Sanctuary
The Way Back
The Doctor and Rose stared at each other. Seconds, minutes, Rose wasn't sure. She could watch him, watch those eyes forever. It was calm here, in this room, and that gave her patience, but she was still angry, and still afraid to ask him why.
The Doctor looked away first, and Rose knew she was being petty for feeling that that was some kind of victory, however small.
"He was never going to be brought back," said the Doctor finally.
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, I do. And so did the Master."
Rose shook her head, disbelieving. "But Alison…" she tailed off, knowing that she couldn't really argue the point: she knew nothing about the science, and only what Alison had told her about the situation. There was only so much she could disagree with based on gut feeling, and she knew that she didn't like this at all.
"I think it was for her benefit," he told her. "Or until he was useful. To make a point. Like now."
"What do you mean?" asked Rose slowly, not entirely sure that she wanted to know.
She saw the Doctor's jaw tighten before he spoke. "You have any idea how dangerous that was, having two of us in the same place and time?"
"But there were two of me, back in the church." She didn't bother to elaborate. They both remembered very well what had happened there.
"You're just human. Now me, being a Time Lord, things are different. If I believe the Master, and yeah, I suppose I do, then any temporal disturbance can be fatal."
"So you just ran down here and killed yourself. Just like that. No second thoughts? No thinking that he might be worth saving? And Alison…damn it, Doctor! Didn't you even think about it?"
"I thought about you! What if the raptors had turned up? What was I supposed to do then?"
"But they didn't! We've been here for hours, and nothing has happened."
"The Master's put together some very temporary and very thin temporal shielding; there was no way to tell how long it would last for. Every second was a risk." He caught her look. "He wasn't alive, Rose, I promise. There was nothing that could have been done."
"You didn't even try. You just erased him, like he was nothing. Like he didn't matter."
"Rose, you were in danger."
She gave a short laugh. "Doctor, you said it yourself: travelling with you is always dangerous. I'm used to it alright? I can handle it."
"Not like this," he said. "Megalomaniacs, Autons, Gelth, that's all old hat. Could do it in my sleep. But these problems with time…I never had to worry about them before, not really."
"And what about Alison?"
"I was thinking about you." He sat down by the console and refused to meet her eyes. "You remember when I took you to see your dad?"
"Course," she said quietly.
"Didn't think about that at all. You wanted to go, so we went. Even when you decided to muck things up, I would never have left you."
"I know."
"And when the Earth was being wiped out, when billions were dying and there was no way out, not for any of us, all I needed was to know that you were sorry. That was it. Everything all right again."
"Doctor…"
"And when all I had to do to save the world was blow up one stupid little over-decorated house, I hesitated. Because better the whole world go up in flames than I…I thought it was the war." He closed his eyes. "I thought that I'd made the right decision there, that I'd save everyone by sacrificing a few. Lesser of two evils and all that bloody nonsense. Swore I'd never do it again, never accept that I'd let the ends justify the means, not when it wasn't the right thing to do." He looked at her, eyes pleading. "So I couldn't let anything happen to you, couldn't let you be hurt. Not ever. Everything would be alright, if you were okay." He paused. "That seem right to you?"
"I…I don't know," she said, but the Doctor wasn't listening.
"Then I thought about you apes and your families, how you would do the most stupid things to protect your kids, protect the people you…care about. It was me, I thought, spending to much time on that planet of yours. Picking up bad habits."
"Thanks a lot."
"Except it's not me, Rose." He fixed her with a piercing stare, and she felt as though he were looking into her mind. "It's you."
She blinked. "Right, now you've lost me. And you're starting to scare me just a little."
"Yeah, I'm not having such a good day either." He held up a hand before she spoke. "And , no, I really don't want to talk about it, thanks very much. I need to tell you something, cause you've got a right to know, and I'm not sure what I supposed to do." He flashed her a smile. "Maybe you can help."
"Okay, now I'm properly worried. Just spit it out, okay?"
"Remember when we met?"
"Bit hard to forget."
"Alright, alright. But you know I left the first time I asked you to come with me you said no."
