~revised~
Chapter XII
Rose
During the breakfast Rose had time to think about what Sarah had said to her. She wasn't that rude to Mickey, was she? She just didn't like to have him here, the Doctor thinking that he was still her boyfriend. Well, they weren't separated by now, at least they hadn't talked about it yet. Nevertheless, Mickey was a friend to her. She had known him for almost all of her life, and she couldn't see why they couldn't still be friends. Just friends.
She just hated to share the Doctor. With anyone, were it Mickey or Mira. Especially Mira. It was nice to have the Doctor's full attention. He took her seriously and – probably for the first time ever – made her feel important and special.
Mickey wasn't really a threat to that – the Doctor didn't seem to think too much of Mickey. But he definitely took Mira seriously. She had exactly seen the looks the Doctor constantly gave her. She couldn't help but feel inferior to her. Mira was intelligent, had seen so much and, most of all, she seemed to be able to keep up with the Doctor's explanations, at least most of the times.
Of course, the Doctor had reassured her that he would never leave her behind. And she was quite sure that she knew what he had wanted to say. But he didn't actually say it. She needed to hear it from him, just once. Just to be sure.
Anyway, that had been the more pleasant part of what he had said. The rest had felt like slapping her right in the face. She had realised that there was one thing she could never give him. She could never spend his life with him. But Mira could – if it was true what she had told her.
All right. She wouldn't give up without a fight, that was for sure. Despite what she had said to Sarah about fighting over a man. Mira was neither Sarah nor Shireen and certainly not her friend.
Doctor
It was crowded in the console room now, he came to notice. Pretty crowded, although he originally didn't want to travel with anyone after the war. Then he had met Rose.
Rose... She had really pulled him out of his loneliness with all her youth and openness and light-heartedness. It was as if he could see all the places he had visited with her through her eyes for the first time all over again. And for this he was more than grateful. Oh well, and now there was Mira. In a - rather interesting - way exactly the opposite of Rose.
He was also noticing the growing tension between the two of them. He had hoped that they would work it out somehow on their own, that he didn't have to deal with it – but unfortunately this didn't seem to be the case.
Not to forget Mickey-Ricky.
Well, at least Mira seemed to get along quite well with him. During breakfast she had told Mickey about the place where she came from. Terrania actually existed, just not on an island but in the Gobi Desert. It was the capital of the Solar System. He had only been halfway listening as Rose had been talking to him about some of their adventures.
He wondered once more how Rose could be together with such a coward as Mickey. She was so much more courageous and clever than him.
"So, here we are!" he exclaimed as he pulled a lever. The engines of the TARDIS stopped and the sound of them faded.
"Where?" Mickey wanted to know, his hands almost at the door.
"Oh, wait. Not so fast." He hurried to get his cloak He had a rough idea of their whereabouts, but he wasn't entirely sure that there was no danger outside the TARDIS.
He moved past Mickey and opened the door. They were in a space ship as he had expected it. No one in sight. He moved away from the door so that the others could follow him.
"It's a spaceship! Brilliant, I got a spaceship on my first go!" Mickey yelled in excitement.
"Looks kind of abandoned... Anyone on board?" Rose wondered.
"Nah, nothing here. Well! Nothing dangerous. Well! Not that dangerous," he said. Rose was right, it looked abandoned. "You know what, I'll just have a quick scan... in case there's anything dangerous."
"I don't think anyone – besides us - is here," Mira said. She had separated herself a bit from their little group and gave the impression as if she was listening to something. "At least no living being. Not sure about robots."
He eyed her for a moment. Her hair was now tucked up into a bun, quite similar to the style she was wearing when he had found her, and she clearly looked like as if she was in her element now. Being here, exploring a foreign, unknown, and possibly deserted space ship.
He walked over to a control panel and tried some of the buttons.
"So, what's the date? How far we gone?" Rose asked.
