Doctor to stay in one place for three days was already quite a lot - expecting him to do that for full week, ridiculous. There were exceptions to that rule, but they were rare and none of the ones I could think of applied to Ten or me.

So it made sense for him to make use of a reliable person not known to travel about on a whim as a minder who would be able to keep an eye on me while also keeping herself and me out of trouble. It was simple, it was efficient, it got him a little one-on-one time with Rose, who probably was feeling a little neglected thanks to my various nonsense.

It was, in theory, a win-win-win for a man who hated having to slow down and sit still. Of course, those two words - 'in theory' - were rather important.

I shuddered upright as a jolt of electric compulsion shivered through my body.

The reality was that, like the Doctor, I wasn't particularly good at sitting still either.

"Jackie? Is there anything around your place that needs fixing?"

Traditionally, the Doctor didn't call people. People called him, sent messages through the space-time telegraph or left time capsules or hypercubes of informational nuggets for him to collect in all due time… but it was an uncommon occasion when he was the one initiating contact.

Probably because he was didn't usually think of people until they were right up in his face. The cost of living so long and travelling to widely, he supposed - only so much mind to spare at any given time.

Delaine changed that - 'How? Why? Why am I the only one asking these questions?' Seven asked, only to be ignored - and now he'd been the one calling Jackie practically every other day to check in on the companion left behind.

"Oh, she's fine," Jackie said. "Helping out a bit around the flat."
"Is she? You put her to work already?"

"She asked me to! And I'm not letting her do anything major - what sort of person do you think I am?"

He carefully did not answer that question. "I think a lot of things about you, Jackie, but most - well, alright - at least half of them are rather nice."

"I'll try to keep my head from getting swelled up," Jackie shot back dryly. "How's Rose doing?"

The Doctor leaned back against the console, crossing his legs as he glanced towards the door that led further into the TARDIS. "Oh, she's fine. Sleeping, right now - just got done with a minor tour of an interplanetary botanical garden earlier… might have gotten tangled up with some smugglers along the way that were after some hallucinogenic flowers, but we both came out of it fine after a bit of running."

"Hallucinogenic - Doctor, you better not have gotten my daughter drugged-"

"What? Nooo. I was the one that got drugged. My own fault, sticking random things in my mouth to figure out what they are, really. Surprised it took this long to backfire. Though I've got to say, it has been far too many centuries since I'd ever taken a proper trip..." he said, trailing off in faint reminiscence.

The hallucinations had started out fairly nice at first - minor distortions and heightened positive emotions leaving him feeling bubbly and friendly, if not particularly stable on his feet. Later, once things started getting stressful, the Doctor had found more disturbing content in them. Flashes of heat and fire, the Master - never in any consistent incarnation - lurking just inside the corner of his visual range, some creature digging long claws through his skull and into his brain, the taste of old deaths flashing back for a moment only to fade away again…

Ah, and he might have called Rose by a few wrong names during the bits where he got so mixed up that his other selves had taken over for a bit. That part was probably the worst.

"Doctor."

"Right, right." It was rude to just drop off in the middle of a call like that. "Just calling in to tell you that all's well with Rose and all that. And since Delaine is fine-"

A muffled voice called out in the background of Jackie's apartment, Delaine asking something about if Jackie had a spare gasket for her washing machine.

"I don't think so," Jackie called back. "You can run down to the shop and get one-"

"That doesn't sound like 'nothing major', Jackie."

"Fine, fine. I'll run down to the shop and get it. Better than having someone see her wearing that coat in public anyway."
The Doctor felt a buzz of unnamable pleasure - from his Sixth's corner, of course, heightened by the lingering effects of the hallucinogens - at the idea of Delaine wearing that rainbow coat, despite the fact that she was both too short and too narrow to carry it off properly. Or maybe that was part of the appeal? "Oh, is she still wearing it?" he asked, sliding into his Sixth's speech pattern unconsciously. "What did she pair it with-"

"Goodbye, Doctor," Jackie said, hanging up.

The Doctor sat there for a while, trying to figure out what he had said that had gotten that kind of reaction.

The girl was pleasant enough company - a little too jumpy, a bit too hesitant in her expressions, but Jackie supposed that if she had to pick an uninvited guest to host, she'd prefer one who was making almost too much of an effort to be helpful and polite rather than one content to mooch without offering up even a basic courtesy in exchange.

