Hi everyone! I'm back!
This is the last chapter of Rose! The End of the World should be about three chapters long, so look forward to that.
And, exciting news (for me at least), I am going to go see Genesis of the Daleks at the theater tonight! I haven't watched a lot of Classic Who, but I'm super excited.
Anyway, I shouldn't keep the chapter off for any longer. Happy reading!
Chapter 8
Rose Part 4
The ladder led down into a small room bathed in red lighting. Warm air clung to June's skin and she pushed her bushy hair out of her face. The Doctor had already found a door and Rose stepped off of the ladder right after June. He gave the two girls an encouraging smile and opened the door. The three of them stepped out onto a metal staircase and the room opened up around them. They had stepped into a large underground chamber with several confusing staircases and walkways and dramatic red mood lighting. But what really caught everyone's attention was the bubbling lava pit in the middle of the room.
June and Rose followed the Doctor down a staircase, getting a better look at the lava pit. "The Nestene Consciousness," the Doctor said. "That's it, inside the vat." He pointed at the lava. "A living plastic creature."
June gaped down at it. Usually the aliens she saw were at least a little humanoid, not just a bubbling thick liquid. She couldn't fathom how it could work, how it could think, how it could control the rest of the Autons around the city. It all seemed a little too impossible. "Is that really it?" June asked.
"Yep," the Doctor nodded.
"Well, then. Tip your anti-plastic and let's go," Rose said.
"I'm not here to kill it," the Doctor told her.
"You've just got to give it a chance, don't you?" June asked. She didn't mean for it to sound like a bad thing. Giving it a chance to just leave them alone was a lot better than just destroying it and running. She always preferred it when he gave aliens a chance.
"Of course, I do," he said.
They walked down another flight of stairs and the Doctor looked over the iron rod railing down at the vat of not-lava but living plastic. "I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract according to convention fifteen of the Shadow Proclamation." The Nestene Consciousness flexed in its vat. "Thank you," the Doctor said. "If I might have permission to approach?"
Rose suddenly gasped and ran past the two of them. "Oh, god!" She ran down two levels and knelt down in front of the non-Auton Mickey. He sat tied up to the railing, obviously scared out of his mind. The Doctor and June exchanged looks. The Doctor seemed annoyed, rolling his eyes, and June's look told him to cut it out.
Rose turned to them as they stepped off of the staircase. "They kept him alive," she said.
"Yeah, that was always a possibility," the Doctor said. "Keep him alive to maintain the copy." June rolled her eyes and shook her head as she followed him towards another staircase which descended closer to the Nestene Consciousness.
"You knew and you never said?" Rose snapped.
"Can we keep the domestics outside, thank you?" he dismissed. He turned to June. "Stay here," he said.
June shook her head. "No way." The Doctor frowned at her. "You might need backup. And I'm backup." She didn't feel right about letting him go by himself. If he was going to be right in the middle of the action, she would be by his side, ready to fight if anything went wrong.
"It could be dangerous," he warned her.
"It's always dangerous," June argued. "But, friends don't let friends go into dangerous situations alone, so I'm going with you."
The Doctor rolled his eyes. He obviously didn't think it was a good idea but didn't want to argue with her. "Alright fine, you can come with me," he grumbled. June grinned at him. "But if I tell you to run, you have to run."
"Got it."
June caught the Doctor's hand as they walked down another staircase and across a walkway. They stepped out onto a concrete platform that dropped down over the Nestene Consciousness. June's stomach seized. She wasn't sure what was giving her more anxiety: the alien or the open edge of the platform.
"Am I addressing the Consciousness?" the Doctor asked. The Consciousness shifted and glowed red from its vat. "Thank you," he said. "If I might observe, you infiltrated this civilization by the means of warp shunt technology. So, may I suggest, with the greatest respect, that you shunt off?" He smiled at the Consciousness.
June whacked his arm, but still snickered. "Don't be rude to the Consciousness," she scolded through a grin. He smiled at her. She stepped closer to him and added in a whisper, "Especially when the Consciousness could probably kill us."
The Nestene Consciousness flexed around in its vat. It squirmed in a way that made June think that it was angry. It formed what looked like a face with two large furrowed eyebrows and narrowed eyes staring up at them.
"Oh, don't give me that," the Doctor said, frowning down at it. "It's an invasion, plain and simple. Don't talk about constitutional rights." The Consciousness thrashed around, a faint hissing echoing off of the walls. "I am talking!" the Doctor shouted at it. June stared wide-eyed up at him. His voice could sound so much like thunder sometimes. She had never been scared of how he yelled, of course, he had never shouted at her like that before. "This planet is just starting," the Doctor continued. "These stupid little people have only just learned how to walk, but they're capable of so much more." June didn't know whether to be insulted or not. "I'm asking you on their behalf. Please, just go."