"Yeah," said Rose, with almost a smile. Strange how close she had come to going right on with her normal, straightforward, safe and oh so normal life.
"I was gone for eighteen seconds."
"About that," said Rose. She guessed where this was going: "But how long were you really gone for?"
"Couple of hours. Didn't do too much: cup of tea, tinkering with the scanner alignment, read some Dickens. But I couldn't concentrate. Felt like I was just passing the time, waiting for something to happen. Nothing had really changed though, except that I'd met you.
"You can't expect me to work, not after that," said Alison. The Master took a seat behind the desk, but Alison didn't bother to sit down, instead she stood behind the other chair, hands gripping the back of it tightly to keep her steady.
"Alison, don't be foolish. He was in stasis for over a decade. Did you really think that I could bring him back? If I could do that, I would have done so long before now."
"I don't know what to think," she said icily. "That was the Doctor." Her fingers tightened around the chair. "You let him kill the Doctor."
"He is the Doctor."
"Not my Doctor."
The Master sighed. "Even after all this time, you still insist in thinking in three dimensional terms. Have you learned nothing?"
"Anything that I've learned since leaving Earth, I learned from the Doctor."
"That is beside the point. Having the two of them here together for too long would have created a temporal incident."
"Too long?" exclaimed Alison. "Exactly how long is too long? You risked the destruction of the colony for this? To satisfy some whim of your curiosity?"
"It is not a whim!" the Master snapped, bringing his fist down on the desk. The outburst of anger was quickly suppressed. "The Doctor could be a valuable ally," he said mildly.
"But this one is different. How could he be convinced to help?"
"He may have no choice."
Alison shook her head. "No. No, you won't put Rose in danger."
"You like the human?"
"Yes," admitted Alison shortly. She could have added a dozen things, but she didn't want to elaborate. She doubted that the Master would, or even could, understand.
"That is unfortunate."
"You are not going to harm her!"
"Calm down, Miss Cheney. Rose is perfectly safe from me."
Alison frowned, thinking. "Not the Doctor…?"
The Master shrugged noncommittally. "As you say, the Doctor does not know me and I do not know him. And he has changed a great deal."
"What's wrong with her?" asked Alison.
"It seems that the Time Lords of Outpost Shada are far more competent that I would have ever given them credit for."
"I don't understand," said Rose, convinced that were it not for the strange atmosphere in this room she would be crying, or panicking. "Until I met you nothing weird happened in my life. Nothing."
"They didn't need to be anywhere near you to change you. Or me."
"Of course, the Time Lords already had the Doctor's bio data in the APC Net. Clearly they managed to extract it before Gallifrey was destroyed. Miss Tyler was a temporal trap, set specifically to the Doctor and attuned to his bio data. Once he found her, he would be unable to extricate himself from her timeline. He would become dependant upon her."
"But why?" asked Alison. She knew a little of the steps that the Time Lords were willing to go to in desperate circumstances, but as far as she was aware all they wanted to do with regards to the Doctor was kill him. But a half-hearted attempt to eliminate his timeline notwithstanding, the Time Lords had quickly discovered more pressing concerns in their new home.
The Master looked at her in a way that would have once made her jumpy enough to make whatever excuses she needed to to leave the room. She had never been truly frightened of him, though she suspected that if she had known him before her Doctor had saved his life, she would have been in danger of her life if she even disagreed with him. The Doctor never liked to discuss his history, but she had pressed him, and telling her about the Master was easier than talking about what he had lost.
She had seen the Master kill, to protect himself and her and the Doctor. And when he had made Sanctuary the first laws had been nothing short of draconian as they integrated different races from different times and different cultures into one little colony. It wasn't until many years later that she suspected the only reason she had survived those first few months was because she had proven to be good with people, all people. She'd never imagined her extensive bar work and all the strange conversations and violent situations she had had to diffuse would ever help keep her alive, or provide the foundation for building a new world.
