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chocolatequeennk · 7 years ago

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Forever and Never Apart, 13/42

Summary: After taking a year to recover from the Master, the Doctor and Rose are ready to travel again. But Time keeps pushing them forward, and instead of going back to their old life, they slowly realise that they’re stepping into a new life. Friends new and old are meeting on the TARDIS, and when the stars start going out, the Doctor and Rose face the biggest change of all: the return of Bad Wolf.

Series 4 with Rose, part 7 of Being to Timelessness; sequel to Taking Time (AO3 | FF.NET | TSP)

Betaed by @lastbluetardis, @rudennotgingr, @jabber-who-key, and @pellaaearien. Thank you so much!

AO3 | FF.NET | TSP

Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 8 | Ch 9 | Ch 10 | Ch 11 | Ch 12

Chapter Thirteen: A New Strategy

When Wilf took a staggering step towards the house, Rose drew a breath of relief and immediately gagged. The sharp, acrid taste of the poison hit the back of her throat and she covered her mouth and coughed as the Doctor and Donna helped Wilf.

Hold your breath as much as possible and breathe shallowly when you have to, she told herself.

Sylvia charged down the walkway and shoved the Doctor away from Wilf. Shrugging, the Doctor stepped back next to Rose, then nodded to Donna. “Get inside the house,” he directed as they helped Wilf to the door. “Just try and close off the doors and windows.”

“Doctor, Miss Tyler.”

Rose turned and squinted at Ross in a big, black taxi.

The private nodded for them to come over. “This is all I could find that hasn’t got ATMOS.”

The Doctor ran to the car, but Rose looked back at Donna. “Donna, you coming?”

The other woman hesitated, pursed her lips for a moment, but finally nodded. “Yeah.”

“Donna!” Sylvia exclaimed. “Don’t go. Look what happens every time that Doctor appears.” She gestured expansively at the poison gas filling the sky. “Stay with us, please.”

Wilf put his hand on Donna’s shoulder and pushed her towards the car. “You go, my darling.”

The gas was making Rose’s eyes burn, so she ran for the relative protection of the car. “Is she coming?” the Doctor asked as she scooted close to him.

Rose coughed a few times and nodded. Yeah, she said, opting for telepathy since her throat hurt. But what is it about the mothers that makes them decide to blame you for all the stuff we try to stop? My mum did it, and so did Francine.

The Doctor snorted. You ask as if it makes any sense to me, he pointed out as Donna slid into the car.

Ross put the car in gear, and the Doctor leaned forward to look at Donna. “How are you holding up?”

Her eyes were red and watering, but she set her jaw and nodded. “I’ll be all right,” she said.

He eyed her dubiously, but let it go for now. “And you, Rose?” he asked, looking his bond mate over critically.

She smiled at him. “I’ve been practicing holding my breath. I figure the fewer breaths I take, the less the gas will affect me.”

After that, the drive back to the ATMOS factory was tense and silent. Ross dropped them off out front by the mobile HQ unit, and the Doctor bent down to look him in the eye. “Ross, look after yourself. Get inside the building.”

He nodded. “Will do.”

After he drove away, Donna looked up at them, gagging a little. “The air is disgusting.”

“It’s not so bad for us,” the Doctor told her sympathetically. “Go on, get inside the TARDIS.”

“She needs a key, Doctor,” Rose pointed out.

“Quite right, Rose.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled one out, handing it to Donna. “Keep that. Go on, that’s yours. Quite a big moment really,” he added with a grin.

“Yeah.” Donna coughed. “Maybe we can get sentimental after the world’s finished choking to death.”

“Good idea.” The Doctor and Rose jogged towards the entrance to the factory, ducking under the security gate over the driveway.

“Where are you going?” Donna asked.

They turned and jogged backwards a few steps. “To stop a war,” the Doctor called out.

Rose took the Doctor’s hand as they ran into the ATMOS factory. You didn’t suggest I go to the TARDIS with Donna, she observed.

He shot her a sidelong glance. Would you have gone, if I had?

She shook her head. Of course not. I’m staying with you. The air is awful, but UNIT will have gas masks.

Thought so. Figured it would just be a waste of time. But promise you’ll tell me if the gas gets to be too much for you.

Rose brushed her thumb over his knuckles. I promise. They pushed open the door to the mobile HQ, and she slowed down and raised her eyebrow when he looked down at her. Remember to be courteous to Colonel Mace.

He sighed, but she saw a smile on his face.

Colonel Mace turned to the door when they walked into the command room. The Doctor nodded briskly at the man, noting the hard set of his jaw.

“Colonel Mace, do you trust me?”

The military man blinked, and the severity of his expression softened. “I trust your record, Doctor, and Sir Alistair’s high opinion of you.”

“Thank you. Then do not engage the Sontarans in battle. There is nothing they like better than a war.” He looked at the map, which displayed a live map of all the ATMOS devices worldwide. “Just leave this to me.”

“And what are you going to do?” the colonel pressed.

The Doctor took a deep breath. Something was off in the room. Something smelled… smelled like a clone. He glanced at Martha—Martha who hadn’t answered her phone this afternoon for several long minutes.

“I’ve got the TARDIS,” he said nonchalantly, baiting a trap for the spy who might be in their midst. If he was wrong, nothing would happen. If he was right and they took the TARDIS, he’d soon have a spy of his own onboard the Sontaran vessel. “I’m going to get on board their ship.”

Rose smiled at him, but a moment later, her eyes widened and then hardened, a glint of gold present in her whiskey brown irises. The Doctor shook his head quickly, and she pressed her lips into a thin line.

He dashed to Martha’s side, barely able to withstand his gag reflex. She was definitely the clone. Beside the smell, he also noticed the distinctive hair pattern and the way her pupils didn’t react quite right to the light. “Come on,” he whispered, and she smiled and ran after him and Rose, just like old times.

But it wasn’t like old times. Rose, Martha is a clone, he told her. Don’t do anything to give away that we know. If she thinks she’s fooled us, we have a triple agent.

She helped the Sontarans steal our TARDIS, Rose deducted.

Yes, and she’s going to help get it back.

Outside, the gaseous emissions from the ATMOS devices were rapidly creating a repeat of the Big Smoke, the smog event of 1952 which had killed as many as twelve thousand people. The Doctor engaged his respiratory bypass as they ran through the haze to the alley where the TARDIS had been only a few minutes before.

As he’d suspected, it was empty. Not-Martha did an impressive job of standing at the entrance to the alley, looking confused.

“But… where’s the TARDIS?”

The Doctor circled his finger in the air. “Taste that, in the air.” He stuck his tongue out and made a face when the nasty taste hit his advanced tastebuds. “That sort of metal tang. Teleport exchange. It’s the Sontarans. They’ve taken it. I’m stuck on Earth like, like an ordinary person.” A large cloud of gas billowed around him as he rambled. “Like a human. How rubbish is that? Sorry, no offence, but come on.”

Rose stood by Not-Martha, watching the Doctor’s performance. It was hard not to lash out at the clone for impersonating her friend—especially when she knew that if the real Martha could see the Doctor now, she’d know something was wrong.

“So what do we do?” Not-Martha asked.

“Well…”

Not-Martha was looking at where the TARDIS had stood, so the Doctor shot her a calculating glance.

Rose looked at him, then put a hand on Not-Martha’s shoulder. “Have you phoned your family, Martha?”

Not-Martha shrugged her hand off and glared at Rose. “No,” she snapped, and that one word eliminated any doubt that this was not Martha. She looked from Rose to the Doctor. “What for?”

“The gas,” the Doctor pointed out evenly. “Tell them to stay inside.”

Not-Martha smiled suddenly and rolled her eyes, like she’d just misunderstood what they were saying. “Course I will, yeah but, what about Donna? I mean, where’s she?”

“Oh, she’s gone home,” the Doctor lied as fumes billowed around him. “She’s not like you. She’s not a soldier.”

Not-Martha straightened slightly with pride, and the Doctor and Rose both pressed their lips together to keep from snapping at her. The real Martha wouldn’t accept that title from them.

But they didn’t have time to stand around here. “Right. So. Avanti,” the Doctor said and led them back to HQ.

He pushed the doors open and tossed his coat off to the side. “Change of plan,” he announced. “No TARDIS, so I’ll have to work from here. You don’t mind, do you, Colonel Mace?”

The colonel straightened and clasped his hands behind his back. “Not if you have a plan to save the planet, Doctor.”

The Doctor grinned at him. “Oh, I always have a plan to save the Earth. That’s pretty much my primary job description.”

“Has anyone figured out what the gas is yet?” Rose asked. The live, interactive map onscreen was terrifying.

“We’re working on it,” Not-Martha told her.

A UNIT officer spoke up from her computer station. “It’s harmful, but not lethal until it reaches eighty percent density. We’re having the first reports of deaths from the centre of Tokyo City.”

“And who are you?” the Doctor asked.

She stood up quickly and snapped a salute. “Captain Marion Price, sir.”

The Doctor sighed. “Oh, put your hand down. Don’t salute.” He walked away from her to adjust the communications controls at the main ops desk.

Preparing to call the Sontarans, Rose realised as she watched him work.

Rose watched Colonel Mace anxiously. So far, he’d been friendlier than she’d expected of a military higher-up, but the more tense the situation became, the more pushback she expected from him.

“Jodrell Bank’s traced a signal, Doctor,” Colonel Mace said, referring to the observatory in Manchester, “coming from five thousand miles above the Earth. We’re guessing that’s what triggered the cars.”

The Doctor stopped and looked at the new display being projected onscreen. “The Sontaran ship.”

“NATO has gone to Defcon One,” Colonel Mace told them. “We’re preparing a strike.”

“You can’t do that,” the Doctor insisted, and for once, Rose wasn’t inclined to encourage him to speak more delicately. “Nuclear missiles won’t even scratch the surface. Let me talk to the Sontarans.”

Colonel Mace’s eyes widened when he realised what the Doctor had been doing for the last ninety seconds. “You’re not authorised to speak on behalf of the Earth.”

The muscle in the Doctor’s jaw twitched, and Rose put her hand on his shoulder. “Colonel Mace, the Doctor is the only person on this planet who has the knowledge and experience necessary to bring us through this safely.”

His gaze flicked from her to the Doctor, and he nodded once.

“Thank you,” the Doctor said and stuck his sonic screwdriver into the communications system. “Calling the Sontaran Command Ship under Jurisdiction Two of the Intergalactic Rules of Engagement. This is the Doctor.”

The satellite image of the Earth was replaced with a video relay of the Sontaran ship. “Doctor, breathing your last?” General Staal asked smugly.

“My God.” Colonel Mace recoiled. “They’re like trolls.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes and started pacing. “Yeah, loving the diplomacy, thanks,” he muttered to the colonel. Then he raised his voice again to speak to the Sontarans. “So, tell me, General Staal,” he drawled as he sat down at a computer station. “Since when did you lot become cowards?��

General Staal’s face scrunched up in anger and he strode towards them. “How dare you!”

“Oh, that’s diplomacy?” Colonel Mace asked sarcastically.

But Rose had seen the Doctor use this tactic earlier, and she leaned close to explain it to him. “It’s the one insult they can’t stand,” she whispered. “Call them cowards, and they’ll give away all their plans.”

Staal was glaring at the Doctor from five thousand miles away. “Doctor, you impugn my honour.”

The Doctor leaned back in his chair and swung his feet up onto the table. “Yeah, I’m really glad you didn’t say belittle, because then I’d have a field day. But poison gas? That’s the weapon of a coward and you know it. Staal, you could blast this planet out of the sky, and yet you’re sitting up above watching it die. Where’s the fight in that? Where’s the honour? Or,” he suggested, striking out with his best guess, “are you lot planning something else? This isn’t normal Sontaran warfare. What are you lot up to?”

Staal and his second-in-command both straightened to their full height. “A general would be unwise to reveal his strategy to the opposing forces.”

A grin spread across the Doctor’s face. “Ah, the war’s not going so well, then. Losing, are we?”

Staal scowled. “Such a suggestion is impossible.”

“What war?” Colonel Mace asked.

The Doctor turned slightly towards him and answered the question without taking his eyes off the Sontaran leader. It was vital to maintain eye contact when talking to a Sontaran—looking away was seen as a sign of weakness.

“The war between the Sontarans and the Rutans,” he explained. “It’s been raging, far out in the stars, for fifty thousand years. Fifty thousand years of bloodshed, and for what?”

“For victory,” Staal declared, going immediately into the Sontaran war cry. “Sontar-ha. Sontar-ha. Sontar-ha. Sontar-ha. Sontar-ha. Sontar-ha.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes and reached into his pocket for the sonic screwdriver. “Give me a break,” he muttered, and pointed the sonic at the screen to replace the image of the Sontarans with a cartoon.

Colonel Mace shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Doctor, are you quite sure this is the best way to handle this interaction? You seem to be doing nothing but antagonising them.”

“I’m sure,” the Doctor said, his voice curt. He changed the channel back to the open comms link with the Sontaran ship. “Finished?” he asked General Staal.

