Chapter 6
Rose stood in front a team of eight people seated around a large conference table. Two video screens showed two more faces. On one screen a middle age man dressed in police uniform sat at a desk. He was the police chief. On the other screen sat a man in army fatigues. His name was Colonel Stewart of the Special Forces unit assigned to assist Torchwood dealing with alien attacks. Rose explained to everyone in the room that they needed to work to block off Zone 7 as quickly as possible. She called it an "alien menace" and didn't elaborate further until the Police Chief and the Colonel left the conference to brief their teams.
Rose learned years ago they worked best with less information. Her predecessor gave the army too much information once and they used it to undermine Torchwood's authority. The army took responsibility for a small band of cybermen prisoners because they weren't a true alien threat. They were created by human hands. The army was ill-equipped to hold them. They escaped and attacked Torchwood killing hundreds of people. That was how Rose came to be in charge and she wouldn't make the same mistake. The vashta nerada were born on earth so the same argument could be made for them. Rose new the best chance of success lay with Torchwood being in charge, not the Army or the Police.
Rose explained to her team what the Doctor had told her about the shadows. She plugged the thumb drive into the computer, which projected an image on the far wall. It showed a microscopic organism blown up to the size of a football. The creature looked like bacterium with wing-like flagella which it used for locomotion. She explained that the bio scanners could detect the specific frequency of oscillation which the creatures beat their wings. She told them to use the Torchwood Zeppelin and erect a bio-filter dome around Zone seven. Each of them would take a scanner lining the perimeter exits.
"We will scan everyone before allowing them to evacuate the area. Get the spotlights and look for extra shadows." said Rose. She handed the thumb drive to a tall man with blond hair named Wilson Rodgers. "You're in charge, Wilson. Make sure every scanner gets this program installed."
"Yes ma'am," he replied. Rose sighed but didn't bother correcting Wilson. He was a former soldier, and she had given up getting him to call her Rose. She was thankful he at least stopped saluting her.
"What do we do if someone is being hunted?" Wilson asked.
"Tell them to stand still. Then call me and I'll think of something."
"In other words you don't know."
"Yeah!" said Rose, "That's why we need containment."
"Yes ma'am."
Wilson and the rest of her team left the room. Rose smiled to herself. It felt good to be taking action to keep people safe. When she had traveled back to see the Doctor in her own universe the two of them spent most of the time trapped in the dalek equivalent of a dungeon. She felt useless then but here she could accomplish things. Suddenly, she wondered if maybe she shouldn't go with the Doctor like she had planned, but instead stay with her team. Then she remembered the Doctor was traveling alone. No, he needs me!
Rose walked back into lab 2 and the scent of Christmas dinner bombarded her nose. Angie wheeled over a cart with a cooked turkey on a giant platter.
"Is Christmas coming early?" Rose asked.
"Rose, I have a very important question for you," the Doctor said. He picked up the platter with the turkey and started to carry it inside the TARDIS. Rose raced over to him. He tilted his head in the direction of the TARDIS indicating she should follow him inside.
"Are you abandoning us?" asked Angie.
"No. Never! The Doctor is going to be right there in the heart of what's going on. I'm going to be there with him," said Rose, "Please make sure Margaret Blake and her family are looked after."
"You got it boss!" said Angie.
Rose followed the Doctor into the TARDIS. When she stepped inside her eyes grew wide. She barely recognized it. She was used to it being bigger on the inside but she was used to it looking a certain way. Gone were the tan walls and small round lights. The rubber mallet for hammering uncooperative buttons was gone and so was the bench seat that looked like it belonged in a van. Now it looked elegant, like a proper spaceship.
The Doctor walked up the stairs and placed the turkey on a small table on the upper deck. He glanced down at her and seeing the look on her face he frowned. "You're acting like you've never seen the inside of the TARDIS before."
"It's different!" said Rose. "I thought it was the only one left?"
"It is! It re-decorates from time to time. That's all," said the Doctor as he came back down the stairs.
"It re-decorates when you change?"
"Yes, most of the time," said the Doctor, "Do you like it?"
"I suppose I could get used to it."
"That's not what I asked," said the Doctor. He gave her a suspicious look before going down to the lower level of his TARDIS. Rose peeked down over the railing at the Doctor and saw him pick up a large glass box with metal trim. He came back up the stairs with it moments later.
"So that important question you wanted to ask me?" asked Rose when came he back up the stairs.
"Oh right! Have you seen this face before?" he asked.
"What?" asked Rose.
The Doctor put the glass box down on the floor. "This face," he said pointing at his own face with both hands. "Have you seen this face before you met me?"
