Text Key

"Audible speech."

'Directed thought, telepathic speech.'

Rise of the Cybermen / Age Of Steel

Chapter 16 – Au

John Lumic did not consider himself a soft man. The soft did not survive in this world. Life had long since rid him of any delusions about that fact. In reality, the universe was a forge; taking the raw material of man and refining it through its crucible, removing the dross from the quality, and, yes, sometimes that pieces of that quality metal was lost to chance or deliberate action. That was the risk in living in a universe defined by the rolling dice of an unseen God.

Sometimes Lumic wondered about that. What if certain pieces had been lost instead of others, if some lived where they had died, died instead of lived. Would his brother have transformed the world as John had if the odds had fallen in his favor when the ice on that lake cracked all those years ago? Somehow, he couldn't see Jacob achieving a quarter of what John Lumic had done. Was that because he was too ordinary or too gentle?

John Lumic cut off that train of thought before it evoked a nameable emotion. Nostalgia would serve him no purpose here. There was only the future, the dawning of his age. Jacob Lumic had no part in that, apart from providing the initial inspiration, and John would be damned if he allowed his brother to end it by inspiring some kind of guilt about what he had done.

What he had done was necessary to designing a future without pain or suffering. Surely his ghost would understand that. Lumic had given too much to give up now, too many years in research and study, too much of his soul in the pursuit of eternity to just let it slip out of his grasp now. Soon, he would give his life for it, this aching and failing body in exchange for a form of perfect steel.

He cast his eyes over the illuminated table full of blueprints and bits of metal and circuitry. Forty years' worth of designs, refined from the initial mad impulse into something tangible. Forty years. That's how long John Lumic had been dedicated to this project and he had no hesitation in calling it his magnum opus. The categorical defeat of death itself could be described as nothing less. Oh, there had been hiccups along the way, factors he had failed to take into consideration, but that was the nature of advancing technology and the purpose of prototypes.

Hobbling over to the table on his crutches, he picked up a piece of metal; a faceplate with a basic – some might even say over-simplistic – approximation of a human's face, with two circular eyeholes and a small rectangle for a mouth. A more fanciful mind might have pointed out that the shape of those eyes almost looked like they were crying, but Lumic didn't give much precedence to such whimsy.

Did some part of him feel guilt for the ones that had gone wrong? Perhaps. In their own way, the Cybermen were his children, produced from his brain as Athena was produced by Zeus, and it was the way of parents to feel guilt over the suffering of their children.

But they were alive. His process saw to that and, in light of their pain, he had refined it. There would be no more pain for the future generations of his children now, just as there was no more death in their future. His only regret was that there was no 'fixing' what had gone wrong with the ones that had come before, which was a pity. Most of them had been interesting people, people that John might have even genuinely liked.

Interns and underlings. A few intellects that had turned his original concept into more and more of a reality. One of his nurses that had been… John wasn't sure what she had been. Kind, he supposed. Certainly not condescending or pitying like others had been. Kind and gentle… but unyielding, even when there was no option left to her but to break. And then he had taken that broken body and made it anew. Imperfectly, sadly, but the brain had been too damaged to be fully salvageable.

At least it had proven that converting deceased material was impractical and ultimately a waste of resources.

After that… well, there were others. Some volunteers, others… less enthusiastic about their involvement. One of the most recent had been that nurse's teenage daughter; one last favor to the woman and a sort of apology for her current state.

It might have been a better one if the process hadn't gone horribly wrong again. Lumic had decided it was an object lesson; this time on dealing with immature mentally-ill brains. The emotional inhibiters and his method of picking out converts had since been refined and perfected. There would be no such slips again, in himself or his creations.

The fodder of his army, the ones that were perfect, would be nobodies. No names, no faces, no histories that any human part of John Lumic might sympathize with. No, he was doing them a favor, cutting out the weaknesses, the flaws in their flesh, and replacing it with something that wasn't defined by the circumstances of their birth or the color of their skin. They would never be cold, hungry, or ostracized ever again.

That he had been able to take so many of the homeless with scarcely a glimmer of concern from the rest of mankind was only proof that he was right.

'Is it?' some doubting voice seemed to ask.

It sounded all too similar to the voice of his brother, but before that doubt could crawl into John Lumic's mind properly, his Earpod rang. He picked up the call. "Lumic speaking."

"Mr. Lumic!" the bright voice of Peter Tyler chirped over the connection. "I was just calling to thank you for the lovely gift you sent Jackie."

"The jeweled Earpods. Yes, I thought she would appreciate access to the latest model. It will be several months before they will be available to the general public," Lumic replied. That was a lie. There would be no future models of Earpods. Oh, the factories were still producing the parts, certainly, but none of them were assembling those parts into the ear-mounted, brainwave-reading communication devices any longer. "Tell her to take care."

"Of course sir… does that mean you won't be attending her party? It would be a great honor, for both of us. Even the President is attending."