Staal started walking, and the Doctor leaned forward, wondering what he was doing. “You will not be so quick to ridicule when you’ll see our prize.” He pointed at the TARDIS. “Behold. We are the first Sontarans in history to capture a TARDIS.”

The Doctor’s hearts raced, but he kept his face as blank as possible to hide his excitement. If the TARDIS was in the same room as the comms link, then she should have patched into the conversation and been broadcasting it for Donna to watch. And that meant he could get a message to her.

His mind spun, trying to think of a secret code that she would understand. “Well,” he started quietly, “as prizes go, that’s noble. As they say in Latin, Donna nobis pacem.” He let the words linger in the air for a moment, hoping she knew he was talking to her. Then he got to the actual message. “But did you never wonder about its design? It’s a phone box. It contains a phone. A telephonic device for communication. Sort of symbolic. Like, if only we could communicate, you and I.” He pointed from himself to the camera, knowing that to Donna, it would look like he was pointing directly at her.

“All you have communicated is your distress, Doctor.”

The Doctor ignored Staal, pointing at the camera again, hoping Donna would understand his message. Since she and Rose had exchanged numbers, Donna could be their secret weapon, working from inside the Sontaran ship to take them down.

He took a deep breath and looked back at Staal. “Big mistake though, showing it to me.” He waggled the sonic screwdriver tauntingly. “Because I’ve got remote control.”

You know, we really should, Rose said, just as Staal ordered the transmission to be closed.

“Ah, well.” The Doctor jumped to his feet, feeling more hopeful than he had since he’d realised Sontarans were behind ATMOS.

Colonel Mace looked at the blank screen and back at the Doctor. “Doctor, would you mind telling me exactly what that accomplished?”

The Doctor pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth and pretended to consider. He had no objection to letting the military man know what his plan was—at least in part—but he couldn’t let Not-Martha overhear.

“I would,” he said finally, “but it’s classified Omega Scarlett,” he said, giving the highest level of UNIT clearance. No matter how fast Martha had advanced through the ranks, there was no way her clearance was that high.

Colonel Mace’s eyes widened. “Very well, Doctor. There’s an office here where we can speak privately.” He nodded at Rose. “The files are clear, ma’am, that you are to receive every courtesy and security clearance the Doctor receives. You’re welcome to join us if you’d like.”

Rose looked up at the Doctor, and he nodded. The three of them hustled to the small office, where the Doctor immediately turned on the sonic screwdriver and waved it at the walls, soundproofing them.

Colonel Mace sat down behind the desk and pointed at the two chairs. “Sit down,” he invited. “And then perhaps you could tell me what exactly is going on.”

Rose sat, but the Doctor paced the length of the office. “You can’t beat the Sontarans by going against them head-to-head. They’re too advanced.”

The colonel sighed and shook his head. “You don’t give us enough credit, Doctor. We have more resources than you are aware of.”

“Come on, Colonel,” Rose exclaimed, finally losing a little bit of her patience. “You heard the Doctor. The Sontarans have been at war with the Rutans for fifty thousand years. Do you really think they haven’t perfected the art of warfare by now? The chances that you’ve salvaged something from Torchwood that could beat them are slim to none—because that’s what you meant when you referred to resources we don’t know Earth has, wasn’t it?”

The colonel’s jaw dropped a little, and the Doctor rested his hand on Rose’s shoulder. “Thank you, Rose.” He looked at the military man. “I understand you want to believe in your own military superiority,” he said, “but you have got to trust me. You cannot beat the Sontarans in head-to-head combat.”

Colonel Mace pursed his lips into a thin line and finally nodded. “Very well. What is your alternative suggestion, then?”

The Doctor grinned and bounced on his toes. “Infiltration! Because as it turns out, I already have a spy onboard their ship.”

“And just how did you manage that?”

He tugged on his ear. “Bit of an accident, really,” he admitted. “We sent our friend to the TARDIS so she wouldn’t choke on the gas, and then the Sontarans locked onto it and transported it to their ship.”

“So that’s why the Sontarans have the TARDIS,” Colonel Mace said. He straightened up a moment later. “And everything you said about connecting via phone…”

The Doctor nodded. “Donna has Rose’s mobile number. She’s our man on the inside, Colonel Mace. Well, woman on the inside.”

The colonel looked at the Doctor for another long moment and finally nodded. “Very well, Doctor. I will trust your strategy for now.”

“Thank you, Colonel.” The Doctor turned to leave, but one more thought occurred to him. “Do you still have men inside the factory?”

Mace’s brow furrowed. “Of course we do. Why?”

The Doctor shook his head and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m almost positive the Sontarans have a teleport pod somewhere in the factory. They can bring soldiers in without us even knowing.”

The Colonel’s face hardened. “Then we’ll be ready for them.”

His stubborn dependence on firepower elicited the first glimmer of real anger from the Doctor. “Get your men out of there,” he growled.

Colonel Mace paused and looked up at him. “Why would I do that, Doctor?”

The Doctor took a deep breath and raked his hand through his hair. “I told you: Sontarans are a warrior race,” he said, speaking rapidly. “Clone bred so that every one of them is a perfect soldier. They have superior armour and superior weaponry. There is no way your men can beat them.” He looked at the colonel, letting his gaze bore into the man. “Tell them to fall back.”

“But what if the Sontarans advance on us here?” Mace countered.

The Doctor pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth and stared at the ceiling. It was a fair question, and a likely possibility. How could they keep the Sontarans from attacking without sacrificing their men?

The saying might go, “The best defence is a good offence,” but the Doctor had always preferred defence. He grinned when he hit on the answer and bounced on his toes. “Use mines to create a perimeter around the factory.”

The Colonel blinked, and the Doctor rolled his eyes.

“You don’t need to confront them yourself,” he explained as he launched into his plan. “All you need to do is contain them—keep them from attacking you. So use the mines so they have no way out.” He shrugged. “They’ll probably teleport back to their ship, but at least they won’t kill all of your men.”

He stared at the colonel. “Please, Colonel Mace, I’m begging you. Don’t sacrifice those men because you can’t see past your military training to find another way. We will save the Earth. I promise. But we’ll have to outsmart them, because we can’t outgun them.”

Colonel Mace didn’t look at all certain, but he finally nodded and picked up his walkie talkie. “Trap One to all stations. Retreat. Order imperative. Immediate retreat.”

oOoOoOoOo

Donna Noble was having a hell of a day. After watching her grandfather nearly choke to death inside his death trap of a car, she’d been eager to go back to the ATMOS factory with the Doctor and Rose. She wanted to do something to help stop this. But instead, the gas had been too much for her lungs, and she’d been sent to the TARDIS, like she was back in school and it was the school nurse’s office.

She’d felt a light bump only a few minutes later, like the TARDIS had landed—but she knew the ship hadn’t actually flown anywhere. So she’d cautiously opened the door and peeked out, and caught a glimpse of several aliens from the back.

Not even she was brash enough to step out there and challenge them on her own, so she’d closed the door carefully.

She’d been pacing the console room ever since, trying to figure out what to do. When the Doctor had looked directly at her a moment ago, she’d known he had a message for her. Donna nobis pacem, he’d said—that had to be her.

“Like, if only we could communicate, you and I.”

The TARDIS rocked, and Donna grabbed onto the console. The Sontarans must be moving it, scared of the Doctor’s comments about having a remote.

Donna pulled her mobile out of her pocket again and stared at it. “But what do I do?” she wailed helplessly. She’d tried to dial Rose as soon as the Doctor’s transmission had cut off, but Rose had yet to pick up.

She bit her lip and looked at her contacts. She really wanted to talk to her granddad, but she knew that if she called the house, it was likely to be her mother who answered. Finally, not seeing any way around it, she sighed and called home. The phone rang twice, then her familiar voice said, “Donna. Where are you, sweetheart?”

Donna swallowed back tears. “Mum, you all right?”

In the background, she heard her granddad ask, “Is that her?”

“Oh, just finish the job,” Sylvia chided.

Donna rolled her eyes. Even at the end of the world, her mum had to have a go at someone.

“Your granddad’s sealing us in,” she explained a moment later. “He’s sealing the windows. Our own house, and we’re sealed in.”

She sounded scared, Donna realised. Even with everything that had happened in the last year—the disastrous wedding reception, her dad getting sick and dying—her mum had never been scared. Or maybe she was, and she just hid it by being angry.

Her mum was still talking though. “All those things they said about pollution and ozone and carbon, they’re really happening aren’t they?”

“There’s people working on it, Mum,” Donna assured her. For once, she was in the position to make her mum feel better. “They’re going to fix it, I promise.”

“Oh, like you’d know. You’re so clever.”

Donna flinched. The words were no different than what she’d heard from her mother her whole life, but after a month on the TARDIS with the Doctor and Rose, actually being praised when she thought of something, they stung more than they had in the past.

“Oh, don’t start. Please don’t.”

“I’m sorry,” her mum whispered, and Donna could tell she was almost crying. “I wish you were here.”

Donna was quiet for a moment, wondering what to say to that, then she heard her granddad’s voice as he took the phone.

“Now, come on, Sylvia,” he said. “Look, that doesn’t help. Donna, where are you?”

Donna’s heart started racing when she heard his voice, and she took a calming breath before she spoke. He didn’t need to know how scared she was.

She glanced around the TARDIS. In a way, that’s where she was, but she was also… She shrugged. “It’s sort of hard to say. You all right?”

“Yeah.” His voice was bracing, full of reassurance. “Fighting fit, yeah. Are they with you, the Doctor and Rose?”

“Oh, those two,” her mum grumbled in the background.

Donna shook her head. “No. I’m all on my own.”

“Look, you promised you were safe with them.”

“I am, Gramps.” Donna clenched her hand around her phone. “There’s something they need me to do. I just don’t know what.”

“Well, I mean, the whole place is covered. The whole of London, they’re saying. The whole, the whole world. It’s the scale of it, Donna. I mean, how can one couple stop all that?”

Donna thought of all the things she’d seen the Doctor and Rose do, and her fear receded. How many alien invasions had they already averted? “Trust me. They can do it.”

“Yeah, well, if they don’t, you tell them they’ll have to answer to me.”

Donna smiled. His protective attitude was comforting in its familiarity. “I will. Just as soon as I see them, I’ll tell them.”

On the other end of the line, her granddad huffed slightly, then hung the phone up. Donna realised he was more upset than she’d caught before. He didn’t want her to hear him cry, but that only made her more determined to get out of this and make it back home.

And as soon as she saw the Doctor and Rose, she’d let them know what she thought of them telling her to call and then not answering the bloody phone.

oOoOoOoOo

Rose looked at her phone, then dropped it back into her pocket before Not-Martha could see. Ten missed calls from Donna, she told the Doctor.

He tugged on his ear. I know. But I can’t talk to her until I figure out more of the Sontarans’ strategy. He grimaced. We’ll just have to make it up to her later.

They shared an amused look. Donna would not be pleased that they’d ignored all her calls.

They found Not-Martha in the main command centre, holding a clipboard. The Doctor snatched it out of her hands, and while Rose would normally chastise him for being rude, she didn’t really care if he was rude to the clone with her friend’s face. He smirked slightly as he read, having caught that thought.

Not-Martha scowled at him, but didn’t argue. Instead, she rattled off the contents of the report he’d taken from her. “There’s carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, but ten percent unidentified. Some sort of artificial heavy element we can’t trace. You ever seen anything like it?”

Behind her back, Rose rolled her eyes. That was a leading question if she’d ever heard one.

“It must be something the Sontarans invented,” the Doctor mused. “This isn’t just poison. They need this gas for something else. What could that be?”

“Launch grid online and active,” Captain Price said.

Rose spun around and looked at the huge monitors, now displaying the global nuclear launch grid. She looked from the monitors to the Doctor, who was staring at the computers in wide-eyed horror.

“Positions, ladies and gentlemen,” Colonel Mace ordered. “Defcon One initiatives in progress.”

The Doctor shook his head and stalked over to the colonel. “You said you trusted my strategy,” he protested.

“And I did, Doctor,” he said, a hint of apology in his voice. “But the gas is at sixty percent density. Eighty percent and people start dying, Doctor.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “We’ve got no choice.”

The Doctor raked his hands through his hair as the countdown began. None of Earth’s weapons would even scratch the surface of the Sontarans’ ship, but this would be seen as an act of war regardless of its success, and that gave the Sontarans the right to attack.

“Launching in sixty,” Captain Price announced. “Fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven, fifty-six. Worldwide nuclear grid now coordinating. Fifty-four, fifty-three…”

“You’re making a mistake, Colonel,” the Doctor said quietly, unable to hide his disappointment entirely. “For once, I hope the Sontarans are ahead of you.”

Rose rested her hand on his back. Well, they do have a spy, she pointed out reasonably.

The Doctor blinked, and his gaze flicked over to Not-Martha, who was watching the countdown on the screen avidly. True. They obviously want this planet for something, so maybe they cloned someone with high enough clearance to halt the launch.

Captain Price rattled off country names as their nuclear launch codes came online. “North America, online. United Kingdom, online. France, online. India, online. Pakistan, online. China, online. North Korea, online. All systems locked and coordinated. Launching in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five—”

“God save us,” Colonel Mace whispered.

—“Four, three, two, one.”

Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor saw Not-Martha tap at her phone. He held his breath and stared at the monitor, hoping with all he had that Rose’s guess was right.

“Zero.”

The screen stayed at zero for just a second, then it went completely dark.

“What is it?” Colonel Mace asked. “What happened? Did we launch? Well, did we?”

The Doctor stared at the screen, then looked over at Not-Martha. The smirk on her face confirmed Rose’s suggestion, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Negative, sir,” Captain Price said, working frantically at her computer. “The launch codes have been wiped, sir. It must be the Sontarans.”

The Doctor let out a long, slow breath, then he and Rose casually walked over to Not-Martha while the two military officers tried to sort out what had happened.

“Can we override it?” Colonel Mace asked.

Captain Price worked frantically with her computer station. “Trying it now, sir.”

As glad as the Doctor was that the launch kept getting cancelled, it was yet another mystery. “Missiles wouldn’t even dent that ship, so why are the Sontarans so keen to stop you?” He looked down at Not-Martha. “Any ideas?”

“How should I know?” she retorted.

A series of explosions rocked the trailer. The Doctor and Colonel Mace exchanged a glance; the Sontarans had attempted to cross the perimeter.

Not-Martha looked up, her eyes wide. “What was that?”

“That,” the Doctor said with some satisfaction, “was the safety measures we took against a possible Sontaran invasion of the factory.”

She stared at him, her eyes hard. “You mined the exits.”

“Yep.” He grinned at her. “Pretty clever, don’t you think? They can get in, but they can’t get out.”

Her hand clenched on her mobile, and he realised she was torn between a desire to warn her superiors about their surprise tactic, and the need to stay alert and ready to cancel yet another launch attempt.

“They’ve taken the factory,” Colonel Mace said, “but they can’t get out of the building. Your plan is working so far, Doctor.”

“No need to sound so surprised!” the Doctor complained. He scratched at his sideburn. “But why? They don’t need it. Why attack now? What are they up to?”

“Launch grid back online,” Captain Price announced as the screen flickered to life. A moment later, it went blank again, and the captain tried to track the interference. “They’re inside the system, sir. It’s coming from within UNIT itself.”

“Trace it,” Colonel Mace ordered. “Find out where it’s coming from, and quickly. Gas levels?”

“Sixty-six percent in major population areas, and rising.”

#ficandchips #ten x rose #dwfic #fic by Nancy #cq's fic: forever and never apart #series: being to timelessness #still dealing with the sontarans #i really love all the ways Rose changed this story

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tenscupcake · 8 years ago

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electrostatic potential (21/?)

ten/rose. a little higher than teen this ch. summary: as the doctor and rose traverse time and space looking for adventure, they slowly fall victim to a mysterious energy that can manipulate their emotions. though confused and unnerved by the cerebral affliction, neither of them understands its cause, or realizes that it could jeopardize their friendship. what will it take for them to discover the truth? a/n: hi guys! my posting schedule is complete chaos but hey, my life is complete chaos so. most importantly, i figured you guys could use a bit of light on this dark day. i know it brought some light to mine and i hope it can do the same for some of you. thanks to @aroseofstone and @goingtothetardis for the feedback and betas. this chapter on ao3 | back to chapter 1 on ao3

The Doctor is absolutely not freaking out.

Approaching his reflection in the single small mirror, the first thing he sees is the unparalleled chaos of his bedhead. He supposes he’d better actually do what he claimed he was going to do when he skipped in here. Flipping on the faucet, he gathers a pool of water in his palm and splashes it onto his head, not caring that most of it drips onto his face. He splays his fingers and massages the water into his hair, kneading and twisting to bring some pliability back to the dry, wayward strands. Once most of it looks slightly damp, he pulls out his travel-sized tube of product and squeezes a few drops onto his palm.

He is certainly not running away from her again.

With rapid strokes back and forth, he rubs it over the top of his head, leaving no strand untouched. Only once it is distributed evenly does he employ more precision, using both hands, capturing sections between his fingers to mold them into the right shape, up and towards the mirror. There’s the one section that’s always particularly cow-licked in the morning and requires more attention. And as usual, he has to spend several minutes mere centimeters from the mirror, using his fingertips to craft the very front just the way he likes it. Rebelling against gravity, but not defying it altogether. A slight angle outward that dares someone to come and touch it. Well, so long as ‘someone’ is Rose.

He is not stalling a conversation about what just happened by hiding in the bathroom, either. Nope.

It’s much easier to style his hair fresh out of a shower, but he can always make do with the circumstances he’s given. This hair was ready to be styled straight out of regeneration. It’s no huge mystery why, and he’s always known that. He died pouring his heart out to an attractive young woman, and his subconscious manifested that by turning him into an attractive young man – touchable hair included. What other explanation could there be that his tenth incarnation appears younger than any of his others (excluding, of course, his first)? It’s not at all uncommon for regeneration to manifest a Time Lord’s most pressing need or desire at the time of death. It is perhaps uncommon for that need or desire to be another person, but he isn’t sure that detail matters. Statistically, the chances that the two events are correlated in some way is far greater than that they occurred together by a stroke of cosmic luck. The universe has never stacked the odds in his favor.

He grumbles at his reflection as his hand falls to his side. This hair, among many other features, was literally made for Rose’s enjoyment, and he’s standing here playing with it instead of lying in bed with her.

He’s suddenly reminded of the 90’s sitcom, Friends. In one episode, Phoebe claims to want a fabled bicycle from her childhood with all of her nostalgic heart. But when Ross buys it for her, though she parades it around Central Park and maintains its shiny appearance, she doesn’t actually ride it.

Except that was actually endearing, and had some validity, since Phoebe didn’t know how to ride a bicycle. The Doctor can’t claim he doesn’t know how to – (well, ride isn’t the right word, but blimey, it’s astonishing how readily his mind went there) – indulge Rose. He’s just being a selfish prick about it. He’s got all the hardware (and software) for passion and intimacy now, but he’s just strutting around letting her admire it rather than actually using it.

And simply because she showed him, quite vividly, how much she cares for him, too, he’s backing off even more. Stashing that bicycle in the closet rather than let anyone see it. He’s inadvertently punishing her for honesty.

He isn’t sure how Rose expected him to react, but he knows it can’t have been to bolt off. When someone shows you how they feel about you, and it’s that intense, the only polite thing to do is to return the sentiments shortly thereafter. He didn’t at all prepare himself to do that today; he was more or less expecting to see the first time she baked a cake, not a compilation of all the reasons she’s in love with him. She didn’t actually use the word, but what Rose doesn’t understand is that these exchanges of emotion are far more impactful than words to telepathic species. If he stayed, he would have had to construct a similar experience for her, or else come up with a verbal response to what she’d shown him that would indicate she’s not alone in her sentiments. But what does she expect? How can he explicitly requite that level of affection, when not four days ago he was prepared to swallow said feelings altogether? To sever the very connection that made her confession possible?

A swish of the curtain interrupts his brooding.

“Oi, you about done? I want to wash up.” Rose sounds irritated.

“Yeah,” he pushes away from the little sink and whirls around. She looks irritated, too.

Now’s his chance, then.

He meanders over to where she’s standing in the doorway, but effectively blocks her path to the sink.

“Listen, I just want to say…” He rubs the back of his neck, staring at the wall next to the shower rather than meeting her gaze. “Thank you. For, erm… showing me what you did.”

He dares a glance at her, and her expression has softened. Less disappointment, more disbelief. A bit of confused curiosity in her eyes. Swallowing, she nods and breaks their brief moment of eye contact.

“It was a lovely moment,” he adds, the words a bit rushed.

“Yeah,” she acknowledges. “Don’t mention it.” She skirts around him, and his eyes follow her as she sidles up to the sink. She swipes her toothbrush and paste from the little counter space there is and gets straight to business ‘washing up’, as she’d put it.

Though she could see him in the mirror if she wanted to, she actively avoids looking up at his reflection. Silently pulling back the curtain, he leaves her be without another word.

---

Much to their dismay, they’ve missed breakfast by the time they arrive at Kenai’s house. Every family member is present – a universally acknowledged day of rest for the village, they soon discover. Fortuitously, there is only about an hour or so until lunch will be served, and they spend the interim discussing the recovery of the ruki. The Doctor is delighted to learn the population is bouncing back well enough that Kenai and Kalei are planning the next fishing trip.

The energy between him and Rose is unusually strained throughout the conversation, though. At first, he chalks it up to Rose being tetchy because she’s hungry, and patiently endures the tension until she can get in a proper meal. But Rose’s reticence has not improved by the time their plates are clean (some kind of sweet vegetable curry-like dish sopped up with a flat bread that resembled naan). As Kalani starts clearing the table, the Doctor is perturbed enough that he’s ready to whisk her back to the hut and formally apologize. And perhaps figure out something else to do to make it up to her.

The conversation he had with himself late the previous evening comes to mind – about giving her what she wants, physically – and much to his surprise, he’s hardly opposed to that at the moment. Seeing her properly disappointed with him for what feels like the thousandth time since they landed here, he doesn’t know if there’s anything he wouldn’t do to win back her approval. But what is Rose expecting for their first time? A candlelit dinner and rose petals on the bed? A romantic film with wine and superfluous foreplay? Or will an early afternoon shag born out of guilt suffice just as well?

Before he can answer his own question, Kairi pipes up with his name from across the table.

He looks up, surprised she had spoken, as she usually only does when spoken to (not out of any cultural restrictions, but merely because she’s unbearably shy), and gives her his attention.

“Hm?”

“I was wondering, uhm...” She looks down at the table, the rest of the sentence hanging in midair. When she’s silent for several long moments, he looks around at the other occupants of the table, silently asking if this is normal behavior.

Kalei, seated next to her, elbows her lightly in the arm.

“It’s just… I have this project for school that I can’t get to work, and you’re so brilliant. I was wondering if you might have time to help me out.”

“Certainly,” he agrees immediately to try to soothe her insecurity. “You’ll want to invite Rose along, too though,” he nods to Rose and gives her his most charming smile when she looks up. “Rose Tyler, I’m lost without her.” As he predicted, she scrunches her mouth up to keep from smiling at the memories these words evoke, trying to stay outwardly cross with him.

“Yes, of course!” Kairi agrees. “When is a good time for you both?”

“Well, we haven’t exactly made plans yet…” He steers back to his halted train of thought. His desire to clear the air with Rose (and maybe implement his reconciliation plan) is a higher priority in his mind than a science project.

“Excellent!” Kenai exclaims. “I knew he’d be able to help, Kairi.” He pats the table happily before gulping down some more of his juice.

Morally unable to go back on his word now, the Doctor resigns to postpone talking to Rose, and whatever may follow that conversation, until later on.

---

The Doctor isn’t sure what to expect upon walking into Kairi’s bedroom – it’s not where he expected this homework hour to take place. There aren’t many societies in the universe where a young girl can invite strange adults into her bedroom and her parents not protest to the arrangement. The door is left open, though, and Kalei is in an adjacent room working on a carving, his door open as well.

Kairi is ever the professional – she clears the Doctor and Rose a place to sit on her bed while she goes to drag in chairs from around the dining table, as there’s only one currently at her desk. It looks similar to his own – but it’s cluttered with primitive tools rather than electronics, leaf quills rather than pens, and parchment rather than computers.

Once she’s retrieved their chairs and they’re all situated, she wraps her long, straight hair (must come from her dad’s side) into a bundle atop her head and pins it in place with a dried white flower. Sitting down next to them, she unfurls a long piece of parchment from the center of the workspace.

The Doctor pulls on his glasses and peers at the design.

“Looks like a blueprint. Well, except for the paper not actually being blue. Though, on Earth, architects transitioned away from using actual blue paper for blueprints as early as the 1940’s…” He glances over at Rose, only to see her giving him a distinct ‘get on with it’ face, and quickly redirects his attention. “But what is it? A slide?” It certainly looks like one – a steep slope of something smooth, maybe intended to be metal – tucked between rocks in a mountain that must represent one of the ones on the island.

“What’s a slide?” Kairi asks.

“It’s a… erm,” the Doctor stops himself, scratching behind his ear. “Well, what is this, then?” he turns the question back on her.

“It’s intended to be for quick travel from the top of the village near the summit down to the bottom, in case of emergencies. Or for transfer of goods or supplies, perhaps. I’ve built several models with Kalei’s help, and blacksmith’s apprentice I know from school, but they’ve all been failures.”

“Where are these models?” the Doctor asks, curiosity piqued.

“Gone. Deconstructed for parts. Nothing goes to waste on this island,” she chuckles a little. “Least not if my dad has anything to say about it. He said it’d be better if I start from scratch, anyway.”

“Is it supposed to be constructed on the mountains up there?” He nods his head in the general direction of the rocky slopes.

“Yes, the models weren’t life-sized though. For the project, the assignment is to make a small model. About one meter.” She pulls out a stick from beside the desk, marked with measurements along one edge. The Doctor quickly and quietly assesses that it doesn’t seem to be an entirely accurate representation of a meter, but it’s close enough. “The winner in the class for the most useful project will get the help of the village to implement it in its real proposed size.”

