A/N
Disclaimer: Sadly enough, I cannot claim ownership rights over Doctor Who. I can claim ownership of a nice new needle point pen though.
I know I said three weeks, but, as always, I found a way around that slight snag. And so, here I am! And here is Chapter Eight, ladies and gentlemen!
Enjoy!
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The trip back to the alternate universe was just the same as Rose had remembered it; the horrible flashing of colours that she couldn't distinguish, the swirling, as if someone had deliberately placed her and the Doctor into a whirlpool, and the dizziness that resulted when she opened her eyes. She squeezed them shut.
She didn't make a sound the entire way. The Doctor, on the other hand, was making little eager noises from deep within his throat that made Rose want to pat him on the head like she would a puppy dog.
She grinned. Were she to do that, the Doctor would probably wag his tail. Does the Doctor want his bone? Good boy!
She stifled her laughter, eyes still tightly closed.
The transporter ended with a thump as it had done last time, only, this time, to her relief, she didn't vomit up her guts. She was a little unsteady getting to her feet, but she noticed that the Doctor had the same problem.
The Doctor, upon gaining his balance, stared at the surroundings with something akin to a regretful understanding. "So, this is where they are?" he asked her.
She took in the old house. "Yeah."
The Doctor grinned quickly. "C'mon then!" he grabbed her hand and led her to the door- ran her to the door. And then he rapped on said door with all the gusto of a comedian arriving in front of a massive audience. The Doctor then stepped back, even with Rose, and waited.
Rose looked at him anxiously, wondering how he'd react. But then she looked back at the door, eager to see those who had helped her.
The door opened, and an old man with a bandana-hat covering part of his glistening silver hair stepped out. "Officer!" Rose grinned.
The Officer stared at her, the light brown eyes showing recognition, before turning to her companion. The Officer seemed to freeze to the spot, taking in the Doctor's appearance. And then the Officer ducked to his knees, staring down at the ground, and took his bandana off his head, placing it at the Doctor's feet.
The Doctor gaped at him, before awkwardly picking up the hat and giving it back to the Officer. The Officer stood up, giving the Doctor a nod, before speaking once again in the strange, beautiful language of the Gallifreyans.
Rose glanced at the Doctor. His reaction was not what Rose expected; he closed his eyes in remembrance or grief or, perhaps, happiness, and replied back in the same language. It flowed unnaturally from him at first, as if he had forgotten how to speak it. But then it softened, smoothened, becoming just as lilting, but also with a joyful tone. Rose smiled softly. The Doctor was happy.
Their conversation continued for a while, the language impressing itself upon Rose's mind. It stopped suddenly, and the Officer walked back into the house, beckoning them to follow.
She glanced at the Doctor, who grinned back at her, and they both walked inside. Rose smiled as she recognised the room. The cushions, strewn around the room, lounges of clashing colours underneath the cushions; and near each of the cushions was a figure- four in total. The figures stood as Rose and the Doctor entered.
Rose continued to smile as she recognised the faces that stared back at her. "Meet the Doctor," she said gleefully, introducing him.
Loranos was the first to respond. "Doctor…"
The Doctor glanced at Loranos, then at Rose. "Hello! You don't mind if we speak English do you? Rose here can't understand Gallifreyan."
Rose shot him a look of surprise; it wasn't like the Doctor to allow her to actually understand what was going on- which meant the Doctor was wary about something. Of what, she didn't know, but she resolved herself to find out. She nodded gratefully back at the Doctor.
"Of course," Loranos inclined her head in agreement. "Doctor… it is an honour." Loranos bowed her head low, and then raised it again.
As the Doctor nodded back in much the same way, Rose realised this had to be some kind of Time Lord tradition or something- like how soldiers saluted and so on.
"Loranos," the Doctor replied, after his bow.
Rose frowned in confusion for a second, wondering how the Doctor knew who she was. But then she figured- it was easy to distinguish the one female Time Lord out of all of them, and the name 'Loranos' would probably give it away as a female.
