Chapter Text
Try (Infinity's Child)
Part 1
by PR Chung
This is Earth. This is the Earth where Rose Tyler, her mother, Jackie, and her ex-boyfriend, Mickey Smith, now live, but not the Earth where they were born. This is not the Earth where Rose met the Doctor the first time or saw him for the last.
It’s been nearly two years; Rose has a new little sister, Veronica, but Ronnie seems to have stuck. Rose’s consultant status at Torchwood gives her access. Freedom. And she’s used her status to search for ways back; she pursued leads and contributed her input for the development team monitoring the Cardiff rift, but nothing ever came of any of it, at least not yet.
There are distractions both pleasant and common in her life, but when it’s late and very quiet, and Rose is alone, she thinks about the Doctor. She cries as much as she smiles at the memories, and she is sometimes concerned about her own state of mind. She’s depressed, she knows, and wonders if what she feels is mourning or if it’s unreasonable hope.
“Rose, look at this one!” Jackie delightedly held up yet another lacy white sweater, beaming.
Jackie Tyler wanted for nothing; Pete Tyler, this Earth’s Pete Tyler, was the businessman and entrepreneur that Rose’s father always wanted to be, and he provided well for his Jacks. Still, Jackie adored the secondhand shops in the old sections of town, and Rose knew it was a familiar way for Jackie. Coming to the secondhand shops helped Jackie to feel connected to the life she knew before.
“It looks like all the others.” Rose said and gestured at the stack Jackie had collected on the handle of Ronnie’s stroller.
Jackie sulked a moment, and then pointed at the sweater’s front, saying, “but this one’s got little flowers on either side.”
“So does that one, and this one, too.” Rose began shifting through the garments, pointing similarities out to her mother.
“You’re no fun at all, you know,” Jackie finally said. “Maybe this would be more interesting if we were shopping for you.”
“Don’t need anything, mum.”
“I didn’t mean for you. I meant, well, you know…” Jackie trailed off with a shrug.
“I know what?” Rose questioned.
“A little one of your own, Rose.”
She gaped. “Mum, you basically just had Ronnie,” Rose declared. “Thinking about grandchildren right now is probably not—“
“Not just grandchildren,” Jackie explained, “but you having a child. One of your own, Rose.”
“We’re not having this conversation,” Rose said, shaking her head.
Rose just didn’t need this right now; she had enough trouble focusing on herself let alone a child. And besides, her mother seemed to conveniently forget the fact that she didn’t get pregnant with Ronnie by herself. Rose had gone on a few dates, but there were no relationships she had the desire to pursue let alone foster into a bond that would produce a child.
A moment passed before Jackie spoke, her tone saddened. “I wish you’d try Rose.”
“What? Try to have a baby--?”
“No.” Jackie shook her head and refolded the garment in her hands.
“What then?” Rose urged her mother to tell her but felt a sense of dread about what she already suspected her mother would say.
Jackie looked up at Rose and offered a kind smile. “I wish you’d try to get over him.”
Rose felt a knot tighten up in her chest. Damn, she’d been doing so well. If she could just be left in peace about it maybe she could ‘get over him’ as her mother enigmatically touched on the subject.
Rose smiled thinly. “I am trying. It’s just a little hard when you keep reminding me that I’m not over him.”
“I know how hard it can be, Rose,” Jackie earnestly said, “I really do, sweetheart.”
“But you got dad back, mum. I won’t get a second chance.” Rose reminded her and regretted the bitterness tingeing her tone.
Mickey got his gran back, and Jackie and Pete got each other. Rose just got left behind with an empty pain twisting inside her that just never seemed to let go. On this Earth she didn’t belong and had never existed, and she felt like a jagged edge while everything around her was seamless.
She voiced none of the bitter thoughts that plagued her and felt ultimately guilty instead when the soft sound of Ronnie’s chatter floated up from the stroller and filled the uncomfortable space between her and Jackie.
Her mother’s life had become everything wonderful that it should have been when she and Pete came together here. It was something she deserved and needed, and not anything she should be made to feel guilty about. But Rose’s words hung in the air, an implication, but in no way intentional.
Rose looked away from her mother’s hurt gaze. “I’m sorry,” she apologized quietly.
A moment passed as Jackie looked down and brushed at the sweater’s soft fabric abstractly. With a sigh she finally spoke up, resolutely, “You know, I think you’re right.”
The comment took Rose off guard. “What?”
Jackie looked around at her with a tilt of her head. “All of these do look alike.” She took the pile of clothes and put them on a nearby display table. “Come on, let’s get out of here. We’ll go to the Bull and Bush.”
Rose closed her eyes, relieved by the purposeful change in subject and unspoken forgiveness of her mother doing so. Still, she wasn’t about to go into a pub with a baby in tow. “Mum, we are not taking Ronnie into a pub.”
“It’s a tavern,” Jackie countered as she threaded the stroller through the narrow arrangement of clothes racks and headed for the door.
“It’s a pub.”
“It perfectly fine, if people can take a dog in, then I can take my baby.”
“What… Mum, no,” Rose refused the idea, refused to even acknowledge the fact that her just likened her baby sister to a pet. “We’ll go across the way to that coffee shop.”
“All right, then. Do you think they have that new Chai tea? Like the place near where Henricks used to be? I liked that. Did you get the same thing…” Jackie paused and looked back when she realized Rose wasn’t beside her. She’d hesitated to look back at something in the store. “What is it? See something you like?”
“Uh, no,” Rose said distractedly, and shook her head. “Nothing, it wasn’t anything.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“The proposal to install a permanent monitoring facility at the Cardiff rift was matchless, Rose. I can’t imagine why you’re concerned. It’s not like they’re going to fire you.”
She looked up over the rim of her cup at the man sitting across the table from her. He flashed her a broad smile, and Rose quickly turned her gaze back down. It was sometimes difficult to look at him, especially when he smiled the way he did just then. She didn’t bother trying to ignore his resemblance to the Doctor, her first doctor with the daft old face.
Although Brett Jones had the blue eyes, prominent nose, and a striking grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes, he had a businessman sophistication and proper upbringing that set him apart from the manic unpredictability of the Doctor.
Yet, he did those little things that nudged her memory and made Rose feel ultimately uncomfortable around him. He liked her, she knew, it was only so obvious when a bloke took a liking to a woman, but she knew she needed to be careful. Rose knew she could become interested in turn for all the wrong reasons.
“No, I s’pose I won’t,” Rose replied and set her cup down. She looked around the restaurant, absently eyeing the lunch hour patrons packing the tables and lunch counter. “But somehow I don’t think it would make such a big difference if I did.”
“That’s nonsense…”
“No, not really,” she interrupted him, shaking her head in thought. She gestured around the room, saying, “They just carry on, even after what happened, they just go swanning on with their lives until the next disaster comes along.”
Brett glanced around, thoughtful. “That’s the human way, isn’t it? Overcoming by forgetting and distracting themselves with the triviality of everyday life?”
Rose hated it too when he talked like that. He agreed with her and talked about the world in a way that made it seem as though he was extracting himself from the equation. He was right though; he always seemed to be right. “They have no idea how fragile all this is. How it could all just go away in an instant.”
Brett leaned forward to look closer at Rose. She turned and straightened immediately, unsettled by his move. “That’s why there’s telly and matches and pubs and shopping, Rose.” A slow smile spread across his broad mouth. “And that’s why there’s people like you and me and everyone else at Torchwood, keeping things in order so all these people can enjoy their miserable lives, until the next alien threat wipes out the lot of them. I don’t know why we even bother, do you?”
Rose stared at him for a long moment, weighing his words and tone. “You’re putting me on, right?”
“Of course,” he replied and straightened, looking satisfied with himself. “How else am I going to make you look at things in the proper perspective?”
“If you’re going to be like this I’m not taking lunch with you anymore.”
“So, you’ve told me before.” He pulled out his wallet, causally laying out money on the table for the bill before standing. “Come on, there’s a world waiting to be protected from their own stupidity.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,” Rose said with a sigh.
“I’ll stop talking like that when you stop thinking like that.”
“You have no idea what I think about, Mr. Jones.” She informed him, more playful than she’d intended.
He grinned and flicked his brows. “And neither do you of me, Ms. Tyler.”
Rose smiled in spite of herself and inwardly coursed him for being so infuriatingly and distractingly charming.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Distractions.
There were enough of them Rose found as she drove through the afternoon congestion; her mobile ringing, the driver ahead repeatedly tapping his brakes, the messenger on the cycle that kept coming into her lane. She didn’t know why she’d bothered to start driving, riding the bus and walking got her around just fine once, but there were the meetings and places she had to get to that she couldn’t rely on public transport for most days.
She blew her breath out and propped her elbow on the door, exasperated with traffic. The next opportunity to pull off the main road she took without hesitation and began threading her way down side streets. Generally, when she tried something like this she got herself lost, but she knew this area rather well from all the times she and Jackie came shopping here.
Row after row of little shops she passed without thought and then slowed as she noticed one in particular coming up. Worn Well was the shop she and mum had been in just that past weekend, and where she thought she’d seen… Rose pressed down on the accelerator and passed the shop by.
It hadn’t been anything; she told herself again. It wasn’t anything at all. A specter in her peripheral vision, just her imagination working overtime, that’s all.
It simply wasn’t what she thought.
So then why was she even considering it? Why was she going back around the block and looking for a parking space? Why was she going back to the shop for a look? She needed simply to ease her mind. She needed to prove to herself that she was being ridiculous.
Rose stepped into the shop and paused tentatively with her hand on the door. She thought she should turn back around, leave and forget this completely—
“Good afternoon,” the woman behind the counter called affably. Rose smiled and nodded as she took a step further into the store. “Anything special you’re looking for today, Miss?”
“Just browsin’ really,” Rose replied.
“All right, dear, but if you need any help let me know.”
Rose tucked her hair behind an ear and smiled politely. “Yes, I will, thanks,” she said, and began casually looking over items arranged over the display tables until the curious clerk turned back to her work behind the counter.
Without an audience Rose finally looked to the far wall of the store and took a breath to try and still the anticipation creeping up inside her. She walked slowly to the rack of clothes that lined the wall, her gaze drifting over the castoffs arranged from light to dark regardless of long or short sleeved.
She stilled when she saw it. Just what she’d believed she’d seen the first time when she was leaving the store with her mother. It was a moment before she could bring herself to move, to reach out and part the garments before her.
Her forehead creased in question and disbelief as she stared at the solitary leather jacket that swung slightly before her. A deep chocolate brown, so dark it nearly looked black except for the mottled patches of wear… It just looks like it, she thought and stared for a long-frozen moment.
Compelled, she reached forward slowly, warily, as if it would disappear if she touched it. It very well could have, considering all the probability of it being really there. But it was.
Her fingers ran over the coolness of the leather, tracing the collar down the lapel and over the buttons, mesmerized.
It was shed long ago, on another Earth, she reminded herself. It was put away and left behind, as everything else was when she’d come here to this Earth. It just wasn’t even remotely possible, was it? She wondered as she pulled it down from the rack and drew it up to her face to inhale its scent. Leather and that smell, faint but there, like the electric engine of a toy train, an oily mechanical…
A numbness rolled down Rose’s arms and legs and her heart rate surged in pace with the sudden race of thoughts going through her mind. Anxiously she checked the jacket pockets inside and out, and then over again, only to feel bits of grit that looked like metal shavings in the bottom of them.
She fumbled for the tag hanging from the left sleeve, her breath quickening with her pulse as she searched it for a date or any clue that might prove the insane thought pounding at her brain that this was…
Rose turned and rushed across the store to the counter. “Do you know where this came from?” She asked and urgently held the jacket up for the clerk to see.
The woman seemed taken aback by Rose’s suddenness but recovered with a pleasant smile. “I can assure you that all of the garments in this store are all clean and well taken care of by the previous ow—“
“I don’t care ‘bout that, I just need to know how this jacket got here. Can you tell me?”
The clerk’s brow knitted a little. “Possibly,” she answered, her tone somewhere between offense and confusion. “Let me take a look at the price tag.”
“This string of numbers,” Rose questioned, as the woman looked at the tag, “is it a date code or some type of record number?”
“Yes,” the woman answered patiently. “This is a donated item.”
"Where did it come from? Who brought this in?" Rose urgently rifled questions at the clerk.
"I don't know who..."
"But you can tell when it was brought in, right?"
"Yes, the date in the code here is when it was tagged, that was about six-- no," she paused and scrunched up her nose, "more like eight weeks ago."
"How long does it take to tag the donations?" Rose asked, her frustration mounting. "How long before they go up for sale, do you know?"
"No, but it's summer now and a jacket like that wouldn't sell very..." Rose was shaking her head and the clerk looked at her with a frown. "Dear, I can discount the jacket--"
"No, it’s not that," Rose shook her head and pulled out her credit card case. "Here, I'll buy the jacket right now, just help me find out where it came from, please."
The clerk straightened and took Rose's credit card. "We receive donations from many places, but I don't have that information stored here. The owner would have that information for taxation purposes."
"Is the owner here?"
The woman shook her head. "No," she said and took another look at the jacket tag. "I'll take ten percent off, will that help?"
"I don't care about the cost, I'll buy everything in this shop if you'll just get the owner on the phone," Rose declared, and hauled in a steadying breath and tried to stifle the tears beginning to burn at the back of her eyes. "I need to find out how this got here," she told the clerk in a shaky voice. “Please…”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rose bought the jacket, which went without question, but the clerk assured her it wasn't necessary to purchase anything more just to receive the information she needed. Taking the tag from the jacket and Rose's cell phone number, the clerk promised to contact her with the information just as soon as she could get it. But for Rose the news would not-- could not come soon enough.
Feeling as if a current was running through her body Rose began walking, leaving her car behind as she absently boarded a bus. She sat with the familiar jacket clutched, her thoughts disjointed and racing.
Trying to rationalize the possibilities Rose went over everything that had transpired, wavering in and out of emotions shaken awake by the memories, trying to thread logic through the pandemonium of her thoughts.
It was after he’d changed that the Doctor had put them down in the Council Estate and then collapsed at Jackie and Mickey's feet. They'd moved him to the flat, where the coat was shed and left in the closet of her old room. With a strange possessiveness she'd purposely left it there and warned her mother not to toss it. Mum's flat was always an anchor it seemed; a place she'd always go back to, and where she knew anything material and of any importance to her would always be safe.
That had been a laughably false sense of security she realized, especially now. They'd crossed into a different world leaving everything behind, material and sentimental, the replaceable and the painfully irreplaceable, and everything that had once seemed so safe and immutable was gone, just a distant memory.
Before she realized where she was going Rose found herself home, standing at the gates of the Tyler estate. She couldn't go into the house, not with the jacket in her hands and no idea how to explain it, so instead she went around to the back through the carport and into the garden.
Settling on a bench Rose stared at the jacket in disbelief and brushed her fingers over the leather, but it released none of its mystery to her.
The harder she tried to reason away its existence the memory of it clarified in her mind; the sigh of leather against leather as he moved, the coolness beneath her hands and against her cheek, the muted cast of amber and green light from the console room...
Rose gulped hard and closed her eyes, tears slipping down her cheeks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Pete Tyler returned home he found Jackie sitting on the floor with Ronnie in the game room. They were playing a made-up game that only mothers and babies knew the rules.
“Another tough day I see,” he teased Jackie as he greeted them both with affectionate pecks.
“You have no idea,” Jackie declared with a bright smile, “our daughter’s a demanding audience. The usual patty-cake just won’t do.”
“What’s happened to Rose’s car?” he asked, frowning as he looked out into the garden.
“Nothing I know of, why?” Jackie asked, puzzled by his question.
“Well, she’s here, but her car isn’t, Jacks.”
“What do you mean she’s here…?” Jackie twisted around and followed Pete’s gaze out the back windows that faced the garden patio. “I didn’t know she was home.”
“She all right?” Pete went to the French doors for a closer look.
Boosting Ronnie onto her hip, Jackie joined Pete at the window and looked out at Rose for only a moment before she opened the door and started out. The closer she came Jackie realized her daughter was sobbing.
“What is it, Rose?” Jackie called as she hurried up to her.
Rose looked up as if she’d been startled by her mother’s voice, not even seeing her until she was directly in front of her. Rose shook her head before lowering it, crying into her hand.
“It’s his,” Rose sobbed so that Jackie wasn’t sure she understood.
She glanced around and handed Ronnie off to Pete who’d followed her out. “Rose, please, what is it, sweetheart?”
Rose shook the jacket in her lap. “Look, it’s his—I know it.”
Jackie knelt down slowly, looking confusedly at the jacket across her daughter’s legs. “Rose… what are you talking about?”
Rose looked up at her mother, and that was when Jackie realized that she wasn’t mournfully sobbing but weeping in joy.
She laughed, her breath hitching as she searched her mother’s face. “The Doctor.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBC
Chapter 2: Unidentified Male, Approx. 900 Years
Summary:
One clue. One hospital.
One impossible possibility.Rose thought she understood what had happened — what could happen.
But the truth doesn’t fit into tidy endings. And the past doesn’t always stay buried.
Not when the Doctor is involved.
Notes:
The tone is heavy — grief, silence, a grainy photo that shouldn’t exist.
"Unidentified Male, Approx. 900 Years" is the kind of tale that changes everything.
That haunts you. That dares you to hope.You may want tea. Or tissues. Or a tether to this universe.
(And please — don’t throw your laptop, phone, tablet, or sonic screwdriver.)
Chapter Text
Try
Infinity's Child
Part 2: Unidentified Male, Approx. 900 Years
by PR Chung
Pete Tyler listened patiently while Jackie and Rose alternated between argumentativeness and supportiveness over the situation. Everything was in question, even the actuality of what it was that Rose had truly found.
“You told me that there couldn’t be a doctor in this universe,” Jackie declared, confusion deepening the creases across her forehead.
“And there can’t be, not from what he told me. Time Lords, his people, controlled the travel between dimensions, but they only existed in one.” Rose sat forward, hitting her leg with a balled-up fist, her entire body echoing the turmoil washed across her face. “There… there were no parallel time lords, he told me. He said that when they died there was no more controlled travel between universes or dimensions.”
“Then that had to have come here with him long before you did,” Pete stated, unfolding his arms to gesture at the jacket now lying on the sofa beside Rose.
Rose shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said quietly, staring into her thoughts.
“He would have had to come here before the breach was closed.”
“But…” The trill of her mobile interrupted Rose and everyone went silent.
“Is it the store?” Jackie asked and Rose nodded as she answered the call.
Pete moved next to Jackie and exchanged a weary look with her as they listened to Rose’s side of the conversation.
“This is Rose Tyler.”
“Miss Tyler, I’ve gotten the information you needed about the jacket. Where it came from,” she heard the shop lady say. “It was donated by the Lambeth Hope Hospital, just a little over three months ago.”
“Hospital?” Rose repeated.
Hearing this Jackie covered her mouth, stifling surprised gasp.
“Yes, we often receive donations from the various hospitals, generally non-essential items of their unclaimed deceased.”
Rose closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the numbness wash over her again. “You’re certain it came from a hospital?” she asked weakly.
“Yes, miss. Lambeth Hope.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The drive to Lambeth Hope was silent.
Pete drove, Jackie at his side, while Rose sat in back staring out the window, head resting on her hand. The overcast morning deepening the already dark circles beneath her eyes, exaggerating the telltale signs of her sleepless night.
She wanted to go last night, and thought nothing would stop her, but it was Pete’s reasoning that kept her from rushing off. The night shift wouldn’t have the information she needed; it would be a wasted trip and serve to upset her even more. He was right about the night staff knowing little if nothing, but Rose’s emotions were beyond upset. She felt disconnected from her own body and thoughts, as if she were suspended over herself, revolving and tumbling in a perpetual orbit of questions.
Unclaimed deceased.
The words touched her soul with the chill of a northern wind.
Unclaimed.
Could it be worse?
Rose could bear the intrusive thought no longer, but she was so tired she couldn't fight it down anymore. The thoughts of him alone crushed her: The doctor, her Doctor, alone and so very vulnerable, with strangers all around and no one who cared. The thought of him dying alone tore at her insides and made her heart ache so bad she could hardly take a full breath. What could have happened? How could he have died? It wasn't possible, but neither was it possible for him to have been here at all.
They'd find out more at the hospital, she hopefully thought. Hope beyond hope still resided in her, a small glimmer untouched by the cold black chill of despair. Always hope, foolish and that of a child perhaps, but always hope. Always possibilities... the Doctor had told her so.
Pete made a few calls before they’d left Ronnie with the nanny and headed out. He hadn’t said whom he’d been talking to, but Rose knew he was networking private channels of information at his disposal. He wasn’t her biological father, and he often seemed confounded by her and her mother, but he cared deeply for them both and it showed in so many ways, both subtle and overt.
He’d gone a bit overboard when Ronnie was born; Rose had never seen so many flowers packed into a room as were in Jackie’s at hospital. He doted on Ronnie and Jackie but made certain that Rose never felt left out.
“There,” Pete quietly said, breaking the silence shrouding the car. He motioned briefly to a seven-story stone and concrete building with massive iron gates surrounding its grounds. “Lambeth Hope.”
Rose felt a chill when she looked at the old building coming into view; she’d known it as Albion hospital once.
There were two dark vehicles parked just outside the hospital that Rose recognized as those used by Torchwood personnel. She knew they were there as a result of Pete's phone calls. She didn't ask what instructions they'd been given, and she didn't speculate about what they would find within the walls of the hospital. She would know soon enough.
Stepping through the door Rose felt an immediate sense of depression and anguish imitating throughout the hospital. The lobby was poorly lit with small, mismatched table lamps, and dressed with fraying and torn armchairs and sofas. An odor hung in the air that was rancid and underscored by something metallic. And somewhere far away, down a corridor or on a floor above, someone was calling out a mournful moan. The sound was unbearably pitiful; so hollow and forsaken in its wordless pleading.
Jackie took Rose's hand in hers and drew her along as if she was a child again as they followed her father further into the dankness of the lobby. There, near the admissions desk, Rose noticed a cluster of dark suited men gathered. Upon Pete's appearance one of the men turned around to address them, it was Mickey Smith.
Seeing him Rose felt a mix of relief and dread. She and Mickey were still mates, but they'd grown even further apart than they had when she'd been traveling with the Doctor. He'd really come up in the ranks at Torchwood, no longer the headstrong rebel, but a proper trained taskforce leader, responsible for the delicate work of extracting information otherwise buried and hidden.
The unsavvy young man, who trudged around with a scowl on his face and a chip on his shoulder, so easy to provoke, now stood with shoulders square and a crease in his suit trousers so sharp it could cut.
When Mickey looked at Rose she saw the weariness pass through his gaze. He was worried, but he wouldn't even consider a negative word. "Hey," he greeted her, and placed a small peck against her cheek. "You okay?"
"Yeah," she whispered the lie.
He gave her a brief concerned look before he turned and addressed Pete Tyler.
"We've identified a Doctor Tipton as head of the cyber recovery unit," Mickey delivered the information with a crisp preciseness. "He'll be meeting us shortly. And I've got people reviewing the admissions and discharges, but we haven't found anything yet. The hospital records we've seen so far are incomplete, corrupted or missing. The place is a shambles, like someone put it all in a paper bag and shook it up."
The hollow moan echoed down through the building like an ill wind. Mickey swallowed hard, looking ultimately uncomfortable. "That's been going on since we got here. It's horrible. This place is more like an asylum than any hospital I've seen."
"It's no surprise with the burden this place took on," Pete said, glancing around the lobby, noticing a man in a white doctor's coat coming toward them. Walking with him was a dark-haired women dressed in an unadorned nurse’s uniform. There was something familiar about her, but Rose dismissed what it was about the woman, too anxious to speak with the doctor.
"Doctor Farris Tipton," the fair-haired man announced himself, shaking Pete Tyler's hand, and introduced the woman at his side. "Jennifer Collier, my assistant and recovery unit coordinator."
"Hello, very good to meet you." She said with a pleasant smile.
"Good to meet you, Mr. Tyler, I only wish it were under different circumstances." The doctor appeared distraught and apprehensive, his eyes darting between Pete, Rose and Jackie.
"So do I," Pete agreed.
“Torchwood,” Tipton remarked, his tone souring out a bit. “An enigmatic group. The hospital has had dealings with Torchwood on several matters in the past few years.”
“Yes, I recently learned of that. I can assure you that Torchwood is changing.”
“Right,” Tipton replied, nodding with labored enthusiasm. He wasn’t convinced and Rose detected an underlying uneasiness in the man. "Your people here explained that you're looking for information regarding a John Doe." Tipton glanced around at the Torchwood agents lingering in the lobby. "Must be an important person to garner all this attention."
"A friend of the family," Pete explained with a glance toward Rose.
Tipton nodded. "You know, Mr. Tyler, the government has been here before, many times, looking for answers, and it's never faired very well for any of us. Especially the patients."
"We're not the government."
"Yes, well, neither was John Lumic, and look what he did."
"Listen," Pete said, not liking the path conversation seemed to be taking. "This hasn't anything to do with conspiracies or secret government experiments, Dr. Tipton. My daughter's lost someone very important to her, and we're just trying to find out what's become of him."
"How do you know he was even here?" Collier asked calmly, as though to break the tension with the pleasantness of her voice.
"She found a jacket belonging to him that had been donated to a local shop by this hospital."
"You are aware that clothes are only donated when..."
Pete nodded. "Yes," but it was Rose who answered. She didn't want to hear it again, couldn't stand hearing it again.
"We'd like some answers as to what the circumstances were," Pete told Tipton and Collier. "To be certain there isn't any mistake."
Tipton appeared confounded. "We were overwhelmed by the influx of patients, so many of them without identification or any knowledge of their own identity. And you expect us to recall just one man out of so many."
"You'd remember this man," Rose said, making eye contact with Collier. "He has a... a heart condition, a unique heart condition."
Contemplation shifted over Tipton's drawn features. "What type of condition?" he asked.
Rose glanced at Jackie, hesitant to answer. There was always the fear of his alien physiology being discovered. Jackie understood her hesitation, "They would have already known," Jackie encouraged her quietly. "Go on, it's the one thing that we can be certain to identify him by."
Reluctantly Rose nodded in agreement. "Right," she said and seemed to brace herself as she turned her attention to the doctor. "He has two hearts."
Tipton and Collier exchanged dubious looks before the doctor responded. "After the Cybermen incident I witnessed things I would have never imagined seeing in my entire medical career. There have been horrible things-- Mind boggling conditions. Mental and physical traumas..." he drifted and gave Collier a solicitous glance.
Collier flicked her gaze in Rose’s direction before giving Tipton a brief shake of her head, as if warning him.
He turned back to the Tylers, a pained look clouding his expression. "We thought perhaps the dual hearts had been a result of something done to him in the Lumic factories. It was just after the factories were sealed that he’d been found, unconscious.”
Rose fought back the sob filling her throat.
Tipton glanced at Collier once more, and then, “He never regained consciousness.”
Rose turned away and buried her face into her mother’s shoulder, her muffled cries filling a long moment of silence.
“I’m very sorry for your loss.” Tipton said.
Affected, Collier shook her head and turned to hurry away.
“Do you know where he was taken?” Jackie asked quietly.
“Jacks…” Pete cautioned in a hush.
“I’d like to know,” she defended herself, anger and upset pulling down the corners of her mouth.
“I’m afraid,” Tipton began, and hesitated for a second before stating, “all those who were unclaimed we had no choice but to cremate.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jackie set the tea down beside Rose with a quiet click of the ceramic against the glass top of the table, but it sounded deafening in the stone silence of the house.
Ronnie was napping, and Pete had left to address business matters that couldn’t go any longer without his attention.
“It’s not fair,” Rose whimpered into her knees. She had fitted herself tightly into the corner of the sofa with her legs pulled up against her chest. It looked as though she was trying to hide within herself, withdrawing from everything around her. “If I’d been there…”
“You can’t blame yourself, Rose.” Jackie told her. “You can’t do that to yourself, sweetheart.”
“It just feels wrong,” she said and hauled in a shuddering breath. “It shouldn’t have happened. He wasn’t meant to die like that, alone and without any meaning.”
