Part Two! I wanted to conclude this to tie up all the loose ends as quickly as possible... Enjoy! And PLEASE review!
"Mitsy! That laser was primed and ready… I'd triangulated their positions, locked onto their bio-signatures… and all this other scientific mess. And you had the gall to hack into the mainframe of this vessel and completely override and disable our FINEST PIECE OF WEAPONRY!" Thaxton thundered.
"On the contrary, your temper is our finest weapon. And also the dodgiest; in fact we have an entire ethics department devoted to it, and its frequent misfires. Agent Tyler told you they were benign, and you gave us until right before the hour was up. It's not our fault you're impatient and you judgment is quite obviously impaired. Now, let's get down to the problem at hand and start debriefing those fickle things…" Carla retorted forcefully, tossing her backpack at the flustered General.
He didn't respond; simply fumed and rushed off to dispose of the equipment he'd been given.
Carla proceeded through the radioactivity scanner, up the lift and down the hall where her group of executives were lounging about in the detainment chamber, along with the Raxelmari, who looked quite disconcerted at having to be interpreted back and forth.
The agent tossed one of them a translator 'com and gestured for him to press a button.
"Well, what do you know…" The 'com projected, as the Raxelmari, whichever one he was, smiled contentedly.
Warren slumped his shoulders. "Carla, how long has that been in your pocket?" He asked with a groan.
"Since we dropped off with the parachutes- oh, now, don't give me that face, we were a little busy… not to mention Mister and Missus Rosetta Stone over here seemed to have been a step ahead of me." She fussed, and Warren sighed, leaning against the wall to brood once again. It had been a taxing day, and it wasn't yet over.
Now that the Raxelmari, who turned out to be Xiandi, the more sensible one, had the translator, there was little hindrance in the conversation and the debriefing went smoother than anyone ever thought possible. As usual, the Doctor was prattling, Rose was reigning in his ranting by reaching the logical conclusions, Warren was sulking and Carla was smirking and Pete Tyler was sipping his coffee and staring apprehensively at everyone in the room. Just another mission, another alien race, another disaster averted.
But something about this assignment seemed different, especially to Rose. There was something the Raxelmari weren't telling them; perhaps it was something they themselves hadn't even found relevance in yet. Rose was quite taken by them, and how remarkably human they seemed, and how alien she seemed to herself, with all her political jargon and negotiating vernacular. Maybe it was the fact that the Doctor was there with her, making her recall all the things she'd kept to herself on all of her other missions.
And yet, maybe it was the companionship. The Doctor, she knew, was very good at making an impossible group of people work together and function, and most of all enjoy themselves. With a team like they had today, so many things could've gone wrong, and she was prepared for those scenarios. She wasn't prepared for so many things to go right. For the TARDIS translating matrix to still work inside her head, or the aliens to be honorable heroes of their planet, or for Carla to know exactly how to avert the laser… none of these things she could've ever perceived. Because the last time she'd been with the Doctor and nobody had died, he'd been an entirely different man, and she an almost entirely different woman. And to think that that much time could lapse before another happy ending… it was surreal.
The party resituated themselves in the miniature lab-station after the debriefing session and the Raxelmari argued over whose turn it was to hold the translator, all of which went in and out of Rose's head in both languages. Carla set to work inspecting their module, more out of her own curiosity than for the understanding of those present.
It was tiny, ironic considering its significance. Little nodes and receptors covered its surface and a tiny swirling mechanism that defied all of Carla's known physics spun in the center.
"Why, it's a… teeny little vortex manipulator!" She squealed, like it was something adorable.
"But, oh! What's all this for… and this button surely- oh?" She carried on like that, the Doctor leaning over her shoulder with an amused grin. He could've undergone complete diagnostics of it with the push of button and the whir of the screwdriver; but he'd decided to let Carla have her field day with it, especially since he knew she'd be impressed.
"The vortex manipulator, madam, should not be judged by its size." Felspon chastised, once he'd pried the translator away from his comrade.