“I see,” says the Doctor. “What caused them to fail?”

“The first one was metal. I used a thatch of leaves to carry down a rock. Every time I touched it to start a new trial, I got badly shocked. I figured that would be a problem for actual users, so I threw it out.”

“Quite right,” chimes Rose.

“The next one was rock,” Kairi continues, “and I had a similar problem. That, and I couldn’t get the rocks smooth enough. After a few trials, sparks flew and I almost burnt down my room. Dad wouldn’t let me continue with that one, after that.” She sighs, but it’s with a sense of peace rather than despondency. A true budding scientist, she has already come to terms with the fact that failure is a part of the process.

“Then I decided to go for wood. But friction was still a problem. One day, I got Kalei to help me polish it to make the surface nice and smooth. And I got some leftover cazaut oil from the kitchen to make it slippery on the surface. And that worked. But I knew there was no way to acquire enough oil to implement it on a larger scale. And even if it were possible, no one would approve of the project using such an important source of food. So I knew I had to find another way. But this is the latest blueprint, I haven’t started a new one, yet.”

“But that’s brilliant,” Rose says, in awe. “An oil slide. Sounds even faster than a water slide, and more innovative.”

“I agree,” chimes the Doctor. “Brilliant. But you’re right, it’s impractical. Why can’t we use water, instead of oil?” he suggests.

“It would take an excessive amount of water,” Kairi says, scrunching up her forehead like the Doctor is out of his mind.

“You’ve got an excessive amount of water,” Rose suggests. “Surrounded by the ocean, yeah?”

“Right you are, Rose. Ocean water, Kairi, what’s wrong with that?”

“Well,” she points to the bottom of the parchment. “The water is here,” she indicates. “And the… slide…” she uses the Doctor’s term with some awkwardness around the syllables, “starts way up here, at the top of the village.”

“There must be water sources inland, though,” the Doctor says. “How do you irrigate the crops?”

“There are freshwater springs in the forest, and we’ve developed an aqueduct system there. But that water is restricted to supply homes and provide irrigation. It would never be permissible to use it for something frivolous like this, especially in those high quantities.”

“Hmm,” the Doctor muses, stymied. “I’d hardly call it frivolous,” he grumbles quietly.

“You’d have to have some way of getting the water up there, then,” says Rose, on a more optimistic note.

“That may be the only way,” the Doctor agrees. “That is, if you’re settled on this idea, and don’t want to try something a little less ambitious.”

“Well…” She ponders that, both hands under her chin as she inspects the print.

“I’ll tell you what though, Kairi,” says Rose. “I think this could be used for more than just emergencies. I think lots of people would use it for fun. Might be something that could bring people to the island. You could even charge for it.”

“What? No,” she waves her hand in the air, like the idea is preposterous, and the Doctor holds back laughter with his fist over his mouth before he can speak.

“As ridiculous as it may sound to you, I think Rose is right,” the Doctor adds.

“Guess I should stick to it, then,” says Kairi, a gleam of pride in her eyes. A well deserved spot of arrogance, the Doctor thinks.

Kairi sketches down several ideas for a water transport system from the shore to the summit, and the Doctor has to bite his tongue several times to keep from using the word ‘pump’ as she talks them through aloud. He doesn’t tell her what to draw, or how to tweak her angles or calculations. Doesn’t tell her outright when a design is rubbish. He only forces her to think about potential design flaws; leads her to detect the lethal ones quickly and start over. Guides her in the right direction when she gets stuck. Does the more difficult arithmetic calculations in his head when she asks so she doesn’t have to do them by hand. (“Call me your personal computer,” he says, and she laughs like it’s the most nonsensical word she’s ever heard. And, since it doesn’t exist in their version of Kaelondaian yet, he supposes the English must, indeed, sound ridiculous to her. At least as ridiculous as ‘slide.’)

In the middle of her fifth design, the Doctor suddenly feels something peculiar. A wisp of melancholy that’s not his own. A tug of quiet frustration. Hunched over the desk as he is, he has to look over his shoulder to check on Rose.

But when he does, her chair is empty.

What an insufferable twat he is. Too enthralled by teaching and calculations, he doesn’t even know when she left. And now she’s somewhere out there alone, stewing in this turbulent sense of disappointment (probably directed at him) that’s severe enough to be broadcast to him.

To be fair, she does wander off a hell of a lot, and her clever escapes always seem to go undetected by his Rose radar. She’s good at being discreet and quiet, and tends to do what she wants regardless of his say in the matter.

“Where’s Rose gone?” Kairi asks, noticing her absence at the same time.

“Keep working, Kairi, I’ll be right back.” He pats her on the shoulder and leaps out of his chair to search for Rose.

To his relief, he finds her in the first place he looks – the kitchen. She’s standing at a countertop, cutting something that looks like carrots. Several feet along the same counter, Kenai is breaking down a pile of ruki (still from the batch the Doctor brought from the past). It feels like they just ate lunch, but tuning into his time sense, he realizes it’s been four hours since they ate. Guess that means it’s already time to start preparing for dinner.

The Doctor clears his throat to announce his presence.

“Can I help?” he asks, approaching them hesitantly from behind.

“You can assist Rose in cutting the vegetables, if you’d like,” says Kenai through the sounds of fish filets slapping the cutting board.

The Doctor sidles up next to Rose, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, but she doesn’t say anything. Her only acknowledgement of his presence is a cursory glance in his direction.

“How’re you doing?” he asks, and he knows it’s a loaded question but can’t help it.

Predictably, she gives him a little glare.

“Sorry for getting caught up. I was just trying to help, and sometimes I can be a bit… single-minded.”

“Don’t I know it,” she says, derisively. She doesn’t seem to want to talk, and he can still feel an annoyed ire radiating from her mind, festering inside his.

He knew the lightness of their conversation in Kairi’s presence earlier had been an illusion, and that they’d have to properly confront what happened this morning sooner or later. But how can they have a confrontation about it right this moment? The matters involved are fiercely private, but they lack privacy.

There is, of course, one easy solution.

He glances over at Kenai. He’s mere feet away from them, on the opposite side of the sink, but he does seem engrossed in his task.

But suddenly, as though lifting the idea from the Doctor’s mind, Kenai suddenly starts to sing. It’s not very loud, and it fades in gradually, like it’s just something he does instinctively while he cooks. The TARDIS doesn’t translate the language, knowing it would butcher the beauty of the music. Hearing the language authentically, it reminds him of Hawaiian. Karina joins in after a few lines from the next room, an effortless harmony to Kenai’s part. The song is beautiful, and the Doctor would very much like to keep listening. But this is his opportunity.

“Rose,” he whispers.

She just barely glances over at him, acknowledging she heard her name, but returns her eyes to her work. Several long seconds pass while he gathers his courage.

He speaks those sacred words, the invitation he taught her just this morning. Prays to gods that don’t exist that she’ll accept, this first time he has initiated something.

Her head whips towards him this time, eyes wide and lips parted, gaping at him.

He holds out a hand, making his intention clear. But he hovers several inches away, waiting for her to accept his offer.

Setting her knife on the counter, she just barely nods.

Abandoning its patience, his hand surges toward its destination, tingling with excitement.

He coordinates them to be partially connected, this time, dipping only shallowly inside her mind while inviting her the same depth inside his. Enough to sense transient thoughts and emotions but nothing more. It doesn’t take as long to forge such a connection, and it’s not as all-consuming as a deeper one. Since they’re at high risk of being interrupted, he doesn’t want either of them to become too overwhelmed by whatever may be said or shared in the confines of this link. They both have to function like normal humanoids as soon as the interaction is over.

She’s still not great at maintaining the two-way street, and it’s a bit of a push-pull, but she’s definitely improved since yesterday.

Holding up all right? he asks as soon as they’re sufficiently intertwined.

Still cross with you, she confesses, knowing she can’t lie to him.

I gathered.

I gathered that you gathered, she retorts, and the words are like ice through the link.

Bit defensive there, he accuses.

Hmph.

I shouldn’t have run off like that, he admits.

No.

To be fair, he paraphrases what he’d said to himself earlier, I wasn’t quite expecting for you to choose a memory with me in it. Or to get a novel on all the reasons you fancy me.

Yeah, well. You got me all emotional, changin’ back like that. That wasn’t fair.

Suppose not. But I didn’t actually do it, Rose. It really was the power of your mind that made you see me like that. I can’t have a physical existence in anyone else’s mind. My appearance there all depends on your memory and perception.

Hm. She ruminates on that for a moment, cogs turning in her mind. Wondering why her brain betrayed her like that, made her so vulnerable. Wondering what she might look like to him inside his mind.

An interesting question, that. But one he skips over quickly.

Thank you for showing me. It was very… special to me. But it was also quite overwhelming. And I wasn’t at all expecting it. I just needed time to process it, I suppose.

You’re somethin’ else, you know. Spend a couple of hours literally inside my mind, and let me see your every thought, an’ two seconds later go mad when I say I like you.

Well, when you put it that way.

After a few moments of tense silence, she suddenly puts forth a demand.

Think it’s only fair I get to see one of yours.

That… does seem fair, he admits.

And I’ve got to be in it, too, she adds. Tit for tat.

That makes things a little tougher. Yours was a very nice tit.

Rose simultaneously laughs and rages at him inside her head, a yellow glow of joy shining on him even as red fists of anger bludgeon him through the link.

Knob.

He ignores the insult.

Tonight? He asks.

Deal, Rose agrees.

Brilliant. I’m going to disconnect. I think this song is about to end, and Kenai might get a bit weirded out if I’m touching your head like this.

Upon their reluctant return to individuality, the song is indeed ending, and they both compliment Kenai on his singing voice and choice of song. As they finish chopping the night’s vegetables, they take turns asking about what inspires the music on the island. Who writes the songs, who the best performers are. They even ask to hear another song, and Kenai happily complies. The chopping finished, Rose and the Doctor applaud his encore performance.

“I told Kairi I’d be right back,” the Doctor says softly, only to Rose, as he wipes some carrot-like juice and shavings from his hands onto his shirt. “Want to come back and help us?”

“Didn’t seem like you needed my help,” she insists.

“I can always use your help,” he assures her, reaching for her hand. He can’t bear the thought of her feeling useless in any respect.

“You go on ahead.” She tilts her head in the direction of Kairi’s room. “I think Kenai still needs help gettin’ the food ready.”

“Sure?” he asks quietly.

“Yep. See you for dinner.”

“Deal.” He gives her a smile and brushes his thumb over hers before leaving her and Kenai alone.

When he reunites with her, Kairi has basically re-invented Archimedes’ screw. He would know – he was there when that was invented, too. But Kairi is hardly fourteen. The Doctor is tremendously impressed.

By the time dinner is called by Kenai and Rose, Kairi has (with his assistance) calculated the required length and diameter of both the model and the theoretical life-sized version. She has also determined how much power she’ll need to pump the water up the distance. It’s a substantial figure – several levers powered by several individuals will be necessary to produce it. To his astonishment, she comes up with a plan for its operators to use their legs to crank the device, rather than their arms. Blimey, the girl just invented stationary bicycles, too.

As they eat, Kairi insists she doesn’t even really need the Doctor’s help anymore, and assures him he is welcome to leave once dinner is over. Bubbling with confidence and enthusiasm, she promises to recruit Kalei and other friends to help build the model starting tomorrow. The Doctor can’t help but be proud of her progress today, both intellectually and socially.

---

Rose insists on having some time for a shower as they depart their hosts’ home. The Doctor is eager to get back to time with just the two of them, but reluctantly agrees to reunite in forty-five minutes. Rose likely doesn’t want him hovering right outside the loo while she takes care of business, so he heads back to the TARDIS to freshen up.

He doesn’t need to shower every day, at least from the perspective of hygiene, but he likes to make a habit of it, anyway. At least in this regeneration. Since early on, he has somehow convinced himself it’s not to make sure he smells as nice as possible for Rose. That it’s just a vain little quirk of this incarnation, nothing more.

But that is utter rubbish. Everything that follows his shower is evidence of that. The ever-meticulous crafting of his hair. The application of aftershave though he didn’t touch a razor tonight. Getting his clothes speed-dry-cleaned by the TARDIS. The spritz of cologne on his shirt. The very manly lotion he spreads over his hands so they’re soft against Rose’s skin. (Just, you know, in case.)

Oh, and then, there’s the fact that he waits for her on the bed in his specs again, only pretending to work on the artificial gills some more. As he sits cross-legged on the bed, awaiting Rose’s entrance (should be any moment now, the water has been off for twenty minutes), there’s no denying the reason he brought along a project in the first place. He knows she thinks the glasses are sexy on him.

Flaunting it without using it… he reminds himself.

How bad would it be if he did… use it? His contemplation from late the night before runs through his mind again.

But before he can answer his own question, Rose appears through the curtain to the loo, her face lighting up when she sees him waiting. Her hair is down, a bit of a voluminous mess from wearing it up all day but lovely as ever. She’s wearing a form-fitting pair of pink pyjamas, and a sleeveless white top that leaves little to the imagination. She seems to have forgone wearing a bra.

Suddenly, he finds it preferable to simply see what happens.

