AN- Here is the highly anticipated (okay not really…) second chapter featuring the Doctor's pov. Once again, it is quite angsty, but it gets better I promise. I don't like to write sad stuff, cannon is sad enough. This part takes place after the "Lazarus Experiment." Obviously slightly AU. Okay, more than slightly. And a reminder- no beta, so I apologize for any spelling/grammar/consistency mistakes, although my obsessive perfectionism tends to kick in and help me find and fix those. Usually. Just read, and enjoy, and review. OH, and happy holidays to all (whatever holiday you happen to celebrate.) Thank you to my two reviewers from last chapter, I enjoy your guesses about Rose, and as to whether you are onto something… well you'll just have to wait and see!
Disclaimer: Is Rose still trapped in a parallel universe? Then no, I do not own Doctor Who.
The Doctor darted around the TARDIS console, flipping switches and pressing buttons without much thought. Martha had, unsurprisingly, wanted to spend some time with her family after the Lazarus debacle. At first, he was afraid she was leaving, when she said she wanted to stay. Martha had quickly assured him that he hadn't scared her off, she only realized how much she missed her mum, sister and brother, and just wanted to be with them a bit. The Doctor was simply relieved that he wasn't going to be alone again, not for very long at least. He liked Martha, even if she could be a bit, well Martha, at times- honestly did she think he didn't notice her flirting? He wasn't that daft! The Doctor figured if he kept ignoring her, deflecting every attempt, that she'd eventually get over her silly crush and become the great companion he saw the potential for. She was clever, resourceful, and compassionate; she was useful, and as Donna had so rightly put it, was "someone to stop him." If only he still had Rose he'd have all that and more… The Doctor shook his head, banishing her from his mind, burying the pain that always followed thoughts of Rose.
"Okay old girl," the Doctor said loudly, ignoring the extreme quiet of the console room and stroking the TARDIS, the only one who'd never leave him. "Let's go somewhere exciting. Martha will be happy with her family and I'll go off saving the universe somewhere, don't have to worry about getting her hurt or killed on an alien planet this time!" he said with a falsely chipper tone of voice and a fake smile, though he wasn't sure for whose benefit. The TARDIS wasn't fooled, or pleased. He could feel her grumble about how unhappy he was, and liable to be reckless and stupid in his current state. She was not budging. The Doctor let out a frustrated noise somewhere between a groan and a sigh and hit the TARDIS with the mallet, really pushing the idea that he'd like a nice, death-defying adventure right now to take his mind off things. Nothing to clear emotions like an escape from certain demise. The TARDIS, however, had other plans, and she seemed especially perturbed about the mallet thing. The TARDIS rematerialized with an especially violent thump and the Doctor looked to the display monitor only to find the TARDIS had blacked it out. Bloody sentient ship.
"Well, that's not fair- eh fine. I'll go see what's out there," he grumbled, his mood darkening as the TARDIS pushed him on with a wave of mischief and amusement in his mind. He stepped out of the TARDIS and froze as the doors snapped shut behind him. He knew the date, time, and place, but didn't want to be here. At all. He turned around to march back into the TARDIS and force her to take him away, off this planet, to the ends of the galaxy if need be, but to his incredible shock and displeasure she had locked him out completely, even mentally, though she was still a distant buzz in his mind. So, stranded and essentially forced to explore, the Doctor trudged out into the snow. 2007, almost midnight, or rather 11:48. She should be here right now, living a happy human life. If only he hadn't whisked her away in his blue box and trapped her in a parallel universe. Rose would be 23 now. At least she had her mum and Mickey, and Parallel Pete. And he had been left alone again. The Doctor shook off that thought; he didn't deserve self-pity after all he'd done to her- and to his own people.
"Why?" he said, and then stopped. He didn't know why the TARDIS had brought him here, of all places, and she certainly wasn't giving him any clues. Kensington Square, where they'd visited during their first Christmas-and-New-Years-All-In-One-Night. Dinner with Jackie on Christmas eve, and then a quick trip to the square for New Year's Eve festivities, before going back to the Powell Estates for Christmas morning. The Doctor had figured it still counted as a Christmas present to Rose, even if they'd gone forwards a few days, just to have a holiday without any alien invasions. He told himself it had nothing to do with Rose's insistence on kissing him- cheek only of course- at midnight to celebrate the New Year.
Then, the quaint little town square, with its cobblestone streets and squat homey buildings had been full of people, dancing in the street and enjoying the festivities. Now, however, on Christmas Eve a year off, the grey buildings and silent, snow-covered square were as empty as the Time Lord's TARDIS. Why she'd brought him here, where the memories hurt, he couldn't understand. Perhaps even his ship had turned against him at last. The final betrayal. The Doctor tried once more to open the doors, but they remained firmly locked, complete with a mental shove. Huffing and shoving his hands in his pockets, the Doctor stepped out into the silent square, snowflakes drifting down and melting on his suit. His breath hitched as he stared at the would-be-beautiful scene before him: if only she were here to make his world beautiful once more.
