The One Adventure I'll Never Have
part iv
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"If you could touch the alien sand and hear the cries of strange birds, and watch them wheel in another sky,
would that satisfy you?"
- 1st Doctor
"Think you've seen it all? Think again. Outside those doors, we might see anything. We could find new worlds, terrifying monsters, impossible things."
- 10th Doctor
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Believe it or not, there aren't always life-threatening situations surrounding England - why is it always England, anyway? During one of these auspicious lulls, I find myself yearning to visit an old bar on one of the moons that used to orbit Gallifrey. Surprisingly, when Gallifrey burned, the moon remained, orbiting empty space as though Gallifrey had simply stepped away to use the loo. It's impossible, really, but in my lifetime I have observed many impossible things. This is not one I wish to study too closely.
"Where are we going?" Donna asks from the other side of the TARDIS. She's busy trying to pull her flaming hair into a ponytail; strands keep falling free, looping obstinately around her cheeks.
I adjust several levers on the mainframe, tongue sticking through a gap in my teeth, and press one of the glowing, orange buttons that has "must not touch under any circumstances" scrawled on it. It reminds me of the Sycorax incident on Christmas and the early moments following my ninth regeneration. Plus, it's fun to press a button that says "don't push me."
"You are going home for a little visit," I tell her, winding up a winding-lever on the side of the mainframe. Green lights begin to climb up and down the molecular transfusion tube, the gauges slowly pumping.
"What?" Donna abandons her hair, letting it fall in thick waves over her shoulders. "Why? I thought -" she cuts off, a bit pink in the face, but I can read the distress burying itself in her eyes. She's probably thinking about how everyone keeps telling her how sorry they are, though they won't say why. But Donna's brilliant. She has to know that whatever it is they're apologizing for is, inevitably, linked to our adventures.
"Oh," I say, hurrying over to her. "No, I'm coming back. Chin up." Donna juts her jaw up at that, showing me yet again that she isn't some helpless companion doomed to wither away the moment I leave her side.
"I've been needing to visit mum anyway," Donna mumbles, shaking her head quickly and giving me a little smirk. "Can't wait to see the lecture she's been stewing up this time. You might be able to hear us rowin' from the edge of the universe."
"If it would help..." I begin, steeling myself to come inside with her.
Donna's eyes fly open. "Don't you dare. Mum'll have a fit if she sees you again."
My hand flys to the back of my neck, scratching awkwardly. "I still don't understand what I did to upset her so much," I mumble.
"Oh, I don't know," Donna starts scathingly, "maybe it was because you blew up my reception-"
"In my defense, you weren't even there," I point out.
"-or maybe it had to do with you kidnapping me aboard your alien spaceship," Donna blusters on.
"It's called the TARDIS," I correct her gently, unable to keep from chuckling. "And if you call the twelve bags of knickers in the TARDIS being kidnapped, I'd hate to see you prepared."
"There was a hat box too," Donna mutters.
She looks up at me, hands on her hips, and a huge smile breaks out across her face. We both start laughing. I lean against the mainframe of the TARDIS, wiping my hand under my eyes, trying to take in a breath without giggling.
"So, what's this mysterious trip you're going on, then?" Donna asks, pressing a hand to her stomach as her laughter finally dies away. Underneath her hand, Donna's stomach quivers with aftershocks. "Blimey, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time."
"Just givin' in to my nostalgia," I tell her, wrapping my arm around Donna's and leading her toward the doors of the TARDIS. "I won't be gone long." I push open one of the doors and sunlight spills in, lighting up Donna's face. She doesn't head out like I'd expected her to, though. Her lips flutter as though Donna is trying to think of something to say.
"You'll be alright though, yeah?" Donna asks at last, the slightest bit hesitant. The light climbs up her cheekbones and reaches her eyes, making them shine.
"Of course," I respond immediately, pulling Donna in for a hug. She smells like flowers; it makes me stiffen in her arms. "I'm always alright," I add more softly.
I can feel Donna shaking her head against my shoulder and know what she's thinking. No, you're really not. Instead of verbalizing it, though, Donna simply squeezes me tighter for a second, then pulls back.
