Fic: Path of Needles (3/7)
Aug. 10th, 2008 11:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tardis_stowawayTitle: Path of Needles
Author:tardis_stowaway
Characters/Pairings: Chiefly Ten/Rose, but there's also a bit of Nine/Rose (I couldn't resist), and some Ten/Rose/Jack (Jack couldn't resist).
Rating: mild PG-13 for a bit of discussion about sex and one or two instances of salty language.
Spoilers: through season 3, spoiler-free AU after that!
Disclaimer: Doctor Who is not mine. I just take it out for play dates with my strange imagination.
Betas: the amazing![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dark_aegis and wendymr
Summary: Once upon a time, she had abided in the world where lives did not begin with ‘once upon a time.’ No more. Rose walks through the woods. Meanwhile, the Doctor deals with an abundance of Bad Wolf references.
Back to chapter 2 or read the story on Teaspoon
Chapter 3: Temptations, Rules, and Conversations
Rose receives an offer, notices a problem with her shoes, and talks on the phone. The Doctor watches clouds and eats soup.
Sweet wild road ahead
Sweet wild road ahead
If I lied and said that all was well
I might as well be dead
-The Wailin’ Jennys, “The Devil’s Paintbrush Road”
Ladies. Has it ever occurred to you that fairy tales aren’t easy on the feet?
-Kelly Link, “Travels with the Snow Queen”
* * *
They lay on their backs on the thick purple moss, shoulders a finger-width short of touching, watching the clouds.
“See over there? That one looks just like a castle. A castle in the clouds!” Martha pointed.
“On Tathshup Six they live in real castles in the clouds. Force fields give the water vapor shape and solidity enough to walk on them. The floors do squish a bit, like walking around on a giant waterbed. Then there’s the New Netherlands, where they have a city built on top of a literal giant waterbed. You want to go there?” The Doctor turned his head to look at Martha’s profile.
“Some day, I guess. Can’t we just enjoy where we are now? Tell me what you see in the clouds,” Martha requested plaintively.
“Clouds. Right. I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now,” he said.
“Hey, you. Be serious.” Martha elbowed him.
“Joni Mitchell is serious!” the Doctor protested weakly. “From this side, that one over there looks like an Apatosaurus. Wait, no, neck’s a bit too long proportionally for that…it’s a Diplodocus. Definitely a Diplodocus.”
Martha chuckled. “I see it! Look off to the right. I see a giant spider.”
“Ooooh. That’s a bit unsettling. Speaking of unsettling, right next to the spider is a Xoxog battleship.”
“All I see is a lumpy blob.”
“Well, that’s what the Xoxog battleships look like. Lumpy blobs that can blow a moon out of the sky,” the Doctor said defensively.
“Ouch. Time to find some happier clouds. Just above the horizon I see one that looks like a Christmas tree.”
“That is not happy. I’ve been attacked by Christmas trees! Twice, in fact. Luckily, that cloud you claim is a tree actually looks more like a girl. What you thought was the trunk is her legs, then she’s wearing a skirt. It bulges out a bit at the top where her head is, which a tree wouldn’t do.”
“If you say so. I’m trying to figure out that one a bit above the tree-girl-thingy. I think it might be a wolf. It’s got its head back to howl, and its tail is stretched out behind it,” Martha explained. The sudden knot in the Doctor’s guts contrasted horribly with the cheerful lightness in his companion’s voice.
The Doctor made a noncommittal “hmm” noise. It had been such a good day, just the thing the two of them needed to recover from the close call on the spaceship about to crash into the sun. He didn’t want to spoil it for her, no matter what he now felt.
They lay in silence for a little while, watching the sunset spread its fiery paint slowly across the sky.
“Strange winds up there,” remarked Martha. “They’re moving the wolf cloud closer to the girl cloud, like the bad wolf’s going to eat her or something. It should be a spectacular show when they collide. The sky even looks bloody.”
The Doctor stealthily reached into his pocket and turned off the ultrasonic signal his screwdriver had been putting out to keep away the moss meadow’s many biting insects. A few moments later Martha slapped her shoulder, then her leg, then the inch of exposed skin between her top and jeans.
“Argh! Bloody alien mosquitoes have to spoil sunset! There’s hundreds of them all of a sudden. Let’s go before they drain me dry.”
The Doctor paused for a moment at the TARDIS door. Just above the horizon, the wolf and the girl were colliding in crimson and gold splendor.
“It’s cloud illusions I recall,” he murmured, but Joni Mitchell couldn’t smooth the prickling of his manly hairy arms.
* * *
Rose was pretty sure that as she walked farther the trees grew closer together and crowded nearer to the path. For the first time since she began walking, the forest grew dimmer, as if evening approached.
Another crossroads loomed. She approached cautiously, but there was no sign of anything waiting at the four-way crossing. She looked both ways and strode into the middle.
“Good evening,” said a man’s voice from directly behind her. She whirled, adrenaline surging.
The speaker appeared to be a human male. His thick black hair was so meticulously groomed he could have been on the TV news. His charcoal grey suit and sculpted features would also have fit in on the news, but his skin was far too pallid to work well on television.
“You look like you’ve traveled a long way. Care for a nice cold soda pop?” The man, who spoke with an American accent, held out a glass Coca-Cola bottle. It was moist with condensation. She watched the bubbles rising in it and suddenly felt very thirsty. He smiled at her and stretched the bottle out a little farther. Her hand rose to accept, but she thought of Jack’s warning.
“No, thank you,” she said.
The man shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He tilted his head back and drank deeply from the bottle himself. When he was finished he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his mouth. “So, what brings a lovely lady like yourself out here?”
“I’m looking for my friend,” Rose said, deliberately keeping it honest without revealing much.
“Lucky friend.”
“Perhaps. Hey, can you tell me where these roads lead?” Rose was wary of the man, but she figured she’d hear what he had to say.
“You bet your britches I can, but that’s not all. I can take you all the way to your destination,” he offered.
“I’m not sure about that. It’s a long way.”
“Straight through to the universe where you came from, right to the doors of the TARDIS, quick as that!” he said with a click of his fingers and a showman’s smile.
The first question in Rose’s mind was “how?,” followed very closely by “how do you know about me and the TARDIS?,” but another question struck her as even more important.
