Beta'd by Anjirika and maven13. What would I do without y'all?


Chapter 3 - Time Lord Victorious

This time, it even looked like he was regenerating.

A golden light - energy - cloud - thing poured from the watch, surrounding John as he screamed and writhed. Rose did her best to guide him gently to the floor when he fell off of his chair but she couldn't hold him still.

Tim appeared at her side and she shouted over John's screams, "Get his other arm, will ya?"

Rose wasn't sure how long they held him. Every second seemed to stretch into minutes but finally he stilled. She expected him to pass out again, like after he had used the Chameleon Arch, but instead he sat straight up, gasping for air.

He blinked, looked at her and smiled. "Rose!" he exclaimed, and with that, she was in his arms.

He pressed her to his chest, and she could hear his heartbeat. She raised her hand to the right side of his chest and could feel the second heart. He was back. Her Doctor was back! She snaked both her arms around his waist to pull him closer. "I missed you," she mumbled into his shirt. It was wet, she realized, from her own tears.

"Rose," he said, more gently. Then she felt him working his jaw and pulled away to see what was wrong. He was licking his teeth or something and his face was growing more and more concerned.

"What's the matter?" she asked, when a look of horror filled his eyes.

"Is that..." he began, then stuck his tongue out like he was about to gag. "Is that pear?" he asked, and proceeded to wipe his tongue on the sleeve of his suit jacket.

Rose bit her lip, remembering her little revenge from over a week ago. She had repented once he had apologized, but she had been distracted by his journal and realized she must have left the pears with his breakfast.

"I told you," the Doctor went on, exasperated, "Item number five, I think it was? No. Pears. How could you let me eat pears?"

Despite his indignation, Rose could only think of one thing: it seemed the Doctor didn't remember being John Smith. Rose wasn't sure in that precise moment how she felt about that. She knew there was a good measure of relief that she might not have to explain some of the things she had said to John or things she might have shown him, like with the watch. And there was the whole proposal, which fortunately she doubted he'd ever mention even if he did remember - not in two centuries, let alone two weeks. But it also meant two and a half months that she couldn't look back on with him, things she couldn't ask him...

Regardless, at present he was still babbling on about pears and Time Lord senses and, "Has anyone got a banana to get this awful taste out of my mouth?"

Tim got up to look through the kitchen cupboards but Rose turned the Doctor's face towards her and with a relieved huff of a laugh kissed him.

It was just a brief kiss but it shut him up quite nicely. Rose mustered up her courage and spoke into the momentary silence. "I love you, y'know," she told him quietly while looking intently at his shoulder. Regardless of all the times John had said it, the Doctor had told her himself before he first changed. And even if he never planned on saying it again, he did have a right to know...

"Quite right, too," he said, gently.

She looked back up at him and his smile melted her heart.

He kissed her again then pressed their foreheads together. "It's over, Rose," he said. "I'm back."

Rose sighed. "Not quite over," she said sadly, and as if to emphasize her words, another round of explosions rocked the cottage. She sat back from him and explained quickly, rather than asking what he remembered. "We had to open the watch early 'cause the Family found us. They took human bodies and they were killin' even more people and now they've got the TARDIS - it's at the school - and they're bombin' the village with their ship. And this is Latimer," she added, indicating the boy who was now standing next to them, holding a bowl of apples. "What's your first name?" she asked.

"Tim, miss," he answered. "I found these, sir," he added, offering the apples to the Doctor.


After making quick work of four of the apples ("they're not pears"), drinking the entire pot of cold tea, and instructing Tim to wait in the cottage until it was safe, the Doctor struck out towards the school with Rose.

It wasn't exactly lying, he told himself. He had kept quiet while Rose explained all that had been going on and had allowed her to re-introduce Tim. He hadn't actually said that he didn't remember. She was just assuming he didn't.

And he was allowing her to assume.

But it wasn't as though he intended to let it continue indefinitely. It was just until he could figure out what to do about... everything. Now simply wasn't the time to go into it. Not with power-hungry, telepathic maniacs on the loose in 1913 Britain.

He had two weeks, after all.

As they came within sight of the school, the Doctor scanned the scene. There was no sign of the Family; only their scarecrow soldiers were left guarding the TARDIS. The Family must all have been on board their ship.

"Ready?" he asked Rose quietly, before they crossed the tree line.

She nodded. "Yeah, let's do it."

The Doctor took the watch from his jacket pocket and ran out of the trees towards the TARDIS. "Here!" he called, holding the watch out in front of him. "I've got the Doctor!"

A beat later, Rose started running after him. "John, no, you can't!" she screamed, quite convincingly.

"I've got the Doctor!" he told the scarecrows again. "Call off the attack!"