"Be back in a tick," I say, smiling.
"You'd better be," Donna answers, stepping out of the TARDIS. I can see her mum in the window now, face pressed to the window as she gapes at me. Donna's grandfather has no such qualms, however. He's already opening his front door and stepping out, waving at us.
I wave back, give Donna last look, and then disappear back into the TARDIS.
Unlike other moons I've visited, the moon orbiting the space that used to contain Gallifrey has installed an air shield encompassing the entire surface of the moon. I land the TARDIS a moderate distance from the entrance to the small diner outside the main sector of buildings established here.
The diner doesn't look much different, though it has been centuries. The walls are still cracked, little rifts in time and space that help visitors arrive from their universe to this place. However, the cracks are much bigger than before, I notice with a certain bit of sadness. The more visitors seeping through, the wider the cracks get. All too soon this moon and the places to which it is tied through the cracks will combust, sucked into each other.
I head inside and scurry straight for the barstools made out of fungus from one of the water-based planets, brushing past tables filled with various species. I take my seat in the same barstool I sat in so long ago and turn to look at the stool beside mine. Too empty. She used to-
"Doctor, is that really you?"
I look up, going rigid. "You," I breathe, glaring down the Voord.
The Voord looks confused. "I'm sorry, Doctor, did I...?" She trails off, staring at me through the black pits of her mask-like face. The rest of her body, covered in leather, rubs against her skin as she bends down, reaching for a glass.
Innocent, I realize, the memory returning to me as I slump in my chair. Not only innocent, but known.
"I'm sorry, Ajrater," I apologize, accepting the drink she offers me. It goes down slowly, burning.
Ajrater and her mother were among the few Voord that refused to fight against the Time Lords. While they hadn't explicitly pulled away from their homeland, they'd stationed themselves here, hidden between their planet and our own. Ajrater had been a little girl the last time I'd seen her, playing in the water tank by the back corner of the diner.
"No apologies are necessary, Doctor," Ajrater answers, pressing a black, webbed hand to mine and squeezing. "It's good to see a familiar face after so long. I saw your planet, after...oh Doctor, I'm so sorry." Her voice is tight, bordering on choked.
"After it burned," I finish for her flatly, taking the second drink Ajrater pushes my way. "Your mother, where is she?"
Ajrater bows her masked head. Water trickles down the side of her hidden face, unable to be contained when Voord are in emotional flux. The water is not tears - not like humans - but something akin to their life-force.
"Dead," Ajrater responds. Her hands dig into the wood of the bar and cracks begin weaving through. "For a long time now. She lived a long life, Doctor, a good life, but seeing Gallifrey burn took much of her life-force."
"And yet you stayed here." I play with the glass, rolling it between my fingers. "You could've left. Why did you stay?"
Ajrater looks at me for a long time before turning to observe the rest of the room. I can feel faint contentment emanating from within her.
"This is my home," she responds finally, staring off into an empty corner. A long sigh reverberates out of her, echoing across the bar. "What made you choose to return here, Doctor?"
"Hmm?" I hadn't been paying attention, focused instead on the same water tank in the back corner. It's empty, the water brown with disuse, but it speaks volumes that Ajrater kept it all this time.
"I haven't seen you in nearly nine centuries," Ajrater says. "What made you decide to come back now?"
"Oh. Right." I begin to fiddle with the glass again and Ajrater snatches it from me deftly, barking a laugh. "I guess I just needed to be reminded of how it feels to be home," I say, unable to really verbalize it.
"Where's Susan?" Ajrater asks curiously.
The pain bites into me, fresh as the day I lost her. I'd forgotten that Ajrater and Susan used to be friends. It had gotten so easy to see Susan as my granddaughter, only that, pressed into a page and preserved in my memory along with the rest of my people. But Susan had lived, breathed, loved, touched lives as much as I destroy them.
My voice breaks when I murmer, "Gone."
Ajrater goes still. No life-force drains out of her, not yet, though I suspect it will later.
"For a long time now," I add, repeating Ajrater's earlier words.