“You don’t know what brought it about.” Jackie wrapped an arm around Rose’s shoulders and rocked her for a moment as she considered the possibilities. “He could have done something very heroic. You just don’t know.”
“I wish I did,” Rose shook her head and wiped at her face with the back of her sleeve, which was smeared black with makeup. “I just… I’m a mess…” She cried again, frustrated with everything.
Jackie reached out for a tissue and found the box empty. “I’ll get you some more…” she broke off when she heard the front bell ring. “Drink your tea ‘fore it gets cold.” She said and stroked Rose’s hair. “I’ll be back in a just minute.”
It took Jackie by surprise to find Jennifer Collier standing at the front door.
“I have to speak to your daughter,” Collier said with urgency. “Please.”
“She’s resting right now,” Jackie told the woman warily, and pulled the door forward a bit as if using it as a shield. “What’s this about?”
“It’s about the man she is looking for.”
“Mum?” Rose called from inside the house.
Collier’s gaze shifted past Jackie and into the house, searching for sight of Rose. “Please, may I speak with her?”
“Who is it, mum?” Rose asked as she stepped beside her mother at the door.
Seeing her prompted Collier to push forward. “Please, may I come in to speak with you, Ms. Tyler?”
Rose studied the woman guardedly. “What is it?”
Collier’s eyes flitted nervously over the two women a second, and then in a composed voice she addressed them. “Dr. Tipton and I have both had patients taken away from the hospital by the government. We don’t know what they’re doing, but it can’t be right.”
Rose shook her head, confused. “I don’t understand…”
“At the hospital we’ve kept certain information hidden, locked away and even destroyed records to keep our patients safe.” Collier paused to take a breath, aware that her voice had become increasingly unsteady. “We’ve hidden other things as well. We had to protect our special patients. But after I saw you so upset today, I just couldn’t…”
“What do you mean ‘special’?” Rose interrupted.
Collier looked down and reached into her handbag. What she withdrew was a piece of paper with a photo printed on it. She handed it to Rose. “Does this look like the man you’re looking for?”
Rose looked down at the slightly blurred image, silent. Jackie leaned closer to look at the image.
“Oh, Rose…” Jackie gasped and covered her mouth.
Hands shaking, Rose shot an amazed and startled look back up at Collier. Her heart was banging against her breastbone so furiously she nearly couldn’t speak.
“When was this taken?” she demanded. Her legs beginning to shake.
“This afternoon.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBC
Chapter 3: That's Not Me
Summary:
Rose follows a name and a photograph to the crumbling corridors of Lambeth Hope — a hospital forgotten by the world and haunted by those it left behind. What she finds there is not the man she remembers, but a shadow in striped pajamas with no memory, no past… and no reason to trust her.
He’s alive.
But he doesn’t know who he is.
And worse — he doesn’t know her.Some reunions aren't miracles.
Some are mazes you have to run through in the dark — mind screaming and burning through time.
Notes:
This chapter — like the entire story — carries the weight of personal experience. I began writing Try – Infinity’s Child in the shadow of my MS diagnosis, and that reality seeps into the Doctor’s fractured state: the disorientation, the slipping sense of self, the slow, quiet terror of memory becoming unreliable.
By the way... it's 18 years later... untreated low grade MS, and I'm still here baby!
Never give up hope and never let them tell you you're done!The atmosphere owes a debt to Radiohead’s “How to Disappear Completely” and the visual language of The Second Coming. That image — a man wild, broken, and unknowable in a place that was meant to heal — became the heartbeat of this chapter.
Chapter Text
Try
Infinity's Child
Part 3: That's Not Me
by PR Chung
The bleakness of Lambeth Hope was even more pronounced as daylight faded over the hospital. Milky light muddied windows in the upper floors, where obscure shapes shifted beyond the glass like ghosts.
Rose hesitated, looking up at the windows, wondering if the Doctor could be there looking down on her. If he were, she absently wondered, would he know her? There was no way of knowing until she saw him.
Collier explained on their way back to the hospital how he’d come to be in her care, and under the protective watch of Dr. Tipton. Found unconscious in a city alley, he regained consciousness after a few days, only to exhibit frenzied outbursts that rapidly reduced into a state of catatonia. That had been nearly two years ago.
“Dr. Tipton’s office is in the front,” Collier informed Rose as she pulled the car around to the back of the hospital. “I would rather he not know I’ve brought you. Especially when he knows who your father is.”
“My father isn’t going to have anyone taken away from this hospital,” Rose told her. “He’s not like the people that used to run Torchwood.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Entering the rear of the hospital, Collier led Rose through the laundry and kitchen, taking a rickety service lift to the fourth floor. “We’ll have to walk up the rest of the way,” Collier explained, sounding embarrassed. “The lift doesn’t work past this floor.”
Rose recognized the corridors with the wide archways and barred windows running the length of the exterior walls. She knew the stairway ascending, and when she placed her hand on the wood rail, feeling the nicks and chinks in the surface, she remembered when it was smooth and polished. But she had to stop and remind herself this wasn't the same place as she remembered that this wasn't the Albion hospital she'd once come to with a swaggering conman or danced a flirtatious dance with a jealous Time Lord.
The memory brushed a trace of a smile across her mouth, but it soon faded as she and Collier continued through the hospital corridors. Rose saw that the conditions were worse than they appeared downstairs. Worn furniture and mismatched lamps in the lobby were trivial in comparison to what she saw here.
The walls were cracked, windows were broken and patched with cardboard and plastic, while lights not out completely flickered randomly, and broken stacks of furniture and disused equipment crowded the stairway landings. Rose studied her surroundings in grim amazement, unable to fathom how they managed to function. It wasn’t just the deplorable state of the hospital that grimly rapt Rose, but mournful sounds and the desolate staring faces assailing her from each ward they passed.
“We’ve become a dumping ground for the cases other facilities cannot or will not treat.” Collier told Rose. “They’ve been dropped at the gates from taxis and found wandering on the grounds at night.”
“There’s children.” Rose said, shocked when she saw several children peeking curiously out from a ward.
“Some are orphaned, come here looking for their parents.” Collier paused, looking uncomfortable with a thought, and then said, “Some were born here.”
Tucked away, forgotten, and homeless, rejected and needing, loveless. Witnessing this, Rose knew her instincts had been right in refusing when Jackie insisted on coming with her. She would have had to bring Ronnie, and this was no place for a toddler. This was no place for anyone.
Rose’s excited and anxious wonderings sobered as she sensed the wretchedness and sorrow of those filling this institution. At the thought of the Doctor being swallowed and lost for so long within this madness, Rose shuddered with unjustifiable regret.
“Here,” Collier said, pulling Rose’s attention back from the dark assumptions her mind raced forward with. “Sixth floor is where our John is.”
“John?” Rose repeated.
Collier looked back at Rose, confused. “Yes, you said the man in the photo goes by John Smith.”
“Right,” Rose said and shook her head. “John Smith. That’s right. Sorry.”
“I know you’ve been under a lot of strain,” Collier sympathized. “I’m so sorry that Dr. Tipton put you through even more.”
“I understand what you and Dr. Tipton are trying to do.” Rose assured. She was upset yet accepted that they’d feared for the safety of patients Collier explained as special cases; those exhibiting unique side effects after the Cybermen incident, such as they suspected when they discovered the Doctor’s two functioning hearts. “But it’s not helping these people none, you realize that? Torchwood could help you to rebuild this place.”
“Dr. Tipton would never hear of it.” Collier stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to look back at Rose intently. “He’s experienced too much to ever put his faith in any agency again.”
“I could talk to my father…”
Collier shook her head. “Best not,” she said and began walking again.
“One thing,” Rose said, “I don’t understand about the jacket. Why was it donated?”
Collier shook her head. “It must have been a mistake. It shouldn’t have been taken away.”
“Best mistake that might have ever happened,” Rose quietly said.
“Here we are,” Collier announced, stopping outside one of the doors along the sixth-floor corridor.
Rose scanned the door nervously. “This his room?”
“Yes.”
Rose eyed the closed door with an overwhelming trepidation. Delirious questions began spinning in her mind as to what she should do as she realized she was never so scared to act as she was at this moment.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Collier went first, to prepare the meeting. “John, someone has come to visit you,” Collier announced softly as she entered the small room. In the narrow entry she blocked Rose’s view momentarily. Rose heard no response from within the room, couldn’t see any movement. It was all she could do not to shove past Collier to rush in, but Collier soon stepped aside, allowing Rose a view in.
The room was void of any type of adornment, just essential furnishings, and a pile of clothing on the floor. At the far wall, just the other side of the small metal frame bed, still before a dark window, she saw him sitting in a straight chair, his back to the room.
Rose stared, speechless. Shaggy dark hair, much longer than she remembered him ever keeping it, looked oily and curled over the collar of the pinstriped pyjamas top he wore.
“I’ll stay here,” Collier said, breaking the spell of amazement Rose had fallen into. “Go to him.”
Rose nodded, and tentatively moved forward, the riotous pounding of her heart shortening her breath to the point she felt a bit lightheaded. The familiar outline of his profile slowly came into Rose’s view as she walked toward his chair. The line of his jaw obscured and darkened by an unkempt growth of beard; shadows fell in deepened hollows beneath the ridge of his cheekbones.
Rose stopped and stood a few feet from him. A soft gasp escaped her, something between a laugh and a sob. She'd all but forgotten until this moment the true effect his physical presence had on her. She bit down on her lip to hold back the flood of emotions when she saw the vacant, lost stare of his blue eyes.
He’d changed so very much; His body was settled with a wilted posture that amplified a loss of weight, and his features were gaunt and telling of a period of malnourishment and idleness.
“Doctor?” she said, her voice fragile and shaking.
Collier frowned, and began to respond, and then stopped, realizing Rose was addressing the man she only had known as John. She kept quiet, watching vigilantly.
He didn’t respond to Rose. He hadn’t made a single sign that he even knew anyone was in the room with him at all.
Rose stepped closer, bending nearer, her hands trembling with the need to touch him, to validate him really being there. “Doctor?”
Her heart lurched when she saw him blink slowly, the finest of reactions seeping into his thin features.
A trembling smile came to Rose. “Doctor?” she whispered again.
Again, as if focusing his eyes, he blinked and slowly lifted his head to look at Rose. A startled, happy laugh escaped her. She covered her mouth a second, self-conscious and apprehensive. Then, without a single notion of what to possibly say, she said, “Hi.”
His forehead creased beneath the ruffled fall of his hair as his brow drew up in an expression of surprised bewilderment. After a strained moment he squinted and began to speak, “Ro…”
Rose held her breath as she watched him search her face, elation choking her at the sound of his voice, and the sight of recognition in his eyes--
“Romana, you look… terrible.” He said clear and with a tone of disapproval that was incongruent with anything Rose would have expected from the weak man sitting before her.
Rose looked back at him, covering her mouth, smothering the sound of defeated despair. She hadn’t known what to expect — but it wasn’t this. But he was there, and he’d responded. He was alive, and he was there in front of her. A hysterical sense of joy pushed to the fore; he was really there.
“Oh, God,” Rose cried, and nearly fell forward, “I missed you so much.” Embracing him tightly, she never wanted to let go.
She felt his body tense immediately. Within her arms it felt as if he were slowly turning to stone. Without warning, rolling up from deep within him, like thunder, “No…” an utterance filled with fear and panic.
“No! No!” The cry built to a full shout as he shoved Rose away. She lost her balance and fell to the floor as he lunged from the chair. He searched the room wildly a second before he bolted for the door, still shouting, “No!” He crashed past Collier, knocking her back against the wall, and was gone.
“Doctor, wait!” Rose called after him, getting to her feet to follow.
“Doctor?” Collier questioned, “I don’t understand—" her questioning broke as Rose pushed past her, hurrying after him.
He was halfway down the corridor, the legs of the ill-fitting mismatched pyjamas flapping as he half scuffled half ran. Rose could tell he was having trouble, that he was disoriented. Something was wrong, so very wrong. “Please wait,” Rose called to him.
He stopped, reached for a door, and started to go through when Rose called out, “I know who you are.”
He stopped before going through the door and rested his forehead against the door’s edge; his eyes squeezed tightly shut and a muscle working furiously in his jaw, cords straining in his neck.
“I know who you are,” she said, trying to appeal to him, to dig beneath the layers of confusion clouding his mind. “You’re the last of your kind, aren’t you? I know you don’t belong here—"
He lifted his head and snapped around to look at her with a sudden brightness gleaming in his eyes, his face alight with an exaggerated bemusement. "What's your name?"
Rose hesitated, taken aback by the familiar words. "Rose," she managed, sceptical, yet hopeful.
"Nice to meet you, Rose," he said blithely, an eerie echo of words etched forever in Rose’s memory. Then, with sharp suddenness, his eyes narrowed, and a livid cast slipped over his severe features. "Now leave me ALONE!” He bellowed at her and went out the door.
Momentary panic ripped through her, paralyzing her. Then, "No..." came out of her quietly, as if she just realized what had happened. “No.” She declared and pushed through the doors to go after him.
He was gone from sight that quickly. “Doctor?” she called as she hurried down the corridor. “Doctor!”
The corridor dead ended forcing Rose to stop. She turned and searched the way she’d come, seeking out anything she missed, any place he could have gone. There were exits on either side, feeding to stairs and adjacent corridors, too numerous to know which way he’d gone.
Hollow, Rose leaned against the wall and slipped to the floor. She slapped it until her hands stung and gulped back hard against the pain burning in her chest.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was dark and smelled musty, no different than the rest of this place really, but he went there because no one else knew he went there. At least he didn’t think anyone knew he went there. If anyone did, they didn’t let him know. He’d stayed there for long stretches of time, and no one had ever found him there. He didn’t know if they even looked for him. They seemed to care. He didn’t know why. He thought if he stayed here long enough, he might starve to death, and that was all right. They’d find him one day, like the rat in the corner, dead a very long time.
But he often became bored and hungry and lost interest in a slow death. When he went back everyone seemed happy, and he got chocolates. But he gave those to the little ones.
This was an odd place with bits of body parts hanging around on hooks, and diagrams on the wall of the human anatomy, which was all very unexciting, but it was a safe place to escape to, and with a good view.
If he stepped up onto the old table, causing dusty jars to rattle just a bit under his meagre weight, and stretched just a bit, he could see through the barred window, down from the seventh floor and to the grounds below.
He stood silently, waiting, his long fingers pressed against the cool concrete bordering the window. It was a long time, but finally, a car pulled up through the massive iron gates. And he watched as she was there, walking out from under his immediate view, walking toward the car. He studied her carefully, taking note of the gold hair, and her slow heel to toe stride that was like a moping child.
The car door closed, and it pulled away and out of the courtyard. And still he watched, long after the red taillights had vanished from sight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBC
Chapter 4: Mercy in the Glow
Summary:
Rose reels from the Doctor’s rejection — not just of her, but of everything he once was. As she tries to process his terror and confusion, Pete arrives with quiet concern and a chilling possibility: the man in that hospital may be the Doctor before he ever met her.
Meanwhile, unseen forces begin to move. Lambeth Hope receives mysterious upgrades and unexpected staff, all funded by an unknown benefactor. And in a locked ward, the broken man listens — to voices, to memories, to a song in someone’s blood that once called him by name.
She isn’t there.
But he remembers the glow.
Notes:
I really wanted to explore the relationship between Rose and Pete more than in the series, and I think it's coming along brilliantly, if I dare say so myself.
And the doctor, my doctor, our doctor... he's so broken and needs hugs so badly... His day is coming.
Chapter Text
Try
Infinity’s Child
Part 4: Mercy in the Glow
by PR Chung
"What’s your name?”
Rose was devastated.
“Nice to meet you…”
His reaction to her was beyond the worst she could have imagined.
She hadn’t considered it and didn’t know what she’d expected, but it wasn’t what occurred.
“Now leave me ALONE!”
Pain and regret gnawed at her chest — a sickening loop of memories and images she couldn’t shut off. It was hard to calm herself and try to think clearly while the memory of him screaming in terror and running from her embrace still burned in her mind. There was too much to consider and too many feelings to contend with.
Her emotions were more ragged than ever. Just seeing the jacket had shaken her — a furious hope rushing in to fill the emptiness that walked beside her since they’d been separated.
That emptiness, her constant dark companion for so long had seeped deeper into her heart and soul at the news of his death. The cruelty of him having been there, the thought of being so close and never knowing until it was too late had broken her.
Then, only to learn the truth and once again be filled with hopes and wishes, and she’d barely been able not to run to him, needing his presence. She just needed him to be near her again.
“Now leave me ALONE!”
Rose took a shuddered breath at the thought of his words again and readjusted herself on the sofa. She’d been there since before sunrise, unchanged from the clothes she’d restlessly slept in, face unwashed and her skin was tight from tear-streaked make-up. Her entire body felt tight, the muscles through her back and shoulders knotted with the weight and strain of her emotions.
The clock’s tick and the soft whisper of the air conditioning swam in and out of her consciousness while she sat and stared into her thoughts. The guesthouse was silent, and a welcomed calm Rose knew she wouldn’t have it in the main house. Jackie wanted Rose to stay with her; worried for her once she’d heard what had happened at the hospital, but Rose just needed time to herself.
She needed time to digest the hurt and just think. She needed to push the thought of the Doctor from her mind, she had to refuse the images playing out, the mask of feverish terror splayed across his thin features.
Rose needed to focus on the cause of his condition, figure out the chance of his existence here, be it intrinsic or an aberration, the result of some incomprehensible fracture in time and space.
Most importantly, Rose clung to the one fragile truth in all this: she’d triggered a response.
Traumatic and upsetting, Jennifer Collier had explained to Rose that the Doctor’s reactions were the most response he'd given to anyone in ages. She’d appealed to something in him that no one else was able to.
Rose tried to take comfort in what the woman told her, but found it difficult, if not nearly impossible, to accept his reactions as optimistic. But even a negative response was better than no response at all, Collier said, and Rose found some tatter of optimism in that idea.
Overwrought, Rose absently bit at a fingernail while her thoughts threaded random patterns of questions and guessing. There was no way to even tell if by a strange quirk he was or wasn’t the person she’d known as the Doctor. If he weren’t, he wouldn’t know her, and certainly wouldn’t trust her, unless there was any shred of her Doctor within him.
Before the ifs and hows could torment her any further, someone began knocking at the front door. Jackie had a heavy fist, Rose remembered her banging at her bedroom door during fights they’d had in her adolescence, but it wasn’t Jackie at the front. It was Pete Tyler. She didn’t exactly recognize his knock, and he didn’t call out to her. She just sensed him, knowing that Jackie had probably told him everything, and he was now coming to get the details in colour from the source.
When Rose opened the door to Pete, she made no pretences by smiling. She suspected Jackie would confide in him about what had happened. He’d be concerned for her, she knew, but not how he’d react about what Dr. Tipton had hidden from them. She stepped back and motioned for him to come inside the guesthouse. “Mum told you, I s’pose.”
Pete nodded. “You holding up?” he asked.
Rose offered a thin smile. “Been better.”
“Right.” He heaved a sigh and looked somewhat at a loss for what he wanted to say or ask. “Don’t be mad at your mum for telling me.”
Rose nodded, her mind working on a way to change the subject, but there was really no other subject to change to. The weather sort of fell flat compared to the unexpected return of the Doctor.
“Something to drink? I can make some tea. Coffee, maybe?” she asked, turning to go to the kitchen.
The light, but urgent touch of Pete’s hand on her arm stopped her. “I’ll make us something,” he said when she turned and looked at him. He tipped his head toward the hall, which led down to the washroom. “Why don’t you get yourself cleaned up?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Washing her face cleaned away the streaked make-up, but not the redness ringing her eyes and nose, but it did help to make Rose feel somewhat better, maybe even a little more normal. And when she came back down the hall, she could smell coffee brewing and saw Pete standing at the dinette table looking down fixedly at something. Closer, she realised he was looking at the photo of the Doctor that Collier had brought to her and Jackie the day before.
Pete glanced up at her looking a bit perplexed. He didn’t need to ask, Rose understood he’d only known the Doctor in his later generation. “That’s the Doctor the way I first knew him.”
His frown deepened. “He can change?”
“Yeah, it’s, um, it’s… He told me it was how his people cheated death. They’d go through this regeneration process if their bodies were ever damaged to the point that they might die.”
Rose sat down at the table, staring at the image on the paper laying there, but not seeing it. “I’ve watched it happen to him. Right in front of me, he just…changed. One minute he was talking about places he wanted to take me and then… He tried to prepare me. He knew.”
“Could he change back?” Pete asked, and then began to add, “maybe that could explain…” but Rose was already shaking her head, ‘no.’
Pete nodded and looked down at the photo a moment before asking, “How many times could they change?”
Rose shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t know. All he ever told me was he’s nine hundred years old. I never found out much about the longevity of his people or him. Never found out much of anything other than how they were all killed in the time war against the Daleks. The Doctor was the only survivor. Last of the Time Lords. Last of his people."
"Daleks," Pete said, noddingly thoughtfully. "They're what allowed the Cybermen to punch through the barrier between this world and yours." He looked up at her. "The Doctor could have come across that same barrier."
Rose considered it only for a moment and then shook her head. She looked down at the photo. "It wouldn't make any sense for him to be here after the time war. If he were here, then he wouldn't have ever met me."
"And you and Jacks wouldn't be here now." Pete quietly said.
"This Earth might have never defeated Lumic and his Cybermen." Rose remarked. "Everything would be different."
"Maybe this is the Doctor before he met you." Pete suggested. "You said there was a war. What if he's suffering from some type of trauma due to that?"
"Anything is possible now I s’pose."
"Question is, how did he get here?"
"Haven't seen any blue phone boxes around lately, have you?" Rose tried to joke.
"No," Pete replied with a laugh. "Can't say I have but haven't really been looking for one."
The corner of Rose's mouth lifted. "I have."
Silence lingered between them until Pete rearranged himself in the chair. He made an audible sigh that seemed like a failed thought and then tried again. "Rose, what you said, essentially if you'd never met him, how everything would be different. If he is the Doctor before you met him..."
Rose stared back at Pete; apprehension etched in her eyes. "Then he's got to go back."
"Afraid so."
Rose nodded stiffly, jaw set as she looked down at the picture in front of her. "Don't know that for sure."
"No," Pete said, picking words with more care than he would with anyone else. "We don't. At least not yet." Rose looked up at him, and Pete offered a thin smile. "You're going to need to find out how he came here, Rose."
"Right." She dipped her chin, defiance setting along the line of her jaw. She was near tears again, feeling the pain building up inside her chest. How many times was she going to get him back only to lose him again? What twisted cosmic undercurrent of fate had she been swept into when she met the Doctor?
"But first," he declared with renewed depth and authority as he stood. "I need you back at Torchwood."
"What?"
Pete shrugged one shoulder. "The Doctor's been here nearly two years now, and the universe hasn't collapsed yet," he said, with an indifference that seemed forced, but surprised Rose no less. "You need to put your back up against something, and that would be work. We have a presentation to the President tomorrow morning. President Jones wants to know every detail of the Cardiff Rift project, and that's your area of expertise."
Rose shook her head. "No, I can't. I'm not up to it. Let Brett do it. He's more than capable..."
"Afraid not."
"Why?"
"I need you on this, and you need something to take your mind off the Doctor."
Rose gaped at him. “You think I can just turn it off? He’s lying in a hospital bed—"
"You don't have to worry about that."
"Why?" She asked, but Pete suddenly was avoiding her gaze. "You're not having him moved, are you?"
He matched her gaze. "I won't if you don't want me to."
"Another facility may not be as conscientious when they find out about his physiology and… I don’t want to think about what they might do to him."
"That's not going to happen at a facility I choose for him. Besides, how can you trust anyone who’s already lied to you once?"
“Dr. Tipton lied because they’ve had patients removed from the hospital before, by the government and by Torchwood. I assured Dr. Collier that you weren’t like that, and you’re not, so no. I don't want to take the chance. No. Conditions at Lambeth might be dreadful, but—"
"But I suppose conditions over there will just need to improve."
Rose squinted at him, interest and suspicions piqued. “What d’you mean?”
“Tomorrow,” Pete said, and turned for the door. “I need you to be sharp.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jennifer Collier stared back at the two coarse looking workmen standing at the rear door just off the kitchen. She hadn’t called them. And no one else would have. They didn’t have the money for this.
“I’m sorry, there must be a mistake,” she told them. “We haven’t got the money to pay for the boiler repairs.”
“It’s been taken care of, mum,” the worker said.
“By who?” Collier was perplexed and still uncertain that this wasn’t just going to be a costly mistake.
“Anonymous donation, mum.”
Collier considered him and his companion a moment longer. Then, “I’m sorry, I just have to check with someone about this.”
“Certainly.”
By the time Collier called Dr. Tipton two more workers were waiting at the door, and another two work vans were pulling in to join the others already parked at the rear of the hospital. By the time Dr. Tipton met Collier a small army of workmen and vans were awaiting approval to come inside and begin work.
“The lift.” Said one of them when asked.
“Windows,” said another.
And another, “Plumbing.”
And by twos and threes workers filed into the hospital tools and supplies in tow, while Dr. Tipton hurried back to his office, where several fresh-faced individuals were patiently waiting to be interviewed.
He hadn’t called on any of them. There’d been no advertisement, no announcements, nothing that would lead a horde of doctors and nurses to Lambeth looking for work. Oh, there was plenty of work, but no money to hire anyone on. There was hardly enough to keep those few staff members who remained.
“I was informed that there are several openings available,” said one young woman with dark eyes and a megawatt smile.
“And you…?” Tipton was at a loss.
She smiled that bright blinding smile again. “Paediatrics.”
He nodded slowly. They hadn’t had a paediatric specialist for ages. “But… we don’t have the funds to pay…” his words dribbled away as he saw her shake her head.
“My wages have been taken care of.”
Tipton frowned. Something was beyond suspicion here. “You’ve been sent here by Torchwood, haven’t you?” he demanded.
“I was sent by Doctor Finders placement agency. We all were,” she explained, and pleasantly smiled as she glanced around at the others waiting to be seen. “You may contact them if you like.” She held a calling card out, which Tipton promptly snapped from her fingers.
“I’ll do that.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That was interesting.
The sound of vehicles drew his attention up to the window. He peered out at the grounds. There were men at the gates, with tools to repair the hinges and missing sections of the ironwork.
Ponderous.
Banging echoed in the stairwells. It wasn’t the random staccato banging of the unskilled desperate to make repairs. This was a sound of precise strokes made by skill and training.
He didn’t get up, but paid attention to the changing sounds radiating up through the floors and along the corridor outside his room. There was a lot of activity going on out there.
He listened. He listened to drown out the reverb of a thunderous constant drone that was settled firmly in his head.
No peace.
Memory punching so hard it hurt the bone. Screaming so loud it deafened. If he listened to the banging and the voices, he could block some of it out. He listened for a voice, but didn’t hear it. He looked for a face outside his window, but did not find it.
He stayed very still and watched. If he moved, they’d notice and they’d talk to him until it hurt. It hurt to hear the talking. So senseless it was. It didn’t matter how he felt today or the day before. It never changed. He was numb and blinded by the faces, by the crying, by the hands clawing at his soul. Deafened by tortured pleas.
Why were they there? They didn’t need to do all this. Not for him. Everything was fine just the way it was.
He searched the faces, each one as they appeared, coming out of the vans, all rolling along through the gates in a neat row that wasn’t neat at all, and none of them through the windscreens, not a one that knew what to call him.
The girl.
Where was the girl with the glow in her veins? So long since anyone knew to call him that, and how it cut.
Almost forgotten. Almost forgotten what it sounded like, and she knew. She said it and it burned him. They all burned except for him.
Why? How could it be without awareness? Did it matter? How did she know?
Where was she? She’s not coming. She wasn’t Romana. Romana was gone. The girl glowed. Something in her once, the residue, it sang in her veins, and he heard it. It hummed to him in whispered waves that soothed and terrified him.
Listen.
Search.
It sang to him. He went so long without that sense within him, it was too much to bear when so much silence has been cast upon him: Darkness of thought, and everyone gone, no sense of being, no sense of belonging, and nothing— Nothing but the suffocating sense of loneliness.
The girl.