The Doctor noted with satisfaction that the bombardment immediately ceased and as they neared the straw soldiers he could hear the faint whine of the ship's engines approaching.


It ended up being entirely too simple to take care of the Family, Rose thought, after all they'd been through in the past few months to avoid them. While she had pleaded with "John" not to give up the watch, the Doctor had done a little "ventriloquism of the nose", as he'd called it, tricking the Family into thinking the Time Lord was still trapped inside the device. From the moment they set foot on the Family's ship, even as the Doctor bargained with the Family to leave, he very carefully accidentally tripped against several vital control panels, initiating quite a catastrophic energy feedback.

As they ran from the soon-to-be-exploding ship, Rose reveled in the fact that she was the one being pulled by the Doctor instead of her dragging John along behind her. He was really, truly back.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the Family had finally exited the ship as well. They were still a good distance behind and dangerously close to the ship when the Doctor said, "Three, two, one!" He pulled her to the ground, cradling her close to himself just as the ship went up.

The Doctor quickly rolled to his feet once the blast had passed. He helped Rose up and she looked around at their surroundings. The scarecrows had all collapsed and the Family lay still, illuminated by their burning ship.

"C'mon," the Doctor said, tugging Rose's hand and heading off back towards the TARDIS.

Rose used her key, since John Smith hadn't been in the habit of carrying his around with him. As soon as they were safe in the console room with the doors closed, the Doctor activated the scanner.

"Rose," he told her, stepping aside for her to approach the screen. "I need you to stay and keep an eye on them," he said.

The Family were still lying on the ground, but they seemed to be coming around. "'Kay, no problem," she agreed."

"I'll be right back," he said, then kissed her forehead and ran further into the TARDIS.

Grinning, Rose turned back to the scanner. She thought some kind of "the Doctor's back" dance was quite in order, but managed to refrain. She watched as the evil alien formerly known as Jenny sat up, and Rose felt a wave of anger that melted into sadness at what had happened to the girl. She was just about to call the Doctor when she heard him returning, accompanied by a clanking, scraping kind of sound.

"Still there?" he said, as he re-entered the console room and cast a glance at the scanner. His arms and shoulders were draped in thick chains. "Time to end this," he told her, much more seriously than she had seen him yet that night.

Rose jogged down the ramp ahead of him to open the TARDIS doors. "What're you gonna do?" she asked, letting the Doctor out ahead of her and following him across the grounds.

He didn't answer immediately and she could tell he was clenching his jaw. It wasn't until they reached the Family that he gave her some semblance of an answer and even then it was directed more at the Family themselves than at her. "Unbreakable chains," he said, letting the bulk of his burden fall to the ground. He held up one length of chain as he went on. "Forged in the heart of a dwarf star. Not easy to come by, this," he said, and began to bind each of the Family with the chain. "But it'll keep you out of trouble, and in those bodies, 'til I decide what to do with you."

Rose helped feed the chain to him as he wound it around each of his captives individually and clamped them to it with something like manacles. He wordlessly took the now-empty watch from Baines' grip and slipped it into his pocket. Rose let him have his brooding time as he led the line of prisoners back to the TARDIS. He'd said he still needed to decide their fate, but it didn't seem like it was going to be pretty.

The Doctor didn't say another word. Not when Lucy, then Baines started bargaining. Not when Jenny started threatening. Not even when they entered the TARDIS and all four were hushed and then began gibbering in fear.

He led them to a door Rose hadn't seen before and pushed them all into the dimly lit room. When he had closed the door on them, the Doctor stepped back and leaned against the other side of the corridor.

"What's gonna happen to them?" Rose asked after a moment.

He stared ahead at the door. "They had their chance, and they lost it," he said darkly. "They want to live forever; I might give them just that."

Something twisted inside her when Rose heard the way he said that. It wasn't a new feeling but it was one she suddenly realized she had been ignoring.

No second chances, he'd said, when he had sent that Sycorax to his death using a satsuma. Right after that, too, his six little words had deposed Harriet Jones, just because she'd done what she'd thought was right.

Rose had felt it a few times before his regeneration, too, with the Dalek in Van What's-His-Name's museum, for instance. But he'd backed down then.

Now, the more she thought about it, it seemed that whenever someone challenged him or turned up their noses at an offer he made them, he crushed them.

Rose wasn't sure why she hadn't realized it before but there had been a lot of distractions: regeneration, running for their lives, things like that. But now, it was just the two of them: Rose and the Time Lord victorious, standing over his captives.

Rose narrowed her eyes as another thought occurred to her. Yes, he was like this quite frequently, except... she remembered him actually begging the last Dalek in Old New York...

"Was it the Daleks?" she asked.

