Chapter 4

Alternate Reality

"Those were coordinates" Rose had realised as John decoded the message in the hum, and then had asked him, who the hell it was who knew TARDIS coordinates.

'Ah. That's a bit complicated,' he said, tugging his ear.

'Complicated? Do you know her?' Rose asked, wondering if a Time Lord, or was it Lady, had survived the Time War in an alternate universe.

'Welll. When I say complicated. It's more sort of . . . awkward.'

'Awkward? Awkward how? Who is she?' Rose was becoming suspicious of his evasiveness.

John could feel her suspicion. 'Oh all right. Do you remember me telling you about Donna and the Vashta Nerada in The Library that time.'

'Yeah, they swarmed an ate the expedition didn't they?' Rose remembered. After they were reunited in this universe, they had told each other all about their individual adventures.

'That's right. And do you remember me telling you about the mission leader, River Song?'

'Is that her? River Song?'

'Yeah. And there's something else Rose. She knew me . . . future me. Me in the other universe. And . . . she knew my name,' he confessed.

'Wha'? But if she knew your name, then that means . . .'

'That she and future me get married, yeah.'

'And you didn't think to tell me that? Did you think I'd be upset or jealous or somethin'?' Rose realised.

'To be honest, I wasn't sure how you'd react. Don't forget, I'm still new to all this human emotion stuff. I remember how you reacted to Sarah Jane and Reinette.'

'Oh yeah . . . sorry about that Love. I was a bit immature back then,' she admitted, and then stroked his cheek. 'But that day on the beach when "other you" left us here, that must have been one of the most difficult things to do. Why shouldn't "other you" find someone else? He must have got some comfort from knowing that we would be together.'

He held her around the waist and kissed her on the lips. 'You are amazing Love. It's just that when I met her, she was very . . . forthright and in control.'

'Bossy y'mean,' Rose said with a smirk.

'Yeah. Bossy,' he agreed with a laugh.

'Well. It sounds like miss bossy boots needs a ride. Shall we go and offer her a lift?'

'If you're all right with that,' he said.

'Are you kiddin'? I can't wait to meet the woman who's good enough for future "other you" . . . Allons-Y.'

They turned back to the console where John interlinked his fingers and flexed them outwards. 'Right then, let's see . . . Eight seven three five,' he said, twiddling something that looked like a one eyed owl, before moving to another section. 'Slash three four nine by ten.' He twisted a green, glass ball with bubbles in it. 'Zero twelve slash apple.' He gave a knobbled wheel a couple of spins, and his eyes went wide at the readout on the screen.

'What?' Rose asked, seeing the expression on his face, and feeling his apprehension. 'What's wrong?'

'Those coordinates . . .' He left the sentence unfinished.

'What about 'em? Where are they?'

'London. The spatial coordinates are for London. Lambeth Palace Road to be precise. Y'know, by Lambeth Pier.'

Rose did know. How could she forget the first time they'd come to Pete's World.

'But it's the temporal coordinates which are the most interesting,' John said, bringing her out of her memories.

The full realisation of what he was saying hit her. 'Oh, don't tell me it's the first of February, two thousand and seven?'

'Yep. It looks like River Song was responsible for us falling out of our universe in the first place.'

'Not just that, she's responsible for changin' the course of my life . . . For your life, sort of.'

'Yeah, I suppose she is. So, do you want to go and thank her?'

'Oh yeah!' she said enthusiastically. 'So, is that vector offset nine zero epsilon gonna put us in the alternate reality?'

He gave her another of his open mouthed proud smiles. 'There's no getting anything past you these days, is there?'

'It must be all these years of workin' for Torchwood. Bound to pick this stuff up,' she said with her teasing smile. And she was right . . . sort of; because what Rose didn't realise was, that since she had married the Metacrisis Doctor and formed a telepathic link with him, she had been learning things through a form of psychic osmosis.

John moved around the console and tapped some numbers into a keypad. 'Vector offset nine zero epsilon. That's it. The signal will pull us into the correct universe . . . Ready?'

Rose gave him her excited smile and powered up the atom accelerator. John released the time rotor handbrake and activated the inertial dampers. She then engaged the harmonic generator, as John released the locking down mechanism before pulling up the engine release lever with his usual flourish and big grin. Finally, Rose activated the materialise/dematerialise function, and gradually increased the space-time throttle, which started the Time Rotor grinding up and down.

