Strange Children
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Sarah Jane looked at Rose in utter shock. "Wh-what?" she stammered. "Rose, how can you not remember the Doctor?"
"I don't know," Rose said in tired frustration. "A few months ago my memory just went. No cause that I can remember or anyone could tell me of. It just scattered. And not just memories of the present, but past ones too. Nothing seemed to fit. I forgot people and faces. My own mother once or twice. And for a while I was so scatter brained that I forgot what had happened only a while before. At one point, right at the start they told me, I even forgot to eat and sleep. I ended up in hospital. No one ever mentioned the Doctor… Actually, it's fuzzy, but I think Mum would shoot daggers at anyone who even said the word 'doctor'. But that word kept popping up in my head. And… and I remember a face. It's the only one I can't place. I remember asking Mickey about him, but he didn't know. A man… an impossible man… he came out of fire. He's handsome and sweet. Tall and skinny. Brown eyes, hair and suit… I always see him in the same suit. But for some reason, I keep thinking that he had blue eyes and big ears. Ugh, it makes no sense!"
"That's him!" Sarah Jane cried. "That's him, Rose. That's the Doctor!" She seemed to pause. "But Rose… Have you noticed anything different about your memories lately... any change in the last few months?"
"Well, they have been getting clearer. I haven't been as muddled as I used to be. Most of the time I can remember most things all day. But… that's to be expected for a head injury, right?"
"It has been known for people who suffer short term - or long term - memory loss to eventually recover," Tom chimed in. "Could you please pass me the boy… Jack. I need to check everything is okay with him."
Sarah Jane took Jack from her arms and passed him to Tom before tuning worryingly back to Rose. "But someone put a perception filter on you so that you didn't know you were pregnant!"
"Mum and Mickey never mentioned I was pregnant. Maybe they didn't want me to freak out if I forgot… Oh heck, I don't even know who the dad is!"
"Oh come on, Rose! Like that helped now! Great idea! Let's make her forget that she's pregnant, because she's not going to freak out when she's suddenly giving birth!" she said sarcastically. "And I'm sure if they reminded you enough... Even I saw '50 First Dates'." She saw Rose's blank look. "And clearly you can't remember it," she sighed.
Suddenly there was a sharp intake of breath behind them and they turned to see Tom backing away from where he had placed Jack on the floor. The baby began to cry as he was left on his own. Quickly Sarah Jane picked him up and glared at Tom. Surely a doctor should know better. But Tom just looked pale.
"What the hell is he?" Tom spat looking at Jack in fear.
"What?" the two women left in the room (the nurse had left to give them some privacy) said in horrified confusion.
"That - that child. He can't be human. He has… he has…"
"Has what?" Sarah Jane demanded.
"Two hearts."
Sarah Jane's mouth fell open and Rose looked confused and shocked.
"But how's that possible?" Rose asked.
"Oh my god," Sarah Jane gasped looking down at the baby in her arms. "They have… They're… the Doctor is their father?"
"What?" Rose and Tom said in unison.
"There's only one man who could be the father. Only one man I know could be the father... well, two, but Rose has never met the other. And no he's not human. He's a Time Lord. My god, Rose, you and… I knew there was something different about you. The way he looked at you."
"That doesn't really explain much Sarah," she sighed. "And what about Gallifreya? Does she have two hearts too?"
"It's most likely. Half human, half Time Lord… though Time Lord will probably be the more dominant gene." She placed a hand over the little girls back, feeling the steady beat of two hearts under her fingers. "Yes, two hearts."
"Wait, so I had sex with an alien?" Rose said sounding a little more like herself than she had in a while.
"Erm, well, when you put it bluntly… yes," Sarah Jane told her.
"I love him, don't I? The man I keep seeing? And we've been apart, that's why I'm so sad when I think about him… But why would he leave me? He said he wouldn't!" She blinked at the words that had come unbidden to her lips. Then she was hit by the memory.
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"I thought you and me were… but I obviously got it wrong," she said to a rather annoyed and upset man in a brown suit. She could hear the tears in her voice and at the time she had been wondering if he could hear it too. "I've been to the year five billion, right, but this… now this is really seeing the future. You just leave us behind. Is that what you're going to do to me?"
"No! Not you," he told her adamantly the second the words were out of her mouth. The intensity in his voice was startling. She hardly ever heard him talk like this. He truly meant it. But she didn't want to believe it. Not when there was proof he was going to break her heart, right in front of her.
"But Sarah Jane… You were that close to her once, and now… You never even mention her! Why not?" This time her wavering voice was obvious.
"I don't age," he told her seriously, his eyes filled with pain. Tears glistened in them as they no doubt did in hers. "I regenerate. But humans decay. You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone who you-" suddenly he abruptly cut off when he realised what he was about to say. She had no doubt in her mind he was about to say 'love'. But had he been talking about Sarah Jane, or her?
"What, Doctor?" she said quietly.
The Doctor stared at her intensely for a moment, willing her to understand. Rose was struggling to hold back the tears now. And then he carried on as if he had never nearly slipped. "You can spend the rest of your life with me," he told her. There was something in his voice that almost made it sound like he was begging her to do so. "But I can't spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on. Alone. That's the curse of the Time Lords."
The scene changed.
Everything was gold. Brilliant golden energy. She was everything. She was a Goddess of Time and Space. She could control anything she wanted to. Fix any wrong in the world without destroying it. She held the entire universe in her glittering golden hands. She could see it all. But she was on fire. She was burning from the inside out. Her head was about to split.
