A/N: And so we plough on...god, so nearly there! Despite it being near the end and all I still can't tell you how many more chapters are left. I'm hoping that it'll all tie-in nicely and the last chapter posted on Saturday 5th April (SQUUUUUUUUUUUUEEEE!!) but...haha...AS IF!! :P
Right, time to tie up several affairs. The two Doctors, the Doctor and Mickey and the case of the double Zoes. Then It's the past Doctor and Rose, future Rory, then some kind of fluffy ending.
Oh, you know how I said at the start the Rambles would only be a trilogy? I started doing that psychopath thing where I start getting ideas for the NEXT ONE!! AGGHH!! (Runs around screaming) ...But more on that at the end, I think.
Chapter 47 – Damn That Dénouement
"Please," the Tenth Doctor's Rose begged, holding little Lottie in her arms. "Just talk to him."
"No," the Ninth Doctor answered straight, folding his arms. "I've done my part. I stitched him back together. I don't have to play nurse aswell."
"If I didn't know better I'd say you were scared of him," Rose replied airily. The Ninth Doctor stared at her, eyes narrowing.
"Why the hell would I be afraid of myself?"
"Try askin' yourself that," she retorted, pausing for a moment before holding out her arms containing Lottie. "Take her. Go and see him."
"Doctor…" the Ninth Doctor's Rose began, poking him in the arm. "Please. Go and see him."
The Doctor sighed, glancing between the two mirror matching Roses.
"Fine." He reached out to take the baby into his arms, holding her gently. This was his daughter. He couldn't handle this right now. He'd only just thrown off the memories of the War, he couldn't…
Forcing himself to push down the grief welling inside of him he gave one last look to the Roses, before turning and slipping through the door the Infirmary.
He almost turned and walked back out again.
Even just standing there in the TARDIS Infirmary and looking down at his older self brought chills to his spine. There he was, monitors blaring out all manners of sounds from where he lay sleeping in the bed. Owen had insisted on a day or so of complete rest and recuperation for his own natural healing abilities to have any kind of effect. But all the same, the Ninth Doctor was staring at himself. One day he'd be in the same position. He went cold. He didn't have to do this. This was just stupid, this was…
His feet were walking him to the body in the bed.
He could still feel the bundle of a baby in his arms so he quickly deposited her on the neighbouring bed, somehow feeling better now the weight was off of him. He arrived at the foot of the bed and picked up the chart, scanning through the statistics Owen had recorded. His right heart was beating at normal rate now, his blood pressure levelling out. They had all definitely worked their healing magic. The surgery held up well.
"Regeneration number seven might have been a little easier," he voiced aloud.
"Regeneration nine was a little worse."
The Doctor turned his blue eyes up to the man in the bed, not really surprised yet not really expecting such a voice. He met deep brown eyes staring back at him contentedly; face seemingly expressionless for the moment.
"Was it a good death?" the Doctor standing at the foot of the bed suddenly asked, and the Tenth pursed his lips, undecided.
"It was worth it."
"What happened?"
"Rose absorbed the time vortex," he said simply to his past self. "Looked into the heart of the TARDIS and went back to save you…us," he quickly corrected. "I had to take it out of her."
The younger Doctor stared at him, seemingly shocked by his words. "The vortex? She took the vortex? But…"
"She could have done so much. Overthrown the Universe. Warped everyone's minds to obey her every command. Killed people, resurrected people, rearranged space-time itself. The entire cosmos was putty in her hands…and she used it to save us."
"So human," the northern man said, his loony grin spreading over his face.
"So human," the latest Doctor reiterated, also spreading his unique grin. "Thank you."
The leather-clad Doctor turned; heading to his right and strutting over to the Infirmary bed he'd left the baby girl on and picking her up gently. Turning back around, he lowered the bundle of blankets down to the Tenth Doctor still in the bed.
"I believe this belongs to you."
The Doctor took the proffered baby from his predecessor with his good arm, shushing her gently before she had a chance to cry. He watched his other self as he turned to the door and made to leave – before suddenly stopping dead in his tracks and spinning back around, a frown now in place.
"I just wanna know one thing. Are you happy?"
The Tenth Doctor paused for a moment.
"I'm the happiest we've ever been in nine hundred and two years."
He watched his predecessor as he swiftly turned, walking back out the Infirmary door without another word.
The TARDIS almost made a 'squee'ing sound as the Doctor half-strolled, half-limped into the console room. He grinned at her, reaching out to stroke her affectionately.
"Heya old girl," he said, "missed you." The panel he was touching glowed warmly beneath his palm. Evidently she felt the same. "I know you had a part in it somewhere so thank you."
He tapped lightly as the controls, giving himself a quick body scan to check himself how he was mending. His left arm was still in a precautionary sling, as Owen didn't trust him not do something that would set back his recovery. Like any doctor, Owen moaned at his patients for doing something ridiculous whilst they were still trying to mend. The Doctor still had bandaged ribs and legs, which were now covered by his shiny new blue suit he'd found whilst giving the Wardrobe its every 100 year clean out (more out of boredom than anything) and liked it, so now he wore it aswell as the pinstripe. It had been a whole two weeks since they'd got back from the castle and his injuries were healing fast; with the support of everyone else and the TARDIS' extra Artron energy he knew he couldn't be in much better company.