The Doctor's head whipped around towards her. "What?" he asked back, completely startled.

"Did you give them a chance? Before the Time War?" she clarified.

"What?" he asked again, pushing off of the wall. All the color had suddenly drained from his face.

Rose steeled herself and explained, somehow certain that she was right. "This you," she said, "you're always goin' on about 'no second chances' for some reason, 'cept when it was down to Dalek Caan, the last one of the Daleks, in New York. Then you were all, 'I'm not gonna cause another genocide.'"

"I..." he trailed off, leaning back against the wall, "I don't..." he began again, then slid down to sit on the floor.

Rose felt rather terrible, bringing all this up, but if he'd been ignoring it too, it was about time he faced it. She sat beside him, chewing her lip as he looked blankly off into the middle distance.

"I had a chance," he said quietly, "long before the Time War. I was actually ordered to... I could have wiped them out of existence before they were ever a threat. I knew what they would become... but I didn't do it." He paused, evidently remembering. "When the war came, the other Time Lords... it did things to them. And I couldn't..." his voice broke, and Rose took his nearest hand. "At first," he said, his voice clearer after a moment, "I blamed myself. And the Daleks, but I didn't think they were around anymore. And then," he looked at Rose, "You were right about the Dalek Van Statten had captured. My first impulse had been to kill it in cold blood, but you were right. And then, I don't know." He shook his head, looking down at the floor. "I couldn't kill them on the Gamestation and I couldn't stop Dalek Caan."

"'Cause," Rose cautiously ventured when he didn't continue, "you thought it'd be like followin' your orders? And that if it was the right thing now, maybe it was the right thing back then, which would've meant... you were wrong?" She scrunched her face up as she realized how confused that sounded.

But the Doctor looked at her gratefully. "When I think about it, I try," he said, quietly. "I try to do it again, to give people a chance. But most of the time... I'm afraid to."

Rose moved closer to him, laying her head on his shoulder. She tried to tell herself it was to comfort him but it was also to avoid the unsettling helplessness she saw in the Doctor's face. She decided to take a page out of his own book. "How long're they gonna be alright in there?" she asked, nodding her chin towards the door across from them.

The Doctor took a deep breath then answered nonchalantly. "Oh, about infinitely," he said.

"Kay," Rose replied lightly, "then how 'bout we get outta here and get Tim and then we can figure out what to do."

He laughed lightly, evidently recognizing the distraction tactic. He kissed the top of her head then stood and helped Rose to her feet. "Go and pack your things, then we'll meet back here before the army shows up?" he suggested.

"Yeah, good plan," she agreed with a smile.


The Doctor stepped into John Smith's rooms and closed the door behind him. The school was still deserted, except for Rose who was currently in the vicinity of the servant's quarters.

His first stop was the wardrobe. He changed quickly into his Converses and pinstriped suit, replacing Rose's ring in the jacket's breast pocket. Two weeks, she had told John Smith. Not, "No," but, "Ask again in two weeks." It gave the Doctor a measure of hope that she had said it like that. He expected she thought he never would ask, not as the Doctor, but it left a window open.

There wasn't much else that he needed to take back with him. There were a few period clothes that the TARDIS had provided, but he didn't see himself wearing them again anytime soon.

He did open the desk drawer, however, and pulled out the Journal of Possibilities. He could add a good deal to the book. What had Baines asked him about being human? Whether it had made him better, richer, wiser. He didn't know about any of that but it had made him honest - at least while he had still been human.

All of his dreams for a life with Rose had somehow managed to assert themselves over the life John Smith had tried to show her. It was exhilarating to remember sharing his mind with her like that, the secret treasures of his heart that he didn't even fully admit to himself. It did concern him that she had pulled away so quickly after catching a glimpse of them...

A knock sounded on the door and the Doctor hastily slipped the journal into his jacket pocket. He realized he had been dallying and it wouldn't do to let Rose know that he had been reminiscing. He walked back to the wardrobe as he called, "Come in," then stooped, pretending to be tying his shoelaces.

For just a moment, he thought as Rose opened the door, he had been honest.


To be continued.

The next chapter'll feature some rather sharp deviations from the original episode, just in case you haven't had enough of that already ;)

This point came up in discussions with maven13: yes, the Doctor has responsibilities to meet out justice in the universe, but think about what he did to the Family in the episode. He didn't throw them into the event horizon together or stick them in the same cornfiled. He not only ensured they'd be immortal, but ALONE. Looks pretty sulky, to me.

The Doctor's mission to destroy the Daleks is from an adventure with the Fourth Doctor, "Genesis of the Daleks". No, I haven't seen the whole thing; I'm still in the middle of "The Keys of Marinus" with the First Doctor. But I did look it up online and watch a scene or two...