~revised~
Chapter XVII
Doctor
He had set course for Earth, just as Rose had wanted it. Mickey had also been in the console room already, he was leaving with Rose. Now he watched her, trying to make up his mind if – and what – he should say to her. Maybe Mira was right and Rose hadn't meant it like that, and maybe he would believe her hadn't he heard it with his own ears. He had been in the library all the time since Rose had stormed in and yelled at Mira. The mere fact that she was about to use everything – his trust, all the things they had been through – to manipulate him was overwhelming. He thought he knew her. Of course he had noticed her behaviour towards Sarah and Mira, and that had clearly been a thing he had wanted to talk about with her. But after everything she had just said... He wasn't too sure about his own feelings towards her anymore. And she knew exactly how high he held trust. And yet she was about to use it like that.
Some part of him honestly wished that she had only said it out of the heat of the moment and wouldn't have done it. But how could he be sure now?
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted. With a loud bang and a shower of sparks the console exploded. It wasn't just some minor short-circuit, it was a real explosion this time. Instantly the lights went dark. The TARDIS shook and staggered as if something had collided with her.
"What's happened?!" he heard Rose scream as he reached for the console.
"The time vortex is gone! That's impossible - it's just gone!" He didn't need the instruments to confirm that, he had known it from the moment the console had exploded. He could fly her almost blindly, and of course he always knew if the TARDIS was flying through the vortex or drifting through the universe.
"Brace yourself! We're gonna crash!" he warned Mickey and Rose. Not a moment later the TARDIS crashed on... Yeah, on what? He looked around the console room, Rose and Mickey were lying on the floor. Where was Mira?
"Everyone all right? Rose – Mickey?" They both picked themselves up and nodded at him.
"We've been attacked?" And there was Mira, running up the stairs. All right. At least all the passengers were fine. But there was someone else who clearly wasn't.
"No. Not an attack," he answered Mira quietly, slowly realising the impossible. "She's dead." He couldn't believe it, even though he was feeling it. The space in his mind that had been occupied by her throughout all these centuries was now empty. The connection to her was gone. For the first time since the Time War he felt truly and genuinely alone.
"The TARDIS is dead," he whispered again as he walked around the now dead and dark console. Panic was slowly creeping up his neck, tightening his throat. She had been everything to him. It was not only that he was linked to her, she had been there for him for all this time. He had felt what she felt. They had had disputes, she had comforted him, and he had cared for her as she had done for him. It had been so much more than just a link. It had been a symbiotic connection and now it was all gone, leaving nothing but emptiness. As if a part of him had died with her. He stroke gently over the now cold and lifeless console.
"You can fix it?" Rose asked.
He looked at her and shook his head slightly. "There's nothing to fix. She's perished." He pulled a lever, but to no avail. "The last TARDIS in the universe... extinct," he murmured, his voice almost cracking with grieve for her.
"We can get help, yeah?" Rose wanted to know.
"Where from?"
"Well, we've landed - we've gotta be somewhere," she said, now almost a bit hysterical.
"We fell out of the vortex, through the void, into nothingness. We're in some sort of no-place... the silent realm... the lost dimension...," he explained.
"What do you mean?" Mira asked. She stood at the opposite side of the console, a look on her face as if she knew exactly.
"We fell out of the universe," he said to her. She just shook her head in disbelief.
"No. We're not. That is-"
"We are," he interrupted her. "I don't know how your lot calls this place, but.."
"London maybe?" All heads flung around to Mickey, who had opened the door and was now grinning at them.
Mira
Saying that she was shocked would have been an understatement. The TARDIS was dead, just as he had said it. The ever-surrounding presence of the old time-ship was gone. They had fallen out of the universe, as the Doctor had called it. Of course she knew what he meant, although she had never believed that someone could actually strand there in physical form. It was, as he had said, nothingness. There was no mathematical theory to describe 'nothing'. Well, of course there was something, probably a lot. But they couldn't comprehend it, so it was just as good as nothing to them. She had always imagined it a bit as if getting lost in hyperspace during a transmitter-malfunction. Floating through the five-dimensional space, dissolved into particles. With the slight difference that here, outside the universes, were no dimensions as they knew them. No space, no time, no higher dimensions that contained their familiar, four-dimensional space. But how could a three-dimensional object as the TARDIS exist in there? Or any other object with actual dimensions? She turned her head to Mickey, who had opened the door.