Rose throws her old clothes onto her suitcase and plods forward to sit on the bed, and he collects his multipurpose project and stashes it on the desk for later.

“You ready?” she asks, without pretense.

“Straight to business, then?” he half-jokes, swiping off his specs and leaving them on the bedside table.

“You had plenty of time to prepare this time.”

“Suppose I did.” He smiles, glad to see she’s gaining some confidence. It fuels his own. Flopping onto his side facing her, he just stares at her, waiting for her to accept his implicit invitation.

She likely doesn’t intend for it to be seductive, but the way she crawls up the mattress and slowly reclines next to him, he feels rather seduced.

Resisting the temptation to ogle her and allow his mind (and hands) to wander, he reaches for her temple instead. As soon as his fingers make contact, he can feel her heart racing beneath her still-damp skin. He closes his eyes, breathing in coconut and flowers and estrogen, and just a little adrenaline, too – she’s still nervous tonight.

Dismantling his many defenses, he presses his fingertips a little harder and reaches out for the patient, curious tresses of her mind. Once she can sense him there, inviting her, she rushes inside with abandon. Though she’s much more accustomed to the process, he gives her a few moments to fully settle in, to acclimate to the atmosphere inside his mind.

The sensations are just as spectacular as the first time she did this. A powerful sense of humanity humbles his Time Lord consciousness. Mortality intertwines with every fiber of his near-immortal being. A cozy warmth surrounds his two hearts as he is blanketed with compassion. He knows the union is complete. Concentrating on his faculties despite the sudden inebriation, he transforms their dimensionless surroundings into a landscape they can both make some more sense of.

When he opens his eyes, they’re in one of his typical hubs: the TARDIS library.

Rose’s eyes open at the same time, and she appears just as he is when he left her: the pink pyjamas and nearly see-through white top. No makeup, her hair down and mussed up. He’s proud of his subconscious for presenting her in such accurate and up-to-date detail.

He quickly senses Rose’s surprise that they’re in a location she recognizes.

But there are fewer places he feels more comfortable than his ship. A place he can hide from the havoc the universe threatens to wreak on his life. Where he can even hide away from time itself. And in this particular room, the countless books offer an added layer of escape from reality. Whether it’s in the musty, yellowed pages of ancient texts or the freshly printed, new book smell of novels he hasn’t yet read, this library has always provided him refuge within its depths.

It’s one of his default settings for times like these, because it’s so comfortable. He can hear the distant breathing of the time rotor, can feel the stillness beneath his feet, the irrelevance of time inside the Vortex.

Extracting these sentimental musings from his mind, she doesn’t comment on his subconscious’ choice of setting.

They’ve materialized near the center of the library, and though Rose glances around at the familiar setting, her eyes never stray from his for long.

“Does it work the same way?” she asks, scanning a few of the closest aisles. “Every path leads somewhere different?”

“Yes,” he answers simply.

She drifts away from him slightly to have a better look around, and it’s obvious which particular sections of the familiar library attract her attention. A corner that’s bathed in unnatural shadow. A few nearby shelves concealed by strange floating clouds of darkness. Features that distinguish this fabrication from the real TARDIS library.

“Well,” he sighs. “Not exactly the same. I have a fair bit more practice with shielding memories I don’t want to be seen. Any dark areas are a manifestation of those skills,” he explains.

Rose’s face scrunches up a little, and a little zing of jealousy strikes him. It wasn’t nearly as effortless for her to shield a memory from him.

“After a few centuries, you start to get the hang of things,” he says in his defense.

“What would happen if I tried to see something in the dark?” she asks.

It’s transparent that she isn’t out to invade his privacy; she’s just curious about the mechanics of his hub, the same way she was about her own. Eager to discover their similarities and differences and catalog them accordingly.

“Why don’t we go and see?” he nods his head towards the nearest darkened shelf. “I still have voluntary defenses I can use, the same way you do,” he explains. The wood beneath their feet creaks authentically as they stroll across the library floor. “In the end, it’s still up to me to decide what you can see.”

They approach the shelf in question, and he indicates that Rose come closer. She looks back and forth between him and the shelf a couple times, searching for confirmation that this is okay. He provides it wordlessly, focusing on granting her permission to try, but not for anything to be revealed. It’s a dangerous line to tread, but he has more than enough skill and training to distinguish the two.

As soon as Rose has decided to reach a hand out towards the darkened shelf, the gargantuan wooden edifice rumbles in protest. When her hand inches closer, it starts to move, grinding along the floor away from her hand. She takes a step, and swivels on an invisible axis, the face lined with book spines fleeing from her prying hands. It continues to turn, the noise amplifying as it scratches along the floor, though it doesn’t leave a trace on the ground. Its task is finished mere seconds later as it slams into its new position, wedged between this aisle and the adjacent one. The rear face of the shelf is solid, a single sheet of wood extending up by a dozen feet, leaving its contents utterly inaccessible.

But this aberration in the library’s organization doesn’t last for long. Another nearby shelf creaks to life, rumbling along the floor to fill in the gap left behind by its previous occupant. The aisle is restored to a normal appearance, but this time there are no obscured shelves: the soft reading light from overhead uniformly illuminates each shelf.

With a couple fingers, he motions for Rose to follow him sideways a few steps to inspect the adjacent aisle. As he expected, the perpendicular shelf is no longer obstructing the middle of the aisle; it has disappeared altogether. The aisle isn’t missing a bookshelf of its own, either. During the commotion of the other moving shelf, the off-limits selection stealthily exchanged itself with another shelf someplace in the vast library.

“Woah,” Rose breathes out, letting her astonishment and wonder filter through to him.

“Not so different, hm?”

“No.” She smiles, obviously glad that, despite their inherent incompatibility in the telepathic respect, they share a few things in common.

“Come on.” He reaches for her hand.

They traverse a path through a few of the aisles, towards a wing that’s bathed in a brighter, golden light. Where the dust, collecting on the shelves and visible in the rays of light shining from above, takes on an almost pinkish hue. He leads her to a stack near the middle of the third aisle, quite set on what he wants to show her. He knew this was coming all day, so he has had this particular memory prepared for hours now. Something that includes her. Something meaningful. Something that will take away some of the embarrassment she’s feeling about what she showed him earlier. He has the perfect scene in mind.

From a low shelf on their right, a text pulls itself out from the stack. It floats slowly through the air into the middle of the aisle, stopping their path. It lingers just long enough to reveal its cover, a low-quality black-and-white depiction of the Colosseum, before its cover opens slowly in front of them, angling back as it does. The first thin page in the volume catches in an invisible breeze, hanging in midair before it whips against the front cover. The wind picks up, turning page after page with growing speed.

Seeing this phenomenon, Rose clutches her fist into the sleeve of his shirt, jaw dropped open.

The air above the text swirls with glowing gold particles, and a new scene burgeons from the tumult. The bookshelves are replaced with Renaissance paintings; the flat maroon ceiling exchanged for vaulted domes and archways. The soft ambient lighting of the library is overtaken by bright sunlight filtering from large, ornate windows.

A half-finished marble statue of Rose stands in the center of the new landscape. Her facial features are easily recognizable – lips, nose, ears, eyebrows. Though they’re empty and colorless, her stone eyes still seem to gaze upon her visitors with tenderness. The statue only has one arm, the other still obscured in stone (later meant to cradle a cornucopia). While half of her tunic clings to her body, the fabric rippling in an invisible breeze, the other half is largely still a stump of marble. Her feet, don’t yet exist, either, trapped inside the rock waiting to be chiseled free.

The Doctor himself is slumped on the floor against a nearby wall, crunching noisily on an apple. His unassuming brown robe highlights his contemporary peasantry, distracting from the glaring anachronism of his hairstyle.

He finishes his snack quickly, and tosses the core onto the floor to be disposed of later. He swipes up the smooth stone and sharp chisel from the platform beneath the statue as he approaches. But, tossing the rock up and down in his palm a few times, he thinks better of it, and sets them both back where they were. Reaching a hand up tenderly, he lets a few fingers graze over the statue’s hair. His thumb brushes over her cheek, and his imagination substitutes soft warmth for the marble’s cold hardness. He allows himself to graze over her bottom lip, just once, imagining what it’d be like to touch the real version. Soft and warm, pliant beneath his touch, glistening with moisture that tempts him to taste.

Rose can feel it all, now. How much he missed the real Rose. How much he longed to touch her and, he dares to think, maybe even to kiss her.

The Doctor lets his hand drop back down to his side, and reluctantly picks up the rock and chisel to resume his masterpiece once more.

With the first clack of the rock against the chisel, the memory begins to fade. More quickly than Rose’s garden had, the library swallows up the Renaissance landscape and the Doctor finds himself standing in the aisle once again. The book in midair claps itself shut with a thud, and slowly retreats back to its shelf, kicking out a tiny mist of dust from the shelf as it settles into stillness.

Rose stares at him with wonder in her eyes, even moreso than when she first saw that statue of herself in the museum. Though she can’t hide her budding emotions well, pity and surprise and excitement already brewing between them, she tries to make light of this revelation.

“That kiss makes a bit more sense now,” she teases.

He plays along for a moment, chuckling with her, but then reaches for her hand again.

As he leads her further down the same aisle, another book awakens from the shelf, a sprawling villa on its cover.

This time, classical white pillars and togas bleed out into the aisle to obscure the library.

The Doctor integrates into the memory at the precise moment a phial of reanimation potion restarts his frozen hearts, and breathes life into his stiff, weighty limbs. Staggering forward with a rush of vertigo and disorientation, he stumbles straight into his rescuer’s arms. Overcome with joy and unspeakable pleasure at being alive, and flooded with the memories of touching the stone Rose’s lips, he leans in for a kiss. The first time he kissed Rose properly in this body. The first time he kissed her without the assurance her memory of the incident would be swiped clean.

It’s too short, little more than a strike of lightning. A flash of relief to be alive. An instant of wonder and sheer ecstasy that he can finally feel these soft, pink lips against his. It’s over before he can remember to count the precious seconds it lasted.

“Wotcha,” the memory-Rose squeaks out when he pulls away, a lovely blush on her cheeks.

As quickly as it came, the memory crumples and shrinks into nothingness in the same manner as the first, and the book returns itself back to its proper place.

“I quite enjoyed that kiss, too,�� says Rose, her voice unusually wobbly.

Before he can see it coming, the Doctor is suddenly steamrolled by a surge of unbridled lust. It’s familiarly feminine, and too powerful to have originated from himself. His blood turns to searing honey in his veins, his double heartbeat pulsing pleasantly in his groin, as visceral desire tugs deep in his gut. It consumes his waking faculties too quickly for him to keep up, and the fragile mirage surrounding them crumbles and disappears.

With nothing left to distract them, the volatile new desire simply ricochets between them, growing more intense with each pass.

Equal parts enchanted and frightened by the sudden incendiary passion, the Doctor abruptly severs the link.

When he rejoins Rose in reality, she is closer than he remembers. Knees and hips against his. Her arms circled around his neck, the fabric of his shirt bundled in her fists. The gentle weight of her breasts on his chest. Her gaze can’t seem to find a place to settle, flickering from his lips down to the buttons of his shirt, occasionally meeting his eyes. But regardless of where she’s looking, it’s like she’s trying to decide which dessert to eat first. Her breaths are shallow and shaky. There’s that same delicious blush of pink on her cheeks she had back in Rome.

As if he needs another layer of proof, he inhales a slow, deep breath through his nose. Subtle, unique scents mingle with the sweet soaps and lotions in the close air: unmistakable, intoxicating proof that Rose is aroused.

#ficandchips #ten x rose #i hope you guys are happy w it #and that it may provide a distraction from the backwards twilight zone horrorscape that is reality now #written by yours truly

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parkrangercirca2016 · 7 years ago

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Season Two; Episode Nineteen

There has been a little bit of unseasonably nice weather right here at the end of September to see me off.

On the 21st of September I took a nice long hike up up to Easy Pass and Fisher Basin on the east side of the park. I can’t say that I was expecting very much because the weather was cool, overcast, and drizzly when I left Rockport that morning. The clouds were covering the mountain tops as I drove through the park, but there were enough breaks in the clouds that I could see some of the higher peaks had a dusting of snow on them. The snow level had been down around 5,000 feet fairly consistently.

Even though I had the road more or less to myself as I drove over, I was disappointed to see that the trailhead parking lot was mostly full. I don’t have much room to complain about that because there is really only enough space for seven or eight cars in that parking lot.

The name “Easy Pass” wasn’t given to the pass over the mountains because it is easy to access. The pass was named “Easy” because it happened to be the most convenient place to pass over the mountains when the area was being logged. As a result, the hike of 3.5 miles to the top started off at an incline and stayed uphill for the entirety of the climb. I ended up hiking up about 2800 feet of total elevation. The first stretch was forested which was fine by me because it was sprinkling. Once I broke out of the trees I was treated to some great views of the lower part of Fisher Mountain. It had a dusting of snow on it. Climbing further I left an avalanche meadow and started hiking through some scree and talus. It was here that I met my first stranger of the day, an older woman who was descending. She told me that everything was clouded over up there and that she was headed back to her car, but that I would see the other three members of her party if I kept going. After she left I could see that the clouds further up the pass had started to break and there was a low, forested saddle that the trail was taking me up to. Beyond that I could faintly see more rocks that suggested the pass itself was much further up.

