Author's Note: I do not own the characters/settings/plots from Doctor Who. Not even any of the extras. Last chapter for this little adventure! Episode IV will be posted on Friday!
Doctor Who: Parallax – King And Lionheart: Rose and The Doctor respond to a distress signal from the planet Barcelona in the year 6843. Once there, they discover the Judoon have sequestered the planet as they search for a group of intergalactic mercenaries.
Mauve Guest: Ha! Calm before the next storm. I see what you did, there. Anyway, let's just say The Commissioner will be making a reappearance… solernp: Thanks for dropping in! Glad you like the story. Jeni27: Well, she couldn't really avoid telling him, but he does have a knack for eliciting knee-jerk responses. :D royslady51: Yeah, but that particular pot has a habit of calling the kettle black. At least until he's called on it… 5 or 6 or 17 times. TK: Hahaha! I'm glad. I like the slightly more capable Rose, I just don't want to verge into "Look at me, I'm a doctor and now a professor, and oh, look, I can fly the TARDIS better than you, too." But I'm so glad I'm keeping some of the authenticity while mucking about with everything. Shall we call this Canon Lite? Canon 2.0? :D Also, like I told Mauve Guest, The Commissioner will be showing up again… Mwahahahahaha!
The walk back to the TARDIS had been difficult, both technically and emotionally. He'd insisted she tell him the whole story as they slogged over a solid foot of jagged, uneven ice and snow that coated the streets. He never said a word, and every time she'd glanced over, his expression had been stern and unreadable. When she finished, he didn't offer a single syllable in admonishment or understanding, and Rose didn't press him. Instead, she hugged his jacket more tightly around her and trudged onward. Finally, knee throbbing furiously under the strain of keeping her steady on the uneven terrain, they reached the TARDIS, surrounded in snow and ice, and The Doctor stooped to reach the lock that was now a foot lower than where he was standing.
Rose was somewhat heartened by the fact that, after climbing down into the TARDIS, he'd turned and helped her inside. Still, he didn't speak as he shut the door and marched over to the console. Rose reluctantly shrugged out of his jacket and laid it neatly over the jump seat before sitting down herself. As she watched him pilot the ship into the vortex, his face fixed in thought and his large hands moving nimbly over the controls, she had a sudden, sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She knew, then, he must be taking her home; back to her parents' mansion in 2019. She wasn't sure she could blame him, and if she could, she certainly couldn't stop him. Instead, she swallowed hard, determined not to leave with the same weight of regret she carried from her own universe.
"I'm sorry," she said, her voice stronger than she could have hoped, "I knew better, and I followed her anyway, and – I'm sorry." He looked back at her, finally, but only for a moment as he finished settling his ship into her course. "And thank you. For everything, Doctor." With that, she slid off the jump seat, wincing as her knee protested her weight, and turned to head toward her room.
"Oi," The Doctor interjected, "Where you goin'?" He'd been deep in thought the last several minutes, almost lost in it, when the tone of finality in her voice caught his attention. He crossed his arms and leaned against the side of the console and watched as she turned around. Her gaze was warm and kind as always, but there was something more, a sadness that wasn't usually there.
"Getting my things," her smile was a bit shaky.
"What for?" he almost looked offended.
"Doctor," she took a step or two toward him, brow furrowed, "I did it again. I interfered, I saved someone, someone I knew, for personal reasons. There's no tellin' what could have happened. The Reapers could have come again. I could've –" Rose's breath caught as the memory of that old stone church, of The Doctor standing forward and the Reaper falling upon him, washed over her. I could've lost you, again, she wanted to say.
"Rose, Martha lived to meet you," The Doctor pointed out, uncrossing his arms and stepping forward, "I knew the minute I saw her in the hallway we'd have a mess to clean up. Didn't know how big a one, but I knew we'd have to tell her somethin'. Jus' a bit surprised is all."
"Then why are you being so, so – prickly?"
"Were ya ever goin' to tell me, Rose?" he asked, plainly.
"Of course I was," her nose wrinkled in offense at the suggestion.
"Really? Cause it seems there's a lot you don't."
"You would know," it was her turn to cross her arms. For a moment, The Doctor just studied her face. Finally, he closed his eyes and shook his head. When he looked up again, there was something resembling a smile teasing at his lips.
"We've both got our scars, us. I jus'… It's a strange situation, this, and if you can't tell me everything, I need to trust you'll tell me what I need to know."
"I will," Rose insisted, "I always will. Just didn't feel like bringin' it up immediately after savin' the world. Wanted to enjoy it a minute."
