Seeing Double
Chapter 1.
"Why don't you tell me what happened?"
The Doctor was staring at her, waiting. "I can't." But when her eyes remained closed, he pursued unevenly, "Rose. Please. If I'd known… I'm so sorry. The TARDIS isn't stable yet. It has happened in the past, you know."
He looked down, too ashamed to look her in the eye anymore as her silence extended between them.
"It's not your fault, Doctor."
They were standing in the console room, as if frozen in time. She didn't move, wouldn't look at him, and he knew it was still just a bit too fresh for her. It all happened so quickly; a few hours ago, they were happy and giddy again, and it felt just like old times. The TARDIS, his brilliant spaceship, was finally ready for their first trip, and although the Doctor knew it was going to be difficult at first, he'd never been afraid of taking risks.
Alas, he would never learn.
They decided to take things slowly. They'd started off with a nearby planet, then came home, safe and sound. "Let's see where it takes us next, shall we?" He had grinned with a wink directed at Rose.
She, however, knew better. She knew exactly what he was doing — rolling the dice, playing with fate. History hadn't always been on his side when he took risks such as these. "Are you sure it's safe?"
"Of course! Why wouldn't it?" he had grinned at her, all mischievous eyes and wild hair and far too cavalier. He had pulled the lever without a second thought.
It was about 3 A.M. He didn't need a watch of course, he just knew — what with him being at least some part Time Lord.. He didn't really know exactly how much of him was still Time Lord (although he could take a good guess), but for some reason thinking about it made him feel uneasy, so he avoided thinking about it. Same secrecy as always, when it came to unpleasant topics and painful memories he'd much rather incinerate right then and there, if he could.
This TARDIS was still relatively small, nothing like the one he used to have. It'll change soon, he thought wistfully, pacing the corridor, looking at one of the closed doors at the very end of it. He reached that door and pried it open.
Rose was on the bed, staring at the book in her lap. He walked over to her excruciatingly slowly, as if she were a bird he didn't want to scare off. She looked up when she felt him approaching.
"I feel terrible," she said, putting the book aside.
He froze; those words coming from her would never not be torturous. "Tell me," he urged with a whisper, daring himself to move closer.
Oh, how he had missed her. Every single time he looked at her now, he felt that terrible tug somewhere within, just a bit behind his ribs. As if his insides were turning on a sharp little skewer, burning, and the smoke was suffocating him. He'd felt that way with her before the metacrisis. Always moving closer, closer, wrapping his arms around her, pretending to be human, when he so obviously wasn't. Having the luxury to get inside other people's heads, anyone, except hers, without sharing his own feelings.
Were those even feelings? His body was a cage. His hands were numb, itching to trap her now like he always had done, but he held back. More proof, perhaps, that he was only part-human. Old habits die hard, especially when you're a Time Lord. Well, in this case, they tend to regenerate into something else. But what exactly?
Persistence, maybe.
"Rose. I can't help you unless you tell me." It felt like those were the only words he knew.
She hesitated, a little unsure. "I was away," she said, or at least it sounded more like a question.
Patience.
"Yes."
His voice was barely even a whisper now; he was too afraid that if he spoke the word louder then he would have to admit its truth.
She turned to look at him, and her expression was desperate, unsure, as if she was debating whether or not she should be telling him any of this in the first place."For how long?" She finally asked.
"Four hours, ten minutes, fifty-five seconds..."
"For me it felt like years," she interrupted him, turning away, and he was remiss to lose her face once more.
Slowly, she said "Remember that time we were stranded on Satellite 5?" He nodded, his eyes never leaving hers, begging her to continue.
Rose shuddered. "We had been separated. You and the TARDIS had been gone, and I had awoken alone. The same thing had happened this time, Doctor. It's just, this time I had awoken in another parallel Universe."
So, she told him exactly what had happened.
Chapter 2.
Rose awoke in a dimly lit room. The TARDIS crashed; she knew as much. And she was alone. Again.
She got up and almost tripped on something underneath her feet.