Lumic looked down at himself and the scaffold of braces that kept him upright, then lifted a hand free of his crutch, experimentally clenching the digits. While there was still the ever-present pain of a failing body, today had been good by even that low standard. Appropriate for the day of his ultimate triumph. "If my health permits it, I may. But I doubt I will be able to stay long, even if I do go. There is always work to be done, Peter. The bleeding edge is ever advancing and I –"

"– must rise to match it. Truly, Mr. Lumic, your work ethic is the stuff of legend," Peter Tyler finished. Wherever the man was standing, Lumic imagined that Tyler was making that odd bobbing half-bow of his, even though his employer was in no position to appreciate the subservient gesture. "Whatever your decision is, know that I will stand behind it, one-hundred percent."

"I would expect nothing less from my premier spokesperson. Lumic out." As soon as that call had ended, Lumic started another. "Mr. Crane. I believe I will be attending Jacqueline Tyler's birthday party tonight. Arrange for a platoon of Cybermen to be delivered onto the property covertly."

Crane did not resist. It was not in his nature, which was one of the reasons why John Lumic had chosen the man as his second in the Cyberman project. That and his ability to stay bought once bought no matter what depravity the job might sink to. This did not prevent the man from resenting others in Lumic's employ, however. "Pete Tyler is a small player, barely important to your master plan. Why do you bother with him?"

John Lumic might have rolled his eyes if he was given to such juvenile expressions. "Because unlike yourself, Mr. Crane, there's something innately likable about Peter Tyler. Perhaps it's the stain of his background that makes him less intimidating. The elite have nothing to fear from him, the rabble see one of their own. Whatever the reason, they trust him without knowing a thing about him. I believe the exact term is 'charisma'."

And if not for that charisma, Lumic would have probably dismissed the man the moment Tyler had sent him that pathetic pitch for his 'Vitex' drink. It was pure stupidity, a snake-oil product made by a man without a spark of talent in anything but networking, but it was something the inventor could turn into a viable product; after all, who would know how to make a health drink better than a man who knew almost everything there was to know about keeping a body alive?

It was a small enough trade in exchange for a resource more useful than mere capital.

"And what is that going to count for after tonight, sir?" Crane asked.

Lumic felt his lip attempt to curl into what could have been a smile or a grimace. "Absolutely nothing."

"Let's try that again."

Mickey leaned back from the pile of cards that was lying on the grating that made up the 'floor' of the console room. "Look, I'm clearly not cut out for… what's this game again?"

Both of us were sitting on the floor, and this had been my second attempt at walking Mickey through a certain card game. Rose and the Doctor were occupied with each other, giggling over something or other while sharing the command chair. I didn't much care, partially because none of them were really high in my personal regard – the Doctor had been climbing in the standings as of late, which was more than I could say for Rose – but also because I had a ready distraction in front of me.

And no limiter to keep me from multi-tasking or making smartass comments to my other selves.

"Blackjack," I said as I reshuffled the deck and let Zeke sync up to perform a bit of cardistry with the laminate cards as I focused on my explanation. Sleight of hand was his hat, not mine. Besides, this allowed him to enjoy the TARDIS's presence. "Object of the game is to get as close to a sum total of twenty-one points without going over or, in other words, 'going bust'. Number cards are worth exactly what they say, face cards are worth ten points each, and an Ace can be worth one or eleven points, depending on the rest of your cards. You start out with two cards and you need to look at those numbers and decide if the risk of going over twenty-one is worth taking."

"Sounds like you'd need a bit of luck to come ahead."

"Mmm. That's not an entirely unfair description, because – provided your dealer's an honest man – chance does define the cards you get. Of course, if you've got a sharp eye, a good memory, and a head for numbers, you could always take up card counting. So long as you're calculating it yourself without any outside help, it's a legal strategy." Zeke and I broke out of a chain of Charlier cuts to deal the cards again. Our hand only came up to fourteen, through a Ten and a Four of Spades, which would mean drawing again. "On the other hand, there's always the chance of getting Eighty-Sixed if you pull the trick too often."

Ten of Swords, the prospect of destruction and the stress of being pinned down by a multitude of situations. Betrayal, slander, the promise of an intangible thing coming to an end. Four of Swords, a warning to take a break from anxiety else mental anguish will follow. The prescription of space to provide perspective.

"Do I want to ask what that means?"

"Eighty miles out of town, six feet underground." Only a quarter of my focus was on the game itself. Half of it was on what I was teaching Mickey. Another twenty-five percent was casually translating the cards into Minor Arcana. "Modern usage just means 'refused service' or to get rid of something or someone, but the original etymology is unclear and considered lost, though my favorite is the Las Vegas mob casino explanation. But this is a lesson in gambling, not English."

"Card counting's not the real trick to playing Blackjack; the trick is leveling your greed with your fear," I said, resuming the lesson. "Figuring out what you stand to lose, what you stand to gain, and if the risk is worth it. A man that has nothing has nothing to lose."

Well, theoretically speaking. The sassier alters and my own argumentative streak could probably think of a couple dozen other things a man without money could lose. His autonomy, his reputation, his life, various organs…

Mickey looked at his hole card and then back at his visible card – the Two of Clubs. Two of Wands, power and success in one's career, possibly because of a mentor figure stepping in to teach the recipient. Alternatively, the card predicted the ending of partnerships, usually because of friction, miscommunication, and a failure to appreciate the other party's goals and motivations. "Hit me."

