Chapter 10 -- The Long Way
Dec. 14th, 2006 10:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teleidoplexTitle: The Possibility of Ways
Rating: NC17 (eventually)
Media: Doctor Who (Season 2 AU)
Characters: Nine/Rose
Summary: In an infinite Universe nothing is set and everything is possible, but in choosing an alternate route there are always repercussions.
Spoilers: Doctor Who, New Seasons 1 & 2, Old Season 16
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, but I wouldn't mind ten minutes alone in the TARDIS
Archive: At A Teaspoon and an Open Mind. If you want it, check with me first.
Finished: Not by a long shot
In this chapter I shamelessly revise canon and motivations to deal with what I think are two major problems of TGITF.
1. If Rose and Reinette could hear Reinette calling through the fireplace for the Doctor’s help, then claiming that it was ‘offline’ later seems pretty implausible.
2. Nine wouldn’t just abandon Rose.
I hope nobody reading this minds the tweaking.
Oh, and I don't own anything, but I wouldn't mind ten minutes alone in the TARDIS
Chapter 10 – The Long Way
“You have to go to her.”
They were standing on the deck of the abandoned ship, just down the corridor from where they had landed in the TARDIS a few hours before. At least this time they knew it wasn’t Cornwall before they stepped out onto the deck of the ship. Rose had commented that she was beginning to believe that Cornwall didn’t exist. The Doctor had made a comment about conspiring cartographers that had sent him into helpless laughter while Mickey and she looked on confused. He had grimaced and grumbled about illiterate apes before leading them both outside to determine where exactly the TARDIS had landed.
The Doctor wasn’t laughing now. Rose had just returned from giving her warning to the 18th century woman whose life seemed to be the sole concentration and purpose of this ship. The warning could have gone better. Although Rose had tried to stop the other woman, Reinette had stepped through the time window and onto the deck of the ship. They had both heard her voice calling through another portal – the fireplace by the sound of it – calling for the Doctor to come save her. That was when Rose realized the depth of the other girl’s feelings for him. She wanted to hate the Frenchwoman, but she understood too well. Reinette was right, just as Sarah Jane had been right; the Doctor was worth both the monsters and the heartbreak.
As roadblocks went, she had to step aside from her own feelings of hurt and confusion to admit that the Doctor had pulled out all the stops this time. He’d all but bodily shoved Reinette between himself and Rose. Reinette. Madame de Pompadour. The uncrowned Queen of France, he’d called her. The term “no competition” flitted through Rose’s head. How could she ever measure up to that?
But when she stepped aside from her hurt and confusion, she was also able to see some other glaringly obvious things. Wither and die? Reinette would too. And she was a major figure in history, not exactly free to go tramping about the universe with him on a moment’s whim. Not exactly someone he could settle down with either, even if he did do domestic. In other words, Reinette was safe. Rose was willing to concede that the Doctor had probably fallen in love with the other woman, but she could see how the impossibility of her situation made it easy for him. Another mark for the hypothetical intimacy issues quiz.
The Doctor was staring impotently through the reinforced glass to the 18th century French ballroom below. He had just finished explaining to her and Mickey why he couldn’t go through the portal or use the transmat to get through. Not that she understood most of it, but she trusted that he had thought through everything and knew there wasn’t an easy solution. If there had been, he would have come up with it; he was clever like that.
At her words, he looked sharply at her.
“What?”
“She needs you Doctor. She’s counting on you. You can’t let her down. You have to go,” Rose voiced the conundrum she knew he was agonizing over.
“Rose, didn’t you hear what I just said? If I break through that glass, there’s no coming back. It’ll shatter the network of time windows, and that’ll be it. I’m done for. I’ll be stuck in that time.”
“So why don’t we just break it from this side?” Mickey piped in, “Leave those clockwork things there. If it’s broken, they can’t teleport or whatever back to this place, right? If they can’t do that, there’s not much point in them killing her for her brain, is there?” he paused, “What? Why are you looking at me like I’m mental?” Rose and the Doctor had both turned and were giving him a frighteningly similar “stupid-ape” look.
“Oh, brilliant idea. Fantastic,” the Doctor paced away from the mirror-window, then turned back towards Mickey, “but who’s going to tell them they can’t come back? They won’t be able to use her brain to fix the ship, but. She’ll. Still. Be. Dead.” He punctuated each word with a vicious jab of his finger towards the scene below that was still playing out.