"London?" she asked sceptically. Mickey walked out and she, the Doctor and Rose were following him.
"London, England, Earth. Hold on..." Mickey continued. She looked around herself. True, it looked like the London they had been earlier as they had been after the Krillitanes. But something was odd. Wrong. Terribly wrong. "First of February this year - not exactly far-flung, is it?" Mickey had grabbed a newspaper. Rose was leaning against his back and looking over his shoulder. Mira looked up as she saw strange shadows crossing the streets and heard a weird noise above her head. Zeppelins?
"So, this is London," the Doctor said.
Well, he must have noticed it as well. At least the Zeppelins. She had no idea if he was also able to sense changes in the universe. She had always been able to do so, at least a bit. She couldn't explain it, and the first time she had really noticed it was in another universe. It had suddenly felt different. There had been one other mutant she had known who was able to feel things in a similar way. It had been the young Bjo Breiskoll, born on the generation-ship SOL as they had been on their search for their home galaxy. He had been able to sense not only the universe (or, to be more precise, the cosmical force fields that were filling the whole universe), but also time as it was intertwined with space, and so been able to predict whenever and wherever something important was about to happen. If the Doctor was able to see time, then maybe he had some sort of sense for the universe as well. Or it were really just the Zeppelins that gave it away.
"Yep," Mickey replied in all certainty.
"Your city," the Doctor enquired.
"That's the one."
"Just as we left it."
"Bang on."
"And that includes the Zeppelins?"
Now Mickey and Rose were looking up too.
"What the hell...?" now Mickey was getting it. "Okay. So, it's London with a big international Zeppelin festival."
"This is not your world," she said quietly. It wasn't that different from his though, not as much as her world differed from their world, but it was different nevertheless.
Again. It suddenly hit her. Stranded somewhere, with the TARDIS dead, their only hope of getting away. Maybe not back into their own universe – or at least, Mickey's, Rose's and the Doctor's universe, but at least off this rock that wasn't her homeworld in a decent amount of time. Let's say, in less than two or three-hundred years. She sat down on a little stone wall as she felt her knees weakening. She knew it. She didn't really believed in curses herself, but there was no sense in denying that she seemed to attract these things. It wasn't like she was thinking that the universe was evolving around her, but there was no denying that she had beaten every statistic of how often someone was supposed to end up in another universe. Even over a time of fifteen-hundred years. And there was also no denying that whenever there had something happened in her own universe, she had been amongst the ones in the centre of events.
And she had also drawn the people around her into it. Countless times before. And now they were not only trapped but the TARDIS was dead. She felt so sorry for her. Not to mention what that meant to the Doctor. She had seen people crying about the loss of their ships before, and those ships hadn't even been alive.
She wouldn't go so far to say it was all her fault, but there was no way of denying that these things seemed to cumulate around her.
"But if the date's the same... it's parallel, right? Am I right? Like a parallel Earth where they've got Zeppelins, am I right? I'm right, aren't I?" Mickey had worked it out.
"Must be," she heard the Doctor say from right next to her where he was sitting now. When did he sit down there?
"It is," she said and shot a short glance at the Doctor, just to instantly look away again.
"So, a parallel world where...," Rose started to say. Mira looked at her. Her eyes were still a bit red, but she seemed to have gotten back at least some of her composure.
"Oh, come on. You see it on films. Like an alternative to our world were everything is the same but a little bit different, like... I dunno - traffic lights are blue, Tony Blair never got elected...," Mickey explained to Rose, seemingly excited. "Like the one you come from?" he asked her now.
