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tardis_stowawayAltNine is just so much fun to write!
Title: What country, friends, is this?
Author: tardis_stowaway
Rating: PG for a bit of language
Spoilers: Through Doomsday
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all its characters belong to the BBC, not me. Alas!
Story Summary: Post-Doomsday, Rose still runs for her life. One night she runs into someone she never expected to see again. Problem #1: It's hard to have a blissful reunion with someone who has never met you. Problem #2: A Nine from the universe where Rose Tyler was never born is bound to have some unresolved issues.
Chapter Notes: In which a certain Time Lord finally shows his big-eared head but is not at all who he seems whilst Miss Tyler has some explaining to do.
Yes, the opening Twelfth Night quote is the same as for chapter 2. I took the titles from different lines but wanted y'all to see the full verse each time.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
What country, friends, is this?
by TARDIS_stowaway
Chapter 3: Trip No Further, Pretty Sweeting
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know. -Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II.iii
Inside the ticket booth was a soaring space full of light and shadows, crossed by elegant struts, cluttered with wires and mysterious buttons. Anyone else would have thought it utterly alien. I did once. Now I felt a delightful release of tension throughout my body like when I was a child in my mother’s embrace. Whatever its outside, this was the TARDIS, and I was home. A lanky figure I thought I’d never see again lifted its head from a tangle of wires and said:
“Who the hell are you?”
My brain was so overwhelmed with shock and joy that his words did not immediately register. He came back for me. The thought was too large, too difficult to process, and too precious to tolerate any others.
“Doctor!” I breathed, wanting more than anything to run and fling my arms around him but afraid that if I moved the dream would fall apart. He scrunched up his eyebrows and gave me an intensely puzzled and not entirely pleased look. At that instant two very important pieces of information simultaneously jumped up and grabbed my consciousness:
1) Somehow, he had no idea who I was.
2) The person to whom I spoke bore the Doctor’s familiar features alright, but not the expected set of features. He had big ears and a prominent nose, angular cheekbones, very short hair, and he wore a black leather jacket. It was the Doctor as I first met him, before his regeneration.
“How do you know who I am?” he asked, advancing on me. (That accent. “Lots of planets have a north!” he told me long ago, and once again I heard the north of a vanished world in his voice.)
“What happened to you?” I asked, my voice rising in panic.
“How did you get in here?” he questioned. This I could answer.
“You gave me a key!” I said, holding it up. He looked more perplexed than ever.
“No I didn’t!” he said, baffled as ever and now sounding slightly angry. He strode up snatched the key away from me, running his figures over it. “Although the evidence seems to be against me. No matter. You don’t need a key to get out. Bye now!” He gave a little wave and a tiny shove towards the door. The gears in my brain were turning furiously. Had something happened to wipe his memory and send him back to a previous form? I didn’t think that was possible, but then I had no idea he could change bodies until he did it.
“If you send me out there you’ll kill me!” I practically shouted. “I’m being chased by some sort of alien. I don’t recognize it.” I hoped the Doctor could see the pleading in my eyes. He was always a sucker for the big, frightened eyes. He dashed to the monitor and hit a few buttons to bring up the image of what was happening right outside the TARDIS door. The slug man, looking quite enraged, was beating at the door with a large hunk of metal from the Ferris wheel.
“You’ve got a Yorplin after you? How exciting! He’s a long way from home, and looks rather unhappy about something. Well, if you won’t be leaving yet, we have plenty of time to get back to the question of who you are and what you’re doing in my ship.” He folded his arms and stared at me. I felt those blue eyes bore into me, relentless as a glacier. Think, Rose. He was a time traveler. He could have been alive for centuries since I’d seen him last, journeying with a hundred other people, so many he’d forgotten me. (A sick knot formed in my stomach at that thought, but I pushed it down). Ignore the body change for now. I just needed to remind him who I was.