The momentary flash of a smile that she'd given Jackie after she'd insisted on neatening up the girl's hair after the girl had shaved half of it off on her own - maybe a little more than was strictly necessary on a whim that was less than friendly, but it wasn't like she could make it worse, short of going for a buzz cut - was… it was uncomfortably young.

Made Delaine look close to Rose's age for a moment, which made Jackie wonder about other things.

Did Delaine's mother know where she was? That she was travelling with the Doctor? Did she get regular calls, just so she could know that her daughter was still alive? Jackie was almost tempted to ask, but… that thing Rose had said. About saying something about Delaine's mother and it not going well.

Well, that both made Jackie uneasy and a lot more interested in asking what that thing was.

But there was another question she wanted to ask first.

"Are you sure you don't like the Doctor?" Jackie asked as she went back to trimming Delaine's hair, this time neatening up a spot behind her ears. The girl had quite a lot of the stuff to work with, even after the partial shave, and it did have a good texture… well, apart from the part that had been set on fire, the split ends, and the fact that she'd cut off about half of it down to bristly stubble.

"I mean, I wouldn't hang around him if I hated him."

Jackie rolled her eyes. "I mean the 'like-like' sort of like."

Delaine made a noise - a sort of gag sound that was less the forced joke that Jackie would normally expect and something that rang closer to an involuntary reflex of disgust. "No. God no. His face… and his voice? Ugh. No. Absolutely not. No."

"…right," Jackie agreed carefully - that was an awfully big reaction for a rather small question, wasn't it? - before trying a different track as she tilted Delaine's head to forward to check the neck. She'd let the undercut semi-mohawk stand, but she was not going to let a mullet exist in her home. "Thought his type was all the rage these days. The young and fit geek chic, but I suppose that he is a bit… gawky around the edges. And that hair - never go for a man who makes an ordeal out of his hair. And even below the neck, he's far too skinny, isn't he?"

The girl's tone slid back towards something… well, not so much happier, but more playful at least.

"What, you mean how he's built like this?" She held her hands about eight inches apart, to communicate some idea of how much nothing there was to the Doctor's build. "I mean you just look at him - the man could have been made out of Slim Jims and popsicle sticks tied together with string. I'd spend too much time worried about if I was about to break him if I was even tempted to try anything in the first place."

The girl did have a rather… solid looking set of thighs. She also had been able to move Jackie's refrigerator out of and back into its usual place without help, so maybe… 'breakage' was a legitimate concern. Or Delaine just had the sense just not to go for twiggy young men in the first place. "So no interest then," she said, turning the girl around.

"Not at all."

"But you not being interested in him doesn't mean that wouldn't be interested you. That he won't look at you," Jackie pointed out slowly, watching a squeamish look to slip over Delaine's face.

Quickly, Delaine hid her discomfort. "I have… had some concerns about that," she confessed. "But there's… there's not a lot I can do about how he feels. I don't encourage anything, I don't… try to flirt - fuck knows people can take anything a person says as flirting if they want to -… I don't even let him touch me outside of medical emergencies. I don't want to deal with him in that way, so if anything is going on, it's entirely on his end."

"Has he been making you feel uncomfortable?" Jackie asked. "I can hit him for you - I've done it before."

"No, no. I just… I've dealt someone who was… very similar looking and sounding, before. It was…" Delaine's face twisted with that look of absolute discomfort again. "Unpleasant."

"Just unpleasant?"

"I don't want to talk about it," she said, standing up and grabbing a broom, immediately setting to the task of sweeping up the stray hair. "Thanks for the haircut, Jackie."

"And what sort of dangerous nonsense are you up to this evening - is it even evening when you're at?" Jackie asked as she picked up the phone.

"Oh, nothing like that. Another concert - Britney Spears Onyx Hotel tour," the Doctor explained. "I'll be joining her for it, but figured I'd check in with you first while she's getting dressed."

"And you better check in after - Rose will be wanting to tell me all about it, I wager."

"Oh, she will - it's a hell of a show. I should know; I've gone five times," the Doctor said, leaning back against the console. "How's Delaine doing?"

"Oh, she's doing alright - I cut her hair."

"Oh right. Got rid of the burnt section?"

"Got rid of the hatchet job she managed when she tried to do it herself," Jackie corrected. "That girl's a bit of a punk, you know that?"