"No, of course not! I'm quite impressed, if not more so because it's so small! I mean, the intricacy, to have regulated it to function at such a minute frequency…well the potential formulas hurt my head! I, well, my attempts to harness the vortex have all be failures, so I bow my head to you, fellows." She exclaimed, holding it between two palms like a treasure to be admired.
Felspon smirked, giving her a dry laugh. "It's Rasputin's design."
"Oh… well, I-" Carla amended, her lip twitching to one side as she handed it over to the Doctor.
"Carla! Honestly, it's not like he sneezed on it! In fact, that actually would've been a solution to our little problem, so I rather wish he had…" The Doctor rambled, toying with the nodes on the module.
"Such a clever little thing." Rose remarked.
The Doctor beamed. "Why thank you, Rose!" He replied, to which she snorted, biting her lip. "Oh, I suppose, you are too." She said, and he frowned, indignant.
Jake, who'd before been chatting with Warren, strolled over to them purposefully. "Doctor, stop playing with that thing and try getting it to work, would you? It's not like you don't have enough shiny toys back at HQ."
The Doctor frowned resentfully. "Well, haven't you been listening, Jake, we can't until we have a bit of DNA from Rasputin."
"As to why, though, I still don't fully understand." Rose added, looking to the Raxelmari.
"It's… well, more of a legend, really, a last ditch effort." Xiandi offered with a shrug.
"We got here using the time energy supplied from the module, the same design Rasputin himself used to get to Earth. The right energy supplied at the right moment, it would unlock the warzone and prevent the paradox that would destroy our planet." Felspon added.
"Wait, wait, wait, hold on- a paradox? Why am I just now hearing about this?" The Doctor said, putting the module down to rub his temples.
"The war will rage on endlessly if we don't stop it at the exact moment… the module is preprogrammed already to place us in the right time streams required to complete the mission." Xiandi explained.
"Rage on endlessly… it's not even happened yet as long as you weren't lying about the 'we're aliens from the future' part of your alibi!" Carla countered.
"No, no, Carla, it's a paradox; meaning the two time streams have coincided catastrophically, and because the war occurs in the future everything we're saying, everything that's happened today is a fixed point in their history. If that event doesn't happen, if that module isn't reactivated then 'kaput', a paradox forms. Paradoxes are nasty, Carla, trust me."
"A fixed-point, like because everything has technically already happened to them, the whole thing has to happen now?" Carla asked, her brows furrowing together.
"You're getting the idea." Rose offered as the Doctor paced.
He grabbed his hair was he orbited the lab table, rapidly changing directions and muttering to himself.
"All of this, the module, Rasputin, the war, all of it connected, in time, together…. We have to think!" He murmured.
"I'll leave that to you, thanks." Rose said a hint of teasing in her voice.
It was lost on the Doctor. "Yes, leave the thinking to me…" he muttered.
Xiandi and Felspon shared a look, and Rose bit her lip to hide a smile. "Sometimes he gets ahead of himself… has to pace to catch up with his own thoughts. It's rather entertaining, if it wasn't always so suspenseful." She explained.
"Rasputin!" He shouted triumphantly. He skidded over to the Raxelmari, his eyes wild and excited. "Rasputin, yes, it's all linked to that dastardly monk, isn't it? The mystery shrouding his death, the module's inlaid data, the two of you, here, in this time period with me looking for his DNA! It's all so simple! The two of you, you had to have killed Rasputin!"
"We," Felspon said, gesturing to himself and Xiandi with disbelief, "kill the most notorious traitor of Raxelmari history. And how?"
"That… is the right question! And I have the right answer!" The Doctor beamed.
"This war of yours, it raged on long before you, until it capsized, harmed by a paradox that was caused by Rasputin. But he sealed his own fate; he led you here, with his design, his design that could only be reactivated with his genetic signature. And if what I know about the history of Raxelmar is correct, then you've been here before. You were responsible for Rasputin's death, or at least, you're going to be! Very soon, actually, so I hope you're up for it." He explained, gesticulating with enthusiasm.