"I understand," he said, placing his hands on her shoulders, "But we've still got to fix it." A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he checked his watch, "But we can talk about it over supper. Wash up, meet me in the kitchen." The doubtful look she shot him gave him pause. "What?"
"You cooked?"
"Yeah, what of it?"
"You?"
"Is that a problem?"
"I'm not entirely sure."
"The way I see it, all we can do is go back and explain it to her. Let her know she's going to meet me again, but that I won't know her. That she can't tell me about all this." Rose was sitting at the modest little kitchen table, freshly showered and changed. She was eying The Doctor's back warily as he moved about the counters.
"And me," The Doctor chimed in, "She can't tell you about me." When he turned around holding two plates in his hand, Rose forced a smile. He set a plate down before her and took his seat across the table.
"I still can't believe you're taking it so well," Rose offered, stalling as she picked up her fork. It looked good, and it smelled divine, but she was mistrustful, and The Doctor didn't miss the hesitant expression on her face.
"You all right?"
"Yeah, fine," Rose smiled brightly before muttering to herself, "TARDIS has an infirmary."
"Oi!"
"Sorry, it's just… The Doctor I knew couldn't boil water. 'Least I suspected as much, never saw him cook. We always got take-out."
"Yes, well, ask me to bake you anything, and you'll be on the phone to poison control inside five minutes. Meat and veg I can manage," he said defensively, "Take-out gets old after a while."
"Even with access to all the best restaurants in time and space?" she pointed out, tongue touching her canine.
"Stop stalling," he pointed a fork at her, and Rose gave in. Sighing, she cut into the slice of prime rib and, hesitating only slightly, popped the bite into her mouth. Within seconds, her eyebrows shot up.
"Tha's good," she managed just before swallowing, "Tha's really good."
"Try not to sound so shocked," he admonished, but all his feigned dignity was belied by that smug grin.
"Oh, stop gloating," Rose now tucked into her dinner with gusto. It had been a terribly long day, and the pair of them didn't utter a word beyond 'pass the salt' for the remainder of the meal. Two full plates and a dessert port later, Rose was leaning back in her chair, languid and perfectly content with the universe, when The Doctor finally spoke.
"It does bother me," he was leaning forward with his arms crossed, elbows resting on the table. It occurred to her, then, he still hadn't put his jacket back on. She didn't know why, exactly, that made her feel all warm and fuzzy, but it did.
"What?" Rose asked, eying the bottle of port. The Doctor rolled his eyes a second before picking up the bottle and pouring another tot into her glass, "Ah thank you."
"At your service, Lady Tyler," he mocked, and smiled as her nose crinkled up.
"Ugh, don't start that," she took a sip of the port, "What bothers you?"
"When you saved Martha," he started to explain, brow creasing in thought, "The timeline didn't change."
"Well, isn't that a good thing?" Rose pointed out.
"Yes and no. Thing is, nothin' changed. Even if the majority of it remained intact, small details should have shifted. Only, it didn't."
"OK," Rose said, sensible of his concern and tilting her chair upright, "What does that mean, then?"
"It means this already happened, Rose," those sharp grey eyes looked up at her from under his heavy brows, "You didn't alter the timeline, you preserved it, exactly as it was."
"So, what you're saying is I was living in a world where I'd already done this. Traveled here, with you, and saved Martha's life?"
"Exactly."
"Is that bad?" she asked, now leaning forward on the table, as well.
"I don't know. It's dancin' dangerously close to a paradox." He said, but he was fibbing just a bit. It was a paradox. Nothing in the universe should be able to create a paradox like that without dire consequences. Yet, here sat this human girl, two points in her timeline now inextricably dependent on each other. Her presence here, perhaps even her very existence, should be setting off all manner of alarms in his head. Only, it wasn't. He'd no idea what to make of it, and he didn't like not knowing.
"Right," she said, "Better be careful, then. Don't want to go tearin' down the walls of reality." She'd meant it as a joke, wanting to bring a bit of levity to the conversation, but as soon as she said it, she questioned it. Isn't that exactly what she'd been trying to do the first two years she was stranded here? The Doctor smiled, then, and her self-doubt dissipated for the moment.
"Come on, then. Let's have a look at that knee."
"Cracked the patella," The Doctor said as Rose sat on the examining table. He'd just finished scanning her injury, and settled the ice pack back on it.
"Ha! Called it."
"I'm sorry, who's the Doctor, here?"