“Why? What’s in it for you?” she demanded.
“I try to help out a person in distress and she assumes I’m out to profit off her. So jaded so young! What a shame,” the stranger scolded with exaggerated offense. “I like to think of myself as a philanthropist. However, I admit that I’m also a businessman. I do charge a small fee. Don’t worry; it’s something I know you can afford. Most people never even notice that it’s gone.”
Rose didn’t like his generalities or his too-perfect teeth. His every little movement seemed planned and controlled in a way that wasn’t normal for humans (with the possible exception of ninjas).
“Thank you, but no. I’m doing fine on my own.” She tried to walk on, but the stranger stepped in front of her.
“I can spare you all the hardship and danger of the woods. You get exactly what you want, right now. No uncertainty, no risk. You could fail so easily on your road. What I want from you is such a very small thing, so easily given. You don’t often come across this sort of win-win bargain.” He spoke slowly, his voice low and seductive.
Rose thought of her weary feet and the long struggle ahead with no knowledge of whether success was even possible. She ached to get back to the Doctor; wasn’t any cost worth it?
Of course not.
“I’m nobody’s whore,” Rose snapped. Whether or not that was actually what he wanted, she believed that his price was something at least as terrible.
“Now that’s jumping to conclusions. It’s not your body I want,” the stranger insisted. “Nothing so vulgar. You receive your deepest desire, and all I ask in return is your soul.”
“What? No!” Rose said, taking an involuntary step back. She wasn’t sure what she believed about souls, but whatever this stranger wanted from her could not be something she wanted to give.
“Of course, if your desire has changed and you don’t want the Doctor any more, I could take you back to the universe where you started. You could be reunited with your parents,” the stranger said calmly, as if he hadn’t heard her tone.
“If I chose that, I would be giving up my soul even if you didn’t take it. I’m not selling.”
“I could sweeten the deal for you. What else do you want? You’re pretty enough, but I could make you more beautiful than Helen of Troy. You could have astounding power like a sorcerer or near-infinite knowledge. You’d be your precious Doctor’s equal and more. If you worry about withering and dying before him, you could have a Time Lord’s lifespan. Your pick. I’ll even throw in a bonus. You like music? With my help, your playing could bring grown men to tears or wake the dead.” He held out a guitar, which hadn’t been there a second ago.
“Get away from me,” said Rose with steel in her voice.
The stranger took a small step back and bowed mockingly. Although nothing obvious changed about his appearance, somehow he no longer seemed at all human.
“I can see when I’m not wanted. Some people don’t know a good deal when they see one. If you ever change your mind…”
“What part of ‘no’ are you too thick too understand? The n, the o, or the silent ‘you bastard’? I’m going back to the Doctor, soul intact and on my own two feet. Any other way wouldn’t count. Now get out of my way.”
“Go then, valiant child,” said the thing that was not a man, its ordinary baritone voice suddenly bone-shakingly deep and overlain with grating harmonics. “But remember this: you cannot escape your destiny by falsely listing your name among the dead. Battle and death await you still.”
Rose saw simultaneously the likeness of a man and something huge and horned, burning darkly. It looked at her, and its mere gaze bit like death and worse. She felt as if her innards had been ripped out and replaced with ice and acid, but she kept her head up and walked right past the dreadful thing.
She picked a direction on pure instinct and kept walking for a long way before daring to glance over her shoulder. At the edge of her vision, the crossroads was empty. Only then did she allow herself to double over with dry heaves and helpless shivers. When her body quieted at last, she walked on.
* * *
John Smith ran his hand through his hair. He’d been marking for hours, but the stack of essays scarcely seemed to grow any smaller. How did these boys manage to use so many words to say so little so poorly? Honestly, some of them exhibited all the intelligence of apes.
He could take a break to call on Nurse Redfern. She had mentioned a need to go shopping in town; surely an escort to carry her bags would be of great assistance. No, he really should finish these essays. He told the boys he’d hand them back tomorrow, and he could hardly expect them to be punctual in their work if he didn’t set a proper example.
The next essay was Timothy Latimer’s. Good. At least he would be spared from reading the worst abuses of history and grammar for a few moments. As he read he found little cause for complaint and indeed some surprisingly advanced analysis for one so young. He noted his comments (putting special emphasis on the few errors–it wouldn’t do to let the lad get too comfortable), flipped the essay over onto the finished stack, and froze.
On the back of Latimer’s last page was a drawing. It could have been a large dog, but something about its expression told its true identity even without the scrawled label: Bad Wolf. It stared out of the paper straight at him. Savagery flickered in its pencil eyes, but also intelligence and something more. Mystery. Magic. Invitation.
He stared at the drawing. It was just pencil on paper, but it seemed more alive than any of the flesh and blood people he knew. Abruptly he flipped the essay over, crossing out his mark and replacing it with a lower one. He ignored the voice whispering that he took off points not just because the drawing was there but because the intense gaze of the wolf disturbed him, nagging him with the sensation that he was forgetting something. That was nonsense. Doodling on an essay simply wouldn’t do.
The strangest part was that he’d been dreaming of a wolf just last night. The wolf had spoken to him, licked him clean, and raised him in her den like Mowgli the jungle child. It was a curious change from the dreams where he was the powerful Doctor, for there had been no doubt in this dream that it was the wolf in control, not him. In the dream he’d bathed in the warm glow of the wolf’s love, but here, in the gray light of day, he wanted only to banish the dream and find a bit of peace. The wolf had dissolved with the morning, leaving him feeling horribly empty. Better to forget it had ever been. Latimer’s drawing was chance, nothing more. It was the twentieth century, and he was too rational a man to see omens and portents.
* * *
Her feet hurt. They had hurt for some time, but eventually the pain grew sharp enough that she paused to make sure she hadn’t lodged a stone in her shoe.
The soles of her trainers were nearly worn through. They had been nearly new when she stepped through the portal. Even with constant walking, it should have taken weeks to batter the soles down to such a fabric-thin state. Weeks of walking, but she had not eaten, drunk, slept, or stopped to relieve herself. For the space of a breath, her gut clenched in panic at the illogic of it. With the next exhalation she let the panic go.