And she wasn't afraid of him now. Yes, he controlled the technology, understood the science and knew the obstacles that they faced and how to overcome them, but she was the public face of the administration here. She was the one who told the people what they had to do and why. She was the one they came to with problems, questions and complaints; the one who solved the everyday problems. She was the one they trusted, and the Master knew that.
It was a disappointed look that he gave her, she decided. "The science is beyond me," she said. "You know that."
"Alison, sometimes I despair at you. This is not about science, it's about control: the remaining Time Lords believe the Doctor to be the single greatest threat to their continued existence. While they might lack the resources and resolve to track him down and kill him, setting a trap was not out of the question. And with his fondness for Earth and its inhabitants, he wouldn't notice until it was too late, or until somebody told him."
"So you told him this?"
"I cannot risk the Time Lords using Miss Tyler as leverage to control the Doctor. If he would put a planet in danger on a whim of hers, can you imagine what he would do if her life were in danger?
"But the Time Lords want him dead, don't they?"
"But they have so few resources to call upon now. And how much more useful the Doctor would be as an agent."
"And you're not going to take advantage of this?" she asked suspiciously.
The Master drummed his fingers on the table. "If the Doctor does not choose to stay, then I will let him go," he said curtly.
"Thank you."
He met her eyes. "But I will not allow the Time Lords to use him."
Rose wasn't angry. She should be, but she wasn't. Instead she felt cold and shivery and very, very fragile.
"So what happens now, Doctor?" she asked.
"You scared?"
"Yeah," she admitted.
"Come here." He opened his arms, and she stepped into a hug. Warm and reassuring and perfect. This was where she belonged and this was where she wanted to be, and now she wasn't sure if that was her at all. If the TARDIS had got inside her mind to translate alien languages, how could she guess what the Time Lords had done to her?
She pulled away slightly and looked up at him. "So is it back to Earth then? My Earth, I mean."
"What d'you mean?"
"Well, you won't want…I mean you can't have me been hanging around, not if…" He put a finger to her lips.
"Whatever they did, it wasn't your fault. You're Rose Tyler, Rose Tyler, and you're not going anywhere you don't want to go."
"You're not angry?"
"Furious. At the Time Lords, not you."
"So we're still…you're not going to throw me out?"
"Nope." He grinned at her, and everything made sense again. "Now how about a trip to the 27th century Jupiter? They have pizza. And I could murder a decent cup of tea."
"Just like that," said Rose.
"Just like that. We'll just have to be a little more careful about having any temporal accidents, keep an eye out for humanoids in silly looking hats and we'll be fine."
"Fantastic!" she said, and flung herself into his chest, attempting to smother him in a hug.
The Doctor and Rose found the TARDIS in the Parliament building's gardens, sitting in the shade of a small grove of trees. The Master and Alison were standing nearby. Clearly, they were expected.
They approached, hand in hand, fingers interlinked. Rose felt like skipping, but she didn't think the Doctor would appreciate that, not right now.
The Master stepped forward. "I take it you have decided not to stay."
"It just so happens I'd rather go see the universe than sit around all day empire-building."
"That's not fair," said Alison. She was leaning against a tree trunk, watching the Doctor through narrowed eyes.
"Suppose not," admitted the Doctor. "Not this time, anyway."
"And what about the Time Lords?" asked the Master.
"Don't you worry about me, I can take care of myself. Though I suppose I should thank you for the heads up." For allowing me to let go of some of the guilt too, thought the Doctor.
"We off?" asked Rose.
"Looks like it," said the Doctor, taking out his TARDIS key.
Rose looked across at Alison. "Goodbye then." She wanted to say more, but it was Alison who stepped forward to hug her.
"Thank you, Rose," she whispered in her hear.
"For what?" Rose whispered back.
"Bringing me a bit of home." She pulled away and clasped Rose's hands in her own. "If you ever want to come back…"
"I might drop in," Rose said.
"Oh, wonderful," muttered the Doctor, stepping inside his ship. Rose followed him in and the door closed.
For a split second there was the silence, and then the grove was filled with the unnatural sound of the TARDIS's dematerialisation.