They moved around the console, fine tuning the settings as they travelled through the Vortex. Rose stole a quick kiss as John moved past her. The TARDIS bucked and juddered as it passed from one universe to another. The lights flickered as the TARDIS engaged an energy buffer so that it could still function in the alternate universe.

'Right. I'd better change out of this uniform and put somethin' more practical on,' Rose said, heading out of the console room.

A few minutes later, Rose reappeared, dressed in jeans, T-shirt and hoodie. 'So, if this River Song has come from the old universe,' Rose thought out loud. 'And we're comin' from Dad's World's universe . . .'

'Hmmm?' John responded.

'Then the question is . . . where the hell are we goin'?'

'Absolutely no idea,' he said with an open mouthed grin. 'Isn't that brilliant!?'

'Yeah, great,' Rose said with a hint of reservation. 'So we're just goin' to land, pick up River, and then leave, yeah? We're not goin' lookin' for trouble are we? 'Cos Mum and Dad are expecting us back to pick up the kids.' She thought it was prudent to remind him of his responsibilities.

'Of course. TARDIS Taxis. Anywhere, anywhen. Reasonable rates. No time too short, no distance too far,' he joked as he landed the TARDIS with a "clump".

He held out his hand, wiggling his fingers and waggling his eyebrows. Rose felt that thrill which she always felt when they went somewhere new. She took his hand and they hurried down the ramp to the doors.

'Oh God. This is SO weird. Just think, at this moment in "Dad's world", the original you, me, and Mickey are steppin' out of the TARDIS.'

John looked around the Embankment, where boats were moored at Lambeth Pier on the Thames. 'Yeah,' he said distractedly as he jumped down from the grassy bank onto the pavement, his hands in his pockets. He turned to look past the TARDIS to Lambeth Palace Road. He looked up at the blue, February sky. 'We had Zeppelins though. No Zeppelins here,' he observed.

Rose looked up too. 'Oh yeah.' She made her way across the paved area towards the river wall, and an advertising display which she remembered from before.

John was frowning as he looked south towards Lambeth Bridge, where the tall stone pillars marked its position. He then looked to the north and squinted into the distance at Westminster Bridge. Something wasn't right.

'I wonder if they have a Pete Tyler in this world?' Rose asked with a melancholy air as she looked at an advert for a building society. When they had first arrived in "Pete's World", the advert had been for cherry flavoured Vitex Lite.

'Hmm?' John replied, joining her at the display.

'I was wonderin' if there was a Tyler family in this universe?'

'I'll tell you what there isn't,' he said, looking back at Lambeth Palace Road. 'There isn't any traffic.'

Rose looked up and down the road. There were pedestrian tourists walking up and down the road, and people jogging along the side of the river. But there was no road traffic. No cars, no delivery vans, no black taxis, and no iconic red buses.

'Maybe it's a Sunday,' Rose suggested.

'Nah. First of February, two thousand and seven is a Thursday. Well, unless they're using the Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian . . . Or, maybe they have their own calendar.'

'Maybe London is traffic free, y'know to get rid of congestion.'

John wasn't convinced. 'You'd still need deliveries to the shops and stores though.'

'Oh yeah. Well, it's one of those things that makes this universe different,' Rose said. 'And we ain't stayin', so I guess we'll never know. So, any idea where this River Song is?'

'Eh? Oh, hold on.' John reached inside his jacket, took out his sonic screwdriver and started scanning.

'What'cha scannin' for?' Rose asked him.

'Void stuff. I'm not sure how she got here, but she must have come via-the-void,' he said with a flourish.

Whilst they had been standing there, several tourists had stopped and were whispering to each other. A teenage girl approached hesitantly.

'Excuse me. I don't mean to intrude, but are you Rose Tyler?' she asked.

Rose frowned in confusion. 'Er, sort of. Yeah.'

The girl grinned with excitement. 'I knew it! I told them it was you.' She looked over to the group and nodded. 'Could I be cheeky and ask for your autograph?'

'My autograph?' Rose looked at John, who just shrugged his shoulders. 'You want my autograph?'

The girl's face fell in disappointment. 'Oh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked. I didn't mean to offend you.'