“Also,” Rose added, though more gently than the Doctor, “that’s 51st century tech down there in 18th century France. It could change all sorts of things, and muck up the timeline something terrible. We couldn’t just leave it there,” she came around the Doctor’s side, laying a hand gently on his leather-clad arm, “What would you do if it were me?” she asked, “Would you go?”
His eyes snapped to hers, “Yes. Without hesitation.”
Their gazes held quietly for a moment. Whatever was going on between her and the Doctor had been getting more confused and uncomfortable since the events on Satellite 5. First the kiss with Cassandra, then through meeting Sarah Jane, his former…whatever. Now this thing with Reinette.
It was strange for her, coming to the realization that he loved people differently than how she’d always believed love worked, how she’d always been told love should be. He’d said he didn’t do domestic, but she was only now realizing the extent of what that meant. It was a hard admission to come to, to be able to step up and let him be who he was without requiring explanations or making demands. She thought about Mickey, about all his snarky comments and jealousy of the Doctor. She thought about how much easier it would be for her to love Mickey if he would just accept that her relationship with the Doctor was…special, and didn’t have anything to do with her relationship with Mickey. Knowing that, she knew what she needed to do. Rose gathered herself up, squeezing his arm before releasing it.
“You have to go to her,” she said with acceptance and determination, “She loves you, Doctor. She’s waiting for you to save her from the monsters. You promised her you’d be there. You have to go.”
“Rose,” his tone was desperate, anguished, “I promised you, too. I promised I’d never abandon you again, that I’d keep you safe. I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” she interrupted, “you’re the Doctor. You can do anything. You’ll save her, and you’ll find a way back here,” she suddenly recalled something Reinette had said in their conversation, and her voice lowered to a sad whisper, “even if you have to take the long way.” They were both distracted from their intensity by a sound from the other side of the mirror. The clockworks had forced Reinette to her knees and were holding their strange cutters to her throat. The Doctor glanced back at Rose.
“Go,” she said.
He hesitated a moment more, and she knew he was trying to determine how much she really meant it. He must have seen in her eyes that she was resolute. He whirled, mounting the white horse and jumping it through the portal. Rose flinched away from the shattering glass. When she looked up, the portal was gone and she was looking at the ship corridor on the other side. She stared at the empty area, not quite able to take everything in. It was one thing to bravely tell him to save the damsel, quite another to realize that thousands of years now separated them, that she was stranded on the abandoned station with a sputtering Mickey, and that the Doctor had no time machine to return to her.
“He left us!” Rose ignored Mickey’s first outburst. Even knowing the Doctor was going to go, even telling him to go, she had to admit that the actuality of it was a bit startling.
“He left us,” Mickey repeated, “what are we supposed to do now?”
“Now? We wait,” Rose began making her way back to the main control room, where they had first arrived in the TARDIS. Mickey trailed behind her, gibbering questions. She closed her eyes briefly. It was going to be a long wait.
Over the next several hours, Rose maintained her own calm through working to calm Mickey. After she’d exhausted her store of card games, gossip and cheery chatter, he began to get antsy. At his suggestion, they checked all the portals, ensuring that they were indeed all closed, that the network was irrevocably offline. She knew Mickey was trying to help, but somehow the act of confirming that the Doctor wouldn’t be returning by the same means with which he left only made the waiting worse. Her shoulders were sagging in dejection by the time they returned to the chamber with the TARDIS.
“Well, that’s just brilliant. He goes off to make time with some French bird and leaves us stranded here to die.”
“Mickey, shut it,” Rose began rubbing her temples.
“No. You keep defending him, but he doesn’t care about you. He just left us like it was nothing.”
“Mickey…”
“And you just keep making excuses. You’re waiting for him to look at you and see you, but it isn’t going to happen—”
“Mickey, be quiet,” Rose strained her ears, listening for a sound growing at the edge of her hearing.
“Don’t you see? He doesn't see you. He's never going to—hold on,” he quieted as he picked up on the same distant noise. They looked at each other in amazement, then at the TARDIS, which was still standing in the corner of the control room in all its solid, blue glory.
They scrambled up, dashing out of the room and towards the scraping, wheezing sound they both knew so well.
Rose arrived first, skidding to a stop just in time to see the same familiar blue box fading away. Silhouetted against it with his back to her, sonic screwdriver pointed in command, was the familiar form of her Doctor – battered leather jacket, big ears and all. She was struggling to utter some witty greeting when Mickey barreled into her, turning her words into a gargled “oof”.