Needless to say, however, when Loranos stepped back, she had an even higher look of respect towards the Doctor in her eyes. Rose glanced around at the standing Time Lords, wondering who would take the next step ahead.
It was Jorax.
The brown trench coat was discarded where he had been sitting, but his eyes still glistened bright lavender. "Doctor," Jorax said, repeating the actions of Loranos. "It's good to meet you."
The Doctor nodded back. "Phantom?"
"No," Jorax denied. "Jorax."
The Doctor grinned widely. "Jorax! The brilliant scientist!"
Jorax seemed to force a smile and stepped back with the other Time Lords.
Rose looked downwards as she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. It was the Doctor's hand; his fingers to be precise- and they were wriggling around each other in an anxious way. Rose grinned- it was definitely new to see the Doctor nervous.
Phantom moved forward next, running a hand through his blonde hair, and bowing with gusto. The Doctor's hand twitched sharply.
Rose looked up. The Doctor must have known that she was watching his hands, because a twitch from the Doctor meant he had found his reason to be wary. The reason was Phantom.
Yeah, Rose did sense something there before; why else would she be awkward around Phantom? Although… she couldn't imagine what the Doctor should be wary about, when it came to Phantom.
Phantom lowered his head in the same fashion as the others had. "Doctor… my pleasure. I'm Phantom."
The Doctor lowered his head in return, but didn't respond to Phantom. Instead, he turned towards the last Time Lord- he knew who this one was.
"Master." The Doctor nodded warily.
"Doctor." The Master nodded back to the Doctor. "I'm assuming that I'm bad over your end, aren't I?"
The Doctor gave the tiniest of smirks. "Oh, you could say that."
"Am I still alive?" the Master asked, seeing something in the Doctor's eyes that Rose had overlooked.
"No. You died." The Doctor paused for a second, before adding, in a desperate, choked quiet tone, "I couldn't save you."
"You couldn't save him," the Master replied, blue eyes matching brown in a show of will. "You did save me."
"No," the Doctor shook his head. "He saved you. I didn't."
"You got me out of my obsessed phase," the Master replied.
The Doctor frowned slightly. "How?"
"You made me look after kids," the Master grinned. "My ego sure went down, Doc."
"Doc?" the Doctor whispered to himself. "You haven't called me that since-"
"Since you died to save our lives," the Master interjected.
Rose glanced at Phantom as he looked to the side with something unreadable in his eyes.
"I didn't die," the Doctor replied. "He did."
The Master stared at the Doctor. "I'm not evil. He was," the Master said. "Do you believe me?"
"No. Not completely."
"I'm not evil," the Master's blue eyes were brightened with honesty.
"Are you good at lying?" the Doctor asked, eyes narrowed. Judging.
"Are you?" the Master said in return.
The Doctor looked up. "Dunno, really. I mean, I suppose I could be, but that's for me to know. Are you?"
The Master sighed. "Doc… I'm not going to try and kill you. Why would I help Rose if I was?"
"To get to me," the Doctor replied.
Rose didn't want to get involved in this conversation. It was fast-paced, barely understandable, but the two causing it seemed to understand everything. So she continued to glimpse, out of her peripheral vision, the varying expressions of Phantom as the argument- or whatever it was- progressed. She honestly had no idea what she was looking for, but if the Doctor was careful, then so was she.
"How did I die?" the Master asked the Doctor.
The Doctor's eyes darkened, but he responded. "You got shot."
"I didn't regenerate?"
"Refused," the Doctor said. "How did I die?"
Rose perked up at this. She wanted to know, too.
The Master sighed. "Time War. I'm assuming there was one on your end too?"
The Doctor nodded, "I was the only survivor."
"You killed yourself in order to save us," the Master said, blue eyes dimmed with memories.
"How?" the Doctor asked him, confused.
"You used your TARDIS- used the heart- plugged in into the untempered schism."
There was a pause, while Rose pondered over the meaning and implications of that sentence.