She watched as the man with loving blue eyes and big ears leant in and kissed her. As he kissed her, she felt the energy draining from her. The magnificent but deadly power leaving her body as he sucked it from her.
Then, everything was dark. Her head was still burning and if she had been conscious, she would have been screaming. Then another light entered her mind, a soft, comforting light. The pain dulled right down from a mind searing burn, to a dull throbbing headache. That would hurt when she woke up. She hoped the Doctor would be okay.
'There, there," a soft, musical voice soothed her. It was a woman with a voice so ethereal, it couldn't possibly be human with just one voice. She had many. 'I've got you.'
She heard words from a voice she had never heard before… or hadn't heard YET, as her gut was telling her. "I have to live on. Alone."
'Not anymore…' the ethereal voice replied. Then the light departed, taking the memories with it. But leaving behind a small part of that light in her mind and her heart.
Again the scene changed. A scene she was very familiar with. The one she saw in her nightmares. But this time, she heard his name.
Her grip failed, and her fingers slipped from the leaver.
"Doctor!" she screamed as the force sucked her back towards the ripping white wall and nothingness.
"Rose!" he shrieked her name. She could see the pain and terror in his eyes. They both knew that there was nothing he could do. At the last second she was caught in her father's strong arms. And then they were gone. She would never truly see him again.
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When she came back to reality, Sarah Jane was leaning over her in concern and she could feel fresh tear tracks down her cheeks.
"Rose, are you alright?" she asked.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm okay," she told the older lady. "Just having flash backs. I'm having a lot today. That's got to be a good thing. I saw the Doctor. They were about the Doctor. Except that second one, I have no idea what that was about." A huge grin - the first one in days - graced her lips. "I'm remembering the Doctor!" she cried in delight. She looked down at the baby in her arms. Gallifreya blinked back. "Mummy's starting to remember Daddy," she cooed. She might have imagined it, but she could see the smile in her daughter's eyes and felt a brush of happiness at the back of her mind.
"That's great Rose!" Sarah Jane grinned.
From where he stood, Tom just looked at them in utter bewilderment. He had no clue what was going on and half the things they said were gibberish to him. But he had heard Sarah and her son talking about all kinds of aliens as if it were the most normal thing on earth… Three years ago he wouldn't have believed a word that she said. Now he found it hard not to. He had often wondered about this mysterious man that Sarah would always say would rescue them someday. 'He isn't always here,' she had said.
He wished this man would hurry up. He wished that he would save them… if there was anything left to be saved.
?...DW…?
The Doctor sat in his tent. The Master wasn't here -as it was night - and he was taking a break from the Archangel Network. He'd been at it all day when he hadn't been crawling around the Masters feet. It was mentally exhausting work. Physical was already bad enough since he had the body of a hundred year old man.
He wasn't too sure if he liked his time off. It left too much time to think. Too much time to feel guilty and grieve or consider all the horrible possibilities. Was Martha still alive? All he had to go on there were rumours and the fact that the Master hadn't found her.
He used to take up this time with sleeping. But he did that only when it was needed now. Because the nightmares had gotten worse. He hated those nightmares. But no, they weren't about what was happening, they weren't even about Gallifrey anymore. No, for the last year, he always had the same dream, or variants of it.
He dreamt a little differently to humans, not much, but a little. His dreams were more solid. And more often than not - although he did have strange made up dreams - his dreams were memories. Memories of Rose. Always Rose. Some of them were good, and he liked those dreams… but he would always wake up feeling her loss keenly. But most often, he dreamt of the bad times. The times they were separated, the times he put her in danger. And always, always, always, he saw the horrible scenes of her burning as she was consumed by the Time Vortex, as she fell screaming towards the Void… that horribly painful goodbye.
But at the same time, he couldn't hate the dreams and the nightmares… because that was all he had left of her.
Though, he was glad that she wasn't here to suffer this pain.
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Suddenly something tingled at the back of his exhausted mind. At first he thought that maybe it was the Master attempting another psychic attack. But it felt different. It was a new presence… No, sorry, two presences. There were two of them.
They were so small and innocent. Their presence reminded him of… No! It couldn't be! They felt like Time Lords - albeit young and ever so slightly different. But it was impossible! There couldn't be any Gallifreyan children!
Well… There was every possibility that the Master had somehow miraculously impregnated a human at some point. He wasn't exactly too sure what to think of that… Crap, the Master! Even if they were the Master's children, or if they were something else entirely, he had to protect them.
Ever so carefully, he reached his mind out towards the Master. He had to be careful not to be detected. He wasn't trying to enter his mind or anything, just check his perceptiveness. But he hadn't noticed that he was tapping into Archangel yet, so that was a good sign.
Carefully, he skimmed over the surface of the Master's mind, checking to see if he had noticed. He breathed an audible sigh of relief when he felt that he hadn't. The drumbeats drowned it all out.
Whoever these two presences were, he had to keep them hidden. He had to keep them safe.
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WOW I LOVE FLASHBACKS! They are so fun to write! Though, not so sure how many I can still fit in. I tried to make her more bluntly ROse in this chapter than someone who is confused and scared. I just HAD to put in the 'I slept with an alien!' part!
And we finally get the Doctor in on it. Dont worry, I will also be bringing in the Master and Martha when the time is right... still a bit left to figure out for that yet, though.
Please review!
3. Strange Children
