Diary of Rose Tyler: Story of the White Rose
Chapter 3
He turned to look at me…
"I sort of brought a life back to…a dead man"
"You did what?!"
"I´m sorry…I didn´t know…"
"You didn´t know?!" He was upset and angry. He shook his head "You did it again!"
"I didn´t mean to!"
"You´ve got to believe me! It was just an accident!"
"Who was it?" he looked at me angrily.
"I think he was the man…the servant who died at the battle of Waterloo…His name is Fredrik…" I lowered my voice.
As soon as he heard that he ran towards the stand further inside the church and took his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. He looked unhappy about the situation. He started to investigate the stand, where Fredrik had lied…dead, until I brought his life back.
But wait…how can I have done that?
Then I remembered that Christmas…Our first Christmas together, when we met Charles Dickens back in 1869.
"Was it a Ghelt that took over his body? Just like in Gardiff?"
"No."
"No? Are you sure?"
"Yes. There s no gas here they might have used. Besides there s no rift either."
"But…"
I approached him. "How is it possible for me to wake up a dead person? I am just an ordinary person…"
"Doctor?"
He looked at me without a word. I knew he knew but didn´t tell me. He just pretended to be angry with me, but I knew there was something else there, too…
"Doctor?" I waited for his reply. But that didn´t come. "Fine, don´t talk to me" I thought.
But then, all of a sudden he ran towards the door. Did he discover something?
"Doctor?" I ran after him.
"Where are you going, Doctor?!"
"There´s a man alive who wasn´t before!" he explained.
"I´m sorry…"
"There´s no time to lose" he took my hand."Come on, we´ve got to find him!"
When we were outside the church, I stopped…"wait a minute, Doctor?"
"What is it, Rose? " he turned to me rather annoyed look on his face.
"How come you knew I was in that church?"
"Oh, just a lucky guess…" he said and gave me an old map of the area…
Of course…
I should have known; The name of the church was…
"Bad Wolf´s Church"
"You have a habit of leaving signs, eh?" he winked at me, and I smiled back. He wasn´t that angry, after all.
"Come on!" he urged me.
"Doctor, I think I know where he is! He went to look for his girlfriend…"
But then I remembered what the guide had said in the museum…
"...she died only a few hours after him..." ..."under the leadership of duke Wellington on the 18th of June 1815."
"She died…Only a few hours after him!" I yelled "Doctor! We need to hurry!" Fredrik had already laid there in that church for who knows how long, so we didn´t have time to waste. She could die any minute now. For some reason I wanted to safe her…Not only that I felt sorry for them, but now I felt even worse; I had woken up Fredrik only to witness the death of his beloved one?
We ran as fast as we could towards the battle, and I hoped we had arrived at the right moment, but when we finally reached Fredrik, it was already too late; he was on his knees holding the dead body of Francis in his arms…
We stopped. It was a moment of realizing the vulnerability and shortness of live. The loss of something precious…someone precious…
We just stood there silent watching Fredrik in his despair… nothing seemed to distract him, the only one he saw was Francis. The only thing he was able to do was to cry...
He called her name…
"Francis…my love…"
I could almost feel his pain. All of a sudden I felt tears in my eyes. I had that same strange feeling I had before, in that exhibition…The rose, the white rose…as if it had been calling for me...as if it was weeping, too...
"I´m so sorry…" I said and bent over to him. I tried to comfort him but in vain; he didn´t see or hear me…
"Well, this is new" the Doctor interrupted us. He had remained standing in the same place.
"I´ve never seen a green Napoleon before"
"What?!"
I turned to look, and so it was: Napoleon was…green…like a…plant? I looked at the Doctor, and he looked back at me.
"Surrender!" Napoleon shouted.
"Or what?" The Doctor replied.
"I will eat you!"
"Nah…You don´t wanna do that. Why would you do that?" he replied" Listen, we know you re spaceship crashed and that you re trapped here on Earth…There´s one thing I don´t understand, thought."
"What´s that?"
"How come you´re still trapped here? I mean you crashed thousands of years ago…"
"We were almost destroyed and it took centuries before we could gather our strength."
"Well, we could help you getting back home." The Doctor replied.
"Why would we leave this planet? Here s everything; minerals, riches, slaves..."