“I’m Rose. Rose Tyler,” I pleaded. There was not a trace of recognition in his gaze. My eyes grew blurry with upwelling tears. I had daydreamed of reunion with the Doctor a hundred thousand times in a hundred thousand ways, but never once had it occurred to me that he wouldn’t recognize me. The few feet between us seemed as uncrossable as the wall between dimensions. Dimensions! I laughed aloud with a sudden joyous epiphany. The Doctor didn’t recognize me because he’d never met me! This Doctor was native to my present dimension, just like zeppelins and the Pete Tyler who lived and grew rich. He had never met me because I’d never been born here. Just like my mum and Mickey/Rickey, there must be a Doctor in each parallel world.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow at my sudden laughter, but said nothing. My mirth vanished quickly. My Doctor was as distant as ever. Mickey from my home and Ricky from this one had not had quite the same personality. This fellow looked and sounded just like the Doctor as I once knew him, but I had no idea how he would act. And he still had no idea who I was. Right. How on earth did I go about explaining this so I didn’t sound like a total nutter? Hi, I’m from another dimension, where I used to travel with the you that lives there. We saved the universe together lots of times. Mind if I move back into my room? Oh, by the way, I love you more than I could say if I talked with the speed of your next regeneration for a hundred years! Bad idea.
“I’m a long way from home too,” I said for a start.
“Well, that’s obvious. London, by the sounds of it. Why you’re on the Jersey shore playing tag with a Yorplin is an interesting question, but not nearly as interesting as how you got a key to my ship.” He smiled as he spoke, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“It’s more complicated than that, and you know it, Doctor,” I murmured. With a flash of boldness, I closed the distance between us, standing close enough I had to tilt my head to look him in the eye. “I’m from London sure enough, but I’ve traveled much farther than just across the pond. Not as far as you, Time Lord,” I said, reaching out to take his hand, “but farther than anyone else on this planet.” He gave me a long appraising look (keeping hold of my hand, I was pleased to note), then dashed across the room (leaving my hand and I behind). He threw open one of the TARDIS’s innumerable storage compartments and started rooting through it, heedlessly scattering odds and ends from dozens of worlds across the floor. At last he found what he wanted and stood up.
The Doctor was wearing 3D glasses. I smiled. It really couldn’t be helped; he looked if possible even sillier and more adorably dorky in them in this body than in his post-regeneration one. They emphasized his sail-like ears. For the first time since I’d entered the TARDIS, he too broke into that huge grin I liked so much, including his eyes under their goofy glasses. It was the grin he gave upon discovering some novel and interesting forms of trouble to get in rather than a grin for recognizing a friend, but it was a start.
“There’s void stuff all over you. You’re from another dimension!” he exclaimed. I waggled my eyebrows at him.
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“Holmes can’t hold a candle to me. I know, I won 10 quid off a bet with him,” he said, circling around to see all angles of me, “You knew I’d be smart enough to figure out your origins, you know my name, and you’ve got a TARDIS key. You must have known an alternate me in that dimension. I didn’t think there were any alternates of me, but it makes more sense than any other explanation. Am I right?”
“As usual!” I said, smiling harder than ever. He got so pleased when he solved a puzzle. I was glad to note that I was right about both his ability to put the pieces together and the positive effect it had on him. (Did he say he’d won a bet with Sherlock Holmes? Holmes is fictional! At least he was fictional in my universe. Here, who knows.)
“Well, I’m not very impressed with your me, letting you nearly get killed by a Yorplin. Also, what are you doing in this dimension in the first place? I–the I you came with–should have realized how fragile the fabric of reality is around this planet and this time. Why, just three years ago the whole thing nearly collapsed. A hole between dimensions puts the universe at risk. We’ve got to get you back to the other me and get you both out of here so we can patch that hole.” He whipped the 3D glasses off and started flipping switches on the TARDIS controls. My smile fled my face.
“He’s gone,” I said woodenly. “There’s no hole between dimensions any more. We had to close it. He’s on that side, the side we came from, and I’m on this one. I haven’t seen you, er, him for three years.” I stared at the floor, vaguely noticing that it needed to be swept in a major way but only really seeing that cursed white wall.
“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said simply. He meant it, I could tell. I looked up at him, deciding to switch the topic slightly before I made my mascara run.
“’It’s alright. I’m sorry for breaking in on you. When the key got warm beside of the ticket booth, I just assumed that the chameleon circuits were finally working again and let myself in without thinking.”
“Nah, she’s been a ticket booth for centuries over here. I think I might pardon your rude entrance on account of your slimy friend out there,” he replied. He glanced at the mysterious object, dangling loosely from my hand. “That why it’s chasing you?” I nodded and briefly explained how I got it and my utter ignorance of what it did. He raised an eyebrow when I mentioned that I worked for Torchwood but made no comment, simply holding out his hands when I was done. I handed over the thingy. He fingered it, ran the sonic screwdriver over it, and beamed.