So abrupt and so long since he’d felt that kind of presence. He was afraid to touch that again. It would kill him, and yet all he wanted was death. Not a whisper, not a sigh, but a shattering bellow to set his being asunder, blown to atoms and swept away in the ebb of time and all existence as he had done to his own.
Mercy. Please mercy.
He watched. He searched.
She wasn’t there.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBC
Chapter 5: It's Nothing Personal
Summary:
Rose can’t sleep. Not when he’s out there — alone, broken, and just out of reach.
While Torchwood demands her focus and the Rift begins to stir again, Rose finds herself parked outside the hospital, staring up at darkened windows and wondering if he still remembers how to hold her hand. Mickey’s search for the TARDIS turns up a new clue, one that may explain how the Doctor arrived in this world — and where he might have left the ship that means everything.
But as truths edge closer and politics intrude, Rose is forced to navigate suspicion, memory, and a quiet terror: that she’s found him again, only to lose him in a new and unthinkable way.
It’s not about science or strategy.
It’s not about loyalty or duty.
It’s not even about heartbreak.It’s nothing personal.
Until it is.
Notes:
I have to apologize... this is a bit of a slow burn (no pun intended).
This is one of those love letters that just rambles on and on.
And our doctor deserves no less.Thank you for sticking this out, and it picks up-- I promise!
Chapter Text
Try
Infinity’s Child
Part 5: It’s Nothing Personal
by PR Chung
Rose lay awake and stared into the darkness, knowing she should try to sleep, knowing Pete expected her to be at her best in the morning. But how could she just stay away? How could she take her mind off of the Doctor?
She knew Pete thought it was good for her to put her mind to something else, to focus on something—anything but the Doctor. She’d tried; she’d gone over her notes and refined the presentation she’d already delivered at Torchwood just a few days earlier, but her thoughts began to stray as they often did.
It wasn’t always easy, playing off those moments when someone would ask what it was, she was staring so fixedly at, and it was really nothing, just a thought, a memory, sometimes nice, sometimes sad. She laughed lightly, making excuses, blaming it on work or lack of sleep due to work.
It was different when she was alone; no excuses to make, no one to answer to when she thought of stars so very far away, wondering where he was drifting, if he was all right, if he were alone. She discovered that she could stare for hours at nothing, considering courage and selfishness, and then hoping with everything there might be a way back. Always there was hope, and now…
Rose looked at her bedside clock.
She watched the minutes tick by and wondered if there was a clock somewhere ticking off the moments before the Doctor had to go back? Could it be true that he might be the Doctor she’d known, come here somehow before she’d ever met him? If he were, and if he did have to return somehow, just as Pete had suggested, then the future was already cast, immutable because she was still here, her mother and Mickey too. Somehow, he’d leave this place, sometime.
It was too hard to accept that, especially when she thought of something else Pete had said, even in jest, it had some meaning to it; He’s been here nearly two years, Rose recalled Pete’s statement.
Yes, nearly two years and the universe hadn’t collapsed yet. Perhaps it never would because maybe he didn’t have to go anywhere. The Doctor didn’t have to go anywhere because he belonged right here, in this universe like her father and… the Jackie Tyler, who’d been his first wife, even Ricky, this Doctor was intrinsic. Perhaps her Doctor had been wrong; maybe he couldn’t sense other time lords in this universe. Maybe he couldn’t sense a counterpart to himself?
Rose closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Mickey was right; she’d drive herself mad if she didn’t stop trying to figure this out on her own.
He’d listened when she’d called and told him about the Doctor, about what Pete had suggested, and she’d listened in turn while Mickey tried to work it out with her. Eventually, Mickey also said to give it some time, to step back and try to look at it from outside of the situation. Rose laughed; she couldn’t be any more outside the situation if she tried.
The Doctor was the only person with the answers.
Rose turned to look at the clock.
She was tired, but she couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t sleep when she knew he was just across the city, alone, and tormented by things she couldn’t begin to imagine. She couldn’t block out thoughts of him. And she wouldn’t try.
When Rose looked at the time next, she was in her car sitting in front of Lambeth Hope hospital. She just sat there, parked across the road, watching and searching the darkened windows of the sixth floor.
There was the blue of a television flickering in a lower floor window, and the dim amber of corridor lighting eking through open interior doors, but the hospital was otherwise dark.
The Doctor never slept much, Rose reminded herself as she studied the windows, idly searching, shadows playing tricks on her eyes. Could he be there, looking back at her?
She wanted to go inside, make her way quietly through the corridors and to his room. Find him and be with him. Let him know there was someone who understood him, someone who cared. Just hold his hand again.
“I can feel it…”
The memory of him taking her hand in his echoed from the stillness of Rose’s thoughts; Not the first time, no; the first time was adrenaline blurred and streaked with an excited sense of gratefulness.
The second time he’d touched her hand she felt the spin of the Earth with him, seen the sharpness of his burden, but hadn’t truly understood what she’d sensed in him then. So many embraces and touches followed. It felt so perfectly natural to be in contact with him. She’d only ever once hesitated to take his hand; now she regretted even that brief hesitation when he’d offered a hand she’d watched grow anew after his regeneration.
Every hesitation, every ill word or disagreement, every single negative, no matter how minute, seemed so much more glaring since she last saw him; all of it, time lost and wasted. The cruel irony drifted again into view of how at what seemed like the last she would ever see him she couldn’t touch him at all on that cold, windy shore.
But here he was now, her Doctor or not, would he let her ever touch him again? The terror in his voice when she’d embraced him still ripped at her memory and held her immobile. Like some nightmare beyond any that she’d ever suffered in the past two years this was a hell that she didn’t deserve, nor did he.
She didn’t know how to be near him suddenly and that was all that she’d wanted, all this time, just to see him again, to be with him. And now she was… It was just too late, she thought while looking at the darkened facility, it was too late to go in and muddle things up any further.
So, she sat and looked up at the windows, unable to do more, uncertain of everything she considered.
She was thoroughly lost in thought and memory, and rapt by the shadowy façade of the hospital when something banged against the passenger’s side window. It scared her so badly she jumped and hit her head on her own window. Grabbing her smarting skull, she twisted around to see Mickey staring back at her through the glass.
“What are you doing here?” His voice came through the glass in a muffled accusation.
Rose unlocked the door for him. “What are you doing here?” she questioned him as he got into the car.
“I was looking for information.”
“About?”
“Where the Doctor was found— before he was brought here.” Mickey pulled a small device from his pocket that looked like a flattened bullet on a key chain. “Think I might have found something, but I’ll have to run it through the computer back at my place ‘fore I know. If we knew where he’d been found, we could begin looking for the TARDIS.”
“Right.” Rose nodded slowly; a little surprised by the initiative he’d taken, and her lack of clear thought. “We should be looking for it,” she agreed distractedly. She’d considered the TARDIS, it was synonymous with the Doctor, but she’d allowed herself to become too distraught over him.
Mickey glanced at her, hesitant. “I started thinking that if we couldn’t find out from him, the TARDIS could tell us ‘bout how he got here.”
“You’re right, it could.” The TARDIS could also take him back again. Take him away from her. But how selfish was that of her to think. If it could help solve whatever he was going through nothing should be discounted. A thought passed slowly across her brow. “Did you see him?” she asked.
Mickey slipped his gaze away from hers and out the window. “No,” he answered. His voice was laced with frustration, and what sounded like guilt to her.
She just nodded and turned back to the darkened hospital.
"It's late," Mickey said, and looked at her questioningly. "Were you going to go in?"
Rose opened her mouth a couple of times before she found a response. "I wanted to," she quietly answered, still contemplating the building. "I came out here with nothing else in mind but to go in there and just... I just wanted to see him. Talk to him."
Mickey waited, but she said nothing more. "Why didn't you?" He asked tentatively, as if uncertain if he should.
Rose struggled with her conscience for a moment and then, “I was afraid to.”
“You think he could hurt you—"
“No,” she interrupted, shaking her head.
Mickey nodded and toyed with the data device in his fingers. “When you’re ready,” he said, and paused to look up at her. “If you need someone… I’d come with you.”
“Thanks,” she replied, and realised that her voice lacked sincerity. She looked around at him and offered a weak smile. “I appreciate it.”
A brief silence settled between them before Mickey nodded hastily and moved restlessly to open the car door. “Right, I’ll, uh, I’ll let you know what I find.” He got out and stopped before closing the door to look back in at her. “Go home, Rose,” he urged her in a strained voice. “Please.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was quiet, but not silent.
He listened to the darkness. Something hummed in the stillness, something that hadn’t been there before. A singing shadow drifting in the pure suffering of fire that was all thought, pulling, increasing gravity…
Focus on it, find it— Must find it. Must be a part of it. There… there… touch it--
He thrashed in frustration when a grief-stricken cry seeped under the door once more, shattering the delicate trail of concentration. The break, recurrent, like bone shattering, and letting in the rush of deafening sound, the blinding light, and if it were not for the bars…
He looked to the window, fear thrilling him, his eyes drying in the chilled air. The light spilled around those pitiful excuses that were so convenient. Self-courage, a laughable and lacking trait, lost to mechanized doom somewhere across the firestorm of time.
The crying died away and silence packed the darkness again as he closed his eyes and lay back into the cooled wetness of the pillow.
Again, focus, focus, and listen… quiet the tempest; push through the blaring null, the oppressive nothingness…
Slow and constant, building in the stillness, the bed began to quake under the force of his heartbeats.
Focus.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Focus…” she grumbled to herself, frustrated as she stumbled over her words again.
All eyes were on her. Waiting.
It was the fourth or fifth time, maybe more. She was losing count of her screw-ups as her frustration mounted. She knew how to speak to people, she wasn’t a babbling, inarticulate naïf, but everyone in the room seemed to be looking at her like she was.
Harriet Jones, President Harriet Jones, Rose reminded herself as she glanced at the woman, who was looking at her with concern more than anything. Did it look like she was going to fall over? Rose wondered, because it certainly felt like she was going to.
She glanced toward the back, straining to read Mickey Smith’s expression, hoping to find something steady in a familiar face. He too looked back at her in a pinched sort of way that only made her shrivel inwardly even more.
Nearly done, Rose told herself and took another deep breath that was perhaps a bit too deep by the sharp sound she heard herself make and the sudden light-headedness she felt. And then, like a life vest thrown into a churning sea, in walked Peter Tyler.
Entering from a rear door, he took up anchor at the back of the darkened room, beyond the sea of staring faces. Arms crossed he leaned against the far wall and looked on. Stillness consumed Rose as she focused on him. He just looked back at her, complacent, expectant, and Rose met the challenge.
“The importance of monitoring the rift reaches beyond anything known in traditional science.” Rose looked pointedly around the room, making eye contact with everyone. “This goes beyond simply installing registry equipment to take readings. This rift is capable of drawing energy from outside our known universe. Although, considered long dormant, like a volcano, with no recent signs of activity, there remains to be some changes.”
“What sort of changes exactly, Miss. Tyler?” Harriet Jones questioned. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
Rose smiled. “No, Madam. Minor shifts in residual energy have been detected, splintering throughout Cardiff and the Metro area. Something like the puckering tissue around a healed wound. Monitoring the progression of these changes is just one of the justifications for our vigilance. If you will please note the map…”
Maps and diagrams, charts and analyses were presented to the council present, making substantial impressions, yet, despite the closing applause following the presentation, Rose didn’t feel that she’d hugely impressed upon those present the true potential of the rift.
“You sound like him sometimes.”
Rose turned to see Mickey smiling back at her. Others were filing out of the chamber, eager to follow in the wake of the President, listening for the slightest of sound bites, but he’d found his way to the front, where Rose remained to gather her papers.
“Guess he left quite an impression on me.” She tried to speak lightly. “Don’t quite command an audience like the Doctor ever could.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Rose. You had my full attention, especially about the rift.”
Rose paused in collecting her papers. “Why’s that?”
“I went over the records I pulled from Lambeth Hope.” He pulled a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket. “I think I’ve pinpointed where the Doctor was found before he was taken there.” He unfolded the paper and handed it over to her. “If the information is right, it was near one of the areas affected by the rift.”
Rose considered the information, frowning. “But there’s been no detectable activity in that area.”
“Recently,” Mickey reminded her of her own words during the presentation. “It’s only been recently that any attention has been focused on the rift. He could have come through long before it went dormant. And we have no way of telling what exactly dormant is when it comes to the rift. There’s enough energy coming off of it to detect energy shifts, then it’s not inactive at all.”
“The TARDIS.” Rose looked at him with a stark look of dawning hope. “It could be near there somewhere,” she said in a hushed whisper. “Just…” she recalled the Doctor’s words with a frightening clarity, “A strange little thing standing on a street corner. No one notices it.”
“Except us.” Mickey said. “We know what to look for.”
“And what would that be?”
Rose and Mickey turned to see Brett Jones grinning back at them.
“Sorry?” she responded sluggishly, taken off guard by his unexpected appearance.
“TARDIS?” he repeated what he’d clearly overheard them say. He gave Rose and Mickey a wry smile. “You’re not keeping secrets from me about the project now, are you?”
“No, not at all.” Rose said with an innocent chuckle. “Just discussing technical aspects of the monitoring facilities.”
“Right,” Brett said, and looked at Mickey. “Mickey Smith. You’re in charge of that clever information retrieval group, aren’t you?”
“Data Recovery Taskforce.” Mickey’s voice was stilted, and Rose could feel the negativity radiating off of him for Jones.
“I imagine your expertise is something we couldn’t go without on this project.”
“Yet to be seen, but I don’t have any doubts about that,” Mickey declared and shot the man a brittle smile before he turned to Rose. “I’d stay and chat a bit, but there’s computers to fix and all back at the office,” he excused himself and turned, nearly bumping into Pete Tyler as he approached the podium.
“Excellent presentation,” Pete declared, looking at Rose with a proud grin smeared across his face.
“Thank you,” she half laughed, chagrined “For a moment there I—"
“Mr. Tyler,” a gentleman from the President’s entourage interrupted and tugged at Pete’s jacket sleeve. “The President would like a word with you a moment.”
“Certainly,” Pete said, and then turned to Rose. “Really well done. I’ll catch up in just a bit.”
Rose watched him go; feeling a bit disappointed he’d been pulled away before they’d had a chance to talk. He really was the father that she always knew he could be. His support, albeit silent in almost all instances, was greater than she could have ever hoped for. She knew he didn’t understand her sometimes, the way she approached things, her history, and her experience, especially when it came to the Doctor, but he accepted and trusted her.
“Where have you been?” Brett asked, pulling her from her thoughts. “Tried your mobile, but you didn’t pick up.”
“I’ve just been busy. Research you know,” she explained as best she felt necessary, and busied herself gathering her presentation notes, feeling a bit cornered. Brett was a nice fellow and all, but he just…
“Fancy a drink tonight?”
Rose looked around at Brett. She hesitated for just a second, her mind cataloguing the similarities and the differences. The thought occurring to her that it was his eyes, set further apart, and perhaps the nose being more refined. But there was an uncomfortable similarity to him. And then there was the smile, broad and inspired.
“What do you say? We can just pop off down to the…”
“Can’t,” Rose said, and gave the paper Mickey had given her a quick glance before refolding it and stuffing it into the pocket of her blazer. “I’ve… I need to visit with someone. Sorry.”
“Seeing someone, then?” he asked, and his tone had soured just a bit.
“Yeah,” Rose said and took up her satchel. “A friend in hospital.”
“A friend.” He repeated, and Rose did not fail to notice the thread of suspicion in his voice.
“I have to go.”
“Rose,” he stepped to block her path, and smiled. “Not my place to even be concerned. I know. Still… it’s hard not to be.”
Rose looked up at him, everything inside her muddled up and making no sense. Why was he telling her this? She just didn’t need this right now. No confusion, no complications to the way she was already feeling, which just wasn’t noticeably clear to begin with.
“Dinner? Will you have dinner with me?” he asked, his crisp blue eyes swimming with apology. “The lunch thing has run its course, don’t you think? I’d really…” he drifted, looking at her more closely. “Have dinner with me, Rose.”
Rose’s anxiousness to escape his presence consumed her. “I have to go.” She said, and turned.
“Then, that’s a no,” he called after her.
Rose stopped, her back to him. Her nerves throbbed. She didn’t need this. Not now.
She half turned, taking a moment to compose herself before she looked at him. “I’ve got a lot going on right now,” she said, irritated that she even felt obliged to give him an explanation. “It’s nothing personal.”
He stared back at her, disappointment pulling at his features and Rose finally had to look away.
“I have to go now.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBC
Chapter 6: Tea and Bananas
Summary:
Rose returns to Lambeth Hope to find the hospital transformed — bustling with upgrades and uneasy gratitude. But it’s not the repairs she’s here for. Armed with bananas and carefully rehearsed hope, she tries to reconnect with the man who once lit the stars for her — now silent, broken, and staring through windows... as if caught between worlds.
Notes:
Going back through this, and listening to specific pieces of music...(my playlist is on Tumblr... it's terrible but appropriate) I laugh (inappropriately) because this becoming this monstruous repost of epic proportions... and a slow burn I must apologize for. But, God, it's so glorious writing about the Ninth Doctor.
Thank you all for coming along on this journey... Please share your thoughts. <3
Recommended listening for this chapter...
'How Many Hearts' - Travis
'She' - Elvis Costello
Chapter Text
Try
Infinity’s Child
Part 6: Tea and Bananas
by PR Chung
The entire facility was brimming with commotion; repairs underway, equipment being installed, staff hustling throughout the corridors with... with what she could only label as true enthusiasm. Rose was completely taken aback by the level of activity in Lambeth Hope.
She knew now what her father had meant by improving conditions. And while she could appreciate his interventions, Rose wondered how willing Dr. Tipton had been to accept the sudden influx of assistance. He’d obviously done so, but had he really any choice when it was offered?
Rose would learn soon enough once Jennifer Collier met her. It felt like she’d been waiting outside the woman’s office for an eternity, watching the buzz of activity passing her by in the corridor. She sat for a while and then paced a bit before sitting again to stare at the bag she’d brought. She suddenly felt incredibly naïve having even thought to bring bananas for the Doctor.
A good distraction, that’s what they’d be, she justified a gesture that seemed rather insipid in light of the situation.
She’d nearly gone straight to him, skipping any update on his condition — but she needed to be ready. Maybe it was just a quiet form of hesitation, a way to stall when guilt still clawed at her for staying away, even for one day, knowing he was here.
But in the time away, no matter how difficult, Rose felt she had become slightly more certain of herself, and more in control of her emotions.
Rose had gone over this several times; her words chosen carefully, alternate subjects picked based on his reactions, again and again she’d rehearsed this. It was going to be all right this time.
“Ms. Tyler?” She looked up seeing Jennifer Collier hurriedly walking down the corridor toward her. The woman’s cheeks were flushed, and she was out of breath, but she was smiling brightly.
“I’m sorry it took so long for me to come,” Collier apologized. “There’s so much going on— so many workmen roaming around I’ve had to coordinate so they’re not bumping into one another.”
“S’all right, I’m glad that you’re getting some help here.”
“I know we owe you a great amount of gratitude for this.”
“Please, no. I didn’t…” Rose glanced around, smiling in amazement. “I didn’t expect all this. Actually, I didn’t expect any of this.”
“You will thank your father for us?”
“Yes,” Rose said and smiled. “I will.” Her enthusiasm began to wane, her reason for being here at the forefront of her mind. “How is the Do— John?” she corrected herself.
“Yes, of course. Come,” Collier said, gesturing for Rose to follow. “No more outbursts since the other night. Whatever you triggered brought him out of the silent state he’s been in since we admitted him. That’s a good sign — and nothing to feel guilty about. Physical contact may have overwhelmed him at first, so I’d recommend a slower approach. Just sit with him, talk to him — help him rebuild a sense of familiarity.”
Those words—Sense of familiarity— made Rose take an inward pause.
Judging by his reactions, he didn’t know who she was — and reaching him would mean finding a way past that. Best, then, to keep that detail from Collier for now. If she or Tipton found out, they might bar Rose from seeing him. And while moving him elsewhere was always an option, Rose didn’t want to force that — not when he was this fragile, this unpredictable.
“The lift is even working now,” Collier announced proudly as they reached it. “We can go straight to his floor.”
Rose was surprised they’d reach the sixth floor more quickly now of course, giving her less time to prepare. A walk up the stairs would have given her those extra moments, just in case.
“Something special in the bag?” Collier asked.
Rose blushed. “Bananas. He… likes bananas.”
“That’s excellent. That’s something that should be a comfort to him, I’m sure.”
“Yes, I had hoped so.”
“I have to ask, Ms. Tyler,” Collier began as the lift arrived. “You called him ‘doctor.’ What is he a doctor of?”
“Physics,” Rose answered, non-committal, and stepped into the lift.
“That’s—" Collier was interrupted by her mobile lightly trilling. She looked at it briefly then pocketed it. “Nearly lunch and our kitchen is overrun with workmen,” she absently said, and then, “The staff will just have to sort it out without me for a while.”
“You’re still managing administration duties then?” Rose asked.
“Yes,” Collier sighed. “Dr. Tipton is still very uneasy about all of this sudden interest in the hospital.”
“But you needed it.”
“Yes, but he still doesn’t trust outside organizations. He doesn’t see the government or Torchwood any differently than John Lumic in their pursuit to control everyone.”
Rose looked evenly at Collier. “Trust me, as long as Torchwood is directed by my father that will never be a concern.”
“I hope you’re right, Ms. Tyler.” Collier’s statement was punctuated by the lift locking into place on the sixth floor.
Stepping off the lift Rose looked down the corridor and felt the same sense of numbing trepidation as when she’d first come to see the Doctor. She wasn’t going to allow it to cloud her judgment or rule her actions.
Once more Collier led the way, announcing them with a soft rap on the door and pushing it open with a melodious greeting, “Good morning.”
Rose hovered closely behind Collier, looking over her shoulder to see the Doctor. He was sitting on the edge of the bed facing the window, the late morning light washing over him, cutting deeper shadows along his face than Rose recalled.
He made no noticeable reaction to Collier until she and Rose were further into the room and then turned his head languidly. He glanced first at Collier and then Rose. She thought she saw his gaze sharpen for a second, but it passed quickly, and she found him staring at her unaffected. Despite his impassiveness Rose offered a tremulous smile.
He studied her for a moment more while Collier chattered in a pleasant tone that sounded trained and honed from years of working with sensitive patients. It was little more than psychological baby talk that Rose knew her Doctor would have rankled at, but this Doctor only turned away, looking back to the window.
“Just visiting for a while,” Collier said with a smile. “Getting comfortable with each other again.” She directed a nod at Rose, gesturing for her to move closer to him. “Let’s take this slow and easy.”
“Right,” Rose said in a shaky whisper and started toward the bed on equally shaky legs.
“Don’t forget,” Collier said and pointed Rose’s attention to the bag she was clutching.
She looked down distractedly, remembering. The impertinence of a gift of fruit wasn’t exactly how she wanted to start out the conversation.
“Uh, I brought…” she awkwardly started and smiled an overly cheery smile as she pulled the bananas from the bag and held them up into view, “Bananas.”
He said nothing and only shifted on the bedside.
“Exactly,” she muttered, and glanced around for a place to put them. She moved toward a small table on the other side of the bed, its top bare. “I’ll just put them here for later,” she prattled, for Collier’s benefit and her own nerves.
Amiable small talk flowed liberally from her that she was barely aware, making brief apology and idle rhetoric as she looked around the ascetic room. By the time she worked her way to the chair near the window, and within his view, Rose had run out of the cover of inconsequential babble.
Her nerves gradually stilled, and her insecurity sobered as she looked at the Doctor, touched by the underlying wearied tension of his thought-consumed expression. His eyes were hooded, cast downward; troubled blue mirrors reflecting so much distance.
How far away? Rose wondered as she settled into the chair. His vulnerability pushed her to the brink of tears, but she would not pity him, she wouldn’t do that injustice to him.
A thought composed itself, and she began to speak when Collier’s mobile trilled. “Sorry,” she apologized and stepped toward the door to answer it.
Rose straightened in the chair, frustrated and gathering again the threads of her interrupted thoughts. She cursed the audience forced upon them; this wasn’t easy as it was, and she had to try with someone observing. Now, though, while Collier was distracted…
“Doctor?” Rose called to him, her voice quiet and anxious. “Do you know where you are?”
Collier’s voice suddenly went up in volume, and Rose looked around to see if she’d come back into the room.
“Neither here nor there.”
Rose whipped around at the sound of the Doctor’s voice. He was staring intensely at her.
“The cat the canary ate, boom,” he said and threw his hands out and up, mimicking an explosion. His eyes widened. “Take back two and you get none— Simple arithmetic, that. See?”
Rose shook her head, confounded. “What? I don’t understand—"
He stood and stepped towards her, pinning her with a steely glare. “Of course you do,” he said, his voice lowered with distrustfulness. “Hiding in that…” he stepped even closer, and Rose was paralyzed, her breath caught in her throat.
She wasn’t scared but overtaken with surprise and the sheer power of his presence hovering over her. He looked closely at her, his eyes searching her face with a fascinated frenetic question hovering on his parted lips. “Why?” he breathed.
Rose shuddered. “I… don’t know.”
The Doctor turned away suddenly, and Rose heard Collier speaking, coming back fully into the room. “Oh, good, good,” she said with a forced cheerfulness when she saw the Doctor up. “Everything going well, yes?”
“Y-yes,” Rose stammered, recovering from her confusion.
“Fantastic,” Collier said.
“Fantastic.” Rose heard the Doctor contemptuously mock.
Collier turned to Rose. “I need to go attend to some matters downstairs,” she announced with a sigh. She edged a brief glance toward the Doctor before continuing. “Do you feel comfortable alone…”
“Absolutely,” Rose answered before Collier finished, and stood.
Collier considered her, a vague look of doubt passing through her eyes. It passed into a genial smile. “Very well,” Collier said, and Rose could breathe again. “I’ll be as quick as possible.”
“Really,” Rose assured the woman eagerly, wanting her to go more than ever, “take care of… whatever it is. We’ll be fine.”
“Yes, well, if there are any,” she glanced at the Doctor, who had settled onto the bed again and was looking out into the daylight, “problems, just call for an attendant.”
Rose nodded in acknowledgement, willing the woman to go. But maddeningly, Collier lingered a moment too long before finally leaving — and at last, the room was theirs. Silent. Still.
Relishing the quiet for a few seconds, Rose took a breath and turned to look at the Doctor. He was perfectly still again, as if he’d never moved, never said a word.
“I didn’t understand,” she quietly said, stepping closer to him, trying to catch his gaze. “It… It might not be important if you know who I am. Actually, it’s probably not very important at all, but I do want to help you.”
He’d fallen into his silent study of the outside world again. Frustration nudged at her. He’d been talking to her just moments ago, communicating something that seemed so very urgent and now, nothing.
“I need your help too,” she tried to explain. “S’not like I’m psychic. I can’t just figure out what’s going on inside that head of yours. Probably quite a lot.” She bent to look into eyes.
He looked past her even then. “If you’re lost, I need to know, because… because I don’t think you can stay here much longer if you are. Do you know how you got here?” she asked him more softly.
There was no response. He stared into the daylight and sky beyond the window.
“Doctor?” She tried to call him from his thoughts. He only dropped his gaze downward, saying nothing.
Frustration and yearning warred. Who was she to think she could reach him? He wasn’t the person she’d known. And even her Doctor had closed himself off to her, never shared with her that darkness that had become his own shadow.
It was her naïve arrogance to believe she might be special enough to make the difference, to touch him, to heal him, to fix him.
Rose watched the stranger before her and knew how desperately she needed him and how desperate a lie it was she’d trapped herself.
“I don’t know you like this,” she nearly sobbed, perhaps more to herself than him, and without thought reached out, brushing a wisp of his hair back from his forehead.
And it was with the slightest touch that he reacted, shifting his gaze up to meet hers and Rose froze, suddenly afraid he was about to— “I can feel it.”
His words jarred Rose. “What?”
The Doctor’s gaze matched hers, and she saw pain and pleading, and a jumbled fear that shook her. With amazement, he asked her, “How?”
“Sweetheart? You in there?”
