This story has been rewritten. Please see chapter 1 for details.
Chapter 12
Each step felt like wading through nearly-set concrete. Mud oozed up into his trousers and shoes, squishing between his toes as he trudged, one foot in front of the other. He swayed in place, then stabbed the muck with the first leg of the tripod. A slight burning sensation spread up to his knees and stung at his nose as he squinted in the dim light.
The things he did for her.
"Ugh," Rose said behind him as she forced the door shut with her hip. "That's all we need, mud in the TARDIS."
As if on cue, the wooden blue box sank into the marshland, filth squelching and bubbling up around it. It settled at an angle, resting on what must have been some hidden rock or stump.
Rose steadied herself against the door, clutched an armful of equipment to her chest. "Why didn't you pick a better place to land? You had the entire planet to choose from and we end up here, smack-dab in the middle of the bog of eternal stench."
"It's not my fault." He crammed the last tripod leg into the socket and it gave a satisfying click. "The solar storm messed with the terrain readings. We're lucky we didn't end up falling from the sky."
She tip-toed toward him. "Why did we come here anyway?"
"Why not? Told you I wanted to visit."
"Yeah, but you don't just go places for the fun of it. You must have a reason." She struggled to balance the generator on top of the stand, conduits spilling over the side like flailing tentacles.
He lunged to catch them and draped them over the top with care. Having half the planet fried by the solar flare because of a wet wire was the last thing they needed.
"Wait a minute," Rose said. "Junnis Clave has all that telepathic technology, yeah?"
"That's right." He patted his jacket for his screwdriver. Light, they needed light.
"Please tell me this has nothing to do with Bad Wolf."
His shoulders tensed as the bulb at the end of his sonic flickered on. He could feel her eyes burning into him, but he didn't dare look up.
"You brought me here to test it on me, didn't you?" she asked.
"Just wanted to find some answers," he said as innocently as he could manage. "Keep all of our options open."
"And here I was thinking you were trying to do something good for a change."
"Rose, I'm standing knee deep in sludge, rigging a shield generator to save an entire planet from a solar storm. You think this isn't going above and beyond for me? Yes, perhaps I had ulterior motives, but—"
"Well, you shouldn't have lied to get me here."
"I didn't lie. I just didn't mention why."
"Same thing."
"Hardly."
She huffed. "Just say you're sorry."
He trained the blue beam onto her face. "Say sorry?"
"Yeah," she said as she blinked up at him. "It's not that hard of a concept."
"But I'd be lying because I'm not sorry, and didn't you just say you don't condone lying?" He lowered the light back onto the mess.
"Don't get smart with me." Rose yanked the wire from the top of the pile and shoved it into a slot. "You never ruddy apologize for anything. Sometimes I wish you could be more like …"
His fingernails dug against the cool metal of his screwdriver, and he couldn't stop the bitterness from edging into his voice. "Like that precious Doctor of yours?"
Her grip on the next tube slackened, but she didn't deny it.
"What brand of toothpaste does he use?" he asked. "Perhaps I ought to switch. Have I got my hair just right?"
"That's not—"
"But it is, isn't it? That's what this has been all about—turning me into a better man, or rather one specific man."
A bright flash careened across the sky, pulling his attention upward. Streams of red, green, and purple coiled and danced through the gaps between the thick branches overhead. "Auroras," he said. "It's started."
"Are we too late?"
"No, this is just the light show. It's the combo you've got to worry about. The coronal mass ejection is still on the way."
"And you're sure this is gonna work?"
"Of course." He twisted a wire into place. "Might look knocked together, but the engineering is sound. One of these on each side of the planet and the extrapolator shielding will be more than enough to protect the magnetosphere."
Rose nodded and steadied the tripod. Neither spoke as he soldered the connections with his screwdriver.
"Look," she said after a moment, "I'm sorry if—"
"Don't be. Apologizing is overrated anyhow."