"B-but…" the Doctor stammered. "That means… means I-"
"Yeah," the Master smiled ruefully. "You did, but it didn't really matter. We," the Master beckoned to the other Time Lords, "And a few others were the only ones left, as well as thousands of Daleks. We'd lost."
"And I saved you?" the Doctor spoke. "If I used the schism- how… how did you survive it?"
"You cordoned it off," the Master answered. "You used your TARDIS and yourself to rip a section of the schism off. Still don't know how you did it."
"I-I… I-" the Doctor babbled. "I separated the schism?!" he said incredulously.
The Master took this chance to grin. "Yep. Doc, you parted infinity!"
The Doctor shook his head. "How?" but he allowed himself a small grin.
Rose sighed inwardly. Apparently, in this universe, the Doctor changed the layout of infinity. While Rose had no idea of exactly what that meant, she knew the Doctor would be giddy for days.
"You knew the separated part would implode," the Master continued, "So you used the heart to dampen and focus the effect. Like I said, I have no idea how you did it."
The Doctor narrowed his eyes once more towards the Master, before taking a step forward, and inhaling the air near the Master's face. Rose raised an eyebrow, while Phantom focused his gaze on the Master.
The Master grinned and sighed at the same time. "You'll smell honesty," the Master told him.
"Hmm," was the Doctors eloquent reply. "I smell… you smell…" the Doctor turned back to Rose, smiling suddenly. "Always wanted to say this!" he announced to her. "I smell, you smell, we all smell!"
Rose sighed, but couldn't help the corners of her mouth curling upwards. This whole scene… she couldn't find words to define it. It was expected when the Doctor was involved, but she had no idea how circumstances led them back together- and here, of all places. She shrugged to herself. Didn't much matter how.
The Master's reaction was much the same as Rose's. "Poetic," he quoted Rose's statement.
The Doctor grinned. "Thanks."
"So…" the Master started, "Am I telling the truth?"
"Yeah, you are," the Doctor said. "But it doesn't mean that you're not going to kill me."
"I'm not going to kill you," the Master said. "Sniff me."
The Doctor sniffed in again, and stared at him. "True," the Doctor stated.
It was the Master's turn to grin. "Told you."
The Doctor nodded, and smiled. "Okay, I believe you." There was a pause. The Doctor's eyes then narrowed and darkened to a pitch black shade. "But if you harm Rose…" the Doctor let himself trail off, the low and threatening tone saying more than he ever could.
The Master looked taken-aback for a second, before nodding.
"Okay!" the Doctor turned back to the group. "Well, now we've past the introductions! Onto the talk!" The Doctor paused for a second. "What are we going to talk about?" Another pause. "And please don't say the weather. I hate talking about the weather."
Rose stifled a chuckle.
"The device!" the Doctor said suddenly. He turned to Jorax. "Using a Tribophysical Waveform Macro-Kinetic Extrapolator, right?"
Jorax's eyes widened, surprised, before answering with a, "Yeah. And a-"
"And a Tribophysical Uni-Kinetic Molecular Transverser with a Compression Field," the Doctor interrupted.
Jorax nodded, shocked. "Yes, but how did you know?"
"Oh," the Doctor said, glancing at Rose, "I'm brilliant!"
Rose grinned at him, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Phantom turn and mutter something to Loranos. When Phantom noticed her staring at him, he winked and smiled cheerily. Rose smiled back; she had to keep them believing her- she didn't want Phantom or any of the others finding out that she was judging them.
She turned back to the Doctor, who had started another conversation with Jorax, refusing completely to talk to the Master. Rose felt a burst of pity for the Master, who was looking more than downcast, having retired to a seat in the furthest corner away, head turned to face the wall. She walked over to him, ignoring the Doctor's warning gaze on her back.
Sitting down beside the Master, she waited for him to speak first.
"Rose," he acknowledged quietly.
And suddenly she found herself speechless. What could she say to him? If she had been the one in the Master's position, she'd be distraught. Hurt. How could she tell him the Doctor would get over it, if she didn't know whether the Master was bad or not? How could she tell him that the Doctor would become nicer, more open, if really he probably wasn't?
