**Notes: First, I should know better by now... when I post chapters in the middle of the night, it never bumps up the time of my last update listed. Second, I'm far too impatient to get chapters posted. Anyway, I hope you like getting two chapters again today and please keep the comments coming!**
Chapter Four – Who's Doing the Rescuing?
The oldest Doctor and Doctor Tyler were waiting in the bushes as they watched the past Rose looking around and trying to get the attention of a very distracted looking leather clad Doctor.
"Ok," the scottish Doctor began, "probably, when the explosion happens, there will be a rush of people trying to get away from it. In that mob, someone will grab Rose and take her away. So, we just have to keep a close eye on her and follow them."
"That sounds reasonable," said Doctor Tyler as he looked around.
"Focus! We can't afford to miss it," the Doctor chastised.
The oldest Doctor and Doctor Tyler felt the older Rose's worry for all of them when suddenly both of them as well as the past Rose were all caught in the field of a stun grenade.
Rose and the Doctor that she had pushed into safety watched as everyone that had been knocked out by the grenade were dragged into a nearby building with two armed men preventing anyone from stopping them. Among the people taken away, were the past Rose and both future Doctors. They heard the gunmen shouting that they wanted to talk to the government to make their demands.
"Doctor," Rose said in greeting as she tried to help him up off the ground. He pulled away from her and eyed the woman suspiciously. He definitely felt a connection with her.
"You aren't Rose Tyler. Why did you tell me that?" the Doctor in leather demanded with his arms folded across his chest.
"I am actually. We probably don't have a lot of time for explanations, both about me and the two that I'm with," she sighed as she decided that it was best to get all the explanations out of the way rather than have him asking later why there were two Doctors. "Can I share a few memories with you? It would be faster."
He looked at her warily for a moment, then nodded. At that, Rose touched her hand to his temple and pushed towards him her memories of the Game Station and his regeneration (including the sword fight where he lost his hand), their separation at Canary Wharf, their reunion with the aborted regeneration, the creation of the meta-crisis Doctor, being left in the parallel universe and their running back here after her regeneration. Just to be sure that he wouldn't treat Doctor Tyler badly, she also included the memory of the sharing of her regeneration energy to make him fully Time Lord again.
When they broke apart and opened their eyes, he gasped and stared at her wide-eyed. Once the Doctor could get his mouth to connect with his brain again, he managed to choke out, "Rose?"
"Do you trust me now, Doctor?" Rose asked. "We need to work together if we're going to rescue the past me and the other two Doctors."
"Yes, of course," he said, but still seemed to be trying to recover from the shock of the memories she had shared of his future with her.
Rose decided that she needed to take charge while he gathered his wits. "Before the explosion, I saw those four men hanging around near the ferris wheel. I lost sight of them when you arrived until just before they set off that stun grenade. We should probably see if there's another way into the building, since they're guarding the front doors." She took his hand and pulled him with her towards the back of the structure where the hostages were taken.
"Right, another entrance," he agreed as his brain started functioning properly again. "Good plan."
They found a window, but he needed to boost her up on his shoulders to be able to see inside. She could see all of the hostages spread out on the floor with two armed men watching over them. Her past self was still out cold, but she could feel the other two Doctors starting to wake up. ~'I can see you,'~ she told Doctor Tyler. ~'We're outside the window at the back. We'll look for another way inside to help all the hostages escape.'~
~'Nice work, Lewis,'~ he thought back to her. ~'We'll try to get everyone ready to move as soon as it's clear.'~
As the Doctor came back to awareness, he could feel Doctor Tyler nearby and future Rose not far away. He didn't have the deep connection with Rose that his counterpart did, so he couldn't feel the past Rose, but the other Doctor would. What if she felt the connection? That could be a problem. He could feel that Doctor Tyler was waking up now too and thought to him, ~'Can you block your connection with the past Rose? She won't understand what it is when she wakes up.'~
~'Nice to hear you too. I'm fine by the way, thanks for asking,'~ Doctor Tyler snarked. ~'I'm going to try to dampen it as much as I can. She isn't telepathic yet, so it won't be as strong and being out of her time stream will muffle it a bit too. If I shield it from her, she might not notice it. What do we tell her though? She doesn't know about regeneration yet, we can't say either of us is the Doctor.'~
~'You're right,'~ the Doctor grumbled. ~'I guess we'd better think on the name issue quickly now.'~
~'Rose and old big ears are outside. They are looking for another entrance so we can get the hostages out of here,'~ Doctor Tyler told him. ~'I've been thinking about the name thing, too. The Doctor was a promise and I think any new names we choose should be a promise as well.'~
The Doctor thought about that while he subtly scanned the unconscious Rose near them. He motioned for Doctor Tyler to move with him, closer to her. The guards didn't seem surprised that some of their captives were starting to wake up and just stood menacingly with their guns. The room looked like some kind of banquet hall. It was probably rented out for parties or special events in the park. Other than the front doors, there were washrooms and what looked like a door to a kitchen near the back. The floor was hardwood and the walls were painted a cream colour.
