Bonds Chapter 9: Peek at the Future
A/n: Finally! After wrestling with this chapter for weeks, I finally have finished Bonds! The next installment of this series is The Next Doctor? which follows a week after the events here.
Shouting out to my great beta, Hawkerin!
XxXxXxXx
The Doctor watched Rose sleeping, something he rarely got to see anymore. He ran his eyes over her, taking in her curves, and the way her breasts rose and fell as she breathed.
Their newly set bond blazed happily at the back of his mind. He was still in a euphoria over it. Was this how his other self felt? Damn. No wonder he was consistently in a good mood over the last couple weeks.
She groaned and shifted a little, then sat up straight and looked around her, a little panicked for a second. When her eyes found him, they calmed and she gave him a shy smile. He returned that smile immediately, amused that she was feeling a bit shy, especially after what they had just done and the fact that she was completely naked.
"Have a nice kip?" he asked.
"Mmm, good," she slurred. She rubbed her eyes and asked, "How long was I out?"
"About 46 minutes," he answered, knowing that she wouldn't care about the more precise answer.
"Can't believe I fell asleep," Rose said.
"If it helps, so did I, for about 37 minutes," he replied.
Rose flopped back on the bed beside him, and he wrapped an arm around her. As soon as they touched, their bond flared up and they both let out a little sigh and scooted closer so that there was more contact with one another. Everywhere they touched, a slight tingling could be felt, and he reveled in it.
Even though their bond wasn't set the same as her link with the other Doctor, and they had been together only an hour before, he still felt himself hardening. In response, Rose became aroused too. He could smell it over the scent of recent sex and feel it through their bond. He pressed his lips to hers softly, and after only a couple seconds, their kiss turned heated and she pulled away.
"I need a shower," she gasped out.
"So do I," he murmured from the crook of her neck, between kisses. A rather pleasant idea sprung to mind. "So let's go take one." He got out of the bed and held his hand out to her.
After she took his hand with a grin, the two of them stepped into the rather large shower, and he popped open the bottle of shampoo that had migrated from Rose's shower to this one. He lathered up her hair and washed it, feeling how much pleasure she felt at having that done for her through their link. After rinsing her hair, she returned the favor, running her fingers through his locks.
The two of them gently washed each other, moving down slowly, until Rose took him in her mouth. Immediately, he gasped at the contact and slammed his hand against the wall to steady himself. His other hand went to the back of her head and into her hair.
"Oh, fuck," he groaned. After a few more swipes of her tongue, he pulled away from her and got her to stand up. He kissed the lips that had just been wrapped around his length and pushed her up against the wall before he lifted her up.
He slid inside her, eliciting a moan. Blimey, she was warm inside. A stray thought came to him for the first time; if she was this warm to him, how hot was she to his double?
They shifted a bit so that he was more comfortable and she was more secure. He'd never been gladder to have the rough patches on the floor of the shower that helped keep him from sliding around.
This was even better than the little garden where they were a few days before. This time, they were both completely naked, and there was water running over them. Droplets ran over her skin, and he wanted to lick them up.
The Doctor looked into her eyes as he began moving, but couldn't keep the contact long. This felt incredible, and he buried his face into her neck, nipping at her pulse point. He could feel bits of what she felt through their link, and he sensed her wanting more at the edge of his consciousness. He could deny Rose nothing, even if he wanted to, which he didn't, so he opened their bond fully.
Instantly, he felt the sensations she was feeling almost as if he were feeling them himself. She felt as if she were falling, but safe. Pleasure shot through the both of them, and his knees almost buckled at it. He knew the same was true for her; that she could feel everything he felt.
It was over quickly after that. She squeezed him tightly as his seed pulsed into her. They stayed where they were for a moment, with her wrapped around him, and him holding her up on him, kissing each other languidly. Finally, the Doctor couldn't hold her up there any longer, and there wasn't really a reason to stay like that anymore.
"Aw, now you've made me all dirty again," Rose told him with a grin once she stood firmly on the floor.
