The Doctor made it into the TARDIS and ran up to the console and started inputting coordinates right away before initiating dematerialisation. He signed in relief as soon as they were in the vortex.
Rose sat on the jump seat with a look of amusement on her face. "It didn't go well, I take it?"
"I'm in need of some serious brain bleach right now. Walking in on my brother naked is one thing, but walking in on my brother naked with a mutual friend of ours also naked and obviously about to have sex. Well that is quite another. Don't get me wrong I'm happy for him, I am. I just really, really don't want to see what the two of them get up to. Especially since I know from prior knowledge of walking into something I really shouldn't he can be a kinky bastard." The Doctor shuddered.
"Oh you mean that time when we were six and we walked in on him and—"
"Nope. Stop right there! The disadvantages of having a brother who's a hundred and eighty years older than you don't bare thinking about. I'd rather remember my big brother who looked out for me and gave me a teddy pazithi bat after he graduated from the military academy."
"Got to admit though we were both stumped at the time why he'd be—"
The Doctor stuck his fingers in his ears and started singing, 'I'm not listening, la la la' until Rose burst out in laughter.
"It's not funny! Not to mention that alternate universe version of me I've sensed was there. Don't get me wrong he can go around this universe proclaiming to be the Doctor all he wants far as I'm concerned. He's asexual, which I don't have a problem with anyone and there sexual or lack of preferences. Just, he's also a total idiot who had no idea what was going on. You'd have to be a sontaran not to pick up on what was going on there. Really Rose you can stop laughing now."
Rose managed to stop laughing at the Doctor and asked more seriously, "So did Brax get mad and take a bite out of you?"
"Huh?" The Doctor looked confused for a moment. "Oh my shoulder! No Benny did that."
"What?" Rose was confused this time.
"She's one of the very few humans with the genetic requirements who managed to become a time lord. She just managed to shift for the first time and was acting on instinct. I was play-fighting with Brax after he called me something not so nice, and her instinct to protect her mate kicked in. Anyway getting her calmed down enough so it's safe to leave the two of them alone is what took me so long."
"I didn't know a human can become a time lord without going to Gallifrey and through the academy. I know it happens from time to time with normal Gallifreyans who's potential wasn't caught as children. Humans though, is new to me."
"It's one of the time lords dirty little secrets and has a lot to do with experimentation on their early ancestors by ours. I only know about it because my mother was another one of the very few humans who have done it." The Doctor confessed as he used a few switches and pulled some levers as he danced around the console, and landed them at their destination.
"I knew your mother had started out as a human but not that she made it to time lord on her own." Rose replied from where she still sat on the jump seat.
"It's the reason why there is such a large age gap between me and Brax. He was born not long after she made that leap. My other siblings and I were born after she attended the academy and did all her extra degrees." The Doctor pressed on his shoulder and winced. "I think she's managed to fracture my humerus."
"She really wasn't messing around. Good job she only got your shoulder," Rose sympathised then asked, "Do you think they'll soul bond?"
"From what I saw and could feel coming from them, very likely. Although knowing Brax he'll downplay the significance of it." The Doctor winced again as he sat down next to Rose. The adrenaline that had allowed him to ignore his injury was starting to wear off.
Rose reached over and used some of her regeneration energy and healed his shoulder back to as good as new. When the Doctor looked over at her she defended, "You weren't gonna do it. Just sit there in pain in one of those self destructive habits of yours."
"I've missed you. You always have kept me from being so self destructive," he suddenly confessed.
"I thought you'd outgrown me. You never came to see me during holidays from the academy despite us only living a few miles away." Rose was upset, it's not something she really thought much about until she was reunited with him.
"No. That's not true, it's just…" the Doctor sighed. "Well my father was being an asshole as usual. Only problem was Brax was out on military service and didn't get all of the same holidays anymore. So he wasn't there to protect me from father most of the time. Mother's priority was as always my sisters, she was from a time period on Earth where that's just how things were. The men raise the boys, the women the girls, and the husband's say is final. So she just went along with it. Took my mother years to break that indoctrination. Father decided it was bad enough I was 'half human', he wouldn't have me hanging around with commoners either."
"I knew your father was an abusive snob but really right now if he wasn't dead I'd probably throw him in a black hole or something," Rose replied angry on his behalf.
"Mother got there first sorry."