"Ahh. Yes, I did get that impression." What kind of hair cut would confirm that assumption for Jackie was prickling at his curiosity a bit, but not in a way that demanded that the Doctor run to Jackie directly. "Anything else happening? Still putting her to work fixing up your appliances?"

"She's already done with everything in my flat - been lending her out to some of my girlfriends, on the condition that she leaves the coat behind. Apparently she used to do repair when she was a teenager," Jackie said.

"Ahh, that makes sense. So that's going well? Not having any problems living with Delaine? I know she's a bit… specific. Spiky, you could say."

"She's an odd girl. Absolutely unconventional sense of fashion, though I guess some of that is just not having a lot of clothes to pick from at the moment," Jackie said. "But she seems nice enough. Bit jumpy. Think she keeps a lot of secrets."

'Oh, look, something we agree on,' Seven said, somewhat unpleasantly. 'How rare.'

"Did she say anything? About those secrets?"

"Doctor. You know I'm not going to tell anything about that."

"Oh, come on. What's a little gossip between us girls?" the Doctor said, trying to wheedle another ounce of information out of her.

"Gossip is one thing," Jackie said, sounding serious for one of the few times the Doctor could think of her being that. "But whatever this is, it's very personal. I don't have to have the full story to know that whatever it was, but I can tell that it wasn't fun and it isn't something that she would appreciate me spreading around behind her back, especially to you."

'Oh, Jackie Tyler breaking out a sense of principle,' Nine said. 'Now that's uncommon.'

"Fine, fine. I'll drop it." Or rather, he'd let the story come to him. Companions had a tendency to share things like that after a while, with or without the Doctor nudging the truth along. "Anything you'd like me to pick up for you while I'm out and about? If there's one thing I can say about living in a time machine, it's that always easy to pick up good wine."

Jackie's serious tone evaporated instantaneously. "Oh, really? I certainly enjoy a good box wine, but-"

"I'll pick you up some quality Boudreaux then," the Doctor decided. "Can't go wrong with a bottle of Boudreaux."

"Better make it two - I deserve it, putting up with you."

"That you do." That was why he'd occasionally made a point of getting the Brigadier a couple bottles of something nice whenever the Doctor had to do something more outrageous than usual.

It'd been about a week before I found myself at loose ends again. I'd fixed practically everything in Jackie's flat that could be fixed - including the wiring, not that Jackie would have noticed, given I'd made an effort to be sneaky and not tear up her walls -, gotten my hair cut, done a bunch repair work for her friends, and… well, actually done a lot of the bedrest the Doctor had been pushing me to do.

Restless nature aside, I did still feel like I'd been run over by a metaphysical dump truck.

But now, there was nothing left to do besides just… lay around and feel like trash.

"Are you sure there isn't anything left I can do?"

Jackie took a minute to think it over.

"Suppose you could go and do something with Mickey's flat. Rose did say he wasn't coming back and I don't imagine his refrigerator is getting any fresher," she finally said. "I imagine that cleaning that could take you a day or two. What happens with the rest of his things, I don't know."

It would honestly depend on when and if he came back. "I could always put them in storage - I've got a place in town," silently, I hoped she wouldn't ask for a strict 'where', "that I've been keeping my own stuff at. Could drop off his things while picking up some of my own."

I wasn't really lying - while accessing my Warehouse was possible anywhere I could find a door, I'd made a point to avoid doing anything obvious with it. A trip into town, out of sight of anyone who could do the math and wonder where I'd managed to pull those extra zeroes from, was a perfect cover for bringing more of my belongings into circulation without raising any eyebrows.

"It would be interesting to see you wear something that isn't black or that rainbow explosion."

"Hey. It's a very comfortable and warm rainbow explosion," I shot back, shimmying a little deeper into Six's coat before pulling on the lapels. Even after a near solid week of wearing constant wear, I couldn't help but delight in all the little details of it, like Six's unique scent or the cat patches lining the inner lapel.

Out of this Verse, they'd been commemorations of stories completed, only showing up for Colin Baker's first season before being banished from the costume come the second, but what was the 'real' story behind them here? Was their addition mere whims or were they markers of something the Doctor had felt the need to physically mark on his coat?

Doctor Who trivia goblin that I was, I wanted to know.