“Rose from another dimension, you have yourself quite a piece of contraband! This little thing is banned in five galaxies, and the rest haven’t banned it only because they haven’t heard of it yet. It’s a Yorplinish hypercamera.”
“That Yorplin wants to eat my eyeballs for a camera?”
“Not an ordinary camera. Loaded with the proper film, a Yorplinish hypercamera is one of the most dreadful short-range weapons ever invented. You say that thing threatened you and numerous civilians?”
“Yeah. So what’s so bad about it?” I asked. The Doctor set the hypercamera down and started rummaging around in his jacket pockets.
“You know how some low-technology civilizations believe that cameras steal your soul?” He pulled out a simple black wallet and removed the blank piece of paper from it. I nodded as he fed the paper into the slot on the camera.
“This one really does,” he announced. Before I could reply he punched a few TARDIS buttons, strode over to the door and flung it open, revealing a very grouchy looking Yorplin. Its bowler hat was gone, revealing green antennae sticking out of its hair.
“Were you planning on enslaving this planet, or just taking the hypercamera and heading out to enslave more prosperous worlds?” the Doctor asked it, all icy calm. He leaned against the doorway so the hand holding the hypercamera was out of view.
“Filthy thieves!” the Yorplin roared, swinging his enormous metal club at the Doctor. It rebounded off thin air, nearly whacking the slug-man in the face.
“I’ve set up a force field across the door. Since you’re laying claim to a hypercamera, a weapon strictly forbidden under section 29 of the Shadow Proclamation, I felt it unlikely you would consent to the peaceful audience terms of convention 15. Now, leave this planet. Leave and never return. This is your only warning.”
“Leave? Leave a planet so full of riches with nobody claiming them but defenseless apes? I don’t need the hypercamera to conquer it. However, I want it the hypercamera anyway. You’re going to give it to me, because I have a force field penetrating blaster!” the Yorplin growled, pulling a blast pistol out of his jacket. The Doctor gave him a mock-innocent look.
“What, you mean this hypercamera?” he said, pointing it and pulling the trigger. A white light flashed, and the Yorplin slumped to the ground. The piece of paper slid out of the slot in the hypercamera. The Doctor took the paper and began shaking it.
“You just stole his soul?” I asked, shocked. A small part of me was amused that the instinct to shake Polaroid pictures apparently applied to Time Lords.
“More or less. The hypercamera captures the energy print of the victim’s consciousness and transfers it onto a piece of psychic paper. Look!” I took the paper from him, ignoring the tingle of excitement when our fingertips brushed. The image on the psychic paper was resolving into a photo of the Yorplin, which wouldn’t have been unusual if it weren’t for the fact that the Yorplin was moving around in the photo, banging on the edges of the paper as if they were walls. It was like a twisted version of a wizard photo in a Harry Potter book.
“The consciousness is trapped in the paper,” the Doctor explained, “but the body keeps on living. With a bit of training it can perform simple physical tasks, but it will never have another complex thought or emotion. Nice way to get a lot of disposable slaves.”
“What are we going to do with him?” I inquired, watching the two-dimensional slug-man shout inaudibly.
“Hadn’t thought that far yet,” replied the Doctor, who had started dismantling the hypercamera with the sonic screwdriver. This Doctor seemed to have no happy medium between the stare that seemed to strip my mind naked and total refusal to look at me.
“We can’t just leave him soulless! “
“It’s what he was trying to do to your species.”
“That doesn’t make it right for us to do it! Besides, his body is going to attract attention, even in New Jersey.”
The Doctor, who had finished disassembling the hypercamera into about a zillion little pieces, looked up at me with what might have been an impressed look. I felt a faint warmth rushing to my cheeks. As hard as I’d tried to remember him, my memories had not quite carried the full intensity of his stare.
“Right you are. All it takes to return the soul to the body is to stick the paper in the body’s mouth and let it dissolve. I’ll go dump this lump of slime on his home planet and give his soul back as I leave.”
“Hold on there. ‘I’ll go,’ you say. What about me?”
“You go back to London and get on with your life. Eat your beans on toast, watch the telly, maybe kiss a cute boy. Tell Torchwood you met me if you must; they’ll never track me down. Take this key back and keep on looking for the Doctor you know. Maybe he can afford tag-alongs.” His tone was dark, bitter, and cold like a pot of coffee made far too strong and abandoned on the counter. As the Doctor spoke, he took my hand and put my TARDIS key back in my palm. My innards did a gymnastics act as my heart rose into my throat and my stomach dropped to my toes. I will not be abandoned before you even know me, I thought, steeling myself. I twisted my fingers around so they intertwined with his, the key between our hands.