She reached out and touched his sleeve. "I didn't mean to hurt you, honest."
Still didn't make it any better. How could he ever hope to fit the snug mold left by his predecessor? That confounded man who'd forevermore be the baseline for any and all further comparison?
He flipped the switch on the shield generator and banged the side. Nothing. "Blasted thing. Must be interference from the solar storm." With one more thwap, the generator wheezed to life like a mechanical asthmatic.
Light exploded from the top, launching into the upper atmosphere. A liquescent film mushroomed out from the center and stirred up the smell of clay and ionized air as it rushed past, covering the marshland with an unearthly green tinge.
"Now what?" Rose asked.
"Now we wait for a lull in the storm, then pop over to the other side of the planet and do the same thing all over again."
"Great. Well I'm not standing here the whole time." Rose plodded toward a dead tree peeking out from the mud.
He forged after her, thick black soup sloshing in his wake. He hoisted himself onto the trunk beside her and wiped his palms just above the mud-line on his trousers. Disgusting.
"What, no witty comment on the composition of wet dirt?" she asked.
He didn't answer. A vine swayed ahead and something splashed into the muck—some unseen beneficiary of their heroic efforts.
"You're brooding," said Rose.
He readjusted his position on the trunk. "Am not." Why must she keep using that nettlesome mood-sensing ability of hers? Sometimes it felt like she was the telepathic one.
"You're quieter than him, but never this quiet." Her voice softened. "Is this about before? Look I—"
"Don't worry about it." He broke off a rotted branch and lobbed it into the mud.
"You don't have to shut me out you know. You can tell me anything, anything at all." She scooted next to him. "Talk to me."
"All right, fine. How do you think this ends? You'll go back to him, and I'll just …" He shook his head. "I'm just a means to an end, a side project to keep you occupied until the real thing comes along."
Rose covered his hand with hers. "No, that's not—you're not a means to an end. You never were."
"Really? Because it feels that way. You have to understand, this is my life, Rose. You are my life now."
Rose looked at him with an unreadable expression, then slowly lowered her gaze. "I know."
"And it's not just that either," he continued. "The walls are stressed. I can feel it. A storm is coming, and I don't know that I can stop us from being torn apart."
Her face darkened as though haunted by some past memory.
He rotated his wrist to cradled her hand in his. "Look, I know you didn't promise me the future, but I need some indication that I didn't give up everything for nothing."
"Thought that'd be obvious by now," she said so quiet the words were barely audible.
"What do you mean?"
She let out a half-laugh, half-sigh, and shook her head at the sky. "What do you mean, what do I mean? I've been breaking my own rules for you left and right since I got here. I knew I shouldn't get involved with you from the beginning. You wove yourself so deeply into history, the threat of disruption to the causal nexus was massive but …" She stared off into the moss-laden trees.
"You did it anyway," he said for her.
"Truth is, I shoulda stopped this a long time ago. I just couldn't. For years I've been slipping below the surface, kicking so hard to stay ahead of the darkness. You're like a breath of fresh air." Her gaze finally found him. Even in the twilight he could see something honest and heartfelt sparkling her eyes. "And whatever happens, I want you to know I wouldn't change this time with you for the world."
Rose inched closer, eyes half-lidded and lips parted. She gently nudged her nose against his, warm air smelling of mint skimming across his face. His pulse blurred into one continuous hum. Her eyes fluttered shut as she leaned in.
But it wasn't right. He pulled back. "I—I can't."
The glimmer in her eyes extinguished. "Why not?"
"Because, you don't see me. You see through me." He swallowed hard. "You want the Doctor. I remind you of him, with his face, his screwdriver, and his TARDIS. As much as I want this, I can't be nothing but a facade for a memory."
Rose shook her head. "That's not—"
"Can you honestly tell me you would feel the same way if I didn't look like him? Truly?"
She glanced at her hands.
Just as he suspected. "I can't expect you to separate your feelings for him from me after knowing me only a few days. These things take time—I understand that."