After some more time hiking I came to the trees that marked that earlier saddle I had seen. It was there that I heard voices further up and stepped off of the trail for a bit to let two men come down and return to their cars. They were too wrapped up in their conversation to pay me any mind, which was fine with me because I see enough of their type at work anyways. I hiked up through the trees and the temperature started dropping. I was high enough up now that the wind was also blowing much more fiercely than it had been earlier. When I got out of the trees I heard some loud, obnoxious voices from much further up. There were three women in brightly colored coats coming down from where I could see the pass was. I had a much longer hike ahead of me than it had seemed from further down. Eventually the ladies made it passed me, and once they did I saw a cloud start rolling up the mountainside towards the pass.

When it got to me the wind picked up and it started snowing. The temperature dropped more and I had to stop to put on a coat before I could get going any more. It seemed to me that the snow would never stop, but it did later on as I was closer to the top. Once the sun poked out a little while later I warmed up a little bit more and the dusting of snow that was everywhere started to melt a little. The trail became fainter and more unsteady the closer I got to the pass, and just before the top, it snowed a little bit more.

But that was okay. It didn’t last for very long and the pass itself seemed like an early Christmas present when I got there. It really is one of the most breathtaking places in the park. You really do have to work for it. From the other side of the pass you can see Fisher Basin where Fisher Creek starts. Through some of the clouds to the west I could see Douglas Glacier on Mount Logan. I think that Douglas Glacier is the second biggest I’ve seen in the park, after Nohokomeen Glacier on Jack Mountain near Ross Lake.

I was up at the pass for quite a while, it seemed like. I tried to soak up as much of the sun and views as I could. It wasn’t easy because it really was cold. I ate a some peanuts and raisins while I stood in the snow, which was just deep enough and slippery enough that I didn't want to climb up off of the trail and find a place to sit. So I stood there until I decided that my toes were cold enough I should start heading back down. The return journey didn’t take nearly as long as the hike up. But it was much more painful for my knees and ankles because it was going down the entire time. Lately I’ve been hiking with trekking poles to help take some of the shock off of my joints, and they’ve been a tremendous help. I can’t imagine what that descent would have been like without them!

Returning to work Friday I was joined in the Skagit Information Center by Cynthia and Becky. Work there tends to be a little less lonely and quiet when other people are there. I had just enough time after work to go home and throw on a change of clothes before Brianna, Andy, and Chelsea came by to pick me up. Andy had read in the Concrete Herald that the Concrete High School football team was good this year, so he decided that we should go to a game.

We went to Annie’s Pizza in Concrete before the game and just so happened to run into Rockport resident, former park ranger, and current Concrete school board member Mike Brondi. He, too, was going to the game. Talking to him in the parking lot at the Red Apple we learned that this was Concrete’s homecoming game against the Darrington Loggers. CHS has the lions as their mascot, which bread the slogan “Claws are sharper than saws!” for the game that night.

Once we made it into the game we sat with Brondi and learned all about Concrete and the football team. It’s a small school, about the same size as Orion (a little bit smaller) and had a great coach for about twenty years before he was fired two years ago. It turns out he had been playing favorites and would treat the second-string players like garbage. There was also a culture at the school that the football players did not need to passing their classes if they wanted to play, and the former coach had encouraged teachers to not ride the players so hard when it came to grades. He had to go.

The current coach has really turned the team around, according to Brondi. He is a former soldier who has doubled the size of the team. I also think that he is the only black man who I saw in Concrete that night. The kids seem to like him, and he’s a pretty good coach, too. I believe that the final score of the game was 47-0, Concrete.

The community itself has its share of problems. Drugs are becoming more and more of an issue, which has been affecting the children. They are losing their role models and don’t have places to go after school. There’s less logging in the area so there are less well-paying jobs. There was talk of consolidating sports programs a few years ago, but the locals didn’t want their high school teams to lose their identity.

CHS has a small marching band. Close to 90% of the band members are either on the football team or on the cheerleading squad and thus, weren’t there to play for the homecoming game. And the band director couldn’t be there that night so musicians from the middle school and elementary school showed up and organized themselves without direction from parents to be the pep band. I was a tiny bit disappointed that there was no halftime show. Otherwise the kids did a good job for being without a director and being so young.

The poor Darrington Football team was a sorry sight, though. Most of the Concrete Lions were juniors and seniors. The Loggers were primarily 8th graders and they just got rolled over the entire game.

All told, it was a pretty fun night. And the day after happened to be the last day that I would work in the SIC. I didn’t know that at the time, though. All summer I had been on the schedule to work there on the 29th and 30th of September. All month I had been telling people that we were open every weekend of the month, because that is what I understood our MOU to have stated. But somebody (probably a lawyer) had written into the MOU that the NPS would keep the SIC open until “the last Sunday” of the month. Our park website actually listed the SIC as being open until the 30th. But the powers that be jumped on that phrase and decided that we just couldn’t keep that building open any more, so they (without telling me until after the fact, mind you) changed what was said on the website and acted like nothing had happened. It felt sneaky and underhanded to me. Not a good PR stunt to pull.

So tomorrow and Saturday I will work in the VC. I don’t know what I’ll do there, but I’ll do something. I need to have my exit interview with Jeanne, return keys, return my ID badge from City Light, and drop off a binder to Katie at the ELC. Yesterday I did some packing and cleaning at the house. Currently our internet is down so I had to leave the house to post this.

On Monday I will begin the drive home. I don’t think I’ll be stopping in too many different places. Hopefully I get to see Tyler at her new job in Yellowstone and meet up with Ashley and the ECOEE group there, too. I will need to stop in the Badlands to see Reece. Otherwise it’s the open road from here to Illinois.

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jotasmuses · 3 years ago

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It comes from here. @highsfidelity

Tyler just arrived to the flat after his workout sesion. Going to the gym and sweating always got him horny. He took his shirt off when he came into the livingroom, and he settled down on the couch. He didn’t expect to find Luca there, but it was a good thing. Maybe he could help him with his heat.

And Tyler couldn’t help smiling when the other boy acceded to his demand.

“Yeah. Definitely better“, he replied, turning his eyes between the other’s eyes and the lower part of his body. Tyler rubbed his hands and licked his bottom lip. “Maybe it would be better if you were hard“, he said, leaning back on the couch but keeping his eyes on Luca's face.

#highsfidelity #luca x tyler #ch tyler ross

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jotasmuses · 2 years ago

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m/m 41 (tyler from trent)

NSFW gif starters • 41 • still accepting

«Where have Trent been all this time?» Tyler asked himself while Trent's fingers played with his hole. They were on Tyler's fraternity dorm, and at least Tyler was skipping classes. But he has a good excuse. An excuse that was making his legs tremble. His moans died on Trent's mouth.

“If you keep doing that, I'm gonna cum,” whispered Tyler against the other's lips. And he didn't want to. But neither wanted Trent to stop.

#ragtagrunaways #ch tyler ross #trent x tyler

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chocolatequeennk · 7 years ago

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Forever and Never Apart, 12/42

Series 4 with Rose, part 7 of Being to Timelessness; sequel to Taking Time (AO3 | FF.NET | TSP)

Betaed by @lastbluetardis, @rudennotgingr, @jabber-who-key, and @pellaaearien. Thank you so much!

AO3 | FF.NET | TSP

Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 8 | Ch 9 | Ch 10 | Ch 11

Chapter Twelve: Code Red Sontarans

Donna watched out the Jeep window as the streets grew more familiar. This winter had been the mild kind, where the autumn leaves lingered on the streets and clung determinedly to the trees into February. The unseasonal appearance made it feel like she’d been gone for months, rather than a few weeks, and her anxiety to get home grew.

“You can stop here,” she finally called out when they reached the closest junction to her home.

Private Jenkins looked at her in the rear view mirror. “Are you certain, ma’am?”

Donna nodded. “Yeah. If you let me out at this corner, you can just turned around there and go out to this Rattigan Academy.”

He turned his indicator on and pulled over, and Donna had the door open before the Jeep had even come to a complete stop. “I’ll walk the rest of the way. I’ll see you back at the factory, yeah?”

The Doctor pulled the door shut. “All right.”

Donna bent down slightly so she could see him and Rose. “And you be careful! Both of you.”

Rose grinned and waved merrily, and then the Jeep drove off. “Trouble magnets,” Donna muttered before she started down the road.

The first person she saw was Elaine, who lived two doors down and had tormented her mother last summer with her perfect hydrangeas. “Haven’t seen you for days,” the older woman said.

Donna laughed slightly. Had it only been days? “Yeah. Been away.”

She kept walking, seeing memories of the last few weeks instead of the familiar cars that lined the street. She’d done so much in a short amount of time—nearly died, falling out of that window cleaner’s bucket, saved one family from the fires of Pompeii, rescued an entire species that had been subjugated by humans… She’d stood beneath alien skies and danced at alien balls.

And while she’d been doing that, life had gone on as usual here in Chiswick. Elaine still took her walk every afternoon, the kids still played footie after school…

Donna was almost to her own home, and she pressed her hand to her mouth when she spotted her grandfather carrying the rubbish to the kerb. He saw her at the same time and held up his hands and waved, as if she couldn’t see him. Donna took one small step, then another, and then she ran the rest of the way to him.

They met at the end of the driveway, and he immediately wrapped his arms around her for a fierce hug. The familiar scent of his aftershave hit Donna hard and she had to clench her eyes shut to hold back tears. In all her travels, hugs from her granddad were the one thing she really missed from home.

After a long hug, he pulled back and tugged her towards the house. “Come on. We’ll have a cuppa and you can tell me all about your adventures.”

“Yeah.” Donna wrapped her arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder as they walked slowly into the house.

Inside, she tried to help make tea, but he waved her off. “Oh no,” he said, pointing at the table. “You sit down! It’s not every day I have a visitor from outer space.”

Donna rolled her eyes. “I’m still from Chiswick, Gramps.”

He looked at her over his shoulder as he dropped teabags into the mugs he had out. “But you’ve been travelling in outer space.”

She sat down. “Yeah. We went to this planet called the Ood Sphere and met proper aliens.”

The kettle went off and her grandfather poured the water, then brought both mugs over to the table.

“Like, proper aliens,” she emphasised, “with tentacles growing around their mouths like a beard.”

He sat down across from her and fidgeted with his sideburn. “I said so, didn’t I. Aliens. I said they was real. I just didn’t expect them in a little blue box.”

“It’s bigger on the inside,” Donna explained automatically.

“Yeah, but is it safe?” His expression took on a stern demeanour. “This couple you’re traveling with, the Doctor and Rose, are you safe with them?”

Donna nodded earnestly. “They’re amazing, Gramps. Really. They’re just… dazzling.” She paused and looked at the ceiling for a moment. “You can tell Rose I said that, but not him.”

He hid a grin behind his hand. “No.”

“But I’d trust them with my life,” Donna admitted.

Her granddad straightened, an affronted frown on his face. “Hold up, I thought that was my job.”

Donna wrapped her hands around her mug and leaned forward. “You still come first.”

“Well, for God’s sake, don’t tell your mother.”

Donna pressed her lips into a thin line. She still wasn’t keen on the idea, but after listening to Rose and Martha’s stories, she didn’t know how she could keep it a secret.

“I don’t know.” She wavered between the two options. “I mean, this is massive. Sort of not fair if she doesn’t know.”

“Doesn’t know what?”

Donna straightened and watched her mother walk through the room, carrying a laundry basket. Sylvia set the basket down on the counter, and Donna rested her chin in her hand and listened as her mum started in on her while folding a blanket.

“And who’s she, the cat’s mother? And where’ve you been these past few days, lady, after that silly little trick with the car keys? I phoned Veena and she said she hadn’t seen hide nor hair.”

The condescension in her mum’s voice stung even worse now that she was actually doing something with her life. Her wounded pride was aching to tell her mother exactly what she’d been doing, but her gramps shook his head quickly and she sighed.

“I’ve just been travelling,” she hedged.

Her mum scoffed at that. “Oh, hark at her, Michael Palin.”

Donna and her Gramps shared a look, and he started laughing.

Sylvia kept right on, barely stopping for breath between one passive aggressive comment and the next. “Are you staying for tea, because I haven’t got anything in. I’ve been trying to keep your granddad on that macrobiotic diet, but he sneaks off and gets pork pies at the petrol station.” Gramps turned around with his hand raised, but her mum shook her head. “Don’t deny it, I’ve seen the wrappers in the car. Oh, I don’t miss a trick. Now then, what were you going to tell me? What don’t I know?”

Donna and her granddad shared a conspiratorial chuckle and wink. But that little tirade had been enough to decide Donna. She could only imagine the kind of ridicule she’d get from her mother if she tried to tell her she travelled through time and space with an alien and his part-alien wife. She probably wouldn’t even believe me if she saw the inside of the TARDIS.

She started to smile, imaging the way her mum would react if she walked into the unique spaceship, but her amusement faded when she realised how closely the picture in her head matched the way she had reacted when she’d first landed in the TARDIS.