She felt a strange lightness, as if a bundle of balloons had been attached to her belt, lifting her half off the ground. The woods operated by their own rules, and she gave herself over to them completely. Really, she had made her choice long ago.
Once upon a time, she had abided in the world where lives did not begin with ‘once upon a time.’ Lives were not like stories: they were lusher, more complex, less coherent. Characters came and went without much explanation. Events happened without any clear connection to each other or the overarching arc of a person’s life. This life was not without its glories (meeting on the street corner, two a.m., trying to catch a cab), but narratively it was something of a mess.
Then a hand reached out in a basement and pulled Rose into a different world, a world of heroes, monsters, and damsels who cause the monsters a lot of distress. She felt herself becoming part of something larger. One day she saved the world from the metal-armored demon she accidentally awoke. It died because it could not cope with her purity of heart intruding upon its monstrous self. Afterwards she stared at her hands in astonishment, wondering what she was becoming. (Adventurer, daredevil, madwoman?)
Nevertheless, she remained tied to the world of daily bustle. Was it out of habit, good sense, or fear? She strung out her boyfriend with uncertainty about what still lay between them. She invited a pretty boy along on her magic journey because, however much he claimed to dream of stars, he was entirely of the Earth. She bought celebrity gossip magazines from a dozen worlds. She skirted the edges of the wood, the reaching fingers of the trees’ shade barely dappling her skin.
Then the universe presented her with a stark either/or choice. Down the easy way, the path others tried to point her down, lay home and comfort and the beautiful, sloppy confusion of reality. Down the other way lay suffering and sacrifice, but also grandeur and heroism and a wild grace. It was the way of the Quest, the path through the wolf’s woods. She did not even hesitate in her choice.
Logic in stories is not like logic of the rest of the world. In ordinary logic, a human shopgirl should not have been able to pilot a TARDIS that a Time Lord had specifically instructed to stay put. Impossible! But Rose entered the realm of story, where events happen because they must, irrespective of whether they can happen. Her indomitable will had to be enough to open a way to the Doctor where no way should have existed, so the way opened. Her love was fiercer and purer than the Daleks’ hate, so her words must obliterate all their weapons. She was the Bad Wolf, and her howl summoned her packmate from beyond the gates of death itself.
She was the floodwater and the springtime and the love. Above all else, love. The center of time burned within her, and she danced with the turn of the universe.
Such power cost, of course. It should have taken her life, a sacrifice gladly made. Then the Doctor followed her into the heart of the woods. He saved her with a kiss, as he must. He transformed the beast within her back into a girl. Off came his skin, shed like ill-fitting clothes, and he was reborn. The fire in both of their eyes faded to faint coals covered over with ash.
Afterwards, she still ate chips and laughed at cheesy jokes and applied her mascara too thickly and got PMS and all the trappings of normal life, but things had changed. Even though she couldn’t remember exactly what had happened when she was the Bad Wolf, she knew that she walked a new path. She was the stuff of legend. And when the old enemies were reborn (for evil is very nearly as persistent as good) and the walls of the universe closed, she was not beaten. The wolf uncurled itself and lapped the tears from her face, drinking deep of her grief and determination, growing strong. (Remember, human child: not what can be but what must be.)
She said she would stay with the Doctor forever. Now, she knew she would search for him forever if need be. Forever and a day.
Later, when the soles of her shoes started to detach and flap up and down like wagging tongues, she took them off and carried on barefoot.
* * *
He tried to work, but he wasn’t making much progress. The flat was too cold and too loud. There wasn’t much to be done about the cold, not on their budget, and gloves would take away the dexterity he needed to make the fine inner workings of his timey-wimey detector. There wasn’t much to be done about the loud either, not with gauze-thin walls, the Barretts upstairs having a baby and the O’Connors next door being newlyweds (and wasn’t that awkward when he and Martha were jammed in cheek to jowl in this flat). Right now, though, the flat seemed louder than usual and unusually strident…the phone! He shot up to grab the receiver.
“Hello? Martha! …Oh, I’m fine. Brilliant, in fact.” That was a lie, but Martha would tell her version of the same lie when he asked her about her day at work.
“Could you do me a favor and pick up some extra garlic on your way home? I’m going to cook stuffed aubergines, and I want the flavor to be strong enough to clear vampires from the whole neighborhood, not that we have vampires, I hope….Working late again?...Yes, I know we need the money. Of course. I’ll save the aubergines for another night… See you when you get here, then. Oh, and Martha? You win bread with the best of the breadwinners.” That last bit got a tiny laugh. Good. She didn’t laugh much lately. Neither of them did.
He hung up the receiver and glared around the room as if somehow the threadbare carpet and peeling paint were causes rather than symptoms of his problems. He usually loved 1969 (Moon landing! Woodstock! Abbey Road album! Protests galore!), but that was when he had the ability to leave any time. Without the TARDIS, it was just endless images of war on the telly, the humdrum rhythms of daily existence, and always the unfamiliar worry about money. His psychic paper and sonic screwdriver would be enough to pull off any number of heists that would enable them to wait this out in style, but they’d decided to live honestly unless an emergency came up. Horrible as the thought was, sometimes he wished they had enough money to get a house with a mortgage–anything was better than the dingy flat.
Then there was Martha, brilliant Martha, once again forced into dreary, demeaning tasks for his sake. Astoundingly, she still believed in him. Nevertheless, he could see the leaving in the back of her eyes. He’d seen that look before. Not right away, but soon. She probably didn’t know it yet, but staying was the only thing she wouldn’t do for him. The Doctor wasn’t sure whether he was more disturbed by that undeserved belief or the approaching departure.
What he needed was something simple, quick, and warm in his belly. Luckily, they had just the thing to cheer him up: alphabet soup. How could anyone be unhappy while consuming soup that spelled?
He heated up the soup, savoring the hearty odors. His stomach made a loud noise, alerting him that he’d been too distracted to eat lunch. When the soup was hot he ladled it out and sat at the table. Though hungry, he delayed eating for a moment to wrap his hands around the bowl, letting warmth permeate his stiff fingers while his eyes ran over the letters on the surface, finding dozens of words.