"Doctor, they have taken the duke of Wellington as their prisoner…and everyone else. There s no one left!" Fredrik told him. He was still in shock and hadn t listened to the Doctor. The aliens and stuff were just too much for him "The French have won…" he persisted.
"No. They´re not French…" the Doctor explained "and the battle isn´t over yet. This is just a start."
"You leave this planet and its people in peace!" The Doctor told them.
They just laughed at him.
"What are you going to do? And who are you, anyway? I´ve got your friends and you're surrounded. You have no place to go!"
"Who am I? I am the Doctor and I protect this planet and its people. And I order you to leave them in peace!"
"Attack them!" Napoleon responded.
"If that´s your answer…" the Doctor said, then took something out of his pocket and sprayed at them. It worked, and they were out for awhile.
The Doctor turned towards us "Rose, Fredrik…"
"Run!"
"To the church!" he yelled."Quickly!"
We all ran towards the church, Fredrik carrying his beloved one. As soon as we entered the church, the Doctor locked the doors.
"Doctor" I turned towards him "who…I mean what is he? Napoleon? And what did you use on him?"
"Oh, it was just herbicide. It´s harmless for a plant as strong as he is, but it gave us enough time to run here."
"He is a plant?!"
"He´s a plant, Eh!" he said.
"A plant?!"
"Yes. Remember the story about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?"
"Thousands of years ago inhabitants from the Paradise Planet made an emergency landing…"
"…So they built the Gardens…and they were almost destroyed?"
"Yes" he continued "The plants aren´t just ordinary plants, but they have their own mind…and feelings…"
"The plants were not all good; there were evil plants, as well…"
"You mean like carnivorous plants?"
"Yeah. He belongs to a …genus of Dionaea…they utilize speed to catch their prey"
"And Napoleon is one of them? No wonder he conquered much of Europe in such a short time…"
"Yep"
It was at that moment when I realized that…"Wait a minute! One of the world history´s greatest warlords is a plant!" I couldn´t help laughing. It was hilarious. The Doctor seemed to think the same.
"Excuse me? But…" Fredrik interrupted us "What are you talking about? And who are you? I mean really, who are you?" he turned towards the Doctor.
"I´m the Doctor"
"He´s the Doctor"
"Doctor? Doctor who?"
"Just the Doctor"
"Alright…would you mind telling me what´s going on here?" he asked with a stern voice. He didn´t see anything funny in the situation." And who...or what are they outside?"
Then I remembered the seriousness of this whole thing; he still had a dead woman in his arms.
"Yeah…right…." Doctor, too, became serious again. "Sorry…" they went to sit down, and Fredrik put his beloved on the same stand he had been laying just moments before.
"…"
I heard him vaguely…
"They are aliens who had crashed on Earth a long time ago...and if they win…" "Then the whole history will change…Napoleon will conquer whole of Europe…and the whole planet"
As the Doctor was explaining the situation, I started to think back…
We have been in the same situation before, right? I had caused a wound in time ´cause I rescued my dad, back in the 1980s. We had been in the same sort of a church before chased by these creatures…but something didn´t quite add up. Where were they? Why hadn´t they appeared to sterilize the wound? And what about the Tardis? Was it still at the same place I had left it or has it disappeared? Along with the rose, that started this whole thing…
And why did the rose have such an impact on me? It had some sort of a telepathic influence on me…
"Doctor" I needed some answers, so I called him to me and asked him about the situation. Why this time was so different from the first time?
"What´s happening?"
He explained that it was ´cause of the rose that the creatures hadn´t appeared, yet. Or rather it was the glass cover that created a protecting sheet around this time period to keep any intruders outside. But it worked also other way around: nothing from inside of the cover could escape, either. So, we were trapped. Trapped, but safe, at least for a while…
But, the Doctor said, it wouldn´t last long ´cause even the strongest glass would eventually break under a pressure…
"How come the glass cover can protect us? It isn´t even here! I left it in the hall"
"Yeah, but it´s more like a mental link…just like between you and the rose"
"Why? Is it ´cause of this link that made me kiss Fredrik?"
"You kissed him?" he turned towards me "Well, that explains it…"
"Explains what?"
"Doctor?"
He still didn´t want to tell me. So, I changed the subject "I suppose there is no way of using the Tardis?"
"No…"
We had to figure out another way to get out of this. But before that, we needed to get rid of the army of the hostile plants who were about to siege the church…
We needed a plan and quickly…
To be continued…