"She's alright," the Doctor said quietly.
"Good," Doctor Tyler replied. "It doesn't look like anyone was seriously injured. Let's just watch until we can see who's in charge before making any moves. Then we need to figure out what they want before we know who is the most dangerous in this situation." They were both reluctant to leave Rose's side and for the moment, their captors weren't hurting anyone.
Rose began to stir before long. "Doctor?" she mumbled.
"Take it easy," Doctor Tyler said as he helped her to sit up.
"Who are you? What happened?" she asked as she tried not to panic at the strange situation.
"We're friends of the Doctor," the Scottish Doctor told her. "We were about to say hello earlier but everyone was knocked out by a stun grenade. Don't worry, we'll keep you safe."
"Where's the Doctor?" Rose asked as she assessed whether or not to trust these strangers.
"He's outside, trying to find another entrance to the building. They are guarding the front doors. We are telepathic, like the Doctor, so we are able to communicate with him," Doctor Tyler told her quietly so that the guards wouldn't overhear. It wasn't exactly true that they could talk to him, but he could talk to the other Rose and she could pass along a message.
"Ok, you still haven't told me who you are," Rose said as she accepted their story for now.
"My name is Evander," said the older Doctor.
"And I'm Alex," answered the Doctor in pinstripes.
They looked at each other briefly and nodded in acknowledgement of their choices and the meanings that went with them. They would explain them to Rose later. These were the new promises to be added to being the Doctor.
"Nice to meet you," she replied. "I'm Rose. How did you know I was a friend of the Doctor? You seemed to be helping me, specifically."
"We saw you talking with him," Evander said as he leaned against the wall and sat with his clasped hands perched on his knees in front of him. "As I said, we were about to approach the two of you to say hello."
"No one seems to be seriously hurt," Alex assured her. He sat in front of her and leaned to the side on one arm, facing away from the guards. "We need to find out which of them is in charge, then find out what it is they are after with all of this."
Rose hopped down from the Doctor's leather clad shoulders and smiled at him. "All of the hostages are being held in one area at gunpoint. Most of them are starting to wake up now. The other Doctors said they'll try to have everyone ready to move as soon as we can find a way to get them out of there."
"Ok, we still don't know what they want," he answered as he crossed his arms again.
"There are two of you in there that are in a much better position to babble them into submission than we are. Let's focus on getting those people to safety for now and let them worry about defusing the hostiles, alright?" Rose replied as she mirrored his stance. He may have intimidated her a bit before, but she knew what she was capable of now. With three Doctors and two Roses here, no one needed to take on the whole situation by themselves.
The Doctor was in awe of this new Rose. She was confident, intelligent and still had an unwavering compassion for people. And he was going to marry her! He was suddenly incredibly turned on by the idea and tried to tamp down on that feeling as he visually scanned the building for entrances.
Rose felt a sudden wave of lust coming from her first Doctor. She giggled quietly to herself at his reaction to her assertive behaviour and wondered if she might sneak in a snogging session with this Doctor before the day was out. She had always wanted to touch him when she was nineteen, but he was so off limits at the time.