The very first spoonful of glorious soup stopped halfway to his mouth. There were only three letters floating in the spoonful of broth: B, A, and, of course D. He almost got up and dumped the entire bowl of soup down the sink, but Martha had talked with him just last Tuesday about not being wasteful. Besides, it could be simple chance. He was careful to keep his next spoonful so full of letters that no words could be seen, and so with all subsequent spoonfuls. Eventually the soup was almost gone, but four letters remained stuck to the side of the bowl: WOLF. He exploded.
“Oh, come on! My soup? This is getting ridiculous! What next? New freckles spelling it on my face? The neighbors’ noisy bedsprings beating it out in Morse code?” The Doctor glared at the soup bowl with a force that very nearly made the poor dish grow legs and run away.
“What are you trying to accomplish? Why put these words here, where they can do nothing to lead you back to the Game Station? Are you paying any attention to where you scatter your message? Or do you see that I’m reading them alone? Are you trying to make sure I remember you? Is that it? I don’t need the reminder! I couldn’t forget you if I wanted to. Every hour of every day, waking or sleeping, I think about you. I remember that I lost you. So unless you’re going to communicate something real, unless you’re going to wave your glowing hand and open up a door to that other universe to bring back your future self, you can bloody well stop this! Do you hear me, Rose?!” he shouted wildly at an audience two hundred thousand years away.
Upstairs, the baby started crying. The Doctor deflated, burying his face in his hands. “Oh, Rose,” he whispered.
* * *
Between the worlds there stood a forest. In the heart of the forest there stood the TARDIS. In front of the TARDIS stood, at last, Rose Tyler.
The TARDIS waited for her in a small clearing. Its blue was shockingly bright against the grayscale forest, its straight lines making it seem almost frighteningly solid. Rose remained frozen at the edge of the clearing, unable to comprehend its presence or its promise. A trail of bloody footprints measured the road behind her. She’d never lost focus on the object of her quest, but she could no longer quite recall what it was like not to be walking, not to be in pain, not to be in the woods. Her heart tried to batter its way through her ribs at the marvelous, terrifying concept of an ending for the quest.
If this was the ending, it came at the right time. The diffuse white light that had shone constantly for so long when she first entered the woods had slowly faded over many miles. Here, the forest seemed to be shrouded in twilight. The path had grown narrower too until it barely kept her out of reach of the trees. Under the eaves of the forest, the unintelligible whispers grew closer. Closer and, perhaps, angrier.
Rose inspected the TARDIS from a distance, wary of the intensity of the unseen voices around the clearing. She didn’t know of a reason for the TARDIS to be in the Void, so she had to look out for the chance that it was a mirage or bait. If a trap waited, it was too subtle for her to see. She rested for a moment on the breathless edge of triumph. Then she dashed forward, fumbling in her pockets for the key as she ran.
An instant before her key could slip into the lock, the ornamental police phone rang. She froze. The TARDIS phone wasn’t real. If it rang, that meant that either this wasn’t her Doctor’s TARDIS or something was very wrong indeed.
The phone kept ringing, so, giving in to the sense of inevitability, Rose answered it.
“Hello? Who is this?” Rose asked in a polite tone.
“I am the Bad Wolf,” the phone informed her, sounding as if it came from a great distance. A stir swept through the whispering forest. She knew that voice. From where?
“Why does everybody think they’re the Bad Wolf lately? That’s my title. Does this have something to do with the Little Red Riding Hood thing Jack was going on about?” Rose pressed her back against the TARDIS so she could keep an eye on the trees. There was something she was missing here, something she should remember.
“I create myself.” With those words, Rose understood where she knew the voice. Strangely distorted and layered, it was nevertheless her own voice, together with something vast and mighty born of the Vortex. (Yet how powerful had she become on her own, the girl who had left bloody footprints across numberless leagues?)
“I take the words,” continued the phone. “I scatter them in time and space. A message to lead myself here.”
Here: the heart of the forest. The wolf’s den, the dragon’s lair, the witch’s house, the belly of the beast, the Dalek-infested Game Station. The place of trial. It was her immutable destiny and her conscious choice. It was not her final goal.
“I’m trying to get back to the Doctor again. Do you know how to reach my home universe?” she asked, hoping that the echo of her past could offer advice.
“I can see everything,” the phone replied unhelpfully.
“Yeah, that’s great,” said Rose, running a hand through her hair in frustration. She’d asked if it knew the way back, not what that way was. She hoped there wasn’t some limit in number of questions. She hoped she could get away from the whispers before it got any darker. “Please tell me how to get out of the woods and back to the Doctor.”
“I can see the whole of time and space–every single atom of your existence, and I divide them.” The voice on the phone–her wolf voice–was still distant, but it had gained an edge like a razor.
Rose straightened in shock. “No! I’m you, or a part of you anyway. Why kill me?”
“I bring life.”
She thought of Jack, unable to die since the Game Station. She closed her eyes. When she heard the story from him, she’d suspected, but the wonder and careless power of her wolf self’s words made her sure. Well, nothing to be done about it except confess when (if) she next saw him. But what did it mean now?
She reopened her eyes. The trees were closer. They looked less and less like real trees.
“I don’t want to be immortal. I don’t want anybody’s atoms divided. I just need to get back to my universe.” Rose forced herself to speak slowly and calmly despite the menacing woods.
“The sun and the moon... the day and night.”
“Yeah. That universe. Sun, moon, Earth, Raxacoricofallapatorious, chips, kittens, a distinct shortage of zeppelins, and most of all the Doctor. Can I get there from here? Soon, please.” Rose snapped a bit. There was a pattern in the trees’ whispers, perhaps a word still not quite intelligible to her conscious mind, but something in the back of her skull recognized it and trembled. Was she going to meet her end in these woods after coming so far?
“Everything must come to dust... all things. Everything dies.”
Rose knew the truth of those words deep in the marrow that had once held the time vortex, but that didn’t mean she had to accept them peacefully.
“Not before I get back to the Doctor. He needs a hand to hold.” (Believe: not what can be but what must be.)
“My Doctor.” Such love in that voice!
“For his sake, show me what to do next,” Rose commanded.
“The Time War ends.”
Before Rose could voice objection to the cryptic nature of the advice, the door of the TARDIS opened. She stepped inside.