"Not exactly. This seems to be a copy of yours, just a bit different as you just said. Mine is completely different. Actually, the term 'parallel universe' isn't that correct in that case. It is another universe, but so different that you basically can't call it parallel if you want do be scientifically precise. Even some laws of physics appear to be different there." They were all silent for a moment as Rose exclaimed, "Oh my god!" and pointed at an advertising poster with a man holding a bottle. "A parallel world and my dad's still alive..."
The Doctor and Mira stood up and walked over to her. She had no idea that Rose's father was dead in her universe, and of all people it had to be a parallel version of him on that poster.
"Don't look at it, Rose. Don't even think about it. This is not your world," the Doctor said sternly.
"But he's my dad... and...," Rose said, sounding a bit lost. She touched the poster and the picture started to move and even talk. "Oh, that's weird. But he's real!" She took a step back. "He's a success! He was always planning these daft little schemes, health-food drinks and stuff. Everyone said they were useless. But he did it." Now there was definitely a happy tone to her voice.
The Doctor clearly didn't share her enthusiasm. He took her by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes. "Rose, if you've ever trusted me, then listen to me now." Rose just glanced back at the poster. "Stop looking at it!" His voice sounded urgent now.
"Could I ever trust you?" she said quietly and looked at him again.
"Rose...," he started with a hint of sadness in his voice before he got serious again. "Your father's dead. He died when you were six months old. That is not your Pete. That is a Pete. For all we know, he's got his own Jackie - his own Rose. His own daughter who is someone else, but not you." She was peering over to the poster again. "You can't see him. Not ever."
"Why not?" Mira suddenly asked. The Doctor and Rose stared at her. "I mean, it's a parallel world. It's not about seeing your future or past self. It's true that he is not your dad, Rose, and most likely wouldn't understand why you're here and where you from, but just seeing him won't do any harm I guess. Although I recommend not to talk to him." She could see the change in the Doctor's face. He clearly didn't like what she just said, but well. She had never hold her tongue for the sake of peace. If Rose wanted to see him, why not? If she thought she would be able to handle it?
"No, she can't."
"Why not? What is worse in seeing someone in another universe than in messing with history in the year 1879?"
"Because I say so!"
"Oh, great. Will the universes implode or something like that? No?" She replied. She had never be willing to accept things just because someone said so without giving any reason or explanation. That was belittling and condescending.
"It just can't be! You know what? I go back to the TARDIS and see what I can do for her. Just stay here and don't do anything stupid. Mickey, have an eye on Rose."
"You're quite used to giving orders, aren't you?" Mira said under her breath, but obviously still loud enough for him to hear it, judging from the look he gave her and the dark flash of anger she saw in his eyes. Good. He was supposed to hear it. Talking about humans and battles and her being with the military in such a tone and at the same time giving orders as if he was used to it? Not with her, even though he most likely had reasons for that. People seldom did things without a reason. A reason like... Maybe he had his experience with this topic. Oh hell. What was it that had happened to his people? Great. She had no idea what was going on with him, but hadn't hesitated to lash out at him. Especially now with the TARDIS dead.
There were only a few reasons why whole species died out. Three main reasons, to be precise. All of them not really pleasant, although one of them was particularly nasty. One more topic that had been added to her list of piling problems. There already was more than enough on it – a jealous teenager, the second parallel universe in the shortest time to be stuck in, the TARDIS dead and she had nothing better to do than to put her finger in other people's wounds. As if the situation wasn't tense enough already.
Rose
Rose was staring after the Doctor. She had no wish to follow him after all that had happened. Yes, she had said she wanted to leave. But she had hoped that he would say something against it. Forgive her. At least give her a chance. But nothing. And now they were stuck here, with the TARDIS not working any more. Stuck. Her eyes fell on Mira. Stuck just like her. Well, at least this was somehow similar to the London in the universe where she came from. Besides the Zeppelins. Plus, her father was still alive here.
But aside from that she had nothing here. No flat, no money, no nothing. And even if there was something, it didn't belong to her, but to another Rose. How must it be to have nothing at all, not even a place to call home? For the first time since she had met Mira she was really thinking about it. She couldn't help herself, but to feel almost a bit sorry for her. The TARDIS was actually the only place were she could stay.