They found a back door and Rose sonicked the lock. He raised an eyebrow at her and she smirked back. They found themselves in a dark kitchen and could see some light coming from under the door on the far side of the room. They quietly made their way to the doorway that led into the main room, but Rose was worried about being seen if they tried to look through.
"Hang on," she whispered then thought to Doctor Tyler, ~'We're in the kitchen. I'm not sure where that is in relation to you, I'm afraid to be seen if we open the door.'~
~'It's a fair distance. I don't know if we can get people over there without creating a distraction. We've told this Rose that we are friends of the Doctor. I've told her my name is Alex and the other Doctor introduced himself as Evander, just so you know. If you meet yourself here, it might be best to use Sagacity again.'~
~'Alright, I'll talk with this Doctor about the possibility of a diversion so we can get those hostages out of there. When they were moving all of you inside here, they shouted something about wanting to talk to the government to make demands,'~ Rose replied.
~'I'm going to see if I can figure out what it is that they are after. We might be able to help or at least get a sense of how dangerous they are,'~ Doctor Alex Tyler informed her. She sent him a little mental kiss as she returned her focus to the Doctor beside her.
"He said the kitchen door is too far to get people here without some kind of distraction. Any ideas?" Rose asked the Doctor that was in the dark kitchen with her.
"Well, we could hack into the electrical and knock out the lights or set off the fire alarm to start the sprinklers, but I don't know if any of that would be enough to have them take their eyes off of the prisoners. In fact, something like that might make them more trigger happy and nervous," he answered as he ran through scenarios in his head. "What would be the most helpful is something big outside those front doors. Enough to grab all of their attention, so that even the ones guarding the hostages don't want to be left out."
"Could we build something? I don't know something to make a loud alarm noise or knock them all unconscious or something?" Rose asked him.
He thought for a moment about what he had in his pockets and looked around the kitchen to see what small appliances were at hand. "Maybe. We would need to have them all in the same room and it would knock all of the hostages out again. Using some of the parts in here combined with the sonic, I should be able to produce a sonic pulse that will affect their inner ear in such a way that they'll be out for at least a few minutes."
"That should work, do you have a frequency modulator in those pockets of yours? I might be able to adjust it so that the fluctuation will put them out for longer," Rose said as she checked her own pockets. All she found was psychic paper, her own sonic screwdriver and a banana.
The Doctor was looking at her in awe and practically drooling. She felt a wave of overwhelming lust from him before she found herself pinned against the cabinets by a broad shouldered, leather clad, Doctor. His tongue was in her mouth and his hips were pressed up against hers in a way that made it completely obvious what he was thinking about. Rose wrapped her arms around his neck and groaned into his mouth.
Suddenly, she felt Doctor Tyler questioning her, ~'Umm, Rose my love, is there something I should be aware of? Your emotions seem to be straying towards an area that is a little unusual for our current situation.'~
Rose was feeling a little dizzy from the shock of being snogged senseless by her first Doctor as she thought back to her husband, ~'It isn't my fault that he finds my science talk as sexy as you do. He's snogging the living daylights out of me!'~
She eased him back off of her a bit and brought his attention back to the task at hand, "Doctor, I think we'd best get started on making that sonic amplifying device."
He grinned at her sheepishly and nodded as he started pulling things from his pockets and dumping them on the countertop. "Sorry, but you're dead sexy when you start talking like that. It's hard enough to keep my hands off the past you right now, but to know that we're married in the future is enough to make my brain short out." They started disassembling a blender and a microwave with their sonics as quietly as they could so that the people outside the kitchen wouldn't hear them.
Rose thought to Alex, ~'We're working on building something to make a sonic blast that will knock everyone unconscious. I'll let you know when it's ready.'~
~'Alright, I'm going to see if I can figure out what they want,'~ he replied.
"We need to find out what they want," Alex said to Evander. "I'm going to go chat up one of the guards. Why don't you see if any of the other captives have any idea who they are?"
"I can do that," the younger Rose said as she got up from the floor and looked for someone who might be willing to talk with her.
Evander gave a small smile as he watched her. ~'That is more her area. I'll try to get close to the ones talking near the door. Superior hearing and all; they won't know I can listen in on them.'~
Alex nodded to him and headed towards the closest guard. He always was good at getting people to talk in this incarnation. "Hello," he said with a smile, but only received a grunt in return.