“No. I don’t know how to cross dimensions, and if I did I might destroy the world. I would give anything to see the Doctor–my first Doctor–again, but the world is not mine to give. I want a chance to meet you, o stranger with a familiar face. Besides, it looks like the place could do with a bit of cleaning,” I gestured with my free hand at the dust, hypercamera parts, candy wrappers from a dozen worlds, loose wires, a box from New New York Pizza 2 Go, and other detritus. “I’m guessing you don’t have anyone else with you.”
“Not for a long while, and it’s staying that way. I travel alone,” he declared with finality. Well, I had worn him down from that tone of voice before. It was time for a side attack.
“What if that Yorplin wasn’t acting alone? I need to know more about that species so Torchwood can defend against them.” As I spoke about business in the most level tone I could manage, I started rubbing my thumb in small soft circles on the back of his hand. “Just this errand, then we’ll talk over drinks, swap some intelligence and stories. See whether you should be sending me away so hastily and whether I should be so quick to hop on board. “
“Humans. Everything’s an excuse for alcohol.” He sounded exasperated. Excellent– exasperation usually came right before he relented. This was easier than I’d feared.
“You’re full of it! Lots of things we do aren’t about alcohol at all. Some of them are all about chocolate!” I teased, adding mentally, or sex. No, Rose, don’t even think of giving in to that urge to jump his bones. No need to make him think I’m a transdimensional tramp. The corner of his mouth twitched at my remark.
“Oh, all right. One trip to Yorp, that’s the Yorplin’s homeworld, one drink–I think we’ll move off to another planet for that one, since Yorp vodka will accomplish more or less the same effect as the hypercamera but with much more vomit afterwards. That’s it. Now, you earn your keep by helping me move your pal inside. I’ll take the torso, you grab the tail.” He pushed away my hand, leaving me the key.
“Why do I get the slimy end?” I grumbled. I exited the TARDIS, stepping over the unconscious alien. I froze. My eyes had just alighted on a billboard I hadn’t noticed when I was out here about to die: Bad Wolf Haunted House. The Doctor must have noticed how I suddenly stiffened. Perhaps I even gasped.
“What is it?” he asked, peering past me.
“Bad Wolf,” I murmured.
“Does that mean something to you?” he asked, honestly confused.
“Probably not here,” I muttered, trying to regain my composure as I bent down and tried to lift the gooey slug end of the Yorplin. My mind churned with conflicting emotions. Hope shone golden, because those words had followed my first Doctor and me across the universe. It was a symbol of our partnership, suggesting that I might get to stay with this Doctor after all. Fear dug its claws into my gut, because Bad Wolf had come about as a way for me to save the Doctor (and, incidentally, the rest of the universe) from a Dalek invasion. Were the Daleks coming in this universe too? Would the Doctor and I still manage to survive? We’d come so close to dying…his body DID die, and so did Jack, though in typical Jack manner he refused to abide by social conventions like staying dead. Cynicism muttered in my ear that this might just be an echo originating in my home universe, utterly meaningless in present context. It could even be genuine coincidence, although with the Doctor nearby that seemed unlikely. Whatever the meaning or lack thereof, I could do nothing now.
As I heaved the disgusting bulk of the Yorplin into the ticket booth TARDIS, I almost wanted to thank it. Had it not been for the Yorplin’s murderous rage, I would be watching the zeppelins from the window of my hotel room, safe and very alone. Closing the door, I looked for something to wipe off the slime other than my cute black dress. Not wanting to spread the gross slime onto everything I touched, I gave up and had to ask the Doctor for a rag.
“Do you honestly mean to tell me,” he said in mock disbelief, “that you’re trying to hitchhike across space and time without your towel?”
“C’mon, you. I’m sure I’m not the first you’ve picked up without some necessities in tow.
“Well, there was one lady I took aboard years ago who was wearing a huge, floppy swashbuckling sort of hat, a swordbelt, and not a stitch else…”
“Besides,” I interrupted before he could go any farther down that particular memory lane, “you can’t say I’m totally unprepared. I have a banana!” I brandished the fruit at him, causing his eyebrow to shoot up.
“I like a girl who knows how to handle a banana. Excellent source of potassium!” he exclaimed. I snorted. Some things never changed.