"About three thousand years into your future, give or take," he answered and then pulled a switch, restoring some of the energy. Suddenly the ship came to life and the roof was opening. Of course not completely, just some steel plates which protected the actual windows glided to the sides. They were all looking up now, Mickey in pure amazement. It was the first time he saw that, the Doctor realised.
"Fifty-first century. Diagmar Cluster, you're a long way from home, Mickey! Two and a half galaxies!"
"Two and a half galaxies!?" Mira yelled, causing all of them to look at her. She was staring at him like a deer caught in headlights. "That's at least six point twenty-five million light-years, based on the distance Milky-Way-Galaxy and Andromeda-Galaxy."
"Yeah, must seem a bit far to ya, huh?" Rose murmured. He shot her a warning glance. Was that really necessary?
"It's not the distance, Rose," Mira answered, still a bit stunned and obviously ignoring the provocation. "It's the time it took us to get here. Or better: The time it didn't take. Not even an hour. Though I am aware that time's sort of relative in the TARDIS."
Now he was smiling all over his face. Maybe aliens in school and space ships didn't impress her that much, because she had seen it countless times before, given her age. But it were these little things that were really astonishing her. Well, little for him. Things that most of his other companions had just accepted because they didn't have the scientific background and experience with FTL travel to grasp what it takes to travel over such a distance in such a short time. She on the other hand had it. As they had prepared themselves for going undercover at the school they had found time to talk about some of the principles of space-travel in her universe. Her knowledge of these things was really amazing, at least for a human. Humanity had certainly come a long way there.
"You really have to explain to me how her engines are working," she said to him whilst pointing at the TARDIS.
"I don't think you would understand it," he answered, now only smiling slightly.
"I'm afraid so. But I'd still like to hear it," she said. After that, she walked over to Rose and Mickey, who were standing in front of a window.
"Mickey Smith, meet the universe. See anything you like?" Rose asked whilst putting her arm around him.
"It's so realistic!" Mickey said in amazement. The Doctor just rolled his eyes. Of course it was realistic. "Oi!" He turned his head as he felt the slight poke of an elbow in his side. It was Mira poking him.
"Don't be so hard on him," she said quietly, looking up through the window. "It is a long time ago but I still remember the first time I saw space with my own eyes. I mean, from space, in a space ship. You think you know how it looks. You've seen all these pictures, Earth from above, nebulas, stars, galaxies... But then you see it with your own eyes. The blackness, the depth, the... eternity that will never translate into a picture. And then you realise that some of the light you're seeing has travelled through space for aeons. And trust me, that feeling gets amplified when you were born at a time were there's no space travel to speak about. A time you could only ever look at the stars at night and dream of going there for yourself."
He searched his brain for something to say. But there was nothing – he didn't even felt like babbling. She was right. He maybe was a bit hard on Mickey in some ways. Not in all though. No more screaming like a little girl.
"So, you were born before the age of space travel?" he finally asked.
"Yeah. In 1954."
"How does it come that you are only around fifteen-hundred years old in 4197?"
"Fifteen-hundred and ninety-six," she said. "I did some maths at Sarah's place. I really thought it was less than fifteen-hundred. And to answer your question: I skipped some of the years between 1954 and 4197. Wasn't really voluntarily, though."
He was about to ask her to tell him more of how this had happened as Rose turned around to them.
"So, an all deserted space ship?" she asked and gave him one of her tongue-between-teeth smiles.
"Well, it clearly looks as someone has a ton of repair going on here," he said and walked back to the control panel. He pulled a lever and a screen came to life. "Now that's odd, look at that. All the warp engines are going... full capacity! There's enough power running through this ship to punch a hole in the universe... and we're not moving. So where's all that power going?" he wondered. Now Mickey, Rose and Mira had all gathered around him and were looking at the screen.
"Where'd all the crew go?" Rose asked.
"Good question, no life readings on board," he answered.
"Well, we're in deep space; they didn't just nip out for a quick fag," Rose said.
"Nope, checked all the smoking pods." It was strange indeed. As if the crew had just vanished into thin air in the middle of the repairs. And there was something else...