The Doctor turned towards them, and Rose was arrested by his eyes. He seemed…different. The hollow-eyed loneliness that had been mostly banished by her presence was now returned in full force, accompanied by a desperate, almost hungry look as he searched her features.
“How long did you wait?” She was surprised by his question, but didn’t even need to look at her watch for the answer.
“Five and a half hours,” she couldn’t keep the relieved smile from her face, any more than she could hide the catch in her voice. He’d done it. He’d found a way to return to her.
“Wait a moment,” Mickey interrupted, “How did you get here? Where’d that TARDIS come from? We left the other one upstairs. Whose was that?” The Doctor glanced back at the empty space where Mickey had gestured, the place where the other TARDIS had disappeared from.
“Mine,” he answered, turning back to them, “one of the benefits of visiting Earth a lot, I suppose. And of having a habit of wandering off and leaving a police-box-shaped time machine in the middle of Boston Common. Easy as anything to nip in, take it for a joyride, and send it back before anyone – namely me – is the wiser.”
“I knew you’d figure a way. You’re so clever,” Rose said softly.
“Yeah. That’s me. Clever.” The hollowness she’d seen in his eyes had migrated to his voice. Her heart ached to hear it, even moreso as the importance of his earlier question suddenly occurred to her.
“How long?” she asked him, already fearing the answer was a great deal more than five hours. Her poor Doctor, “How long for you?”
“Too long,” the loneliness in his eyes was fast being replaced by the hunger. Suddenly, he was striding across the room toward her, grabbing her roughly, desperately, like a lifeline.
And then he was kissing her. She was so stunned that she stood stock still for a moment, blinking in astonishment past his ear, not quite believing what was happening. The Doctor was kissing her. And she was just standing there like a ninny. She closed her eyes and slid into the kiss with a sigh.
He bent her to him, his frame all lonely hunger and lean strength. She could taste desperation behind the warm recesses of his mouth. It wasn’t a sweet kiss; it was lips and tongues and teeth and devouring – hungry in a way she didn’t quite know how to sate. His long fingers threaded through her hair, cradling her head as he sought to fill himself from her mouth. She slid her arms up his back, underneath the warmth of his jacket, kneading the spare flesh beneath his thin jumper. He groaned into her mouth and she opened to him, giving him everything he sought, willing him know that she would always be there to take his hand in the darkness. The kiss softened, though he still cradled her closely. His lips caressed hers, and she felt a shudder rack through him as his hold on her tightened. Then his lips were releasing hers, slowly, gently. He rested his forehead against her own, both of them breathing unevenly. She felt the slightest brush against her mind, soothing her raw confusion, an apology for his uncontrolled hunger. His thumb passed in a similar apology across her bruised lips.
He pulled back slowly, eyes closed. She could see him reconstructing the mask of the genial, manic Doctor as he did so. She wanted to tell him to stop, that the pretense wasn’t necessary, but she remained quiet. She sensed that for him it was. His hands slid from her hair as hers dropped to his waist. He grasped one of her hands tightly in his, the only remaining indication of the need he’d just assaulted her with. His eyed opened. The familiar wide grin split his features and he looked between her and Mickey as if he hadn’t just been snogging her senseless two seconds before.
“Right. We’re off,” he began striding back towards the control room, “I’ve had enough of this place to last a lifetime – and that’s saying something coming from me. Up we go, into the TARDIS with the both of you. We have places to go, adventures to enjoy, Time Keys to recover, monsters and aliens to run from,” he ushered them back along the corridors towards the TARDIS. Mickey stalked ahead of them, radiating disapproval. Rose was content to be led in the Doctor’s wake, taking comfort that despite his complete change in demeanor and his apparent determination to ignore the event of the kiss, he still clutched her hand like a drowning man.
*****************
Author’s Note: For those wondering how long the Doctor had to wait to make it back to the ship, he mentions in ~The Unquiet Dead~ that he dumped tea during the Boston Tea Party. That would have been in 1773, making it 14 years. Originally, I was going to be really mean and make him wait to use the TARDIS left in the woods near Paris by his first incarnation during “The Reign of Terror” story arc. That would have been in 1794, which means that he would have had to putter around the Continent cooling his heels for about 35 years. I decided that there’s only so much angst that a Time Lord can take, so I went easy on him. Still, 14 years is a lot of time to reflect on what Rose means to him. Lot of time to miss her, and to plan just how thoroughly he was going to snog her when he saw her again (I hope the snogging was thorough enough. There would have been more, but Mickey was there. I don’t think the Doctor does audiences any more than he does domestic).