"Complaining?" he asked with an eyebrow raised.
"Absolutely not," she replied, grinning with her talented little pink tongue sticking out. They giggled and finished their shower.
XxXxXxXx
Rose stepped out of the TARDIS and looked into the valley that stood below, waiting for the usual time and place lecture from one, or both of the Doctors. The place was beautiful. From their vantage point, Rose could see that the land laid in gently rolling hills. The area was covered in large, ancient trees. It was hot out, but not unbearably so. Rose surmised that it must be Summer.
The door of the TARDIS closed behind her, and one of the Doctors said, "We're on Earth, just before humans came back to it after having to leave in the 29th century."
"We're in Napa Valley," came the other Doctor's voice from a different direction. "This is a relatively safe place," he told her. "I want to see what we can do."
"You mean, you don't know?" Rose asked, with a glance at the Time Lord, who'd been silent so far.
"We've never put this to a test," the Time Lord answered.
"Even if you had, every link is different. There's different ways they were set, differing abilities-"
"Like, for example, he's a bit weaker in the telepathic area than I am," the Doctor in brown interrupted.
"Or how this idiot over here couldn't control himself and now has to live with a bond with a very, very strong sexual component for the rest of his days," the part human Doctor retorted with a glare pointed at his counterpart.
"I do not have to live with a bond like this for the 'rest of my days'," the Doctor scoffed. He put his hands in his pockets and started down the game trail. Rose's deep seated insecurities stirred again, but before they could really come out, the other Doctor grabbed her hand, and she felt reassurance from him as he gave a 'really?' look to his counterpart.
"It's not exactly unbreakable now, is it? So every day, every second is a choice. I think that's worth a lot more than having to live with it for the rest of my days," the Doctor continued babbling as he stepped down.
"Nice save," the part human next to her muttered in a very low voice. He let go of her hand and put it on her back, guiding her.
Keen to change the subject, Rose asked a question that had been on her mind since they'd arrived, "Wait, you said we were in Napa Valley?"
"Yep," the part human answered.
"I thought Napa Valley was all fields and grapes and the like," Rose wondered.
"It's been ten thousand years. Over time, the land reclaimed itself," the Time Lord told her from up ahead.
"There may still be some grapes growing wild, though," the Doctor in blue said. "I doubt it. It got pretty hot, but there may be."
"'S beautiful just like this," Rose said.
"Yeah, it is," he replied. "Oh, he's in a hurry, isn't he?"
"Apparently," Rose answered. The two of them hurried to catch up to the rapidly disappearing brown trench coat.
XxXx
Half an hour later, Rose was alone in the woods, wandering the deer trails, and waiting for the signal from the Doctors. She was certain that one of them, at least, could see her, or was close enough to her so that they could get to her quickly. She didn't know where they were, though. She knew she could find one of them if she needed to. The ability to zone in on one of them like a homing pigeon had been demonstrated to its fullest a week before.
Rose wasn't worried, though. She felt a strange sort of calm while wandering the ancient forest. She had been apprehensive at first at being alone in the woods. She was a city girl after all, and even her travels with the Doctor and on her own hadn't brought her into deep woods much. After a few minutes, all of her misgivings gave way when she realized that the forest floor was open.
The ancient trees made it hard for much to grow below, and there weren't that many places where something that could hurt her could hide, and most of what could hurt her, wasn't deadly. Not to her at least.
After her realization, she remembered that she was supposed to be keeping her mind open to the Doctors at the start of this. She stilled and made sure that she could hear them.
"Rose?" the part human Doctor said in her mind a few seconds later. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes, I can," she replied.
"And me?" the other Doctor asked.
"Yep."
"And now?" both asked together.
"That sounds like an echo," she told them. "It's odd."
"Now you know how you sound to us," the part human commented. She knew that her mind had an echo. The best theory for why her mental voice did that was her time as Bad Wolf. She'd had an echo then too.
"Rose, did you hear me the second time?" the Gallifreyan asked.
"Yes. I'm guessing you didn't hear my reply about the echo? I tried to send it to both of you," she let him know.