I hit him with an Ace – Hearts became Cups as my brain translated the card. New possibility and intuition or one-sided, emotionally draining relationships leading to a need to withdraw. It felt like a soft hand from this angle, though I was taking care not to accidentally 'peek' at my opponent's hole card with any kind of enhanced sight or psychic ability. I drew a card myself – another Two, in Hearts again.

Harmonious relationships of all possible types, foretelling the creation of new bonds and the strengthening of old. Reversed… disharmony abounds, though all is curable through a little time and understanding.

'How apropos,' Zeke said almost in an aside. 'For Time Lords and tarot both.'

'You read into things too much,' I thought back at him before turning my attention back to Mickey. "And a man that has everything has everything to lose… in the card game at least. A literalist interpretation –"

"What about a man who has just a bit? Hit me."

"Well," I said as I flipped another card at him. Eight of Hearts. The abandonment of an emotional relationship, where the promise of happiness had long since lost its shine and the best option available would be to leave. Mmm, weren't we feeling a touch of prophecy today? "He's got to decide whether or not what he has is worth gambling. If he's lucky, he could win something of greater value. If he's not…"

I pulled a card for myself. Six of Hearts.

Nostalgia, the act of taking joy from a past long gone. The promise of old connections resurfacing in the future, history casting light on the present, finding who you are through who you were. On the other hand, you couldn't move forward by always looking back. The memory cheats and a habit of self-hatred has long roots. Reaffirm your presence in the now by subtracting who you were and seeing what's left.

Also, it meant that I'd gone bust.

"Show me what's in the hole, Mickey," I said, revealing most of my collection of losing cards.

The boy grinned as he revealed a Ten of Spades, bringing his total to twenty-one.

Betrayal. The destruction of trust, usually through careless words and gossip. The end of something important; beliefs, relationships, careers, or a life. From rock bottom, there is no way left to go but up. A need to address and reverse negative thinking and certain deeply-held beliefs if one desires to grow. A self-fulfilling prophecy and the chance to buck the trend.

Wait… I checked my hole card again. How did a second Ten of Spades get into this deck?

"You're supposed to say something when you win, Mickey," I said, taking the cards back and going through the motions of shuffling again without giving away any of my growing concern. Something was wrong. The twinned card was just the most obvious sign at the moment, and I doubted whatever followed it up would be so unobtrusive. "Interested in another game?"

"Sure, why–"

The TARDIS lurched, cutting off anything else Mickey could say as we suddenly found ourselves in a human tumbler. The lights were flashing, the TARDIS was screaming, and gravity had gone from an absolute law to a mild suggestion like laws against jaywalking; technically enforceable but not really something worth bothering about most of the time, until something hit you.
Like the ceiling. Or the console. And then the floor again before making a sharp detour into the wall.

"What's happening?" Rose yelled from where she had been pinned to the command chair. Ah, so she hadn't gotten the joy of playing the part of human pinball. Either that or she had a better grip than initially assumed.

"The Time Vortex is gone!" the Doctor said as he tried to climb his way down the TARDIS's rotor and to the console. "Somehow – we've – fallen out – of the universe!"

I fell back towards the console, falling through the free-floating cloud of cards I'd dropped during the entire mess.

'It seems that we're playing 52-Card Pick Up now,' Zeke noted before I slammed stomach first into the rim of the console.

Ow. 'I swear to god, Zeke,' I thought back at him as I drew on another self's power set to repair the damage. 'I'm going to use up a summon charge just so I can push you off a real cliff.'

'You are aware I am capable of turning into a bird even without the benefit of our pooled abilities, right?'

'It's the thought that counts, you kitschy lawn gnome, and it's one that gives me some damn good satisfaction,' I shot back as gravity started to skew again, pulling me upwards. I snapped out a hand to the console's base and the TARDIS started drawing on me for power.

No Vortex, entering a universe incompatible with her existence… the TARDIS was probably taking everything she could get.

'She wouldn't –'

'I KNOW!' I snapped back to Zeke. She needed power? I'd give her power. I dug out a chunk of time dragon out of my shared soul and pushed it through our connection just as the Doctor managed to grab the lever he'd been reaching for.

The console exploded into a shower of sparks and smoke right as gravity reasserted itself, leaving the Doctor to flip over the controls and onto the grating, Mickey Smith to unpeel himself from the wall, and my body to introduce itself the floor yet again… this time back first.

Something – oxygen masks or Chameleon Arch set ups – dropped from the ceiling almost as an afterthought, the squeaking sound of rubber cords stretching and contracting the only accompaniment to the sizzling circuitry of the TARDIS console.

Mickey whimpered and there may or may not have been a small whine of pain on my part. Just because I could heal fast didn't mean I had a natural painkilling response other than 'adrenaline' and 'ignore it really hard'. The fact that I'd just torn out a chunk of my soul and linked the TARDIS my personal power pool didn't exactly help me either.