Pushing myself off of the barstool, unable to keep myself from looking at the one that Susan had occupied so long ago. The fungus wilts under my inspection, the barstool flinching away as though I've struck it.
"I need to go," I manage through gritted teeth. Slapping down some money on the bar and sparing Ajrater a last, tortured look, I hurry back to the safety of the TARDIS.
The universe, for the first time in a very long time, doesn't make anything better. Maybe it never did, I muse as I lean against the open door of the TARDIS and stare at the passing beauty that is the Andromeda Galaxy. Normally, when everything goes wrong, all I have to do is take to the stars and the ache inside goes away. Even if for a little bit, the ache goes away.
But not this time.
This time, I look at the universe, at the dancing colors, and I feel weary.
I am nine hundred and six and I feel old. I have lost so much, had to leave so many people behind. Just thinking about it seems ridiculous, because I have been granted the treasure that is regeneration. As a Time Lord, I have the power to explore every universe imaginable. I can touch the stars and yet I sit here, mourning.
The tug comes then, and I nearly sob with relief. How undignified, is all I have time to think before I'm being swept away through the Void.
I'm in what appears to be an airplane hangar. The silver panels overhead have been welded together seemlessly, though they aren't a material found in the human world.
"I can't believe it's really you."
Peeping around a cylinder marked with a yellow toxic sign, I catch sight of Rose. Leaning against the wall in front of her is none other than Captain Jack Harkness. He's breathing hard, the watch/time-travel thing-a-ma-jig around his wrist beeping erratically. It only takes a second to realize that this is the Jack from my universe. In that same space of time, Rose has launched herself toward Jack, throwing her arms around him and grinning into the side of his neck. Her hair blankets her back, longer than ever. She's got it highlighted with bits of honey-brown now.
Staring at Jack, I swallow down the bitterness which is wondering how Jack can get here and hold Rose close while I'm stuck behind. Jack looks ecstatic to see Rose. Once he finally releases her, gripping her shoulders loosely, Captain Flirtation even offers up a smirk to Mickey.
"Oh, stop it," I mumble, unable to help myself.
"Quit it," Rose says with a little laugh, guiding Jack toward what looks vaguely like an airplane in the center of the hangar.
"What?" Jack asks, still grinning. "If I neglect my powers of sexual persuasion, they start to wilt!"
Rose rolls her eyes. "You'd flirt with a rock," she mumbles, coming to a stop by the steps leading up into the airplane.
"You know me too well," Jack answers.
Mickey rolls his eyes, still standing a few feet away from the pair, closer to Rose. He keeps glancing at Rose as if he's afraid she'll run off with this intruder. He's jealous, I realize. After all this time, Mickey-Mc-Mickey is still trying to keep the spark alive between him and Rose. Though from the little look Rose gives Mickey, I have to wonder if he's the only one trying.
"How'd you even get here anyway?" Mickey asks, not even trying to hide his hostility.
"Yeah," Rose says, eyeing Jack curiously. "That's a good question. How did you get here?"
"The universe is a crazy place," Jack answers simply, keeping his face blank. Rose doesn't look convinced but Mickey dismisses the subject with a shrug, accepting Jack's answer. "So, what do we have here?"
A grin splits Rose's face then, immediate and infectious. I feel myself smiling just looking at her.
"I've been working on it for awhile now," Rose says, beginning to ascend the steps. I slink out from my hiding place, wondering I'll still be visible like I was on Christmas. But it appears not. No one looks in my direction, even when I slap my trainers purposefully in a noisy fashion.
"C'mon then," Rose continues, beckoning Jack up. He shrugs, following her. Mickey gives them one last, uneasy look before heading off to the other end of the hangar where a huge table with paperwork sits waiting for him. I take the stairs after Rose and Jack.
I find them by the cock-pit. They're seated in the two chairs, overlooking a vast array of buttons that are practically begging to be pushed. I keep my distance, knowing I'll be too tempted should I step closer.
"Is this what I think it is?" Jack asks slowly. He narrows his eyes, studying Rose. "You're not still..."