Rating: NC17 (eventually)
Media: Doctor Who (Season 2 AU)
Characters: Nine/Rose
Summary: In an infinite Universe nothing is set and everything is possible, but in choosing an alternate route there are always repercussions.
Spoilers: Doctor Who, New Seasons 1 & 2, Old Season 16
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, but I wouldn't mind ten minutes alone in the TARDIS
Archive: At A Teaspoon and an Open Mind. If you want it, check with me first.
Finished: Not by a long shot
In this chapter I shamelessly revise canon and motivations to deal with what I think are two major problems of TGITF.
1. If Rose and Reinette could hear Reinette calling through the fireplace for the Doctor’s help, then claiming that it was ‘offline’ later seems pretty implausible.
2. Nine wouldn’t just abandon Rose.
I hope nobody reading this minds the tweaking.
Oh, and I don't own anything, but I wouldn't mind ten minutes alone in the TARDIS
Chapter 10 – The Long Way
“You have to go to her.”
They were standing on the deck of the abandoned ship, just down the corridor from where they had landed in the TARDIS a few hours before. At least this time they knew it wasn’t Cornwall before they stepped out onto the deck of the ship. Rose had commented that she was beginning to believe that Cornwall didn’t exist. The Doctor had made a comment about conspiring cartographers that had sent him into helpless laughter while Mickey and she looked on confused. He had grimaced and grumbled about illiterate apes before leading them both outside to determine where exactly the TARDIS had landed.
The Doctor wasn’t laughing now. Rose had just returned from giving her warning to the 18th century woman whose life seemed to be the sole concentration and purpose of this ship. The warning could have gone better. Although Rose had tried to stop the other woman, Reinette had stepped through the time window and onto the deck of the ship. They had both heard her voice calling through another portal – the fireplace by the sound of it – calling for the Doctor to come save her. That was when Rose realized the depth of the other girl’s feelings for him. She wanted to hate the Frenchwoman, but she understood too well. Reinette was right, just as Sarah Jane had been right; the Doctor was worth both the monsters and the heartbreak.
As roadblocks went, she had to step aside from her own feelings of hurt and confusion to admit that the Doctor had pulled out all the stops this time. He’d all but bodily shoved Reinette between himself and Rose. Reinette. Madame de Pompadour. The uncrowned Queen of France, he’d called her. The term “no competition” flitted through Rose’s head. How could she ever measure up to that?
But when she stepped aside from her hurt and confusion, she was also able to see some other glaringly obvious things. Wither and die? Reinette would too. And she was a major figure in history, not exactly free to go tramping about the universe with him on a moment’s whim. Not exactly someone he could settle down with either, even if he did do domestic. In other words, Reinette was safe. Rose was willing to concede that the Doctor had probably fallen in love with the other woman, but she could see how the impossibility of her situation made it easy for him. Another mark for the hypothetical intimacy issues quiz.
The Doctor was staring impotently through the reinforced glass to the 18th century French ballroom below. He had just finished explaining to her and Mickey why he couldn’t go through the portal or use the transmat to get through. Not that she understood most of it, but she trusted that he had thought through everything and knew there wasn’t an easy solution. If there had been, he would have come up with it; he was clever like that.
At her words, he looked sharply at her.
“What?”
“She needs you Doctor. She’s counting on you. You can’t let her down. You have to go,” Rose voiced the conundrum she knew he was agonizing over.
“Rose, didn’t you hear what I just said? If I break through that glass, there’s no coming back. It’ll shatter the network of time windows, and that’ll be it. I’m done for. I’ll be stuck in that time.”
“So why don’t we just break it from this side?” Mickey piped in, “Leave those clockwork things there. If it’s broken, they can’t teleport or whatever back to this place, right? If they can’t do that, there’s not much point in them killing her for her brain, is there?” he paused, “What? Why are you looking at me like I’m mental?” Rose and the Doctor had both turned and were giving him a frighteningly similar “stupid-ape” look.
“Oh, brilliant idea. Fantastic,” the Doctor paced away from the mirror-window, then turned back towards Mickey, “but who’s going to tell them they can’t come back? They won’t be able to use her brain to fix the ship, but. She’ll. Still. Be. Dead.” He punctuated each word with a vicious jab of his finger towards the scene below that was still playing out.
“Also,” Rose added, though more gently than the Doctor, “that’s 51st century tech down there in 18th century France. It could change all sorts of things, and muck up the timeline something terrible. We couldn’t just leave it there,” she came around the Doctor’s side, laying a hand gently on his leather-clad arm, “What would you do if it were me?” she asked, “Would you go?”