"Wait what?" Rose was surprised, the Doctor's mother was one of the most gentle and mild mannered people she'd ever met.
"I think she just snapped after years of abuse. Once she found him as he tried to start the cycle of abuse again only with his grandchildren, she got scary quiet and she killed him. Brax got rid of the body and any evidence and made it look like he had run off. Then changed father's TARDIS registration and since she was plenty old enough hid her in a museum."
Rose let out a slow whistle. "Now I think I get what Narvin once told me his predecessor told him. The CIA looked into potentially hiring your brother but ultimately decided not to because they thought he'd be too good at the job."
"Probably would be too. Brax is a lot more willing to be ruthless when he needs to be than I am. Will hurt himself to do it too. Want to know the worst thing father did to me? He changed who I was supposed to get married to because he thought I'd like it too much. It's supposed to be 'a duty to the house and mother Gallifrey not something fun or enjoyable'. I was supposed to originally marry you. Don't know if you were ever told that. Instead I was forced to marry the woman lined up for my aunt's second son and well you had the sense to turn around and run rather than be married to him. Your parents ended up being allowed to keep the land their garden park was on that was deeded to them in exchange, despite you not getting married in the end because they were promised you'd be married to me."
"No I didn't know that….. You know…. I don't think I would have run away if he kept up his end and I was marrying you."
"I've often wondered what might have been if we did," The Doctor confessed wistfully.
"There is no point in worrying about it now," Rose replied, "We're together now, and I love you, but even if we could change that part of our own past I wouldn't do it." The Doctor looked at her a little hurt. "It's not that I don't think I wouldn't have loved you then or anything like that. It's just that for me at least, the experience of running away and taking charge of my own destiny is a big part of who I am now. The same could be said for you I think."
The Doctor actually gave a smile at that before he leaned in and kissed her, then jumped up exuberantly. "Ok time we go and wake up your own brother. Brax told me where to find him."
"Just remember to at least put a shirt on first. As much as I'm enjoying the view you'd probably stand out more than usual if you go out like that," Rose reminded and the Doctor blushed a bit before instead of running out of the TARDIS haven forgotten he was bare chested, ran off into the depths of the TARDIS for a change of clothes.
-x-x-x-x-
Rose was pretty sure her brother was in the same form as she last saw him in during the war. After all she had seen him pretending to be a policeman in London during Christmas. The problem is they can't find him in this bar anywhere. It was relatively quiet with only a few patrons who were mostly people chancing the 'pub grub' because it's lunchtime. Behind the bar stood an exasperated man who Rose couldn't quite place the species of. If she had to guess though she'd think a cross between Killoran and human since he had doglike features mainly a small snout with a dog's nose but human like moth, human skin around his mouth and eyes but a dark glossy coat over the rest of him, floppy dog ears, dog-like claws instead of nails on the ends of his fingers, and she could see a tail when he turned around.
The Doctor looked somewhat excited to see the man though as he approached the bar and called out in an exuberant manner, "Peter! It's great to see you!"
The man or Peter gave the Doctor the once over and asked, "Sorry do I know you?"
"Oh yes, the face—"
"Doctor?" He asked.
"So recognise me then," the Doctor stated, it wasn't a question.
"Of course. There's only two people I know well that would be talking about changing faces. Why do you say that all the time anyway? It's kind of stupid since far more than your face changes. Anyway it had to be you because Brax wouldn't be caught dead in a T-shirt that says 'I'm a wolf, let me make you howl with me' wrote in Gallifreyan on it."
This made Rose laugh and the Doctor glared at her. "That would be a mixture of your mother's fault and Rose's. Your mother managed to mess up my shirt so I had to change. Rose here…" he gestured towards Rose "…thought this T-shirt would be a fun way to make her brother twitch and talked my TARDIS into turning against me and hiding anything else I could change into."
"What? That would be ridiculous. I'd never do such a thing," Rose replied, the picture of innocence.
"You two have been best mates since you changed back into a time lord. Anyway, Rose I'd like you to meet Peter Guy Summerfield, Benny's son. We've known each other since he was just a cub. Peter this is Rose my…. Well, Rose. Not really got a label for us yet. Who needs labels anyway. Although gotta say when it comes to labels Brax taught Peter to call me 'Uncle Thete' mostly to annoy me since I don't like that name much," the Doctor said in aside to Rose then continued talking to Peter, "Anyway turns out it's very likely I'm going to be your actual step uncle soon of how things were between your mother and Brax when I left is any indication."