Donna shook her head to get rid of the notion, then smiled and shook her head at her mum. “Nothing. Just nothing.”

“Good. Right, then you can sit there and cut out those coupons. Every penny helps. This new mortgage doesn’t pay for itself. Dad, kettle on.”

“Yeah, kettle on.”

Donna took the flyers she was handed, and as she cut out the coupons, she wondered if there would ever come a day when her mother actually saw her value, or if visits home would always go like this.

oOoOoOoOo

“We’re almost there. The school is very secluded,” Ross told the Doctor and Rose as he turned the Jeep off the main road. “UNIT’s been watching Rattigan Academy for ages. It’s all a bit Hitler Youth. Exercise at dawn and classes and special diets.”

“Turn left.”

The constant interruptions from ATMOS had been driving the Doctor batty, and he finally had to ask. “Ross, one question. If UNIT think that ATMOS is dodgy—”

“Go straight on.”

“How come we’ve got it in the Jeeps?”

“Yeah,” Rose said.

Ross chuckled mirthlessly. “Tell me about it. They’re fitted as standard on all government vehicles. We can’t get rid of them till we can prove there’s something wrong.”

The Doctor watched the display warily as ATMOS instructed Ross to turn right. He had yet to find an instance where ubiquitous technology had not proven disastrous for humanity.

“Drives me around the bend,” Ross said slyly.

Rose and the Doctor chuckled. “Oh, nice one,” she praised.

Ross shot them a cheeky smile as he followed the curve of the road. “Timed that perfectly.”

The Doctor nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, you did.”

They turned another bend, and a large manor house came into view. The Doctor’s eyebrows rose as he took in the numerous towers and turrets rising above the Gothic revival castle. The pale golden colour of Bath Stone was mostly obscured by a layer of grime, but here and there it shone through.

“This is your final destination,” ATMOS announced as Ross parked and they all climbed out.

“Blimey, I see what you meant, Ross,” Rose muttered. Teens in matching orange tracksuits were running laps around the building.

The Doctor nodded. “Yeah… definitely something off here. And I think I see the man in charge over there,” he said, nodding to a slight figure standing off to the side, dressed in jeans and a maroon t-shirt.

“Is it PE?” he called out. “I wouldn’t mind a kick around—I’ve got me daps on.”

Luke Rattigan turned around, no smile on his face. “I suppose you’re the Doctor and Rose Tyler?”

“Hello,” they said, waving in sync.

The young man’s eyes narrowed. “Your commanding officer phoned ahead.”

“Ah, but we haven’t got a commanding officer,” the Doctor corrected. “Have you?” Luke rocked back on his heels, deep offence etched on his face, and the Doctor was pretty certain he was behind whatever was going on.

But he couldn’t let on that he’d sussed him out so quickly, so he gestured to Ross. “Oh, this is Ross. Say hello, Ross.”

“Good afternoon, sir,” Ross said politely.

The Doctor took Rose’s hand and they jogged towards the mansion. “Let’s have a look, then. I can smell genius!” He grinned at Luke over his shoulder. “In a good way.”

What are you thinking, Doctor? Rose asked as they allowed Luke Rattigan to lead them to a large, open room on the first floor.

The amount of arrogance pouring off that boy is almost never a good thing, the Doctor said gravely.

“This is what I call the visioning lab,” Luke said as he approached a door with yellow plastic flaps hanging in front of it. “Because in this room, if our students can envision something, we make it happen.”

The Doctor pushed through the flaps and his eyes widened. “Oh, now, that’s clever. Look.” He put on his specs as he bent over one experiment. “Single molecule fabric, how thin is that?!” He turned to Ross and Rose. “You could pack a tent in a thimble.”

Despite his awareness that there was something going on here, he couldn’t help but bounce around the room like a kid in a candy shop, going from one advanced product to another. “Ooo! Gravity simulators. Terraforming, biospheres, nano-tech steel construction.” He laughed when a flame spurted. “This is brilliant.”

But as exciting as it all was, it was also obvious to him exactly what this set of products could do together. He sauntered back towards Luke Rattigan, who didn’t look nearly as arrogant now as he had before. “Do you know, with equipment like this you could, ooo, I don’t know, move to another planet or something?”

Luke pressed his lips together in the most faked wistful gaze the Doctor had ever seen. “If only that was possible.”

“If only that were possible,” the Doctor corrected as he took his glasses off and put them back in his pocket. Luke glared at him balefully, and the Doctor offered a helpful explanation. “Conditional clause.”

He watched carefully as the lad utterly failed at controlling his anger. Oh, he’s a bit more dangerous than I thought, Rose.

“I think you’d better come with me,” Luke said curtly, then strode out of the room.

He’s definitely in a bit of a strop, isn’t he? Rose asked as they trailed behind Luke.

More than a bit. Luke Rattigan has delusions of grandeur, and I think someone else has been playing into that. Because all that stuff in his visioning lab? None of that is technology Earth should have yet.

Luke led them into a large, open room with a swimming pool in the middle of it. He stopped in front of a stone fireplace and glared at the Doctor. “You’re smarter than the usual UNIT grunts, I’ll give you that.”

“He called you a grunt.” The Doctor looked casually around the room and forced himself not to react to the transmat unit in the corner. “Don’t call Ross a grunt. He’s nice. We like Ross. Look at this place, Rose.”

“Very nice, very posh,” Rose agreed as they both started circling the room, acting like home buyers considering the light in the room. What did you see, Doctor?

When Luke closed his eyes and pressed his hands to his temples, the Doctor nodded at the large box near the wall. That’s a teleport. Definitely not human technology.

Luke dropped his hands and glared at them. “What exactly do you want?”

The Doctor walked straight for the teleport device, though he did so casually, turning around and walking backwards a few steps. “I was just thinking. What a responsible eighteen-year-old.” He walked straight past the teleport to poke his head out into the hallway, looking for anyone who didn’t belong on Earth at this time. “Inventing zero carbon cars? Saving the world.”

“Takes a man with vision,” Luke claimed boastfully.

“I don’t know about that, mate,” Rose disagreed. “Because here’s what I’ve been thinking. If people think they can drive their car without sending carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, then they’re just gonna buy more cars, aren’t they? And the thing is, the cars still run on petrol, whether they release emissions or not. So in the end, we’re still going to run out of oil… maybe even faster than before.”

The Doctor nodded. “Rose is right. The ATMOS system could make things worse.”

Luke darted over to them, his hand held out. “Yeah. Well, you see, that’s a tautology. You can’t say ATMOS system because it stands for Atmospheric Emissions System. So you’re just saying Atmospheric Emissions System system. Do you see, Mr. Conditional Clause?” he scoffed, holding up his hands in fake quotation marks.

Rose snorted and put her hands on her hips. “You sound like a bratty eight-year-old right now, Luke, do you know that? You’re not the cleverest person in the room for once, and you can’t stand it.”

That took the wind right out of his sails, but Luke still rallied enough to insist, “I’m still right, though.”

“Not easy, is it, being clever.” The Doctor held Luke’s gaze until the lad looked away, and then he took a step towards him, forcing his attention back to him. “You look at the world and you connect things, random things, and think, ‘Why can’t anyone else see it?’ The rest of the world is so slow.”

A cold smile glinted in Luke’s eyes, and he nodded. “Yeah.”

“And you’re all on your own,” the Doctor continued.

Luke looked down quickly, then met the Doctor’s gaze again, naked pain and anger in his eyes. “I know.”

“But not with this.” The Doctor pulled the ATMOS device out of his pocket and waved it around as he backed up a few steps. “Because there’s no way you invented this thing single-handed. I mean, it might be Earth technology, but that’s like finding a mobile phone in the Middle Ages.” He tossed it to Rose and walked over to the teleport. “No, no, I’ll tell you what it’s like. It’s like finding this in the middle of someone’s front room. Albeit it’s a very big front room.”

“Why, what is it?” Ross asked.

“Yeah, just looks like a thing, doesn’t it?” the Doctor remarked. “People don’t question things. They just say, ‘Oh, it’s a thing.’”

“Leave it alone,” Luke demanded, genuine fear in his eyes.

The Doctor stepped back into the purple-lit chamber. “Me, I make these connections,” he said, drawing circles in the air on the side of his head. “And this, to me, looks like a teleport pod.” He pushed the button and felt the familiar static electricity that accompanied a teleport.

When he rematerialised, he looked around and his eyes widened immediately. “Oh.” They were a little shorter than they had been the last time he’d seen them, but this was clearly a Sontaran ship.

Rose, you need to find cover. I’ll be bringing company with me when I come back.

The Sontarans noticed him almost immediately and turned to face him. “We have an intruder,” one announced.

“How did he get in?” the Doctor asked. “In tru da window? Bye, bye!” He punched the return button and started running as his body left the ship, knowing he would rematerialise at a run, too.

“Ross, get out!” he shouted as he ran back into the room. He could feel Rose behind him, near the door, so he grabbed Luke and tried to pull him that direction. “Luke, you’ve got to come with me,” he said.

When the teen resisted, the Doctor rolled his eyes, then spun around with his sonic screwdriver out. A single soldier appeared in the room before he deactivated the teleport unit, but one soldier he could handle.

“Sontaran!” he shouted as the alien stepped forward. “That’s your name, isn’t it? You’re a Sontaran.” The soldier cocked his head and lowered his weapon. “How did I know that, hey? Fascinating isn’t it? Isn’t that worth keeping me alive?”

Ross stepped forward, his gun drawn. “I order you to surrender in the name of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce.”

The Doctor looked down at the sidearm. “Well that’s not going to work,” he muttered. “Cordolaine signal, am I right?” he called out to the Sontaran. Ross looked up at him, and he pointed to the barrel of the gun. “Copper excitation stopping the bullets.”

“How do you know so much?” the Sontaran demanded.

“Well.” The Doctor shrugged and looked at the ceiling.

What can I do? Rose asked as the Doctor spun and walked over to a desk.

“Who is he?” asked the Sontaran.

“He didn’t give his name,” Luke told the Sontaran.

Rose was perfectly positioned to incapacitate the Sontaran, assuming Luke didn’t give away her position. Stay right there. I’m working on a plan.

The Doctor turned around and leaned against the desk. “But this isn’t typical Sontaran behaviour, is it? Hiding?” He sneered, then nodded at Luke. “Using teenagers, stopping bullets? A Sontaran should face bullets with dignity. Shame on you.”

“You dishonour me, sir!”

The Doctor smirked; they really made it too easy. “Yeah? Then show yourself.”

“I will look into my enemy’s eyes!” He removed his helmet, revealing both his face and the vulnerable probic vent at the back of his neck.

“Oh, my God,” muttered Ross.

The Doctor nodded at the weathered-looking Sontaran. This was no inexperienced soldier. “And your name?”

“General Staal, of the Tenth Sontaran Fleet. Staal the Undefeated.”

The Doctor sighed. “Oh, that’s not a very good nickname. What if you do get defeated? Staal the Not-Quite-So-Undefeated-Anymore-But Never-Mind?”

Behind Staal, Rose rolled her eyes and stifled a giggle.

“He’s like a potato,” Ross said. “A baked potato. A talking baked potato.”

“Now, Ross, don’t be rude,” the Doctor chided as he straightened up. “You look like a pink weasel to him.”

He picked up the squash racket and ball nonchalantly. Rose, while I distract everyone, find something you can club Staal with.

“The Sontarans are the finest soldiers in the galaxy,” he explained as he bounced the ball on the racket, “dedicated to a life of warfare. A clone race, grown in batches of millions with only one weakness.”

To anyone watching, it would have seemed like he was explaining to the entire room, but Rose’s attention sharpened and he knew she was ready for his instructions.

I’ve got a cricket bat, Doctor.

General Staal recoiled. “Sontarans have no weakness,” he growled.

“No, it’s a good weakness,” the Doctor assured him.

Luke glared back at him. “Aren’t you meant to be clever? Only an idiot would provoke him,” he said, looking at Staal again.

The Doctor sighed. He was as sure as he could be now that Luke had been willingly working for the Sontarans. Well, having a Sontaran teleport pod in his front room was a rather big clue, honestly.

“No, but the Sontarans are fed by a probic vent in the back of their neck.” He pointed at the back of his neck with the racket. “That’s their weak spot. Which means, they always have to face their enemies in battle. Isn’t that brilliant?” He grinned. “They can never turn their backs.”

“We stare into the face of death,” Staal declared bombastically.

Rose stepped out from behind the teleport, her cricket bat in hand. She swung it up and hit Staal square on the probic vent, growling, “Bet you didn’t see that coming, mate,” as he crumpled to the floor in a pile of armour.

“Run!” the Doctor yelled at Ross. He grabbed Rose’s hand on the way out of the room, and the three of them dashed to the Jeep.

“Get us out of here,” the Doctor ordered Ross. “And call Colonel Mace when you get a chance, tell him Code Red, Sontarans.”

Ross nodded as they took off. “So these Sontarans, they’re behind ATMOS?” he asked as the Jeep skidded around a curve.