His eyes snapped to hers, “Yes. Without hesitation.”
Their gazes held quietly for a moment. Whatever was going on between her and the Doctor had been getting more confused and uncomfortable since the events on Satellite 5. First the kiss with Cassandra, then through meeting Sarah Jane, his former…whatever. Now this thing with Reinette.
It was strange for her, coming to the realization that he loved people differently than how she’d always believed love worked, how she’d always been told love should be. He’d said he didn’t do domestic, but she was only now realizing the extent of what that meant. It was a hard admission to come to, to be able to step up and let him be who he was without requiring explanations or making demands. She thought about Mickey, about all his snarky comments and jealousy of the Doctor. She thought about how much easier it would be for her to love Mickey if he would just accept that her relationship with the Doctor was…special, and didn’t have anything to do with her relationship with Mickey. Knowing that, she knew what she needed to do. Rose gathered herself up, squeezing his arm before releasing it.
“You have to go to her,” she said with acceptance and determination, “She loves you, Doctor. She’s waiting for you to save her from the monsters. You promised her you’d be there. You have to go.”
“Rose,” his tone was desperate, anguished, “I promised you, too. I promised I’d never abandon you again, that I’d keep you safe. I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” she interrupted, “you’re the Doctor. You can do anything. You’ll save her, and you’ll find a way back here,” she suddenly recalled something Reinette had said in their conversation, and her voice lowered to a sad whisper, “even if you have to take the long way.” They were both distracted from their intensity by a sound from the other side of the mirror. The clockworks had forced Reinette to her knees and were holding their strange cutters to her throat. The Doctor glanced back at Rose.
“Go,” she said.
He hesitated a moment more, and she knew he was trying to determine how much she really meant it. He must have seen in her eyes that she was resolute. He whirled, mounting the white horse and jumping it through the portal. Rose flinched away from the shattering glass. When she looked up, the portal was gone and she was looking at the ship corridor on the other side. She stared at the empty area, not quite able to take everything in. It was one thing to bravely tell him to save the damsel, quite another to realize that thousands of years now separated them, that she was stranded on the abandoned station with a sputtering Mickey, and that the Doctor had no time machine to return to her.
“He left us!” Rose ignored Mickey’s first outburst. Even knowing the Doctor was going to go, even telling him to go, she had to admit that the actuality of it was a bit startling.
“He left us,” Mickey repeated, “what are we supposed to do now?”
“Now? We wait,” Rose began making her way back to the main control room, where they had first arrived in the TARDIS. Mickey trailed behind her, gibbering questions. She closed her eyes briefly. It was going to be a long wait.
Over the next several hours, Rose maintained her own calm through working to calm Mickey. After she’d exhausted her store of card games, gossip and cheery chatter, he began to get antsy. At his suggestion, they checked all the portals, ensuring that they were indeed all closed, that the network was irrevocably offline. She knew Mickey was trying to help, but somehow the act of confirming that the Doctor wouldn’t be returning by the same means with which he left only made the waiting worse. Her shoulders were sagging in dejection by the time they returned to the chamber with the TARDIS.
“Well, that’s just brilliant. He goes off to make time with some French bird and leaves us stranded here to die.”
“Mickey, shut it,” Rose began rubbing her temples.
“No. You keep defending him, but he doesn’t care about you. He just left us like it was nothing.”
“Mickey…”
“And you just keep making excuses. You’re waiting for him to look at you and see you, but it isn’t going to happen—”
“Mickey, be quiet,” Rose strained her ears, listening for a sound growing at the edge of her hearing.
“Don’t you see? He doesn't see you. He's never going to—hold on,” he quieted as he picked up on the same distant noise. They looked at each other in amazement, then at the TARDIS, which was still standing in the corner of the control room in all its solid, blue glory.
They scrambled up, dashing out of the room and towards the scraping, wheezing sound they both knew so well.
Rose arrived first, skidding to a stop just in time to see the same familiar blue box fading away. Silhouetted against it with his back to her, sonic screwdriver pointed in command, was the familiar form of her Doctor – battered leather jacket, big ears and all. She was struggling to utter some witty greeting when Mickey barreled into her, turning her words into a gargled “oof”.
The Doctor turned towards them, and Rose was arrested by his eyes. He seemed…different. The hollow-eyed loneliness that had been mostly banished by her presence was now returned in full force, accompanied by a desperate, almost hungry look as he searched her features.