The floor was scattered with old, grimy looking books. The covers were stained with something that looked like wax from the candle chandelier above her, the only source of light in the room. Except… There was a faint sound that reminded her of the hum in the TARDIS. Haunted house sound effects, she thought. It was coming from a rusty cauldron in the corner, caressed by the soft blue flames. Something was brewing inside it.
Suddenly the door opened and she saw the Doctor.
He looked awful, even thinner than she remembered. Dark and sullen, his heavy leather coat glistening like liquid. But whatever he had in mind this time, she trusted him and almost ran to embrace him, wrapping her arms around him for the millionth time. It didn't last. He disentangled himself from her with such violent force, fingers grasping her elbows and holding her in place. He was looking at her as if he were seeing her for the first time, his eyes wide, left eyebrow raised. Something was wrong. He let go of her left arm and reached in his right pocket in one swift motion, and in a split second there was a something at her throat. A wand?
"Who the bloody hell are you?" His voice was unfamiliar.
Rose stared at him in disbelief. She remembered the day she saw him regenerate for the first time. They switched places.
"What happened to you," That wasn't really a question.
He pushed her to the nearest wall behind her roughly, his wand now grazing her neck.
"I asked first."
There was no doubt that the man before her wasn't her Doctor. But the resemblance was so stark, so unbelievable, there was nothing she could do.
She winced in pain as he tightened his grasp on her arm.
"Listen. I'm lost. I'm not supposed to be here. Please let go of me. I need to find my friend." Her tone was pleading. He moved closer.
"Shh. No worries. I've got something, hold on." He reached in his other pocket and fished out a tiny glass bottle. "Veritaserum. For special occasions. Like this one." There was a ghost of a smile, an imitation of it really, as he popped the bottle open and touched it to her lips slowly, his eyes finally leaving hers and focusing on her mouth, lightly tracing it with his thumb.
"Lick it." He ordered, but impatiently ran his long index finger over her lower lip, sliding it inside her mouth just a bit. It didn't taste like anything at all. He was staring at her, waiting.
"Now. Tell me who sent you."
"No one. I am a traveler."
"'From?..."
"London."
"Name?"
"Rose Tyler."
He stepped back. "You've mistaken me for somebody else. Why?"
Now that she thought about it, it wasn't exactly true. Yes, the physical resemblance was uncanny: same height, same long limbs, a scrawny figure even his big leather coat failed to hide; same huge dark eyes, but at the same time entirely different. Bad different. Her captor was not the savior of the broken, the beaten and the damned. He was evil.
It did occur to her before that maybe, just maybe, there have been other versions of him somewhere in those hidden parallel universes, places she thought she'd never go. Versions of them, even. Together. A world, where the Canary Wharf battle never happened. A world, where he never regenerated in the first place. A world, where he was just human, an ordinary doctor working in a hospital, living his life just like anybody else. It was difficult enough for her to accept that this him, the one she'd raised their new baby TARDIS with, was still him. Even after everything they've been through together, everything she's seen, that turned out to be harder than expected. She was starting to feel dizzy and felt her legs go weak.
Her captor (even though technically she was the intruder) regarded her, his eyes alert and somehow still familiar, took her by the hand and dragged her to an emerald green sofa in the corner of the room. Was it there all this time? She didn't remember.
He laid her down and kneeled next to her.
"You're a muggle, then. Well, that makes it easier. If I decide to kill you, there'd be no fuss."
She was feeling weaker by each passing second.
"You wouldn't. I know you. You would never do that to me," she whispered.
His laugh was hoarse, almost as if he was choking. "You have no idea what I'm capable of, Rose." The way he said her name was different; he was mocking her. "I've done terrible, unspeakable things."
For some reason, she wasn't shocked when she heard his revelation.
"Aren't you hot in this coat?" she asked instead, as if completely out of the blue, but the Doctor knew exactly what she was doing. Change the subject, that's what he always told her. Whenever you're trapped with an alien or a psycho, always try to change the subject, divert their attention.
It did work, though, because he was momentarily displaced. "I'm always cold."