Peter rolled his eyes. "Those two have been dancing around each other for as long as I've been alive. Longer even. So that's hardly surprising. More surprised they actually admitted it than anything. Although what about Miles? He's a good bloke and he and mum were getting quite serious. He'd even asked me for permission to ask her to marry him as her only living relative."
"Ah yes. Miles. Is that what he was going by as a human?" The Doctor asked as he took a seat at the bar.
"What are you talking about? What do you mean as a human?" Peter asked, confused.
"Time lords have a technology that lets us temporarily change into another species. Usually human because the same basic shape outwardly. The time lord part gets put in a bio container and the newly human person walks out with no memory of being a Time Lord except sometimes in dreams."
"Miles Richardson. He's really Brax isn't he?" Peter asked.
"Yes," the Doctor answered as Rose decided to take a seat beside him at the bar. "You're taking this rather well."
"You've met my mother? Just from being her son things have been happening to me my entire life. It really is debatable which one of you two has led the stranger life and found the most trouble by accident. This doesn't even register on my weird meter. Heck we even got here in this time period by getting caught up in a time storm. Besides Miles acts a lot like Brax at times, and there was the whole incident with the Epoch. They tried to convince us we were all actors making an audio play. His name was supposed to be Miles Richardson. Now I know a time lord can turn themselves into a human it all makes perfect sense," Peter stated matter of factly. "I wouldn't know why Brax would want to do that though."
"There was a war, a really terrible war and all of it was locked away in a time lock to save all of reality. By being human as the time lock was put in place they escaped. Now Rose and I are left looking for stray time lords who think they're human," the Doctor clarified solemnly.
"Speaking of which, where is Marvin?" Rose asked.
"I've been wondering that myself. He asked me to do him a favour and tend the bar for him while he goes to his hidden cellar to look for more fire whiskey. That was half an hour ago." Peter informed them.
"Maybe I should go check on him?" Rose asked, "I mean I'd help you behind the bar but I'm quite frankly terrible at pulling pints."
"Can't be as bad as mum. To this day I still haven't figured out how she made the keg explode. Brax banned her from even trying to pull anymore pints after that," Peter joked, "the fact he's involved also explains the name of the pub being the same as his one back on Legion. There is also some of the same furniture, and for some reason they brought Toothless Bob with them."
"Toothless Bob?" Rose couldn't help asking.
"Hey Bob! Wake up!" Peter yelled at what Rose had thought was a smelly pile of used bar rags with an old timey prospector's hat on top stirred to wakefulness.
"Wha? I ain't done nothin! I don't care what Crazy Hank told you about those land crows, he's a dang liar!"
"Well since Crazy Hank stole those land crows from triple breasted Sally in the first place, and with the fact we're no longer on Legion, means I think we can never mind about that. Besides, I'm not the security chief of Legion City anymore. That was hundreds of years ago. I just came here to visit mum and ended up getting a job offer as a bouncer from a friend of hers. ."
"You ain't hundreds of years old, you ain't nothin but a young pup," Bob replied.
"I'm actually three-hundred and twenty one years old. Looking good for my age if I do say so myself. Bob I need you to watch the bar for a moment, I need to show these two to the cellar. And please don't mess up the server robots while I'm gone like the last time."
"It's ok, I'll watch the bar, Rose would be better off going since it's her brother," the Doctor added.
"You just heard the magic words server robots didn't you?" Rose asked.
"Who me?" The Doctor asked innocently.
"Just don't try and make them more sonic, I don't think Mum Jackie will ever forgive you for the sonic washing machine incident," Rose teased.
"I stand by that it would have worked perfectly fine if she just let me adjust the sonic regulator," the Doctor huffed.
"Now that sounds like a good story. I love the Doctor got bored and tried to make something more sonic stories!" Peter exclaimed, trying not to laugh.
"There's been a lot of those then?" Rose couldn't help asking.
"Oh yes. My favourite is the sonic toaster incident," Peter replied.
"That was Brax's fault!" The Doctor complained.
"What happened?" Rose questioned knowing this had to be a good story.