"No, I didn't. Okay, you can hear both of us, that's good. Try sending something to both of us again," he told her.
She looked around quickly for inspiration, when she noticed movement not to far to her left. "Can either of you see me?" Rose questioned. In answer, she received twin negatives.
"We needed distance for this. Why?" the Doctor with one heart asked.
"Okay, I got that. Good job. And no, I can't see you. What makes you ask that?" the other Doctor asked.
"I just saw something big move," Rose told them both. "I dunno, maybe it's a trick of the light?"
"We're on the way. What did it look like?" one of the Doctors said, or maybe each sentence was a different Doctor. She didn't know, because she saw it again and wasn't paying attention.
"I just saw it again. Definitely not a shadow. Looks like a person," Rose replied. "I thought Earth was uninhabited at this time?"
"There is a nearly ten thousand year stretch where it's supposed to be uninhabited by sentient beings," the part human replied.
"Of course, that doesn't mean that another species hasn't come in and settled here in the meantime," the other Doctor added. "What kind of person?"
"Two arms, two legs, one head, tall and thin. Beyond that, it's hard to tell in this light," Rose answered as she watched the being get closer.
"Hello?" she called out. "I see you there. It's okay, I'm not here to-oh!" suddenly, she felt hands on her. Not one of the Doctors; these were scaly. Whoever it was, was telepathic. She could feel it at their touch. She felt a prick in her neck and desperately thought, "There's more than one, they're reptiles, and telepa-" Then she knew no more.
XxXxXxXx
The Doctors were making their way towards Rose, just in case what she saw was something. When she saw it again, she described what she saw.
"There's more than one, they're reptiles, and telepa-" Rose's mental voice cut off suddenly, chilling the Doctors. They both ran to where they knew Rose was.
"Telepathic reptiles," the part human gasped out. "I wish we had gotten an image!"
"Telepathic reptiles on Earth," the Time Lord thought out loud as they ran.
"In this part of the galaxy," continued the Doctor in blue.
"Could it be?"
They arrived at the place they had known Rose to be before, and saw some scuffing, but not much. Whatever happened must have been quick. Immediately, they both smelled a distinctive tang in the air. It was faint, but they were able to scan the source to confirm.
It was some of Rose's blood.
Both of them instantly started scanning for sources of huon energy.
XxXxXxXx
Rose woke in a dark, metal room. She laid on a hard mattress that wasn't much better than the floor would have been. There was a bad taste in her mouth, and she smacked her tongue against the roof of it in an effort to be rid of it. She checked herself over quickly and found a small cut on her arm. From its shape, it was probably from a thorn. There was a dried line of red coming from it. It must have bled quite a bit.
She wasn't chained, tied up, or otherwise incapacitated, so she decided to stand up and explore the cell she was in. That decision turned out to be a mistake. The room spun horribly, and she dropped back down to the mattress in an effort to keep from falling and cracking her head, or losing her breakfast. Whatever they had given her was strong.
She tried to remember how she got there. The Doctors would be freaking-
The Doctors!
They'd been practicing how they could use their bonds to their fullest when she'd been taken. She closed her eyes and tried to focus, but her head swam too much for that. She laid back down to combat the dizziness, and thought "Doctor? They've got me. I'm okay, but I was drugged."
Being upright had been the only thing keeping whatever was in her system from making her go back to sleep. She passed out again after trying to send the message.
XxXxXxXx
The Doctors were headed, far too slowly for their tastes, down a trail they had detected. Along the way, there were tiny drops of Rose's blood, giving off energy signals that made the sonics unable to zero in on the source of that energy. Each drop had them more angry.
Suddenly, they could feel Rose's presence through their links.
"Doctor...they've got me...I'm okay...but I was drugged," the Doctor in brown heard before her presence faded out again.
"She was drugged?" he asked no one in particular.
"She got a message through to you?" his counterpart queried. The Time Lord grabbed his hand, so nothing could be distorted and relayed the message he heard. "Right. Used her moment of consciousness to make sure we knew she was okay," he commented with a small, grim smile and shook his head.