"I couldn't help but notice that your group seems to be hoping for something. I don't suppose you'd tell me what it is? Just curious you know, what cause I might be dying for," he said in a friendly tone while he shoved both hands deeply into his pockets.
"We are part of the Outcasts. We only want what we've always wanted, acceptance and citizenship," the man answered him.
"I see," Alex said as he rubbed the back of his neck. "And why, exactly, are you... Outcasts?"
The guard rolled his eyes as he realized that Alex was unfamiliar with the political situation. "You're not from here," he said accusingly. "You'll never understand."
"Well... I'm trying to understand right now. I'd like to help if I can. That's what I do a lot of really, helping people," Alex replied.
The man looked Alex over as he evaluated his sincerity. With a sigh, he decided to explain, "Before the people on Transinia 3 are born, a scan is performed and if there are any abnormalities found, the pregnancy is terminated. Our mothers decided to hide and we were born with the other Outcasts. They call themselves Flawless. Maybe on the outside, but they don't even consider us real people because they think we were never supposed to have been born. But we are people! We feel and think just like everyone else!" He shouted and started to grab the attention of several of the other captives.
Alex did his best to try and calm him again before his frustration turned to hostility. "Hey, it's alright. I believe you. I agree with you." He put his hands out in a calming gesture. "We might be able to help and no one needs to get hurt. What do you say? Would you let us help you?"
"What could you do?" the guard asked derisively.
"We might have a way to get them to a negotiating table with you. And we don't need to have people at gunpoint to do it. Can we talk with the leader of your group?" Alex asked hopefully.
~'Hold off on any actions right now, I'm getting through to one of them at least,'~ Alex thought to both Evander and their wife.
The guard nodded and walked Alex over to the two men that were near the doors.
Rose acknowledged the message from Alex and said to the Doctor in the kitchen with her, "They might be getting through to the guards out there. Let's finish this anyway just in case, but wait before we use it."
"Sounds like a good idea," he replied. "No need to make things worse if we can find a peaceful solution instead."
"They told the past me that they are friends of yours since she doesn't know about regeneration yet," Rose told him. He nodded and looked a little guilty about the fact that she had to go through seeing that without understanding what was happening. Rose continued before he could apologize, "They've been thinking about new names to differentiate between them. They're both still the Doctor, so it wasn't fair for either of them to lose that. I don't know if it's what they decided on permanently or not, but they introduced themselves to the other Rose as Evander and Alex."
The Doctor stopped what he was doing for a moment, surprised at their choices. Looking at her thoughtfully, he said, "Those are probably their permanent choices. There are meanings behind both of those names. Things I try to be, that they are probably trying to be. Might be best to let them explain it though."
Rose nodded and they kept working quietly for a while. The Doctor was the one that broke the silence, "Why do you love me, Rose? I'm no prize, certainly not worthy of someone like you."
"Oh, Doctor," she sighed as she looked at the broken man in front of her. "You are the best man I've ever met. You showed me a better way of living. You taught me that we can't just sit around and let things happen; that we can make a real difference and help people."
He put down what he was working on and held his hand out to her. When she placed her hand in his, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly. She breathed in the scent of leather and TARDIS grease that she remembered so well. His next incarnation always seemed to smell of old books and tea. The newest Doctor was harder to place. He didn't hug her as much as the others had, so she hadn't placed his unique scent quite yet, but it was nice all the same, kind of like fresh spices or something.
She felt safe and comfortable in the arms of her first Doctor and sighed happily. Just then, Alex broke her reverie and informed her, ~'They've agreed to let all the hostages go, if we can get the President here to negotiate. I don't suppose you two could go and pick him up in the TARDIS? He's not likely to be a willing passenger.'~
~'I'm sure we can be quite persuasive,'~ she replied with a mental smirk.
"They want us to go pick up the President for a little meeting with the men out there and they'll agree to let everyone go," she told the Doctor who was still clinging to her tightly.
He sighed mightily and finally released her. "I suppose. Back to the TARDIS then, we've got some governmental buildings to infiltrate."