Things continue to heat up as our Reader gets ready to return to the prime universe (or, as we Darkwing Duck fans call it, the Normal wear).
Part Eight — The Rose Circuit, part II: Red Roses
Of all the things I had ever imagined doing in my life, going out of my way to pick up a girl my best friend had feelings for, staying in her home, and watching her say goodbye to her mum, step dad, and baby brother for, quite possibly, the last time before I escorted her halfway across space and time was not in my top ten.
Wasn't even on that ridiculous gap year bucket list I had made.
I waited outside of earshot as Rose Tyler made her final farewells, still wondering if everything would be okay when we returned. The Doctor would still be in my room, and it'd be just my luck that we'd appear there. He'd probably drop whatever he was holding on his foot.
I shuffled the papers from the envelope anxiously. No matter what happened, I wouldn't be there to see the immediate repercussions of whatever he did when Rose freaking Tyler showed up because I had to get the vortex manipulator back to Jack Harkness. I frowned. The last coordinates on the paper were for Cardiff, 21st of March, 2013. After that, the was a simple note telling me to wait. For what, though, I had no clue. I just hoped that it meant for me to wait on the Doctor to come get me. I couldn't stay stuck in Cardiff, 2013. There'd be two of me running around, and that'd be only the beginning of everything wrong there.
Rose hugged her mother, Jackie, and step dad, Pete, before kneeling down to face the toddler gripping his mother's pants leg desperately. She said something, and he threw his arms around her neck, or at least tried to. I turned my head away then.
A couple of minutes later, Rose walked up to me, running her sleeve over her eyes. "Do you have any siblings, (f/n)?"
"No, I've never had the pleasure."
"Neither had I until we came here." Rose looked back over her shoulder to look at little Tony Tyler, who was now in his father's arms and waving desperately at his sister. "He'll grow up knowing about me, but he'll never know me, ya know?" She turned back to face me. "Anyway," she continued, hoisting her knapsack over her shoulder. "We'd best be going, yeah?"
Yes, we had. I stuffed the papers back into the envelope and slipped it back inside the bigger on the inside pocket of the jacket I wore. It wasn't another from the Doctor's odd assortment, but I did get it from the TARDIS wardrobe, and the pockets were phenomenal for storage.
Rose stood there patiently, waiting for my instructions. Once I had everything situated, I looked back up at the blonde, extending my arm at the same time. Silently, with one last wistful look at the family standing amongst the rosebushes in the back garden, she clasped my arm. We nodded to each other and I pushed the button, pulling us into the time vortex.
The howling of the time vortex pulsed thunderously in my ears this time, seeming worse than before. The hand Roae Tyler had entwined around my arm felt uncomfortably hot as well, and the lights of the vortex were almost golden compared to the twisted rainbow they'd seemed like the other two times I'd been through. The whole trip was...more violent, if that was even possible.
The roaring of the vortex quickly gave way to silence as Rose and I emerged in the coral themed console room of the Tenth Doctor's TARDIS scant seconds after I had left the first time, according to the watch on the vortex manipulator.
Wow, my own time line is really starting to sound wibbly wobbly.
"Timey wimey," Rose said.
"What?" I started.
"You said your time line's going wibbly," she explained absently while looking around the dark room. "I was in here just last week, but it's so...different, I dunno." She turned back to me, then, and I shifted uncomfortably. "S'what now, then? Do we wait, or what?" As she said this, she stepped up to the center console and examined it almost tenderly. "What's wrong with her?"
"Well," I began slowly, not quite sure how to proceed. "We're still in Pete's World, you know, but we're back 2008 or something when you and the Doctor and that other guy-"
"Mickey."
"-yeah, him, were pulled through. I suppose you three are out doing something interesting," I shrugged.
Rose gave me a serious look that reminded me of the Claire Oswin lady who had given me the "Retrieve Rose Tyler" instruction envelope in the first place. "We were fighting Cybermen."