Carla threw her hands up in exasperation. "What the 'ell are you on about, John?"
The Doctor grabbed her forearms, smiling. "It's time, Carla, and I'm so completely immersed in it! Time, it's so deliciously misshapen… wibbly-wobbly if you will. But if I know anything, and I know practically everything, it's that they're here for a very specific purpose, and so are we. They're the stuff of legend…" he said, with a candid wink at Rose, "…and they don't even know it yet."
Rose pulled him away from Carla, as he continued to grin like a schoolboy. "Explain yourself, Doctor." She instructed, glancing around the room at their flabbergasted faces, especially that of the anxious Raxelmari.
The Doctor grinned slyly, grasping Rose's hand in his, and turning to face the visitors to Earth.
"It means, we're going to send them back in time."
Carla swiped her card against the authorization lock of Warehouse 4, locating in an annexed section of East London, which bore the tell-tale Torchwood insignia that was now widely recognized by the public. "Thank God I didn't throw this thing away…" She murmured as she bustled into the room, burying the key card in her pocket.
Rose's breath hitched as she gazed around the room for the first time in two months. For a whole week straight without any respite, she and her team had sent her through countless time streams searching for the Doctor. Carla has carefully overseen the mission, and calculated the wounds in time caused by Donna Noble, and their resolution… also thanks to Donna Noble. With Rose's expertise with time travel and the ever shifting nature of time itself, and Carla's rudimentary understanding of several previously nefarious Torchwood artifacts, they'd sent Rose to different dimensions, planets, and time streams in a mad dash to find the Doctor and repair the gaping hole in the universe caused by the Daleks.
And now, she was back, to a place where she'd never thought she'd see again. She'd hoped- staked the rest of her life on it, actually - that once she'd found the right time stream in the right dimension, on the right planet… that she wouldn't be coming back. Because she'd be in the TARDIS with the Doctor, just as it should be.
She'd even said her goodbyes, right before she embarked on the project. She'd said farewell to her mother, Mickey, Tony, her Dad, and everyone she knew. But, of course, once the right configuration had been found to put her in the right place, well, her mother and Mickey had followed her anyway.
And now here she was, standing here with a human- Doctor, sending aliens back in time to kill Rasputin.
"So this is where the magic happened, then?" the Doctor said, a hint of disdain in his voice.
Carla grinned smugly. "And you're looking at the magician!"
The Doctor crossed his arms, looking over the complex amalgamation of wires and whirring contraptions and blinking screens. "You were responsible for this?" He asked.
Carla shrugged. "No, Torchwood built it. The former one… I figured out how it worked, tweaked a few things. The whole system is piloted using these wicked formulas, and if the coordinates are slightly off, then they might as well be all the way off. We were looking for the 21st century in our sister dimension… if anything didn't plug in just right, well, the whole thing had to be rebooted. Lord knows what they planned to do with it before we overtook it… something to do with the Cybers, surely. But their original method was so much more subtle, like, it just kind of bled through. This, well, it shoots a hole in the universe. I never would've considered using it if the situation hadn't been so dire. I mean, let's be honest, the universe already had plenty of holes in it by the time we were able to make this thing operational." She explained as they surveyed the machinery.
The Doctor appeared impressed, nodding occasionally. Carla continued "But, I suppose, with the proper tweaking… it could be used to send someone back within this dimension. Though, I wouldn't know the coding for that. All the data we'd been using had featured the inter-dimensionary physics… but I suppose if you-"
"…were able to produce the inverse formulas, the data would revert to lock in place to this universe only… All the other time streams, other than this one and the destination, would become useless and unreachable… not to mention it'd be a one way ticket. But I have a feeling it might be time to shut down Warehouse 4, eh Carla?" The Doctor concluded.
"My feelings exactly. I'll leave the math to you, though, sir." She answered with a sly smile.
The Doctor grinned roguishly, leaning over the monitor Carla had indicated.