"We need to try to figure out what she's been dosed with," the dual-hearted Doctor said. The message had allayed some fears, but brought new ones to light. If she was dosed with the wrong thing it could be deadly.
"Whatever it is, I don't like the effect it's having on her," his double observed, clearly worried just as much as he was.
They followed the trail until they came to a clearing. In the clearing, there were obvious signs of a vehicle having been there. They could find no other signs of Rose's blood. She'd obviously been in it when it left. Its presence explained why the sonic couldn't pick up the readings directly from Rose. She was too far away, and not exposed.
"Shit!" his blue suited counterpart exclaimed. He ran his hands through his hair and repeated the expletive several times, mixed in with several more like it. The Doctor knew that if he had something to kick, it would have been kicked repeatedly.
For his part, he just stood there, fists clenched and thinking furiously. He then turned back to where they came from and yelled, "Come on!" as he stalked away from the clearing.
"Oh!" he heard, as his other self jogged to catch up to him.
He broke out in a run and took the fastest path back to the TARDIS. They'd traveled a long way from it. He burst through the doors and went straight to the console to run the scans that the TARDIS could do better than his sonic. As soon as he went in, he felt the TARDIS's worry.
When the other Doctor got there, breathing a little hard, he burst through the doors and shut them. The blue suited man was gasping for breath as he made his way up to the console and came around to where the scanner was.
The Doctor finished setting it up, and turned to his counterpart, who was having difficulty breathing properly. He put his hands on his counterpart's arms and guided him to sit down on the jump seat. He resisted at first, but relented.
"Breathe," he told his twin, worried for him. He received a dirty look from the gasping man.
He tapped into their link to figure out what was wrong with his double. What he found was panic. A lot of it was the same feeling he had regarding Rose, but stronger. This was to be expected in someone who had just had their bondmate of 3 hours, 52 minutes, and 38 seconds kidnapped. But, shockingly, even more of it was panic from being extremely out of breath. He felt helpless, like he couldn't control himself. It created an involuntary reaction, making it harder for him to breathe, which just made the panic worse, and could spiral out of control.
"We need to-" he started, trying to pull away. "She needs-" He couldn't get a sentence finished. "And I can't-" He held his hand on his chest and grimaced.
"You're not going anywhere. Stay here and breathe," he ordered.
"But-"
"Doctor, shut up and breathe!" he snapped. That shocked his double, and he grimaced. That was probably not good for the other man in retrospect. The only time he'd ever called his other self by their shared chosen name before, was when they were in Egypt.
He got in front of his double and held his shoulders. If the Time Lord Doctor weren't so worked up himself, he could get the part human Doctor to calm down with their telepathy. Right now, that approach would only make this worse, so he had to do this some other way.
"Focus on my voice, nothing else," he calmly spoke. He grabbed the other man's hand and put it on his own chest. "Breathe in and out with me." He made exaggerated breathing motions for the other man to follow, and then slowed them down as the other man became able to match his breath.
"That's it, deep breaths," he said, rubbing the other man's back. The part human's breathing became less panicked and laboured.
"What the hell was that?" the part human man asked once he could get a whole sentence out again.
"I think that was a panic attack," the Time Lord replied. "Or you were getting close to having one. I've never had one. We've seen it before, though."
"No, we don't get panic attacks," he denied. Still a little breathless. "None of us, ever."
"It's a physical reaction to emotional and physical stimuli," the Doctor in brown told his twin. "Your very new bondmate was just taken, and you were in a physical position you've never been in before," he reasoned. "Just relax for a minute, and you'll be okay."
The other Doctor groaned in frustration, then suddenly punched the seat beside him. "Isn't that just fuckin' wizard. Stupid, weak body-"
"Calm down while you've got the chance. Rose needs you," the Doctor reminded his part human twin as he went to check on the scan. It dinged just as he was about to reach the screen. "Okay, Rose, where are you?" he asked, as the information popped up.