But on the other side of that pain and drain, I could feel something I couldn't since entering the Doctor's universe.

Magic.

It was like being stuck with a cold for so long you forgot what it was like to breathe easy and then suddenly finding your respiratory system working as intended. Except instead of only my lungs, it was part of my essential nature was suddenly restored to what it was meant to be. And better than that, I could take the edge off of the drain from feeding the TARDIS by pulling on that ambient magic.

The TARDIS hummed weakly, still present despite the unfamiliar physics of the place she had landed.

I let go of the breath I was holding and allowed the back of my head hit the grating. Good.

Good.

They were in the Void. There was no other explanation for how utterly dead his time sense was. It registered the passing of time, yes, but that was a purely internal clock. Anything on the outside of that was a great black yawning nothing, the sort of abyss that invited madness the moment one made the mistake of looking at it.

On the other hand, he could still feel the TARDIS. She was nowhere close to her usual vibrancy, a flickering candle compared to her usual star, but at least she was there. Whatever she was drawing on for power was barely a trickle compared to the ambient energy of the universe, but at least it seemed steady.

So long as it stayed that way, there was no danger of his oldest and dearest companion dying just yet.

"What's wrong with the TARDIS?" Rose asked.

"No power… well, that's technically wrong. We've still got a bit of power. Enough to keep her alive, but not enough to get us anywhere, much less back to the proper universe," the Doctor said as he flipped through the various diagnostic programs that didn't require more power than they had to spare. There –

He stared at the readout disbelievingly. It didn't make sense. How could the TARDIS be drawing this much energy from something inside of her? It might not have been enough to take them anywhere, but still… it was an impossible amount of power to be coming from nowhere.

'Unless there was another chapter in the owner's manual that we skipped over before throwing it into that supernova…'

"So we call for help then," Rose said, her eyes wide in the semi-gloom of the console room.

"Rose, even if we were in the right dimension, that wouldn't work. There's nobody left to call," the Doctor said, dragging a hand down his face. "And if we ended up where I think we are…"

"Can you clarify that open-ended ominous statement?" Delaine asked from where she still lay on the floor, sounding like she was in pain. She had been thrown around a lot compared to the rest of them and didn't have the advantage of a Time Lord's durability to absorb the damage.

'So far as we know.'

'Shhh.'

"Well, there are a few possibilities, but most likely we've ended up in the Void," he explained darkly, pushing aside his immediate impulse to go check his companion over. If there was a problem, Delaine would tell him or the Doctor would figure it out himself. Just one of the many advantages of being a scary handsome space alien genius. "The space between universes. A dimension without time, light, sound, matter, or life."

"That's a bit much for describing London, don't you think?" Mickey asked from where he had his head stuck out the TARDIS doors. Before the Doctor could tell him to get back in the time machine, the boy stepped out into the…

The Time Lord blinked at the sight of a day-lit park outside. Not even an alien one either, but a very sterile Earth example that was more cement than greenery.

'So far as 'the great infinite emptiness' goes, this is rather underwhelming,' his Eighth said, almost sounding disappointed.

'What, were you hoping we'd get rid of him?'

'I thought that was yours and Nine's purview?'

The Doctor grimaced. That had hit a little too close to the truth. 'Well, not like that.'

Rose followed Mickey outside and Delaine gingerly peeled herself off the floor to do the same. It was barely any effort on the Doctor's part to catch up with her and match her pace, though how much he could attribute to her possible injuries or simply their relative heights was uncertain.

"Are you sure you're all right?" he asked quietly.

'So much for giving her space.'

Delaine jerked her head to the side, the vertebrae in her neck cracking in a quick series of loud crunches that put the Time Lord's teeth on edge. "Took a bit out of me, but I'll live."

For some reason, the TARDIS's light flickered in response to that.

The park outside was… well, it looked very much like an ordinary park in ordinary London. If not for the fact that the Time Vortex was still very much absent, there would have been absolutely nothing wrong with the picture in front of him.

The Doctor took a yo-yo out of his pocket and tested the gravity a few times. All normal.

Hn. A functional universe without a Time Vortex. Impossible.

'For us and the TARDIS, at least,' his Second muttered. 'One would assume that was the initial division between our universe and this one; a different set of physical laws and sub-dimensions.'

'That leaves the question of what other differences there are between our universe and this one,' the Doctor replied as he looked around. There was a subtle discomfort running through him that wasn't entirely related to the absence of the Time Vortex.

Whatever he was reacting to, it didn't mean anything to his companions, Mickey still grinning about being 'right' about something and Rose already distracted by a some kind of advertisement poster.

"London, England, Earth. Hold on," Mickey said before pulling a newspaper out of a garbage bin. "First of February this year even. Hardly what I'd call a 'dead dimension'."

The Doctor took the newspaper from him. There was an odd texture to it that didn't fit with newsprint. No, this was almost glossy – wait. He'd seen things like this before. He flicked one of the pictures and it started to move, playing a bit of soundless video before it looped and started over again.