Rose ushered the Raxelmari over. They'd been particularly silent since they no longer possessed the translator. "Give the Doctor a moment, and we'll have you in Tsarist Russia in no time at all! Is there anything you need to prepare?" She asked them.
"We have everything we need, the module, our finest weapons, a solid directive… all we needed was a mind like yours and the Doctor's to get us where, and when, we needed to be. Quite extraordinary to think that all of this was fated." Xiandi replied.
"Fixed, not fated." Rose said with a small laugh.
"Nevertheless, thank you for all of your help, because it has been exceedingly kind and valiant, even if it was all written in time." Felspon added, actually appearing gracious, and even giving her a slight bow.
Xiandi smiled. "You'll go down in history with us, Dame Rose. The golden haired woman who guided us to our fate… and her Doctor."
The Doctor, turned his head toward them. "Dame Rose indeed! Defender of the Earth, the girl who saw all of time and space!" Rose grinned at him, adding, "The girl who met the Doctor and saved the world."
He beamed at her, his eyes growing soft until Carla cleared her throat loudly. "Um, I'm not sure what either of you just said, but save the doe-eyes for a less crucial moment, please, John."
The Doctor rolled his eyes at her jest and focused once again to the screen in front of him; drilling numbers and equations into the keypad like it had been rehearsed.
"There you go, then, December 29, 1916! Brilliant…" He said, locking in the code.
Rose stared blankly at the screen. "As soon as you press that button, Doctor, we'll never be able to travel between the universes again, under any circumstances. Any 'impossible journey' will be just that, impossible… it'll be the end of, well, our old life, for certain." Rose whispered to him, aware that Carla couldn't possibly understand her.
The Doctor grabbed her hand, giving it a squeeze. "I know, Rose. But I have the memories of that 'old life' you speak of, and that's all I need if I'm with you now. And I am. We don't need the TARDIS, or different planets and adventures to be happy. Because that's not what it took for me to fall in love with you, Rose Tyler. So, I mean it when I say that it's easier to sacrifice that 'old life' than you think… especially since I'm starting a new one, with you." He said, pulling her to him.
She held on to him tightly, burying her head in his chest as he gathered her in his arms sighing deeply. He glanced over to the Raxelmari, who had undoubtedly overheard, and their expressions were of admiration… more so in Xiandi's case than Felspon.
When he and Rose finally pulled away, ignoring Carla's glum expression at being shut out of their conversation, the Doctor crossed over to the Raxelmari, offering his hand out.
The Raxelmari nobly saluted him. "I do wish we meet again, Doctor." Xiandi said, shaking his hand once he'd realized the intention.
"Well… if I did my 'navigating' right, I don't suppose we ever will." The Doctor remarked.
Carla cleared her throat, even louder than before. "This a fantastic display of human culture, a friendly and civil farewell, a salute, a hand-shake. And that's all just dandy. But! If you don't mind, I'd like a picture." She said, fishing around for her camera deep in the pocket of her trench coat.
The Doctor gave her comical shake of his head and ushered Rose over, posing with the Raxelmari; who seemed rather scared of the camera, especially after the harsh flash.
"Perfect! You two look a little short, but that's something to laugh about later." Carla said, stuffing the camera back into her coat.
The Doctor raised his brows at her, and she rolled her eyes. "Proceed!" She said, in a tone more fitting for the word 'Shoo!'
He took a deep breath, gave a curt nod to the Raxelmari, who stood with their module primed and ready in front of the vortex amplifier that would send them back in time. He slammed his fist into the launch button, which he'd heard was infamous for sticking, and with an electric crackle and a brilliant flash of light, their alien comrades were gone.
There was a different air about Torchwood then before the St. Petersburg assignment. It had been a huge success, something of which seemed to rarely occur at a facility where only two people had had any real experience with alien life; that being Rose and Mickey, and one of them had left.
But now, it was common knowledge that the new Head of Time Travel played a key role in that success. And it was just as common to know what that success had entailed for him. John Smith was like a walking legend. He'd gone from mysterious rookie, to the hero of Torchwood in a matter of days after the mission. To the people of London, it was hard to say what exactly had happened since everyone was so tight-lipped, but hear tell it had been quite impressive.