Onward to Chapter 4
Title: What country, friends, is this?
Author: tardis_stowaway
Rating: PG for a bit of language
Spoilers: Through Doomsday
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all its characters belong to the BBC, not me. Alas!
Story Summary: Post-Doomsday, Rose still runs for her life. One night she runs into someone she never expected to see again. Problem #1: It's hard to have a blissful reunion with someone who has never met you. Problem #2: A Nine from the universe where Rose Tyler was never born is bound to have some unresolved issues.
Chapter Notes: In which a certain Time Lord finally shows his big-eared head but is not at all who he seems whilst Miss Tyler has some explaining to do.
Yes, the opening Twelfth Night quote is the same as for chapter 2. I took the titles from different lines but wanted y'all to see the full verse each time.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
What country, friends, is this?
by TARDIS_stowaway
Chapter 3: Trip No Further, Pretty Sweeting
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know. -Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II.iii
Inside the ticket booth was a soaring space full of light and shadows, crossed by elegant struts, cluttered with wires and mysterious buttons. Anyone else would have thought it utterly alien. I did once. Now I felt a delightful release of tension throughout my body like when I was a child in my mother’s embrace. Whatever its outside, this was the TARDIS, and I was home. A lanky figure I thought I’d never see again lifted its head from a tangle of wires and said:
“Who the hell are you?”
My brain was so overwhelmed with shock and joy that his words did not immediately register. He came back for me. The thought was too large, too difficult to process, and too precious to tolerate any others.
“Doctor!” I breathed, wanting more than anything to run and fling my arms around him but afraid that if I moved the dream would fall apart. He scrunched up his eyebrows and gave me an intensely puzzled and not entirely pleased look. At that instant two very important pieces of information simultaneously jumped up and grabbed my consciousness:
1) Somehow, he had no idea who I was.
2) The person to whom I spoke bore the Doctor’s familiar features alright, but not the expected set of features. He had big ears and a prominent nose, angular cheekbones, very short hair, and he wore a black leather jacket. It was the Doctor as I first met him, before his regeneration.
“How do you know who I am?” he asked, advancing on me. (That accent. “Lots of planets have a north!” he told me long ago, and once again I heard the north of a vanished world in his voice.)
“What happened to you?” I asked, my voice rising in panic.
“How did you get in here?” he questioned. This I could answer.
“You gave me a key!” I said, holding it up. He looked more perplexed than ever.
“No I didn’t!” he said, baffled as ever and now sounding slightly angry. He strode up snatched the key away from me, running his figures over it. “Although the evidence seems to be against me. No matter. You don’t need a key to get out. Bye now!” He gave a little wave and a tiny shove towards the door. The gears in my brain were turning furiously. Had something happened to wipe his memory and send him back to a previous form? I didn’t think that was possible, but then I had no idea he could change bodies until he did it.
“If you send me out there you’ll kill me!” I practically shouted. “I’m being chased by some sort of alien. I don’t recognize it.” I hoped the Doctor could see the pleading in my eyes. He was always a sucker for the big, frightened eyes. He dashed to the monitor and hit a few buttons to bring up the image of what was happening right outside the TARDIS door. The slug man, looking quite enraged, was beating at the door with a large hunk of metal from the Ferris wheel.
“You’ve got a Yorplin after you? How exciting! He’s a long way from home, and looks rather unhappy about something. Well, if you won’t be leaving yet, we have plenty of time to get back to the question of who you are and what you’re doing in my ship.” He folded his arms and stared at me. I felt those blue eyes bore into me, relentless as a glacier. Think, Rose. He was a time traveler. He could have been alive for centuries since I’d seen him last, journeying with a hundred other people, so many he’d forgotten me. (A sick knot formed in my stomach at that thought, but I pushed it down). Ignore the body change for now. I just needed to remind him who I was.
