Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Dr Who - What If ❯ Loves Labour's Lost ( Chapter 4 )

`There we are, a brand new sonic. The TARDIS assembled it for me . . . brand new operating system with all the applications and subroutines restored from a backup,' the Doctor said as he entered the kitchen.

 

`Y'know, I've been thinkin',' Rose said as she sat at the breakfast table with a cup of tea.

 

`Well, there's a first time for everything,' he said with a cheeky grin as he sat down and picked up the cup Rose had just poured for him.

 

`Oi! Watch it,' she said with a grin of her own. `No, it was about Martha Jones. I passed out before I got chance to thank her for saving your life.'

 

`From what I remember, you had a big part to play in that yourself.'

 

Rose gulped. What did he remember about being dead? Had he heard anything she had said? `Me? Y'mean you were still aware of things while you were dead?'

 

`Sort of . . . vaguely. It was like being in a dream state. I remember someone pumping my chest and breathing life into my lungs. Now Martha's a medical student, she has the skills to put a cannula in my arm. To assemble an intravenous drip and administer a volume of fluid into my bloodstream. While she was doing that, someone else had to be keeping me alive.' He looked up at her and gave her a warm smile. `Thank you,' he said quietly.

 

`You'd have done the same for me,' she said, trying to be dismissive, but feeling proud and relieved that she'd done it. `So, wouldn't it be nice if we could do somethin' for her as a way of sayin' thank you.'

 

`What you got in mind?'

 

`I dunno . . . what about a trip in the TARDIS?'

 

He gave her a questioning look. `Invite her into the TARDIS?'

 

Rose saw the look and smiled. `Now I know I like you all to myself in here, but it's nice to have guests over now and again. It'd be a sort of once around the block for her.'

 

`I like the sound of that,' he said with a smile. `Drink up and we'll go and find her.'

 

Rose did a bit of searching of the social networks on the internet and found Martha Jones. It was quite easy then to find her family. She had an elder sister Tish, and a younger brother Leo. Her parents Clive and Francine had split up, and her father was dating a younger woman called Annalise. From all the blogging that was going on about her father and his floosie, it was easy to find out where they were having the party.

 

`People put all this stuff about themselves on a global computer network?' the Doctor said in amazement as he looked over her shoulder at the console monitor.

 

`Yeah, we're very sociable animals us humans.'

 

`No wonder aliens love to invade Earth. You tell them everything they need to know about you, and give them a smiley face while you do it. LOL.'

 

Rose looked concerned. `Is it a problem? Should we warn someone?'

 

He rubbed the back of his neck. `Nah. Like most things, it's a double edged sword. How is anyone going to sneak up on you when you're all blogging and gossiping about anything and everything? Right, The Market Tavern. Let's go and offer medical student Jones a reward for her brilliant, life saving efforts.'

 

Outside the Market Tavern, it all seemed to be kicking off and getting very domestic. The Doctor and Rose were standing at the end of an alleyway down the street, watching as a leggy blonde stormed out of the party.

 

`That'll be the floosie,' the Doctor deduced.

 

`You can't call her that,' Rose told him.

 

`Why not? Everybody else is on the Jones's blog.'

 

`I am not staying in there to be insulted!' Annalise shouted.

 

A dark skinned man hurried out after her. `She didn't mean it, sweetheart. She was just saying you look healthy.'

 

`Ah, that's Clive; her dad.' said Rose.

 

A stern looking dark skinned woman had followed them onto the street. `No, I did not. I said orange.'

 

`Oof. That's got to be the mother, Francine,' the Doctor said with a wince. `Remind you of anyone?'

 

`No,' replied Rose, a little too quickly and sharply. She knew exactly who he was thinking of and what he was implying.

 

`Clive, that woman is disrespecting me. She's never liked me,' Annalise whined.

 

`Oh, I can't think why, after you stole my husband.'

 

They saw Martha come through the door, followed by a young man, who they assumed was the birthday boy, and a young lady that must have been her sister.

 

`I was seduced. I'm entirely innocent. Tell her, babe.'

 

`And then she has a go at Martha, practically accused her of making the whole thing up,' Francine continued.

 

`Mum, I don't mind. Just leave it,' Martha said, trying to diffuse the situation.

 

`Oh. I've been to the moon! As if,' Annalise said with a head wobble of attitude. `They were drugged. It said so on the news.'