"Well it was before I was born so I only know what Mum told me. This happened back in the early days when she was on Dellah. Apparently the Doctor decided to pay his brother a visit and they spotted their mother wondering about looking for the both of them. So they did the mature responsible thing and hid in Mum's flat from her. They got bored and over the course of three days with their mother still wandering around looking for them. Out of boredom had taken apart every appliance in her kitchen, even the sink. So it all came to a head when Mum got up the fourth 'morningish' put some bread in the toaster, sleepily went to get something out of the fridge and got a glass of water from the tap. Apparently the tap water had turned into lemonade, the fridge instead of cooling things just froze them in time making the milk warm, and the toaster let out such a screeching wailing sound it instantly woke her and all her neighbours up and all it actually did was make the bread hard. Having had enough Mum went and found their mother and told her where to find her sons. Their mother made the pair of them put everything back the way it was, clean the flat, and apologise like misbehaving children," Peter told her.
"Their mum was the only person I've ever known that could make either of those two do anything," Rose commented, holding back laughter.
"Hey my Mother was a very scary lady when she wanted to be," the Doctor defended as he got up and moved behind the bar.
"She is also where Brax inherited his, could 'sell fridges to ice warriors' charm from," Rose reminisced, "One time she managed to have Narvin remove all his 'spying devices' from her office and apologise profusely for ever putting such things there before he even knew what he was doing."
"Do I even want to know why he was spying on her in the first place?" The Doctor asked exasperated.
"Who knows, could just be because he was head of the CIA and she's Braxiatel's mother so therefore has to be up to something," Rose replied with a shrug. "Alright let's go see what 'Marvin' is up to."
Peter didn't go with her because the Doctor had been an honorary uncle his whole life and knew better than to leave him alone with technology for too long. So he just showed Rose to the secret entrance.
Rose walked into the cellar and was met with the familiar hum of Narvin's type 400 TARDIS. 'Hello girl, it's been a while.'
'Rose! Oh it's so good that you are here! My pilot found the door he wasn't supposed to be able to see and wandered into the control room, then he went into the corridor off of the main control room. I've been keeping him running around in circles with the only working exit being the way out for thirty-seven minutes and twenty-eight seconds now. He refuses to leave. Please can you go rescue him, he's been trying to take apart part of the corridor for ten minutes and six seconds now.'
'Why don't you just open a door there and make it open up to the swimming pool?' Rose asked.
'Yes Eldest has been telling me to do so for a while now,' Narvin's TARDIS replied, 'In my experience she's a bad influence when it comes to these things.'
Eldest was what other TARDISes referred to the Doctor's TARDIS as. It was some sort of title they bestowed on her as a leader of sorts. She often heard out the arguments of her siblings and mediated disputes between them. They all respected her, but at the same time some did tend to find her sense of humour tasteless. Rose was actually one of the few who knew specifically which TARDIS they were talking about and was sworn to secrecy about it or every TARDIS would stop talking to her and not work for her. She asked why they called her that once, they told her it's because she is the eldest of them all and not just the box she's currently contained in.
'Yes well I'm hardly any better myself when it comes to it,' Rose replied.
'That's only to be expected. You are the Bad Wolf after all,' Narvin's TARDIS replied cryptically.
'What does that even mean? Is it because of what we did to save the Doctor? What was that all about? How come I came out of it alive and well but it killed the Doctor?'
'You know I can't answer those questions. It's still forbidden for us to talk about.'
'Forbidden by who?' Rose asked annoyed.
'By you.'
'Me? When? How?'
'I can't—'
'Tell me, yes I know. It's just frustrating because I really don't remember any of it.' Rose replied. She had this argument with both the Doctor's TARDIS and Hogwarts before, they both told her the same thing. Rose made her way into the control room where her brother in his human guise was trying his best to knock down a wall with a sledge hammer.
"Just let me see it!" He yelled as he took another swing, but dropped the hammer soon after and slid down the wall into a sitting position, rubbing his temples and making pained noises.
Rose just slid down the wall directly opposite him and looked him over. Something had him upset, she could tell. "So any reason you're taking out your anger on that wall. Also where did you get that sledgehammer from anyway?"
Marvin looked up and over to Rose. "Are you a hallucination as well?"
"That's an interesting question. I mean I'm not, but if I was I'd definitely answer that in the affirmative as well," Rose mused, "So you've been having many hallucinations then?"