Immediately, he started putting in the spacial coordinates to where Rose could be found and ran around the console.
XxXxXxXx
Rose woke up again, alert this time. The first thing she noticed was the outline of a person, backlit by the open door. There were ridges on its head, and-was that an injector?
She jumped up, ready to tackle the being, take the injector with whatever might be in it, and escape. A low growl issued from her throat as she lurched. The being hissed back, and pushed her down easily. It wasn't incredibly strong, but Rose had been in the less advantageous position.
"What'd you give me?" she asked when she noticed that the injector was already empty.
"You speak Silurian?" it asked in shock.
"Yes," Rose simply replied, not wanting to say that really, she didn't speak anything but English, but she had a translator that could be miles away. "You're Silurian? What did you give me?" she repeated her question as she tried to contact her Doctors. She was grateful for the extra learning from the one that always wore blue that allowed her to hold a basic conversation in her head without anyone physically there being aware of it. This time, she decided to just relay what was happening, so they'd know.
"It is merely a countering agent to the venom." The being stood upright and hit something on the wall just on the other side of the door. The sudden light in the room blinded Rose for a moment, despite it not being really bright. Relief flowed through her, both through her bonds and from being told that the injector held a countering agent to a toxin.
"You are not one of the apes, though you look like one and share similarities," it commented. Okay, so these people could tell she wasn't human. That sort of scared her, even the Doctor hadn't been able to tell. Of course, while she was out, they could have done a scan.
When her eyes adjusted she got a good look at the Silurian. It had green, scaly looking skin and ridges on the tops and sides of its head. Its eyes, nose, and mouth looked human, except for being green. The facial features seemed female, as did its voice. There was no hair to be seen, but that was to be expected with a lizard woman.
"No, I'm not fully human," Rose admitted. "What's your name?" she asked suddenly, in an attempt to 'make friends.'
"Valana," she replied.
"I'm Rose, Rose Tyler," she introduced herself. The woman's face was the picture of shock. Her eyes went wide, and her mouth popped open a little bit. She backed the rest of the way out of the door and it shut, leaving Rose locked in.
That wasn't good. She felt the worry from her Doctors.
XxXxXxXx
The Doctors landed the TARDIS in a dark hallway and stepped outside. Their links to Rose became stronger a couple of seconds later, indicating that she was conscious again which took a bit of the edge off their anger.
They made their way down the corridor, getting almost to the end of it before they were cut off by several lizard people wearing masks. They held weapons trained on the two men.
"I'm the Doctor, and you have someone very important to me," the Doctor with two hearts said in a deadly calm voice.
"Give her back," the other Doctor commanded, barely concealing his rage.
One of the Silurian warriors stepped forward. "You will remain here," it, a female, judging from the way she sounded, was shaped, and the fact that she was a soldier in a female dominant society, told them before she left. The rest of the group stayed behind, weapons trained on the Doctors.
Just before the Silurians appeared, both Doctors started getting a relay of what was happening around Rose. It stuttered. Sometimes both got it, and sometimes only one got it- not always the same one. At the end of the short conversation, they heard Rose get a name out of the woman and introduce herself. Her reaction to Rose's name had them all worried.
The warrior who left returned with an older man dressed in Robes. "Hello, Doctor," he greeted the Doctor in blue pleasantly. "And Doctor," he nodded at the Doctor in brown. "I am Meelark. It is an honor to have you here."
"Where's Rose, and why have you taken her?" the part human asked in a low voice before the other one could get to it.
"The female we found in the woods is Rose Tyler?" Meelark asked, genuinely surprised
"Yes," the Time Lord replied quickly, shocked.
"She was caught on our lands. We were protecting ourselves. The woman will be released immediately," the male Silurian informed them before the Doctor in brown could get his next question out. He sent the order with a nod at the soldier that had brought him. "Come with me," he beckoned the Doctors.
As the Doctors followed Meelark into another room, the part human Doctor asked, "How do you know that name?" The Silurian man knowing Rose's identity shocked most of the anger out of them for a moment, but made them both even more on guard.
