Chapter Three: At the Library of Entrapment
Ace and her Doctor were making faces at each other. He leaned over and tapped her gently on the nose. Ace grinned and handed him his hat and umbrella. Smiling back he patted his pockets absentmindedly. She reached over into his jacket and pulled out his handkerchief and started dusting him off.
"What was it like Professor," she asked.
He swatted her hand away. "Like being turned to stone, what else?" Ace sighed and stuck her tongue out.
Rose watched their interaction with interest. Almost immediately she could see the depth of their friendship. It was there, unspoken underneath the playfulness. Those two cared for each other, Ace and her Doctor, Ace and the Professor. Now that Rose had a chance to look the earlier Doctor over, she decided that he did look like a professor-dressed in his dark brown jacket, russet waistcoat and checked trousers.
"Rose." Her perusal was interrupted. She turned. Her Doctor was watching the other two with such longing, that Rose felt a lump in her throat. Then the moment passed and his eyes were on her. "We need to talk," he said.
"Yes Doctor?"
"You need to be careful what you say to them. No mention of the War, not even the slightest hint to either of them."
"You mean he's before…"
"Yes, he's before and I…he can't know."
"Ok," Rose said. Now she understood the look of longing she had seen. It wasn't directed only at Ace but at the Timelord he had been, the Timelord who still had a people, even if he didn't particularly like them. Rose felt a sudden urge to run over and tell the little man everything she knew. It would be so simple, but the Doctor told her not to. What must be must be. Rose felt suddenly tired and drained. The prospect of meeting an earlier Doctor had suddenly lost it's appeal, now that she had a secret welling up inside. Such temptation, she couldn't even imagine what the Doctor was going through.
"So what am I doing here, then?" Rose looked up. The Doctors were locked in a battle of glares.
"Oh you know how it is," her Doctor said.
"He messed up," Rose interrupted. "He was going to take me to some space elevator." Her Doctor gave her a hurt look.
"Space elevator? Wicked," Ace piped up.
"Yes," the Doctor said smiling smugly up at his future. "Isn't Spurzhiem some when that way," he asked innocently. He waved his hand vaguely. "a few centuries if memory serves."
"I'm not the one who got myself turned to stone."
"A minor inconvenience," the little man shrugged.
"A minor inconvenience? You'd still be a monument if it weren't for me."
"I had a plan," he huffed. They were standing toe to toe, their noses almost touching, and glaring identical glares. Rose spared an incredulous glance at Ace who was grinning broadly, as if Christmas had come early. They were the same person. How could they be squabbling like children?
"A plan?"
"A good plan," the little man protested.
"Oi," Rose shouted. "Great big frozen forest anyone? You get turned to stone and you two stand here bickering." The Doctors glanced at each other uncertainly and smiled bashfully.
Her Doctor cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Um, about this clever plan of yours…"
"Yes?" The little man looked up at himself expectantly.
"Err…any chance of sharing?"
"Well I thought we'd take a look round the library and…"
"Library," the Doctor asked. "What library?"
"Hmmm? Oh the one at the top of this tower," the smaller man smiled. "Didn't I mention it?"
"No, you didn't," the Doctor bit out.
His earlier self shrugged. "Now I have. Shall we?" Then he was off heading towards the watchtower entrance at a brisk pace. While Ace rushed to catch up with him, Rose turned to her Doctor.
"He's a bit…" she gestured vaguely.
"Yes, I always was a smug little…"
"I can still hear you," the other Doctor called over his shoulder. His pinstriped future rolled his eyes still muttering to himself.
The library was huge. The walls were lined with books from floor to ceiling. Piles were staked haphazardly about the floor. The only light filtered in from a slit of a window.
"Oh," said Ace. "books."
"Well it is a library," the Doctor whispered in her ear.
"I was hoping for a suit of armor at least. That would have been wicked."
"Diabolical even," he muttered. "Browse Ace. You might find something interesting."