Even here, in this strange parallel universe, this version of her Doctor was still a little bit colder than most humans. Rose closed her eyes as a wave of nausea washed over her, his words reverberating in her head until she could almost feel them, feel the cold of the room envelop her whole body.
"You have to stay awake." He said, looking at her, his gaze undecipherable. "This potion is only safe for wizards. For muggles it's often poisonous."
Poisonous. Good. She felt like she was floating.
"Doctor…"
Her captor leaned in to her. "No, you can't leave this room. Otherwise, they'll discover us."
Chapter 3.
There was no way of knowing how much time really passed. No clocks on the walls, no windows, nothing. He never left her side, studying her, as if always waiting for something. Rose wanted to take a better look at him, but she couldn't. His eyes never left hers. Although unsettling, she was thankful he didn't try to do anything else. The more he spoke, the more she realized that it really was the same man, at least physically. She saw the freckles that dusted his nose and looked down immediately.
"That friend of yours. Did he abandon you?" he asked in his usual mocking tone, finally breaking his gaze and walking over to a fireplace.
Wait a minute, a fireplace? She kept falling in and out of sleep, a vivid slumber that seemed to make her forget things. The room wasn't very big, but, for some reason, objects kept appearing out of thin air and disappearing as if they were never even there. At a certain point she realized that the faint hum she had heard before had finally stopped, because the cauldron was no longer there. For a moment, she thought that maybe things only appeared when he needed them to.
"No. He didn't abandon me," she whispered, closing her eyes again. He returned to her, holding something in his hand.
"Here. Drink this." He handed her a glass of something that looked like water and sat down next to her on the sofa.
"What's this?"
He rolled his eyes. Something about it was so painfully familiar that she forced herself to look away. "Gillywater." He looked at her tentatively. "Just drink it. It's…safe."
It tasted like a dirty lake. "Can you just summon anything you like, then?" she asked him, putting the glass on the floor. It was a dangerous move, she knew, for he might suspect that she was plotting something. Which, she wasn't. Not yet.
"Sort of, yes. Although… anything but food. It's a requirement room," he explained. "Anyone can use it for whatever they like. Now isn't that wizard?" His smile was genuine this time.
"What do you use it for?"
A pause. "Terrible things."
Right. She's heard that one before. He winked at her, but there was something so humourless about it she even felt sorry for him. She suspected there was more to him that met the eye. He was like one of those morally gray characters in literature. Part good, part evil. Part human, part Time Lord.
"Tell me," she coaxed, still protective of him yet.
"I'm preparing something. A potion. Like this one." He retrieved the small bottle that had poisoned her and grinned. "A potion that's going to help me change my face."
No matter how hard she tried, how far she ran, there was no escaping her fate: being stuck with a man who wasn't just one thing; nothing was predictable, everything was constantly changing. In her home Universe, she was once stuck with the Doctor, who was still out there somewhere, probably already wearing a different face. In Pete's World, as he called it, there was her Doctor again, who would never regenerate, but it didn't mean he was predictable or incapable of 'terrible things'. And now, here she was, trapped in a different kind of parallel world, with a man who was pining after change all the same. Back to plotting. If someone wanted something whilst in this room, they just had to think about it. At least that's what it looked like to her, since she never heard him say anything.
But something wasn't right. She's already thought of the TARDIS so many times, it would've appeared a long time ago, wouldn't it? Her captor waved his wand and the glass with Gillywater disappeared. She needed a wand to get out of here, and he just happened to have one.
Now she just had to figure out a way to get it.
Chapter 3
His name was Barty Crouch.
"Junior," he had added darkly.
For some inexplicable reason, Rose felt as though he trusted her. She wanted to know everything about him. Sure, he is not the same person. But that is what made it so exhilarating. She knew that this version of him did have some connection with her Doctor, so she couldn't help it.
"Are your parents wizards, too?" she asked tentatively, as he restlessly paced the room.