 

`Since when did you watch the news? You can't handle Quiz Mania,' Francine spat back.

 

`Annalise started it. She did. I heard her,' said Tish.

 

Leo rolled his eyes. `Tish, don't make it worse.'

 

`Oh, come off it, Leo. What did she buy you? Soap. A seventy five pence soap,' Tish reminded him.

 

`Oh, I'm never talking to your family again!' Annalise said and stormed off.

 

`Oh, stay. Have a night out with Clive,' Francine said sarcastically.

 

`Don't you dare. I'm putting my foot down,' Clive told Annalise.

 

`You coming?' she asked him as she walked away.

 

`This is me, putting my foot down,' Clive claimed, and then went after her

 

`Doing it for the last twenty five years!' Francine said.

 

`Please,' Clive pleaded as they disappeared down the street.

 

`Clive, stop, now!' Francine demanded, but he didn't so she turned and stormed off in the opposite direction.

 

Tish went after her. `Mum, don't. I . . .'

 

Leo went after Annalise and Clive, which left Martha on her own outside the tavern. She glanced down the street and saw the Doctor and Rose standing on the corner of the alleyway. He had his hands in his pockets, and Rose had her arm linked through his. He gave her a lopsided smile and Rose waved with her fingers, before they turned away and disappeared down the alleyway.

 

Martha hurried across the road and set off to find them. She walked down the alley and turned the corner where she found them leaning against a blue wooden box, still arm in arm.

 

`I went to the moon today,' she told them as she approached.

 

`You and me both,' Rose said with a smile.

 

`A bit more peaceful than down here,' he observed, looking in the direction she had come from.

 

`I've been millions of light-years to the back of beyond, but I'd never been to the moon before,' Rose told her.

 

`You never even told me who you are.'

 

Yes he had. He distinctly remembered telling her. `The Doctor, and Rose,' he reminded her.

 

`What sort of species? It's not every day I get to ask that.'

 

`I told you I'm from Peckham,' Rose said. `I'm human. And the Doctor, he's . . .'

 

`I'm a Time Lord.'

 

`Right! Not pompous at all, then.' Rose snorted a laugh. She'd liked Martha when she'd first met her, and was liking her more and more.

 

`We just thought since you saved my life and I've got a brand new sonic screwdriver which needs road testing, you might fancy a trip.' He reached inside his jacket, took out the sonic and flipped it in the air as he spoke.

 

`What, into space?'

 

`Wellll . . .'

 

`But I can't. I've got exams. I've got things to do. I have to go into town first thing and pay the rent, I've got my family going mad.'

 

`I had that problem when he asked me to travel with him,' Rose told her. `If it helps, He can travel in time as well.'

 

`Get out of here,' Martha said.

 

`I can.'

 

`The clue's in the name,' Rose added.

 

`Come on now, that's going too far.'

 

`We'll prove it,' he told her, and Rose opened the door to let them in.

 

The alleyway was filled with the sound of wheezing and grinding as the blue, wooden box slowly disappeared. Martha reached forwards to see if it was still there or if it had really gone. A few seconds later, she felt a breeze as the sound returned. She backed away, watching the blue, wooden box reappear out of thin air, until she bumped into a cylindrical bin behind her.

 

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS without a tie, and when Rose stepped out, she was wearing it around her head like a hippy. `Told you,' he said, as Rose took the tie from around her head and put it back around his neck, turning down his collar and smoothing his lapels in a repeat of what Martha had witnessed that morning.

 

`No, but . . . that was this morning. Did you? . . . Oh, my God. You can travel in time,' she realised, and then realised something else. `But hold on. If you could see me this morning, why didn't you tell me not to go in to work?'

 

`Tried that once, didn't end well that one,' Rose told her with a far away look in her eyes.

 

The Doctor tried to explain. `Crossing into established events is strictly forbidden.'

 

`Except for cheap tricks,' Rose added with a grin.

 

`And that's your spaceship?' she asked, nodding at the wooden box.

 

`It's called the TARDIS,' said Rose.

 

`Time and Relative Dimension in Space,' he explained.

 

She walked forward and stroked the exterior. `Your spaceship's made of wood.' She looked around the side. `There's not much room. We'd be a bit intimate,' thinking she'd be a bit of a gooseberry with these two people who were obviously in love.

 

`Take a look,' he said, pushing open the door for her.