The cobblestone street wrapped around a fountain in the center, frozen and empty now save for the modest Christmas tree installed in the middle. Everything was covered in a muffling blanket of shimmering white, crisp, and painfully silent. Around the circular street were small shops and cafes, closed up for the night, their windows covered in intricate frost patterns. The quiet, peaceful scene only served to remind the Doctor what he'd lost and how utterly, truly alone he was- how alone he would always be.
He walked slowly down the street, lost in memories. They'd gotten tea and some chocolaty biscuits that had tasted heavenly in the little café over there. They'd stood next to the fountain- then filled with a small quartet orchestra playing songs that Rose and he hadn't even recognized. Of course, she'd convinced him to dance anyway, in the glow from the Christmas lights still strung across the square overhead. She'd kissed him on the cheek right here. The Doctor stopped, his feet on the same spot, his hand almost able to feel hers in his, a perfect fit, the Doctor and Rose Tyler as it should be- only she wasn't there.
Tears started to burn in his eyes again, and he looked up at the stars, trying to fight them off. As he took a deep, shuddering breath, the Doctor caught sight of a comet bursting into existence at the height of the sky. With his brilliant eyesight he could pick out each of the hundreds of colors it emanated, from the silvery-gold tail to the indescribable spectrum of fire and ice in the red and blue as his eyes approached its core. Rose would have loved to see it, and she'd wish on it like she did even when they'd been sitting in the middle of a meteor shower, wishing on every single one, even though it was so ridiculously human to wish on burning balls of rock and gas. But her enthusiasm was contagious and the Doctor had found himself wishing too as he sat beside her, just the two of them amidst the amazing sight, wishing for forever. Well, he mused miserably, now he knew why he didn't participate in silly human superstitions. Their forever had been cut short, shattered into a million pieces far too soon. The Doctor snorted bitterly and turned away, intending to head back to the TARDIS. Comets, stupid short lived flames, nothing special, nothing to wish on- look where it had gotten him! And then a realization, an earth-shattering hearts stopping realization struck him and he turned back to the sky, hardly daring to hope.
The streak of light was still there, unchanged, in the same exact spot as it had been for the last 2 minutes and 47 seconds.
Comets fell through the sky, burned up in milliseconds and blinked out of existence, more fleeting than even the lifespan of a human. And yet, there it was, still burning strong, stretched impossibly across the sky, like a determined flame. Or a tear. A rip.
"Yes!" the Doctor shouted, his voice ringing around the silent square. "Oh you beautiful little impossible thing you! I didn't think they even existed but if I'm right… I just need to take the old extrapolator and tap into the TARDIS' core circuitry," the Doctor's hearts were pounding, his face covered with eagerness and hope for the first time in months. The TARDIS doors sprung open as he approached, even before he began to reach for his key, and he felt a wave of affection for his ship, a grin crossing his face as he stepped inside.
"You knew this would be here, you wanted me to find it. Old girl, you're amazing, you're fantastic!" the Doctor paused, running over the word his old self had favored. It was still nice, and quite apt in this situation, but it just didn't have the same ring. And then he was back to darting around the console room as rapidly as he could, adjusting wiring, sonicing the old, fried extrapolator until it was functional- if a little blackened and fragile- once more. Finally, he tapped into the mainframe and directed it to the glowing light up above. "Just to get a lock on the energy signal, on that –not-really-a-comet's position, get a closer look, just gonna land a few meters away and Allons-y!" he shouted in exuberance as the TARDIS pulled herself back into the vortex, praying that for once everything went according to plan. When the TARDIS stopped in space, floating beside the thing, the Doctor charged to the doors; Donna's method really was quite useful sometimes, and looked out. His breathing stopped. There, before him, was the whole broad spectrum of colors, spanning for miles; light years with a swirling infinity deep within its blues, silvers, reds, whites and golds. His respiratory bypass kicked in, and the Doctor remembered to breathe again, and then cried out in joy for the whole empty space before him to hear.
"Not a comet at all! It's a bridge- a natural tear when two universes brush together. And even though there's hundreds out there, you brought me here," he said to the TARDIS, feeling her hum in glee back to him. Pete's world and this universe had already had so much extended contact, between the Cybermen and the Dimension Cannons, that it seemed likely the two parallel universes had developed a sort of magnetic attraction to one another, almost like orbiting planets. Maybe. Void science was weird, and he might have been sleeping the day that they went over it at the Academy. He pulled the doors shut and went back to the controls. It still might not be the right one, and he didn't think he could bear it if he fell into the wrong universe, being so close.