But that was no excuse for screwing everything up between herself and the Doctor.
Strange thing was, Mira had just defended her, sort of. Again.
"Do you really think it's no problem to go see my dad?" she asked her. No harm in getting as much information as possible.
"Don't know. At least I don't think anything really bad would happen. Just be aware that people in other worlds are not always as we expect them to be. Met another version of myself once. A rather nasty one, as for that. The whole universe was like that..."
Fine. As long as they were here, she could really go and see him. Now more than ever, with the Doctor and Mira obviously conspiring against her.
"Rose..."
"What?" she said harshly. She had exactly heard the insistent tone in Mira's voice. Just because she had asked her about seeing her father didn't mean she was into more conversation.
"I know you can't really stand me. But please, just listen." Mira had lifted her hands in a defensive and calming gesture.
"Why should I? So you can tell me more lies?"
"I didn't lie to you." Mira took a look around, as did Rose. Mickey was strolling around a few yards away, watching the Zeppelins. "It's just... Aren't you tired of all this yourself? I mean, the whole situation. It's just incredibly exhausting." Rose looked at her face. She could see that Mira was really trying to get through to her. "We really need to talk about it. Right now it's only false assumptions leading to nothing but pain and destruction."
"Well, as if that's not entirely your fault..," she replied, a tiny bit less harsh than before but still far from friendly.
"Rose, please, I beg you. You're clever. And I don't think you're a hateful person. So just take a step back and think about everything. And give me a chance to explain what really happened."
"Fine. I guess otherwise you won't leave me alone."
"It wasn't a set-up earlier. I had no idea that he was standing there. See, I can't sense him as I can sense other people. Maybe if I'm really concentrating, but that wasn't the case. And we weren't kissing. The only reason I asked Mickey not to tell you anything was because he got it wrong. It was a hug and he thought we were kissing. I just jumped as he asked for the pool as he started me. And it wasn't hard to figure out what would happen if he tells you. Look, I have no idea of what's going on between you and Mickey and you and the Doctor. But I don't want to interfere with it. If it looked like flirting to you I can understand that. But it wasn't flirting. I've no interest in him in that way. And even if: I don't belong in your universe. I have no intention to stay. And most of all I won't get involved with someone from there. Because I know I will have to leave him. So there is nothing for you to worry about. Honestly."
"And why should I believe you?"
"I don't know. You have no reason, that's true. And I know I can appear arrogant and self-righteous. Even less reasons to trust me, not to mention liking me. But look, Rose, it's just... I have seen all this before. I have been through things like that before and I have known so many people before. And I can´t change that. It´s who I am. Maybe it's true. Maybe, somewhere along the way, I have lost the ability to communicate with other people about these personal issues. Just because I don't speak their language any more. I don't want to be arrogant or patronising, but I'm afraid that's exactly what I've become."
"Done?" She eyed Mira sceptically. There was something in her face, in her voice. Something honest, that made her almost believable.
"Just one more thing. Think about it. And when we've found a way out of this whole situation - if there is one – we should talk. All of us together. And please, don't act in the heat of the moment now. Not when it comes to you leaving or anything about your dad in this universe."
"Yeah. Whatever." She shrugged and after a moment walked over to a bench, sat down and pulled out her mobile. She peered at Mira, who was standing in front of the poster. She was indeed arrogant like hell. On the other hand, she didn't want anything more than to believe her. That there had never been anything, most of all no kissing. But that was in contradiction to Mira's – and the Doctor's – behaviour. Even though Mira had a point with her being eager to leave. But still, all of it wouldn't have happened if she hadn't come here in the first place. Though even Rose had to admit that this hadn't been Mira's fault.
There was one more thing that Mira had been right about: It was exhausting. She had gotten really tired of it by now. She basically wanted nothing more than to believe her, so that everything could get back to normal. If everything could go back to normal again. With her, the Doctor and even with this weird woman on board of the TARDIS.
Doctor
"I told you to keep an eye on Rose!" the Doctor snapped at Mickey, who had just entered the TARDIS.