"Oh," I tried dumbly. I stared at the blonde for a moment before quickly changing the subject. "C'mon, then, as soon as the Doctor and the other you come back and get the TARDIS back to our universe, we can get out of here!"
"Seems reasonable," Rose agreed.
I fumbled about in my pocket for my phone. I don't know why I hadn't thought to use the phone's flashlight when I was trying to get to the console room earlier, but now it should help me get back to my bolthole in the depths of the ancient time machine. After a moment, I extracted the device and switched on the light, which sent eery shadows wavering throughout the room. "Come along, Tyler," I mumbled, before entering the nearest corridor.
Rose Tyler's footsteps echoed behind me as we walked silently through the darkness. Neither of us said a word in the age it took to get back to my hidey hole, and I was thankful for that. If she were to ask me what we would do once we returned to the Doctor - my Doctor - I might scream.
At last we reached the door, and I led her inside. "There isn't much in here without the TARDIS' power, but there's the couch," I pointed my light in that direction, "and a bathroom behind that door if you need it," again I directed her with my light.
"Thank you," Rose Tyler said before plopping down unceremoniously at one end of the couch and curling up.
"Okay, then."
A while later, I was tidying up the scattered magazines on the floor to the tune of Rose's light snoring when the emergency lights flickered on, giving way to the proper lights moments later.
"Bloody brilliant," I mumbled when the screen turned on to show a younger Rose Tyler in the console room alongside the Tenth Doctor.
"Is that really what I look like from behind?"
I started, before realizing that the current Rose Tyler had woken up from her nap. "Yeah, I guess."
She ignored me in favor of watching the Doctor and herself interact. Once the TARDIS engines rumbled and we entered the time vortex, she turned to me. "It's strange to see us like that again, thinking that forever was at our feet. At least, I felt that way. I suppose he knew that no one could stay with him for that long, except the TARDIS." She let out a weary sigh. "S'always him and her, the sad man in the blue box. And we're just passengers; some of us stay longer than others, and some of us come back," she flashed me a tongue in tooth smile, "but they're the beach and time is the sea and we're footprints in the sand and when the tide comes in - we're gone. All we can do is stay with him while we can."
I shuffled the stack of magazines in my hands uneasily at her words. A thousand and one retorts spun through my mind, yet none managed to make themselves known. As Rose continued to watch the screen, I went about the room, grabbing a drink from the fridge, leafing through more magazines, watching her watch herself, and generally not talking.
At last, the TARDIS landed outside in London's East End, and I sprang to my feet. "Allonz-y, Rose Tyler!" Rose stared at me, gobsmacked, as I scanned my papers for the coordinates back to the time I'd left my Doctor.
"Why didn't we do this as soon as we'd reentered the time vortex?" She asked, looping her arm with mine.
"We had to wait for the Doctor to leave; he'd notice the temporal ripples the vortex manipulator would cause inside the TARDIS before she had a chance to cover them up!"
"How did you-"
I pushed the button again.
The time vortex was again filled with golden light and a howling wind. The longer I listened, the more like wolves it sounded, and the more I didn't like it. When we emerged at the other end, I was ready to breathe a sigh of relief...but then I remembered I still had a few more stops to make, and groaned.
"(f/n)!"
I whipped my head around to see the Doctor - my beautiful floppy haired bowtie wearing Doctor - standing in the middle of my bedroom...and holding a pot of macaroni and cheese.
"Hey, Doct-"
"Doctor?" Rose Tyler stared at the Time Lord, who turned as white as a sheet at the sound of her voice. Slowly, he turned to look at her, gaping like a fish.
"R-r-rose..."
The macaroni and cheese fell to the floor, but neither of them noticed. With a sigh of exasperation, I quietly typed the next sequence of letters and numbers into the vortex manipulator. "Well, I'll see you later Doctor, Rose Tyler."
The Doctor spun about so quickly I was surprised that he didn't fall. "Wait, (f/n)-"
"Laters!"