"I'll always be working on that," Rose answers mysteriously, "as long as I live. But until then, I've got this." She flips a few levers and a 3D screen lights up in front of us, glowing green, showing a detailed map of what appears to be this universe. "It took me awhile to figure out. I had to rewire the stabilizers so that, once I left this universe, the pressure wouldn't tear her to pieces." Rose runs a loving hand over the dashboard.
It's not an airplane, I think to myself as Rose continues educating Jack about the technical aspects of what she's built. It's a spaceship. Rose Tyler has built herself a spaceship. Pride swells in my chest along with a sense of dread. She could get hurt, going out there all alone. What is she thinking?
"You're brilliant," I breathe, watching each shift of her face. Her brown eyes are beaming, her mouth animated and her hands gesturing every which way. "You're so brilliant."
Rose reaches out, flicking the levers off and dismissing the 3D screen. The engine hums as it cools off.
"So, how did you really get here?" Rose asks, leaning forward into Jack's personal space.
Jack stares back at her, mouth working as he tries to get a read on Rose's reason for asking. At last, he clears his throat and taps his watch/teleporter. "I can travel through time and space with this."
Rose presses her lips together and as I see her face light up with hope I nearly turn away.
"So, you could bring me back to him?" Rose asks calmly. Her fingers are twitching on her lip, though, and Jack captures them in his hands.
"It doesn't work like that," Jack answers her as gently as possible.
Rose blinks and her fingers quiver more forcefully. "Why not? You got here, didn't you? Damn it, Jack, you know how much I want to-"
"Rose," Jack snaps. She snaps her mouth shut. "I wish I could bring you back, I do. But I can't." He reaches up with one hand but Rose leans back, the hope shattering in her eyes. "I died several times alone making this trip."
"Then how are you-"
"That's a conversation for another time," Jack says, cutting Rose off smoothly.
Rose doesn't cry. She doesn't yell, or demand for answers. She just sits there, her eyes curiously blank. When at last Rose's mouth opens, all she says is, "It's been nearly two years."
"I know," Jack murmers.
"I guess I just thought...it's stupid, really, but he's the Doctor, you know?" Rose stumbles over her words. She crosses her arms over her stomach, fingers pressing into skin as though greeting a little one. "He's capable of anything, and I thought that maybe, he might..." Her voice wavers then.
"There's five of us now. Mum, Dad, Mickey...and the baby."
He's not quite sure what to say when he hears that. His eyes drift to her stomach. It's been a month.
"You're not."
It couldn't be, though. He chances a look up at her, expression tender.
She laughs, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "No, it's mum."
Rose forces a smile, sweeping a hand through her hair. "It was always more than him, though," she breathes with a little laugh, gesturing toward the panel of little buttons. Her eyes flick toward Jack, glazed over with awe, with memories. "Going out there, seeing all of those different worlds...it's spectacular, Jack. I can't stay away from that."
I lean a little more heavily on the wall. This is what makes Rose different, this attitude. She was the first companion in a long time who came along to see the stars. Martha and Donna both, though lovely women, came first and foremost because of me. Only later, once they saw beauty beyond their wildest imagination, did it become more than following around a Time Lord. Rose was born to live among the stars. She was born to journey through burning cities and countless civilizations, whether I'm by her side or not.
"Well, I'll have to join you sometime," Jack says, patting her knee. "Just be careful. You'd know he'd be devastated if you were gone."
"Yeah, I know," Rose answers. She rises, pushing her seat forward until it's half hidden under the control panel. "I should probably go find Mickey. He'll think I've abandoned him."
"I should be getting back," Jack says. I squeeze myself between them as they leave the ship, the lapels of my coat nearly brushing Rose's back. From here, I can catch her scent. The hint of flower is still there, though it's faded. Now she wears a combination of sweat and something like stardust on her skin. It's mesmerizing. I inhale it, fascinated.
"Already?" Rose asks, disappointed.
"Yeah." Jack reaches out for her and she goes willingly, arms wrapping tightly about his sturdy frame. "You know me, always ready to die." He pulls away, taking several giant steps back. Flashing Rose his signature smile, Jack Harkness presses a button on his watch and is quickly swallowed up in blue light.