"She's all right," Mickey said.
"She goes wandering off - parallel world, it's like a gingerbread house! All those temptations calling out."
"Mira's still out there."
"Great. Have you listened to what she just said about seeing Rose's dad?"
"Yeah, it's just all about Rose then? Nothing out there to tempt me?"
"Well, I don't know, I can't worry about everything... if I could just get this thing to..." He kicked against the dead console and winced in pain.
"Did that help?"
"Yes." No, not really. It was supposed to be a bit of an outlet of frustration, but to no avail.
"Did that hurt?"
"Yes. Ow." He sat down on the bench, rubbing his foot. "We're not meant to be here. The TARDIS draws its power off the universe, but it's the wrong universe. It's like diesel in a petrol engine."
"But... I've seen it in comics. People are hopping from one alternative world to another - it's easy." Mickey sat down next to him.
"Not in the real world" He heard the door and someone stepping through. He assumed it would be Rose, judging from the cautious and hesitant steps he could hear and didn't turn his head to confirm it. "Used to be easy. When the Time Lords kept their eye on everything, you could hop between realities, home in time for tea. Then they died, took it all with them. The walls of reality closed, the worlds were sealed. Everything became that bit less kind."
"Then how did we get here?"
"I don't know. Accident? Should have been impossible - now we're trapped."
"Anything else regarding your knowledge of parallel worlds you want to share?" he heard a voice behind him. All right, he had been wrong. It hadn't been Rose. Mickey jumped up.
"I'm out. Seeing what Rose is doing..."
Mickey certainly had a sense for timing, the Doctor thought as he looked after him. He was about to get up, but Mira just sat down next to him.
"I wanted to tell you. I really did. But there had been no time, as things got messed up...," he tried to explain. And it was the truth. He really wanted to.
"What do you mean they are 'sealed'?" she asked, her head turned to him. He eyed her. Her face was all just eyes now, eyes that looked strangely dark in the almost pitch-black console room.
"As I just said it. The universes are sealed of. It should be impossible to travel between them. What brought you here – and well, us to this universe – were just freak accidents. It shouldn't happen. And certainly not if you try it deliberately. I really wanted to tell you. There are no singularities and tunnels any more, leading from one world to another. There have been, but they're all gone."
She was silent for a while before she answered him. "I don't think so."
"What?"
"I don't think there is no way back. I.. Sometimes I just know how things will turn out. It just pops into my head. Regarding this topic, I don't have any idea. Neither yes or no. So I don't think it's that fixed yet."
"What?!" He must have gotten it wrong. She hadn't just said that she could know how things would turn out that hadn't happened yet. Humans couldn't see the future. That was impossible. Wishful thinking, if anything. He looked at her bewildered, waiting for her to confirm what she had just said.
"Never mind," she brushed it aside. "So, she's really... dead?"
"Yes. I'm afraid so.. Wrong universe, wrong sort of energy for her." All right, change of topic. Again.
"Oh dammit. Listen, I'm sorry. For what I said out there. About you giving orders. It was inappropriate. I don't know anything about you, so it's not on me to say things like that right now."
She didn't know anything of him? So she really was about to ignore everything that had happened earlier? The contact they had made? He smiled slightly, although it was more of a sad smile. "You don't? When we first met you saw more of me than anyone else in a long time. And then, yesterday, here in the console room, you..."
"Don't. Please."
"Why not?" he replied softly.
"There's already been enough damage."
After that they remained silent for a while. He just observed her whilst she was staring into space. Yeah, there had been damage. In any direction. But he didn't agree with her that just avoiding certain topics would help anything. What was done was done.
"What happened to them?" she finally broke the silence and looked at him again.
"To whom?"
"Your people. They're all gone. You just said it to Mickey, and Brother Lassa said it to you back at the swimming pool. All of them? You're the only one left?"
"I.. yes." He wasn't aware that she had heard it at the school. He hated to talk about it, he really did. But now that she obviously knew, there was no way out.
"But how?"
"Mira, it's really not that important right now..."