Rose gasped and straightened, looking to the door at the sound of Jackie’s voice. “No,” she breathed. “Not now…”
Jackie pushed open the door and craned her head to look in. “There you are,” she beamed when she saw Rose. She continued in totting bags, a thermos, and flowers. “How’s he doing?”
“Mum? How’d you know…?”
“I didn’t,” she said, and dropped the bags in front of the closet and went to place the flowers on the bedside stand alongside the bananas. “I saw Miss Collier downstairs. She said you were up here with him. Oh, look bananas. They’re a good source of potassium.”
Rose was thrown. Jackie knew about his erratic behaviour, and yet she came here anyway. “You shouldn’t have come, Mum.”
Jackie looked back at Rose, hurt pulling at the lines around her mouth. She lifted her chin, resolute. “I brought tea,” she announced and held up the thermos. “Helped him before.”
Understanding, Rose smiled at her mother appreciatively. “And the bags?”
“Jumpers,” she answered, sounding decidedly self-conscious about the fact.
Rose only just glanced at the flowers and Jackie was ready with her defence, saying quickly, “Flowers cheer up everyone.”
“Thank you, it’s all very sweet, mum, but…” Rose began and stopped abruptly when she caught sight of the Doctor passing around her. He marched around the bed, heading straight toward Jackie.
“Oi,” she yelped, her eyes going round at the sight of him coming toward her, and she took a started step back as he reached out.
Rose and Jackie stood gaping as they watched him heft the flowers from the bedside stand and promptly dumped them in the bin on the floor with a tremendously deflating thud.
He turned around with a deep scowl perched on his brow, and marched directly back around the bed, looking at neither one of them as he plopped down in the chair before the window and folded his arms.
Rose opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, not quite knowing exactly what to say. Apparently, her mother aggravated him in any universe.
Jackie grunted with offense and crossed her arms. “Could use a good scrubbing, but otherwise, he’s back to ‘em old self, then, isn’t he?”
“No, not at all.” Rose said and went over to him.
“What are you doing here?”
Rose and Jackie looked around to see Dr. Tipton standing in the room. The man looked back at them, startled.
“Visitin’ with a dead man,” Jackie barked back at him, her anger coming up quickly. “Some nerve you have lying to my daughter the way you did.”
“Mum,” Rose started across the room, and tried to calm her mother, “let’s…”
Jackie wasn’t listening; she was zeroed in on Tipton. “You caused us all a lot of grief, but you caused her more heartache than anyone should deserve,” she rallied on the man, forcing him back out into the hallway. “What are we doing here? What are you still doing here? How many people have you lied to? How many patients are you hiding in this hospital of yours, Dr. Tipton? How dare you.”
Rose followed them, grateful they’d exited the room, but certain Jackie on the verge of smacking the man. “Mum, hold on…”
“You don’t understand— I was trying to protect him,” Tipton declared unsteadily as he moved away from Jackie.
“No, I don’t understand. What gives you the right to lie to people?” She pounded back at him, following him as he moved across the corridor into the stairwell.
“I—I never meant to hurt anyone.”
“But you did. Do you have any idea what it feels like—?”
“Yes!” he cried out. He darted his eyes left and right, clearly distraught. “Yes, I do,” he said. “I lost my wife to the Lumic factories first, and then, they came and took her from me again.”
“Again,” Rose said, shaking her head.
“Before the factories were unsealed, she’d been found, and brought here. She was half crazed from what she realised had happened to her.” Tipton shakily explained.
“She’d… been changed?”
He nodded. “I took care of her here, like all the others. We would have found a way to ease their…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “But I never had the chance because they came through and just took them.”
“Who took them?” Jackie asked him, her ire receding into dismay.
“Torchwood.” He answered.
Rose and Jackie exchanged troubled glances.
“Said they had better facilities to oversee the situation, that they’d be able to help them better. We never saw any of the patients again who were taken. And when we inquired, Torchwood denied any knowledge of them.”
“But my daughter’s friend, he’s not changed,” Jackie said. “Why were you hiding him?”
“We took in more than just those the factories fully converted. We took in those whose conversions were only partial. We took in those who’d been experimented with by Lumic. Some exhibited highly unusual symptoms, heightened strength, accelerated brain functions, a multitude of startling anomalies.” Tipton shook his head, the weight of it crushing him. “But… once Torchwood and the government discovered their existence the patients began to disappear from the hospital. When we discovered your friend’s heart irregularity, we believed he’d been part of the Lumic experiments, and knew we needed to keep his existence quiet.”
When Tipton finished, he looked at Rose. “I am sorry,” he apologized again.
Rose nodded, accepting, trying to shed the bitterness his deception had caused her. Self-consciously, Tipton excused himself and hurried down the stairs. With jangled nerves, whatever business he’d been attending to on this floor forgotten in his distress.
Jackie eyed Rose uncomfortably. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, just so much.” Rose looked back toward the Doctor’s room. “I appreciate you coming here,” she told her mother. “Right now, I think I need spend some time alone with him.”
Jackie understood. “You certain?”
“Yeah,” Rose said, beginning to feel a little overwhelmed. “All right, no hard feelings, ‘kay?”
“No, of course not,” Jackie assured her and pulled her into a warm embrace.
Rose walked with Jackie to the lift and then began to compose herself before going back to the room, all the while her mind jumped forward with questions about what the Doctor had said.
There were so many unanswered questions and already and everything she’d heard from him only compounded them. What did he feel? What answers did she have for him when she couldn’t understand the questions?
When Rose stepped back inside the Doctor’s room she stopped, her heart sinking as she looked around to find him gone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBC
Chapter 7: The Little Bright Monkey
Summary:
While Mickey's investigation into strange occurrences in the West Country points to a new rift and the possible location of the TARDIS, Rose is left to contend with the Doctor's volatile state. A moment of connection, sparked by a desperate act, offers a fleeting glimpse of the man he was, only for him to shatter once more.
As memories of the Time War surface with devastating clarity, Rose must confront the depths of his trauma, all while a new lead pulls Mickey away, leaving her to face the broken Time Lord alone.
Notes:
Recalling the initial writing of this chapter feels like yesterday — and in some ways, it nearly was, considering the recent cleanup work. This chapter has always been pivotal, a moment of emotional bleeding for the characters. Every nuance was deliberate: their dialogue, their movements, playing in my mind like a reel of film.
This story has never really let go of me. It kept tapping me on the shoulder all these years, quietly reminding me that it still needed to be finished.
I hope this chapter lands the way I envisioned it. And more than anything, I hope it’s an enjoyable read.
Chapter Text
Try
Infinity’s Child
Part 7: The Little Bright Monkey
By PR Chung
“This looks about your speed, Smith.”
Mickey looked over at Harris, who was smirking at something on his computer monitor.
Mickey wasn’t in the mood for any of the prat’s rubbish. He’d just spent six hours slogging through alleyways, scaling construction scaffolding, breaking into derelict buildings, and nosing around half-collapsed factories — any of which could’ve got him arrested.
All his efforts followed the ill-defined reach of the Rift — skeletal fingers creeping into London, as Rose had outlined in her report — all in hopes of finding even the faintest sign of a blue police box.
So far, he’d found nothing, but he’d only just begun. Still, he felt like he was lying — to himself and to Rose. He hadn’t told her where the Doctor was found before he was taken to Lambeth. Truth was, he barely wanted to think about it himself, not after everything he’d seen in the wake of Lumic’s destruction and the collapse of his factories.
“S’pose that’d be something pretty fast compared to you.” Mickey remarked, never much interested in the droll and dim-witted shots Harris took on occasion.
“No, really, I think you’re gonna like this one.”
Mickey went over to look at what Harris had on the screen. “Efforts to drain levels hampered,” he read the article header. “Okay, how’s recovery of land in the West Country my speed?”
“Look at what’s holding up the project,” Harris scrolled the page down, and pointed at the screen. Mickey followed, reading the paragraphs he indicated.
“Pumping machinery inexplicably relocated to inland levels, found along with…” Mickey hesitated as he read ahead. “Ancient armament and relics of unknown origin. This is the same location where livestock’s gone missing.”
Harris chuckled. “They think the recent earthquakes in the area have started bringing this stuff up out of the ground and the cows are just getting sucked down with it gone all soggy with the flooding.
“When did the earthquakes begin?”
Harris shrugged. “The area’s always a little shaky out there.”
“Send me that article,” Mickey told Harris and turned back to his own computer. He gave the office a brief scan before he took a seat in front of his computer.
“See, told you it was your speed.”
“Yeah,” Mickey muttered, already engrossed in the image of the map on his monitor. “Apocalyptic cow-sucking mysteries. Spot-on.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What wonderful languages not yet conceived and magical mathematical equations and a planet farther than the eye could see, and sounds, music too, and some almost imperceptible. Ghosts hovered in the nether of the dream slipped into before it could be halted. Sleep was such a fleeting, pointless imposition on the mind and body.
Awaking was always such a startling thing; breathing, feeling, awareness of life when there should be none. Refreshing, the rest, nonetheless; much less chaos and destruction this time, clearing the mind a bit, allowing in a bit more logical thought.
It’s a programmed breakdown and it’s only getting worse.
That was the most logical and lucent thought yet, but not very comforting.
Ghosts were not logical, and an indicator that coherence wasn’t all it should be.
The ghosts, all those faces and voices talking at once, come back to haunt him, except for the one— the one with the lullaby in her touch.
She wasn’t a ghost. Maybe an angel — but no, that was foolish. But it gripped him, and sang to him, that little faint and divine glow she carried like a firefly. Perhaps this was the peace finally come. Death in light, song, and comfort he surely did not deserve. Terrifying redemption.
Nonsense. It was nonsense to feel a shimmer in her touch, a tinkling like chimes, a dusting of current through the filaments and down to the dermis. It was so fleeting, and still so telling of what he already sensed in her presence.
That little chattering nervous bright monkey had touched something far greater than she ever should have once, and it remained within her. And if he could just… if he could be brave enough… if he just… touched her, it would end this misery and deliver him. But it would certainly kill her and douse the light— So, no… he wouldn’t.
It was quiet and dark now. The lights were low.
Not so much activity in this place. The pounding of hammers, the buzz of saws, and rumble of trucks… rested at the end of the day.
It was easier to get about. Fewer to see, fewer who looked back. No one asked any questions. It was just the smooth walls and floors, footfalls companion enough. They’d only come to find him again if he went back, yes, but he didn’t mind that so much if there were more of those bananas to be had. His stomach hurt a bit and perhaps eating them all had not been such a clever idea, but there was little else to do in the musty room besides sleep, and that had been unplanned.
He found a dark room when he came back. He’d gone when it was light out, and no one had come in since to turn on the light. The darkness was well and all, but he didn’t fancy banged shins and stubbed toes.
Light.
Let there be light, to quote a quaint old folktale.
His hand still hovered at the switch on the wall when he saw her sitting there staring back at him from the middle of his bed. Arms crossed, legs crossed, like some ancient and petulant little deity awaiting tribute.
Panic guided him, and she chased.
“Doctor, wait…” she called from behind him as he hurried toward the stairwell and a quick escape.
Crashing down the stairs, barely aware of the wood beneath his bare feet, was he flying? Maybe. Fly as fast as possible from this angel, and never touch her, stay as far away—
The world spun and tumbled — a strange moment of stillness mid-fall — until it ended with a fierce, bone-shaking slam, and it was hard and painful and solid against the base of his skull and spine.
Through the glamour and spectacle of exploding nerve endings, he squinted past his foot at the baleful stairs — ready to curse them, but too dazed to find apt enough expletives — when he saw her descend into view.
“Doctor!” he heard her call again, and it troubled him that she liked to do that so often, mostly because that’s who he was.
She knelt, talking quickly, asking more questions, reaching out—
“No,” he commanded her. He’d touched that before, he’d been a part of it, and he’d killed it. He’d destroyed it all, and he wouldn’t again.
He shrank back seeking the cold at his back, shelter, and cover. As cold as cold could be, safe from the burning. Then in stone silence like a shroud fallen upon his soul he watched as she captured his hand and grazed his cheek with the shimmer of a deafening brilliance, original beauty, and light that she shouldn’t know, shouldn’t have ever contained, not for him, never for him.
A promise came in a symphony of warmth across his skin, and he closed his eyes and felt the grace of a kiss across his brow— a whisper of eternity and chaos. All of it washing down on his consciousness; all that was, all that would be, every timeline, all possibilities, realities, at once in a frantic storm of awareness.
She held it for him — all of it. She’d stolen the soul of the Vortex. She’d punched a hole through time and space — for him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rose heard the shuffle in the hall, approaching the open door, and prepared. Her heart raced, her intentions ill-formed. She realised then that she should have waited down the corridor and watched for the Doctor to return, not simply sit here like a gargoyle waiting for him in the dark. What was it she’d been thinking—?
The light was on. He’d looked at her — come back from wherever he’d gone for so long — and expected no one would be there. Shock turned quickly to panic. And he ran.
Chasing the Doctor hadn’t been part of the plan, nor causing him to fall down the stairs in the process. Rose stopped, she waited at the top of the landing, calling down to him, and then heard the tumble, a horrible sound like stones against the wood below.
“Doctor!” she cried out when she saw him crumpled against the wall.
Rose went to him, “It’s okay. It’s okay. Are you hurt?” He shrank away, his hands beating and twisting in the air, fending off unseen terrors descending. “I’m sorry,” she said, and eased closer, gently winning the battle for control over his hands.
“No,” he pleaded.
She tried to marshal her strength, enough for them both, but it was so hard to see him this way. She laid a hand across his cheek and felt heat and moisture mingling there beneath her palm, heard him moan. “I won’t hurt you,” she whispered with a kiss to his forehead.
And she felt it pour over her, searing her heart and mind, an inrush of senses that were stark and frightening, filled with helplessness. The war was still raging for him, the fighting, the bitter battles waged.
Rose pulled back with a gasp and saw him look up at her, his eyes brighter than before.
He worked his mouth unsuccessfully trying to put something into words until finally he managed with a tremendous sound of astonishment, “Rose.”
“Yes,” she cried, overwhelmed and trembling.
He pulled free of her grasp and touched her face, astonished. “It’s in you — what did you do?”
“What is? I don’t understand?”
He darted his gaze away, looking at a far-off point, a sudden thought. “Just enough electrical stimulus,” he declared, “It’s gone all wrong, a programmed breakdown of the cell walls—" he looked back to her. “The TARDIS. Need to find it. Yes, the TARDIS, Nyssa will know what to—" he hesitated in thought again, “No,” he breathed, and began to get up. “They’re all gone.”
“Doctor,” Rose said, helping him to his feet, “where is the TARDIS?”
He looked at her. “Don’t you know?”
Rose shook her head. “No.”
“That makes two of us. It’s got to be here somewhere.” He winced and clutched his forehead. “Too many,” he exclaimed. “There are so many of them…”
“What? Voices? Do you hear voices?”
He pulled away, looking at her wildly. “Those too! Yes, but it’s all this interference,” he declared and looked up, searching the air. “There’s so much and it’s not just you.” He looked back down at her again, so much animation in his face. “Myelin. How’d you possibly know? Never mind…” he squeezed his eyes shut again. “Won’t last long anyway. There was a lot, though.”
“Just try to focus,” Rose urged him. “Do you know how you came here?
He cocked his head and gave her an incredulous look. “In the TARDIS of course, what you think, by rail?”
“Mum was right,” she muttered to herself.
“But I shouldn’t be here at all.” He said and Rose looked back up at him, her chest seizing. “This regeneration, it should have never…” his words dropped away as fearful sorrowfulness clouded his eyes. “It burned. It all burned.”
“The war,” she realised, “Did you come here from the war?”
The Doctor looked away, a shameful look overtaking his face. “I didn’t have to do anything,” he said, his voice as distant as the look in his eyes. “Couldn’t make me. No,” he said, and Rose saw his eyes brimming with tears. “But I did. And we all did.” He looked at her, penitent. “I tried.”
“Yes, you did.” Rose had sensed his grief transferred to her and sensed the formidable will in him to do what was right and stop it all.
He pulled away, falling back against the wall. “It had to stop!” He shouted. “It’s so loud.”
“Doctor…”
His face contorted in a mask of anguish. "Just make it stop!” He cried out again, crumpling to his knees on the floor. “Just make it stop!" He cried out, his body coiling with inner torment.
Rose knelt and tried to comfort and calm him, hearing someone call from the stairway above, “What’s the matter down there?”
She didn’t answer, she didn’t know how, and just held the Doctor in her arms, listening to the attendant coming down the stairs.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The halls of Lambeth Hope felt longer, dimmer, and more still than Mickey Smith had imagined. Despite how softly he stepped, his footfalls sounded deafeningly loud — an intrusion on Rose’s still form, seated along the corridor wall just outside one of the rooms.
She took no notice of his approach, absently chewing her thumbnail, her gaze fixed on a distant patch of floor.
She looked tired and older than she should.
He stood before her, concerned. “You all right?”
Rose looked up like she’d come up out of a dream. “Yeah,” she answered softly, and stood.
Mickey almost didn’t get the rucksack out of his hand before she folded into his embrace. She wasn’t crying, but he knew she was upset, overwrought, trembling.
A beat passed before he spoke, avoiding the questions clamouring to be asked. “I brought the things you asked for.”
Stepping back, she smiled thinly in gratitude. “Thank you,” she said, taking the rucksack and depositing it on the seat against the wall.
Frustrated, anger seeping in, Mickey had to ask— “What’s happened?”
Rose shook her head. “He… the Doctor, he was…” she hesitated, shaking her head as she tried to make sense of it. “It was like he suddenly switched on, almost making sense one moment and the next he just… fell apart,” she explained. “They gave him something to sedate him. Said they hadn’t had to do that since he was first brought here.”
“You really goin’ to stay here,” he said, failing to keep the irritation from his tone. “With him as unstable as he is?”
“He’s sedated,” she retorted. “Besides he hasn’t tried to hurt me.”
“Yet.”
Rose just looked at him. “He won’t. He’s hurting inside, and he’s confused is all.”
“What if he confuses you for some monster or something? Then what?”
“Stop it, Mickey,” Rose scolded him. “He knows what’s happening to him. He said something about a breakdown—a programmed breakdown.”
“Nervous breakdown?”
“No, it’s not like that. Not with him. It’s… it’s different. And we’ve got to find the TARDIS. He said we had to find it.”
“I’ve looked,” Mickey declared. “I followed the course of the rift fractures, went out from where he’d been picked up. How hard could it be to find an old blue police box? Right? Pretty hard, especially if it’s nowhere nearby to be found.”
“What do you mean?”
Mickey shook his head. “I don’t think it’s in the city. In fact, I don’t think it’s anywhere near London.”
“Why?”
“There’s something happening in the West Country, not far from Cardiff. The whole area’s flooded because of the ice cap melt— crews trying to pump the water back out, but the machinery— huge two-ton pumps just disappearing.”
Rose blinked. “Okay, but what’s that got to—”
“—To do with the TARDIS? I know. But it’s not just the pumps, Rose…there’s cattle gone missing, and all this old stuff just appearing out there, and things that no one recognizes. The energy levels are off the charts in that area.” Mickey looked at her, never more sure of what he was about to say, “I think there’s another rift, and I think it’s out there in the countryside somewhere.”
Rose stared at him, stunned. “What?”
“Yeah,” he breathed. “I went back over your work, and the places you’d identified in the London area as those affected by the Cardiff rift, they trace back along energy lines that feed right into that area.”
“But he was found here in London.”
Mickey looked away, unable to look at her. He’d discovered ugly truths that he knew would be hard if not impossible to tell her.
Rose considered his avoidance. “Wasn’t he?”
“The place where the Doctor was found, here in London,” Mickey began, and looked away again. “It’s… a dumping ground. For the sick, the broken — people left behind after the Cyber event. The ones no one wanted to deal with. Or couldn’t.”
He saw the pain pass into her expression, realization, and memory blending into one.
“He… could’ve been picked up anywhere and… left there.”
“I’m going to the West Country, Rose.” Mickey announced. “I think the TARDIS could be out there somewhere.”
Rose turned a thoughtful look toward the room. Mickey looked away, feeling a pang, he thought he’d put away.
“I’ll start out in the morning,” Mickey told her and took a step back before she turned to look at him. “I’ll call you if I find anything.”
“Call me anyway.”
Mickey smiled. “Don’t I always?”
Rose held up the rucksack. “Thanks again. I appreciate you doing this. All of it.”
“What are friends for?” he bravely quipped and took another step back.
“Be careful.”
“You too, Rose.”
Mickey turned and started towards the lift, leaving Rose to return to the Doctor’s room.
Neither noticing the figure that lingered at the edge of the shadowy stairwell — listening and silently slipped away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rose stepped back into the room and glanced toward the bed.
He lay with his back to her, silhouetted by the amber light on the table — his position unchanged since she’d gone out to call Mickey. She felt a heartrending sort of contentment — that at least the sedative had brought him peace.
No dreams, she thought, and quietly settled her bag on the floor. Hearing only the soft rhythm of his breath, she unzipped the bag to begin an inventory of the items Mickey brought.
“Hello?” she heard the Doctor’s voice, thick and groggy. She hesitated, was he speaking in his sleep? When she looked, she saw him lifting to glance around. “Rose?”
“Yes.” She answered quietly, moving into the light, into his view.
He struggled to focus. “Don’t you have a life?” he asked with a lopsided grin and slumped back onto the pillow.
She went to the bedside and settled next to him. “Had one once.”
A faint, pleased smile touched his mouth as she began to gently stroke his cheek, smoothing the unruly growth of beard. “Was it a good one?” his question, a sleepy curiousness floating above a dream.
Rose bit her lip. Those echoes hurt her heart. “Yeah… it was.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBC
Chapter 8: Butterflies
Summary:
The Doctor has survived the impossible — but he’s not the man he was. Half-mended, half-lost, and wearing a jumper with the tag still on, he wanders a children’s ward where laughter and strange shadows mix.
Rose watches him carefully, afraid to hope, afraid not to. Something is wrong — with him, with her, with the world itself.
Meanwhile, far across flooded moorlands, Mickey Smith climbs a wind-blown hill in search of a fairy tale. What he finds instead is very real… and very much about to be taken away.
And when a child sees butterflies dancing in the air around the Doctor, Rose begins to understand: they were never meant to be here.
Not in this universe.
Notes:
The Doctor isn’t healed, but he’s present. Rose isn’t whole, but she’s hopeful. Mickey isn’t lost, but he’s about to be overwhelmed. This will feel like a deep breath before the plunge, but the air tastes like static.
I live for these moments between the Doctor and Rose. Just quiet, strange, funny, and broken moments between two people who mean the world to each other — even if one of them doesn’t quite remember how or why. Here in Chapter 8, both Rose and the Doctor are pretending — just a little — that things might be okay. That’s the beating heart of Try. It’s the hangover of survival.
The lovely attendant, who I never named (in my head her name is Coop, my downstairs neighbor from Kenya, I hear her laugh late at night when talking to family back home, it’s a wonderful sound. And she calls me Miss P)… anyway, my attendant here, she reminds me of the woman in my great-grandmother’s hospital room who told a little chubby 12-year-old not to eat her granny’s lunch… but my great-grandmother shared without me asking.
And a geeky name FYI… Hubert is a Germanic name that translates to “Bright Mind.”
Chapter Text
Try
Infinity’s Child
Part 8: Butterflies
by PR Chung
The shock of existence came with a sudden burst of awareness.
Light. Sound.
With a gasp, he snapped his eyes open, immediately squinting against the light of morning streaming through the barred window.
Alive. Again.
Why? Memories, visions, knowledge, and familiarity that came with sudden inexplicable emotions all rushed through his mind like the residue of a dream, but he'd not dreamed.
Disoriented, he blinked against the sunlight and disharmony pounding away at his mind, trying to tear at the fragile work done to replace and rebuild the decimated cells. He could already sense frayed synapses were repaired enough that he could block out the deafening energy signals that he'd been fighting for… how long? How long had this been… he wasn't certain anymore.
Thoughts were murky, but he could sense increased clarity returning to his mind and with it whispers and impressions conveyed, transferred in a touch.
Movement.
He sensed the most infinitesimal movement, the flutter of a pulse, the reflexive spasm of muscle.
Not his own.
Alarmed, he sat up and looked down at the delicate hand clasped with his. He nearly jerked away but stopped and slowly looked around at the woman sleeping precariously on the edge of the narrow bed next to him.
He watched her sleep, the subtle scent of her all around him, fascinating him with a familiarity that should not have been familiar at all.
His gaze dropped again, focused on his hand and hers, clasped. How curious was the notion that… he took particular joy in clinging to this young creature's hand.
He watched her and sensed so much, far more than he should. This knowledge, like shadows passing across the back of his mind, fascinating and frightening.
Guilt and shame weighed on his mind, and he turned away from her. For everything he had done, he did not deserve such emotions.
He slipped his hand from her slowly and immediately sensed the absence of the diffused power she contained.
Stepping away from the bed, he looked back at her, marvelling at how in sleep her body defied gravity, with parts of her precariously hovering over the side of the mattress.
He set aside his bemusement, leaning to look at her.
She was… a key to his past, his future, an anchor to the present and what shreds of sanity he had left. It was what he could not find in the madness that she had delivered; not the grace of death he'd longed for, but a gentle restoration.
Even as his thoughts cleared, the nightmare burden of truth and loss lingered — and would for a very long time.
History split open and laid to waste. Entire civilizations wiped clean from time and space.
There had been no dignity in it. Only silence and fire.
So many noble minds turned to butchery.
And he… was cast as the executioner.
Doomed to fail even in dying with his kind.
He closed his eyes to it, shutting out the light, the absolution resting before him innocently. He turned away, lost in dark thoughts. He walked without seeing his path until he toed something soft that toppled over before him onto the floor.
Looking down, he found things that spilled out from a rucksack and knelt to inspect them. Clothes and toiletries of no great novelty he discovered, hesitating only briefly when he noticed the pair of pink knickers peeking up at him through the mélange of items. And then the reflection of himself drew his gaze. Like a photograph of a stranger.
Picking up the compact mirror knocked open in the spill he looked at himself ponderously.
He touched his face, a face he didn't recognize.
He understood now with more clarity than before, when his mind was breaking down, devouring itself cell by cell, what was happening.
A part of him had known all along, and controlled it, slowed it. A normal process of cell deterioration accelerated out of control, programmed death set in motion by a blast of energy that tore through the vortex and overtook a lone Time Lord and his ship, disrupting a regeneration that should have never happened.
He shouldn't be here.
He should be dead.
He glanced back at the sleeping form on the bed.
Shouldn't he?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At first, all she saw was a wall — then the edge of the bed, where she was nearly falling off. Disoriented, Rose had no idea where she was.
Pushing herself up and back against the metal frame, she blinked away sleep, slowly recognizing the hospital room. She’d planned to stay, but she'd not even considered trying to fit herself next to him on the narrow bed. With a start, she looked around the room, her momentary self-consciousness displaced by concern when she did not see the Doctor.
“Hello.” Hearing the Doctor’s voice, Rose looked around until she caught sight of him past the end of the bed, where he was squatted down and peeking back at her from beyond the frame.
"Hello," he repeated, extending his long neck to look over the frame and smile.
"Doctor?"
"You like to say that a lot," he said, straightening to his full height.
Rose moved off the bed, straightening her clothes. "I thought you were gone again."
"Yes," he said with enthusiasm that seemed out of place, "so did I. Imagine my surprise."
"How are you feeling?" she asked, tentatively moving closer. His gaze kept sliding away from hers, and she could sense nervousness radiating off him like heat.
"Been better. Can't remember when, but I'm nearly certain of it."
"You look better," she remarked, coming a bit closer. She noticed his colour had improved and then saw the mirror in his hand and the spilled bag at his feet.
"A bit exaggerated here and there, but I can get used to it," he said and made a flourished gesture of his hand toward his head. "Could be worse." He frowned into a thought, then shrugged and handed her the mirror. "I think."
"You're still not making much sense."
"And probably won't for a while," he announced and tapped a long finger to his temple. "Synapses are still breaking down and probably won't stop for a while yet either."
"Why?"
