Egyptian Tahtib: Into the Desert
Her arms full with a large, awkward, blanket-wrapped bundle, Rose carefully let herself in the door of their temporary home a couple of hours later, to be greeted by Tock's tail thumping on the floor. The pooch looked worn out from his long day of time jumping and investigating an incredible array of new smells.
Just beyond him, Jared sat at the little table, his head propped on one fist, eyes closed. He jerked awake at the noise, blinking hard and looking a little befuddled. "Sorry. I must have dozed off." He didn't exactly jump up with his usual energy, though.
Rose carefully set her package on the table. "You OK?"
"Yeah. It was... weird, though. I was out looking at the camel-seller's animals, and all of a sudden I got this blinding headache, just like that." He snapped his fingers, then rubbed his face.
"A headache? You never get headaches." Uh-oh. She stepped around behind him and started massaging his shoulders, in order to hide her face.
"I know. That's why it was so weird. It faded out after a few minutes. But I guess I'm still feeling a bit twinge-y."
Rose took a step closer, directly behind him, and gently pulled his head back against her chest. "Come here. Just relax." She started gently rubbing his temples, a slow, soothing circular motion. "Was that it? Just a headache?"
"Mm-hmm. That feels good." His eyes were closed again, and he slowly relaxed against her.
She smiled softly. Good. He didn't notice the TARDIS messing with his memory. She'd instinctively decided to say nothing about it. He didn't need to know; it would ruin the much-needed boost to his battered self-esteem to find out that his restored knowledge of languages (if it had even worked) had come from the TARDIS, at her urging no less, and not from somewhere inside himself.
After a few minutes, Jared reached up and gently took her hands, pulling them down to his chest. She leaned over to rub her cheek against his. "Much better," he murmured. "Thanks."
Rose nibbled his ear, then whispered mischievously, "So... did you get us some camels?"
He snorted. "Yes, I got us a good pair of riding camels. And saddles, and bridles, and other assorted paraphernalia. And even a quick riding lesson, as we took them around to Selim's compound – it's just a few blocks from here." He twisted his neck around to give her a kiss, then returned the mischievous attitude. "So what kinds of goodies did you get?"
They unwrapped her haul and went through it: portable, not-too-perishable food, enough for a few days, including rice, chickpeas, dried meat, figs and dates; two warm blankets and a small bundle of primitive matches; a pair of small, sharp knives in leather sheaths, one for each of them. There were also a pair of small leather bags, one filled with coffee and one with sugar, and a battered old cooking pot, which had obviously been used over many an open flame. And lastly, over her shoulder, Rose had slung the cords of four large water skins.
"How did you manage to get all this?" It was an impressive pile.
"Just gathered it all together, and then offered them a single gold coin. They argued a bit between them, probably about how to divide it, but then accepted it." She nodded at his raised eyebrow's unspoken point. "Yeah, if you look at it one way, I probably paid way too much – way more than a local who could haggle with them would. But I figured it was worth that much to us. Besides, I have the distinct feeling that the French aren't paying for anything, so this might make up for a bit of that."
"I'm sure they appreciate it," was his complement. "But what about Tock?"
She grinned. "He likes our food better than his, anyway. He can eat the meat and rice for a few days; it won't hurt him, and I made sure to get plenty of both."
"Molto bene, buon piano!" Rose blinked, then smothered a smile. Italian?
Suddenly, he winced again, rubbing his forehead with one hand.
"Still twinge-y?" she asked.
"Just a bit."
They were standing side-by-side, and she turned to reach up and wrap her arms around his neck. "I think I know what the problem is," she told him seriously.
"What?"
"You've been away from the Enterprise for too long." A beat, while his expression turned mystified, then her mouth twisted in a teasing, sardonic smirk. "Jean-Luc Picard."
Jared immediately cracked up, letting loose his infectious giggle, with Rose a beat behind him. "I can't believe you used that name!" she laughed, poking him in the chest.
"It was the only French name I could come up with on the spot that wasn't from this time period!" he explained. Suddenly his face cleared, jaw dropping as lightning struck. "That explains it!"
"What?" Her turn to be mystified – and wary. "The headaches?"
"No," he deadpanned, looking sideways down at her. "The sudden urge to shave my head."