"What to do… oh I can't just go falling through the Bridge, legendary doorway or not, once-in-a-lifetime-chance or not, I could get trapped. Martha's here, I promised her I'd be back, and this universe needs me and I don't even know if Rose wants to see me. I don't even know if Rose is there, this might not be a doorway to Pete's world," he sputtered, ignoring the TARDIS' grumbling about him avoiding the inevitable. Then he stood, as if time were frozen- now wouldn't that be an odd sensation for a Time Lord- rocking on his heels, hands in his pockets, stuck between desperate longing to follow the even impossibly small chance Rose was there and the million chances it wouldn't be the right universe. He really hated that word, impossible.
"Oooh! If I can just cross-magnify the electrical pulse transmodifier to detect the energy signature of the universe on the other side and compare it against the trace energy of the dimension cannon hole that I patched up, I can use its magna-gravitational field to pull me through. It's a homing beacon!" he shouted, and then he waited, with a grin that faded as he remembered she wasn't there to comment on his techno-babble or discoveries. He'd nearly forgotten she wasn't there anymore, like he did so often. Flash of blond hair, ghost of a hand in his, all in his mind, and all as painful as the sound of her sobs fading behind a white wall.
The TARDIS gave him the mental equivalent of a slap, and he jumped, "Ow what was that for? Fine, I'll get back to it. I knew you were fond of the little pink-and-yellow human but this is just ridiculous," he said, though secretly he had always been proud of the TARDIS' affinity for Rose. Still with a slight smile, he settled himself under the console to work on integrating the Janzahian gravitational locking system he'd picked up at a market into the TARDIS navigational system. He knew it had to work, even if it took him hours. He didn't know what to do if it didn't.
A sudden storm of emotions from the TARDIS swept over him then, and the Doctor started in surprise, though he quickly resumed working. She wanted him to get started already and stop 'wallowing in misery;' honestly, as if he, a Time Lord, would wallow. He had 24 hours from the opening of the Bridge before it closed. The TARDIS was reassuring him, but he still didn't have the feeds connected to check the universe's signature before he crossed through it.
"I just need to re-calibrate the field with the extrapolator's lock on the energy pulsing from the Bridge…" the Doctor trailed off as the TARDIS started the dematerialization sequence. "What? Wait! Where are you going? We don't even have coordinates!" His face paled in horror, fearing the TARDIS might be taking him away from the potentially dangerous rip in space and time, but she answered him quickly, reassurance washing through him in her happy hum. No, she wasn't taking him away, they were going to cross the Bridge. How in Rassilon's name she knew where they were going, the Doctor couldn't understand. He just hoped the TARDIS had her instincts right and didn't hurt the universes and themselves by her impatience- and since when had his ship had instincts or impatience? As she began to whirl into the shining, electric, rainbow vortex of the Bridge, the Doctor closed his eyes.
"I'm coming Rose. I will find you, and I will never let you go, I will hold onto you forever. I love-" and then the TARDIS landed with a jolt that threw him to the ground and he stood slowly, wincing. She just had to ruin his noble speech with a rougher landing than usual. He hadn't even been melodramatic, well, not overtly melodramatic anyways, in his attempted monologue. If nothing else, she seemed healthier than when he'd last landed in a parallel universe, but they were definitely not in their home universe. He could taste the distinct difference in the timelines. He just hoped it was the right one.
Casting his mind into his bond with the TARDIS, the Doctor was surprised to find that instead of feeling weakened from the different energy, she was overflowing with it. From somewhere, the TARDIS was drawing power, converting it, and emanating it, and the Doctor felt his hearts sink. Pete's world was incompatible; if they'd landed in the right place surely she'd be weaker. Then the TARDIS gave him a mental shove, and the Doctor sighed. She wanted him to go outside, of course.
"Okay, I'll go," he snapped, walking slowly towards the door, trepidation and the expectation of disappointment slowing his normally manic movements. This was his last chance, he had to take it. The Doctor breathed in deeply, trying to slow his pounding hearts, and flung open the doors to the TARDIS.
AN- Evil cliffhanger I know! But I am now on holiday break so updates will come much more quickly! I have two more chapters planned, and I am super excited now that I've finally decided what I want to happen. (That took hours of deliberation, trust me.) Also, all of the science in this chapter is 100% made up. I have no knowledge of how to construct or navigate in inter-dimensional bridge in a Time and Relative Dimensions in Space machine. Thus, any and all data gleaned from this chapter is presumably utterly useless in practical applications of inter-dimensional travel. Do not try that at home. Until next time- oh and please review, let me know if the characters are, well, in character. I feel like I tend to get the doctor a little more OOC just because he's so hard to write- even though my own brain is hyperactive, nothing can compare to his and its incredibly hard to write with the crazy topic changes while still making sense. Any opinions or suggestions are gladly accepted in reviews! Thank you for all of you who have reviewed and followed- reviewers, I try to reply, but if it comes down to time constraints where I can update or reply to a review… I'm gonna update! But you are very very very much appreciated. Reviews make me write faster. They reaallly do. Oh Rassilon I sound like the Doctor now. Oh well. Allons-y!