 

`Hang on,' Rose said, pushing past Martha and rushing inside. `I love this bit.'

 

Martha stepped into the small wooden box and froze as she gazed at the cathedral like, vaulted ceiling of the console room. Rose had an enormous grin on her face. The Doctor followed Martha inside and leaned on the handrail.

 

`No, no, no.' Martha ran back out of the TARDIS and looked at it from the outside.

 

`But it's just a box . . . But it's huge,' she shouted from outside. The Doctor looked over to Rose and waggled his eyebrows.

 

She appeared at the doorway. `How does it do that? It's wood. It's like a box with that room just rammed in.' and then she said it, the statement that never got old for the pair of them. `It's bigger on the inside.'

 

Rose saw the Doctor mime the words and burst out laughing.

 

`Is it? I hadn't noticed,' he joked as he shut the door and ran up the ramp. He slipped off his long coat and threw it over the coral, before joining Rose at the console. `Right then, let's get going.'

 

She looked at the huge interior and wondered. `But is it just you two, or is there a crew, like a navigator and stuff?'

 

Nah, just us,' Rose said, smiling at the Doctor.

 

`Well, sometimes we have guests. I mean some friends, travelling alongside. So, just one trip to say thanks. You get one trip, then back home.'

 

Rose faced Martha and looked her in the eye. `Thank you for what you did today, savin' his life and everythin'.' She held her arms out in invitation, and Martha accepted the hug.

 

`Well, then,' he said, causing the ladies to release their hug. `Close down the gravitic anomaliser, fire up the helmic regulator. And finally, the hand brake. Ready?'

 

Rose nodded, but Martha looked unsure. `No.'

 

`Oh trust me, you're gonna love this next bit,' Rose reassured her.

 

The Doctor pulled down a lever. `Off we go.'

 

The TARDIS lurched as the Time Rotor started to pump up and down, throwing the Doctor onto the jump seat. Rose held onto the console with one hand, and caught Martha's elbow with the other, guiding her to the console.

 

`Blimey, it's a bit bumpy,' Martha said.

 

`Hah, tell me about it!' Rose laughed. `Don't you just love it?'

 

The Doctor laughed. `Welcome aboard, Miss Jones.'

 

`It's my pleasure, Mister Smith.'

 

The TARDIS was still rolling and bucking, and Martha was hanging on to the console for dear life. Rose was standing casually by the side of her, just steadying herself on the console. She'd got her space legs and was used to the motion. It was as if the TARDIS was like an excited child that couldn't wait to show off to someone new.

 

`But how do you travel in time? What makes it go?' Martha asked them.

 

`It has somethin' to do with somethin' called the Time Vortex,' Rose tried to explain with her limited understanding of the complex physics.

 

`Oh, let's take the fun and mystery out of everything. Martha, you don't want to know. It just does. Hold on tight.' He braced one leg up on the console.

 

Rose leant over the console and spread her arms as the TARDIS came to a sudden halt. Martha fell to the floor. Rose reached down and helped her to her feet, as the Doctor hurried around the console.

 

`Blimey. Do you have to pass a test to fly this thing?'

 

`Yes, and I failed it,' he said, as he grabbed his coat off the coral strut and threw Martha her smart purple leather jacket. `Now, make the most of it. I promised you one trip, and one trip only.' He shrugged his coat on and went down the ramp to the doors. `Outside this door, brave new world.'

 

`Where are we?' she asked uncertainly. Rose knew exactly how she was feeling and rubbed her arm and gave her a reassuring smile.

 

`Take a look,' he said, opening the door. `After you.'

 

Martha stepped out onto a narrow, cobbled street with Elizabethan buildings on each side. Washing was hanging on lines below the overhanging eaves, where a woman was washing in a trough. People were walking to and fro as scruffy urchins ran around playing tag.

 

`Oh, you are kidding me. You are SO kidding me. Oh, my God, we did it. We travelled in time.'

 

The Doctor grinned and Rose laughed. They loved this bit. `Yeah, isn't it brilliant?' Rose said, and then thought about a journey into the past she'd had before. `Hang on, shouldn't we be wearin' different clothes or somethin'? Like I did in Cardiff.'

 

`Nah, not here. Very cosmopolitan. You've got people from all over the world, wearing all sorts of clothing.'

 

`Where are we? No, sorry. I got to get used to this whole new language. When are we?'