The Master and Alison exchanged a glance.
"Will you be able to extend the temporal shielding with the available power?" she asked. "I could shutdown the northern plateau's transmat system."
"Unnecessary. We merely have to prevent detection, any incidents he wants to create are his own affair."
"He won't thank you for this."
The Master laughed. "And that's what makes it all worthwhile."
Once the Doctor had dematerialised, he turned his attention to the state of the console room. Blankets and pillows were still strewn across the floor and there was a dirty teacup sitting by the inner door.
"You having some sort of sleepover party whilst I was out of it?" he asked.
"Don't worry, I'll tidy up." She peered over his shoulder and tried to make sense of the co-ordinates. "So where we heading to? Jupiter? Isn't it a bit gaseous to land on?"
"That's why we're heading to one of the moons. Problem is I can't remember which one has all the tourist spots. Hang on." He activated the scanner screen and punched up the Jupiter Tourist Board's information catalogue. "Bit early, maybe," he murmured.
There was a crunching noise from inside the console, and the ship suddenly seemed to turn over ninety degrees. Rose gave a shout as she fell down towards the outer door, landing on top of the Doctor as the ship righted itself.
"What the hell was that?" exclaimed the Doctor, rushing to check the console. "Our co-ordinates have changed." His fingers flew across the controls. "Pre-programmed flight, there's nothing I can do." He slammed his fist against the console. "The Master. Damn it, how could I be so stupid?"
"So where are we going?" asked Rose.
The Doctor took another look at the console. "Earth, early twenty-first century." He frowned. "2006, and London. Great."
"We're going home?"
The Doctor shot her a look. "Your home. And we're not staying. Soon as we land, we're off again."
The next few minutes passed in silence as the Doctor prowled anxiously around the console. Rose took the blankets and pillows back to their proper rooms and got herself a fresh cup of tea for herself when the Doctor said that he didn't want one.
"Right, hang on," said the Doctor, his attention fixed on the console. "He probably put us down somewhere very nasty."
"Hanging on," said Rose, sipping at her tea.
The TARDIS materialised and the Doctor immediately input new co-ordinates and hit the control to dematerialise.
Nothing happened.
"What's wrong?" asked Rose.
"That's what I'm trying to find out," said the Doctor. He rechecked the co-ordinates and, seeing nothing wrong, investigated the inside of the console. "No, no," he murmured as he checked off components. "No, no, NO!" He sat up suddenly, hitting his head against the underside of the console, causing Rose to wince.
"No?" she asked.
The Doctor stood up, his eyes blazing. "The dematerialisation circuit has gone."
"Then how did we dematerialise?" asked Rose.
"Temporary circuit? Attaching a transmat responder to the circuit? I don't know. But it's gone. Which means we're not going anywhere."
"You haven't got a spare?"
"Nope."
"Build a new one?"
"I tried that once. Three years later and no progress. Luckily I got given a new one." He blinked. "He's left me here."
The Doctor took a final glance at the controls and then rushed outside. "Doctor, wait!" called Rose, as there was a noise from the central column: the light seemed to blink and something appeared on the console, an envelope. She picked it up and followed the Doctor outside.
"Your bloody estate too. Fantastic. Stuck on Earth and within spitting distance of your mother."
Rose pretended she didn't hear that and passed him the envelope. "It appeared on the console."
He read the front of the envelope: The Doctor. With gritted teeth, he ripped it open, making an effort not to tear it to pieces straight away.
My most sincere apologies for the inconvenience. If you ever reconsider my offer, please leave a message at the following number ---------
The Doctor read the note twice and then stuffed it into his jacket pocket.
"What now?" asked Rose.
"Now?" the Doctor sighed. "Now we get a cup of tea and some lunch."
"And if you need a place to stay…"
"I am not staying at your mother's. No, no, I'm sure UNIT didn't throw away all those components I left behind, there must be something I can do, and there's plenty of pieces of equipment I can work with in the TARDIS, " he mused. He turned to Rose and grinned, holding out his hand. "Come on, Rose, we've got work to do."
End.