"You be sure to take plenty of breaks," Jackie said as she handed over Mickey's spare key. "Don't think I haven't caught you making faces whenever you stretch too far. Just because you're quiet about it doesn't mean I don't notice."

"Activated your mom instincts?" I asked, offering up a smile that, while not properly symmetrical or bright, was coming from a genuine place of affection.

After all, I liked Jackie. Jackie was fun and blunt and straightforward.

Jackie didn't return the expression. "Yes. And I would know - Rose doesn't make a show of when she's hurt either. So you can imagine that I get a lot of practice with that."

My smile crumbled at the corners.

Was there a needle of accusation hidden in that comment? It felt like it. Or maybe I was just reminded of my own mother - in the universes where I had her at all - tended to make that same observation. About me being the type to hide my hurts, physical and otherwise, from anyone who might notice them.

"What did she say about your mother anyway? Couldn't have been -" Jackie's voice cut off, her expression twisting from 'annoyed neutral' to… something else. Something unreadable beyond 'stricken' and stretching into the territory of 'just got stabbed'.

It took me far too long - two seconds - to realize that was because that's because that's how I felt. That I was broadcasting the sensation of those words slipping between my ribs like a stiletto knife.

Immediately, I bolted for the door, shoving my psychic presence - when had I let it spill out? Why the fuck had I relaxed that much? - back into myself, cramming it back into the closet of my most innermost being and locking the door even as it strained on its hinges from too much hidden in too small a space.

Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy-

Rose called her mother.

It wasn't always something she usually remembered to do, but between the trip to that… other universe and the Doctor worrying about Delaine - like a thorn stuck in his mind, Rose thought uncharitably for a moment, not being able to see her just made him think about her more -, she was calling more regularly.

Just to check in, really. Not because she was worried that she'd somehow miss something important or… or not be there when her mum needed her.

Alright, so maybe that was part of it. She didn't want to miss anything that she couldn't get back later. And besides, she'd just gotten out of that Britney Spears concert - her mum would absolutely want to hear about that.

This time though, before Rose could say anything, her mother opened up the call with a question. "Rose, what did youeven say to that girl about her mother?"

Rose cast a glance sideways at the Doctor, where he was tinkering with a bit of the TARDIS console. "Why?"
"Because I asked her about it and the look on her face - it was like I stuck a knife in her, Rose. Just looking at her, I could feel how much it hurt. And I didn't even say whatever it was proper."

The sour feeling in her mouth turned bitter on its way down to her stomach. "Did… did she say anything about it? Give you any… details?"

"She didn't - just ran out of the apartment. Haven't seen her for a few hours now."

"Wait, wait. Delaine's just… gone?"

With those words, the Doctor's head jerked up from where he'd been toying with the TARDIS's coordinates inputs. "What? Delaine's gone?!"

Running was a mistake.

Not just because the Doctor would hear about it and chase me - I didn't want to be chased, not by him wearing that face right now -, but because the cycle of panic and overload that running was currently fueling was grinding up against parts of me still left raw and painful.

I needed air, yes. Space, doubly so. Time? Plenty of it. And definitely somewhere to hide and not… not be seen until I could calm down and pack back of myself back under my skin and keep it there.

'Yeah, like that's going to happen wearing that coa-'

'Shut up, Gemma!' someone hissed for me.

Should I pull up one of my properties? Force it into reality as though it had always been there? Except, I remembered as I turned down another street, that the ones that were in London for sure were specific addresses and I didn't know where to find my way to Baker Street from the Powell Estate.

The Warehouse, then? That was always flexible, always reliable, always as easy as finding a spare door to twist open at just the right angle. That was a better option, if I could find somewhere secure enough where I didn't have to worry about some schmuck wandering into where I kept all of my wonderful, dangerous toys while I had my little freak out.

So, no. That wouldn't work either. Not until I was calmer at least.

So onto Plan… plan C? D? F? Was there even a plan? My mind was too staticky from stress and the overload of a million thinking beings brushing up against unsecured edges scraped raw to think about anything as simple as the alphabet, let alone anything that required multiple steps.

Maybe I should just climb a goddamn building and just hide out on a roof like a normal person.

Abruptly, though the haze of mental overload, there was a voice.

"Oh! Delaine!"

The voice was familiar - the kind of familiar that belonged to best friends from school who you'd fallen out of touch with, that struck an instinctive chord rather than any immediate conscious sense of recognition.