She was not amused. "Touch that hair, and I'll divorce you."
"We're not married yet," he reminded her, mouth quirking.
"Touch that hair, and we won't be," she amended without skipping a beat.
"All righty, then. Cancel the barber." His twinkling eyes then narrowed. "I knew it. You're only marrying me for my hair."
"Yup!" she agreed sunnily, and began running her fingers through said unruly curls.
Leaning over, he began snogging her thoroughly, slowly walking her backwards at the same time. "You know," he murmured against her lips, "I have heard about a sure-fire cure for headaches."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. Think you could help me out with that?"
She drew her head back to give him her best innocent look. "What, you want an aspirin?" The back of her calves touched the divan.
"Only if that's a new position," he smirked.
Laughing throatily, she grabbed his lapels and pulled, tumbling together with him back onto the divan.
^..^
The following dawn found them leading their new mounts quietly towards the shoreline, having risen an hour before to retrieve them from Selim's place. The Egyptian was up already, and helped them load up, then lead them out of the town, avoiding the roving French guard. The town of Suez was actually perched on the western shore of the Red Sea, a couple of miles south of the northernmost tip. At low tide, however, the water retreated far enough to ride straight across the shoals to the Sinai side. Selim had divined their destination at once the day before, and given Jared directions, and also told him about the tides, including the fact that they would be at their lowest just after dawn. And so they were, the bare damp sands stretching east from the point on the bank where Selim waved them off.
"In fact," Jared informed Rose, slipping once more into his old role of guide through history, "that's most likely how Moses himself got the Israelites out of Egypt: at low tide. He didn't actually part the Red Sea, just waited for the right moment."
"So Pharaoh's soldiers didn't drown?"
"They might have. The tide comes rushing back here faster than it does at Mont St Michel. It's easy to get caught out in the middle and swept away if you're not careful."
"Is it safe?" She looked around nervously; they were already a mile out on the wet sands.
"Of course," came the immediate reply. "Caravans have been traversing this way for centuries. The locals know the tide schedules instinctively."
Reassured, Rose put it out of her mind and went back to enjoying the adventure. Here I am, she thought, riding across the Red Sea in Egypt, perched on the back of a camel, two hundred years before I was born. She couldn't keep from grinning, and Jared caught and returned the grin, and didn't have to ask why.
Their camels, the one-hump dromedary variety found in this part of the world, were on the smaller side, which was fine, since they didn't intend to take them for any terribly long distances. Rose's was a light sandy tan, while Jared's was darker, more brown than tan. If they had Arabic names, Jared hadn't been told, so they were christened Sandy and Brownie by their new owners, who giggled at the British banality. Tock had circled warily for a time, while the camels eyed him suspiciously in return, but finally the three of them had seemed to reach a detente, if not a friendship, and the dog was now trotting happily alongside the little caravan of two.
They made it across and up the other bank before the tide began to turn, and Jared turned their camels' noses southeast towards the small oasis containing the spring at which legend had Moses stopping for water after the crossing. The pyramid was said to appear just to the north of the oasis.
They fell back into companionable silence on the way, lulled by the famed camelid rocking motion. With leisure to think uninterrupted for the first time since it had happened, Rose began to review her instant decision not to tell Jared of having seen the Doctor – and sending him packing. No, she reconfirmed at length. There's no point. I'll find other ways to tell him that he's my choice. If he finds out that the Doctor was here, and he didn't get a chance to see him or the TARDIS, that I didn't come find him and tell him, I don't know how he'll react, but it probably wouldn't be positive. And if he twigs that it was the TARDIS who resupplied the languages, especially if he finds out I asked her to do it, it would undermine all the gains he's making, all the good that would come from having them back. No.
The previous two years since their return to Beta had not been easy, for either of them, but especially for the half-Time Lord, half-human Jared. He seemed to be two people sometimes, one side the Doctor, and one side the brassy red-headed human male counterpart of Donna, and it had been a heavy struggle to integrate the two sides into a single whole, without losing the parts that (he thought) Rose had loved best – on top of dealing with all that he had lost in the transaction. He often sank into a blue funk, hating himself, his fate, and the whole parallel world, and Rose had had her hands full dealing with him then, as well as trying to heal her own wounds.