"Can you smell that?" he asked.
"Smells like the kitchen is still working," Mira said.
"Sunday roast, definitely!" Mickey fell in.
He pressed on the button for the door controls. The layout of the control panel wasn't that complex.
"Nice interior," he heard Mira say as they walked through the door that had opened behind them. That was certainly one way of putting it.
"Yeah, indeed. Something you don't see in your average space ship. Eighteenth century! French! Nice mantel." He pulled out his sonic. It was a proper fireplace with a fire burning in it. He could even feel the heat coming from it. "Not a hologram," he added after he had scanned it with his Sonic. He bent down to examine it closer. "Not even a reproduction, this actually is an eighteenth century French fireplace. Double-sided, there's another room through there," he informed the others. Mira was instantly at his side to see for herself.
"There can't be, that's the outer hull of the ship, look," he heard Rose saying.
"But there is," Mira insisted.
She was now crouching beside him, so they both saw the little girl that was sitting on the other side in front of the fire.
"Hello!" he said friendly.
"Hello...," the girl answered, seemingly unsettled but not as afraid as she should be with someone looking through her fireplace, he thought.
"What's your name?" he asked her with a smile.
"Reinette."
"Reinette, that's a lovely name. Can you tell me where you are at the moment, Reinette?"
"In my bedroom," she answered suspiciously.
"And where's your bedroom? Where do you live, Reinette?"
"Paris, of course!"
"Paris, right!" He nodded.
"Monsieur, what are you doing in my fireplace?" the girl asked.
"Oh, it's just a routine... fire check. Can you tell me what year it is?" he replied.
"Of course I can! Seventeen hundred and twenty seven."
"Right, lovely! One of my favourites... August is rubbish though. Stay indoors. Okay, that's all for now. Thanks for your help. Hope you enjoy the rest of the fire. Night night!"
"Goodnight Monsieur," the girl replied politely.
He stood up again and looked at the others.
"Well, that was weird. She wasn't afraid at all. Just a bit unsettled and curious," Mira said.
"You said this was the fifty-first century," Mickey pointed out.
"I guess that's where all the power is going, isn't it?" Mira replied, pointing at the fireplace.
"Yeah, that's what I think too. This ship is actually punching a hole in the universe. Well, to be more precise: In time. Must be a spatio-temporal hyperlink," he answered.
"Wait. What's that?" Mira wanted to know with a hint of disbelief in her voice.
"No idea. Just made it up. Didn't wanna say 'magic door'," he replied.
"And on the other side of the magic door is France in 1727?" Rose asked him.
"Well, she was speaking French. Right period French, too," he said whilst taking off his coat and throwing it in the corner. There must be some way to get through this window in time...
"She was speaking English, I heard her!" Mickey exclaimed. The Doctor just hoped that someone else would explain it to him. He had done it too many times in his life already.
"That's the TARDIS - translates for ya," Rose finally said as she put an arm around Mickeys shoulders.
"Even French?!"
"Yep," Rose replied.
The Doctor eyed the fireplace once more, before hitting his knee against its side. The whole thing began to turn. "Gotcha!" he said whilst holding onto it.
"Doctor!" was the last thing he heard from behind him.
Mira
She watched the Doctor disappear as the whole fireplace rotated. Great. He didn't just do that, did he? She looked through the fireplace once more, but the room behind it was now somehow blurred. Well, the balance of whole system of that spatio-temporal link or however he had called it had changed now with the Doctor on the other side.
"Why can't we see where he's gone?" Rose asked. The girl was now at her side.
"I don't know," she admitted. "I can only guess. Look at this as a system. As in Physics. He went through the door and changed the system by doing so. Altered the energy levels of it and for this
how it behaves. Ever heard of Hyper-physics?" she looked at Rose, who was just shaking her head.
"No," Rose said. "Maybe we should follow him..."
"I don't think so. At least not yet. Give him a bit more time." She stood up and looked around her.