* * *
Onwards to Chapter 4
Author:
tardis_stowaway Characters/Pairings: Chiefly Ten/Rose, but there's also a bit of Nine/Rose (I couldn't resist), and some Ten/Rose/Jack (Jack couldn't resist).
Rating: mild PG-13 for a bit of discussion about sex and one or two instances of salty language.
Spoilers: through season 3, spoiler-free AU after that!
Disclaimer: Doctor Who is not mine. I just take it out for play dates with my strange imagination.
Betas: the amazing
dark_aegis and wendymr Summary: Once upon a time, she had abided in the world where lives did not begin with ‘once upon a time.’ No more. Rose walks through the woods. Meanwhile, the Doctor deals with an abundance of Bad Wolf references.
Back to chapter 2 or read the story on Teaspoon
Chapter 3: Temptations, Rules, and Conversations
Rose receives an offer, notices a problem with her shoes, and talks on the phone. The Doctor watches clouds and eats soup.
Sweet wild road ahead
Sweet wild road ahead
If I lied and said that all was well
I might as well be dead
-The Wailin’ Jennys, “The Devil’s Paintbrush Road”
Ladies. Has it ever occurred to you that fairy tales aren’t easy on the feet?
-Kelly Link, “Travels with the Snow Queen”
* * *
They lay on their backs on the thick purple moss, shoulders a finger-width short of touching, watching the clouds.
“See over there? That one looks just like a castle. A castle in the clouds!” Martha pointed.
“On Tathshup Six they live in real castles in the clouds. Force fields give the water vapor shape and solidity enough to walk on them. The floors do squish a bit, like walking around on a giant waterbed. Then there’s the New Netherlands, where they have a city built on top of a literal giant waterbed. You want to go there?” The Doctor turned his head to look at Martha’s profile.
“Some day, I guess. Can’t we just enjoy where we are now? Tell me what you see in the clouds,” Martha requested plaintively.
“Clouds. Right. I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now,” he said.
“Hey, you. Be serious.” Martha elbowed him.
“Joni Mitchell is serious!” the Doctor protested weakly. “From this side, that one over there looks like an Apatosaurus. Wait, no, neck’s a bit too long proportionally for that…it’s a Diplodocus. Definitely a Diplodocus.”
Martha chuckled. “I see it! Look off to the right. I see a giant spider.”
“Ooooh. That’s a bit unsettling. Speaking of unsettling, right next to the spider is a Xoxog battleship.”
“All I see is a lumpy blob.”
“Well, that’s what the Xoxog battleships look like. Lumpy blobs that can blow a moon out of the sky,” the Doctor said defensively.
“Ouch. Time to find some happier clouds. Just above the horizon I see one that looks like a Christmas tree.”
“That is not happy. I’ve been attacked by Christmas trees! Twice, in fact. Luckily, that cloud you claim is a tree actually looks more like a girl. What you thought was the trunk is her legs, then she’s wearing a skirt. It bulges out a bit at the top where her head is, which a tree wouldn’t do.”
“If you say so. I’m trying to figure out that one a bit above the tree-girl-thingy. I think it might be a wolf. It’s got its head back to howl, and its tail is stretched out behind it,” Martha explained. The sudden knot in the Doctor’s guts contrasted horribly with the cheerful lightness in his companion’s voice.
The Doctor made a noncommittal “hmm” noise. It had been such a good day, just the thing the two of them needed to recover from the close call on the spaceship about to crash into the sun. He didn’t want to spoil it for her, no matter what he now felt.
They lay in silence for a little while, watching the sunset spread its fiery paint slowly across the sky.
“Strange winds up there,” remarked Martha. “They’re moving the wolf cloud closer to the girl cloud, like the bad wolf’s going to eat her or something. It should be a spectacular show when they collide. The sky even looks bloody.”
The Doctor stealthily reached into his pocket and turned off the ultrasonic signal his screwdriver had been putting out to keep away the moss meadow’s many biting insects. A few moments later Martha slapped her shoulder, then her leg, then the inch of exposed skin between her top and jeans.
“Argh! Bloody alien mosquitoes have to spoil sunset! There’s hundreds of them all of a sudden. Let’s go before they drain me dry.”
The Doctor paused for a moment at the TARDIS door. Just above the horizon, the wolf and the girl were colliding in crimson and gold splendor.
“It’s cloud illusions I recall,” he murmured, but Joni Mitchell couldn’t smooth the prickling of his manly hairy arms.
* * *
Rose was pretty sure that as she walked farther the trees grew closer together and crowded nearer to the path. For the first time since she began walking, the forest grew dimmer, as if evening approached.
Another crossroads loomed. She approached cautiously, but there was no sign of anything waiting at the four-way crossing. She looked both ways and strode into the middle.
“Good evening,” said a man’s voice from directly behind her. She whirled, adrenaline surging.
The speaker appeared to be a human male. His thick black hair was so meticulously groomed he could have been on the TV news. His charcoal grey suit and sculpted features would also have fit in on the news, but his skin was far too pallid to work well on television.
“You look like you’ve traveled a long way. Care for a nice cold soda pop?” The man, who spoke with an American accent, held out a glass Coca-Cola bottle. It was moist with condensation. She watched the bubbles rising in it and suddenly felt very thirsty. He smiled at her and stretched the bottle out a little farther. Her hand rose to accept, but she thought of Jack’s warning.
“No, thank you,” she said.
The man shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He tilted his head back and drank deeply from the bottle himself. When he was finished he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his mouth. “So, what brings a lovely lady like yourself out here?”
“I’m looking for my friend,” Rose said, deliberately keeping it honest without revealing much.
“Lucky friend.”
“Perhaps. Hey, can you tell me where these roads lead?” Rose was wary of the man, but she figured she’d hear what he had to say.
“You bet your britches I can, but that’s not all. I can take you all the way to your destination,” he offered.
“I’m not sure about that. It’s a long way.”
“Straight through to the universe where you came from, right to the doors of the TARDIS, quick as that!” he said with a click of his fingers and a showman’s smile.
The first question in Rose’s mind was “how?,” followed very closely by “how do you know about me and the TARDIS?,” but another question struck her as even more important.