"No!" said Rose looking at him like he had gone mad.
"Are you sure?" asked the Doctor.
"It's your face. How could I have seen it before I met you? I would have had to meet you in order to see it."
"You sound like Clara," said the Doctor frowning.
"Who's Clara?"
"Just a friend I travel with some of the time, most of the time."
"Just not this time?" asked Rose. She didn't know why she was surprised or why it bothered her that he had a new traveling companion. She hadn't really been jealous of Donna or Martha. I hadn't known about Martha.
"I think she's mad at me. She told me to go a long way away and it looks like I did." The Doctor picked up the glass box and walked up the stairs to where the turkey sat.
"Oh, why's she mad then?" asked Rose. Because that makes two of us.
"That's not important, right now. Listen, I know it's an old face from my past. One I've seen before, like I'm trying to tell myself something. I thought since my past is more recent for you, you might remember," said the Doctor. He put the glass box on the table, flipped a latch on the side, and opened the door.
"Can that happen? You just pick someone else's face and copy it?"
"Yes it can. Doesn't happen often but it can. Ramama did it once."
"Ramana?" asked Rose.
"Yes, you remember. I must have told you about Ramama?" said the Doctor. He slid the turkey inside the glass box, closed the door, and clicked the latch back into place. When Rose didn't answer, he looked down at her from the upper deck. She shook her head and frowned. He walked back down the stairs. "No, that's right. I didn't like to talk much about my people back then. But this face! I've had it long enough now I'd expected to figure it out. It's been months and I still don't know. Are you sure you haven't seen it before?"
"No I haven't. I think I'd remember," said Rose, "Wait! Hold on! Did you say months since you regenerated?"
The Doctor walked back down to the lower level and opened a storage compartment. "At my age I lose track but I think it's been less than a year. Why is that important?"
Rose followed him down the stairs. "You already have grey hair?" she said.
The Doctor sighed. "Now I'm really glad I didn't bring Clara. She cares about things like vanity, but you never did. That's not the Rose I remember," he said as he pulled out a several syringes. He walked down a few cabinets. He rummaged in one of them until he pulled out long set of heavily insulated wires with jaws at one end like jumper cables.
"I just thought you always started off younger since that's what you did last time," said Rose. The Doctor handed her the cables.
"Last time? Oh, right you mean when I regenerated after absorbing the Time Vortex. I've regenerated twice since you've seen me, Rose." He put the syringes in a small black carrying case.
"Twice? How long has it been?" she asked.
"Over a thousand years?"
"What?" asked Rose. She stared at the Doctor as he headed up the stairs with the small case.
"I'm over 2000 years old. Hardly the same person you knew."
"You're still the Doctor," said Rose following him up the stairs.
He looked back at her studying her face carefully. "Your voice says that but your face says something different," said the Doctor. "And your face is right. I'm not your Doctor. Your Doctor died and a new man took his place."
"Shouldn't we be investigating? The vashta nerada?" asked Rose trying to change the subject.
"Well that's what this stuff is for," said the Doctor, "You can just leave those on the floor for now." He pointed at the cables in Rose's hands. She dropped them with a thud. He placed the black case gently down on one of the metal chairs that appeared at regular intervals along the circumference of the main control deck. "You must be anxious then to get back to John Smith. You'll want to make sure he's okay in that bookshop all by himself with that deadly flesh-eating swarm," said the Doctor giving her a sardonic smile. Rose failed to hide the look of horror on her face. "And there it is. The answer to my second important question," said the Doctor.
"What?" asked Rose.
"You're not scared of the vashta nerada. No, that doesn't scare you one bit, but seeing John Smith. Now that terrifies you," said the Doctor. He studied the view screen for a moment and punched a few buttons before looking back up at her. "How long has it been for you? Since I brought you back here? A month?"
"Two and a half weeks," said Rose.
"And you already abandoned him. Rose, I'm disappointed in you," said the Doctor. Rose wanted so badly to shout 'but you abandoned me!' but something held her back. Angie was right. The Doctor was right. This wasn't her Doctor anymore.
"He's not investigating for Torchwood is he? He found that job out on his own after you left him."
Rose nodded and her eyes threatened to turn red with tears again so she didn't say anything. She looked down at floor.
"Oh that's why I'm here! The TARDIS brought me here to fix the both of you. She's still doing things like that, the old girl." He said smiling and tapping the console.
"So, John Smith told you what happened?" asked Rose.
"No," said the Doctor as he fidgeted with some nobs on the TARDIS controls. He looked up at Rose. "He did something much more obvious than tell me. He accepted my sonic screwdriver, which meant he didn't have one of his own. The amount of alien tech at a place like Torchwood he should have easily built one by now so I was suspicious. The man is basically me after all, and I always look out for myself," said the Doctor.