"Sure Professor," she headed off to the far corner, her head soon buried in a book.
"So what are we doing here," Rose asked.
"Pooling our resources," the Doctor said. "Sowing the seeds of defeat in the fields of our enemies…"
"Gathering information," the other Doctor interrupted impatiently. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his glasses, to his younger self's amusement. "Presumably there's something in here that our Enchantress friend didn't want read. So she turned him into stone." The earlier Doctor frowned at that, but didn't say anything.
"Oi professor," Ace called out. "these books don't make any sense."
"No," he asked but somehow he didn't sound surprised.
The Doctor picked up one of the books and flipped through it quickly. Then he stopped and flipped through it again. "It can't be," he said.
"Oh yes," the smaller man said. "it can."
"What? What is it," Rose asked. She grabbed the nearest book and opened it at random. Words so many words and symbols that somehow conjured a feeling in her mind. She was reading wind, but that was impossible.
"This is a waiting world," the Doctor said.
"What's that mean," Ace asked.
"By the same process I was trapped in cold stone, every bird, beast, fish, flower, all the winds and the tides, and other forces of the world have been compressed and entrapped in parchment pages."
"The power requirements are astronomical. I mean of the scale. There is no scale. Not even the greatest Gallifreyan technomages could have imagined such quantities of power."
"And whatever their faults, they had vivid imaginations."
"So it's a waiting world, what now?"
" Now we see if there is something here we could use."
So they read and read. A strange sort of stillness descended on them, as if the world was conspiring to make them a part of it, frozen. Even the Doctor's maniac energy seemed drained. He sat surrounded by open books; his glasses perched on his nose. Next to him, Rose glanced over at the other Doctor and Ace. They were muttering softly to each other, closed off to the rest of the world. Rose wondered briefly if that's what she and her Doctor looked like to outsiders.
"There's one thing that's been bothering me," she said.
"Only one?" The Doctor smiled at her. His eyes twinkling over his glasses.
"Isn't it dangerous the two of you being here?" The two Doctors glanced at her, with identical almost patronizing smiles.
"Well, it doesn't happen often…"
"Time and space is usually big enough for all of us…"
"But sometimes," her Doctor shrugged. "'No individual shall be permitted too meet themselves, and risk temporal paradox.' It was one of the most important Laws of Time."
"Yes," the other Doctor said. "Blinovitch limitation effect…very nasty." Ace tapped him on the shoulder.
"Look at this Professor." He glanced down and smiled.
"Very good, Ace." He tapped her fondly on the nose.
"But paradoxes," Rose continued. "Wouldn't that attract those…um…Reapers?" Her Doctor froze at that and the other Doctor's gaze was on her in an instant. She'd seen that look before, in her Doctors. As if all his attention was now focused solely on her. She shivered slightly, as those blue-grey eyes seemed to burrow under her skin and demand answers. It seemed to stretch on for ages, but really lasted only a matter of seconds. Then suddenly the moment was gone, and the little Scotsman was smiling at her guilelessly.
Rose took a deep breath. She'd always known, intellectually, that the Doctor was dangerous. She'd seen him kill, and arrange missile strikes, but from the inside somehow it had always seemed fun. Now that she understood, she felt strangely cold inside, but she wished she knew what she'd said.
"Well," her Doctor clamored to his feet. "I think we've learned all we can here. I say it's time we were off to see the wicked witch."
"Where's she then," Ace asked.
"Probably in that castle," he pointed out the window. Then he reached down and helped Rose to her feet, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze.
"Come on Dorothy," the Doctor said, jamming his hat atop his curls. "Let's find the yellow brick road." Ace stuck her tongue out at him
"Does that make you the wizard then," she asked.
"Pay no attention," he smiled. "to the man behind the curtain." His smiled faded slightly and he frowned thoughtfully at his future self's back. He was missing something.
Next Chapter: In the Castle of the Broken Clocks Pt. 1