I did, however, immediately recognize the telltale sound of an approaching motorcycle engine aimed fairly squarely at where I was currently standing.

Sliding six inches back, the bike just narrowly avoided catching the edge of my - not mine, borrowed feathers, borrowed warmth - Six's coat as I pivoted on my heels, mind already weighing the pros and cons of running away from this.

Making my choice for me, the bike did a tight series of corkscrews around me before the driver finally stopped, almost falling over as they caught the toe of their boot on the gas tank during dismount, only for me to reach out and steady both them and the bike on reflex.

They were wearing a fawn brown tweed jacket, I managed to process dully, right as they slid off their helmet and took a moment to adjust a few strands of dark hair that had fallen out of their oiled position before going to greet me in the French style - though neither kiss made contact with either cheek.

"It's been a while, hasn't it? Or maybe that's just from my point of view," the Eleventh Doctor said brightly, looking me over. "Oh, I managed to stun you for once - and not a bad stun either! That's new."

Words failed me, though I did seem to have a few functional consonants left trying to escape my throat. "D-tt? Wh?"

Author's Notes

Good news everybody! Not dead! Still into Doctor Who!

I covered this in the edited chapter notes for 24, but here's a summary - life got very stressful. My grandmother, whom I was a full-time caretaker for since 2016, was diagnosed with cancer in 2020. We'd assumed she'd managed to beat it back after surgery and radiation treatment in 2021, but it came back and metastasized across several important organ systems before it was caught again - too late to do much of anything besides just try to make her comfortable for what time she had left. She passed in February.

It's been hard adapting to life without her, but I do have more time and focus I can dedicate to my various creative endeavors now, which I will be doing in between the various clean-up tasks in the aftermath of her passing, both in a literal and figurative sense.

However, those responsibilities will still be taking priority because 'writing kind of late' is a bit smaller potato than 'chronic mouse invasion of house has turned into rattlesnake manifestation'.

This is not hyperbole. A (small + immature) rattlesnake manifested in my pantry. I had to call a cop on it.

I DON'T LIKE THAT.

Yes, this chapter is a little shorter than usual. Wanted it to land on that last note more than I wanted to try stretching it further.

To the person who said I swear too much and that Doctor Who is good actually - fuck off, I know. I love this shit.

Poison Cupcake 101 – To be fair to you, there's only 3 other stories in the series so far (some under rewrite so it's sort of doubled at the moment while I'm occasionally picking at the plots and outlines of a couple others) and Delaine's the protagonist for two of them. The whole thing is being written in anachronic order – mostly just as the muse hits me, which the Alters also help with, because they give me the option of a different protagonist without having to jump through hoops.

These are the named Alters that have been mentioned or appeared directly in the story thus far (including status as pre-existing characters):

Pre-Existing Characters/Characters Drawn From An Extant Canon

- Alice Liddell

- Gemma Masters (Hellblazer)

- Lief (female Link)

- Zeke/Seventh Doctor (VNA-adjacent continuity)

OCs

- 'Duke' Henderson (reporter, Bostonian)

- Delaine

- 'Max' (French)

- Shumari

- Tarni 'Sparkle' Warrin

- Kourtefour (Irken)

- Tsela Keiyouma

So that's 11 characters so far. This doesn't mean that all the Alter dialogue is split up between these characters – it just means that these are the ones that have been explicitly named in-story. There are others that exist solely in the notes for now, but I have at least 18 Alters planned for (by which I mean they have names, personalities, appearances, backgrounds, and are attached to specific stories) and a few others that are mostly concepts that won't take proper form until later.

As to them being pre-existing characters from an established canon, only four of the Alters I have constructed so far are canon characters and they're all listed. That might change in the future, but as it stands now, most of the alters are original characters in various molds and with varying levels of connection to canon characters.

I should also note that I've made a bit of a distinction between characters like the Alters (who show up in the flesh) and power-granting entities like Raguel or the Termina Masks that take a mostly backseat position and rarely ever show up socially (though they do warp the personality of the person using them).

I'm actually putting together a supplement to this series that lists all the Alters and a few of the power granting entities on my AO3 account, but that's in sore need of an overhaul and an update, both in written and art content. The price of working in an ever-evolving universe (multiverse?) of my own creation, I suppose.