"Just sayin'," Rose shrugged, grinning wide. The Doctor gave her a withering look, but she could see the smile he was holding back. What he hadn't told her, what he found so very curious, was the funny range of readings he got. He'd had the same problem when he scanned her broken hand a week earlier, but he'd written it off to interference from the titanium pins. Yet, here it was again, an odd sort of feedback clouding the readings. He still got the answers he needed, but it took longer to dial in than it should have.
"Right, lie back, it'll take a few hours to knit,"
Two days after the storm, Martha stood over the young girl, no longer cordoned off in the ICU, examining her chart and watching out of the corner of her eye as the child gently stroked the blue yarn hair of a cloth doll Martha had brought in from home. The Doctor, whoever he was, had been right, there was nothing wrong with her. No signs of head trauma as had been previously documented in her chart. The trouble was, they still didn't know who she was apart from the name 'Lara,' nor who her parents were. While the steady improvements in her health were encouraging, Martha dreaded the day they could no longer keep her here. The day child services would inevitably come for her.
"Hello!" came a cheerful and familiar voice from the door behind her, and Martha spun around to see the man who called himself The Doctor and, standing beside him, Rose.
"What are you two doin' here?" Martha asked, smiling, "Thought you'd run off."
"Well, we did, sort of," Rose explained, wanting so badly to hug her friend, but knowing better. Instead, she turned to the gurney, "And how are you, sweetheart?"
"Better," she said meekly, "I know you."
"I was here when you woke up," Rose smiled, "And we've got good news. We found your mum an' dad."
"Did you?" Martha asked, relieved beyond all measure, "Oh, thank you." Rose was pleasantly surprised when Martha swooped forward and gathered her in a hug. The resident composed herself quickly, however, and pulled back. "Sorry, 'bout that."
"'S no problem," Rose laughed, "They're downstairs, doin' all that bloody paperwork."
"But how'd you find them? The police and social services couldn't find anything."
"They didn't know where to look," The Doctor put in, supreme confidence and no small amount of self-satisfaction radiating off him, "There's only two or three Goane settlements in the whole of Britain. Didn't take long to find one missing a little girl."
"That's fantastic!" Martha laughed.
"Couldn't have said it better, myself," The Doctor beamed, and Rose elbowed him in the gut, earning a mock grunt of pain.
"So, that's it, then. You two just save the day and disappear?"
"More or less," The Doctor said, slightly more somber.
"We need to have a word, if that's all right?" Rose started.
"Oh, God. You're gonna wipe my memory, then, aren't you?"
"No," Rose laughed, "Nothing like that. We just have a bit of a favor to ask."
"Why are we in the basement?" Martha asked as she reluctantly followed the pair down a barren corridor.
"Least conspicuous place to land," The Doctor explained, walking ahead with brisk purpose.
"Land?" Martha asked, incredulously.
"You know how I said he was an alien who traveled all of time and space in a police box?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, it just looks like a police box." Rose explained as The Doctor stopped in front of a fire door and opened it wide. Catching up, Martha looked inside at what appeared to be the boiler room, and standing amidst the all the pipes and gauges and massive boilers was a rather humble-looking blue phone box.
"How'd you get that in here?"
"It just sort of – materializes." Rose tried to explain, "It's called a TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension In Space." The Doctor had already gone inside and started unlocking the door while Rose stood at the hallway entrance with Martha.
"So it's a… a…"
"Space ship that travels in time," Rose finished, smiling, "Or, a time machine that travels in space. We keep arguing about that."
"That's impossible," Martha breathed, stepping into the room as The Doctor opened the TARDIS door and she could see just enough to know it appeared much bigger on the inside.
"Ten minutes ago you thought we could wipe your memory," Rose joked.
"Actually," the Doctor cringed a bit, "I could." When Martha shot him a concerned look, he continued, "But I wouldn't. You're clever, Martha. You can handle this."
"Handle what?" Martha asked.
"When I pulled you into the hospital room, you said you'd seen me before, and that I said something to you. What was it…"
"Ta-da," Martha supplied, using the same sardonic inflection she recalled him using.
"That's horrible. I'd never say that. Why would I say that?"
"How should I know?"
"Right! Because I've never said it before. I don't remember us meeting because it hasn't happened, yet."
"Come again," Martha was skeptical, now, arms crossed over her chest.
"When and where did you see me, Martha."
"I dunno, I was on my way to the hospital. I'd just stepped out of the chip shop on Market Street."
"Right, but when?"
"I dunno, about 5:00 Tuesday evening."
"'About'? Humans," The Doctor scoffed and headed inside the TARDIS, "Have me standin' around a street corner for an hour."
"What?" Martha called in after him."
"Back in a mo'!" he grinned at the pair and shut the door. Martha stepped away, taken aback.