"Are you…" she paused, fumbling with the right word, "Bad?" She winced, expecting some kind of harsh retort.
The Master chuckled darkly. "What would it matter?"
"It matters to me," Rose told him. "I need to know."
The Master stared at her. "Would I tell you if I was?" he said it darkly, grimly.
"Probably not," Rose replied honestly. "But still…"
"I'm not," the Master stated. "But you can't tell if I'm being truthful or not, can you? Because if you did, you wouldn't need to ask that question. And, thus, it doesn't matter what I say."
Rose glanced at the ground. He was right. "I trust you," she whispered slowly. "I'm having doubts, yeah, but I trust you."
"And the Doctor?" he asked.
Rose returned her gaze to his face, taking in the darkened shade of blue of the Master's hurt eyes. "That's why I need to know if he can trust you," she answered.
"I believe he can," the Master replied to Rose. "But does he?"
"He will," Rose said. "Prove it to him."
"How?" the Master looked down at the ground.
"Just," Rose thought, "Do something that'll show who you really are, one way or another. That way the Doctor- and I- will know."
The Master nodded thoughtfully, but didn't speak, and Rose allowed herself to be excused. She headed towards Loranos next; since her first meeting with the female Time Lord, Rose felt she could trust her.
Upon nearing, though, Phantom hadn't left. And the Doctor and Jorax were still engaged in a race of words- talking about anything in particular. And the Officer was leaning against the door, watching them all, looking for all the world like some bodyguard.
"Loranos," Rose called, "Could I speak to you?"
Loranos looked up, hazel eyes confused. But she made her way over to Rose anyway. "Yes, Rose?" she queried in her soft yet withered voice.
"Umm…" Rose searched for words. "Do you trust-"
She was broken off by a sudden and loud continuous tone that made her want to hold her ears in pain. She heard the Master say, "I'm on it," extremely loudly, almost yelling, and watched as the Master sped out of the room, through the door that she knew led to the downstairs laboratory.
She glanced at the Doctor; both thinking the same thing. The Doctor separated from Jorax, and she went to meet him. "What's going on?" Rose asked him, loudly enough that she could be heard, but quietly enough so that the other Time Lords couldn't hear her.
The Doctor whispered back, "I don't know," in a thoughtful tone. Then the tone became harsher, and he added, "Why were you talking to the Master?"
She looked up at him, seeing the distrust plain in his eyes, and feeling a stab of dismay, before realising the mistrust was directed at the Master. "I trust him," Rose replied, as if that explained everything, which, really, it didn't.
Rose knew that by going to the Master she was showing distrust, but she couldn't help it. Was the Doctor right? Was the Master evil? Or were her own senses about the Master right, telling her that he was trustworthy?
The Doctor began to reply, but the other occupants of the room had made their way to the Doctor and Rose, and he cut himself off.
"What's going on?" Rose asked, this time to the other Time Lords.
Jorax was the one that replied. "This tone indicates that there has been some interference with a planet," he told her.
She furrowed her brows, confused, before the Doctor jutted in and said, "It means something's happening on a planet. Something that shouldn't happen."
Rose could hear the deep-seated concern in the Doctor's sentence, and hoped that it wasn't Earth as the planet. Although, out of the probable millions of planets, it was unlikely that Earth was the planet in question.
The alarm stopped abruptly, leaving her ears ringing. Soon after, a chaos of noise erupted as the Master ran back up the creaky stairs, and burst open the door to stand in front of all of them, eyes wild. Wild with obsessive joy or wild with concern, Rose couldn't tell.
"It's Earth!" the Master called.
Rose's first reaction was worry for her family and Mickey. Her second reaction was a sigh. Of course it was Earth. It was always Earth.
"What's wrong?" the Doctor called back.
The Master walked over, slowly, but with a hint of desperation. "A Gallifreyan Weapon," the Master told them, to gasps of confusion and denial.
"Which one," the Doctor had his eyes narrowed, darkened with concern and some form of anger.
"Model Fifteen," the Master replied grimly.