“Why? What’s in it for you?” she demanded.
“I try to help out a person in distress and she assumes I’m out to profit off her. So jaded so young! What a shame,” the stranger scolded with exaggerated offense. “I like to think of myself as a philanthropist. However, I admit that I’m also a businessman. I do charge a small fee. Don’t worry; it’s something I know you can afford. Most people never even notice that it’s gone.”
Rose didn’t like his generalities or his too-perfect teeth. His every little movement seemed planned and controlled in a way that wasn’t normal for humans (with the possible exception of ninjas).
“Thank you, but no. I’m doing fine on my own.” She tried to walk on, but the stranger stepped in front of her.
“I can spare you all the hardship and danger of the woods. You get exactly what you want, right now. No uncertainty, no risk. You could fail so easily on your road. What I want from you is such a very small thing, so easily given. You don’t often come across this sort of win-win bargain.” He spoke slowly, his voice low and seductive.
Rose thought of her weary feet and the long struggle ahead with no knowledge of whether success was even possible. She ached to get back to the Doctor; wasn’t any cost worth it?
Of course not.
“I’m nobody’s whore,” Rose snapped. Whether or not that was actually what he wanted, she believed that his price was something at least as terrible.
“Now that’s jumping to conclusions. It’s not your body I want,” the stranger insisted. “Nothing so vulgar. You receive your deepest desire, and all I ask in return is your soul.”
“What? No!” Rose said, taking an involuntary step back. She wasn’t sure what she believed about souls, but whatever this stranger wanted from her could not be something she wanted to give.
“Of course, if your desire has changed and you don’t want the Doctor any more, I could take you back to the universe where you started. You could be reunited with your parents,” the stranger said calmly, as if he hadn’t heard her tone.
“If I chose that, I would be giving up my soul even if you didn’t take it. I’m not selling.”
“I could sweeten the deal for you. What else do you want? You’re pretty enough, but I could make you more beautiful than Helen of Troy. You could have astounding power like a sorcerer or near-infinite knowledge. You’d be your precious Doctor’s equal and more. If you worry about withering and dying before him, you could have a Time Lord’s lifespan. Your pick. I’ll even throw in a bonus. You like music? With my help, your playing could bring grown men to tears or wake the dead.” He held out a guitar, which hadn’t been there a second ago.
“Get away from me,” said Rose with steel in her voice.
The stranger took a small step back and bowed mockingly. Although nothing obvious changed about his appearance, somehow he no longer seemed at all human.
“I can see when I’m not wanted. Some people don’t know a good deal when they see one. If you ever change your mind…”
“What part of ‘no’ are you too thick too understand? The n, the o, or the silent ‘you bastard’? I’m going back to the Doctor, soul intact and on my own two feet. Any other way wouldn’t count. Now get out of my way.”
“Go then, valiant child,” said the thing that was not a man, its ordinary baritone voice suddenly bone-shakingly deep and overlain with grating harmonics. “But remember this: you cannot escape your destiny by falsely listing your name among the dead. Battle and death await you still.”
Rose saw simultaneously the likeness of a man and something huge and horned, burning darkly. It looked at her, and its mere gaze bit like death and worse. She felt as if her innards had been ripped out and replaced with ice and acid, but she kept her head up and walked right past the dreadful thing.
She picked a direction on pure instinct and kept walking for a long way before daring to glance over her shoulder. At the edge of her vision, the crossroads was empty. Only then did she allow herself to double over with dry heaves and helpless shivers. When her body quieted at last, she walked on.
* * *
John Smith ran his hand through his hair. He’d been marking for hours, but the stack of essays scarcely seemed to grow any smaller. How did these boys manage to use so many words to say so little so poorly? Honestly, some of them exhibited all the intelligence of apes.
He could take a break to call on Nurse Redfern. She had mentioned a need to go shopping in town; surely an escort to carry her bags would be of great assistance. No, he really should finish these essays. He told the boys he’d hand them back tomorrow, and he could hardly expect them to be punctual in their work if he didn’t set a proper example.
The next essay was Timothy Latimer’s. Good. At least he would be spared from reading the worst abuses of history and grammar for a few moments. As he read he found little cause for complaint and indeed some surprisingly advanced analysis for one so young. He noted his comments (putting special emphasis on the few errors–it wouldn’t do to let the lad get too comfortable), flipped the essay over onto the finished stack, and froze.
On the back of Latimer’s last page was a drawing. It could have been a large dog, but something about its expression told its true identity even without the scrawled label: Bad Wolf. It stared out of the paper straight at him. Savagery flickered in its pencil eyes, but also intelligence and something more. Mystery. Magic. Invitation.
He stared at the drawing. It was just pencil on paper, but it seemed more alive than any of the flesh and blood people he knew. Abruptly he flipped the essay over, crossing out his mark and replacing it with a lower one. He ignored the voice whispering that he took off points not just because the drawing was there but because the intense gaze of the wolf disturbed him, nagging him with the sensation that he was forgetting something. That was nonsense. Doodling on an essay simply wouldn’t do.
The strangest part was that he’d been dreaming of a wolf just last night. The wolf had spoken to him, licked him clean, and raised him in her den like Mowgli the jungle child. It was a curious change from the dreams where he was the powerful Doctor, for there had been no doubt in this dream that it was the wolf in control, not him. In the dream he’d bathed in the warm glow of the wolf’s love, but here, in the gray light of day, he wanted only to banish the dream and find a bit of peace. The wolf had dissolved with the morning, leaving him feeling horribly empty. Better to forget it had ever been. Latimer’s drawing was chance, nothing more. It was the twentieth century, and he was too rational a man to see omens and portents.
* * *
Her feet hurt. They had hurt for some time, but eventually the pain grew sharp enough that she paused to make sure she hadn’t lodged a stone in her shoe.
The soles of her trainers were nearly worn through. They had been nearly new when she stepped through the portal. Even with constant walking, it should have taken weeks to batter the soles down to such a fabric-thin state. Weeks of walking, but she had not eaten, drunk, slept, or stopped to relieve herself. For the space of a breath, her gut clenched in panic at the illogic of it. With the next exhalation she let the panic go.