"Hey," came a voice from the side and the Doctor turned to see Rose. He smiled at her.
"'Ello," he replied, giving a cheery wave. She strolled up to him and engulfed him in a huge hug.
"Y'know, you're invincible. They keep on trying to take you away from me but they never ever will."
The Doctor pulled back suddenly, regarding her with wise, aged eyes. "Never say 'never ever'."
"Never ever," Rose repeated, eyes sparkling in delight with her cheekiness. "Never ever, never ever, never ever, never ever, ever never, never never…"
The Doctor laughed. "Tongue twister!"
"But seriously," Rose started again, getting up onto tiptoes to peck a kiss to his lips. "You're absolutely invincible."
The Doctor paused, thinking about this for a moment. Crushed foot, been hit where it hurts, slapped by Jackie, in a bus crash, had an anaphylactic reaction, fell into a coma, had a cardiac arrest, died for twenty seconds, suffered a series of collapses, fainted from blood loss, got completely cut up, got concussed, got sedated several times, starved, dehydrated, sedated some more, drowned, cut up wrists with handcuffs, fell into another coma, slapped by Jackie, sedated by Jackie, glance shot from a bullet to the head, shot in the leg, shot through the head, died for two minutes, got chickenpox, started collapsing again, had his mind completely boiled, collapsed again, got a glance shot from a laser, nailed to a wall, collapsed again, mildly tortured, starved, dehydrated, sleep deprivation, broke both his legs, raped, majorly tortured, had psychic energy running through him to the point of explosion, collapsed and underwent life-threatening surgery.
"Don't know what you're talking about!" the Doctor beamed happily. Rose rolled her eyes.
"So is the adventure finally over?" she asked.
The Doctor shook his head. "Nope, we've still got the rest of the dénouement to go. One of the little Zoës have to go back to the right timeframe, my Ninth form's and Ninth Rose's memories needed to be wiped and the both of them taken back to their respective timeframe, the future Rory also needs to be taken forward to his correct timeframe and Rebecca needs to be buried."
"Easy done," she replied, "I'll just fetch the newest Zoë," and with that she turned out slipped out the side door. The Doctor turned back to the console and began to plot a course for the right time to drop Zoë off. He thanked the TARDIS under his breath as she purposefully flew carefully so as not to hurt her driver.
Rose came back, accompanied with Jack, Mickey, Howard and a baby Zoë. Mickey could hardly make eye contact with him the Doctor noticed as he dragged his heels in behind Jack.
"Mickey," the Doctor called, pushing himself up off the console to limp to the other man. He extended a hand for Mickey to shake.
"Doctor," he replied, if but a little hesitantly. He didn't shake the hand. He didn't feel worthy enough. "I'm…sorry for what I did…" The Doctor tried to interrupt, already shaking his head but Mickey cut right over him. "I can't really remember what 'appened but the bits I do…" he paused, shuddered. "…I beat you up pretty bad."
"It's okay," the Doctor said, shaking his head.
"But it's not okay," Mickey shot back, fully aware everyone was staring at him. "Everytime I see you now and you're limpin' or whatever I know it's my fault 'cause I did that to you."
"Mickey, it's okay, it really is," the Doctor insisted, staring at the man stood opposite him. "I can hardly even remember what went on in that cell now…"
"Yeah, 'cause of the head injuries I caused…"
"Mickey! Look at me." The Doctor grabbed him by the shoulder with his good hand, pulling Mickey to face him. "Look at me!" Mickey obliged, reluctantly meeting the Doctor's piercing gaze. "Whatever went on in that cell is nothing to me. For one thing, you were hypnotised – happens to the best of us. You didn't have a clue what you were doing. You were being made to act on your innermost feelings, and you have every reason to do that to me even when you're not hypnotised-"
"-But-"
"-Second thing, neither you nor me really remember it, so therefore it never happened to either of us. Third thing, we are going to put the past behind us and move on. I can heal, and we'll heal the memories with it. All of us. Fourth thing…" – he paused, clicking his tongue – "…my limping thing wasn't actually you so you can stop blaming yourself for that one. The important thing is that only one person died, and let's face it – it could've been a lot more. So I don't want to have to go through all this with you again, okay?"
Mickey nodded; sniffing back the tears he could feel coming on.
"Good boy." The Doctor embraced him into a one-armed hug. Mickey was careful not to crush his injuries. After a moment they pulled apart, and Mickey turned to leave back through the side door to Jackie. "Okay, allons-y, we've got a baby to drop off."
He reached into his pocket; withdrawing the note he had already written and momentarily flashed it at the others.
'Her name's Zoë. Please look after her. One day you'll understand.'
"That right?" he asked, and was met by nods. He reached up to his left hand in the cast and picked out the ring from the bandages, slipping it and the note inside Zoë's blankets. He replaced the ring on his finger with the second one they had used to trace him, before leading the crew out the door into the past, towards the front door of Jackie Tyler's flat.