“I’m Rose. Rose Tyler,” I pleaded. There was not a trace of recognition in his gaze. My eyes grew blurry with upwelling tears. I had daydreamed of reunion with the Doctor a hundred thousand times in a hundred thousand ways, but never once had it occurred to me that he wouldn’t recognize me. The few feet between us seemed as uncrossable as the wall between dimensions. Dimensions! I laughed aloud with a sudden joyous epiphany. The Doctor didn’t recognize me because he’d never met me! This Doctor was native to my present dimension, just like zeppelins and the Pete Tyler who lived and grew rich. He had never met me because I’d never been born here. Just like my mum and Mickey/Rickey, there must be a Doctor in each parallel world.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow at my sudden laughter, but said nothing. My mirth vanished quickly. My Doctor was as distant as ever. Mickey from my home and Ricky from this one had not had quite the same personality. This fellow looked and sounded just like the Doctor as I once knew him, but I had no idea how he would act. And he still had no idea who I was. Right. How on earth did I go about explaining this so I didn’t sound like a total nutter? Hi, I’m from another dimension, where I used to travel with the you that lives there. We saved the universe together lots of times. Mind if I move back into my room? Oh, by the way, I love you more than I could say if I talked with the speed of your next regeneration for a hundred years! Bad idea.
“I’m a long way from home too,” I said for a start.
“Well, that’s obvious. London, by the sounds of it. Why you’re on the Jersey shore playing tag with a Yorplin is an interesting question, but not nearly as interesting as how you got a key to my ship.” He smiled as he spoke, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“It’s more complicated than that, and you know it, Doctor,” I murmured. With a flash of boldness, I closed the distance between us, standing close enough I had to tilt my head to look him in the eye. “I’m from London sure enough, but I’ve traveled much farther than just across the pond. Not as far as you, Time Lord,” I said, reaching out to take his hand, “but farther than anyone else on this planet.” He gave me a long appraising look (keeping hold of my hand, I was pleased to note), then dashed across the room (leaving my hand and I behind). He threw open one of the TARDIS’s innumerable storage compartments and started rooting through it, heedlessly scattering odds and ends from dozens of worlds across the floor. At last he found what he wanted and stood up.
The Doctor was wearing 3D glasses. I smiled. It really couldn’t be helped; he looked if possible even sillier and more adorably dorky in them in this body than in his post-regeneration one. They emphasized his sail-like ears. For the first time since I’d entered the TARDIS, he too broke into that huge grin I liked so much, including his eyes under their goofy glasses. It was the grin he gave upon discovering some novel and interesting forms of trouble to get in rather than a grin for recognizing a friend, but it was a start.
“There’s void stuff all over you. You’re from another dimension!” he exclaimed. I waggled my eyebrows at him.
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“Holmes can’t hold a candle to me. I know, I won 10 quid off a bet with him,” he said, circling around to see all angles of me, “You knew I’d be smart enough to figure out your origins, you know my name, and you’ve got a TARDIS key. You must have known an alternate me in that dimension. I didn’t think there were any alternates of me, but it makes more sense than any other explanation. Am I right?”
“As usual!” I said, smiling harder than ever. He got so pleased when he solved a puzzle. I was glad to note that I was right about both his ability to put the pieces together and the positive effect it had on him. (Did he say he’d won a bet with Sherlock Holmes? Holmes is fictional! At least he was fictional in my universe. Here, who knows.)
“Well, I’m not very impressed with your me, letting you nearly get killed by a Yorplin. Also, what are you doing in this dimension in the first place? I–the I you came with–should have realized how fragile the fabric of reality is around this planet and this time. Why, just three years ago the whole thing nearly collapsed. A hole between dimensions puts the universe at risk. We’ve got to get you back to the other me and get you both out of here so we can patch that hole.” He whipped the 3D glasses off and started flipping switches on the TARDIS controls. My smile fled my face.
“He’s gone,” I said woodenly. “There’s no hole between dimensions any more. We had to close it. He’s on that side, the side we came from, and I’m on this one. I haven’t seen you, er, him for three years.” I stared at the floor, vaguely noticing that it needed to be swept in a major way but only really seeing that cursed white wall.
“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said simply. He meant it, I could tell. I looked up at him, deciding to switch the topic slightly before I made my mascara run.
“’It’s alright. I’m sorry for breaking in on you. When the key got warm beside of the ticket booth, I just assumed that the chameleon circuits were finally working again and let myself in without thinking.”
“Nah, she’s been a ticket booth for centuries over here. I think I might pardon your rude entrance on account of your slimy friend out there,” he replied. He glanced at the mysterious object, dangling loosely from my hand. “That why it’s chasing you?” I nodded and briefly explained how I got it and my utter ignorance of what it did. He raised an eyebrow when I mentioned that I worked for Torchwood but made no comment, simply holding out his hands when I was done. I handed over the thingy. He fingered it, ran the sonic screwdriver over it, and beamed.