"Bungled regeneration," he said and grinned a manic grin that pulled at his neck. "A bit half-baked, me. You'll just have to pick out the pieces that make sense. Won't be a lot. At least, not until I can block out all these excessive energy signals. Need to get to the TARDIS."
"Do you remember where it is?"
"No." He darted his gaze at the floor, then left and right in thought. Instinctively, Rose started to reach out to steady him as he seemed to struggle to pull his thoughts together. “I was brought here. I didn't control this." He looked up at her, his eyes searching hers with a wild look of wonder. "I couldn't. And you…Like you. But…"
Rose shook her head, confounded. "But what---?"
"Good morning, Mr. John…" A melodious voice sounded at the door.
Rose and the Doctor turned to see a female attendant peeking in at them with a bright smile and glowing cocoa skin, a breakfast tray in her hands. "So good to see you up, Mr. John."
The Doctor eagerly watched as she came into the room.
"Just enough for one," she warned as she brought the tray in and glanced between the two of them, lingering with an arched brow on Rose. "Miss can take breakfast downstairs if she cares. Plenty to go around now."
"I'm fine, thank you," Rose told her.
"I trust you not to share,” she told the Doctor, and then scolded Rose, “Mr. John, he needs to eat all his food to be strong.” She sat the tray on the table and shook a finger at Rose over it, “No sharing.”
“Now where’s the fun in that,” the Doctor interrupted and moved to inspect the tray eagerly. He joyfully laughed as he plucked a banana from the tray and held it up. "Fantastic, just what I need," he declared and planted a kiss on the attendant's forehead. "I'll need more. Actually, no, just the potassium, yes! Will you do that?"
The attendant looked at him, surprised. "You're talkin'?"
"Yes! Isn't it fantastic? Now, the potassium, tablets and lots of them, it's terribly important." He urged her, motioning toward the door. "Go on now."
The woman looked back at him with rounded eyes. "You'll make yourself sick."
"No, that's just it, completely the opposite. It's just what the doctor ordered. It's putting back in what the cells have been pumping out. Myelin and lots of it,” he declared, grinning madly. “All those thirsty basal dendrites soaking it up, making the synapse cell walls fat and happy!"
The attendant looked around at Rose, perplexed. "Bananas I can do," she said before starting for the door. "You tell his doctor all the rest."
The attendant left, leaving a ringing sort of silence in the room, and Rose glanced at the bedside table and saw the bananas she'd brought the day before were gone. She turned and watched the Doctor happily peel and gobble down the banana. "You ate all of those I brought too, didn't you?"
He raised his brows and nodded at her with a mischievous look; his cheeks stuffed with banana.
"And…" She broke off and shook her head. "First tea and now bananas," she muttered to herself and watched as he settled himself and dug into the rest of his breakfast with satisfaction. As usual with the Doctor, the seemingly senseless became completely plausible somehow.
“Drank the tea too,” he announced proudly. “Tell your mum thanks. Oh, and sorry ‘bout the posies.”
"Right," she said as she knelt to gather up the things spilled from the rucksack, hesitating over the pink knickers.
Leave it to Mickey to go that extra step in packing for her. Cramming the offensive garment back into the bag, she went on, "Aside from your exceptionally confusing biology, which we should probably keep to ourselves as much as possible, we still need to figure out how you got here and how to get you back to where and when it is you belong…"
“And just where or when might that be?”
Rose stopped and looked up at him. “I hoped you could tell me that.”
Discomfort crossed through his expression before he turned deliberate attention to his food. “Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t think I belong anywhere anymore.”
Rose closed her eyes, remembering the black and warped suicidal hate she’d sensed when she touched him in the stairwell.
So much pain and loneliness pressed down on him, bleeding his pride and control away. He was alone after the war. His planet and his race were gone. He had nowhere to call home, except for the TARDIS.
“S’all right--” She laboured for a mellow tone, reminding herself to take it slow with him, and stood. “But you don’t belong in hospital.”
“Not so bad really once you get used to it,” he muttered sarcastically and glanced around at the austere room. “Can think of worse places I’ve been.”
“S’pose you can. But you’ve got better things to do.” She stepped closer, and when he looked up at her she reached out and lightly brushed away crumbs caught in the hairs on his chin. “There’s an entire universe waitin’ for you to save it from itself.”
“Which one?” he asked and stared back at her in waiting silence.
“Why’d you say that? Which one— I haven’t told you…”
“Maybe you talk in your sleep.” He tilted his head and looked at her, a brow cocked.
Rose felt herself blush. “Guess I was more tired than I thought.” She laughed, momentarily embarrassed. She shook her head. “Last night, something happened. I sensed these thoughts that were… They weren’t mine. They were yours.” Rose stopped and looked into his eyes that were like summer lightening. “The same thing happened for you, didn’t it?”
“Yup.”
“How?”
“Don’t know,” he said and turned his gaze downward.
Rose didn’t believe him. There was something he wasn’t telling her. Perhaps something he didn’t know how to tell her. He just needed time to get things sorted out.
She turned and picked up the rucksack. “I’m going to clean up. Will you not run off and disappear if I’m gone for a bit?”
“Where d’you think I’d go? Ipswich?”
Rose turned and frowned at him, the corner of her mouth quirking. “What was that?”
“Nothin’. Go on,” he gestured toward the door with his fork. “Down the hall to your right, second door on the left.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With the cry of the wind in his ears and the sound of his own breathing that was still heavy from his climb, Mickey Smith looked out on a vivid patchwork of green and blue that stretched to the horizon in all directions.
With the wind whipping around him, Mickey felt ten feet tall and filled with an enchantment he hadn’t felt since he was a child. This was a land like those he’d dreamed of as a boy, his imagination then full of magic and fantasies populated by giants and ogres, fairies and armoured knights wielding incredible weapons.
Getting here almost seemed like accomplishment enough after a journey over unmarked roads, nearly ending when he’d turned a blind curve and almost rammed an ambling combine harvester.
And finally ending here after a flatboat ferry moored and deposited him below the hill he now stood atop. But his purpose wouldn’t be served until he found what he believed was here.
Squinting against the abrasive wind, Mickey turned to look at the medieval monastery tower looming at his back; it was a solitary spire he’d seen from a distance and almost thought at first was the very curiosity he’d come to find, the TARDIS.
He’d first seen the monolithic landmark from the road, just before leaving his car and taking the ferry across the flooded levels, the boat following the now unclear route of an overflowing canal, erased by flood waters bleeding across the land, reducing towns to isolated and all-but-abandoned islands.
The ferryman said the tower stood watch over those who’d stayed in the area in the hope of reclaiming their land once the water was drained away.
These same few holdouts in the surrounding towns, refusing to be evacuated, relying on the flatboats for deliveries, were those who’d reported the mysterious occurrences in the area. The ferryman himself told Mickey about strange things that he’d seen and felt. Most fascinating was the man’s description of earthquakes and blue lightning that shot up from the ground. He’d seen that sort of thing before.
Mickey swallowed, forcing down his idle wonderment, and pulled a pair of binoculars from his rucksack to begin scanning the area below. He swept over his view of the east and north and saw nothing. As he walked around the tower to examine the other direction, he could already hear the distant beating sound of helicopters.
On his first pass with the binoculars, he immediately noticed the work underway to remove huge pieces of pumping machinery that had turned up in the moors.
Massive, unmarked helicopters hovered in the distance, stretched out Sky cranes and chunky Merlins, working in unison, cables dangling down, being attached to the bulky machines mired in the wetlands.
There were crews on the ground and hovercrafts that kicked up a fine mist. Some were preparing to attach the cables and get the metal hulks unstuck. The sight below him outside the village was a strenuous undertaking that captivated Mickey’s attention until he noticed more of the aircraft moving through the area, payloads swinging from their undersides as they thundered away to destinations unknown.
He backtracked the helicopter’s point of origin and was startled when he saw Torchwood vans lining the road leading out of one of the villages below.
Throughout the area, on dry mounds of soil, even in the middle of pooled water perched on protective stilts, equipment was set up around stark white tents and objects covered in tarps. Torchwood personnel were struggling to set right tents and secure tarps that had blown loose, while others attached cables to tarp-covered objects, readying them to be spirited away.
And then—
There it was! He dropped the binoculars, squinting into the distance a second before he lifted them to his eyes again—Yes! He did see it.
Among the scattered shapes, one tarp had fallen away — and there it was.
Peculiar. Perfect. Utterly out of place.
A most unremarkably remarkable blue police box.
Familiar as breath, as memory.
Mickey stood watching, his heart racing, his breath coming fast.
His stomach flipped.
It was right there.
Real.
Solid.
Familiar in a world that wasn’t.
He lowered the binoculars, a terrible realization setting in as he watched the helicopters lifting away the other objects in the area.
“They’re nicking it!” he shouted against the wind and lunged forward, sending himself into a pell-mell run down the steep slope.
The wind in his ears, his lungs burning and his clothes soaked from a graceless and careless trip across land ankle deep in mud and in water, Mickey rushed into the Torchwood encampment just as they were about to haul the TARDIS into the air.
“Oi! Wait!” Mickey shouted over the deafening throb of the helicopter blades overhead, squinting against the spray of water the downdraft threw into the air from the standing flood waters surrounding the patch of dry earth the TARDIS was settled on.
He thrust his credentials up and into the view of the startled Torchwood personnel looking back at him. “You can’t move that!”
They stared back at him, field jackets flapping in the wind, eyes round behind their protective goggles.
“Why not?” shouted one of the men.
“Cause…” Mickey trailed off, searching frantically for an excuse. First, he didn’t know where they were taking it and, second, there was no telling what the hell could happen if they moved it. “Moving it could cause an energy disturbance--”
“It’s just an old police box.”
The tension in the cables increased and the TARDIS jolted as the Sky crane began to hoist it away to places unknown.
“Stop the air lift! Now!” Mickey shouted.
“On whose authority?” the same man demanded to know, and grabbed Mickey’s ID. “You’re only a level four, Mr. Smith.”
There was a beat, everything stilled, and Mickey Smith sensed his control of the situation was slipping from his grasp. Who the bloody hell was he to demand anything?
“Peter Tyler!” Mickey snapped, gripping his ID tighter, driving the name home like a hammer. “By the authority of Peter Tyler, stop this airlift now!”
The man, the team leader Mickey could only assume, hesitated, and then looked upwards. He held the radio close to his mouth and began to wave his arms as he called off the lift.
“Avalon one to Lift four, ease down! I repeat, ease down. Abort. Repeat, we are aborting the lift.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Using that shower reminded me of when I was in gymnastics…” Rose broke off when she saw the attendant making the Doctor’s bed. “Where’s he gone?” she asked after a quick glance around.
“Just downstairs, on the next floor, in the paediatrics rec room. His mates came to get him,” the woman explained. “They were terribly excited ‘bout the new video games just delivered, and the new big-screen telly to play them on.” The woman leaned forward, and, with a smile, she added, “Top of the line.”
Rose nodded, feeling a bit confounded. The Doctor had run off with kids to play video games, and her father was supplying the hospital with entertainment systems. Meanwhile, somewhere there was possibly a cosmic hourglass running out of sand. Yes, everything was perfectly normal.
“Don’t think the kids knew what to make of Mr. John.”
“Why?”
“The children were always the ones who coaxed him out of his room when no-one else could, but he hadn’t talked much to them. Don’t think they knew how to react when they heard him carrying on so.”
Rose smiled. “Leave it to him to out-talk children.”
Rose thanked the attendant and followed the woman’s directions to the recreation room, where she could hear the sound of children playing even before she opened the door.
Inside, it looked like Christmas morning — children and grownups crowded around the new games and toys. Everyone was smiling and having more fun than Rose imagined they’d had in a very long while.
At the far side of the room, a large group crowded around the huge television set, everyone eager for a turn at the game controls. Everyone except for the Doctor, who seemed happy enough to just sit by on the sidelines and watch.
Rose smiled at the sight of him wearing one of the jumpers that her mum had brought, a light green one with the price tag still attached and poking up from the back like a flag.
A wild round of cheers and laughter went up from the kids surrounding the television. Rose watched the younger kids revel in their win over the older ones, collapsing in a spate of silly giggles, the oversized glasses for the game nearly tumbling from their faces.
Rose gave the game another glance, her eyes feeling strained by the ghostly double images that it produced.
"A little jiggery pokery should do it," Rose heard the Doctor say, and turned to see him focused on something in his hands, a small puzzle toy he seemed very intent on doing adjustment or repair to for the anxious boy standing at his side.
She watched as he grinned and triumphantly returned the toy to the boy, who turned without a word and hurried off. Before Rose knew it, another child was hovering near the Doctor's side, but only to swat playfully at the tag dancing in the air above the jumper collar.
"Hubert, c'mon!" the other children called the boy, who was wearing the game glasses.
"Go on." The Doctor scolded Hubert for making the others wait on him. "Play your game."
"You have them too!" the boy declared cheerfully and began to swat at the air around Rose.
"I have what?" she laughed.
The boy laughed, "The butterflies!"
Rose looked at the boy for a second, speechless, and then asked, "Can I see?"
She reached for the glasses and reluctantly he gave them to her. Rose put them on and turned to look at the Doctor. He grinned back as if she were about to take a photo of him, but Rose just stilled.
Floating like ethereal confetti was an aura of background radiation around the Doctor.
"What?" he asked, his smile dropping away when Rose took the glasses off.
Sensing something, the Doctor took the glasses from her and put them on, paying no attention to the kids reprimanding them for holding up the game.
After a moment, he took the glasses off and handed them to one of the kids, never taking his eyes off Rose, his expression unreadable.
"That's void stuff 'round you, Doctor." Rose breathed.
"Background radiation," he corrected her quietly. "It's around you, too."
In the midst of all the racket and activity around them, Rose and the Doctor looked at each other in knowing silence.
Rose knew she wasn’t a part of this universe, and now she and the Doctor knew he wasn’t either.
The sound of her mobile jolted Rose from the numbed shock that had washed over her like icy water. She turned away from the Doctor’s gaze and answered, hearing Mickey’s excited voice.
“Rose! I found it! I found the TARDIS. But they’re ‘bout to haul it out here.”
There was incredible noise on the line, nearly drowning out his voice even though she knew he was yelling. “Who, Mickey? Who’s about to take it?”
“Torchwood!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBC
Chapter 9: What Will You Tell Her?
Summary:
Trapped in a parallel universe, the Doctor’s memories are fractured and his regeneration failing — he is barely holding himself together. Rose Tyler clings to the fragments of the Time Lord she once knew, even as Torchwood’s secrets spiral toward danger. In the West Country, a recovery mission uncovers more than just alien wreckage, and Pete Tyler grapples with the terrifying consequences of the Doctor’s presence. Rose must decide if saving him means losing him once again. In the shadows, a new threat moves in — one that sees compassion as weakness, and love as a liability. Somewhere between memory and destiny, a choice must be made.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Try
Infinity’s Child
Part 9: What Will You Tell Her?
By PR Chung
“Lambeth Hospital.”
With stony calm, Pete Tyler turned from the panoramic observation window overlooking Torchwood’s largest testing lab. “Pardon me?” he said to Brett Jones, who had approached in silence.
A slow smile spread across Jones’s mouth. “Your philanthropy is becoming little less than legend in certain circles.”
Pete turned back to the window, focusing on the lab below. “And what circles are those?”
“Word gets around about a place like Lambeth. A rebellious institute taking in the outcasts, hardly operating one minute, and the next they’re fully staffed and supplied with state-of-the-art equipment.”
“Lambeth Hope needs recognition and support to continue its valuable work for the community.”
“And Torchwood.”
Pete looked around at Jones again, considering the man before responding. “If they choose.”
“Again,” Jones repeated, his tone heavy with implication. “You mean again. According to the records Lambeth Hope was the premiere centre for Cybermen collection and study, working closely with Torchwood until they just stopped cooperating and refused to provide as little as the numbers they were taking in.”
“Sounds like you’ve been burning the midnight oil, Brett. What’s this all about?”
Jones shook his head slightly, his expression bemused as he let his gaze lazily drift over the activities in the lab below them. “Just curious why a hospital with a distrust of Torchwood is suddenly of such interest.”
Pete gave a slight shake of his head, his tone measured. “Time to start rebuilding bridges. Lambeth Hope made tremendous strides in cyber recovery and easement programs before they were taken advantage of.”
“Torchwood had better research facilities then, before the Cybermen infiltrated.” Jones glanced at the object in the centre of the lab again, the corner of his mouth drawing up in a furtive smile. “And better testing facilities.”
Pete looked down at the lab and studied the activity of the workers below. Dressed in protective suits, the technicians hovered around the unidentifiable machinery positioned at the centre of the room.
Alien tech recently recovered from the West Country — just one more artefact from the Rift. It wasn’t the only find, but it was the first to reach the labs. This was Project Avalon in action.
With her expertise and intuition, Pete would have preferred Rose overseeing it, but she had other things to tend to presently. He knew she wouldn’t be able to focus on anything until the matter of the Doctor was taken care of.
“Mastering findings like that will establish Torchwood’s prominence once again,” Jones said with a tinge of hunger in his tone that sent a shiver down Pete’s spine. That was the sort of thinking and zeal that led to the corruption of Torchwood in the past, before Lumic, before the Cybermen. Pete had worked too hard to allow anything like to happen again.
Before Pete could respond, Jones’s mobile rang. A second later, Pete’s did too.
Rose’s voice cut through, sharp and accusing. “What is Torchwood doing in the countryside south of Bristol?”
“Rose—how—? I thought you were focused on other things. I didn’t think you’d be able to oversee—” Pete trailed off, distracted by Jones raising his voice on the other side of the room.
“Who the hell authorised that?” Jones snapped into his phone, turning crimson.
“Why is Torchwood trying to take the TARDIS?” Rose pressed, louder now.
“The—?” Pete lowered his voice, “Rose, listen, you’ve clearly got more information than I do. Just—tell me what’s happened.”
“Mickey called me,” she said. “He stopped a Torchwood team from hauling the TARDIS out of the countryside. Had to tell them you ordered them to stand down before they’d even listen.”
Pete blinked. “He did what?”
“Why’s Torchwood even out there?”
Jones spun, glaring across the room as he stormed toward Pete. “What the hell is going on?” he barked. “Why did you call off the airlifts at Avalon?”
“Who’s that?” Rose asked.
“I’ll ring you straight back, Jacks. Can’t talk now.” Pete ended the call and faced Jones coolly. “Problem?”
“I was just told the recovery at Avalon was halted — under your authority.”
Pete kept his tone even. “Rose recommended further study before anything else is moved.”
“Rose?” Jones barked a harsh laugh. “Thought she was too busy playing nursemaid at Lambeth to do her job.”
Pete wheeled on him. Jones instinctively took a step back. “What the hell are you doing?” Pete demanded, low and dangerous. “Are you spying on my daughter?”
Jones straightened, steel slipping into his expression. “Isn’t that why I was put in charge of Avalon? Because she’s too distracted?”
Pete narrowed his eyes. “You are hardly in control of anything Mr. Jones, including yourself.”
“Don’t underestimate me, Tyler,” Jones said, and his face split with a dangerous grin before he turned and left.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I have to go,” Rose said and seemed to struggle just to look the Doctor, her voice and features strained by an unmistakable frustration.
His hand found hers like a well-practiced motion as they left the recreation room and started towards his room.
Rose mentioned people who the Doctor didn’t know, talked of their plans and actions to be taken. Cohorts and relatives — just names, really — but each one stirred something in him for reasons he couldn’t quite place. The name Mickey drew up jealousy, envy and bemused contempt, while Pete brought out wariness, misgiving and sympathy.
Perhaps it was the crosstalk between spoiled synaptic nerves. But it didn’t feel like it, and he couldn’t deny it. He knew her; he knew her history, their history, in another time and place. He’d had a chance with her in another existence, lost it somehow, and he was helpless against the emotions; everything from that life, absorbed into the vortex and clinging to Rose, transferred to him.
She asked so many questions, and he almost knew the answers. He thought he could almost remember the events that had brought him to the hospital. But what did it matter? The universe had ripped open with all manner of immeasurable violence and clashed with a yearning call across time, across a void, the ebb and flow pulling him to a point he wanted to believe was predestined.
The Doctor remembered waking, still smelling of death and wanting to die, howling screams blistering his mind and chasing him from TARDIS into a black rainy night. His body tingling with the raw nerves of regeneration, he had stumbled out the doors of the TARDIS, blinded by an inferno of tormented visions, and fell under the weight of his guilt into icy water.
He remembered lying face down, begging mercy from anyone and anything to let him drown. His hearts had beat black with rage and hate for himself, for the Daleks, for the Time Lords, who convinced him they could win. How could he win? Even when he cheated, crossed his timeline, broke the laws and twisted the very nature of time, compressing it, warping it, desperate to fix it. He’d do anything to try to stop it, but he’d failed and failed again.
Rose stepped closer, jarring him back to the present, or maybe the future, he didn’t know anymore. He watched her reach out to him in a fluid motion, hugging him tight. “I won’t be long. Promise,” she told him.
There was still dampness to her hair from her shower, and it felt cool against his cheek as he leaned into her embrace. He could hold onto her forever, inhaling her clean scent. The dark and cold that churned inside him Rose cancelled out with her warmth and light.
“I won’t be going anywhere.” He put his hands on her shoulders and put a difficult distance between them. “Not yet.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. She managed a smile for him. “Until I can get you back to the TARDIS.”
He nodded, torn by his need to get back and the understanding that he might not see Rose again.
She tilted her head and pulled her lips inward a second before she gave him a poke in the chest. “Be ready. When I come back, I’ll have this mess sorted.”
The Doctor stood at the door of his room, watching her walk away, her absence seizing him even before she was out of view. And, as she stepped into the lift, he felt the tremors shudder through his body, reminding him the cellular breakdown was still ongoing.
He set out from his room, a single plan in mind as he made his way down the corridor. He didn’t like the options of becoming homicidal or voluntarily returning to a state of catatonia to save his mind from further cellular damage. He had no time to wait for doctors and prescriptions.
One attendant was at the ward desk, studiously paging through a magazine. She didn’t take note of just another patient sauntering past. Once past the desk, the Doctor had a clear path to the ward’s medicine locker. He made quick work of finding the supplements he needed but getting them was another issue entirely.
He worked with some difficulty to unlock the storage door; it had been so long since he’d had to do this sort of thing without the sonic screwdriver. He stopped and frowned in thought for a moment, trying suddenly to remember exactly where he’d left it, and failed. It would certainly turn up. It always did; he mused and went back to work.
Finally, with the bottle of potassium supplements in his hand, the Doctor tucked it under the waistband of his pyjama bottoms and adjusted the jumper to disguise the bulge before he closed the storage door.
“John?” He turned to see the floor attendant. The woman with the blithe tone even when she was scolding untidiness or the lack of personal hygiene. He smiled sheepishly back at her.
“What are you doing back here?” she asked with a playful suspicion in her tone.
“Embarrassed to say really,” he feigned chagrin as he came forward, effectively barring her from going near the medicine storage.
“Really? What could you be looking for that’d embarrass you?”
He leaned close to her, and said with a conspirator’s whisper, “A shave kit.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pete’s car was in the drive when Rose arrived at the Tyler estate. Before she could stop her own car, she saw him coming out the front door to meet her.
“Everything’s taken care of,” Pete greeted her with the news. “The TARDIS won’t be going anywhere unless you give the word.”
Rose felt a sense of relief hearing that. “Brett must be curious about all this. What’s he said?”
Pete gave her a stiff shake of his head. “Don’t concern yourself with him,” he dismissed the mention of Jones, and looked at her speculatively. “How’s the Doctor?”
“He,” Rose began and realised she didn’t know how to even begin to explain. “He’s said this regeneration hasn’t gone the way it should. He’s confused at times, and his memory isn’t the best right now. He’ll be better once we get him back to the TARDIS.”
Pete shook his head slowly, not following that. “Why? What’s that going to do?”
“I suppose it will function as a type of incubator. It’s hard to tell. He hasn’t explained it all to me. I don’t know if he’s really in any condition to,” Rose said, frustrated by her inability to understand what was happening.
“I can arrange for the TARDIS to be brought to London,” Pete offered, almost too eager about it. “Safely and securely.”
“Right. Why go to the country?” She agreed and started toward the house.
Pete stepped to block her way. “Listen, your mother’s inside,” he said, and put his hands on Rose’s arms. She looked at him, taken aback. “She’s worried enough already, and she doesn’t need to hear more talk that’s just going to confuse her.”
“Then I’ll go around,” she told him and pulled her arms from his grasp. “Just need something from the guesthouse anyway.”
She turned to walk away, and Pete fell in step beside her “Do you know yet?” he questioned, anxiousness seeping into his voice. “Do you know if the Doctor belongs here or not?”
“I don’t know for certain,” she answered with a half-truth, and her pace quickened.
“Rose, we’ve got to find out. This is more important now than just one man. It involves all of us, especially Jacks and Ronnie.” The mention of her sister made Rose stop and look around at him.
Pete leaned close and looked back her with pleading in his eyes. “She’s my baby girl. She’s mine and Jacks, and I can’t lose them, or you, Rose. If the Doctor needs to go back and doesn’t, how’s that going to impact you and your mum? If this is the Doctor from your past somehow and he never meets you, will all this just go away? Rose, everything here could end as we know it.”
She faltered in the silence that engulfed them, her heart refusing the logic of frightening visions of non-existence. Pete threw her emotions and reason into a vice, rendering them into a mixture of pain and turmoil.
“Maybe he doesn’t belong in the universe where we came from either,” she said quietly, feeling as if she were making some sort of appeal for herself and the Doctor.
He straightened and glanced toward the house thoughtfully. “I can’t take the risk of finding out.” Silence passed, both deep in thought, until Pete turned back to Rose, speaking softly, urgently. “Rose, I know how important the Doctor is to you, but if he doesn’t belong here, he’s got to go back. There’s no choice.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Returning to Lambeth Hope, Rose hurried — her arm heavy with the leather jacket, her mind heavier still with Pete Tyler’s plea to keep his family safe. She couldn’t believe the universe — or whatever powers governed it, holy or not — could do this to her again.
She’d had a choice once, and she’d made it — gone with the Doctor, given up her family — only for fate to tear it all away anyway. This time, it seemed that there wasn’t any choice.
Rose drew the jacket closer to herself. This was meant to happen, she couldn’t believe different when she held the jacket in her hands. The jacket mistakenly donated, her mum’s fondness for second-hand shops, all of it spiralled down to a point focused on her. She knew she’d been meant to find it. She’d been meant to find the Doctor, and she wouldn’t accept that it was only to lose him again.
Entering the Doctor’s room, she stopped, taken aback by the state of things.
He wasn’t there, and the wall cabinet stood open, with everything heaped at the bottom. The contents of her rucksack were spread out over the bed. He’d been busy while she was gone.
She looked around at the mess and wondered if she should bother repacking it. It wasn’t as if the Doctor was wanting for anything on the TARDIS. His wardrobe, centuries of garments, could outfit several theatre companies and then some.
“Hello, again.”
The sound of his voice was light, reverent.
Taken off-guard, Rose turned, uncertain she’d heard him or imagined it.
He stood just inside the room, hands clasped at his back, a bright grin beaming back at her from a shining clean-shaven face. His eyes danced with the clear glee that he’d surprised her, as if he’d entered the room in mid-thought and that thought was only of her.
She stared, amazed by the sight of him. Bare faced and he’d shorn his hair as short as she recalled him wearing it.
“Hi,” she replied in a breath. “You…” she stammered, swallowing hard before trying to speak again. “You—”
“Clean up nice,” he broke in and rubbed at his jaw. “Yes, if I must say so myself.”
“Yeah,” she murmured and noticed the cocky sway had returned to his stride as he came the rest of the way into the room.
“Looks a bit warm outside for that,” he remarked, dipping his chin towards the jacket draped across her arm.
Rose looked down, remembering it suddenly. “No, I…I brought this for you,” she explained and held it up for him to see.
He studied the jacket briefly, impassively, and then gave her a quick glance as he reached for it. “Thanks.”
The Doctor shrugged into it, adjusted the length of his arms through the sleeves, and smoothed his hands down the front and over the pockets before sticking his hands into them.