"Bit rude isn't he?"
"Only when you get to know 'im." Rose smiled. Just then, the light atop the TARDIS began to pulse and a scratchy whirring sound filled the room. Martha stood, mouth agape as the blue box began to fade.
"What…"
"Just watch," Rose smiled.
"Well, she took that better than I expected," Rose plopped herself down in the jump seat as The Doctor piloted the ship back into Vortex.
"She's a clever one, your Martha," The Doctor assured, hopping around the opposite side of the console.
"Yeah, she is that," Rose agreed, a wistful smile on her face. The Doctor didn't miss the tone and he peeked around the time rotor to see her, feet propped up against the cracked porcelain frame, clearly lost in thought. He rolled his eyes and stood back up, trying to be as inconspicuous as he could be. He knew it was coming, though, knew he wouldn't be able to stop her. "Doctor," she said after a few minutes, and he sighed to himself.
"Present," he chirped, cheekily, praying this wasn't heading toward the "D" word.
"Have you ever felt just – wrong?" Rose struggled to find the word, deciding only that simple word, though woefully inadequate, would do. The Doctor came around the console, finishing his machinations and diverting his attention to the monitor.
"I'm wrong all the time," he smiled, "Jus' don't tell anyone I said that."
"No I mean… you. Like, who you were just wrong or broken." The Doctor stopped short at that. Something was blinking angrily on the TARDIS monitor, but it could wait.
"Who told you anythin' was wrong with you?" he asked, arms crossed and face indignant.
"No one, really," Rose shook her head, trying to play it off under an uncertain smile, "And everyone. I was married, you know?" She glanced up at him, seeing the searching look on his face but unable to see the way his twin hearts sped up. When he didn't respond, she continued, "Tom. I was married to Tom until a couple years ago. Aaaand then he married my best friend. Well, best friend besides Mickey" The Doctor would have scoffed at the mention of Mickey's name, but he was occupied with the unbidden fear and the panic that had hit him at her revelation. Never mind refraining from asking who the hell Tom was until she mentioned him marrying her best friend.
"How's that make you wrong?"
"You've clearly never been divorced," Rose tried to joke, "No one lets you forget it. I was reminded constantly how I'd failed. How I couldn't just be happy with the things that were supposed to make me happy. And what made it worse was I tried. Everyone thinks I didn't, but I did. I really did."
"Then you've nothin' to be ashamed of." Why did it always have to get messy? Why did everything with these stupid apes have to be so complicated?
"I was just foolish, and a bit selfish. I thought things could stay the way they were, forever. Travelin' the world together and protectin' people and savin' stranded aliens from mobs of idiots. And when he wanted to slow down, to settle and have a home, I tried. And it drove me mad. Absolutely mental."
"Rose," The Doctor moved closer, leaning back against the console near where he feet rested, "That doesn't make you – wrong." He said the last word like it was in epithet, stressing the final 'g' like he sometimes did. He was unaccountably angry, and he hoped she realized it wasn't at her.
"No," she smiled, "I know that, now. Took me a good long time, but I know that. It's just, seeing Martha again… I miss her. I realize she and Tom were much better suited. She was able to slow down, to have something normal, where I wasn't. But I still miss her, and I envy her a little. No matter how at peace I may be with myself, the world will never stop tellin' me how wrong I am."
"Do you think I don't know all that? Look at me. I stole a time machine and left my planet behind to run off and explore the stars."
"Yeah, but isn't that sort of just what your people did?" Rose asked, and they both ignored her automatic use of the past tense.
"Ah, well, see, they could. And some did, but there were always a lot of very strict rules about it. Rules I frequently ignored. I've been hauled up on charges before. Banished to Earth for a while because of my meddling."
"You're kidding," Rose couldn't help a grin pulling at her lips. "You? Stuck on Earth?"
"They disabled the TARDIS and everything," he nodded.
"Can't even imagine," she shook her head.
"Well, don't," he said, standing upright and reaching out to take her hand and pull her off the jump seat toward the monitor, "'Cause we're not stopping, Rose Tyler. Distress signal from… Barcelona!"
"What?"
Footnote:
"And I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't
So here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road
And I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope
It's a shot in the dark aimed right at my throat
'Cause looking for heaven, found the devil in me
Looking for heaven, found the devil in me
Well what the hell I'm gonna let it happen to me, yeah
Shake it out, shake it out,
Shake it out, shake it out,
Shake it out, shake it out,
Shake it out, shake it out,
And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back,
So shake him off"
-Florence + The Machine: Shake It Out