The TARDIS. But he had locked the door behind him, hadn't he?
"Rose, do you have a key for the TARDIS?"
"Yeah, why? Do you want to leave? You can't fly it!"
"No. But we're on some space ship in the middle of nowhere. There might not be any life signs on board, but maybe there are robots or something like that. We might need a place to hide." It was strange indeed. The ships of the fleet were literally crawling with battle robots whenever an intruder was detected. Robots where omnipresent where she came from, ever since the days of the Solar Empire. Almost everyone protected their ships with them.
"But...," Rose started to speak but never managed to finish the sentence. Right at this moment the fireplace started to rotate again, making both of them jump a few steps backwards.
The Doctor reappeared again, accompanied by some weird sort of robot, dressed in cloths typical for French in the 18th century.
"Doctor!" Rose yelled.
The Doctor, instead of saying anything, just grabbed some weapon-like object from the wall and pointed it against the robot. To her surprise there was no ray of energy or anything like that. Instead it just sprayed ice at the robot, freezing it by doing so. As the robot didn't move any more, the Doctor threw the gun casually to Rose.
"Excellent, ice gun!" Mickey said appreciatively.
"Fire extinguisher," the Doctor replied.
"Where did you find that one?" she asked him, nodding to the robot.
"Here," the Doctor told her.
"So why is it dressed like that?" Mickey wanted to know.
"Field trip to France, some kind of basic camouflage protocol - nice needlework! Shame about the face," the Doctor explained and ripped the wig and the mask from the robot.
"Oh..," she said and came closer. That was really beautiful. The robot's brain was made of gear-wheels, just like a clock-work. Though she had no idea how it could actually work. It was so far from the technology she knew – in fact, it would have better fitted into some Victorian steam punk story.
"Oh, you are beautiful!" the Doctor spoke out what she was thinking.
"That's incredible. Look at it, how precise it is...," she admired the work that had been put into the robot's brain.
"Yeah, gorgeous!" the Doctor fell in. "It gives you chills, doesn't it?" he smiled at her and then looked at the robot again . "Space-Age-Clockwork! Listen, seriously, I mean this from the heart - and, by the way, count those - it would be a crime, it would be an act of vandalism to disassemble you."
Count those, she thought? So that was what he had meant with redundancy as he had pointed out how fragile humans were.
"Is this really going to stop us from doing so?" she asked. They could put it back together afterwards, couldn't they?
He looked at her mischievously and pulled the strange scanning-device from his pocket. "No."
At this moment the robot creaked back into life. The clock-work was ticking again and it reached for its wrist. The next second it dissolved in a cloud of particles was gone.
"Oh, wow. Was that some sort of transmitter?" she wondered. The transmitters she knew could only transmit matter between two transmitting-stations. Transmitter without receiving stations did exist – humanity had just never managed to build them themselves.
"Short range teleport, can't have gone far. Could still be on board...," the Doctor said hastily.
"What is it?" Rose asked.
"Don't go looking for it!" he replied as he headed for the fireplace.
"Where're you going?" Rose yelled after him.
"Back in a sec. Mira, have an eye on them!" And off he was again.
Mira just shook her head. She was right. There actually were robots on board. All right, time for a plan..
"What? Wait!" she said as she saw that Rose was weighing the fire-extinguisher suspiciously in her hands.
"He said not to look for it...," Mickey fell in. Sometimes cowardice wasn't that bad, she thought.
"Yeah, he did," Rose replied.
"Rose, don't!" Mira made another attempt to convince her. "You go back to the TAR-"
"Oh look. Now you sound just like him," Rose interrupted her and shot her a nasty look.
Seriously?
"Rose, listen. This is dangerous. You can't just walk around here with this fire-ex-"
"Why not?" Mickey interrupted her. "Better go looking for them than waiting here." Thanks Mickey, she thought. Of course he had to stick to Rose.
"Mickey...," Mira tried it again.