All of a sudden, it occurred to her that maybe he had to be somewhere, but he had decided to stay with her. Why? With all honesty, she didn't really want him to leave. He did scare her, though; there was something eerie about his manic grin and crazy, feverish eyes. Being around him reminded her of the fear and uncertainty of entering a dark underpass at night to get home. Something you had to do, regardless of the outcome. Anything could happen.
"I lost everyone," he replied, irritated. At a certain point that night, all those similarities that he shared with her Doctor stopped surprising her. Same face, same desire to change faces, same loneliness. "And I don't need your pity," he spat, abruptly stopping in his tracks and looking her dead in the eyes.
Ignoring all warning signs, she asked, "What happened to Barty Crouch Senior?"
"He's dead. I killed him." he shot back, moving closer, his long leather coat rustling behind him.
Rose was desperately searching for something in his eyes. Regret, pain, sadness. But she found nothing.
"A father is not someone who raised you. It's someone who showed you the world, took care of you. My biological father had done none of those things." He said slowly, his voice devoid of any emotion.
He kneeled in front of her slowly and pulled up the sleeve of his coat, exposing his left forearm. "See? This is what my real father, my Lord had given me." He emphasized the word 'real', and Rose guessed he was talking about someone he valued far more than his family.
What she saw shook her to the core: it was a jet black skull with a snake protruding from its mouth.
"This. This is the creation of the Dark Lord. The Dark Mark," Barty continued, looking down on his arm, tracing it gently with the tips of his long fingers. "When everyone turned away from me, the Dark Lord accepted me. I would die for him."
But would he die for you? she thought, regarding him carefully, then raised her hand and touched his hair. He shivered, but didn't look up. She knew so little about his world, about this him, but in spite of everything, she was desperate to help him, still.
How lost and confused a person could possibly be, if he could kill his own father? Sure, there had been things that parents did that made their children hate them with all their being, genuinely rejecting them. After 3 years of working in Pete's Torchwood, after all the trials and tribulations she had to face, all the people she'd met, if anything, it taught her there was always more to a story than people let on. Rose didn't believe he was truly evil, but something had happened in his past that made him join the dark side. There was no other explanation. After all, he hasn't killed her (yet) and that was saying something, wasn't it?
The tips of her fingers were still grazing his dark hair when he looked up and grabbed her by the wrist, forcing her to stop.
"Who are you?" he asked suddenly.
"I already told you."
His eyes narrowed. "Do you know I'm the first wizard in history, who managed to escape Azkaban?"
"What's—"
"It's a prison for the most dangerous criminals," he uttered darkly. He was trying to frighten her, she realized. Well, it wasn't the first time. You wither and you die. Those were the words her Doctor had used to frighten her in the past.A faint echo of the world she had been forced to leave behind. But nothing he had ever done scared her. She had to remind herself that this person in front of her, staring at her with his dark, dangerous eyes, was not the Doctor. A parallel version of him, yes. But still, he could be capable of anything. Rose had to snap out of her reverie and think.
Especially now, for she was finally feeling much better: the nasty head-dizzying effects of the truth serum Barty had given her a few hours ago had finally started to wear off. However, she still had no idea how to return home.
Suddenly, Barty hissed, wincing in pain. He glared at his left arm, clutching it fervently.
"Enough of this. You're distracting me." He spat out, standing up and heading for the door. "My Lord is calling for me, I must go." Suddenly he turned to take one more look at her.
"Stay here. Don't even think about escaping. I will find you and…" Barty froze for a second, looking her dead in the eye.
Rose was staring at him as if in some sort of trance.
He finally broke the gaze and left, closing the heavy wooden door behind him.
Rose got up almost immediately and ran to the door to try and open it, but to no avail. All of a sudden there was a slight hum coming from somewhere that was replaced with a screeching noise she would've recognized anywhere.
It was the TARDIS.
It appeared right in the middle of the room. The Doctor jumped out, looking around. "Rose!" he cried out, exasperated, as she ran up to him to finally embrace him, the real him, the one and only, her Doctor. "Rose, what…"
She didn't let him finish.
"Let's go home. Please." She kept repeating it like a prayer, clutching his hand desperately and pushing him towards the blue police box. "Let's go home."