And then I went flying back to Cardiff, 2013, the morning before I met Captain Jack Harkness.
Weirdly though, the time vortex was just the same as it had been when I first traveled through it with the vortex manipulator. Maybe the whole golden howling thing was some kind of multiversal fluke.
I appeared outside a worn wooden door with the number 67 on it in tarnished brass figures. I quickly did a one eighty to make sure no one had seen my random appearance out of thin air. If they did, that'd be bad. I'd probably have to use one of those memory worm things the Doctor had told me about to make them forget that they'd ever seen it. Thankfully, the hallway was empty.
Steeling myself, I rapped my knuckles against the doorframe.
There was a long stretch of quiet before I heard a shuffle and a latch being drawn. The door swung open to reveal the form of Captain Jack Harkness, complete with bed hair, early morning shadow, and no pants.
Or shirt.
I'm actually surprised that he had on boxers after hearing some of his antics, and from his own mouth, no less.
We stared at each other for a good minute before he grinned at me, all suave and swagger. "Hello, I'm Jack Harkness, though you probably know that already, Miss...?
"(f/n) (l/n), I'm a companion of the Doctor's, Captain."
His eyes widened. "The Doctor? Maybe you should come inside, Miss (l/n)." So saying, he held the door open for me, granting me entrance into his flat.
"(nickname)," I said suddenly, stopping in the small front hall to look at him.
"Excuse me?" He glanced back over his shoulder at me as he bolted the door again.
"You've always called me (nickname)," I explained as he proceeded to lead me into his sitting room.
"Hm, (nickname), it does sound like something I'd call a gorgeous girl like you," he gave me another grin.
I giggled. "Yeah, well, you can use it this afternoon when I meet you."
"Does the Doc need help saving the world again?" Jack asked, reclining sideways in a large, overstuffed leather chair. "You can sit down if you like."
"Thanks," I nodded, and plopped down on to the equally stuffed leather couch. "It's really not so much saving the world as trying to-"
Jack cut me off, having pulled a gun from nowhere and pointed it at my head.
"Jack-"
"I've dealt with a few things over the years that claimed to know the Doctor. Most of them weren't the good guys." As he said this, Jack stood up and moved toward me, the gun never wavering in it's aim. "And don't think I didn't notice my vortex manipulator on your arm." Jack came to a standstill in front of my knees and used the barrel of the gun to lift my chin. Fear ran through me like ice; I hadn't thought that Jack wouldn't trust me from the get go without the Doctor around. "So talk, sweetheart, before my finger goes to sleep. You may have woken me up and I'm still a bit tired."
"Where do you want me to start?" I asked flatly, staring cross-eyed at the gun.
"First off - how did you get my vortex manipulator?"
I swallowed thickly. "You gave it to me - you're going to run into the Doctor and I this afternoon down on the streets, and you're going to give it to me then. I'd be the girl in the cricket shirt with the celery," I rambled.
"And why do I give it to you?"
"Because it's the first step in a plan to bring back Rose Tyler."
For a moment, I thought Jack was going to throw down the gun and go at my throat with his hands, but that quickly passed and instead he remained almost motionless - except for the sudden tick at the corner of his mouth.
"Rose Tyler is dead," he told me, sounding as if he'd swallowed something gross. It sounded like he'd recited that line a thousand times.
I almost shook my head before thinking better of it. "No, in 2007 she became trapped in a parallel universe that the Doctor calls Pete's World, after Rose's father, who is still alive there, unlike here, where he died in a hit and run accident when Rose was a baby."
Jack looked at me uneasily. "Who told you that?"
"The Doctor, a lady named Claire, and Rose herself."
Jack Harkness frowned at me long and hard, still almost naked and still with a gun to my neck. After several tense moments of silence, Jack flipped the safety on and withdrew his gun. At that moment, my shoulders relaxed, though I still kept an eye on him and the weapon.