He straightened and looked back at her; a self-satisfied smile stretched across his face. “Fits well. Seems to suit me.”
“Don’t you recognize it?”
Guileless, he smiled and shook his head. “Nope. Should I?”
Rose took a shaky breath, disbelief fluttering through her.
Looking so proud, so pleased with himself. He smiled at her like a stranger, wearing the jacket she’d pulled from the wreckage of second-hand shop — a jacket he had lived in once. This was him—anew— her first Doctor. The one who never made her watch him suffer. The one who tried to laugh at the end, so she wouldn’t cry.
“How?” she began, but her question fell away and was replaced with an unbearable truth. She hadn’t found him; she’d created him, gathered pieces of him and put him back together.
Seeing the shift in her, his pleased expression faltered. “What?”
She could barely say it. “You don’t belong here.”
Rose had dared to hope. Foolishly convinced herself she’d found him again, whole and hers. Pete had warned and she refused to believe. She did not shape this Doctor. He wasn’t tempered by her hand in his. Not yet. “You never have.”
“No,” he replied with a solemn honesty.
It was too hard to look at him. It was too hard to look in those eyes and hear that voice and know that with every word they exchanged it become so clear he belonged somewhere else. He wasn’t here for her. He was meant for another person. A young, bored shop girl whose life needed saving.
Amazement seeped into her voice. “You don’t even know me.”
“Oh, Rose, but I do,” he declared with an urgent cheerfulness, stepping forward to take her shaking hands to steady in his own.
“Can’t you feel that?” he shook her hands in his. “Every touch—it’s in you, because you were so determined, so brave— It still clings to you, the power of the vortex. I can hear it, and I can feel it, every time you touch me, guiding me through a lifetime of emotions for us both. All that I was, everything I felt is locked inside that energy, and just enough to steady me.”
He didn’t know her here. Not like before. But he knew her in the way fire knows oxygen — needed her, burned brighter near her. He felt her in the Vortex, the echoes she carried, the pieces of himself she stitched back together with every touch. She hadn’t led him out of the burning darkness — she’d rebuilt the path itself, and continued to, cell by cell. And even if he couldn’t name her history, couldn’t hold the memories she bled for… still, he looked at her like she was gravity.
The Doctor brushed his fingers across her temple, and Rose closed her eyes, tears slipping down her cheeks as he pressed a kiss to her forehead— She hauled in a shuddering breath, feeling the connection surge between them — a tether, reforged, a memory surfacing from centuries of silence.
The wind and the stars, the sun and the moon, everything seemed to burn and spin around them, bright and infinite. And then, just as suddenly, he drew back, and the world held its breath. Stillness returned, but Rose felt the echo of that moment deep in her bones.
"But I’m still breaking,” he admitted — raw, urgent. “I must get to the TARDIS. I’ve got to enter the time vortex to regulate temporal energy—fix this buggered regeneration.”
Rose looked up at him. “Will it take you away from here?”
“Oh yes, very likely.”
She swallowed hard against sobs clustering like stones in her throat. “If you belong there… before we met, that first time… I mean…” Her voice broke, frustrated by how impossible the words felt. She looked up at him through brimming eyes. Not if there was another her — there already was. “What will you tell her?”
And she had brought him back piece by piece — carried him across dimensions in the marrow of her being — only to hand him off to the version of herself who never had to break to do it.
“Nothing,” he answered, his expression as tender as the stroke of his thumb tracing the line of her jaw. “Never needed to.”
The beautiful calm and truth of those words swelled in Rose’s heart. She had missed him so terribly much. All she wanted was to hold him in a world that didn’t shift beneath their feet.
“Right,” she whispered agreement, drawing closer, her face inches from his — close enough to feel the warmth of his breath and the ache behind it.
“How very touching.”
Rose and the Doctor turned toward the voice, yanked from fragile moment between them, an instant snapping like wire.
Jones tilted his head, mock regret curling at the corner of his mouth.
“And so sickening,” he added, louder now. “But predictable. Of course it would end this way, Rose.”
He took a step closer. The soldiers didn’t move. They didn’t have to.
“An alien,” he said, voice sharp and ringing. “You’re holding hands with an alien. In a hospital. In a secure Republic facility. While your father turns a blind eye.”
He clicked his tongue. “I never thought you one for the kinky stuff. But treason? That’s a surprise.”
The Doctor’s jaw tensed. He laced his fingers through Rose’s and squeezed. “Given present company,” he said, voice dry as sand, “I can’t blame her.”
Jones’s eyes darkened.
“Arrogant till the end,” he sneered. “No matter. This farce is over.”
He turned slightly, motioning to his men.
“Take them.”
“What?” Rose gasped as two officers seized her by the arms, jerking her away from the Doctor. “Brett—what are you doing?”
“Taking the proper steps,” he said, “to ensure the security of the People’s Republic of Great Britain. Something your father — bless him — no longer has the stomach for.”
The Doctor took a step forward, and four rifles were immediately trained on his chest, stopping him cold.
Jones walked right up to him, toe to toe, not even blinking. Voice like iron. “You, Doctor, are hereby detained under the authority of the People’s Republic as an alien enemy of Earth.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBC
Notes:
[Edit] Oh please... go back and read the final scene with Rose and the Doctor while listening to 'She' by Elvis Costello... just sayin' it might be beautiful.
Late in the night while reading through this chapter and doing some clean up, I went a little bonkers with my notes... I think I'm a bit passionate about this chapter judging by the following...
The Doctor and Rose are each other’s gravity — cosmic constants in flux.
Rose is the Doctor’s anchor — his memory, his conscience, his hope.She isn’t just a woman he loves. She’s the reason he still exists. The Doctor is hers to lose. Again. She doesn’t cling — she prepares to let go. And that is devastatingly brave.
There are a lot of moments in this chapter that broke me to write.
Rose is preparing herself to be forgotten. Because that’s what love looks like here. Not clinging. Letting go.And the Doctor? He doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t explain. Doesn’t offer comfort.
“Nothing. Never needed to.” That is the Doctor’s love language. Not grand speeches. Not promises. Recognition. Soul-deep. Timeline-shattering. Matter of fact.There might be another Rose, but she is not this Rose.
This is the Rose who ripped the TARDIS apart with her bare hands.
The one who burned to save him.
The one who carries the vortex in her bones — and still wakes up and chooses him.This chapter? I aimed for the entire BBC budget for pain.
Rusty T. Davies handed me his wallet and told me to f*** off.
Chapter 10: Tearing Apart
Summary:
In the West Country, Mickey Smith uncovers the terrifying truth behind the Avalon project, where a dormant Rift threatens to tear time apart… and the TARDIS may be the only thing holding it closed. Meanwhile, Torchwood has lost control. Brett Jones has seized power. And now, the Doctor and Rose are prisoners of a faction that sees compassion as a liability — and the Time Lord as a weapon to be exploited.
The Rift has opened.
And the whole of eternity is not safe.
Chapter Text
Try
Infinity’s Child
Part 10: Tearing Apart
by PR Chung
It all came back to the Doctor, didn’t it?
Mickey Smith asked himself, and decided the question was moot as he stood in the middle of nowhere, his shoes squelching in the muck, completely exposed, and watching the approach of the most menacing storm he thought he’d ever seen.
Billowing clouds of charcoal grey belched up from the west, rolling languid and steady towards the Torchwood encampment surrounding the TARDIS.
It wasn’t much of an encampment anymore, not since nearly everything but a few pieces of monitoring equipment had been hurriedly packed into vans, readied to move on to the next site of interest.
The blue box inexplicably and a bit smugly sitting in the middle of a moor was about to be old news once it was hauled back to London. This time though it was by order of Pete Tyler.
Maybe it was his destiny, Mickey thought, or maybe it was just dumb luck, sometimes it was hard to tell when the Doctor was involved. Mickey knew he’d be back on his Earth, working in the repair shop and watching footie on the telly if it weren’t for the Doctor.
He’d be living an untroubled life, safe and bored. If it weren’t for the Doctor he would have never travelled through time and space, ending up in an alternate universe, where he got his Gran back and helped fight Cybermen, and got a proper job as a data recovery specialist.
Mickey looked down at his muddied shoes and trouser legs. “Yeah, destiny,” he muttered to himself and looked back up at the TARDIS.
Around the blue box, members of the Torchwood team were adjusting straps and cargo netting, fitting the TARDIS for airlift. Off to London with her. Right to the Doctor.
He watched, concerned, ignoring the occasional begrudging glances sent his direction. He’d already caught enough of the team members glares, and heard the odd grumble to know his interference with the airlift wasn’t appreciated. So be it, maybe he’d over reacted, maybe, but he’d had no idea where they had been taking the TARDIS.
Just as hurriedly as the project had been set up, artifacts and alien objects were being swept away by order of Brett Jones. With Rose distracted, Pete Tyler had assigned Jones to the Avalon project, something that they’d all thought was benign, an inconsequential side effect of the Cardiff Rift.
In the brief time Mickey had been on this one site, and seen the collected data, he’d discovered that Jones had recognised something much greater was happening. But more work was focused on taking possession of the objects than any study of the cause of them materializing.
If Jones had been left in charge of the TARDIS being removed from the area Mickey knew there was no telling what would have become of it.
Thunder boomed and set the remaining monitoring equipment into a violent rattle next to Mickey. Feeling just as rattled on the inside as the equipment he looked around at the storm front in time to see lightning stutter through the black-bellied clouds, silhouetting the insect-like shape of the returning sky crane.
It would arrive before the storm hit, but not by much, and if they were lucky at all, they just might get the TARDIS lifted out before the gales came in.
Another rumble of thunder prompted Mickey back to the monitoring equipment. He had little time now to go over the data again before this last station was broken down and packed onto a van.
Mickey wasn’t an expert on rifts, but from the sensor readings he’d gathered, he didn’t need to be one to understand that this area was the source of the energy fluxes, the source of the bizarre materialising, and disappearances.
The lay lines weren’t pointing to this area like he’d thought but jutted out to all points on the compass, etching a creeping trail of odd matter and background radiation.
The Rift wasn’t in Cardiff, it was right here, and on the verge of tearing itself open. The items deposited across the heathland were nothing more than the result of energy burps, minuscule examples of what the Rift could pull out of time and space. But the TARDIS, if it had been pulled through, was the result of a higher scaled power surge, great enough to punch through the void and into another universe.
Another breach like that, for an extended period, could surely cause destruction on a level Mickey didn’t want to consider.
He struggled with the information; grateful the Rift hadn’t broken open but frustrated that he couldn’t tell what was stopping it. If Rose were there, she’d understand all this better. There was a chance she’d understand if he described the data — Mickey thought hopefully, pulling out his mobile.
He hadn’t pressed the speed dial yet when his attention was drawn by the sound of approaching vehicles. A line of army Humvees rumbling their way out of the village and plunging into the open terrain, rugged tires grinding up the soggy soil. Except for cleared wedges across the windscreens, all of the vehicles were covered in mud. They’d travelled a long way through the flooded countryside, diverted from all points.
Mickey slowly lowered his mobile, his gaze tracking the vehicles headed towards the encampment, and the TARDIS.
The lead vehicle came to a loping halt, while the vehicles following fanned out, flanking the area. Activity around the TARDIS came to a standstill as everyone stopped to watch the vehicles empty of soldiers.
As they moved towards the TARDIS the door on the lead vehicle swung open and a thickset man in camouflage fatigues emerged, the badge of the Army’s Special Intelligence Corp cresting his dark green beret.
The officer scanned the area judiciously; his flat gaze steadied on the TARDIS before it shifted to the approaching sky crane in the distance. A look of dull satisfaction passed over the man’s face before he swept his gaze around and settled on Mickey.
“This box, is it a TARDIS?” The officer asked Mickey, making no effort to identify himself.
Another warning voice tickled the back of Mickey’s mind. “Pete Tyler sent you?”
The officer frowned. That wasn’t the answer he’d wanted. Disregarding Mickey, the officer turned to face the Torchwood team members staring back at him. “Is this a TARDIS?” he asked them.
No one said anything for a moment, and then, “Yes.” A woman came forward, giving Mickey a quick nervous glance. “I heard him call it that.”
The officer nodded and gave the rest of the Torchwood team members a circumspect sweep of his eyes. “This TARDIS box is hereby now seized under the Hazard Precautions Act of the Peoples Republic of Great Britain.”
“What?” Mickey came forward. “No, you can’t--”
The officer motioned to his men, an almost imperceptible gesture of his hand, and two of them moved in around Mickey.
“There’s a mistake,” Mickey spoke quickly, panicked as the thudding sound of the sky crane grew louder. “This is supposed to go back to London, to the Torchwood Institute.”
The officer squinted skyward at the approaching helicopter for a moment and then looked at Mickey. “That’s right. It is going to London,” he assured with a tense smile.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rose noted a handful of the agents who had accompanied Brett Jones into the hospital room; she’d worked with them in the past year and a half, but it was obvious that these men were no longer working with Torchwood, and neither was Jones. Rose wondered now if he ever had been truly a part of the Institute.
“Am I being arrested as well?” Rose asked Jones as one of the agents cuffed the Doctor and another took her mobile from her.
Jones hesitated and seemed almost unwilling to answer her question. “Harbouring and aiding an identified hazard to national security.”
“Identified by who?” the Doctor asked.
Jones smiled. “You’ve got quite a reputation, Doctor.”
“Sorry, new here.” The Doctor grinned, audaciously. “Just who are you?”
“Brett Jones,” Rose answered. “Alien Threat Analysis Taskforce. Torchwood.”
“Torchwood?” the Doctor repeated, the agency name lost on him.
Rose glanced at him, realising he wouldn’t know about Torchwood. Not yet. This Doctor hadn’t yet met Queen Victoria. He’d not yet had the chance to impel the stoic matriarch to establish Torchwood. There was no time to explain or sort out the paradoxes of a parallel world.
“The Republic,” Jones corrected Rose. “Torchwood has been relieved of overseeing alien threats now that they’ve let one slip right past them.” He gave her a wink and turned to leave the room, motioning as he did for his officers to follow with her and the Doctor.
“Brett, you’ve made a mistake,” Rose tried to reason with him.
Jones stopped and looked back at her, his eyes narrowed and hard. “Rose, no, you made the mistake here.” He took a step closer to her, his voice lowering. “You should have told me about your Doctor and his TARDIS when you had the opportunity. You could have saved everyone so much trouble. And yourself from looking very foolish.”
Rose stared angrily back at him. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” He may have overheard things, seen things and talked to people, but he would never have all the facts.
“She’s done nothing. Let her go,” the Doctor demanded, the intensity of his voice commanding more attention than could any shout or bellow. Jones looked at him as if taken aback. “It’s me you want. Me and my TARDIS, right?”
“Doctor, no,” Rose warned him, but he didn’t listen.
“Just like the rest. Think you can rule the world with the TARDIS if you can figure it out. Let her go and you won’t have to figure anything out.”
Jones measured him arrogantly. “Compliance?”
The Doctor dipped his chin. “Complete.”
“Don’t,” Rose said in a whisper. She couldn’t allow him to do that. Jones was a stranger to her now, and there was no telling what he could do to get what he wanted.
Jones glanced at Rose. “Dinner doesn’t seem like such a bad idea now, does it?”
She glared at him, disgusted. “Is that what this is about?”
Jones tilted his head and chuckled. “Hardly,” he said, and half turned towards the door, looking back at the Doctor. “Sorry, Doctor, afraid I can’t have our little Rose running round loose right now.”
“Let her go or you’ll get no cooperation from me.” The Doctor’s voice gathered an ire that both worried and bolstered Rose.
Jones nodded, complacent. “There is nothing you can give to me that I cannot take from you whenever I choose.”
He turned to go; his gaze lingered on Rose an instant before motioning to his officers. “Bring them.”
The agents pushed the Doctor and Rose into the hallway, where patients and staff were watching the scene with idle dismay. As she and the Doctor were marched towards the lift Rose saw Dr. Tipton approach Jones in the corridor ahead of them.
Tipton gave Rose and the Doctor an anxious glance as they passed, and then Rose heard him ask Jones, “My wife? Have you found out about my wife?”
“Your wife is dead,” Jones callously replied, sounding annoyed by the man.
Rose twisted to look back and saw Tipton’s dumbstruck expression. He followed Jones, who was headed towards the stairwell.
“But you promised— No,” Tipton declared as if something appalling had just occurred to him. “You promised me--”
Jones stopped at the top of the stairs and turned on Tipton. He shook a warning finger in Tipton’s face, and said something Rose couldn’t make out before she was forced to face forward again.
“Nice bloke,” the Doctor remarked. “Sure you don’t want to have dinner with him?”
“I’d rather starve.” Rose grunted.
An officer went ahead of the others and called for the lift. When it arrived seconds later the doors opened to reveal Jennifer Collier. She appeared frozen for an instant, her eyes growing wide and her jaw falling slack, as she looked out at first Rose and the Doctor, and then the officers.
Clearly shaken and confused, the woman shuffled a step forward, but before she could exit the lift on her own power an officer took her by the arm and guided her out briskly.
“What’s happening?” she asked, and came towards Rose, but she was stopped.
Shoved towards the lift, Rose craned her head to look back at Collier. “Call my father!”
The lift door banged shut with an eerie finality and silence enveloped Rose and the Doctor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Looming overhead, rotor blades beating out a battering wind, the sky crane was in position over the TARDIS. Mickey squinted against the stinging mist the helicopter’s downdraft drew up from standing pools of water surrounding the area, helpless as he watched the soldiers take charge.
He tried to call Rose, but a soldier had taken his mobile away and he was left to stand and watch the TARDIS be carted off. He protested and loudly, until the same soldier took him by the shoulder and had marched him to a distance from the operation.
Now standing back watching, feeling everything inside him clenching, Mickey knew if he could call for help it would be pointless. There was no chance Pete Tyler’s influence extended this far. The government had stepped in and taken over under whose order Mickey had no idea. No one would tell him anything.
Without any idea, all Mickey could think about was what would become of them all if the TARDIS were lost to them, lost to the Doctor.
The cables were secured; the grapplers locked in place. The work done, soldiers stepped back away from the TARDIS. A message went out to the pilot, and the cargo straps stretched as the sky crane motors throttled up. Mickey winced as he listened to the engines whine with strain as the aircraft began lifting the TARDIS.
How heavy was that old box? The abstract question had hardly formed itself in Mickey’s thoughts before it felt like the ground dropped out from under his feet.
Without delay another violent jolt sent him sprawling on the ground. It felt as if everything inside him were vibrating, his ears began to ring, and a crackling sound filled the air all around him.
Laid out completely prone Mickey’s view suddenly exploded as a geyser of blinding argent light erupted before him, rushing skywards, punching a hole straight through the cloud cover and spreading out in shocking veins of brilliant light.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At Lambeth Hope, the Doctor and Rose were forced off the lift at the ground floor and led through the service areas. Kitchen and laundry staff stood back, looking on in wonder, murmurs and whispers, the spread of concern and curiosity following the Doctor and Rose as they were taken outside to the service bay.
Premature night had been brought on by a stormy sky, and the rumble of distant thunder accompanied the dull sound of idling motors. Parked in the service bay military vehicles were waiting.
Rose recognised the unmarked cars as the type used by the government’s security agencies. There along with the others was a single black van, engine running and the rear doors open, ready to take her and the Doctor away.
Rose edged her gaze around at the Doctor. He looked back at her, tipping one corner of his mouth up — encouragement or apology, she couldn’t tell. Either way, it tore at her. “It’s not your fault…”
The Doctor was forced towards the rear of the van. “Haven’t you ever heard of ladies first?” he quipped, and Rose heard a nervous rattle in his voice.
Ignoring him, two officers grasped the Doctor by his upper arms, and were in the midst of hefting him into the back of the van when a blinding flash of lightning shattered the sky.
Rose was still blinking away afterimages when she heard the Doctor let out a terrifying cry.
Fear gripped her as she thought he'd been struck. Blinking hard, forcing her eyes to focus, she saw that he'd fallen to his knees in the van. From profile she saw his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he winced in agony.
Rose cried out at the sight of his pain-stricken face. "Doctor!"
She tried to go to him, but she was held back.
The officers tried to bring him back up to his feet, but the Doctor's legs wouldn't support him and buckled again. Thunder boomed overhead and more lightning stuttered fiercely igniting the blackened clouds. The Doctor's eyes shot open, and he hauled in a sharp gasp that rushed back out in a frightening howl. The officers stopped, looking at one another, uncertain what they should do.
Jones came forward, scowling impatiently at the hesitant officers. “Get him in there!” he ordered.
"Please! Let him go!" Rose begged and strained against the officer’s hold on her. "He's hurting! Can't you see!"
Jones shot her a baleful glare, his eyes sharp as glass. “Put him in now!” he roared at his men.
Following orders, they dropped the Doctor, letting him hit the deck with a harrowing hollow thud. Landing hard onto his knees immediately and toppled forwards, his head banging the van floor.
Without warning, the officer let Rose go, and she stumbled toward the van. The doors slammed shut in her face.
“Wait! No! Take me too! Take me with him!” she cried out reaching for the handles, yanking them without effect. The doors already locked.
She heard car doors slamming and looked around to see the officers getting into the sedans. They were all leaving — abandoning her and taking the Doctor away.
Anger and upset coursed through her as the van pulled away, slipping from under her fingers.
“No! Doctor! Doctor!” She chased it, passed by cars following the vehicle, swiping past her. Officers ignored her, staring straight ahead as if she weren’t there, even as she slapped and beat at the windows. “Stop! Take me too! Please!”
Her voice nearly drowned out by the crash of thunder, Rose screamed at the passing cars, running beside them, pounding at them as each one picked up speed, passing her swiftly, until she found herself looking through the window of the last sedan and into the eyes of Brett Jones.
Lightning etched a vicious pattern across the glass and superimposed shadows like a demon’s face over that of Jones. The ghastly vision cleared in the wake of another boom of thunder, and Jones looked back at Rose without compunction, with the eyes of a consumed man without a soul.
“You can’t take him!” She cried out, pounding the window with her fist. With the air of a man who’d deemed something unworthy his time Jones turned his gaze forward as the car accelerated beyond Rose’s reach.
Unrelenting, Rose plunged on, running after the line of vehicles down the drive and around the hospital, the distance growing wider as they gained speed and finally threaded out onto the public road.
Out of breath and overwhelmed, Rose stumbled to a halt outside the hospital gates. Thunder crashed and rolled overhead as she looked on, and the line of vehicles turned a corner down the road and out of sight. A sob choked her as she watched the van carrying the Doctor disappear from her view.
She covered her mouth with a hand, muffling a convulsive cry, her thoughts following the Doctor, the sight of him collapsed in the van still fresh in her mind.
“Coward!” she cursed Jones, and every moment of him in her memory.
“Rose!” The sound of running footfalls accompanied the shout.
Jennifer Collier was rushing down the drive, her cheeks reddened, out of breath. “Rose, your father,” she huffed, “Torchwood, they’re already on their way—"
Her announcement was emphasized by several black passenger vehicles shooting past her and Rose, headed in the same direction as Jones’ convoy. No more than streaks the vehicles were moving so fast, but Rose knew they were more Torchwood.
She turned back, seeing more vehicles coming down the road. A sedan out of the group slid to a stop in front of the hospital gates while the others carried past and fanned out in separate directions down the side roads.
The passenger door swung wide, and Pete Tyler came out of the car. “Rose!” he shouted, rushing to her.
Rose met him halfway, on the brink of breaking down at the sight of him, but she wouldn’t afford herself a second lost. “They… They’ve taken him,” her breath heaved. She was beside herself. “They took the Doctor…”
Pete lowered his head, sullen. “We’ll find him. We must,” he drew her attention to the western sky. “The Rift has ruptured.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBC
Chapter 11: The Perfection of Humanity
Summary:
The Doctor awakens in darkness. Disoriented, broken, and barely conscious of who he is, he stumbles through a concrete tomb haunted by ghosts with metal faces and voices that remember pain.
The Cybermen were supposed to be gone. Instead, they whisper their names. They remember who they were — and they blame him.
Outside the ruins of the Lumic factory, Rose Tyler prepares to storm the gates of hell. With Pete Tyler at her side and Torchwood at her back, she’ll risk everything to find the man she loves — even if he no longer remembers her name.
But Brett Jones has already found the Doctor. And in the shadows of a forgotten war, he offers a terrible gift: the end of pain, the return of silence, the perfection of humanity.
As the Doctor faces the consequence of compassion, Rose races to save him before he chooses the only mercy he still believes in.
Chapter Text
Try
Infinity’s Child
Part 11: The Perfection of Humanity
by PR Chung
Coming up out of the dark, a bottomless black, with screaming raw nerves waiting.
A startled gasped and the lungs fill—
Where?
Squinting, into darkness for an answer. A double pulse racing, fast, so fast, a runner’s pace. Legs too weak to run now, but where to if they could?
Must get up; sit up, on the floor? Hands moving, sweeping over a cool flat plane, porous— concrete? Yes, but where?
Shuffling—
No… scraping sounds.
Listening to silence packed with commotion of thought— Arbitrary and untethered, voices and symbols, logical marks of thought all rushing along the frayed neurons like a disrupted ant mound.
So much noise, out of tune, a mind of plunked strings loose and warbling, grating strands of unconnected energy—
The Doctor put his hands to his head, and pressed hard at his clammy temples, trying to push away the confusion, struggling to focus. It was beginning to recede, so very slowly, but it was so loud— A blaze of sound, all gases, and vapours, burning clouds of phosphene, an improbable cacophony of hues behind his eyes.
Airwaves so jammed, his mind so stripped and raw, touched by all of it—
Movement. Someone was there with him, in the darkness…
“Rose?” His voice sounded so foreign to his ears; a baritone rasp seized by a dry throat.
He turned his blind blue-grey gaze to the darkness, urgently searching. Shadowy shapes, depolarized and grainy, were floating wraths, slipping into synaptic clefts.
Something or someone was moving in the dark-- “Who’s there?”
“Cold.” It was a hollow, soulless voice that sent a shudder through the Doctor. “Help me.”
The Doctor pulled himself onto his hands and knees, struggling to see through the darkness. “Who is it?”
“J…James… my name is James.” So vacant and yet so tortured; the voice didn’t sound real.
“My name is…” another voice began.
“Alice…” another finished.
And another, “Rob…Robert…”
Soon a din of voices rose unseen.
Wavering, weak, his world listing, the Doctor got to his feet, his knees protesting, threatening to let him drop to the hard floor. Cautiously, assessing his legs he moved with a slacked shuffle towards the voices, towards the dull blue flickering.
The Doctor focused into the milky light, willing his strangled mind to push through the radiant clouds of battering energy. What he found could only be more of the dementia, more ghosts, and hallucinations.
“What…?” His question vanished before it formed, absorbed by dismay and disbelief. Was his mind playing tricks? Was this just more cross talk between the nerves?
“Help me.” Above the voices, another plea, artificial, drifted up from a jumbled pile of muted steel before the Doctor.
“No,” he whispered in disbelief.
“Please help me,” the voices pleaded again, and the steel Specters began to move.
Piles of metal bodies, dismembered limbs and torsos writhed as one before him, the mass came to life with the sounds of grating and creaking, metal scraping against metal, and moans-- Electronic moans ricocheted around his mind like a radio broadcast crackling off a broken speaker.
The Doctor watched in horror as torsos slithered from the pile, their forward motion powered by extended arms, digits grappling for purchase across the concrete floor. Then full forms separated from the mass, unfolding to stand, wavering on legs that appeared as weak as his own.
“Cybermen?” The Doctor shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, feeling himself moving, falling forward. “It’s not possible.” Pain, sharp and hot, rang through his knees as they contacted the floor, but the searing pain crawling over his mind drowned it out.
Was this his insanity? Was this a fevered nightmare; the universe belching up long gone enemies who begged of his mercy?
Something cold and hard touched his hand. The Doctor recoiled with a startled gasp. His damaged mind screamed against the sight of the metal body now beside him, vacant faceplate staring back at him, its hand groping for his.
“You’re not real!” he shouted and scrambled backwards from it.
“It’s so cold,” the electronic voice said, plaintive, “please… help me…”
“Cybermen… Don’t have names— They don’t feel cold—" the Doctor broke off, shaken. “What are you?”
