Chapter Nine
Rose walked beside the Doctor as they went back to the others. As they walked, the Doctor glanced over and saw the silver collar still around her neck.
"Oh, I almost forgot." He said stopping her.
He whipped out his sonic screwdriver, walked around behind Rose and aimed it at the back of the collar. There was a snap and Rose breathed a sigh of relief as the Doctor pulled the collar off.
"Thank you." Rose said rubbing her neck.
"Anytime, that collar didn't go well with your whole outfit anyway." The Doctor said giving her a peck on the cheek. He threw it to the ground and took Rose's hand as they resumed walking towards the others.
As they neared, Rose looked at Donna and Martha. She smiled politely and they smiled back, but she could tell they were sizing her up. Whenever she envisioned being reunited with the Doctor, she always imagined it would just be the two of them alone in the TARDIS. She never figured there would be other companions by the time she got back. She suddenly felt uneasy. It seemed like she had gone from being top of the heap to the bottom of the totem pole in one fell swoop. She wondered if she was going to have to fight them for her place in the TARDIS pecking order. Still, she was determined to keep the peace. She promised the Doctor she would be civil and she would be. She just wondered if all of them could get along.
As the Doctor conversed with the three men, Rose walked slowly up to the two women.
"Hi," she said softly.
"Hi, Rose." Martha said.
"Hi." Donna said.
The three women stared at one another in silence. Rose cleared her throat after a few minutes.
"So, um…how long you been traveling with the Doctor?" she asked them.
"Nine months." Donna said.
"I traveled with him for a year and then I took a break for awhile and now it's been about three months since I've been back." Martha said.
"Oh." Rose said.
They fell into silence again. Rose listened to the Doctor chatting beside her. He was trying to determine what was going on with the war and what the three men had been doing. Smiling, she decided to make another effort.
"So, um…Martha, you're studying to be a doctor?" she asked her.
"Yes, I am." Martha said nodding. "I'm nearly done. I have about a year left now and then I get my degree."
"That's great." Rose said.
"What have you been doing?" Donna asked.
"Well, I worked at the Torchwood in the other universe and was supervisor in charge of about ten field agents. They went out and investigated alien sightings and they'd send the reports to me and then I used my knowledge of alien civilizations that I got from traveling with the Doctor to tell them what species it was…if I could, of course. I didn't know all the aliens that were in the reports, but I knew a lot of them."
Martha and Donna nodded.
"My cousin Adeola worked at the Canary Wharf Torchwood." Martha said. "Unfortunately, she was one of the ones that died that day."
"Oh God, I'm so sorry." Rose said. "The Doctor and I were there that day and I know there were a lot of people that were killed. I'm so sorry one of them was your relative."
Martha smiled at her.
"Well, to be fair, we weren't that close, but It was still a shock all the same." She said. "We kinda know a little of what happened to you on that day, but not much. The Doctor didn't really talk about you very much, it was too painful for him."
Rose looked over at the Doctor who had his back to him chatting away amicably with the three men. She reached over, laid her hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. The Doctor looked around at her and smiled.
"You alright?" he asked gently.
Rose nodded. The Doctor's smile widened and he winked at her before turning his head back around and resuming his conversation. Rose lowered her arm back to her side and looked at Donna.
"What about you? Are you going to college?" she asked her.
"Nah, can't afford it. I was working as a temp at H.C. Clements when I met the Doctor, which actually turned out to be a front for Torchwood so I guess the three of us have something in common. Anyway, turns out there was a gigantic alien spider under the Thames flood barrier and the Doctor and I helped defeat it. Well…actually he did most of the defeating I guess. I was just kinda…there. But, after that, I turned down his offer to travel with him and it wasn't until later when we met up again that I agreed to go. It's been…interesting to say the least. Met Agatha Christie, went to Pompeii and Martha and I just finished tangling with these turd headed aliens called the Sontarans. Ugly gits, I don't know if you fought them."
"No, we never fought them. I fought Daleks and Cybermen and Krillitaines and a werewolf and I met Charles Dickens and Queen Victoria."
"Wow," Martha said. "I met Shakespeare myself so I guess all of us have met someone famous. Um…I also fought the Daleks in 1930's New York. In fact, one of them, Dalek Sec made himself into this weird human hybrid."
"Dalek Sec? The cult of Skaro? I thought they were sucked into the void?" Rose said frowning.
"No, they escaped. Actually, all of them are dead now except for Caan, I think it is. The Doctor said he did this emergency temporal shift thing and disappeared. But, he's the last one now."
"I wouldn't bet on it. The first Dalek I ever saw was in this underground compound in Utah and when it destroyed itself, we thought it was the last until a whole fleet of them showed up. I wouldn't be surprised if more showed up sooner or later."
"Ugh, I hope not." Martha said. "Four of them were bad enough, I don't think I could stand a whole fleet."
"I'm sure they weren't as bad as a humongous spider or running away from the volcano in bleedin' Pompeii." Donna said.