"Tell me everything - and hand me the vortex manipulator," he said shortly.
And so, I did. I handed him the wristband without question (he could still kill me, after all) and began my tale, telling him everything. Nearly.
I left out the part about the strange accurence with the time vortex, my life story, and especially my confused feelings for the Doctor.
Once I was finished (in which time Jack had moved back to his chair to fiddle with the vortex manipulator and had left his gun on the side table next to it), he gave me a weary look. "If you hadn't just come from taking Rosie to the Doctor, I would say you were crazy and call the whole story a sham, but the coordinates log in this can't lie." He flashed me a worn half smile and waved the vortex manipulator in the air. "Believe me, I've tried to fake them."
I eyed the former Time Agent warily. "So you believe me then?"
"Well, your story checks out with the coordinates log, and only I have the keycode to access that. So, unless you're a galaxy class hacker - which I highly doubt, no offense, doll - then I am forced to conclude that you are indeed crazy enough to have been able to do what even the Doc failed to accomplish."
"If I wasn't, it wouldn't have worked," I gave a shrug of faux nonchalance.
He nodded thoughtfully and handed me back the time traveling wristband. "So when I see you this afternoon with the Doc, then I give my vortex manipulator to you?"
"And then I'll give it back at the chip shop while past me is getting the food and the Doctor is in the loo," I explained quietly, clasping the band once more to my wrist.
Jack looked at me then, striking me as rather old in that moment. "How will you get back to the TARDIS, (f/n)?"
I shrugged again. "Oh, I'll think of something!" Then, before he could say anything else, I gave a little wave and sent myself hurtling into the time vortex for my last hop. It was just like it was any other time I had gone through, except when I had gone with Rose.
I frowned suddenly. Rose Tyler had been with me both times when the vortex had gone gold and the wind turned into the howling of wolves.
Could she...?
And then I was stumbling along the pavement on another sidewalk corner.
I blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the sudden daylight as I made my way along Chippy Lane. The smell of fried fish and vinegar and people became more and more overwhelming the farther I went down the street and the closer I got to Dorothy's.
Then I found myself in front of the building and opening the door and walking hurriedly through the crowd of patrons toward the table where Jack Harkness sat, all coat and suspenders and smug looks, all the while I was hurriedly unfastening the vortex manipulator from my wrist.
"Here," I said shortly, depositing the gadget into the Captain's outstretched hand. I bent closer to whisper in his ear. "I'm going to see me, and I'm going to ask you about it. You're just going to play it off, yeah?"
Jack smirked. "Of course, (nickname)! You know," he leaned closer toward my ear so that his spearmint scented breath tickled it. "You're much more fun when you aren't so focused on playing matchmaker between a blonde and your unrequited crush."
I was taken aback. "How did you-"
Jack turned his head ever so slightly so that his lips almost brushed the side of my head. "The Doctor may be a doctor of something, but I'm definitely the doctor of love!"
"Oh shut up!" I hissed, reeling back and pushing the hand that he had the vortex manipulator clasped in to his chest. "Goodbye Captain!"
"I will see you later, (nickname)!"
"Pfft!" I straightened up to get away from the overly flirty Jack...and locked eyes with myself. Swaddled in a cricket jacket with a crumpled piece of ciliary pinned to the lapel, my past self stood there with two order of fish and chips and one of fried chicken and a look of pure, unadulterated shock. We stood there for a second, locked in time, before I rushed out of the chippy and back out on Caroline Street and I - she made her way toward Jack, looking dazed and confused.
I watched through the window for a moment as Jack basically told the other me that yes, I'd seen myself. The Doctor came back, then, and I knew they were going to start talking about past adventures.
I turned away from the past version of my Doctor, and reflected on my own adventures, now in the past. I had no idea how to get back to the TARDIS - the present one or any other version - and I was out of my own time stream.
I was stranded. A stranger in a familiar land.
Stifling a sob, I ducked down a less populated lane and wandered aimlessly, almost blindly, through the streets of Cardiff.