'No, no. You haven't offended me. I was just surprised that you knew who I am and that you would want my autograph,' Rose said, rubbing the girl's arm.'

'You're kiddin' me,' the girl said. 'Silver medallist in the two thousand and four Olympics and TV celebrity. Of course I'd want your autograph.'

'Silver medallist?' Rose asked.

'TV celebrity?' John echoed.

'Er, yeah. Okay.' Rose said. 'Have you got somethin' for me to autograph?'

The girl produced a TV chat magazine from her jacket pocket, along with a fibre tipped pen. Rose signed her maiden name on the front cover.

'Thank you. That's brilliant . . . Oh, and sorry to hear about the divorce,' the girl said, before hurrying back to her friends.

'What the hell was all that about?' John asked.

'I have no idea,' Rose replied. 'But I suspect that the Rose Tyler in this universe is a bit of a celebrity . . . Silver medal in Athens,' she said with pride.

John resumed his scanning, and a source of "void stuff" suddenly appeared by the low Embankment wall behind them.

'You took your time.' A woman said.

'River Song,' John said, looking straight ahead. He turned around to see a curly haired blonde in an elegant, designer dress, leaning against the Embankment wall. 'Where did you suddenly appear from?'

'Hello Sweetie. Oh but look at you. You're so young,' River said. She didn't know that John wasn't the original Doctor, and she hadn't seen this incarnation before. The final encounter in The Library wouldn't be for another few years for her.

'Younger than you can imagine,' John said to himself.

'And your companion. Who are you travelling with at the moment?' River asked.

'Companion?' Rose asked in an annoyed tone. 'I'm his wife! The name's Rose. Rose Smi. . .'

'Rose?! Rose Tyler? Oh this IS early days for you,' River said excitedly, and then frowned. 'Did you say you were married? But that's not right. You don't get married.'

'Ah. Right,' John said, scratching the back of his neck. 'I'm not who you think I am.'

'What do you mean "you're not who I think you are"? You're the Doctor.' River reached into her designer bag and took out a wallet which she flipped through. 'There you are in your tenth body . . . Well, ten-ish. There's still a debate about what happened on Karn in your eighth body. But it's the same tight suit, foxy looks and great hair.'

John sniffed and worked his neck around. 'Yep. That's me,' he said in a high voice. 'But I'm not him.'

'Can I have a look at that?' Rose asked, holding her hand out for the wallet.

'Oh, sorry dear. Spoilers.' She put the wallet away, and took out a battered blue book which looked like the doors of the TARDIS. 'Shall we sync our diaries?'

'Oh no, no, no, no, no. I told you, I'm not who you think I am. We are SO not doing diaries,' John told her.

'Really? Are you sure?' River asked with a frown. 'Crash of the Byzantium? Picnic at Asgard?'

'Stop it! Look, let's get in the TARDIS and I'll explain as we take you home.'

'Well, we could do that yes,' River said as she walked towards them, putting her diary in her bag and taking out her tablet device. 'Or, you could help me break someone out of a high security cell.'

'Oh no, no, no,' Rose said quickly. 'We came here to give you a lift. That's all.'

River held the tablet up and showed them a picture of a blue, wooden, police call box. In front of the wooden box was a man with dark, curly, shoulder length hair, wearing an open necked white shirt, scarf, brown trousers and a three quarter length coat. At his side was an elfish looking blonde girl in a cheque shirt, denim shorts and hiking boots.

'Lucie!' John whispered.

'John. Is that this world's version of the Doctor?' Rose asked quietly.

'Yeah. Eighth body. And the girl is Lucie Miller,' he replied sadly. It had been over a hundred years since he had seen that impish smile. He remembered how she had flown a Dalek Saucer under a Dalek stronghold and detonated a bomb to stop an invasion, creating a time warp that sucked the Daleks in.

'So this universe has Time Lords then,' Rose said, realising that he was no longer alone.

'Yes. And these two have been snatched by Torchwood,' River informed them. 'They're being held at . . .'

'Canary Wharf,' John finished for her. 'You'd better tell me what you know.'

'Of course. Here, hold on to these,' River said, holding out two high tech key fobs.

Rose turned it over in her hands to inspect the device. 'What's . . .'

The trio disappeared from the pedestrian area in front of Lambeth Pier.