"Doctor! June!" Rose shouted.
June jumped at the sound of the blonde's voice and spun around to look up at her. Instead, she saw three Autons walking towards them. She was immediately spun back around by one of the Autons. Its plastic hands wrapped around her arms and pinned them behind her back. The other two Autons grabbed the Doctor. June went immediately into desperate survival mode and thrashed around in the Auton's grip. Her joints and arms popped around, all boney elbows and weak wrists. Ultimately, she wasn't strong enough to wiggle free.
One of the Autons grabbed the anti-plastic from the Doctor's jacket and held it up high in the air. June could've sworn that she stopped breathing for a moment. If all had gone wrong (as it was now), the anti-plastic was their out. A bit of a gruesome out, but still an out. And now the Doctor didn't have it and the Nestene Consciousness knew that it had been there in the first place. June wondered how much more screwed they could get.
"That was just insurance," the Doctor told the Consciousness. "I wasn't going to use it." The Consciousness roared and squirmed and thrashed some more. "I was not attacking you," the Doctor insisted. "I'm not your enemy. I swear, I'm not." It howled and the Doctor's face dropped. "What do you mean?"
Suddenly, loud clunks and creaks stirred around behind them, June didn't know what from though. She tried her best to look over her shoulder, searching for the source. When she managed to stretch her head around enough, her eyes were immediately drawn to the TARDIS gleaming up on a higher floor.
"No. Oh, no. Honestly, no," the Doctor gaped. June's stomach plummeted but she tried to stay calm (which was becoming a bit of a chore). "Yes, that's my ship," the Doctor told the Consciousness.
The Consciousness whined and thrashed and hissed.
"That's not true!" the Doctor shouted at it. "I should know, I was there. I fought in the war." June's eyes snapped over to him. "It wasn't my fault," he cried. "I couldn't save your world! I couldn't save any of them!" June, of course, knew what he was talking about. It had taken a bit of poking and prodding, but he had told her. Never to the full extent though. She hated the amount of pain in his voice. She hated how she wasn't about to yell at the Consciousness to leave him alone because he didn't deserve to have to keep reliving everything that had happened even more than he already did. She did really want to shout at it, but her voice swallowed itself.
The Nestene Consciousness twisted and curled, hissing loud and recklessly. The almost-face it had made curdled and distorted more and more in anger.
"What's it doing?!" Rose shouted down at them.
"It's the TARDIS!" the Doctor shouted back, trying to turn despite the restraint. "The Nestene's identified it as superior technology! It's terrified! It's going to the final phase! It's starting the invasion! Get out, Rose! Just leg it now!"
June kicked her heels back against the plastic legs of the Auton, almost expecting it to hurt and flinch and accidently let her go. But the whole body was plastic. It didn't feel pain. It didn't feel anything. It was just a piece of plastic, holding her against her will. The whole time she kicked, she remembered that she was stuck only because of herself. It made her feel a little sick.
And then she linked eyes with the Doctor. "I'm sorry!" he yelled at her.
Despite the situation, June scoffed something sounding like a laugh. "Don't apologize!" she yelled back. "I chose to come down with you! I wasn't very useful as backup, was I?" He opened his mouth, but June turned her head away. She wasn't about to listen to him tell her that she wasn't at least a little in the wrong. Instead, she looked up to see Rose. She couldn't see her well. But she was still there. She hadn't run at all.
Blue lightning broke out from the Nestene Consciousness. It struck against the ceiling and lit up the room in bright light. June shrieked and attempted to duck. Her arms stretched awkwardly as she dropped to the floor so she shot back up in an attempt to ease the pain. She turned to look at the Doctor. "Doctor!?"
"It's the activation signal!" he yelled, answering her question before she even asked. "It's transmitting!"
The whole ceiling smoked and shuttered as bolts shot through the roof. June had no clue what was happening on the surface but knew that it wasn't any good and that she didn't have a lot of time to wonder about it.
The Nestene Consciousness roared and stretched, grabbing at the platform, reaching for them, like a child reaching for a toy that their mother had put onto a high shelf. If they were toys, then it seemed like they were stuck in the incinerator scene. Fire shot up around them and licked railings and the concrete platform and anything else it could get its flames on.
The Doctor turned to look at Rose. "Get out, Rose!" he shouted. "Just get out! Run!"
"The stairs have gone!" Rose shouted back. She was stuck. Her boyfriend was stuck. The surface was in possible turmoil.
June stopped struggling. If she could get out of the Auton's grip, she would have already. When she looked over at the Doctor, he gave her a look, one that tried to apologize for letting her into that mess, one that tried to tell her that she couldn't've done anything differently. Of course, she wasn't an idiot and she knew that he was the Doctor, another not-idiot who, because he was him, would either take the blame or dismiss the blame for anything she did wrong in an attempt to make her feel better. But that wasn't helping anything. It didn't stop June from thinking about her mistake. It didn't stop everything from falling apart around them.