 

`Mind out,' the Doctor called out as he grabbed Martha's arm and pulled her back. A stream of human waste products poured down from a window above.

 

`Gardez l'eau!' someone shouted from the window, a little too late.

 

`Somewhere before the invention of the toilet anyway,' Rose observed. It certainly explained the smell that was coming from the street.

 

`Sorry about that,' the Doctor said.

 

Martha smiled. `I've seen worse. I've worked the late night shift A+E. But are we safe? I mean, can we move around and stuff?'

 

`Of course we can. Why do you ask?' he asked.

 

`It's like in the films. You step on a butterfly, you change the future of the human race,' said Martha.

 

`Tell you what then, don't step on any butterflies. What have butterflies ever done to you?'

 

`Doctor, that's not what she means.' Rose thought he was being a bit flippant about something so important.

 

Martha continued her train of thought. `What if, I don't know, what if I kill my grandfather?'

 

`Are you planning to?'

 

`No.'

 

`Well, then.'

 

`Doctor! Have you forgotten the 7th of November, 1987?' Rose asked him in an annoyed tone.

 

He saw the look on her face and stopped. She'd lost her father on that day, and he remembered how they'd tried to save him. He remembered how they couldn't save him and how she had comforted him as he died.

 

`Sorry,' he said quietly. He did get a bit carried away at times.

 

`What happened on that day?' Martha asked. She saw the pain in Rose's eyes when she looked at her.

 

`Let's just say that's the one that didn't end well,' is all Rose would say about that day.

 

Martha nodded, realising that something bad had happened which had painful memories for her. Trying to change the subject, she looked around `And this is London?'

 

`I think so. Round about 1599.'

 

`Oh, but hold on. Am I all right? I'm not going to get carted off as a slave, am I?' Martha wondered. She'd seen those films were dark skinned people were traded as slaves, without any thought to their humanity.

 

`Why would they do that?' he asked, genuinely baffled by her comment.

 

`Not exactly white, in case you haven't noticed.'

 

Rose pointed at him with her thumb. `He's not even human,' she said with a laugh, the awkwardness of a moment ago forgotten.

 

`Just walk about like you own the place. Works for me,' he declared. `Besides, you'd be surprised. Elizabethan England, not so different from your time.'

 

`Oh, and entertainment. Popular entertainment for the masses. If I'm right, we're just down the river by Southwark, right next to . . .'

 

The Doctor started to run along from the south end of old LondonBridge. Rose and Martha ran alongside him, past St Mary Ovarie which would become Southwark Cathedral, and stopped when they saw the magnificent edifice.

 

`Oh, yes, the Globe Theatre! Brand new. Just opened. Though, strictly speaking, it's not a globe, it's a tetradecagon. Fourteen sides. Containing the man himself.

 

`Whoa, you don't mean . . . Is Shakespeare in there?' Martha asked.

 

`Oh brilliant!' Rose exclaimed. `D'ya think he'll be anythin' like Dickens?'

 

Martha gave her a quizzical look. `Dickens?'

 

`Yeah, Charles Dickens. We met him a while back in Cardiff. He's a lovely man, like you'd imagine a favourite uncle would be like.'

 

`Let's find out shall we? Miss Jones, Miss Tyler will you accompany me to the theatre?' he asked, holding out his arms for them to take.

 

`Mister Smith, I will,' said Martha formally.

 

`Not `alf,' Rose said, a bit more informally.

 

He looked at Martha and smiled. `When you get home, you can tell everyone you've seen Shakespeare.'

 

`Then I could get sectioned.'

 

Rose laughed. She definitely liked Martha she decided.

 

 

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`Hello! Excuse me, not interrupting, am I? Mister Shakespeare, isn't it?' the Doctor asked as he entered the Elephant Tavern, where Shakespeare had retired for the evening. After they had seen the performance of Loves Labour's Lost, Will had mentioned that his players would be performing Loves Labour's Won.

 

`Oh, no. No, no, no. Who let you in? No autographs. No, you can't have yourself sketched with me. And please don't ask where I get my ideas from. Thanks for the interest. Now be a good boy and shove . . .' Will stopped his rude rant when Rose and Martha walked in behind the Doctor, and stood either side of him.

 

`Hey, nonny nonny' Will said. `Sit right down here next to me. You two get sewing on them costumes. Off you go,' he said to Burbage and Kempe, two of his players.