She just looked at him as if she knew exactly what had happened. "Well, there are not that many possibilities," she began quietly. "I don't think it was a natural disaster, after everything I've seen of your technology. You would have been able to predict it and prevent it. Or move planet. Or system. And I also don't think that your people just died out. It happens, but it takes time. Even more so for a long lived species like yours. It doesn't happen in nine-hundred years, or within one or two generations, leaving exactly one survivor behind."
He was so stunned he could just stare at her. Well, clearly no use in feigning anything to her.
"Leaves pretty much only one other possibility," she continued.
There was no need to actually say it. He could see in her face that she had figured it out and that she was certain about it. Aside from that, there was so much more written all over her face. The abstract grief for whole civilisations turned into reality by having seen their remains with her own eyes. Remains of once great and flowering civilisations that had been extinguished long before their time in cruel and preposterous wars, leaving nothing behind but ruins and dust and ashes on a burned planet. Sometimes not even that. He suddenly knew she had seen all that for herself, although he doubted that it had been her own people. Nevertheless, there was so much sympathy coming from her.
They looked at each other in mutual understanding as he suddenly realised that he was not only reading all this in her face. It was a bit as it had been back at the school when he had gotten this one thought of her in his mind. And yet now it was on a different, more emotional level.
"Look, there was... ," he began and then something caught his eye. "What's that?" he said in sudden excitement. There was a green light beneath the floor of the console room.
"What?"
"That!" He jumped up and pointed at it. "See that? What's that? A reflection?" He was now kneeling on the floor, looking up and down. Mira crouched beside him. "No, that's not a reflection. That is...a light, isn't it? I think that is a light!"
"Looks like one..."
"That's all we need!" he said cheerfully whilst removing the grill right above the light source.
"That's light so there is power!" New hope was flooding through him as he hopped down through the hole in the floor. He pulled aside some of the internals of the TARDIS in order to reach the source of the light.
"It's alive!" he exclaimed as he finally hold the little power crystal in his hands.
"What's that?" Mira was kneeling on the floor and peering down on his hands.
"It's nothing. It's tiny. One of those insignificant little power cells that no one ever bothers about, and it's clinging onto life. But with one little ounce of reality tucked away inside," he answered whilst looking at the power cell.
"Enough to get us back?" she asked and he could hear the doubt in her voice.
"Not yet," he answered and lifted himself up a bit. "I need to charge it up."
"Well, then get some power cable and plug it in?" she said and looked around her. "And probably risk a blackout in London. I mean, she really needs a lot of energy, doesn't she?"
"Nah, that's relative. Besides, that's the wrong sort of energy. It's gotta come from our universe."
"Yeah, great. I don't think you have an emergency backup generator?"
"Well, there's me..." He blew gently over the power cell which immediately started to glow in a bright, greenish light.
"I just gave away ten years of my life. Worth every second!" he beamed at Mira. She just looked at him somehow stunned.
"You're amazing, you know that?"
"Oh yes!" He was still smiling all over his face. That was all they needed. The both worlds were so similar, they had a real chance to make it back. He looked at the little power cell in affection, which had just turned to a dimmer green. He could hardly resisted the urge to stroke it.
"What's it doing now?"
"It's on a recharging cycle," he answered. "It'll loop round, power back up and be ready to take us home in - oh - twenty-four hours?"
"Yeah, home," she said so sadly that his smile immediately faded. Not home. More like back to another parallel universe for her. Before he could say something, Mickey opened the door.
"Ah, Mickey-Ricky. Seems we have twenty-four hours shore leave. Just keep your head down and don't do anything stupid. Although... That would be quite hard in your case, wouldn't it?"
"Hey!" Mira said to him. "Rude again?"
"Yeah, fine with me. Just wanted to tell you guys that I'll be off a bit. Seeing someone. Oh and, Rose is also going to see her dad. Went away about ten minutes ago," Mickey said and closed the door from the outside.
10th squad 3rd seat, time-twilight and bored411: Thank you for reviewing :-)
And thanks to anyone else reading it so far :-)