"Really? 'Cause a second ago it sounded like you were trying to guilt me into commitment. You need to make up your mind."
"That's not what I am asking for at all." He let out a breath of exasperation and rubbed the back of his neck. This wasn't coming out right. "Look, I want you to be with me because of me, not your feelings for someone else, and I haven't done anything to earn that from you, not yet, but I will." He brushed her knuckles with his fingertips. "Just promise when the time comes you'll give me a chance, an honest, proper chance, and I promise to do everything in my power to be worthy to stand by your side. Can you do that?"
Blonde hair crowded his vision, her arms tight across his back. "I'll be waiting," she said into his shoulder.
He buried his face into the crook of her neck, memorizing the feel of her in his arms. No more scans. Whatever mysteries lay locked inside her, there they'd stay.
He jerked back, clutching her shoulders. "How daft am I? All those scans and I never thought to scan myself." He vaulted to his feet and tugged her so hard to her feet she almost lost her footing. "Come on, up you pop."
He plodded toward the TARDIS, then anchored his feet in a wide stance and heaved the doors open. Sludge slopped through the grated floor just over the threshold, trickling through the metal floor joists. Wonderful. He'd worry about the nightmarish mess later.
He bounded toward the console, pecked at the keyboard, and then stepped back, screwdriver in hand. Blue light raked along his body, down to his sopping feet and back up.
The results appeared next to the data already on file for comparison, two translucent blue diagrams of his body rotating on screen. He put on his glasses and leaned in.
How bizarre. Hundreds of newly-formed neuro pathways had somehow appeared in his prefrontal cortex. The sound of labored breathing behind him finally registered. He turned.
Rose stood with her arms tucked tight against her chest as gobs of mud sloughed off her shoes. Behind her the door had closed, though judging by the mud which now ran up to her thighs and smeared over the door handle, it had been quite the battle.
"Oh, don't mind me," she said with a voice dripping in sarcasm. "Took care of the door for you. It was no problem." He opened his mouth but she held up a soiled hand. "It's okay. I know better than to expect an apology."
"But take a look at this," he said with a point toward the monitor. "My brain appears to be in some sort of genesis state of neuroplasticity."
Rose strode forward, wiping her hands on her jeans. "I majored in engineering, not neurosurgery."
"It means that there's unmistakable evidence of empathy where there was none before." He pointed to the scan. "See? Look at all that limbic activation in the amygdala."
"You think it could be related to the regeneration?" she asked. "I know you said you didn't change until after, but one time the Doctor grew a new hand a whole day after he'd regenerated."
"Of course!" He spun around and slapped himself on the forehead. "Rose Tyler you are brilliant. That night on the balcony when we kissed we connected telepathically. I felt your empathy, empathy that my brain, magnanimous though it was, couldn't process. It used the lingering regeneration energy in my system to jump-start a firestorm of neural pathway formation to process the emotions and wham!" He clapped, causing her to jump. "Suddenly I can feel everything you can."
"You're saying, I did this?" She turned to study the screen.
"That you did," he said as he rocked on his heels, arms clasped behind his back. "You imprinted your humanity onto me."
Rose rolled her lips inward as if to stifle a smug smile. "So I was right. I'm just human after all. Bad Wolf had nothing to do with it."
"All right, fine. Yes, you were. We didn't need to come here after all. Happy?"
She glanced at her nails. "Not quite an apology, but I'll take it."
"Well don't gloat for too long. As soon as we get a window, we need to set up the other shield generator before the CME hits, so if you want to wash up, do it quick."
"CME?" she asked. "Oh right, coronal mass ejection. Got it. I'll be quick." She gave him a mock salute and walked down the ramp.
As the sound of footsteps receded behind him, he couldn't stop the concern from pooling in his gut. If Rose was right and Bad Wolf couldn't help them, option one and three were both out.
And that meant they were running out of options fast.