The Doctor grabbed onto the dash. “Yeah, seems like it.” He raked his hand through his hair; the more they learned, the less things made sense. This wasn’t typical Sontaran behaviour at all.

Ross yanked the wheel hard when they reached the main road, then he reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a walkie-talkie. “I’ll let you contact the colonel yourself, sir.”

The Doctor grabbed the device and brought it to his mouth. “Greyhound Forty to Trap One. Repeat, can you hear me? Over.” He waited a few minutes, then tried again, and again when he still didn’t get an answer.

Rose pulled his arm down. “The Sontarans must be blocking the signal,” she said, saying aloud the conclusion he’d already reached. “No point trying it over and over.”

The Doctor tossed the walkie-talkie down in disgust and rubbed at the headache building behind his eyes. “And if they can trace that, they can isolate the ATMOS.”

“Turn left.”

The cheery voice of ATMOS sent a mutual shiver of dread through the Doctor and Rose.

Rose licked her lips. “Try going right,” she suggested to Ross.

He glanced over at her. “It said left.”

“That’s my point,” Rose said. “Try to go right instead.”

Ross sighed, but a moment later he took his hands off the wheel, his eyes wide. “I’ve got no control.” The Jeep stayed on the road, even though no one had the wheel. “It’s driving itself. It won’t stop.” He grabbed at the door. “The doors are locked.”

The Doctor had pulled his sonic out and started working on the ATMOS unit as soon as Ross took his hands off the wheel, but he wasn’t getting anywhere. “Ah, it’s deadlocked. I can’t stop it.”

“Let me.” Ross pulled out the wire that connected the SatNav to the steering wheel, but ATMOS kept giving directions.

“The SatNav’s just a box wired through the whole car,” the Doctor explained as they veered off the road.

The Doctor felt a spark of intuition from Rose, and he looked at her as she leaned forward, speaking directly to the ATMOS device. “ATMOS, are you programmed to do the opposite of whatever I say?”

“We’re headed for the river,” Ross announced unnecessarily.

“Confirmed,” ATMOS declared.

Rose nodded and licked her lips. “Anything I say, you’ll ignore it?”

“Confirmed.”

“Right. Then drive this Jeep straight into the river.”

They all held their breath during the brief pause before the Jeep screeched to a halt, ten feet from the riverbank. The locks popped open, and all three of them piled out of the vehicle as the confused ATMOS gave rapidly conflicting orders.

“Get down!” the Doctor ordered, throwing himself to the ground and wrapping a protective arm around Rose.

“Left, right, left, right, left, left, right, left, right.”

The Doctor held his breath and waited for the explosion as the ATMOS device overloaded. Instead, a moment later he heard a soft pop and sizzle, like a circuit blowing.

He lifted his head cautiously. ATMOS wasn’t talking anymore, which seemed to indicate it had died. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

“Oh, was that it?” the Doctor mumbled.

Rose pushed herself up. “You know what this means?”

“Angry potatoes intent on taking over the world using its obsession with automobiles are likely to launch their strike early, since they know we’re onto them? And our one advantage is that they probably think we’re dead.”

She blinked. “Well… that too, I guess. But I was gonna point out that we don’t have a vehicle.”

The Doctor groaned. “City buses it is. We’ll go to Donna’s—it’s closer than the ATMOS factory. With a little luck, we’ll find a car we can borrow to take us the rest of the way.”

oOoOoOoOo

Donna had just finished cutting out the coupons when the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” she told her mum, who’d spent the last twenty minutes making soup and nagging her.

Somehow, she wasn’t surprised when she found the Doctor and Rose on the other side of the door, both looking a little worse for the wear. “You would not believe the day we’re having,” he said.

She looked them up and down, taking in the smudges of dirt on the Doctor’s blue suit and the way Rose’s black leather jacket was unzipped halfway. “Would that be why you both look like you’ve been playing in the dirt?”

They looked at each other, and she watched them take in the details of their appearance. “ATMOS tried to drive us into the river,” Rose said finally.

Donna’s jaw dropped slightly. “But our car has ATMOS,” she said.

The Doctor nodded. “I need to look at it.”

“Yeah, of course.” She reached for the keys hanging behind the door, then stepped outside.

“So is there anything I can do?” she asked after unlocking the car for the Doctor. Rose was pacing along the edge of the driveway, her mobile to her ear.

The Doctor was on his knees, looking underneath the car, but he poked his head back out to look at her. “Not really. Thanks though, Donna.”

The soldier who’d driven them earlier shifted his weight from one foot to the other while the Doctor lifted the bonnet of the car. “I’ll requisition us a vehicle.”

“Anything without ATMOS,” the Doctor ordered sharply.

Donna shared a knowing look with the young soldier; that really didn’t need saying.

The Doctor stared at the inner workings of the car. ATMOS was attached to the muffler, but it had to do something else. Right, Martha said those fifty-two people were poisoned, he considered as he nosed around the engine. And the ATMOS unit contains a gas converter, so maybe… maybe it’s also loaded with a poison gas?

He was peripherally aware that a door had opened and shut somewhere, and then he heard a voice asking, “Is it them? Is it them? Is it the Doctor and Rose?” He had no intention of answering, but then he heard, “Ah, it’s you!”

“Who?” he asked, straightening up.

Rose spun around, her phone down as she’d been in the middle of redialing Martha. “Oh, it’s you,” she said, then put the phone to her ear.

Donna looked from her granddad to the Doctor and Rose. “What, have you met before?”

“Yeah, Christmas Eve,” her granddad said. “They disappeared, right in front of me.”

She stared at him. “And you never said?” she demanded indignantly.

“Well, you never said,” he countered reasonably. “Wilf, sir. Wilfred Mott.” The older man’s eyes were wide with excitement. “You must be one of them aliens.”

The Doctor blinked a few times. That wasn’t how he was used to being greeted, even by people who knew. “Yeah, but don’t shout it out.” He grinned and shook the man’s hand. “Nice to meet you properly, Wilf.”

“Oh, an alien hand.” Wilf flexed his fingers and looked a little overwhelmed.

“Martha’s not answering, Doctor,” Rose told him, hitting redial again. “What do you want me to tell her if I finally get through? Just that it’s Sontarans—Code Red Sontarans?”

“Yeah.” He glanced up and down the street; if the numbers he’d seen earlier were any indication, at least half of them were under Sontaran control. “But there’s got to be more to it. They can’t be just remote controlling cars. That’s not enough.” He looked back at Rose while tapping a rhythm against his leg. “Nothing?”

Rose started to shake her head, but then Martha’s phone finally rang, instead of sending her straight to voicemail yet again. “Hold on.” She bit her lip and finally exhaled when the other end picked up.

“What do you need, Rose?”

“Martha.” Rose started pacing again. “We’ve got information for you to pass on to Colonel Mace. Can you do that for us?”

“Of course.”

“Tell him it’s the Sontarans. Code Red, Sontarans.”

The Doctor waved for the phone, and she handed it over. “Martha, hi. UNIT should have a file on the Sontarans. Tell Colonel Mace that they’re are inside the factory, so UNIT shouldn’t even start shooting. They’ll get massacred. I’ll get back as soon as I can. You got that?”

He nodded a few times, then ended the call and tossed the phone back to Rose before spinning back around to the car. “Hopefully that will keep everyone safe until we get there,” he muttered as he poked around at the car’s innards with the sonic screwdriver.

“But you tried sonicking it before,” Donna pointed out. “You didn’t find anything.”

“Yeah, but now I know it’s Sontaran. I know what I’m looking for.”

“The thing is, Doctor,” Wilf said, “that Donna is my only grandchild. You got to promise me you’re going to take care of her.”

Rose put her hand on Wilf’s shoulder. “Donna’s actually pretty brilliant at taking care of herself,” she rebuked gently. She understood the desire of a family member to know their loved one was safe when travelling with the Doctor, but she remembered how it had felt when her mum had demanded the Doctor keep her safe, calling her a kid. She’d felt like a kid. That feeling was part of what had driven her to give the Doctor permission to do what needed to be done, regardless of what might happen to her.

And Donna, brash as she seemed at first glance, had almost no self-confidence. If Rose could help her family see how capable she was already…

Wilf blinked a few times, but then he smiled and nodded readily. “Oh, yeah. That’s my Donna—always diving into new things without reading the rule book first and learning on the go. She’s gotten into a few scrapes that way, but she’s always managed to get herself out of them.”

Donna made a soft sound of surprise, and Rose grinned and nodded from her to the Doctor. “They’re an excellent pair, then,” she said. “The Doctor threw the TARDIS manual into a supernova.”

“Yeah, and then I managed to do what it told me I couldn’t do,” he retorted, his voice slightly muffled by the bonnet.

“Whoa!” He jumped back, and Rose peered down at the top side of the ATMOS device. Spikes were protruding out of it now.

“It’s a temporal pocket,” the Doctor explained. “I knew there was something else in there. It’s hidden just a second out of sync with real time.”

“But what’s it hiding?” Donna asked.

Rose caught sight of a fifth person walking their direction, and she groaned when she recognised Donna’s mum. Between their interactions with her and the things Donna had mentioned in the last month, she’d rather hoped they could get away without ever running into her—but that didn’t seem to be.

“I don’t know, men and their cars,” Sylvia said, a smirk on her face as she walks towards them. “Sometimes I think if I was a car.”

Her gaze landed on Rose, and her eyes widened. “Oh, it’s you,” she spat out.

Rose wiggled her fingers in a weak wave, and Sylvia turned to look at the car.

“And you! Doctor, what was it?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” the Doctor said, waving without looking up.

Wilf’s eyes widened, and he looked from the Doctor to his daughter and back again. “What, have you met them as well?” he stammered.

Sylvia rolled her eyes. “Dad, it’s the couple from the wedding. When you were laid up with Spanish flu,” she added, answering a question Rose hadn’t gotten around to asking yet. She put her hands on her hips and glared at the Doctor. “I’m warning you, last time these two turned up, it was a disaster.”

Whatever the Doctor had been doing to the ATMOS device obviously triggered something, because gas billowed out of it.

“Get back!” the Doctor ordered. He fiddled with the sonic, adjusting the settings, and then pointed it at the ATMOS device. “That’ll stop it.”

“I told you.” Sylvia gestured wildly at the Doctor, who was waving his hand over the ATMOS device, trying to get the gas to dissipate. “He’s blown up the car! Who is he, anyway? What sort of doctor blows up cars?”

“Oh, not now, Mum,” Donna said impatiently.

Her face set in a disagreeable expression. “Oh, should I make an appointment?” she sniped, before turning around and stomping off.

The Doctor ignored the woman, focusing on the more imminent disaster. He sniffed at the air and shook his head. “That wasn’t just exhaust fumes. It’s some sort of gas—artificial gas.”

“And it’s aliens, is it?” Wilf asked. “Aliens?”

“But if it’s poisonous…” Donna began.

“Then they’ve got poisonous gas in millions of cars around the world,” Rose concluded. The three of them looked up and down the street, spotting the ATMOS decal in almost every window.

While they were busy looking around, Wilf climbed into the car. “It’s not safe. I’m going to get it off the street.”

As soon as he closed the door, they all heard the ominous snick of the locks activating. Having just been in an ATMOS vehicle that had locked them inside, the Doctor and Rose knew exactly what had happened.

“He’s trapped,” Rose whispered as gas poured out of the exhaust pipe.

Donna darted to the door and yanked on the handle. “Hold on! Turn it off. Granddad, get out of there!”

“I can’t! It’s not locked! It’s them aliens again!” Wilf held up the keys—he hadn’t even started the car before the ATMOS system had started.

“What’s he doing?” Sylvia yelled from the door. “What’s he done?”

Rose watched helplessly while Wilf pounded on the window and the Doctor tried to use the sonic screwdriver to get the car to stop. Then she spun around and started looking for something to break the glass.

“They’ve activated it!” the Doctor yelled back at Sylvia.

The gas filling the street made it difficult to see, but Rose was sure she’d seen a dry rock wall at the front of one of these gardens when they’d walked down the street earlier. She pulled the collar of her shirt up to cover her mouth and nose as she ran, though her eyes were still burning by the time she found what she was looking for.

Rose grabbed three medium sized rocks and ran back to the driveway. The Doctor had moved to the door, trying to unsuccessfully to unlock it while Donna panicked.

“Get back!” Rose shouted, her voice hoarse.

They looked up at her, and she closed the bonnet and held up a rock. “Cover your head, Wilf!” she ordered.

Inside the car, the older man looked at her blankly for a minute, then ducked as close to the door as he could, covering his head with his hands.

Rose tossed one rock up in the air and caught it, before leaning back and putting all her weight into throwing it at the windscreen. The glass gave, but didn’t shatter completely, so she threw a second rock immediately after.

This time, the window shattered. The Doctor clambered on top of the car and dragged Wilf out by his armpits.

“Well don’t just stand there like idiots!” Sylvia shouted. “Get inside!”

Rose turned in a slow circle and watched as the sky filled with poisonous gas. Whatever the Sontarans’ plan was, it had begun.

#ficandchips #ten x rose #dwfic #series: Being to Timelessness #cq's fic: forever and never apart #fic by Nancy #love Rose in this chapter #taking charge and being badass

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