“How long did you wait?” She was surprised by his question, but didn’t even need to look at her watch for the answer.
“Five and a half hours,” she couldn’t keep the relieved smile from her face, any more than she could hide the catch in her voice. He’d done it. He’d found a way to return to her.
“Wait a moment,” Mickey interrupted, “How did you get here? Where’d that TARDIS come from? We left the other one upstairs. Whose was that?” The Doctor glanced back at the empty space where Mickey had gestured, the place where the other TARDIS had disappeared from.
“Mine,” he answered, turning back to them, “one of the benefits of visiting Earth a lot, I suppose. And of having a habit of wandering off and leaving a police-box-shaped time machine in the middle of Boston Common. Easy as anything to nip in, take it for a joyride, and send it back before anyone – namely me – is the wiser.”
“I knew you’d figure a way. You’re so clever,” Rose said softly.
“Yeah. That’s me. Clever.” The hollowness she’d seen in his eyes had migrated to his voice. Her heart ached to hear it, even moreso as the importance of his earlier question suddenly occurred to her.
“How long?” she asked him, already fearing the answer was a great deal more than five hours. Her poor Doctor, “How long for you?”
“Too long,” the loneliness in his eyes was fast being replaced by the hunger. Suddenly, he was striding across the room toward her, grabbing her roughly, desperately, like a lifeline.
And then he was kissing her. She was so stunned that she stood stock still for a moment, blinking in astonishment past his ear, not quite believing what was happening. The Doctor was kissing her. And she was just standing there like a ninny. She closed her eyes and slid into the kiss with a sigh.
He bent her to him, his frame all lonely hunger and lean strength. She could taste desperation behind the warm recesses of his mouth. It wasn’t a sweet kiss; it was lips and tongues and teeth and devouring – hungry in a way she didn’t quite know how to sate. His long fingers threaded through her hair, cradling her head as he sought to fill himself from her mouth. She slid her arms up his back, underneath the warmth of his jacket, kneading the spare flesh beneath his thin jumper. He groaned into her mouth and she opened to him, giving him everything he sought, willing him know that she would always be there to take his hand in the darkness. The kiss softened, though he still cradled her closely. His lips caressed hers, and she felt a shudder rack through him as his hold on her tightened. Then his lips were releasing hers, slowly, gently. He rested his forehead against her own, both of them breathing unevenly. She felt the slightest brush against her mind, soothing her raw confusion, an apology for his uncontrolled hunger. His thumb passed in a similar apology across her bruised lips.
He pulled back slowly, eyes closed. She could see him reconstructing the mask of the genial, manic Doctor as he did so. She wanted to tell him to stop, that the pretense wasn’t necessary, but she remained quiet. She sensed that for him it was. His hands slid from her hair as hers dropped to his waist. He grasped one of her hands tightly in his, the only remaining indication of the need he’d just assaulted her with. His eyed opened. The familiar wide grin split his features and he looked between her and Mickey as if he hadn’t just been snogging her senseless two seconds before.
“Right. We’re off,” he began striding back towards the control room, “I’ve had enough of this place to last a lifetime – and that’s saying something coming from me. Up we go, into the TARDIS with the both of you. We have places to go, adventures to enjoy, Time Keys to recover, monsters and aliens to run from,” he ushered them back along the corridors towards the TARDIS. Mickey stalked ahead of them, radiating disapproval. Rose was content to be led in the Doctor’s wake, taking comfort that despite his complete change in demeanor and his apparent determination to ignore the event of the kiss, he still clutched her hand like a drowning man.
*****************
Author’s Note: For those wondering how long the Doctor had to wait to make it back to the ship, he mentions in ~The Unquiet Dead~ that he dumped tea during the Boston Tea Party. That would have been in 1773, making it 14 years. Originally, I was going to be really mean and make him wait to use the TARDIS left in the woods near Paris by his first incarnation during “The Reign of Terror” story arc. That would have been in 1794, which means that he would have had to putter around the Continent cooling his heels for about 35 years. I decided that there’s only so much angst that a Time Lord can take, so I went easy on him. Still, 14 years is a lot of time to reflect on what Rose means to him. Lot of time to miss her, and to plan just how thoroughly he was going to snog her when he saw her again (I hope the snogging was thorough enough. There would have been more, but Mickey was there. I don’t think the Doctor does audiences any more than he does domestic).
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Date: 2006-12-15 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-15 05:33 pm (UTC);)