"Now you're getting it!" Rose said to him, ignoring her completely now. Mickey took the second fire-extinguisher and they were both running out of the room.
"Wait!" She had no other choice than to follow them. If it was for her, she would have sent them both into the TARDIS and then taken a look for this robot on her own.
She had almost caught up with, seeing Mickey rolling over the floor like he was playing soldier. Right through everyone's line of sight and fire who might be hiding there. And not really fast whilst doing so.
"Mickey!" she yelled at him sharply. "Just do me one favour: Stick to the walls and don't roll over the floor as if playing living target. This isn't an action-movie."
Oh, she would be so dead if something happened to them. He would kill her, that was for sure. Not literally, but still.
"Rose, listen," she tried it once more. "This is not about you and me right now. If you want to look around on this ship, fine. But please, be careful. Don't rush like that."
Oh bloody hell. Convincing the queen had been easier.
"Not everything is about you," Rose murmured. Mira sighed. She really had to talk to Rose. Later, back in the TARDIS.
"Look at this," Mickey said suddenly and pointed up.
She turned her head. What was that? There was a camera, obviously observing them. But there was not a normal lens in it...
"That's an eye in there. That's a real eye." Mickey continued. He was right. And now she could hear something that sounded suspiciously like a heartbeat.
Rose bent down and opened a small, circular plate covering a hole in the wall. It seemed to be hot, for she quickly pulled away her hands at the first attempt. Now all three of them where peering into the hole.
"Holy shit," Mira said. There actually was a heart, wired into the rest of the machinery of the ship.
"What is that? What's that in the middle there? It's like it's wired in," Mickey asked horrified.
"That's a heart, Mickey... that's a human heart," Rose answered disgustedly.
Doctor
He had just wanted to look after Reinette. Just to make sure that she was all right. Well, he hadn't expected that so much time had passed for her and that she was now a grown woman. Very grown indeed. He hardly had a chance to say anything, and then, all of a sudden, he had found himself with his back against the fireplace with Reinette kissing him. And what a kiss it was.
He normally wasn't that much into these things. Of course, he had done it occasionally, kissing and such, being around for longer than nine-hundred years now. Plus, he had been around humans for long enough. They really were into these things. With each other, with aliens, spreading throughout the whole universe in that way. And it really wasn't that bad. For them it was as far as they could go to connect with each other. Basically, it was all just about chemical reactions. Hormones and neurotransmitters being released, rendering their brains useless for the time being and giving them a feeling of comfort, belonging, and even love.
And Reinette was a good kisser. Before he knew what he was doing, he was kissing her back with his hands on her waist. The scent of her perfume and her skin were just stunning. Not to mention the sweet taste of her soft lips on his and all the passion she put into this kiss...
"Mademoiselle Poisson!" the servant was calling once more.
She broke the kiss and hurried away, leaving him completely dumbfounded.
Suddenly his brain started to work again.
"Poisson? Reinette Poisson?" he said to the servant who was now standing in the door, looking at him in bemusement.
"No... no, no, no, no, no way, Reinette Poisson?!" He ran right up to the servant, looking at him as if waiting for an answer. "Later Madame Etoiles? Later still mistress of Louis the Fifteenth, uncrowned Queen of France?" he continued without giving the other man a chance to speak. "Actress, artist, musician, dancer, courtesan? Fantastic gardener!" he laughed and walked back over to the fireplace again.
"Who the hell are you?!" the servant finally managed to say.
"I'm the Doctor. And I just snogged Madame de Pompadour!" he told him with a grin whilst reaching for the trigger. Instantly the fireplace was rotating again.
"Oh come on!" He was back on the ship. No one there. "Rose? Mira?" He looked around. "Mickey?" Great. He did tell them to not wander off, didn't he? As he always did. "Every time, every time, it's rule one - Don't wander off! I tell them, I do, rule one! There could be anything on this ship!" he was talking to himself as he went off to search for them.
time-twilight: I'm not too sure yet, but there's still a lot of stories left with the 10th Doctor :-)