The Auton that held the Doctor brought him over to the edge of the concrete platform. He struggled as the Auton attempted to push him over the edge. June tried to pull away, but still struggled against the grip of the Auton holding her. She could only scream after him, and she did. She shouted at the Doctor or at the Auton or at the Nestene Consciousness, maybe all three. She wasn't sure, she couldn't hear herself. And Rose and her boyfriend Mickey shouted down at the scene. But, nothing changed. June couldn't fix anything.
The Nestene Consciousness hadn't exactly spoken before. It had just hissed or growled or roared or whatever. But it spoke, in clear English, two words. Words not directed at June, of course they wouldn't be directed at June, but she understood what it had said. "Time Lord."
The Doctor turned to Rose, who simply stared down at him. Then, he looked at June. June just gaped at him, really not sure what to say, really not sure what to do. He didn't seem to know what to do either, which was an unnerving thought because he prided himself on being smart and clever and knowing how to fix things.
No one had a plan. But June didn't like the idea of being so easily defeated by a pit of living plastic. She didn't think that her life would go down that way. And she was sure that the Doctor's life wasn't supposed to go down that way. June, feeling more useless than she had in a while, did the only thing she could possibly think to do: throw a tantrum. She didn't go full child being pulled away from a toy they really wanted at a store, but she screamed bloody murder and thrashed and kicked against her restraints. She could almost feel her wrists and shoulders popping out of place. Nothing changed.
But then suddenly, the death grip on her wrists became loose. June stumbled, ducking as the Auton that held her in place flipped over her head and right over the edge of the platform, falling into the vat. That Auton was followed by the two others. And when June had regained her balance and turned around, she saw Rose Tyler swinging on a chain over the platform. June had thrown a tantrum. Rose Tyler had actually done something about the whole situation.
The Nestene Consciousness roared much louder than it ever had before. Electric blue shocked and flowed through its body, like large veins lit up against skin. The anti-plastic. It had to be.
She heard the Doctor shout, "Rose!" but June didn't want to turn and look at him. She stared at the struggling Consciousness. There was a bad feeling in her gut. It made her want to throw up. She had struggled and done absolutely nothing. She was used to fighting back and escaping with her gut as her guide, but she hadn't that time and she couldn't make excuses. She hadn't been smart. She hadn't thought anything through. She had been stubborn and she had wanted to be by the Doctor's side when really, she probably should have just listened to him. If she had been free, if she had been standing up there with Rose, things would have gone differently.
The ceiling popped and boomed, and June did register it, just not as much as she should have. The Doctor grabbed her hand and pulled her along, running for the TARDIS. The Nestene Consciousness screeched and the sound itched against June's mind. They ran up a staircase, June with wobbly legs she was afraid would collapse under her. They ran to the TARDIS. Rose's boyfriend already clung to it desperately. The Doctor opened the TARDIS door and pushed them all inside.
Everything became calm again. The explosions and the screaming of the Consciousness were muffled, but she still heard them. Oh god, it had died, hadn't it? June stayed quiet. The Doctor ran to the console and the TARDIS took off, the familiar wheezing filling the air and blocking out any remaining noise. June sat down on the tattered seat, not exactly collapsing as her mind raced too much to let her.
The Doctor landed the TARDIS a moment later. Rose's boyfriend bolted from the box and Rose followed, pulling her phone out of her pocket and leaving the door open.
June sighed and an involuntary shiver shot down her back. She wanted to hit herself. But she also told herself to get over it, everyone was safe. Everyone but the Nestene Consciousness but she knew that nothing really could have changed what had happened to it besides it deciding to leave Earth peacefully. It didn't take long for the familiar, "Are you alright?" to come from the Doctor.
June looked up at him. He looked concerned. Of course, he was concerned. He had a way of noticing things about people. He had a way of noticing things about her. Maybe he could see her mind racing in her eyes. Maybe he could read her thoughts. Could he? She'd have to ask later. But now, she sat up a little straighter, held two thumps up, and said, "Yep." And he didn't buy it. Of course, he wouldn't buy it. She didn't know why she even tried to lie like that, especially to him. She chuckled to herself and pulled at her hair. "I was useless."
"So was I," the Doctor said. "We were both stuck. Neither of us could escape. You can't blame yourself, though. You thought you were doing the right thing. It just wasn't right in this situation." She wondered if he knew that he only made her feel a bit worse. "It doesn't mean you'll never be right again."
"I think Rose might have some questions still," June said, nodding towards the door. "And you might want to thank her, on both of our behalves." She mostly didn't want to talk about it anymore. She knew he was trying to be helpful and she was thankful that he was, but she just needed a distraction more. Talking it out wasn't really her thing. It felt too awkward.