'Curiouser and curiouser,' his Eighth murmured as the current incarnation flipped through the paper, checking the various photos to see which ones moved and which ones didn't. 'This is bit Harry Potter for London, England, Earth, 2007, isn't it?'

Well, at least for the London, England, Earth, 2007 the Doctor was familiar with. No, those newspapers wouldn't have moving pictures – while the technology technically existed at that point in time, it was more than a few decades from being widespread enough for it to be featured so heavily in something as mundane a newspaper – or articles about rising stock in International Electromatics, which was some trick considering their involvement with the Cybermen invasion of Earth in 1966 had sunk the company completely.

A large shadow passed over them, making both the Doctor and Delaine glanced upwards. Ah well, that was a bit more obvious.

"Hmm. Mickey," the Doctor called to his newest companion as he threw the paper back into the bin.

The boy turned around, but didn't look up for a second. "Yeah?"

Ah, that was still something he could work with.

"So this is London," the Doctor said, making a show of looking around.

The smug, self-satisfied grin was still fixed on Mickey's face. "Yep."

"Your native city."

"That's the one."

"Just as we left it," the Time Lord continued. Honestly, someone should have guessed that he was leading up to something by now.

Today, Mickey Smith was not that someone. "Bang on."

"And that includes the zeppelins?" the Doctor asked, casting a meaningful glance upwards.

Mickey's head jerked up just in time to catch the sight of a particularly large specimen of rigid airship passing over them, propellers slicing through the air with a soft chop-chop-chop as it sailed across the sky towards… France, possibly. Italy or further if they wanted something more 'exotic'. Sussex if the person dictating its course was infinitely less interesting than someone who travelled by zeppelin deserved to be.

"What the hell," the boy breathed as he stared. Rose was staring as well, but with a shocked sort of wonder. At the idea of 'her' Earth suddenly being more than what she was used to?

The Doctor clapped his hands. "Right, not your 2007, not your London, not your England, not your Earth. Not your universe either. Think of it like a copy of yours except –"

Mickey's eyes lit up with unexpected understanding. "Except something in history got changed and now everything's different. Like us putting down the American Revolution or the dinosaurs not dying out."

There was a beat of silence.

'Can somebody tell me what just happened?' the Doctor's Ninth asked. 'Because I could have sworn that we just heard Mickey the Idiot say something clever.'

"…yes. That's right."

"I watch a lot of sci-fi, read a lot of comic books," Mickey said with a shrug.

'Maybe we should expand our library a bit more. Hint hint nudge nudge.'

The Doctor resisted the urge to grimace. 'I'm not getting into X-Men for you, Eight. I don't care how many story arcs you've missed.'

'But I haven't finished Onslaught–!'

The Doctor tuned his past self out. While it was nice to have Eight's original personality mostly recovered, there were moments were he really, really would have liked to have his later, quieter persona. Even of that quietness was more a product of trauma rather than any true character development.

"Anyway, alternate universe, very dangerous, need to leave as soon as possible before something –"

"My da's still alive here," Rose said, directing everyone's attention to a poster.

'…goes wrong,' the Doctor finished silently, wishing for the second time in that month that he was a man given to strong language. At best, this incarnation seemed only a step above his Fifth in that department.

This universe's Pete Tyler was, naturally, older than his counterpart that had died in 1987. His hair had largely disappeared, the face had gained more wrinkles, and between the suit and the fact the man was the focal point of an advertisement for a…

The Doctor squinted at the ad, which seemed like it should have been moving from the fact it was rendered in LEDs.

…health drink that looked suspiciously carbonated for something bearing the designation, it was clear that this universe's Pete Tyler had made something of himself.

Rose had come to that conclusion as well. "He's a success," she said, mouth twitching up towards a smile. "All those daft ideas mum told me about and he managed to make one of them work. Took another universe, but he did it."

She reached out to touch the ad, only for it to jump to life right before she could touch the screen.

"Vitex. The delicious sparkling health drink sensation. Tested by doctors and loved by everyone who's tried it. Comes in Tonic Water, Lemon, Lime, Apple, and now Cherry," a generic recorded voice declared before switching over to Pete Tyler's infinitely more genuine voice, "Trust me on this, it'll do you a world of good."

Rose smiled, already enchanted by the image.

That needed to stop. The Doctor slid himself between her and the ad screen. "Rose. You remember what happened the last time you met your father?"

Mickey's eyes widened and Delaine looked irritated – nothing particularly new there – but Rose's expression merely turned mulish. "This is another universe, I can't cause a paradox here."

"You caused a paradox–?" Mickey began to yell.

"Almost. Our Pete 'corrected' it before it could grow out of control," the Doctor explained before turning his attention to Rose. "And just because the Laws of Time can't come down on you here doesn't mean that you should. This man is not your father. Your father is dead. He died when you were a baby. This man has no relation to you, no matter what he looks like!"

"Yeah he does," the blonde insisted, pointing over his shoulder at the ad screen, still going through the motions of its sales pitch. "I don't care about which universe it is, that's my da –"

"No he's not," the Doctor interjected.

"– and you can't tell me how to feel about him!"