Gradually, though, over the last few months, his wilder side had seemed to calm down, the manic highs and soul-sucking lows had begun smoothing out, and both of them became more open and accepting of each other, and the possibilities of their new life together. So finally, they had at last set the long-awaited date for the wedding. Rose grimaced to herself. If we manage to get back in time. She glanced sideways, catching a glimpse of the time jumper attached to Jared's wrist. Hopefully that thing will be more accurate than the TARDIS sometimes was. Although she'd never had any way to determine whether those misses were the fault of the ship, or the pilot. She shrugged. Ancient history now, she thought with a fleeting mental grin for the double-entendre. It occurred to her that she was blithely assuming that they would be able to accomplish whatever was needed to split Beta off. Well, of course we will! If the others could do it solo, certainly Team Wolfe can do it together! Although she admitted she wasn't happy about the idea of making somebody disappear – let alone a couple thousand somebodies as Beta's history seemed to indicate. She didn't want blood on her hands.
Speaking of blood... Having settled the question of Jared, she turned to her own reactions, replaying the scene in the TARDIS again. Her hand tingled at the memory of the slap, and a small, satisfied smile crept across her face. She wasn't the vindictive type, but damn, that had felt good. Just a little bit of payback for the hell she'd been through. Even if it was a cliché.
And the rest? she asked herself. She thought again of his answer to her "Why?": he wanted her to be happy. Happier than she could have been with him in the long run – and maybe the short run, too. He certainly did seem to be a completely different man now, as drastic a change as the one she had witnessed herself. And not for the better, as far as she was concerned. But then, any change away from the Doctor she had loved could only inevitably be for the worse in her view. But the fact that "her" Doctor had not "lived" much longer after their parting (according to what he had said) only made it all even easier to accept and process.
And that was it, she realized. The encounter now felt like closure, and it was. The poison had been leeched, and the wound was finally healed – the tiny remaining scar on her heart would not hold her back from anything. Now that she had had this glimpse of his future, she need never be curious about it again. She could at last turn without any remaining regrets to her own – hers and Jared's. She wouldn't be clinging to her memories of her life in the TARDIS through the years, like Sarah Jane had seemed to be doing (although she could be wrong about that, she admitted). Thinking of that other companion, she hoped that she had also found closure and been able to move on at last.
"There it is!" Jared called out in a low voice, breaking into her thoughts and pointing ahead to the spot of dusty green which had appeared in a shallow fold between the low desert hills. "Ayun Musa, the Wells of Moses."
Not much of an oasis, thought Rose, ruefully surveying the stunted scrub bushes and handful of tattered, dusty palm trees scattered across a bare half-acre and comparing them to the inevitable lush tropical paradises depicted in countless movies. She shook her head to rid herself of them; yet another Hollywood-inspired misconception shot to hell.
Jared led them into the oasis, cushed the camels onto their knees, and they slid off, then he slipped the rope hobbles around the camels' back ankles to keep them from wandering away. Taking Rose's hand, he then led her northward into the empty waste, peering and sniffing.
"It can't be far," he murmured.
There was no sign at all of anything out of the ordinary, no square of crushed sand that betrayed the presence of an unseen monument, no animal trails that suddenly swerved around an invisible impediment. They quartered the ten acres or so and crossed it three times, four... nothing. Rose was just about to suggest they break for lunch when suddenly Jared stopped, peering straight ahead and sniffing the air.
"Wait... wait..." was all he said. Then he stopped again, his head wilting to his chest, letting out an exasperated huff. "Jared Blue Wolfe, try not to be so bloody thick!" he castigated himself, and then reached into his pocket and pulled out the old sonic screwdriver, dialed up a setting, and began scanning the area with it.
Nothing at first. He tried a couple different settings, and then... the air before them rippled. "HAH!" He backed up a couple of steps and intensified the sonic's power, moving it around in a slow circle towards the spot.
Looking back and forth between him and the desert, Rose gasped, her eyes opening wide. Slowly, gradually, a triangular mirage was swimming into view out of the desert heat waves. It rose majestically up from the sands, darkening and solidifying, until finally it was suddenly, solidly, undeniably there before them: a smooth-sided, ominous, jet-black pyramid, gleaming malevolently in the Sinai sun.