It must have been seven in the evening when I plopped down on the doorstep of an empty building and reclined against the worn wood with a groan. My feet hurt, my back hurt, and my head hurt, but worst of all, my heart hurt. I'd given up my place next to the Doctor so he could have his Rose back, and I tried to console myself with this feeling, but it only made me feel hollow inside.
I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, I was being shaken awake. I blinked blearaly at my surroundings, the same street I'd collapsed on earlier, but night had fully and properly fallen since then.
"My, my, he was right about you. Are you all right sweetie?" A woman's voice said above me. I turned my head up to see a woman in a dark jacket, jeans, and with the craziest, most brilliant head of blonde corkscrew curls I have ever seen standing above me.
"I'm sorry, is this your building?" I asked around a yawn.
The woman smiled at me. "No, I'm not from here. Neither are you, are you?"
I was instantly awake and aware. I eyed the woman distrustfully. "What's that to you?"
She crouched down next to me and gave me an amiable smile. "I'm River Song, I'm a...friend of the Doctor's." She held her hand up when I opened my mouth to interrupt her. "I'd imagine that this seems very similar to the encounter you had with Captain Harkness this morning." I again opened my mouth to speak, but she continued on. "In favour of not threatening to kill one another, I advise that you take my word for it-"
"What proof do you have?" I cut in. Jack had demanded proof in the form of the coordinates log.
River's mouth made an "O" shape with a pop. She began rummaging about in her pockets, then, before pulling out a key. It was simple and well-worn in appearance, but I'd recognize it anywhere.
My hand flew to my throat. "How did you get my key-" I asked, grasping the original in my hand.
Another smile. "This does look like it, doesn't it? No, this is my TARDIS key. They all look alike in their basic form." She held out her hand, the key nestled in her palm.
With my key still in hand, I gingerly lifted hers and compared them, finding the two keys to be almost exactly the same. The only true difference was that hers had fire red nail polish smeared on a corner, like she'd grabbed it in a hurry while her nails were still wet. I handed her back the key and the woman dropped it back in her pocket. Then I waited.
"The Doctor told me he had left something in Cardiff, at this address actually," River Song explained. "A friend of his who did something rather selfless at her own risk." She looked at me, then, reminding me a bit of how my mother used to look at me when I did something unexpectedly good. "He said I'm to take you home.
"Oh," was all I said. It would figure that the Doctor wouldn't want a time traveller out of their original timeline wandering so close to their past self. River was here to return me to the bookstore where I had met the Doctor one afternoon in May back in 2014.
River extended her arm toward me, and I noticed for the first time that she herself had a vortex manipulator. It would figure that that's what would take me home when the TARDIS wasn't available.
I grasped her forearm and nodded to show that I was ready. River bobbed her head a moment and pressed in the now familiar keys of the time traveling wrist band, hurdling us into the time vortex.
It felt different, somehow, not being the one in charge of the controls, but the flight mixed with the thought of going home - properly - to my parents and potato salad and my house made my stomach drop from underneath my ribcage and possibly into the 18th century. Whether it was from anxiety or adrenaline, I couldn't say.
When we came out of the vortex, I expected to see the bookshop with the ridiculous promotional posters for the next Rick Riordan book and the advertisements for the local cafés, or maybe my parents neighborhood with the massive elm tree in their front yard and the car in the driveway with the dent where Dad had backed into a stone garden angel, or maybe...
But when we came out of the time vortex, I didn't see my workplace or my house. My vision was dominated by a box of the most brilliant shade of blue in the universe. The TARDIS.
"What..."
"The Doctor looked for you," River Song said from behind me. "He was desperate and Rose Tyler insisted that they find you." Something in her voice didn't quite sound right. "They haven't seen you for nearly a month. If I were you, I'd hurry inside before they set off again without you."