Delaine rubbed her temple. "Look, there's only two ways you showing up at your dad's place can go, and I don't think his wife is going to take the news of her husband's unknown lovechild or her daughter suddenly having a twin well."

The Doctor agreed. Jackie was not the sort of woman to just roll over for people she didn't want in her life or house.

Rose whirled around on her. "What would you do then? You think you're so much better than me, but if one of your parents had died when you were a baby, how would you react to a world where they were alive? Of course, considering the way you react to everything else, I doubt you would even care about them."

Delaine stiffened, opening her eyes to fix eyes that looked almost gold from this angle on Rose. There was a sudden presence of danger around her, like Rose had just stepped on a landmine. Now it was a matter of disarming that mine before it decided to explode.

The Doctor put a hand on her shoulder quickly, drawing that barely contained fury around on him with the familiar phrase of 'don't touch me' already forming on her lips. The orange-gold he'd noted in her eyes remained at this angle, a near match to the color of fire. And like fire, just looking into them seemed to draw the eye and the mind into a half-hypnotizable state.

Funny, considering that his Fourth's were often described in the same way.

But he didn't need to look into them.

He just needed to headbutt her.

An unstoppable force met an unmovable object and found out itself bouncing off in a humiliating display of Newton's Third Law of Motion. Still, it was enough to make the unmovable object stop and think.

What the fuck.

I held my hand up to my forehead, more in shock that the Doctor had actually headbutted me than out of any pain. The psychic contact behind the action didn't even register as high as those two points on the personal confusion front, because he had pretty much bounced off of my mind. Not completely, no, but Eight bridging the gap long enough to ask me about 90's comic books was barely cause for concern.

If anything, the fact that it was him actually made me relax, even if it was mostly because he reminded me of the one person who could always calm me down. So much as 'looks, talks, acts, and feels just about the same' counted. And considering that I hadn't been conscious this long without Selby since we first met, 'close enough' combined with 'Pavlovian response' went a long way.

"Feeling better?" the Doctor asked from where he stood holding his own head. Considering how quickly his mind had bounced off mine… well, there was no question most of the suffering was from whiplashed.

"Eighty percent."

"What was that?" Rose asked. "No, really, what the hell was that?

The relief of calm started to ebb as annoyance started coming back. Nothing like the burning rage I'd felt before, but I was definitely not as happy as I was a few seconds ago. "Sixty now."

The Doctor still looked half-disoriented. "Best way I could calm her down," he explained.

True, if not exactly in the way he suspected.

"By giving her a Glasgow kiss?"

I rolled my eyes. It's not like he used a legitimate kiss for access; if he had, he probably would have been in a lot more pain than he was now. "I've got a thick skull."

The Doctor winced as he touched his head again. "So I just gathered," he muttered. "Barely picked up anything from your mind, except…"

"Like 80% of everything that happened in 90's Marvel Comics? He asked nicely."

The Time Lord's grimace suddenly looked like it had become entirely unrelated to his headache. I hoped Eight was being very enthusiastic about his new reading material.

"…I've decided I don't want to ask," Mickey said. "But nobody's going to start fighting now, right?"

I threw up my hands in mock surrender. "No hatchets present, unless Blondie provides one."

Rose stuck out her tongue, but didn't throw any more fuel on the fire. "What's next then?" she asked the Doctor.

"For now? We see what I can do about the TARDIS," the Doctor said. "Maybe try to pick up some information about where we landed on the side, just in case we're stuck her longer than expected."

Well, considering that I didn't have the power to get the TARDIS across the transdimensional barrier on my own and the Doctor's own method took time to charge, I was going to go with Option B.

Bonus Deleted Scene: An Alternate Universe Is Not A Toy

This was the original version of Rose and Delaine's blowup for this chapter, but I couldn't really work past it as it was, it gave away a lot of Delaine's nature to the Doctor when I need the mystery to linger a bit longer on his end, and I felt that it painted Delaine as being a little too superior in the Team TARDIS dynamic. Still, I liked writing it, so you get to read it.

Before the Doctor could tell her why it was a bad idea to go after this universe's Pete, Delaine did it for him. "I think he's asking you not to do anything stupid. For all you know, he doesn't have a daughter. Even if he's got his own version of Rose who's off somewhere where she can't pull your plan apart at the seams, they'll catch pretty quick that you aren't her."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"I'm saying that you could be identical from the roots of your hair down to the tips of your toenails, but you still wouldn't be this world's Rose. Could you tell her parents what this universe's Rose gave her da for his birthday last year? Where she graduated from? Hm? Could you explain why their daughter is suddenly struck by the novelty of the things she's always been surrounded by? Why 'your' personality changed overnight? Why you know names and places that nobody on this Earth have ever heard of, but not your own social circle? Oh, and even if they don't catch on – which'll be a trick in itself considering it requires the Rose Tyler of this world going entirely off the grid –, what'll happen when you get bored, Rose?" Delaine asked, eyes seeming to flash a furious luminous orange-gold for a second as she seemed to grow tall enough to loom over the other girl. Considering that her eyes were wider than the Doctor had ever seen them and that the brunette had gone from standing flat on the ground to balancing on the balls of her feet, most of it was in the presentation but there was still some primal fear riding in the wake of that logical explanation.