Rose stares at the space where Jack had vanished for a long moment before sighing and heading over to where Mickey is. I follow, of course, wondering why I haven't been sucked back into my universe yet. Not that I'm complaining.
"How's it goin', Mick?" Rose asks as she joins her friend.
Mickey looks up from a pile of papers marked with the Torchwood logo, face taut. "He gone?"
"Yeah."
"You don't look happy about it," Mickey points out as he makes his way around the table to stand in front of Rose. Grabbing her hands, Mickey guides her back toward the very corner of the room.
"How could I be?" Rose frowns, exhaling as Mickey pushes her lightly into one of the hangar's side panels. "I never thought I'd see Jack again, at least not Jack from the real universe."
"This universe is real," Mickey says. He pushes himself into Rose's space, his expression filled with understanding. I growl at the way his hands weave around Rose's back, pressing their bodies together until they're flush. Perhaps I wouldn't be so angry if Rose were in the moment, willing, but right now her mind's a million miles away, snug in the TARDIS.
"I'm real," Mickey breathes against Rose's throat. She shivers, hands coming up to rest on his chest.
"You know how I feel about that," Rose speaks at last. Her eyes are still blank, a little too dark for my liking. "This is never going to be my universe. I'll never belong here."
"Not even if I'm here?" Mickey drags his mouth across her jaw before pulling back to look Rose in the eye. Before she can speak, Mickey presses their lips together softly, a promise of what's to come. Rose remains still, the mask slowly crumbling from her eyes until those beautiful, brown irises looks dull with age.
I step closer to them, my hands drawing into claws. My first instinct is to drag Mickey away, because even though he doesn't have evil intentions, though he cares about Rose, he doesn't know her. Mickey knew the girl who held his hand and told him about her listless days at the little shop she worked at. Rose has long since changed and it's so subtle that I can't blame Mickey for missing it. All the same, I want to tear him off of Rose and haul him to the other side of the room.
"You've still got Mister Mickey, then."
Consolation prize. Mickey's worth more than that, but right now there's nothing else to compare it to, he thinks.
"I was here for you every time he flew off," Mickey says roughly, pressing kisses along her jaw, on her nose. "I was here. If we're here, aren't I enough?"
"Mickey," Rose breathes, face just a little too blank.
He kisses her again, harder this time. Harsher, as though it'll chain Rose to his side.
"Mickey," she says again. This time, there are tears in her eyes, the first I've seen since curling up with Rose in her bed.
Mickey looks at her, just looks.
"Here you are, living a life, day after day. The one adventure I could never have."
It's meant to dissuade her, to show Rose that this is better than trying to keep up with him as she ages and withers away.
But it doesn't work. It hasn't, not for awhile now, not for either of them. They're just in too deep.
"Am I ever gonna see you again?"
He can't take seeing her cry. Not her.
"You can't."
They shatter together.
"I can't," Rose says through her tears, blinking and reaching up to brush them away. She hasn't allowed it for a long time, I think, hearts heavy as I watch Rose's chest heave against Mickey's. But this time, it can't be stopped. "I can't, Mickey. I'm sorry." The dam breaks. Tears flood Rose's brown eyes, streak down her cheeks. Rose crumples against Mickey, wrapping her arms around her friend's neck as she sobs.
"Shh, it's alright," Mickey whispers into Rose's ear, rocking them back and forth. "I've got you."
This is the first time I voluntarily walk away. As I reach the edge of the spaceship, Rose's fantastic creation, I look back at the two of them. Rose isn't making any noise. She has her head pressed to Mickey's shoulder and as she stares in the direction of her ship, silent tears roll down to caress her jaw.
I clamp my mouth shut against my own tears, staring resolutely at Rose's face, memorizing it again.
I'm sorry. One tear slips past my defenses. I'm so sorry.
I drift away to the scent of stardust.
to be continued
a/n: Not sure how I felt about this one. Too much drama. Oh well. The entire section on the moon in orbit without a planet (which I've shifted the laws of physics to allow,) the location at least, is made up, but I was referencing things from the very first Doctor. Hope I did alright with that.