“Rose from another dimension, you have yourself quite a piece of contraband! This little thing is banned in five galaxies, and the rest haven’t banned it only because they haven’t heard of it yet. It’s a Yorplinish hypercamera.”
“That Yorplin wants to eat my eyeballs for a camera?”
“Not an ordinary camera. Loaded with the proper film, a Yorplinish hypercamera is one of the most dreadful short-range weapons ever invented. You say that thing threatened you and numerous civilians?”
“Yeah. So what’s so bad about it?” I asked. The Doctor set the hypercamera down and started rummaging around in his jacket pockets.
“You know how some low-technology civilizations believe that cameras steal your soul?” He pulled out a simple black wallet and removed the blank piece of paper from it. I nodded as he fed the paper into the slot on the camera.
“This one really does,” he announced. Before I could reply he punched a few TARDIS buttons, strode over to the door and flung it open, revealing a very grouchy looking Yorplin. Its bowler hat was gone, revealing green antennae sticking out of its hair.
“Were you planning on enslaving this planet, or just taking the hypercamera and heading out to enslave more prosperous worlds?” the Doctor asked it, all icy calm. He leaned against the doorway so the hand holding the hypercamera was out of view.
“Filthy thieves!” the Yorplin roared, swinging his enormous metal club at the Doctor. It rebounded off thin air, nearly whacking the slug-man in the face.
“I’ve set up a force field across the door. Since you’re laying claim to a hypercamera, a weapon strictly forbidden under section 29 of the Shadow Proclamation, I felt it unlikely you would consent to the peaceful audience terms of convention 15. Now, leave this planet. Leave and never return. This is your only warning.”
“Leave? Leave a planet so full of riches with nobody claiming them but defenseless apes? I don’t need the hypercamera to conquer it. However, I want it the hypercamera anyway. You’re going to give it to me, because I have a force field penetrating blaster!” the Yorplin growled, pulling a blast pistol out of his jacket. The Doctor gave him a mock-innocent look.
“What, you mean this hypercamera?” he said, pointing it and pulling the trigger. A white light flashed, and the Yorplin slumped to the ground. The piece of paper slid out of the slot in the hypercamera. The Doctor took the paper and began shaking it.
“You just stole his soul?” I asked, shocked. A small part of me was amused that the instinct to shake Polaroid pictures apparently applied to Time Lords.
“More or less. The hypercamera captures the energy print of the victim’s consciousness and transfers it onto a piece of psychic paper. Look!” I took the paper from him, ignoring the tingle of excitement when our fingertips brushed. The image on the psychic paper was resolving into a photo of the Yorplin, which wouldn’t have been unusual if it weren’t for the fact that the Yorplin was moving around in the photo, banging on the edges of the paper as if they were walls. It was like a twisted version of a wizard photo in a Harry Potter book.
“The consciousness is trapped in the paper,” the Doctor explained, “but the body keeps on living. With a bit of training it can perform simple physical tasks, but it will never have another complex thought or emotion. Nice way to get a lot of disposable slaves.”
“What are we going to do with him?” I inquired, watching the two-dimensional slug-man shout inaudibly.
“Hadn’t thought that far yet,” replied the Doctor, who had started dismantling the hypercamera with the sonic screwdriver. This Doctor seemed to have no happy medium between the stare that seemed to strip my mind naked and total refusal to look at me.
“We can’t just leave him soulless! “
“It’s what he was trying to do to your species.”
“That doesn’t make it right for us to do it! Besides, his body is going to attract attention, even in New Jersey.”
The Doctor, who had finished disassembling the hypercamera into about a zillion little pieces, looked up at me with what might have been an impressed look. I felt a faint warmth rushing to my cheeks. As hard as I’d tried to remember him, my memories had not quite carried the full intensity of his stare.
“Right you are. All it takes to return the soul to the body is to stick the paper in the body’s mouth and let it dissolve. I’ll go dump this lump of slime on his home planet and give his soul back as I leave.”
“Hold on there. ‘I’ll go,’ you say. What about me?”
“You go back to London and get on with your life. Eat your beans on toast, watch the telly, maybe kiss a cute boy. Tell Torchwood you met me if you must; they’ll never track me down. Take this key back and keep on looking for the Doctor you know. Maybe he can afford tag-alongs.” His tone was dark, bitter, and cold like a pot of coffee made far too strong and abandoned on the counter. As the Doctor spoke, he took my hand and put my TARDIS key back in my palm. My innards did a gymnastics act as my heart rose into my throat and my stomach dropped to my toes. I will not be abandoned before you even know me, I thought, steeling myself. I twisted my fingers around so they intertwined with his, the key between our hands.