I turned to look at River Song, then. There was a lingering sadness behind her eyes which I couldn't place, though deep inside, I knew it had to do with the Doctor, Rose Tyler, and maybe even me.
"Are you going to be okay?" I asked her. I hadn't even known this woman for ten minutes and yet I was concerned about whether or not she'd be all right once she left me here.
River nodded. "I'll just be returning to my day job." She gave me a conspiratorial smile. "I'm an archaeologist."
"Really? The Doctor hates them."
"And that's what makes it so thrilling, (f/n)!" With a whirl of corkscrew blonde curls and without a farewell, River Song vanished from my life.
I blinked, and looked around beyond the TARDIS. The Tower of London was in the distance. I'd never actually been to the tower. Maybe-
The door to the TARDIS flew open, startling me out of my train of thought.
"I'm telling you Rose, that vortex energy came from right - (f/n)!"
The Doctor stood in the doorway of the TARDIS with one of his wacky little gadgets hanging precariously from his fingers. He ignored that, however, in favor of staring at me utterly gobsmacked.
"Doctor...Doctor?" Rose's voice came from the inside of the TARDIS before she, too, appeared on the threshold. "Doc - (f/n)!"
"Hi," I gave them a little wave.
Suddenly they both flew at me, each on one side, to...hug me.
"We've been looking everywhere for you!" Rose told me, moving back little to hold my right hand in both of hers. "We couldn't figure out where you'd gone and the TARDIS wasn't any help at all in tracking the vortex manipulator. Though really, the Doctor said it was probably because of time distortion and all that!"
"I was in Cardiff," I frowned. What's wrong with Cardiff?
The Doctor made a funny noise in the back of his throat and I turned my head to see him with his face pressed against my shoulder. "Doctor?" I asked softly.
"Cardiff. Of course." The Doctor lifted his head and I got a proper look at him. He didn't look tired, but by the set in his shoulders and the look in his eyes, I could tell he was exhausted.
"Doctor-"
The Time Lord separated himself fully from my side. "All right then, are you okay, (f/n)?"
"Yeah, but-"
"And you, Rose?"
The blonde shrugged a nonverbal affirmation.
"Alrighty, then! Geronimo!" With that, the Doctor turned and disappeared back inside the TARDIS.
I gave Rose a look of concern. "What's wrong...?"
"With him?" Rose finished for me. She shook her head. "I dunno, really. I mean, after you left and he got over the shock of seeing me and I explained what happened, he insisted we find you. He kinda became obsessed with it, to be honest." She smiled, "He said that you're mad, and brilliant. And exceptionally human."
"Oh, well, all in a day's work," I laughed shortly.
Rose just kept smiling. "Thank you though, (f/n). For everything."
To my own surprise, I stepped forward and hugged the other girl. "Of course, I'd do it again!"
Rose hugged me back quickly, then moved away. "We should hurry inside before-"
"Are you two coming or what?" The Doctor's voice interrupted.
"Or that," Rose sighed. She gave me another smile as she made her way into the time machine.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, noticing for the first time a dull throb between my temples. Steeling myself, I stepped into the console room and shut the door behind me.
The Doctor stood at the controls, flipping switches, turning knobs, and fiddling with everything. Rose stood beside him at his elbow, laughing and making suggestions and causing him to smile brilliantly nearly every moment or so. They both looked at me when I ascended the ramp.
"Where would you like to go, (f/n)?" The Doctor asked with a quirky smile.
I shrugged. "I dunno..."
"Maybe to a ship?" Suggested Rose, looking between the Doctor and I.
"Any preference?" The Doctor asked her.
"Pirate," she articulated perfectly.
"You know it's considered bad luck to have a woman on a ship," he told her.
"And yet you keep us around anyway," she laughed.
"What can I say? I'm like a bad luck magnet."
Rose snorted at that.
While they bantered, I plopped down in the nearby captain's chairs and rubbed my forehead.
The time space circuit to get Rose Tyler was complete, but I had a feeling my anxieties were just beginning.