"The three of you came to our people long ago," Meelark told them. "To our ancestors in another land. We cannot tell you much; not when or where or what happened there."
They entered a huge, yet functional room. It looked almost organic in appearance at first sight, but upon closer inspection, it was metal with stone. Vines grew everywhere, adding to the organic atmosphere. A large table stood in the middle of the room, with a few chairs around it. The tabletop appeared to be made of one large piece of wood, from an old growth tree. Two of the edges were the outermost layer of the tree, with the bark still attached.
"The Timelines, you know," Meelark continued his explanation. "We were told that what happened must be allowed to happen in its own time, so that it does not become fixed." He gestured to the table and added, "Please sit down while we wait for your bonded mate. There is much to be discussed." He then turned and left the twin Time Lords alone.
As soon as the Silurian man left the room, which didn't have a door, they looked at each other in bemusement. "Well, always nice to know we have a future," the part human said.
Both men decided to contact Rose at the same time.
XxXxXxXx
Rose paced the floor of the small cell until the door slid open. Valana stepped just in the doorway. Rose fixed her eyes on the Silurian, trying to gauge the situation by taking in her body language. The races of the universe may handle things differently, but the vast majority of humanoid races- those with two arms, two legs, and one head- had amazingly similar body language.
Valana stood there, obviously tensed for anything Rose might do. Attacking her immediately had been a stupid move before. Now the Silurian was more on guard. But Rose's weak attack didn't account for what she saw now. Valana looked like she was ready for a real fight, with someone who knew how to.
"Forgive me, Madam Wolf, we did not know who you were. Come with me," she ordered
Rose stayed where she was with her eyes locked on the woman and her arms down at her sides. She tried to look non threatening while being ready for anything the lizard woman might do. The woman knew who she was, had been shocked when she heard her name, and now came back to her with the other, far less known name name that she had chosen for herself.
"How do you know that name?" she demanded.
"My ancestors have met you. The story was passed on through generations." She looked to be in awe. Maybe surprised that the stories she had heard were real. "It is said that-"
"Sister," another voice behind her warned. "Remember the Timelines."
"Meelark will explain everything to you. Follow." Valana turned and walked out of sight, leaving the door open.
Rose approached the opening cautiously and stepped outside. The sisters were waiting for her. She had no desire to stay behind and a lot of curiosity, so she followed them. The corridors became brighter as she went, and started to look more polished. They were coming up on an open door with an amber light spilling from it when she suddenly heard both Doctors clear as day in her mind, querying her.
"I think I'm being taken to wherever you are. You're close, aren't you? I think you are," she replied to them both.
They walked into the room with the amber light spilling out, and she saw both of the Doctors there. "You are!" she called out loud and rushed toward the suited men without thinking. She wrapped her arms around both of their necks, and each one was able to get one arm around her and bury their face in her neck.
"Are you okay?" they both asked at the same time, in a low voice.
"I'm good," Rose told them. "Much better now."
"You have got to stop scaring us like that," one of them said into her ear.
"Yeah, you gave him a panic attack," the other one joked.
"Oi! She didn't give me a panic attack," the first one whispered indignantly. Rose felt him lightly kick his other self.
"Be nice to each other," Rose chided them, not sure if a panic attack happened or not. She pulled back and shook her head, ready to receive the kisses she knew were coming. Both men's gazes were on a spot behind her, though. She turned around and saw what appeared to be an older Silurian, dressed in robes.
"Rose, meet Meelark. One of the members of the council of elders," one of the Doctors said behind her.
"Hello, Bad Wolf, it's a pleasure to meet you," the Silurian said pleasantly. She felt the Doctors stiffen behind her.
"Um, hello," she said unsurely. "Why did you greet me like that?"
"It is your name, is it not? Your chosen name?" he asked.
"Um, yeah," she admitted. "But you can call me Rose."
"Very well then," he said pleasantly. "Rose, Doctor, and Doctor, please, have a seat." He walked around to one end of the table and sat. Following his lead, the time travelers stepped to three chairs at the other end. Rose sat on the end, with a Doctor to either side. The sisters took up a position on either side of Meelark and just behind him.