"Will you simply swan back off to your own universe, leaving them to wonder where 'their' daughter went until their dying day?" she continued, her voice holding more weight for how loud Delaine was being compared to her usually quiet and understated self. "Do you think they'll assume she ran off with some exciting gentleman of leisure in a leather jacket or that someone cornered her in a dark alley, slit her throat, and dumped her body in some godforsaken place where no one would ever think to look?"

Rose seemed to crumble, shoulders going down as her posture went from defiant to ashamed. "I-I-I…"

It wasn't like she could really argue the point, seeing as that was almost exactly how Rose's disappearance had played out in their home universe. Considering how much Jackie had been able to do to her most likely suspect while living in a council estate, the Doctor almost shuddered to think of what the woman could do with actual resources.

'Probably better this isn't our universe after all.'

Before Delaine could launch into the third act of her upbraiding, the Doctor grabbed her by her shoulder. "Calm down. You've made your point. She knows better than to go that far."

Probably. Rose could be more than a little impulsive where her family was concerned, even in the face of very specific directions not to do those impulsive things.

Still, Delaine seemed to relax slightly, falling back to her normal height and posture. It still didn't seem to do much for her mood, but she didn't seem so likely to murder the blonde. "Fine. So long as she listens."

Author's Notes

Its chapters like this that make me miss having a beta, but I did my best to make sure everything flowed well. It'll probably be a while before I get the next done and uploaded, but hopefully everything will be up to satisfaction.

Now, onto answering reviews, explaining references, and preempting some questions.

Rainbow – I know! I'm excited and looking forward to seeing her in action! And with regards to the fanart – go ahead. I've posted some art in the AO3 version of the series for reference. It's under the same username as I use here.

Trol – I'm happy to hear that! I'm really fond of character focuses as well, so I'm taking pains to make sure they're authentic (even if I kind of have to spin some internal characterization out of a vague headcanon). It's also fun to come up with the conversations, especially when they get weird… unfortunately, my favorites usually end up not being appropriate fits for what I'm writing. Probably because they read like tumblr shitposts or are too pretentious to let loose into the wild.

Milkymou – I would have never guessed! Your English is better than some native speakers I've encountered. I got access to the Classic stuff through dubiously legal downloads, but there's probably some sites where you can stream it.

Zeke would be a version of the Seventh Doctor (from the Classic series; look for the gnome in the question mark pullover) and while I'll probably be covering how Delaine ended up with him (and his own character development from Main!Seventh Doctor's manipulative personality to something a bit more emotionally open and people-oriented) in other fics that are still in the really, really early planning stages, there's also probably room for it at some point in this one… though not anytime particularly soon (most likely after the Runaway Bride). He did feature a bit in the School Reunion chapters, specifically the Library scene and later when they're putting together the new K-9, so you might have missed it there.

Arashi – well, one of the early plans for that plotline was the Doctor being 90% sure that Delaine was the Master by Utopia (and was both excited and kind of half-expecting everything to go to hell if his theory is actually right because this is the Master he's talking about here, who's goals have usually been some variation of 'eternal life', 'ultimate power', and 'destroy the Doctor') and then the whole Yana thing happens.

There's a faint possibility it might still happen.

And then some developments in my plotting and rewriting episode plots (both 'Love and Monsters' and 'Fear Her' are getting fairly major facelifts) kind of made that plot thread awkward, though some other stuff might lead to the Doctor holding onto that theory anyway.

As for canon… well, I'm intent on touching on a number of episodes from the show (or twisting the concepts around to my purposes, like I mentioned with 'Love and Monsters' and 'Fear Her'), I'm working on planning out some cause and effect, such as 'what are the consequences of saving this person's life', 'what happens if we avert this accident or spill this information', or 'what if someone turned around at just the right time', and there will most likely be consequences from the events from my original chapters as well. Just about all of my planning goes up to the episode 'The End of Time', but a lot of it is still framework at this stage (sometimes which is just a title and brief description) which can be adjusted as I work on the more immediate stuff.

But I think the end result will have the changes starting out smallish and increasing from there to the point where an entire storyline might be averted for some reason or another (or twisted around in an unexpected fashion).

Uberch01 (every time I read that my brain goes 'Uber-Chao'. Damn you, Sonic Adventure 2! *shakes fist at sky*) – yeah, that's one of the problems with that version of the fic and probably the most glaring one was that even though that was three chapters compared to the one or two a single episode story, I tried to introduce three OCs at once and ended up kind of with a slurry of 'I guess this works'. So considering I've got this new version marked down for about six chapters, I've chopped up the introductions into separate bits, cut out one OC that I realized was unnecessary to the plot, and I've increased my overall wordcount per chapter (I aim at about 6,000 words, discounting author's notes), it'll be easier to get a grasp on each character (though I will be accompanying them with information in the Author's Notes and am willing to answer any other questions in any following Author's Notes).