“Don’t you know?” The dull clip of footfalls followed the calm question, echoing in the dark, their direction unclear.
As if in response to the voice a sound began to rise from the Cybermen, a wild electronic chatter from within the twisted wreckage of their bodies, the flicker of pale indigo issuing from awaking faceplates.
The Doctor darted his eyes around, searching the darkness until he saw a man’s form leisurely step into view. Standing in a chalky light, hands held behind him, Brett Jones looked back at the Doctor with no more emotion than that shown across the metal faces of the Cybermen.
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“The containment teams have reached activity area, sir,” the communications officer reported to Pete Tyler. “They’ve reported significant energy discharges, but the levels appear to have stabilised.”
Adjusting the straps of his flak vest Pete looked skyward. The unnatural argent lightning was still streaking through the cloud cover, but the frequency had slackened as well as the strength of the quakes. “A good sign, I hope,” Pete commented, and glanced around for Rose.
Silhouetted against the backdrop of the defunct Lumic factory she stood meters away, at the open rear of an equipment van, her attention on the straps of her own flak vest.
Pete turned back to the tactical officer. “Any word from Mickey Smith?”
The officer shook his head. “Not yet, sir.”
Pete nodded. “Keep on it.”
The officer disappeared back into the congregation of Torchwood tactical officers congesting the knoll that lay to the south of the Cybus Industries factory. Their position offered an excellent vantage point and would provide them with swift access to the building. It was just a matter of time before they moved in.
Pete stepped beside the young woman he considered his own daughter and lay a hand on her shoulder. She stopped her work to adjust the protective vest and looked around at him in mild surprise.
“I won’t let you go in there, Rose,” he told her.
Her expression hardened with determination. The set of her jaw reminded him so much of her mother. “I’m not just going to stand out here waiting,” she assured him.
“Our surveillance of Jones is incomplete. We’re going off a few days’ information. We don’t know what he has in there. It’s too dangerous.”
Rose turned fully to him; her eyes locked with his. “It can’t be any worse than what you and I walked into the first time we came here.”
Pete pulled his lips into a grim slash as the memory assaulted him. “I lost Jacqueline that night,” he said, looking at Rose intently. “I won’t lose you in here today.”
“The Doctor needs me,” Rose declared.
“We don’t know if he’s in there or not.”
“But if he is, then I need to be there for him.”
The tactical team leader approached them, unaware of their conversation. “Mr. Tyler, we’re ready,” he announced.
Pete glanced around at him distractedly. “Right,” he said abruptly, his jaw grappling a torrent of mixed emotions. He looked to Rose, his expression tightening as he watched her pick up a riot helmet from the back of the equipment van. He tore his gaze from the sight of her determination and turned to the team leader. “Wait my signal.”
The officer moved off and Pete turned back to Rose. He laid his hand on her arm, preventing her from raising the helmet to her head. She jerked her gaze up at him, her mouth opening, ready with a protest.
“You stay behind the tactical team,” he told her. He smiled then, an unconvincing smile, adding, “Your mother would never forgive me.”
Understanding flickered through Roses eyes, and she nodded. “I will.”
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“What is this place?” the Doctor looked around, blind past the milky lights drifting down from high above.
“Surely you remember, Doctor.” Brett Jones moved from one pool of light to the next. “This is the infamous Cybus factory,” he said with a dramatic flair. “John Lumic’s vision of the future was born here, the perfection of humanity. But you’d know all about that wouldn’t you, Doctor? After all, you helped the Preachers bring down Cybus in a single evening. That is quite an accomplishment.”
The Doctor was at a loss. He had no memory of the events. This was something beyond the darkness that lingered in his senses and memories…
“They tried to bury the information,” Jones continued, “but it was there if one decided to look hard enough.”
“Why are they… like this?” the Doctor demanded, appalled as realization seeped into his brittle consciousness. “What have you done—?”
“You, Doctor!” Jones bellowed and stomped towards him angrily. “You did this!”
The Doctor turned and peered at the struggling metal bodies in confusion, his memory, the memories conveyed by Rose, they held none of this. “I… I don’t know this. I…”
“You gave them back their humanity, Doctor, don’t you remember?”
He shook his head, sickened by the suggestion. “It wasn’t me—”
“How dare you act the innocent!” Jones yelled. “You may look different, but it was you who took away their inhibitors—"
“No!”
“Broke down the only barrier between machine and human— You drove them to their insanity!” Jones continued, advancing on the Doctor.
The Cybermen, broken and tortured, began screaming in high piercing tones.
The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut, grimacing against the sound. “They’re in agony.”
Jones settled on his heels next to the Doctor. “You can fix that,” he hissed, moving closer. “You can take their pain away.”
Opening his eyes the Doctor turned to Jones, a frantic hope glittering in his eyes. “How?”
“Give them back the only thing that can remove the cold and the darkness, Doctor.” Jones’ mouth drew into a kindly smile. “Give them back their inhibitors.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The sound of her breath was deafening as Rose rushed across the open field, adrenaline coursing through her veins, the ground shaking beneath her feet as she moved with the force of the tactical team advancing towards the Lumic factory.
Freeze framed as lightning jutted overhead the team moved in near silence, the dulcet jingle of their gear and their hushed panting incongruent with their menacing forward motion. Organized, trained, and prepared, but still rushing blindly to the rescue, not knowing what awaited them within the factory that loomed ahead.
Rose felt herself riding on the crest of a high dangerous wave of anxiety and desperate anticipation. Recovering the Doctor went beyond her own need now. Once again, she shared him with an entire planet, a universe teetering on the brink of collapse.
The group mounted the last rise that lay between the tactical team and the unobstructed view of the factory. Appearing first, as though emerging from the ground before them, the four massive smokestacks ascended into view, once striking monuments to the great age of industry, now only grim sentinels standing guard to a gruesome history that lay at their feet.
The tactical team hesitated on the rise, waiting for word from the scouts who had already gone ahead. Rose tried to calm her erratic pulse and breathing as reconnaissance information broke quietly onto the helmet headset. She listened, holding her breath until they reported the area was clear.
One of the officers appeared at Rose’s side. “You’re with us,” he said and made a swift hand motion between her and the rest of the team. “Keep to the rear, Ms. Tyler.”
Rose glanced around, looking for Pete, wondering which part of the tactical team he’d be with. She heard his voice over the radio when this began; she’d lost sight of him soon after they’d initially moved out.
“My father?” she asked the team leader before he turned away. “Which team has he gone with?”
Before he could answer Rose felt a hand on her shoulder. “I’m here.” She heard Pete’s voice and turned to see him beside her. He offered a brief smile of reassurance. “Ready?” he asked.
With resolute poise Rose nodded. “Always.”
Silent, Pete prolonged the moment as he searched her face, decisions swimming in his eyes. Rose knew he could still refuse to let her go inside the building, that he could order an officer to guard her there while the rest moved ahead.
She held her breath, prepared herself to run if she had to, straight into the factory without any help from the Torchwood team. She wouldn’t let anyone stop her from helping the Doctor.
Pete let his hand slip away from her shoulder and turned to the tactical team leader, giving him the signal to move out.
In an instant they were on the move again, charging over the rise, a determined wave rolling forwards, and Rose carried with it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBC
Chapter 12: God and Machine
Summary:
In the ruins of Battersea Power Station, the Doctor is faced with a choice no one should have to make: restore the Cybermen’s inhibitor systems—stripping them of the last echoes of their humanity—or let them suffer in eternal torment. But Brett Jones has other plans. Plans for an army. Plans for dominion.
As Torchwood storms the facility, Rose races through the shadows, desperate to find the Doctor before it’s too late. What she finds instead is a nightmare: broken Cybermen who still remember their names, a conversion chamber running wild, and a rift in time threatening to tear the world apart.
The Doctor has been running from his past. Now, surrounded by metal ghosts and a maniac’s ambition, he must face what’s been left behind.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Try
Infinity’s Child
Part 12: God and Machine
by PR Chung
The voices—shrill high shrieks, mechanical tones piercing the air. Hollow, scared, in agony. They scraped the concrete, dragging their broken and incomplete bodies toward the Doctor. Not enemies — but shattered, mutilated people begging for death, silence, or salvation.
Conscious victims of a past battle, caught in the wake of a legacy the Doctor did not know, and the manipulation of a megalomaniac.
He was asking the impossible. Brett Jones wanted the Doctor to restore the inhibitors—to silence the cries of the broken Cybermen by erasing what remained of their humanity. To take away their pain…
He might not remember removing the inhibitors—might not even be the version of himself who did it. But he knew who he was now. And he would never be the one to put them back, never help build an army of mechanised doom.
The Doctor shook his head, refusing Jones’ demands. “No.”
“You must,” Jones exclaimed and stood, looking like a man taken particularly off guard.
“I… I can’t.” The Doctor felt his mind clearing, the clouds of disruption parting. His face pinched in thought and then looked at Jones. “I won’t.”
“It’s your responsibility— “
“This shouldn’t have been,” the Doctor declared, agitated, not hearing Jones. He looked around at the Cybermen. “They weren’t meant to be left like this.”
“But they were, and you can help fix them all.”
“Bandage a wound?” the Doctor asked as he laboured to stand from the floor. “Take away their suffering by turning them back into killing machines? No.”
“Returning their inhibitors will take away their pain and give them a new place among society. Controlled properly, they can become a benefit and no longer a threat. They will be the new defenders of the Great Republic of Britain.”
The Doctor furrowed his brow. “You want an army.” His voice was edged with strengthened control. “Your own little army, only there won’t be anything little about it once you start.”
Jones lifted chin and considered the Doctor for a moment, then half smiled. “I’ve already started, Doctor.” Jones raised his hand, thumbing a small black device.
The hiss and whirl of hydraulics and pulleys sounded behind the Doctor. He turned too fast for his still unsteady legs. Catching his balance the Doctor looked up to see two great doors sliding slowly open several meters away, spilling a prism of blue and violet light across the floor. Beyond the doors lay a vast space filled with a gossamer mist that curled and hugged the bases of massive metallic chambers.
“It’s all here, Doctor,” Jones announced, resolute. “But you don’t recognize any of this do you? No, you never dirtied your hands with this. You just scuttled through the cooling tunnels, safely away from all the nastiness going on up here. No matter though, that was then. And now, here, I have all the technology, in place, in the ready, but missing only one thing. The one thing that I’ve been unable to duplicate; the inhibitor technology.”
“And you want me to supply that?” the Doctor asked without looking back at Jones.
“And you will.”
“You don’t want to fix them,” the Doctor said, gesturing towards the crippled group of Cybermen.
“Fix these?” Jones chuckled, all pretences gone now. “They’re useless. Just broken bits, reminders of failure, and yet an inspiration to succeed.”
The Doctor felt his stomach sink with a sickening hopelessness before the ground beneath his feet shuddered.
“You don’t have much time, Doctor,” Jones told him. “That machine of yours, that TARDIS, it’s cracked open a breach in space and maybe time itself.”
The Doctor looked around at Jones, mortified. “What?”
“I know you closed it before, and if you don’t do so again then everything gets pulled apart in this universe. Everything and everyone, including your dear Rose and her family.”
“No,” the Doctor breathed, his mind racing, pitching forward in frenetic thought. “You have to let me go— “
“And I will, but only once you’ve reinitiated the inhibitors--”
“It would take time— “
“Then you should hurry— “
“No!” The Doctor refused. “If the Rift is open it’s got to be closed— “
“And take you with it, back to where you belong, your universe, and with you the knowledge of the inhibitor system.” Jones shook his head. “Your choice, Doctor. Give me what I want and save the world or refuse and watch it torn apart.”
The Doctor straightened with effort, squaring his shoulders. “I’d rather watch the Rift tear this world apart than hand its future over to you. I won’t save this world just so you can harvest it.”
“You!” Jones furiously shouted as he lunged towards the Doctor, his face grotesquely strained. “You have no idea what I’ve sacrificed to get this far. You have no idea what it took to put all this back together, and I won’t have it ruined by you or anyone else. I’ll start the conversion processors without the inhibitors if I must!”
The high-pitched distraught cries rose higher from the crippled Cybermen. The Doctor swept his eyes over the writhing steel heap and then looked at Jones.
“They’re terrified of you.”
“Shut it!” Jones bellowed, his command broad, directionless. Whether he was shouting at the Doctor or the Cybermen was unclear.
The Doctor turned to the cowering steel wrecks. “Don’t fear him!” he encouraged the Cybermen. “He has no control over you. You’re still human— all of you— your minds— you have free will and he can’t take that. You can still think— You can still think!”
Cybermen, those complete and able, shambled hesitantly forward.
“Stop it!” Jones screamed at the Doctor. “Shut up!”
The Doctor ignored Jones and continued to call out to the Cybermen. “You still have names— you know them, you told me your names...” The Doctor moved towards the Cybermen who struggled to pull themselves up and stand apart from the tangled and broken heap. “What is your name? Who are you? Remember who you are!”
“I have a name…” a voice rose from the electronic wail.
“Yes, yes! Alice, and James, and Kathy…” the Doctor urged them, reminded them.
“My name is…” came another.
The Cybermen spoke, one after another, they said their names, their human names, slowly, tentative, as if only just realizing they could.
“Stop it! Shut it now!” Jones yelled, his voice cracking.
“Yes!” the Doctor shouted with a manic glee as he watched the steel figures plodding forwards. “You still know. Now tell him.” He pointed at Jones and dropped his voice to a formidable tone. “Tell him he won’t control you or anyone else.”
“Stop! You’ll stop this now!” Jones grabbed and shook the Doctor by the arm, knocking him off his feet.
The Doctor fell to the ground and Jones loomed over him, seething. “They are nothing! They are not human— they’re machines and they will be controlled like machines!” Jones’ bellows clipped off into a startled yelp as one of the Cybermen touched his arm.
“I am Kathy,” said the Cyberman. “Kathy Tipton.”
Jones pulled away from the grasping metallic hand, horror draining the colour from his features. “No…” he exclaimed with a look of utter disbelief as the Cybermen pressed closer.
“Get back,” he demanded, panic soaking his strained voice, filling his eyes as he stumbled backwards away from the advance of the awakening Cybermen. Jones jerked his head towards the Doctor. “See what you’ve done!”
“Yes,” The Doctor weakly answered, his energy diminishing. “I do.”
From overhead, sudden and brilliant, light flooded the area, exposing the factory surrounding the Doctor and Jones. The Doctor looked around, his shock growing at the extent of the Cybermen graveyard.
Across the factory floor, wending through the clutter of discarded Cybermen bodies packing the area, officers the Doctor recognised from the hospital were rushing towards them.
“Mr. Jones, sir! Torchwood is entering the building!” the lead agent shouted.
But Jones was already gone. The Doctor looked around, seeing only the group of Cybermen shuffling away toward the chamber room.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Torchwood entered Battersea in a formidable wave, surging through the abandoned facilities, crashing through a maze of corridors, and securing room after room with an expert precision.
They moved blindly, guided only by a wild torrent of radio chatter that bled through Rose’s headset, both frightening and encouraging her. She rushed along with the tactical team, breathless, struggling to hold back, trying not to be left behind by the storm surge of the raid.
Pete was there, though, keeping her in check, moving ahead of her; dropping back from out of the shadows to caution her, reminding her to hold back until all clear was called as the tactical team entered what was once the main turbine room.
It took so long, so much longer than any of the other areas had taken to secure. Worry crept over Rose. It would of course take more time to secure because it was a much larger area than any of the others, she reminded herself. Still, there was more commotion from within the area than before.
“Wait here,” Pete ordered her and left her to hurry inside the turbine room.
The wait was more than she could stand. Her mind raced ahead, images assailing her as she listened to the confused cross talk over her radio, and the thunderous shouting tumbling out of the doors leading into the turbine hall.
Stomach churning with anxiety she moved, unable to wait another moment. She reached the doors just in time to hear shouts rolling out of the room, called from team member to team member; “Clear!” the area secured.
Rose rushed in, stopping immediately, her breath taken by the scene before her. Gutted of any massive machinery once housed within, the cavernous turbine room was now an immeasurable graveyard of scorched and broken steel bodies that stretched into the shadows.
Even the hardiest of the Torchwood tactical team appeared overwhelmed by the sheer volume of discarded Cybermen laid out before them. Standing watch over the Jones’ officers— seized as they tried to escape the raid, the Torchwood team members were helpless not to look on with awe at the shocking masses of limbs and torsos, voided faceplates and empty eyes staring out from a thoughtless crypt.
There was movement within and around the steel heaps, moaning and cries, electronic pleas rose up from the metallic cairns. A brutal shock of fear drenched Rose’s spine as she saw Cybermen moving among the debris. They shuffled among the broken and gnarled tangle of steel, wandering, moaning, and grasping the empty air before them.
“What…” Rose turned and faced Pete. He stood just feet from her, his face an ashen mask of repugnance. “What’s Jones done?”
A blast rang out, breaking the brittle silence Pete’s words had cast between him and Rose. She looked around in surprise to see a Cyberman toppling. A field of electromagnetic energy still crawling over its body as it smashed to the floor of the turbine room. "Hel—" the electronic screech ripped from its voice box, a plea for help cut short.
Rose darted her gaze around, stopping when she found the tactical team member with his weapon still aimed in the direction of the fallen Cyberman. The rest of the tactical team members were beginning to take aim, ready to take out the other wandering Cybermen.
Pete moved quickly, ordering a halt to any further action. The radio suddenly went mad, everyone shouting, talking at once, and Rose could take it no longer. She pulled the riot helmet from her head and dropped it to the floor.
Free from the helmet and the clatter of the radio, she heard a shout that echoed through the cavernous hall. "No more!"
She spun toward the sound, halted in place, and gasped. “Doctor.”
He was struggling to stand, swaying like a man shackled to invisible chains. He flailed an arm toward the tactical officers surrounding him, voice hoarse and furious. “They’re scared! They’re afraid!” The Doctor shouted, “Don't you see? They're not monsters anymore— they're victims!”
The power of his cry rang through the sudden silence, and Rose answered instinctively. “Doctor!”
She broke into a sprint across the turbine room. Pushing past tactical officers, crossing the distance with a breathless sob as the Doctor’s withered appearance came fully into view.
He began to falter just as she reached him. Rose caught him in a desperate embrace, steadying him as his weight sagged against her. “Are you hurt?”
“No…” his voice a whisper, encircling her in his arms, weak but willing. “Jones, he wanted to restore their inhibitors.”
The Doctor drew away from her and turned back at the writhing forms— neither fully machine nor human. “They remember who they are, Rose,” he said grimly.
He looked at her again, pain and awe bleeding into his expression. “People—what’s left of them—trapped in metal. Confused. Terrified.”
The tactical teams were beginning to spread along the perimeter, placing small disc shaped devices around the edge of the tortured half beings. “Stand back, ma’am…” an officer cautioned Rose.
“What are those—What are you doing?” the Doctor demanded to know.
Rose took his hand in hers, pulling him clear. “ASDs,” she explained.
The tactical officer nearest them added, “Electromagnetic arcwave, localised pulse emitters that send directional wave of EM disruption.”
The Doctor looked at her. She shook her head, assuring him, “They won’t feel anything.”
Without delay the order went out among the Torchwood team, and the devices were triggered. A deep sound filled the space, an almost inaudible thrumming; and then the wave followed. With a sudden ripple of static air pressure, barely more than a hum, a wave of electromagnetic energy rolled across the sea of Cybermen bodies. Happening so quickly the Doctor had no time to ask whether it was mercy.
Motors ceased in forgiving mechanical sighs. No screams, no struggle. Just collapsing weight and dying light.
He stared, overwhelmed. “Did I do this?”
Rose touched his arm. “You saved us from Cybermen,” she explained with care, and stepped in front of him, looking into his eyes. “This— this was Jones.”
The building shuddered around them with the distant rumble of machinery coming to life, and the bone shattering sound of screaming tore through the air. The Tactical team was on the move, headed for the auxiliary room where the sound was issuing from.
Following, the Doctor and Rose found the tactical team gathered around one of the conversion chambers that had been set into motion. Gruesome screams rang from within as the Torchwood teams pushed past the Cybermen clustered nearby. The officers repeatedly tried to shut down the system to no avail. Before any more was done, the process completed and the chamber cycled down on its own, and the terrifying howls from within had shifted into a piercing electronic shriek.
The chamber doors hissed open, spilling a low cloud of vapor across the feet of those outside. As the cloud cleared the chamber floor came fully into view. Bits of torn flesh and shards of bone lay in thick pools of blood, and at the centre lay the writhing form of a Cyberman, screaming and clawing at its own head.
Rose gasped in horror and turned her face away, burying it into the Doctor’s chest.
“My name,” she heard one of the Cybermen say and looked up to see it slumped against the conversion chamber near the controls. “My name is Kathy Tipton.”
“It’s… She… Dr. Tipton’s wife,” Rose declared in a whimper. She looked at the writhing Cyberman within the chamber and threw a hand to her mouth compulsively. It was Brett Jones. He’d been forced into the chamber and processed totally aware. “Oh God!” Rose whimpered into her hand, horrified.
“Get her out of here,” Pete told the Doctor.
“What are you going to do?” he asked, his voice blistering Pete with accusation.
“What we have to do,” he told the Doctor.
No ethics were discussed in the situation; no time was spent on the moral repercussions of the actions either taken or ignored in this place. Peter Tyler gave a silent order to the lead tactical officer, and the Torchwood team moved out through the turbine hall.
More broad— more powerful Arcwave devices were set, and the Doctor and Rose were escorted out with the rest of the Torchwood team. Only seconds after Pete joined them in the exterior corridor the electromagnetic burst was set off. Radiant blue tendrils of energy enveloped the whole of the vast turbine hall, effectively deactivating the Cybermen and all their remains, leaving a stony silence behind.
The shudder of the ground brought them all back from the shock of Jones’ and the Cybermen’s fate.
The Doctor looked at Rose. “The Rift,” he said quietly.
Rose nodded, still shaken, and now coming back to another reality. “A second location… there's a rupture,” Rose said quietly.
He nodded, throat working. “I know.”
And then he looked at her— and in his eyes was all the sorrow of what he knew was coming.
Rose felt the shift, felt the moment when his courage outpaced his fear. And already, she was losing him. A silent and sunless prospect, which returned a minor chord of despair to her heart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBC
Notes:
Something that stood out to me here in the original work is a phrase the Doctor uses; something I wrote years before there was a War Doctor… who carved the very same words into a wall on Gallifrey during the Time War.
Chapter 13: Avalon Breached
Summary:
In a mobile command centre on the outskirts of the smoking ruins of a London Cyberman factory, the Doctor reels from trauma, and Rose Tyler clings to hope. But the true threat has only just begun.
A catastrophic rupture in time and space has opened — not just a tear, but a wound. Mickey Smith is trapped at ground zero, surrounded by ghost echoes, fractured artifacts, and warriors dragged out of legend.
Meanwhile, Torchwood’s meddling has clogged the Rift with unstable technology — and the TARDIS, flung from the Vortex and gravely wounded, may not survive what comes next.
As timelines collapse and ancient forces march from the breach, the Doctor must decipher the data, trust Rose’s unwavering belief — and do what only he can: find the thread of sense in madness and a way back to his only hope-- the TARDIS.
Notes:
Not so many notes about revisions made, which are edits and cleaning up mostly cause I wrote like a 7-year-old with a crayon on double lined paper back in the day… No, these notes are more to do with the inspirations that went into building this monster of the archive story. Tons of Doctor Who lore going back to my love of the Classic series, music, movies— all of it epic and emotional, magical, and steeped in legendary places and events.
Just reading this so many little things jump out at me that I know not every reader will get, and if you do—OMG, bless my brethren of daydreaming and esoteric eccentricities!
I’ll just leave it as this; there’s allusion to Arthurian legend, nods to the underrated Highlander movie and music associated with it, plus a ridiculous amount of timey-wimey Doctor Who/Torchwood techno-babble to make it all magically happen and plausible.
Chapter Text
Try
Infinity’s Child
Part 13: Avalon Breached
by PR Chung
Long after the Arcwave burst had faded — long after the radiant coils of electromagnetic light had devoured the turbine hall and everything within it — the earth beneath Battersea trembled. Like it, too, had witnessed the carnage. Like it refused to forget.
Torchwood’s mobile base stood just beyond the exclusion perimeter, a cluster of humming vans, crackling antennae, and floodlights bleeding into the smog-choked dark. From the ruins of the factory, no one emerged. Not even silence.
In one of the med-vans, the Doctor sat waiting, his body shuddering against the residual waves of energy rolling out from the ruptured Rift. The temporal disruptions were a sizzling static crawling across his skin, nesting behind his eyes, gnawing at his coherence.
He hadn’t protested when the med-tech approached, hadn’t asked how many vital signs he’d failed. He had only sat — one fist clenched, eyes lowered — while the echo of Rose’s horror played repeatedly behind his eyelids.
"Oh God," she had whispered, voice cracking as she looked into the chamber. As she saw what was left of Brett Jones — a Cyberman, fully aware, twitching. Monstrous and human all at once.
The Doctor had tried — was still trying — to find logic in what came next. Pete Tyler’s call. The Arcwave order.
“Doctor?” said the med-tech.
She stood before him with a nasal sprayer in her gloved hands — the liquid inside cloudy, faintly luminous.
“We’ve compounded the formula you asked for. Buffered potassium chloride, I prepared aerosolized for swiftest absorption. Should act on the cortical bridge. Torchwood doesn’t fully understand the neural implications—”
“You don’t need to,” he rasped. He took the sprayer, inspecting it with thinly veiled disdain. “Nasal? Humans. Always shoving things up your noses.”
“Would you prefer a suppository?” the med-tech asked, one brow arching.
He narrowed his gaze. “No thanks. This’ll do just fine.”
Turning slightly, the Doctor tipped his head back, fitted the nozzle into one nostril, and depressed the trigger.
A click. A hiss. The mist surged deep, hit the back of his throat like ozone and electricity — the relief now would soon come. A temporary boost to dendrites collapsing under the temporal energy crackling everywhere.
“… Doctor…?”
Her voice came to him in soft hum, like the gentle thrumming of the TARDIS engines. He looked around seeing Rose sitting at his side.
“… not fully understanding the condition…” the med-tech was briefing her. “… he’s stilled. A good sign… It’s true, doctors are the worst patients…”
The Doctor felt Rose rest her hand on the back of his neck, the warmth of the power clinging to her caressing his mind, enhancing the effects of the serum.
“Making friends, are we?” she murmured. “You must be coming back to yourself.”
“Are you all right?” he asked, as if it were the only question worth asking.
She gave him a soft smile. “I should be asking you that.”
He managed a thin smile in return. “Of course you would.”
Rose began to speak before her and the Doctor’s attention was drawn by the rising drone of helicopters swelling outside the van.
“Sounds like time to go,” the Doctor mused.
And then the rear door of the van swung open.
Pete Tyler stood there, silhouetted against floodlights. He looked older in that instant — jaw tight, eyes shadowed with something more than just exhaustion. Guilt. Pressure. The cost of choices made.
His gaze lingered on the Doctor — then Rose. No words for what he saw in either of them. But there was no time for apologies, either.
“We’ve got news from assessment teams at the site,” he announced, voice clipped but not cold. “they’ve located Mickey.”
Rose was relieved and shocked. “How?”
Pete gave a shake of his head. “Drone sighted him just before it went offline-- disappearing.” Pete paused, his expression tightening. “Conditions at the site are… extreme.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mickey hadn’t known what to expect when the Rift fissure blew — but this wasn’t it. This wasn’t a crack in the sky. This was a wound, gaping and furious, pulsing with dimensional hemorrhaging like reality itself was bleeding out.
He’d seen it happen. Unimaginable and catastrophic.
The Sky crane had lowered the TARDIS slowly, groaning against its own weight — like it knew what they were doing was wrong, unnatural. And then the light — that argent blue crack, widening beneath them, snapping open with a sound like the world tearing in half. The Rift — not just the one they knew, but a second fissure, a new one — had blasted upward in a fountain of energy.
Mickey watched in horror as the crane lurched sideways, listing under the strain. The sound: a deafening whine and clang, then the mechanical shriek as rotors sheared off and went spinning across the site like blades thrown by a giant. One missed him by inches, carving a trench in the earth so deep it looked like a claw mark.