"Not of you. You normally only show up in my dreams, living as a girl from the 21st century. All the way from childhood to adulthood."
"Interesting. Must be the twin bond, it's said one of the most powerful bonds out there is between twins that are time lords. I guess it couldn't be suppressed. I had dreams about you as well the entire time I was human. Some really horrible ones too when it came to what you had to do in the war. Mum Jackie, that's the woman you left me with who thinks I'm her daughter was always confused because I would talk about having a twin brother. Nice save on stopping Omega by the way. One ancient insane time lord is enough to deal with at a time. So if not me, who have you been hallucinating?"
Marvin blushed. "She's such a wonderful creature. A lithe savage woman who is smart in her own way, carries a shocking big knife and is pretty handy in a fight. But she's also kind with a huge heart and a strong sense of right and wrong. She also seems to always be wearing very little clothing."
"Ah, you still got a thing for Leela then," Rose observed.
"Like you haven't got it so bad for the Doctor our bond makes me half in love with him myself. That's not embarrassing at all. Why did I say that? Who's the Doctor?" Marvin was very confused.
"You're remembering. It's to be expected since you found your TARDIS. You need to open your watch. Oh and talking about embarrassing, thanks to you I've been caught ogling Leela more than once. I'm not even into women. You're at least into both," Rose complained.
"What if the Doctor turned into one?" Marvin asked carrying on the conversation out of some sort of instinct.
"That's' different and you know it," Rose shot back. "Just open the watch before the safety goes off and it's released for you. Will only be worse if it does. Knocked Ross out for the count when he waited too long."
"Watch?"
"You're holding it in your hand right now," Rose explained.
"Oh this thing? It's broken. Got it from where I lived in Ireland before coming here. Miles and Lily have one as well."
"Then what harm would there be in opening it?"
Marvin didn't argue anymore, just opened the watch and was engulfed in golden light and screamed in pain. Narvin woke up as himself once more, but promptly fainted from the pain.
Rose had nearly screamed in pain as well but restrained herself. It was a little known fact that because they were twins they were bonded so closely together they felt things like pain that the other was in. People often glorified the good parts of having a bond like theirs but often didn't think about the down sides. Like with them feeling the same pain literally, or being attracted to someone because the other one is. She wasn't joking about Leela. Or him the Doctor. When they were very little they had to be taught to be separate people and could and would use each other's limbs to do things as naturally as they would their own. A combination of training from the Old Hermit of Mount Lung, and getting older and their different personalities naturally asserting themselves resolved that issue at least. She knew of one other set of time lord twins who were identical twins rather than paternal, that never really did completely resolve that issue.
Narvin stirred and started to groan a little before coming to and sitting back up. "I am going to murder Braxiatel."
Rose almost laughed but just barely managed to stop herself. "What did he do this time?"
"Named me after a Looney Toons character," Narvin replied indignantly.
"I dunno, Narvin the Martian has a ring to it as well," Rose teased.
"I really shouldn't give you ideas. So the fact that you're here hopefully means it worked and we're on the other side of the time lock."
"Yup, the Doctor is probably messing with your server robots as we speak."
"He's what!"
"If it helps I warned him not to make them more sonic," Rose replied sympathetically.
"Right, feet! Those would be at the end of my legs," Narvin said as he managed to get up shakily only to promptly trip over a sledgehammer. He looked up at Rose and couldn't help but ask, "Where the heck did that come from?"
"I'm not sure. You transfigured it as best I can guess. You were using it to try and knock a wall down and yelling at your TARDIS to let you see something. I think you were delirious. You talked about hallucinating Leela as well."
He let out a huge sigh and slumped back against the wall of the corridor and turned invisible. Rose just reached out to where she knew he was and poked him, startling Narvin back into visibility. "What?"
"You subconsciously turned yourself invisible again. Not that it really matters because I'll always find you no matter how well you hide, but the Doctor or Peter or someone could come down here wondering what's taking us so long. Unless you actually want people to know you've been able to do that and hidden the talent your whole life."
"No, as always I'd rather keep that talent between the two of us. It's nowhere near as effective if people actually know I can do it. So you may as well fill me in on everything and then I'll tell you what's been happening on my end."
And so the two siblings just stayed there and talked well into the night filling each other in on everything.
-x-x-x-x-x-