Rose frowned. "That's not the Doctor I remember," said Rose, "You always looked out for everyone else."
"Oh, I still do that," said the Doctor, "Someone's got to look after you pudding brains. I'll never be done saving you," he said ignoring the scathing look Rose was giving him. He examined the view screen. Rose recognized the intricate crop circle-like patterns as the language of the Time Lords, but she couldn't read it.
"So you found out because he didn't have a sonic screwdriver?" Rose asked.
"No you told me everything I needed to know. Clara tells me I don't notice people anymore. She says I'm rubbish at telling the age of a person and I don't notice details like makeup, or hair color. Most of the time she's right, but I noticed you Rose. Your eyes were red. I might not have noticed normally, but I did this time because you specifically didn't want me to see. You had a perception filter, a recently applied perception filter. So then I started looking more closely. You were trying to hide that you had been crying. When you add in the other facts the conclusion is pretty obvious. You left him, and you didn't want me to know."
"I missed the real Doctor," said Rose.
"Rose, he is the real Doctor. I expected you to look after him," said the Doctor.
"You left me on a beach with a copy of yourself. He isn't you. He'll never be you!" shouted Rose.
"You barely gave him a chance! From your perspective he's more me than I am now." he said.
Rose glared at him. "You left! You asked me to take care of him. You left me but asked me to spend my life with a man who looks just like you. How could I do that? You thought you were making a sacrifice for me but it was killing me! Every time I looked at him I could see you out there alone and I knew you missed me," said Rose. "Oh, why didn't you just regenerate that day, when that dalek shot you. If you only regenerated…"
"If I regenerated properly the universe might be over," said the Doctor, "You measured Donna's timeline. We needed her to stop the reality bomb, which means we also needed him. We needed the two-way metacrisis."
"But you didn't know that," said Rose, "You didn't know any of that, when you made that choice."
"I think you already know why I made that choice. You just want me to say it," said the Doctor. Rose frowned but said nothing. "Fine I'll say it, but then you're going to listen to everything I have to say, Rose."
The Doctor took a deep breath. He stepped away from his controls and looked at Rose. "You found me again, and you didn't want me to change. I didn't want to change either because I didn't want to change into someone you didn't like. I stayed in that form for you, Rose. But you knew that, didn't you?"
Rose nodded. "Yeah I suppose I did," she said. She looked at the metal floor beneath her feet and let out a sigh. She had thought she wanted to hear this but it only made things harder.
The Doctor shook his head frowning. "This is one of my many mistakes. I changed younger, into a face I hoped you would like. It worked. Then later I siphoned off my extra regeneration energy into that spare hand because I didn't want to change. I wanted to stay as the man who had your love. After the Time War, after I lost everything, I needed someone to help me figure out who I was again. You became that person. I could never say the words you wanted to hear because those words are like a promise. One that was impossible for me to keep. You were exactly what I needed, but I could never be what you needed."
"You were always what I needed!" said Rose.
"No, I wasn't! You deserved someone who could say it back to you. I'm sorry, Rose, you're not going to like what I say next but you need to hear it!" said the Doctor. "That face, your Doctor, didn't last much longer maybe a couple years at most. I don't remember all the details. But when I left you with John Smith, I assumed you were happy. When I regenerated next, I moved on. I pushed memories of my past lives out of my head. I tried to forget. The point is I don't come back for you. This is the first day I've seen you since I left you on that beach. You won't see a younger version of me. That never happens. This is who I am now."
"But I saw you! The other you! Five days ago, I saw the younger you in the TARDIS. You looked so sad, and then you just left me again! And now you're lying about it!" said Rose. The Doctor's mouth hung open.
"Oh!" he said drawing out the o sound almost as if it were a sigh and not a word. He looked up towards the ceiling. "The Doctor lies even to himself," he said. A burst of air escaped his lungs that might have been a laugh. "You expected to see him today didn't you? John said he didn't meet anyone when he took the TARDIS, but it looks like he lied. It looks like he met you," said the Doctor.
Rose stared at him for a moment and then a look of understanding crossed her face. "That was John Smith?" she asked.
"Yes, in my TARDIS, and you couldn't tell the difference. Tell me, Rose, is he really nothing without this?" asked the Doctor slamming his hand down on the console.
Rose frowned. "You know I never thought that! Don't you?"
"I'm not sure," said the Doctor. His eyes peered from underneath eyebrows that seemed to frown more than his mouth. Rose glared back at him. She tried to hold onto her anger to keep the tears away, but then she thought of John Smith in the TARDIS and the look he gave her.