Of course, there's also the fact that I'm taking more care in distinguishing them individually as well. Hopefully it works out for you guys, since I have the advantage of the images and voices I've assigned to them in my head.

The magic thing is a lot clearer here, I hope, what with Delaine's very clear establishment that the Doctor's Universe doesn't have magic and rejects it in just about all forms (which is elaborated on in the Author's Notes of that chapter as being on account of Rassilon using time travel to go to the beginning of the universe and rewrite its physics to his liking, banning magic and other 'irrationality') and Pete's Universe where there is no Time Vortex and (both by the Doctor's assumption and my own decision to just roll with it) no Time Lords correspondingly would, seeing as there was no Rassilon present in its history to alter the physics of it, have and allow magic.

Draco Oblivion – You really missed out on Twelve then. While Series 8 takes a bit of time to ramp up and get into (at least for me, anyway), Series 9 and 10 are brilliant. As for the Buffy jump (still in planning and will probably not be worked on until I get the chance to go on a massive watching binge)… who says that Delaine is the one who's going to be the one dealing with it? After all, I've introduced a number of 'alters/other selves' and most of them will be OCs with their own personalities.

As to Buffy being annoying… well, I can't entirely disagree with that assessment, but I personally cut her a lot of slack in that department based on the fact that, unlike Rose Tyler, who travels with the Doctor of her own free will and overall enjoys their adventures, Buffy is canonically a younger teenager (around 15/16 in spite of Dawson Casting at the beginning of the series, based on the facts provided in the show and the movie), ultimately has very little choice about being the Slayer, and ends up being thrust from bad situation to bad situation with a few goodish things happening in between.

I mean, she almost dies on a routine basis (and actually does on two separate occasions), ends up inadvertently sending her boyfriend to hell after Willow gives Angel his soul back at the worst possible time, gets routinely betrayed and disappointed by people, loses her mom, gets pulled out of heaven when her friends bring her back from the dead, finds out that someone made a sex-bot of her… the list goes on and on.

Yes, Lumic is being given a bit more of a backstory and motivation (dead brother, own degenerative disease, other people who he 'cared' about). The scientific process involved in developing something as complex as his Cybermen and the associated technology is also explored; after all, it can take years to figure out how a design works best and I think it would be no exception for something as complex as a one-size-fits-all cyborg shell body.

"Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died." – Steven Wright

Delaine and Mickey's Blackjack/Tarot game is all accurate… if taken separately. I'm not sure if using card games in divination's the best idea. It seemed cool as I was writing it. But if you're interested in straight fortune-telling, you can use a regular deck of cards in the place of Minor Arcana, though you'll have to decide between or combine the Pages and Knights of the Minor Arcana when you pull a Jack.

The fact that Delaine managed to pull out a second Ten of Spades despite only using one deck is supposed to be the only warning that they're about to cross into a universe where magic and 'irrational occurrences' can happen… though it was originally just because I forgot that Delaine's hole card was a Ten of Spades and gave Mickey the second because it fit with the prophecy motif and what he needed to get a 21.

The rest of the 'prophecy' game was left kind of ambiguous, seeing as I just started writing it as a straight game and it kind of developed into the Tarot readings after Zeke's comment on the Two of Hearts, just to make Delaine's comment of 'you're reading into this too much' funnier.

The Second Doctor serial the Invasion is what the Doctor is referencing with his comment about International Electromatics, which was under the control of one of the major villains in that story. I kind of just pulled 1966 out of my hair (partially because it was a bullshit answer that worked, but it was also the year the Cybermen first appeared on the show – which is also referenced with Lumic's 40 years of work on his Cyberman project) because the UNIT dating controversy. It… probably doesn't work that well actually, but I don't think any numbers you could slap on any of the events would make that tangle of continuity better.

The Eighth Doctor is canonically (at least in the EDA novels) a fan of the X-Men and Transformers (also train sets). At least a few other incarnations of the Doctor seemed like they might be fans of comics as the Fifth Doctor (the only companion in the story was Shayde, who was kind of a robot? I don't have access to the comics in question, so it's a bit unclear) was watching a Spider-Man cartoon on the TARDIS scanner in one comic, the Seventh Doctor made a couple references to Spider-Man in the VNA novels (including quoting the 'with great power, comes great responsibility' line), and the Fourth Doctor apparently liked Batman enough to have a toy Batmobile in his pockets at one point, though considering how much stuff is in his pockets in the first place…

The Doctor can establish psychic contact through touch… or a headbutt (Eleventh Doctor TV story 'The Lodger'), though I think in this case it was more of a 'surprise this person so I can actually get an in' rather than a quick way to get his backstory across. In this case, despite being intended to make telepathic contact easier, it didn't actually work very well, but the Doctor lucked out in that one of his past selves just happens to be a near match for one of Delaine's closest personal companions (meaning one that she has had in most of the jumps with her as the primary personality) in the visual, audial, and personality departments. While I'm trying not to info dump too much too quickly, that companion is also the reason why Delaine has been wearing Eight's old clothes; because they make her feel comfortable in a space where her default is… definitely not that.