She felt a strange lightness, as if a bundle of balloons had been attached to her belt, lifting her half off the ground. The woods operated by their own rules, and she gave herself over to them completely. Really, she had made her choice long ago.
Once upon a time, she had abided in the world where lives did not begin with ‘once upon a time.’ Lives were not like stories: they were lusher, more complex, less coherent. Characters came and went without much explanation. Events happened without any clear connection to each other or the overarching arc of a person’s life. This life was not without its glories (meeting on the street corner, two a.m., trying to catch a cab), but narratively it was something of a mess.
Then a hand reached out in a basement and pulled Rose into a different world, a world of heroes, monsters, and damsels who cause the monsters a lot of distress. She felt herself becoming part of something larger. One day she saved the world from the metal-armored demon she accidentally awoke. It died because it could not cope with her purity of heart intruding upon its monstrous self. Afterwards she stared at her hands in astonishment, wondering what she was becoming. (Adventurer, daredevil, madwoman?)
Nevertheless, she remained tied to the world of daily bustle. Was it out of habit, good sense, or fear? She strung out her boyfriend with uncertainty about what still lay between them. She invited a pretty boy along on her magic journey because, however much he claimed to dream of stars, he was entirely of the Earth. She bought celebrity gossip magazines from a dozen worlds. She skirted the edges of the wood, the reaching fingers of the trees’ shade barely dappling her skin.
Then the universe presented her with a stark either/or choice. Down the easy way, the path others tried to point her down, lay home and comfort and the beautiful, sloppy confusion of reality. Down the other way lay suffering and sacrifice, but also grandeur and heroism and a wild grace. It was the way of the Quest, the path through the wolf’s woods. She did not even hesitate in her choice.
Logic in stories is not like logic of the rest of the world. In ordinary logic, a human shopgirl should not have been able to pilot a TARDIS that a Time Lord had specifically instructed to stay put. Impossible! But Rose entered the realm of story, where events happen because they must, irrespective of whether they can happen. Her indomitable will had to be enough to open a way to the Doctor where no way should have existed, so the way opened. Her love was fiercer and purer than the Daleks’ hate, so her words must obliterate all their weapons. She was the Bad Wolf, and her howl summoned her packmate from beyond the gates of death itself.
She was the floodwater and the springtime and the love. Above all else, love. The center of time burned within her, and she danced with the turn of the universe.
Such power cost, of course. It should have taken her life, a sacrifice gladly made. Then the Doctor followed her into the heart of the woods. He saved her with a kiss, as he must. He transformed the beast within her back into a girl. Off came his skin, shed like ill-fitting clothes, and he was reborn. The fire in both of their eyes faded to faint coals covered over with ash.
Afterwards, she still ate chips and laughed at cheesy jokes and applied her mascara too thickly and got PMS and all the trappings of normal life, but things had changed. Even though she couldn’t remember exactly what had happened when she was the Bad Wolf, she knew that she walked a new path. She was the stuff of legend. And when the old enemies were reborn (for evil is very nearly as persistent as good) and the walls of the universe closed, she was not beaten. The wolf uncurled itself and lapped the tears from her face, drinking deep of her grief and determination, growing strong. (Remember, human child: not what can be but what must be.)
She said she would stay with the Doctor forever. Now, she knew she would search for him forever if need be. Forever and a day.
Later, when the soles of her shoes started to detach and flap up and down like wagging tongues, she took them off and carried on barefoot.
* * *
He tried to work, but he wasn’t making much progress. The flat was too cold and too loud. There wasn’t much to be done about the cold, not on their budget, and gloves would take away the dexterity he needed to make the fine inner workings of his timey-wimey detector. There wasn’t much to be done about the loud either, not with gauze-thin walls, the Barretts upstairs having a baby and the O’Connors next door being newlyweds (and wasn’t that awkward when he and Martha were jammed in cheek to jowl in this flat). Right now, though, the flat seemed louder than usual and unusually strident…the phone! He shot up to grab the receiver.
“Hello? Martha! …Oh, I’m fine. Brilliant, in fact.” That was a lie, but Martha would tell her version of the same lie when he asked her about her day at work.
“Could you do me a favor and pick up some extra garlic on your way home? I’m going to cook stuffed aubergines, and I want the flavor to be strong enough to clear vampires from the whole neighborhood, not that we have vampires, I hope….Working late again?...Yes, I know we need the money. Of course. I’ll save the aubergines for another night… See you when you get here, then. Oh, and Martha? You win bread with the best of the breadwinners.” That last bit got a tiny laugh. Good. She didn’t laugh much lately. Neither of them did.
He hung up the receiver and glared around the room as if somehow the threadbare carpet and peeling paint were causes rather than symptoms of his problems. He usually loved 1969 (Moon landing! Woodstock! Abbey Road album! Protests galore!), but that was when he had the ability to leave any time. Without the TARDIS, it was just endless images of war on the telly, the humdrum rhythms of daily existence, and always the unfamiliar worry about money. His psychic paper and sonic screwdriver would be enough to pull off any number of heists that would enable them to wait this out in style, but they’d decided to live honestly unless an emergency came up. Horrible as the thought was, sometimes he wished they had enough money to get a house with a mortgage–anything was better than the dingy flat.
Then there was Martha, brilliant Martha, once again forced into dreary, demeaning tasks for his sake. Astoundingly, she still believed in him. Nevertheless, he could see the leaving in the back of her eyes. He’d seen that look before. Not right away, but soon. She probably didn’t know it yet, but staying was the only thing she wouldn’t do for him. The Doctor wasn’t sure whether he was more disturbed by that undeserved belief or the approaching departure.
What he needed was something simple, quick, and warm in his belly. Luckily, they had just the thing to cheer him up: alphabet soup. How could anyone be unhappy while consuming soup that spelled?
He heated up the soup, savoring the hearty odors. His stomach made a loud noise, alerting him that he’d been too distracted to eat lunch. When the soup was hot he ladled it out and sat at the table. Though hungry, he delayed eating for a moment to wrap his hands around the bowl, letting warmth permeate his stiff fingers while his eyes ran over the letters on the surface, finding dozens of words.