"Pompeii?" Rose said. "That must have been scary."
"Um, yeah, just slightly." She said. "Ash and smoke and flamin' rocks everywhere. We barely got out of there with our lives."
She sighed.
"Thing was, I wanted the Doctor to give everyone an advance warning so no one would get killed, but in the end we had to leave them so we wouldn't mess up history." She said sadly. "That was horrible, just walking among all these people and having to keep silent about what was going to happen. The whole thing just killed me inside, especially seeing the little kids that would play in the streets and run up to us wondering who we were and…"
She trailed off and swallowed hard.
"Anyway, I'm glad to be away from there." She said softly.
Rose and Martha glanced at each other.
"I know how you feel," Rose said. "There's been times I've felt the same way. When we met Charles Dickens, there were these creatures called the Gelth who were possessing dead bodies because they were gas creatures. They were trying to invade our world and had lied about it. There was this servant girl name Gwyneth that I became close with and she was letting the Gelth come through her and they killed her and possessed her dead body. In the end, we had to turn up the gas to lure the Gelth out of the corpses they were possessing and when they were all gathered together Gwyneth lit a match and blew up the house. It was the second trip I had taken with the Doctor and it just disturbed me to no end afterwards. I guess I'm more used to it now, but I hated that I had just gotten to know her and then she was dead."
"Yup, I've had the same thing happen to me." Martha said. "I've met people who ended up dying and had to come to terms with the shock of it all. I guess it's one of the things that come with traveling with the Doctor, but still the first couple of deaths were hard."
She stared off into space.
"The hardest thing though was when the Master took over and these creatures called the Toclafane killed one tenth of the population of Earth and I was walking the Earth trying to tell people to say the Doctor's name at one specific moment in time so he could be restored and defeat the Master. The devastation I saw then was horrible. It took a lot for me to keep going some days."
"Huh? One tenth of the population of Earth is dead?" Rose said in disblief.
"No, not anymore," Martha said holding up her hands. "See, these Toclafane came from the year 100 trillion and they came back to murder their ancestors so they could live in the present day. Well, in order for them to do that and not cancel themselves out, the Master took the TARDIS and made it into a paradox machine and that allowed the Toclafane to kill without them dying. When the paradox machine was destroyed, time went backwards and everything was restored to the way it was before the Toclafane came. The only ones who remember what happened in the year they reigned was myself, the Doctor, Jack, the Master, his wife, Lucy, my family and a handful of others. Everyone else forgot."
Rose shook her head.
"Geez, I missed out on so much. And…you met Jack."
"Yeah, he's a pretty nice guy. I worked with him for a bit at his Torchwood in Cardiff."
"Jack works for Torchwood?" Rose said.
"Yeah, but it's not the same as the lot at Canary Wharf, they're different."
"Blimey, I really need to get caught up here." Rose said shaking her head. "It sounds like I missed out on a lot."
"Yes, you did."
Rose looked over at the Doctor who was grinning at her.
"We need to fill you in big time, Rose Tyler." He said.
"Yeah, especially the part where the Master aged him 100 years and made him into this old geezer." Martha said.
Rose's eyes bugged out.
"You were an old man?" she asked him.
"Yeah, for about a year." The Doctor replied.
"Yeah, and then the Master aged him further and turned him into Dobby."
"He did not turn me into Dobby, Martha Jones!" the Doctor said indignantly as Martha snickered.
Donna looked at Martha.
"The Doctor was turned into Dobby?" she said to her.
"Oh yeah, shrunk down and everything. The Master had him in a little birdcage. It was so cute."
Donna and Rose looked at each other. They looked at the Doctor who had turned crimson.
"You were Dobby in a birdcage?" Rose asked.
"No, I was not bleedin' Dobby!" the Doctor said as everyone giggled. "I was small and wrinkly, but I wasn't Dobby!"
"I just wish I had my camera with me at the time. I bet you guys would have loved to seen what he looked like in his little bird cage." Martha said.
The Doctor sighed as the three girls giggled.
"Anyway, I hate to interrupt the female bonding, but Namoc knows where we can spend the night. I figure since it's a ten mile walk back to the TARDIS, we might as well rest up."
"Oh thank God, I was dreading hearing you say that we had to start back. I think the blisters on my feet have blisters now." Donna said.
"Nah, I'm tired too. A ten-mile walk tires out even me. The house they know of is away from the battlefield so it'll be safe for us to spend the night. They said there's food there too so we won't go hungry. I figure I can cook for you while the three of you continue to get to know one another. It sounds like the three of you were hitting it off."
"Yeah, I think we're loosening up and finding some common ground."
The Doctor beamed.
"Good. I want you guys to be friends." He said. "I want our TARDIS to be happy and harmonious."
He took Rose's hand.
"Shall we?" he said nodding to the three men.
Martha and Donna nodded. They fell in beside The Doctor and Rose and they followed the three men as they led them away.