Although Rose had no idea what 'Model Fifteen' was, she could tell from the Doctor's horrified face that it was bad. Add that to the horrified looks of the other Time Lords, and Rose was pretty apprehensive.
"Are we going to check it out?" the Doctor asked, still darkly, as if he believed it was the Master's fault.
The Master replied with a swift nod and led them all outside. "We all going?" he asked the group.
Loranos nodded. Phantom nodded. Jorax nodded. The Officer spoke something in Gallifreyan and nodded. The Master turned to Rose. "Are you coming?" he asked her.
The Doctor brushed in. "Yes," he told the Master. "Of course she's coming."
Rose almost pushed the Doctor away, about to say 'Let me answer my own questions,' but thought better of it when the Doctor turned to her with eyes full of relief. And Rose realised the Doctor had just protected her. From what, she didn't know. But he'd protected her from something.
It was fast, the transferral from the grass into the TARDIS. Upon arriving at the phone booth, the Doctor took a glance around the outside, before patting it and walking in after the Master. Rose followed.
The Master had started preparing for departure before she had even gotten on board. A flurry of rotating and turning and pulling resulted, before she heard the familiar sound of the TARDIS taking off. She was too worried about her family to ask what the weapon did, or how they were going to stop it, but she did notice the Master staring at her from the opposite side of the TARDIS with something unfathomable in his shadowed blue eyes. Immediately, unbidden, words popped into her head.
"Don't trust him," Martha told her firmly. "He'll kill you."
"He just wants to kill the Doctor! He doesn't care about anyone but himself! Trust me, don't believe him."
The Doctor's reaction was instantaneous. He tensed noticeably, eyes wide, full of repressed guilt and sadness. "Rose… he's bad."
"He's obsessed."
Rose shook herself. This Master wasn't bad. He just wasn't. He couldn't be. Still, further words popped into her head against her will.
"I just hope you can live with it if you're wrong."
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The Time Lord mentally grinned. It was soon. The plan was beginning, forming, taking shape. Very soon, the girl would be on her home planet, and the Doctor with her.
And then the Doctor would pay.
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TBC…
A/N
So, any guesses who the Time Lord is?
And, my next update will be soon… a couple of days, give or take a day.
Sorry about the lack of Doctor/Rose goodness- there is a plot to this story, and, needless to say, the plot must come first. But if you squinted at this chapter you'd probably find hints of it.
Okay, I've got quite a lot of people (once again, I'm assuming you are all people) to thank this chapter, so bear with me.
First and foremost, the lovely reviewers! I loved all your reviews, thanks so much: x-EmilyTennant-x, M64, White Purity, artistgirl727, Erikstrulove, Rose Tyler, MontyPythonFan, MythStar Black Dragon, Mini Librarian, The Chibi's Are Stalking Me, gaiafreedom21, gaia-x-goddess, NewDrWhoFan, Tigris T Draconis, Sunny angel, Iriahm, QuiteRightToo, VampMistress and Talia-Taylor.
Okay, second. Thanks heaps for putting this story on your favourites lists: Draco167, DramaQueen1133, I'mTheMasterOfWhatever, JeMS7, Kaia-S, QuiteRightToo, Rose Tyler, Rosie-Jess, Sunny angel, Talia-Taylor, The Chibi's Are Stalking Me, Tigerprime, VampMistress, Wanabee, artistgirl727, awesomepwincess123, caromac, enneisilee, gaia-x-goddess, gaiafreedom21, jimmybeam and sparks733.
Third, a huge hug, a thankyou, and a David Tennant clone (who functions just the same as the original) to all those that put me as a favourite author: Draco167, I'mTheMasterOfWhatever, johnny-B-reading, Mara Jade Snape, QuiteRightToo, Rosie-Jess, Talia-Taylor, VampMistress and Wanabee.
Last but not least, thankyou to those that have this story on their alerts list, and those that have me on their author alert list.
Oh, and… I'll be writing a sequel!
Thanks again, and so long for now,
SnowFox3