The very first spoonful of glorious soup stopped halfway to his mouth. There were only three letters floating in the spoonful of broth: B, A, and, of course D. He almost got up and dumped the entire bowl of soup down the sink, but Martha had talked with him just last Tuesday about not being wasteful. Besides, it could be simple chance. He was careful to keep his next spoonful so full of letters that no words could be seen, and so with all subsequent spoonfuls. Eventually the soup was almost gone, but four letters remained stuck to the side of the bowl: WOLF. He exploded.
“Oh, come on! My soup? This is getting ridiculous! What next? New freckles spelling it on my face? The neighbors’ noisy bedsprings beating it out in Morse code?” The Doctor glared at the soup bowl with a force that very nearly made the poor dish grow legs and run away.
“What are you trying to accomplish? Why put these words here, where they can do nothing to lead you back to the Game Station? Are you paying any attention to where you scatter your message? Or do you see that I’m reading them alone? Are you trying to make sure I remember you? Is that it? I don’t need the reminder! I couldn’t forget you if I wanted to. Every hour of every day, waking or sleeping, I think about you. I remember that I lost you. So unless you’re going to communicate something real, unless you’re going to wave your glowing hand and open up a door to that other universe to bring back your future self, you can bloody well stop this! Do you hear me, Rose?!” he shouted wildly at an audience two hundred thousand years away.
Upstairs, the baby started crying. The Doctor deflated, burying his face in his hands. “Oh, Rose,” he whispered.
* * *
Between the worlds there stood a forest. In the heart of the forest there stood the TARDIS. In front of the TARDIS stood, at last, Rose Tyler.
The TARDIS waited for her in a small clearing. Its blue was shockingly bright against the grayscale forest, its straight lines making it seem almost frighteningly solid. Rose remained frozen at the edge of the clearing, unable to comprehend its presence or its promise. A trail of bloody footprints measured the road behind her. She’d never lost focus on the object of her quest, but she could no longer quite recall what it was like not to be walking, not to be in pain, not to be in the woods. Her heart tried to batter its way through her ribs at the marvelous, terrifying concept of an ending for the quest.
If this was the ending, it came at the right time. The diffuse white light that had shone constantly for so long when she first entered the woods had slowly faded over many miles. Here, the forest seemed to be shrouded in twilight. The path had grown narrower too until it barely kept her out of reach of the trees. Under the eaves of the forest, the unintelligible whispers grew closer. Closer and, perhaps, angrier.
Rose inspected the TARDIS from a distance, wary of the intensity of the unseen voices around the clearing. She didn’t know of a reason for the TARDIS to be in the Void, so she had to look out for the chance that it was a mirage or bait. If a trap waited, it was too subtle for her to see. She rested for a moment on the breathless edge of triumph. Then she dashed forward, fumbling in her pockets for the key as she ran.
An instant before her key could slip into the lock, the ornamental police phone rang. She froze. The TARDIS phone wasn’t real. If it rang, that meant that either this wasn’t her Doctor’s TARDIS or something was very wrong indeed.
The phone kept ringing, so, giving in to the sense of inevitability, Rose answered it.
“Hello? Who is this?” Rose asked in a polite tone.
“I am the Bad Wolf,” the phone informed her, sounding as if it came from a great distance. A stir swept through the whispering forest. She knew that voice. From where?
“Why does everybody think they’re the Bad Wolf lately? That’s my title. Does this have something to do with the Little Red Riding Hood thing Jack was going on about?” Rose pressed her back against the TARDIS so she could keep an eye on the trees. There was something she was missing here, something she should remember.
“I create myself.” With those words, Rose understood where she knew the voice. Strangely distorted and layered, it was nevertheless her own voice, together with something vast and mighty born of the Vortex. (Yet how powerful had she become on her own, the girl who had left bloody footprints across numberless leagues?)
“I take the words,” continued the phone. “I scatter them in time and space. A message to lead myself here.”
Here: the heart of the forest. The wolf’s den, the dragon’s lair, the witch’s house, the belly of the beast, the Dalek-infested Game Station. The place of trial. It was her immutable destiny and her conscious choice. It was not her final goal.
“I’m trying to get back to the Doctor again. Do you know how to reach my home universe?” she asked, hoping that the echo of her past could offer advice.
“I can see everything,” the phone replied unhelpfully.
“Yeah, that’s great,” said Rose, running a hand through her hair in frustration. She’d asked if it knew the way back, not what that way was. She hoped there wasn’t some limit in number of questions. She hoped she could get away from the whispers before it got any darker. “Please tell me how to get out of the woods and back to the Doctor.”
“I can see the whole of time and space–every single atom of your existence, and I divide them.” The voice on the phone–her wolf voice–was still distant, but it had gained an edge like a razor.
Rose straightened in shock. “No! I’m you, or a part of you anyway. Why kill me?”
“I bring life.”
She thought of Jack, unable to die since the Game Station. She closed her eyes. When she heard the story from him, she’d suspected, but the wonder and careless power of her wolf self’s words made her sure. Well, nothing to be done about it except confess when (if) she next saw him. But what did it mean now?
She reopened her eyes. The trees were closer. They looked less and less like real trees.
“I don’t want to be immortal. I don’t want anybody’s atoms divided. I just need to get back to my universe.” Rose forced herself to speak slowly and calmly despite the menacing woods.
“The sun and the moon... the day and night.”
“Yeah. That universe. Sun, moon, Earth, Raxacoricofallapatorious, chips, kittens, a distinct shortage of zeppelins, and most of all the Doctor. Can I get there from here? Soon, please.” Rose snapped a bit. There was a pattern in the trees’ whispers, perhaps a word still not quite intelligible to her conscious mind, but something in the back of her skull recognized it and trembled. Was she going to meet her end in these woods after coming so far?
“Everything must come to dust... all things. Everything dies.”
Rose knew the truth of those words deep in the marrow that had once held the time vortex, but that didn’t mean she had to accept them peacefully.
“Not before I get back to the Doctor. He needs a hand to hold.” (Believe: not what can be but what must be.)
“My Doctor.” Such love in that voice!
“For his sake, show me what to do next,” Rose commanded.
“The Time War ends.”
Before Rose could voice objection to the cryptic nature of the advice, the door of the TARDIS opened. She stepped inside.
* * *
Onwards to Chapter 4