"Alright," he said. The Doctor nodded, smiled at her, and then went to lean in the TARDIS's doorway.
June took a deep breath and shrugged her backpack off. She glanced at the Doctor, but something, maybe in her gut, maybe in her head, told her that something out there was changing and she didn't want change, not that fast, not when she had just gotten used to everything. So, she looked away from him. She looked at the console with all its buttons and levers and things that could be pulled, pushed, and twirled. But mostly she thought that if she hadn't insisted on going with him, she would have been able to open the TARDIS for Rose and her boyfriend and keep them safe. She would've been able to attack the Autons with her baseball bat and free the Doctor. She would have been of some use. But she couldn't change things. Timelines got messy, apparently, that's what the Doctor had said. So, no going back to change her own mind.
A minute later, the Doctor walked up to the console silently and the TARDIS set off. Both of them stayed quiet. They let the wheezing of the TARDIS ring out without any interruptions. The Doctor walked around the console, pressing controls and looking at the scanner. He didn't say anything. And like he knew when something was going on with her, June could tell when something was going on with him. She couldn't read people as well and she was sure that the Doctor was way too complex of a person to ever be really sure what all of his actions meant, but she could tell when he seemed upset. And it was better to take a chance at comforting someone who wasn't upset than not comforting someone who was upset.
As soon as the wheezing died down, she asked, "What happened?"
He said, "Nothing."
June rolled her eyes. Yeah, he preferred not to talk about himself either. And yet, she egged on. "You were fine and now you're not. What happened?"
"I'm telling you, it's nothing," he insisted.
And that's when it dawned on her. Things had indeed been changing. And she couldn't exactly blame him for how useless she had been. "You asked her to come along with you, didn't you?"
He muttered, "Yeah."
"And she said no," June guessed.
And he nodded. "Yeah."
They were quiet. He was genuinely upset that Rose had decided not to travel with him. Of course, he had been impressed with her after saving them. He had been impressed with June when he found her on that planet. June had been too caught up in her own head to notice much. She did think Rose was nice and brave. And although June did feel a little awkward and was more than a little scared of being pushed out and ignored, Rose had saved them and the rest of the world from the Nestene Consciousness. She deserved a trip. And June had no idea how anyone could pass up the offer of traveling through time and space. She mostly, of course, hated seeing the Doctor upset. So she said, "Aren't you going to go back and convince her?"
The Doctor furrowed his eyebrows at her. "She said no."
"Yeah," June said, "but maybe second time's a charm, huh? You left and then came back to get me. Maybe you just have to go back to convince her."
He was quiet, scanning her carefully with narrowed eyes. He crossed his arms. "You're okay with this?"
June shrugged. She liked where they were at. Their casual friendship and misadventures were nice. Rose would either ruin that or make it better. She could survive both. "It's not my choice," she told him. "It's yours."
"Your opinion still matters," the Doctor said.
"Only because you care about me," June said. He still didn't do anything. "Oh, just go back and convince her."
The Doctor gave her one more concerned look and started up the TARDIS again. The wheezing filled the room and the lights flashed against the walls. He gave her a suspicious look because honestly, sometimes he didn't know how she could work the way she did. June, although she had warmed up to him almost immediately (an odd occurrence according to her), was not fond of making new friends. She just clung to the friends she already had. He knew because she talked about her friends from home so often it annoyed him. Although he liked the way her forest-colored eyes brightened just a bit when she was telling a story and laughing through it, so it didn't annoy him all that much. And now, even though he could see the fear in her eyes, she insisted he go back for Rose. He could only guess it was because she wanted him to be happy, even if she fell into the background. He understood yet didn't want to.
When the TARDIS landed, the Doctor ran to the door. June slid off of the chair and walked to the front of the console, watching him go, nervous at what was to come. But he stopped midway to the door. He turned and looked at her. "I know what you're thinking," he said. She raised an eyebrow. "So, I'll ask you this—" he walked back up to her and cupped her face in his hands. June felt herself flush and stumble. He didn't continue until she looked back at him. "—how could I replace my brilliant June Harlow?" And her heart just melted a bit. The Doctor grinned at her one more time and then went for the TARDIS doors again.
June smiled just a bit, looking down at the grated metal floor. Maybe he could read minds. She would really have to ask him. Maybe he could read minds the way she could read her gut. He just knew without really having to hear anything. Because that's how June read her gut. And as she watched him at the door, she just knew that this was it, this was the change. And good or bad, she would be alright in the end even if she had to suffer a bit before that. She leaned against the console and put on a warm smile as the Doctor ran back into the TARDIS, Rose following close behind.
So, how'd you guys like the chapter, huh?
I have no clue when the next chapter will be up, but hopefully soon.
Reviews, follows, and favorites are very much appreciated.
Until next time,
~ C.C