“No. I don’t know how to cross dimensions, and if I did I might destroy the world. I would give anything to see the Doctor–my first Doctor–again, but the world is not mine to give. I want a chance to meet you, o stranger with a familiar face. Besides, it looks like the place could do with a bit of cleaning,” I gestured with my free hand at the dust, hypercamera parts, candy wrappers from a dozen worlds, loose wires, a box from New New York Pizza 2 Go, and other detritus. “I’m guessing you don’t have anyone else with you.”
“Not for a long while, and it’s staying that way. I travel alone,” he declared with finality. Well, I had worn him down from that tone of voice before. It was time for a side attack.
“What if that Yorplin wasn’t acting alone? I need to know more about that species so Torchwood can defend against them.” As I spoke about business in the most level tone I could manage, I started rubbing my thumb in small soft circles on the back of his hand. “Just this errand, then we’ll talk over drinks, swap some intelligence and stories. See whether you should be sending me away so hastily and whether I should be so quick to hop on board. “
“Humans. Everything’s an excuse for alcohol.” He sounded exasperated. Excellent– exasperation usually came right before he relented. This was easier than I’d feared.
“You’re full of it! Lots of things we do aren’t about alcohol at all. Some of them are all about chocolate!” I teased, adding mentally, or sex. No, Rose, don’t even think of giving in to that urge to jump his bones. No need to make him think I’m a transdimensional tramp. The corner of his mouth twitched at my remark.
“Oh, all right. One trip to Yorp, that’s the Yorplin’s homeworld, one drink–I think we’ll move off to another planet for that one, since Yorp vodka will accomplish more or less the same effect as the hypercamera but with much more vomit afterwards. That’s it. Now, you earn your keep by helping me move your pal inside. I’ll take the torso, you grab the tail.” He pushed away my hand, leaving me the key.
“Why do I get the slimy end?” I grumbled. I exited the TARDIS, stepping over the unconscious alien. I froze. My eyes had just alighted on a billboard I hadn’t noticed when I was out here about to die: Bad Wolf Haunted House. The Doctor must have noticed how I suddenly stiffened. Perhaps I even gasped.
“What is it?” he asked, peering past me.
“Bad Wolf,” I murmured.
“Does that mean something to you?” he asked, honestly confused.
“Probably not here,” I muttered, trying to regain my composure as I bent down and tried to lift the gooey slug end of the Yorplin. My mind churned with conflicting emotions. Hope shone golden, because those words had followed my first Doctor and me across the universe. It was a symbol of our partnership, suggesting that I might get to stay with this Doctor after all. Fear dug its claws into my gut, because Bad Wolf had come about as a way for me to save the Doctor (and, incidentally, the rest of the universe) from a Dalek invasion. Were the Daleks coming in this universe too? Would the Doctor and I still manage to survive? We’d come so close to dying…his body DID die, and so did Jack, though in typical Jack manner he refused to abide by social conventions like staying dead. Cynicism muttered in my ear that this might just be an echo originating in my home universe, utterly meaningless in present context. It could even be genuine coincidence, although with the Doctor nearby that seemed unlikely. Whatever the meaning or lack thereof, I could do nothing now.
As I heaved the disgusting bulk of the Yorplin into the ticket booth TARDIS, I almost wanted to thank it. Had it not been for the Yorplin’s murderous rage, I would be watching the zeppelins from the window of my hotel room, safe and very alone. Closing the door, I looked for something to wipe off the slime other than my cute black dress. Not wanting to spread the gross slime onto everything I touched, I gave up and had to ask the Doctor for a rag.
“Do you honestly mean to tell me,” he said in mock disbelief, “that you’re trying to hitchhike across space and time without your towel?”
“C’mon, you. I’m sure I’m not the first you’ve picked up without some necessities in tow.
“Well, there was one lady I took aboard years ago who was wearing a huge, floppy swashbuckling sort of hat, a swordbelt, and not a stitch else…”
“Besides,” I interrupted before he could go any farther down that particular memory lane, “you can’t say I’m totally unprepared. I have a banana!” I brandished the fruit at him, causing his eyebrow to shoot up.
“I like a girl who knows how to handle a banana. Excellent source of potassium!” he exclaimed. I snorted. Some things never changed.
Onward to Chapter 4