It certainly overwhelmed the world when it became quite evident that Rose Tyler and the enigmatic John Smith were obviously the subject of the other's reserved affection. Questions were raised, photos were taken, rumors were spread… but the man of the hour himself was blasé on the issue.
The Doctor strolled through the halls of Torchwood, his new custom trench coat billowing behind him, like a lord in his castle, munching on a banana and whistling to himself on the way to his office.
Shoving through the door, he tossed his banana peel with precision into his associates trash can; earning him an enthusiastic whoop from Warren, making the Doctor laugh. He eyed the picture frame on the wall, an addition to the one of him and Rose in Cardiff, which held a photo of the two of them next the Raxelmari, who did indeed tower of them comically.
He swiped his car keys from his desk, jingling them in the doorway for Warren to see. "A by-product of your recent pay raise, I presume?" Warren remarked, spinning away from his computer to look at his boss.
"Yup! And I sure hope it's fast, because I've quite a lot waiting for me at home." The Doctor answered him, tossing the keys in his hand.
Warren raised his brows. "The way you drive, John, the best of luck."
"Shut it!" The Doctor said, raising a finger to him as he left the room, receiving a teasing snort from Warren in response.
The Doctor stepped into the lift with a chuckle. He'd grown to actually enjoy his assistant, something he'd never thought possible.
He sped home, skidding into his parking spot, and as he stepped from his car, he looked up to the fifth floor of the building, where a certain familiar silhouette was moving about next to the window. He smiled, darting up the stairs in anticipation.
A flat of their own… he was excited, and surprisingly, nervous. He didn't doubt he'd enjoy it, but the sensation of it was a tad overwhelming. When they'd been living in the mansion, there was still a feeling like he was only visiting. Of course, the flat wasn't necessarily permanent either, but, it was far more personal for the two of them. It was the next step towards a house, and whatever that would hold. The Doctor made a sigh of relief that this apartment didn't have an extra bedroom; he wasn't quite ready to face the proposition of filling it, though he did believe he'd warm to the opportunity far sooner than Rose would.
He slipped the key carefully into the door, locked or not, he simply wanted to know what it felt like. Everything that belonged to him was behind that door; it seemed poor form to just barge in without ceremony.
Once he'd stepped over the threshold, he sighed with contentment, seeing the late-day sunlight streaming in through a window, and Rose seated cross-legged in front of a semi-circle of boxes, their minimal furniture shoved against one wall. She flipped her hair over one shoulder, standing up and seeming to take a mental inventory.
The Doctor saw his opportunity and rushed up behind her and lifted her up at the waist, to which she responded with a yelp as she cried out his name. He laughed, spinning her around in his arms and planting a tender kiss on her lips, which she returned, holding either side of his face. He took a deep breath as their faces hovered an inch apart, taking in her scent and smiling.
"Hello…" He whispered. "Welcome home, Doctor." She breathed back, kissing him again as they slowly melted into each other and down to the spotless hardwood floor.
"There's nothing else I'd rather call 'home' than you, Rose."
So! Hope you were able to follow it! It definitely throws you into the mystery and resolution right there in the beginning, so I suppose it helps to read this chapter and the last back-to-back. BUT! I'd REALLY like your feedback on this chapter, to see if I got it right ;)
And so the romance thickens. I imagine the Doctor to be prepared to spend his life with Rose, but a bit apprehensive about the domesticities of it all! Not to mention a little put off with the work scene. But I really enjoy writing his reactions with the Torchwood agents and how his behavior is so different from all thier rules and objectives. Because the Doctor adds such a nuance to things that is very intriguing and it's part of what makes his morals and motives so interesting.
I also hope you liked my alien race, the Raxelmari. First time I can ever say I've written something like that!
So, I'll stop rambling now, but pretty please with a cherry on top, REVIEW so I know what direction to take this in!