The TARDIS dropped from the sling, spun once midair, and slammed into the ground at a drunken tilt — like she'd just stumbled out of a pub at closing time and couldn’t find her keys.
That was hours ago. Or maybe just minutes. Time didn’t mean much now. And still no backup. No plan. Just him. The idiot who stayed behind.
Now, Mickey was alone. Behind what was left of a Torchwood transport, clutching a field scanner that sparked and died every time the wind shifted. The air shimmered with heat and quantum noise. Artifacts and impossible objects phased in and out like malfunctioning holograms — a phone booth with no door, a set of rusted tank treads half-sunken in the mud, a suit of armour filled with blue light that screamed without sound.
He'd seen Torchwood personnel and equipment blink away—pulled out of this universe to the unknown—and he knew he could be the next at any moment.
More than once, Mickey thought he saw people — or ghosts of people — flicker in and out. A child running. A man in robes. A squad of soldiers blinking out mid-stride.
And then a sound — low and droning, unnatural in this storm.
He looked up just in time to see a plane — a WWII-era Spitfire — burst through the clouds overhead, screaming low across the field, so close he could see the RAF roundel on its wing. It vanished just as fast, disappearing nose-first into the ground with no impact, no crash — just swallowed, like the earth had blinked.
Mickey stood there, blinking, mouth open. “Nope,” he said flatly.
A sudden movement startled him— A Torchwood officer, helmet gone, one arm hanging limp, stumbled toward him through the chaos. She dropped beside him, shoved something cold and cracked into his hand.
A radio.
“Think—someone’s—on this channel,” she managed. And then she passed out.
Mickey raised it to his ear, static screeching-like nails on his brain.
Then—
“—Mickey—can you hear me? We’re on our way—”
His breath caught. “Rose?”
And then, louder — urgent: “Don’t do anything!” The Doctor.
He stared into the storm, clutching the dying radio like it might save him.
“Oh, sure, Doctor” he muttered. “Because I’ve got so many options.”
He was about to lower the radio when movement caught his eye — not flickers this time, not ghosts, or echoes. Figures. Marching through the distortion like it wasn’t even there.
Tall, broad-shouldered, clad in weather-beaten furs and iron mail, their shields marked with runes and boar’s heads. Spears in hand, blades at their sides — Saxons. Real ones. Not stories, not visions. These were men carved out of another age, dragging the stink of blood and fire through a breach in time. Their eyes were wild. Focused.
Mickey barely ducked as a javelin whistled past his ear and embedded itself in the dead ground behind him.
“Oh, come on,” Mickey exclaimed, diving back behind the smouldering wreck of a Torchwood truck.
He spotted something in the debris — jagged, half-buried in the muck. A piece of alien tech, a weapon, maybe a broken toaster from the 89th century. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. He lunged for it, scrabbling through ash and dirt. It sparked in his hands, humming with unstable energy, no clear trigger or grip — just a glowing edge and a vague hum of don’t touch that. Sparks jumping up his arm as he flinched and swore.
No instructions. No safety. Just something not from this Earth, vibrating with potential.
“Right then,” Mickey muttered, holding it out before himself. “Let’s find out if this zaps, explodes, or turns me into a mushroom.”
Another spear landed nearby, and he took a deep breath and scrambled to shield the unconscious Torchwood officer.
Time to bluff the ancestors.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A helicopter waited on the outskirts of the Torchwood operations base, rotors idling, ready to transport the Doctor to the TARDIS — but the Rift rupture was too unstable. No one could get close.
A part of the Rift, a fracture was laid open, a fissure in time and space channelling and backscattering raw dimensional energy, creating tidal forces strong enough not only to destroy this planet, but to collapse countless universes. Everyone on the fragile skin of this planet now relied on the Doctor and his ability to close the rift. They said he'd done it before, but he didn't remember that. They all had such faith in him.
Stepping into Torchwood’s mobile command centre was like crossing a threshold from one battlefield into another — no less chaotic, just wired differently. Harsh light bled from banks of flickering monitors. The air buzzed with overlapping voices: comms chatter, static-laced reports, alarms that no one had time to silence.
Screens mounted across the walls blinked between maps, distorted telemetry, and live feeds struggling to stay live. One recon drone’s video jittered, stuttering over fractured ground and arcs of blue light before blinking out completely. Another had reappeared miles off course, hovering over a motorway in Dover.
“Recon Twelve just jumped again— came back online, ten seconds in the past,” someone called out.
“Loop it,” instructed another, “Look for stable return patterns.”
A technician glanced up, pale and sweating. “There are no stable patterns.”
The Doctor moved slower. Every step looked like it cost something — but his eyes were scanning. He didn’t look at the screens like a man searching for data. He looked like he was listening for the sound of a heartbeat beneath rubble.
Rose stayed close, her hand brushing his sleeve once, grounding him. He shook his head, absently brushing away her assistance as he forced himself toward one of the monitors, transfixed by the data.
“Project Avalon?” the Doctor read the Torchwood project name noted on every screen. A tidy clever label applied to a place— an event of incomprehensible manifestations. In another time, long before all this science this would have been considered a kind of magic.
Pete remarked, tense and hurried, “Now, regrettably, the Avalon event.”
“It shouldn’t be like this,” the Doctor said, astonished. “There’s too much energy being released for a branch venting. Something is worsening it, intensifying the stream of energy.”
“The TARDIS, it must have been blocking it?” Rose supposed.
“We’ve determined that was the point when the initial eruption occurred,” Pete noted, pointing out the data on an adjoining screen.
“It wasn’t meant to be here.” The Doctor declared quietly, his voice nearly lost in the din of the command centre. “The TARDIS. It was… blown out of the Vortex. Unpiloted. Tumbling. Lost. Drawn to something it recognized...”
He looked at Rose, holding her gaze. “Something familiar… something safe. Started absorbing the overflow of the Rift. Like she always does.”
Pete looked at the Doctor, concern crowding his features. “But what can be done— Can the TARDIS be moved to absorb it again— seal the rupture somehow?”
The Doctor shut his eyes tight. “No—! Not with this much energy escaping.” He looked around to trace a long finger across the monitor, hesitating over the readings. “Moving the TARDIS may have saved her— no telling how long before the excess energy could have torn it apart.” He jabbed the screen. “What is this? In Cardiff, the Rift proper— there’s hardly any readings—no energy?”
“There shouldn’t be,” Pete confidently said. “Suppression system regulates and controls energy expulsion based on prediction models—”
“Controls?” the Doctor questioned. “By what means?”
“We had to retro engineer Cybus tech used to open the Rift, that allowed the Cybermen to come through.” Rose explained.
“And what else?” the Doctor asked, suspicious.
Pete hesitantly added, “And... the engagement of alien tech—”
“Oh, fantastic,” the Doctor exclaimed, “Alien tech—A grand analysis. Alien tech.” He threw his hands out in a wild gesture. “Just slap a label on anything you don’t understand but won’t admit. Doesn’t matter if it’s a Sontaran Core Node or a Chimeron baby monitor. Mucking about with things built by civilizations millions of years ahead of you, and you think calling it alien tech makes it manageable.”
Rose nodded to herself awkwardly, muttering, “He’s definitely feeling better.”
“We’ve done the best we can here,” Pete rebuked, offended by the Doctor’s diatribe. “We couldn’t allow another breach to let through another threat worse than the Cybermen.”
The Doctor hesitated, his expression thoughtful. “No… I suppose you couldn’t.” He touched the monitor, tapping a finger at the readings. “But you can’t assume you’re in control…” his voice lowered as he turned back to them. “Especially something like the Rift.”
“Because it finds a way,” he said and pointed back at the monitor without losing eye contact with Pete. “You’ve clogged the drain— this is the cause of the rupture—You have to release the energy at Cardiff—”
“Are you mad?” Pete exclaimed.
The Doctor let out a hoarse chuckle. “Debatable— but it’s the only way to get this situation uncontrol—”
“The results of doing that in Cardiff could be catastrophic—”
“The pressure must be released—not all at once…” the doctor was already manipulating the terminal, pulling up information on the suppression system— classified data that should have required classified access permission.
“That data’s classified, how—” Pete stared, agog.
Rose touched her father’s arm, catching his attention. She shook her head, wincing, “It’s just a thing he does…”
“Evacuate the city centre,” the Doctor said, issuing orders without waiting to see if they’d be heeded, “if Torchwood truly knows what they’re doing—easing off the pressure holding back Cardiff will reduce the energy being released at the Avalon site. Let the natural discharge of energy dissipate…”
“There’s no telling what the Rift could bring through— or take away.” Pete countered.
“Oh, some new alien toys and a few wobbly bits probably, but that’s why you got to call an evacuation.”
“Makes sense,” Rose agreed, looking past the Doctor at the data. “We… locked it down too well.”
“We can’t get close to the TARDIS in these conditions,” the Doctor stated, his eyes flicking to the adjacent monitors, wincing, and giving a shake of his head. He turned to Rose, his voice urgent and low, “I don’t know how long… I don’t know how much longer I’ll make sense… not with all this energy scratching at this universe…”
Rose swallowed hard, hesitating for a moment, her gaze locked with his before she turned to Pete. “It’s got to be done.”
Pete froze, staring at her. “Rose—” He searched her face, as if trying to read some hidden meaning or desperation there. This wasn’t just science or strategy anymore. It was faith. In the Doctor. In her.
His mouth opened, then shut again, jaw tightening with the weight of too many unspoken fears. He glanced at the Doctor, at the screens, then back to his daughter.
She didn’t flinch. She only nodded once, steady.
Finally, Pete drew a breath. Reaching for a direct line, voice quieter than before but resolute, he uttered, “I hope you’re right, Doctor.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBC
Chapter 14: The Same Fire
Summary:
The Rift is bleeding across Britain, and the city of Cardiff is on the verge of collapse. As evacuation orders spread and Torchwood attempts a controlled release of energy, Pete Tyler finds himself caught between leadership, fatherhood, and impossible stakes.
But beneath the fractured sky, the Doctor is fighting a far more dangerous battle — one raging inside his own fractured mind. Haunted by memories of the Time War and a regeneration born of fire, he is unravelling.
Rose Tyler sees it happening. She’s the only one who can reach him. But what if even she isn’t enough?
And when a desperate choice is made — a quiet call that defies every warning — the consequences will ignite a catastrophe no one can contain.
Notes:
This chapter includes new scenes and dialogue added to the original draft written over a decade ago—additions I felt were necessary to solidify story elements that were previously unclear or underdeveloped. I’m much more satisfied with this version, and I hope it deepens the emotional resonance and clarifies the characters' motivations.
Three hours later: Ready to post this today (insert timey-wimey calculations here) I read through it and realized that it read like a wet fart at a funeral (yes, I just used that term to describe my own writing). It may still. However... I dug in and tore it apart and put it all back together again… And I am nearly confident that the slow burn fuse on this story is headed to a powder keg. Yeah, I’ll look back at it and cringe. I always do. God, I just need to finish this! (This time… 18 year later…)
And I just need to add that I am so looking forward to posting a “light hearted” Nine and Rose story that’s in the works after this absolutely devastating jaunt of a fiction.
Chapter Text
Try
Infinity’s Child
Chap 14: The Same Fire
by PR Chung
The order came and everyone in Cardiff took note.
The sky had been wrong since the night before. The atmosphere had grown wild with static electricity. Mobiles were cutting in and out. And the airships were gone from the skies. All of them, grounded without explanation. People didn’t need an explanation— they already knew something was very wrong.
Black clouds choked out the horizon in all directions, but they didn’t move. They held position, heavy and stuttering with flickers of violet-white lightning that didn’t strike — it shimmered. It pulsed, like a signal.
An emergency broadcast — simultaneous across radio, television, mobile networks — advising immediate evacuation of Cardiff. No explanation. Just coordinates, staging areas, and a line: This is not a drill.
Military convoys moved in first, securing the main thoroughfares while Torchwood agents began street-level sweeps. Buses were commandeered, school coaches rerouted, emergency shelters activated along the M4 corridor. Checkpoints were established at every city exit.
Block by block, residents were cleared. Loudspeakers repeated instructions over the hum of engines. Shops closed. Hospital wards were emptied onto waiting ambulances. Those who could leave, left.
Those who couldn’t — or wouldn’t — were documented, logged, and left with supplies. There was no time for argument.
Torchwood’s evacuation teams moved through the last of the central districts, guiding the final handful of evacuees to coaches and vans. The military checkpoints began shutting down in sequence, one after the other, all the roads, from the edges of the city inward, turning away the inbound, only letting the caravans out.
The command tent had been set up in the shadow of City Hall. A clean white dome reinforced with carbon scaffolding and flanked by two military trucks. It looked temporary. It was not.
Inside, a dozen screens bathed the room in cold light. Tactical maps. Thermal scans. Readouts pulsing in a language only Torchwood analysts seemed to speak. At the centre of it all stood Major Sunita Khatri, hands clasped behind her back, boots planted evenly on the matting floor. Her uniform bore the Torchwood insignia — a black ‘T’ on a field of grey.
Her earpiece crackled. “Northern airspace is now restricted. No civil traffic permitted within twenty-five miles of Cardiff.”
Khatri nodded once, proceeding below Cardiff as she spoke, “Understood. Begin surface-level clearance of sectors four through seven. Advise all teams: Controlled Release has commenced.”
Deep beneath Cardiff, systems were recalibrated, calculations checked and rechecked. The release began — slow, methodical, and extremely cautious.
The control centre, only hours ago manned by a skeleton crew of engineers, was now a hub of ardent activity.
The systems were steady. The containment coils had held. But the machine, a mix of alien tech gathered and tested in labs, and the retro-engineered methods of a madman that nearly destroyed the world… it made a noise that could almost have been a… an exhale. A long, low breath. Waiting.
Major Khatri watched green lights shift to amber across the central screen. No panic. No blast. No fanfare. Just a gentle escalation, as desired. And then, for an instant—nothing. The board blinked out and went completely dark.
The room went quiet, every technician, every engineer—the room took a collective breath. And then, as suddenly as the board went dark, with a whirling sound, the central board lit up, status lights pinging to life—all green.
Khatri blew out a breath, relieved beyond measure, but unsatisfied and wanting answers. “Find out what that was,” she ordered the team, “And make damn sure it doesn’t happen again.”
She leaned in over the communications terminal, the technician leaning aside as she hailed the Avalon assessment team, “AV-One, report. Status change? What are you seeing out there?”
Silence lingered on the open comm.
“AV-One, are you with us?” Khatri hailed again.
“AV-One, here, sir,” a voice called back finally, the sound of wind and background noise congesting the comm. “Readings should be coming through now. No visual change at the site.”
Khatri looked up at another monitor, a shared split visual. Peter Tyler, head of Torchwood looked back from his current location, the second and third windows visuals from Avalon, assessment teams Two and Three bodycams, muddled by static interference. The fourth window was dark. AV-Four had gone offline.
“Mr. Tyler, Cardiff Centre,” Khatri addressed him, “we are all go here.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Torchwood’s mobile command centre bristled with increased activity. More equipment was being rushed in to reinforce what had been a temporary setup— never intended to monitor the escalating chaos from the ruptured Rift and the unpredictable release of residual energy across Cardiff, let alone to initiate and direct the emergency evacuation of the city.
Weary, the Doctor stood from the console where he’d been trying to find information and learn the recent history of a world he didn’t know. A world where he was known and yet a stranger. Crossing the room, he observed the bustle to set up terminals and more monitors.
Across the room, Pete Tyler addressed a person on a split screen monitor, simultaneously speaking into his mobile. A Torchwood official, a woman apprised him, while on the other segmented windows static scenes played out, beamed in from teams on the ground at the Avalon site—the site of the rupture.
At Pete Tyler’s side Rose stood by, watching the feed, consumed by the data streaming in.
They’d lost a team; their cam feed gone blank. It was just one of several now, taken by the Rift. Some had been deposited elsewhere, one such team leader reporting in from a phone box at a petrol station in Dursley. He was one of the lucky ones who had come back. And his team, they’d been outside a fifteen-mile perimeter zone.
The effects of the rupture were widening.
All of this could have been avoided.
Torchwood’s attempt to control the Rift, treating it like a mechanical problem to be solved, rather than a living force of nature. They were trying to survive, prevent some new threat from coming through, or someone like Brett Jones from recreating the horrors John Lumic had created.
The Doctor receded against the exterior wall, shivering and overwhelmed in the moment. His concentration was drifting again. Looking down he could see the trembling in his hands, temporal surges creeping in.
He turned and moved to the exit, opening the door and stepping out onto the metal landing to take a breath of air. He leaned against the doorjamb, doing his best to keep his posture straight, solid. The Doctor knew he couldn’t let them see; Rose would understand but worry. And Pete—he would question his capability, and rightly so.
A low groaning rumble of thunder drew his attention up towards the view before him. The sky churned as storm clouds parted—revealing a living ribbon of aurora overhead, flickering violet and electric blue, rewiring this world with raw temporal and dimensional energy.
The Doctor winced against the static, the clawing of the bursts scattering above him. Even with the boost of potassium chloride, even with the residual power of the vortex that clung to Rose, the energy being expelled by the rupture clawed at fragile synapses, threatening to incapacitate him. Perhaps even cause more damage than he’d already suffered when…
When he’d regenerated. Tumbling through the vortex, the TARDIS, unpiloted. Thrown by an enormous explosion…
Shaking his head to clear away something, a buzz, a sound— the Doctor looked out at the Battersea factory. A hulking mass, silent. All the half processed Cybermen, filled by frightened human essence, memories and hopes, all silenced. What must be done…
Pete’s words echoed in his mind. That utterance, a choice—one he’d had to make.
His breath faltered as the Rift pulsed again—and the world around him cracked open like a memory. The Doctor found himself no longer standing at the edge of the mobile command centre on the outskirts of a dismal silent factory. Waiting helicopters looming in the distance. No longer beneath the splintering sky of this alternate London.
Somewhere. Another place in time, in space… where the sky bled fire— above Gallifrey the clouds burned, static-still, torn apart by temporal detonations. Suns flickered in and out of existence like faulty strobes, each flare aging everything—everyone—by centuries.
The High Council, draped in flame and hubris. No longer protectors—but desperate strategists in Armageddon. The Daleks—moving in fractal spirals, descending with precision — an algorithm of extinction.
And he saw himself trapped between them all— the brilliance, the horror, the cold arithmetic of sacrifice.
His own war raged in a chamber without walls, breached eternity where voices overlapped like echoes in a collapsing tunnel.
“What have you done?”
“It’s got to be stopped—”
“No, no, no, you don’t understand— the risk, the damage—”
“The damage is done! Look at it! It’s burning!”
To lift his head took more effort than he knew. His knees buckled. His breath caught. Above — not sky, but a shattered point in time. A thunderhead of dark energy billowing through the Vortex, tearing through the threads of reality with a soundless scream.
“We have to go back—”
“We can’t!”
“We must!”
“Don’t you see? There’s no one left to save!”
“No… no, there was another way—there must be—”
The futility. The despair, denial, rage, and guilt. Bleeding in, saturating his mind, his body, his being, and essence. Panic, grief, refusal— crackling across a fractured memory, unfathomed carnage strewn across all of reality.
The Vortex ripped open, a great wound in eternity where ships crashed between centuries, and soldiers fought beside versions of themselves who had already died.
Children. The children were… born old—without the gift of innocence or joy, only knowing regret and grief.
He could see them— All of them—traces of himself, turning against one another like shards of a mirror. Some pleading. Some furious. Some in stunned silence.
And the one, standing alone, stoic, wrapped in fire and remorse. Alone and hated by even himself. The one who pulled the trigger. The one who stopped the war.
Staggering, blood roared in the Doctor’s ears, and the air around him sizzled like artron energy reversing itself.
The memory shattered with a burst of golden light—releasing him—an embodiment of absolution. A voice battered through it— finding him—
“Doctor…?”
Real. One that knew him — not he who was born of war, or broke the sky, but he that loved, and remembered.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Doctor was no longer where Rose had left him, and her heart raced, alarmed by memories of him vanishing during episodes at Lambeth Hope — when his mind was scattered.
Panic surged. She spun—eyes searching—until she found him.
He stood just inside an exterior door, back to her, motionless. Framed by the outline of the doorway, his silhouette stark against the kaleidoscopic chaos outside—a sky tearing itself apart in a spectacle of unnatural brutal hues.
She reached out, touched his arm, calling to him, “Doctor?”
The effect was instantaneous— he jolted, breath ripped from his lungs, as if he’d breached the surface a raging sea.
Rose flinched, startled—until he turned. The look in his eyes nearly undid her.
A gaze so heartbreaking as if he’d been lost in some burning corridor of memory—and only now remembering how to breathe. His chest heaved with something between anguish and relief. And then he was pulling her into his arms, holding her like he thought she might disappear.
“Oh, Rose,” he whispered, her name breaking over his lips like a drowning man finding air. It was a tether. A lifeline. A plea from a man treading for his life.
A quiet sound came from behind her—someone announcing themselves as unobtrusively as possible. She turned to see Pete, standing back, worry etched deep in his face. She knew his concern, saw his gaze drift toward the Doctor.
“Sorry,” Pete murmured, excusing a perceived intrusion. No need to ask if anything was wrong. Everything was.
Rose pulled back from the Doctor, watching as he lowered his head and turned away, indignity flushing his face. He straightened his back, forcing composure— striving to rebuild his brittle armour piece by piece.
A data pad clutched in one hand; Pete spoke in low, clipped voice. “We’re already seeing a change. The Avalon rupture expulsions are reducing.”
“How much?” Rose asked, taking the pad from him to study.
“Readings are minimal,” Pete continued, “it’s still unstable. Models are predicting just a twenty-minute window where we might be able to get close.”
Rose’s arms tightened around herself. “Close?”
“Maybe a mile. That Merlin’s sturdy enough to hover within range,” Pete said with a glance outside, “It could be a couple of hours before it’s safe—”
“That’s too long,” the Doctor said, turning to them from the doorway. “We can’t wait any longer—I can’t wait any longer.”
Pete appeared confused. “But you’ve been here nearly t—”
“I wasn’t fighting back the entire power of the void.”
Pete nodded, swallowing hard, thinking on the spot. “We’ll have to expedite the Cardiff release then—”
“No,” the Doctor said, “The barriers are already too weakened—You can’t force this. Pushing the Rift—it’ll notice. And it will answer back.”
“There’s no certainty of that—”
“Do you want to take that risk?” the Doctor countered, bitter. “Realities could unravel and this planet— It... It’ll fall. Straight into the Void. This isn’t like silencing a few hundred scared humans trapped in metal bodies.”
Provoked, Pete took a step towards him. “Listen, Doctor, I know what you must think of me—”
“Oh, you do now?”
“Dad,” Rose tried to defuse this.
“I did what no one else would—I made a choice no one else could—”
“So have I!” The Doctor proclaimed. “Don’t think I haven’t—”
“Stop it!” Rose demanded. “Will you listen to yourselves?” Her eyes moved between them— disbelief, anger, and something heavier flickering across her face. “You can’t do this. Either of you!”
Both men looked around at her.
“You both made choices. Decisions,” she exclaimed, flustered and seeking her words, unwilling to stop. “And now look at you— talking each other down like… Like one of you’s better than the other. But you’re not. You’re both standing in the same fire.”
She hauled in a breath, trying to steady her voice, the weight of it all catching in her throat. “I know what you’ve done. I know why. And I still believed in you. Both of you. I do.” Her voice dropped. “So don’t stand here and… and tear each other apart for surviving the worst day of your lives. Not now.”
Neither man spoke, their eyes avoiding her.
“‘Cause we don’t get another one to fix it, do we?”
Pete turned away, scrubbing a hand down his face like he could wipe off the guilt, trying to centre himself.
“We have to go then, now.” He announced turning back them. He looked at Rose. “Me and the Doctor. I can’t let you go.”
“No,” she stepped closer to the Doctor. “You don’t make that choice. What about mum and Ronnie? I won’t let you. The Doctor… he needs me.”
“I promised your mum I’d keep you safe.”
“I’ll promise Jackie that, too,” the Doctor said, his voice quiet, thoughtful. The sound of his words hung in the air, drawing their attention. “I remember that. It hasn’t happened yet,” he shrugged and looked oddly amused for an instant before his expression grew stoney again. “And it may never.” He looked between them, determined. “I’ll go on my own.”
Rose looked at him, struck. “You know you can’t.”
The Doctor refused to meet her gaze, turning to walk away—his body betraying him, he staggered in step, catching himself as quickly as he could.
Rose reached for him, grasping his hand despite him trying to pull away from her touch. He closed his eyes at the feel of her hand, his head lifting in response to the vortex energy that clung to her.
“You see,” her breath hitched. His struggle too evident no matter how he fought to disguise it. “You can feel it—you told me so.”
He brought himself to look at her, and she could see how this tore at him. There was no room in this moment for dignity. No time for pride.
The Doctor’s expression softened with a thin smile, his gaze falling on her with a study of admiration. “Rose Tyler,” he said, “Still so determined.”
She lifted her chin. “Would you have me be any other way?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like salvation surrendered to rather than chosen, an ashy morning crept over London’s heavily clouded sky. Silhouetted against the muted light stood a heavy-duty Merlin, built to manoeuvre well and hold firm in fierce weather. Its form reflected in pools of rainwater spotting the tarmac like broken bits of mirror. The engines whirled, not at full power but at a languid idling speed just strong enough to churn the air over its approaching passengers.
The Doctor and Rose walked through the mobile command encampment, pace set to the dirge-like beat of the helicopter rotors, paled by dreary light, moving like ghosts, Pete Tyler leading their way. Shadows cast long in the stuttering flashes of lightning. Thoughts weighed by the uncertainty of the journey ahead.
And yet, there was no time to wait. The damage was done to this world, weakening the barriers holding back the void, and continuing to undo the Doctor. He was struggling to maintain his awareness, fighting against the screaming crawl of temporal noise.
He looked at Rose, each of her steps beside him a quiet act of reverence. The coward in him wanted to take her by the hand and run away, hide and hold her until it all ended. That wasn't going to happen. She deserved so much more. She deserved another chance for a fantastic life and that's all he could try to give her.
The thrum of rotor blades. The shape of Rose.
And still, somewhere behind his eyes, he could see the ruin he’d made. The fire that hadn’t stopped burning. The choice he would not make again, he would undo if only he could— if only he had the chance.
The air was unsettled, rippling with rotor wash pushing down over them. Bits of debris and mist scattered through the air.
Pete stood by, watching them climb aboard the helicopter, silent, face grim with lines of reserved anxiety. His family, Rose, everything Pete Tyler knew stood in the balance.
As the Doctor and Rose took seats aboard the craft, a crew member leaned out from the cockpit. "Buckle in,” he called over the building sound of the engines. "This is going to be a choppy trip,” he cautioned them, and added as he slid the side door shut with finality, “It's like nothing anyone has seen before."
The Doctor glanced at Rose briefly, and she looked older than he remembered— the peculiarity of that thought was not lost on his pained consciousness. He shouldn’t remember at all, but it was there in his head.
He remembered a young girl and a brilliant playful smile, and running. He remembered her hand in his and he was full of life and joy when she looked into his eyes. All he saw now was deep sorrow and apprehension.
Wordless, he laced his fingers with hers, and as she met his eyes, they looked at one another, willing seconds into hours, desperate to seek eternity in what could be only a few last moments together.
As the helicopter lifted, its weight straining against the sky, Pete Tyler stood below, unmoving, wind whipping at his eyes — but he never looked away.
A daughter he’d only just found, headed into unimaginable uncertainty, leaving with a man who was half-ghost, barely functioning. Her life — everyone on this planet — every future imaginable — held in infirm hands.
Pete turned his gaze skyward, to the Rift bloom separating across the heavens — clouds split open with silent lightning, violet veins of energy crawling through the air.
He closed his eyes.
Jackie would never forgive him.
He’d never forgive himself.
But doing nothing while Rose flew toward God-knew-what — death, oblivion — that wasn’t a choice he could live with either.
He slowly raised his mobile to his ear.
“Get me Major Khatri.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| @ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBC
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