As soon as they had a second, both Doctors ran their sonic screwdrivers over Rose.
"Venom," the part human confirmed, throwing a glare at the man on the other end of the table.
"The counter agent's working nicely though, especially with her own biology speeding it up," the Time Lord added, more jovially. "You'll be fine," he assured Rose as he put away his screwdriver.
The other Doctor kept his own sonic out, spinning it around in his fingers as he stared at the three Silurians on the other side of the table. "What needs discussed?" he asked.
"It is said that your coming will herald the return of the humans to this planet," Meelark told them.
"Humankind is due to return soon, yes," the brown suited Doctor replied.
Valana's sister went to say something, but Meelark held his hand up in a silencing gesture, and she closed her mouth again.
"We came up approximately 200 years after the humans left the planet," the Silurian man explained. "The solar flares had finally finished bombarding the planet, and there was much destruction. The surface was almost uninhabitable. We almost went back underground."
The time travelers listened to this tale with interest. That point in history was unknown.
"But where there is destruction, there is also new life. We saw plants growing. Seeds that survived the flares somehow. They were mutated, but those plants gave us the knowledge we needed." He sat forward, with his hands clasped together. "We took our seed stores, and through careful cultivation, we dotted the landscape with groups of every kind of plant. The same thing was done with the seed stores humans had put in place in the coldest parts of the planet. Less than half of the seeds sprouted, but eventually, we were able to allow them to grow unchecked. We were able to bring back some of the animals of our time, as well as some of the more modern animals back as well, through stores left by humans in case something like that had happened."
"Impressive," Rose told him, receiving a nod from the Silurian elder.
"Thank you. The balance is still incomplete, though" Meelark finished. "It is very delicate, and I know we're supposed to share the planet, but my people are afraid that if the humans come back, they'll destroy our work."
"Isn't the human race supposed to come back on an ark?" Rose asked the Doctors.
"Good point," the Doctor in blue said, pointing at her.
"There are only a few hundred humans coming back at first," the Doctor in brown told the Silurians. "The humans are coming with seeds of many kinds, as well as various animals in cryostasis and DNA samples to clone from. They're set up to do the same process you've been doing. I know, I've seen it."
"I'm sure that between what you have been doing, and what they can add, you'll have a properly diverse gene pool," the other Doctor added.
The discussion took nearly an hour, while the time travelers assured the Silurians that the humans and themselves could live and work together. Every time one of the Silurians would get close to making a mention of the last time they had been there, which hadn't happened for them yet, one of the others would stop them, something which Rose was grateful for. It was okay to know of a future trip, bad to know what happened on it. What they had gotten before the conversation began was too much, really.
When their business was concluded, the Doctors and Rose headed back to the TARDIS, both of the Doctors giving Rose a brief history of Silurians, a.k.a. Homo Reptilia, and their tribes. They stepped inside and moved to the console to dematerialize the timeship.
"Well, that was illuminating," the Doctor in brown said.
"Yep," the other Doctor replied.
"So, what now?" Rose asked. It had only been about 8 hours since Rose had woken up the first time, and she had taken a nap earlier.
"How do you feel?" the Time Lord asked.
"Good," rose responded.
"Well, lets take our new skills out for a test drive in a populated place," the part human said.
"No getting kidnapped this time," the Doctor in brown ordered, pointing his finger at her.
"But I was rubbish," Rose argued, skipping over the kidnapping. "Am I really ready for more distractions?"
"You did a bit better than we expected, actually," the Doctor in blue told her.
"When you weren't trying so hard, we both heard you just fine," the other Doctor informed her with a smile.
"It's the same skill set you learn when learning to talk outside your mind and inside at the same time, just expanded," the single hearted Doctor told her. "See? Didn't I tell you that was going to come in handy?" he bragged.
"Yes you did, oh wise one," Rose rolled her eyes while she gave a little mock bow.
The Time Lord chuckled as he set their next destination.