Tears formed in her eyes. She sniffed and blinked them back. "You forgot all about me. I was nothing to you."
"You used to be something to me. Everyone used to be something to me, but they all leave in the end. You're just a memory to me now," said the Doctor.
Rose couldn't hold back the tears anymore. They streamed down her face. She didn't want to cry because it felt like crying in front of a stranger.
"So that's your plan. You come back here, and you tell me all this. For what?! So I hate you and fall in love with your copy instead? That's how you plan to sort it?!" She shouted at him.
"It wasn't my plan, no. The TARDIS usually respects my plans now, but not this time. This time it brought me here, and I don't think it's because of the vashta nerada. Torchwood would have sorted that eventually with minimal casualties, but you probably would kill them. I hope to have a better solution, but even still the TARDIS wouldn't have brought me here for a small swarm of vashta nerada. No, I think she brought me here because of you. I think you needed to see me, an older version of me, who didn't have you in my life anymore. It's the only way you could be certain."
Rose glared at him with her eyes still full of tears. "A baby died and you think it was to fix me and John Smith?" asked Rose. She shook her head. "No, you caused it!"
The Doctor sighed. "It was a fixed point. I couldn't have stopped it. By the time I arrived it was already a news story. It had already happened!" he said, "the truth is if it wasn't that baby it would have been someone else."
"You don't even care! Not about the baby, not about me, not about anyone," said Rose. She sobbed into her hands. She wanted to run out of the TARDIS, but she couldn't face her staff like this. The perception filter wouldn't hide her ragged gasps for breath. This man wasn't the Doctor she knew. Rose wiped the tears from her eyes and looked over at him. He didn't look happy. If she didn't know better she might even say he was upset.
"I don't show it the same way I used to, but don't confuse that with not caring," said the Doctor. Rose sniffed. Her eyes locked with his and she realized she misjudged him. He wasn't the man she loved anymore, but he was still the Doctor and the Doctor wasn't heartless. "Oh and stop your crying. If you're coming with me, then I need someone useful. I need alert. I don't need mopey. Rose, you're better than this," said the Doctor, "I should know, because even then I only traveled with the best."
Rose took several deep breaths and forced herself to calm down. Crying would do nothing to help protect her city. John Smith needed their help. She couldn't turn away from anyone who needed help, not even the man who wore the face that hurt her. The Doctor had shown her how to do that, how to offer help even to those who were hurting you. Even now this Doctor, however harsh, he was being was trying to help her. He was trying to make her stronger. She wiped away her tears. "I'm sorry" she said once she regained control of herself.
"No, don't apologize," said the Doctor, "I'm sorry." He paused a moment his face softened. He sighed. "I never get it right. I hoped he would get it right, and I still think he can but you have to give him a chance." Rose said nothing. She turned to walk towards the door. "I thought you were coming with me?"
Rose turned back to look at him. She shook her head. "I belong out there," said Rose, tilting her head in the direction of the TARDIS doors. "I should be helping them set up the containment."
A light flashed on his console and the Doctor stared at his monitor so intently she wasn't sure if he heard her. "The scan's complete! I've found it. The new home for the vashta nerada," said the Doctor. "It's a safe place for them where they can't hurt anyone." He looked over at her and smiled.
"I'll do my job. You do yours," said Rose. She turned back around and headed for the door.
Then a shrill whistle wailed. Rose whipped back around. She didn't like the look on the Doctor's face. "Oh, that's not good," he said.
"What is it?" asked Rose.
"John Smith's got my sonic. The swarm is back and bigger, possibly big enough to attack him."
"Well, take us there!" shouted Rose instantly changing her mind.
"No! We can't," said the Doctor.
"What do you mean we can't?" asked Rose.
"The bait's not ready," he said.
"You mean the turkey?" asked Rose pointing up to the glass box.
"That's only part of it. You see, I always tell the monsters I can find them a new home and they almost always fight back because they never believe me. I need proof. I'm sorry, but John Smith is on his own for the moment. If I bring you there I'll only put you in danger," said the Doctor.
He flipped a switch on his console and the TARDIS rattled as it entered the time vortex. Rose braced herself against a railing to keep from falling over. She looked at him confused for an instant, but then the room began to fade out of existence. It was being replaced by a street corner that was bustling with activity. Slowly the sidewalk appeared and Rose stood in front of an orange barricade. Police cruisers lined the street. Soldiers were standing watch. A large zeppelin with the word TORCHWOOD in black lettering got into position over the center of the quarantine area. Wilson came running up to her eager to give his report of their progress.