 

`Come on lads,' Dolly Bailey the landlady said, `I think our William's found his new muses.'

 

`Sweet ladies,' he said, indicating the chairs that Burbage and Kempe had just vacated.

 

`Such unusual clothes. So fitted,' he said, eyeing Rose and Martha with undisguised desire.

 

`Er, verily,' said Martha.

 

Rose remembered a certain adventure in Scotland when she'd tried to talk like a native. `Forsooth,' she said with a cheeky grin at the Doctor.

 

`Egads,' Martha finished.

 

`No, no, don't do that . . . Don't,' the Doctor told them. He took out his wallet of psychic paper and held it up for Will to see. `I'm Sir Doctor of Tardis and these are my companions, Miss Rose Tyler and Miss Martha Jones.

 

`Interesting, that bit of paper. It's blank.'

 

`Oh, that's very clever,' the Doctor said quietly. `That proves it. Absolute genius.'

 

`No, it says so right there. Sir Doctor, Rose Tyler, Martha Jones. It says so.'

 

`And I say it's blank.'

 

The Doctor turned to Martha. `Psychic paper. Er, long story. Oh, I hate starting from scratch.'

 

Rose touched Martha's arm to get her attention and leaned close to whisper. `It makes people see what you tell them is on it, or what they expect to see on it.'

 

`Really? That's brilliant!'

 

Whilst Rose was explaining, Will continued to talk to the Doctor. `Psychic? Never heard that before and words are my trade. Who are you exactly?' He turned to the ladies and gave them a lustful smile. `More's the point, who are your delicious ebony and ivory ladies?'

 

`What did you say?' Martha asked in disbelief.

 

`I've not heard that chat up line before,' said Rose.

 

`Oops. Aren't those words we use nowadays? An Ethiop girl and a Goodwife? A swarth and a tawny? A Queen of Afric and an English Rose?

 

Martha sat there, open mouthed. `I can't believe I'm hearing this.'

 

`He's nothin' like Dickens, that's for sure. Although, he did manage to get my name in there at the end,' Rose said.

 

The Doctor rubbed an eye distractedly. `It's political correctness gone mad. Er, my friend's are from a far-off land . . . Freedonia.'

 

A man in expensive clothes and wearing a gold chain of office entered the room. `Excuse me! Hold hard a moment. This is abominable behaviour. A new play with no warning? I demand to see a script, Mister Shakespeare. As Master of the Revels, every new script must be registered at my office and examined by me before it can be performed.'

 

`Tomorrow morning, first thing, I'll send it round,' Will told him.

 

`I don't work to your schedule, you work to mine,' Lynley said pompously. `The script, now!'

 

`I can't.'

 

`Then tomorrow's performance is cancelled.'

 

The quiet serving wench, sneaked out of the room unnoticed.

 

`Blimey. It's all go around here, innit?' said Rose.

 

`I'm returning to my office for a banning order. If it's the last thing I do, Love's Labours Won will never be played,' Lynley told Will, and left the room.

 

`Well then, mystery solved. That's Love's Labours Won over and done with. Thought it might be something more, you know, more mysterious,' Martha said with a hint of disappointment.

 

Suddenly, there was a man's gargled scream from the tavern's courtyard below, followed by a woman's high pitched shriek.

 

`Careful what you wish for,' Rose said, knowing how these things could escalate out of control. Everyone stood and hurried out of the room. They heard a woman's call for help drifting up the stairwell from below.

 

As they entered the courtyard, they saw Lynley staggering around, spewing copious amounts of water from his mouth.

 

`It's that Lynley bloke,' Rose declared.

 

The Doctor looked puzzled. `What's wrong with him? Leave it to me. I'm a doctor.' He ran forward to help.

 

Martha rushed forwards with him. `So am I, near enough.'

 

Lynley collapsed onto the cobbles, and they knelt down to examine their patient. Rose knew that she could do very little to help when two doctors were taking care of him, but also knew that when something unexplained happened, there was usually someone around who knew about it.

 

She looked around the courtyard to see if there was anything out of the ordinary, or if anyone was acting strangely. She noticed that the serving girl who had been in Shakespeare's room, was on the upper gallery of the courtyard, looking down on the scene. The girl didn't seem distressed, or concerned. If anything, Rose thought, she looked pleased with herself.

 

`Got to get the heart going . . . Mister Lynley, come on. Can you hear me? You're going to be all right.' Martha tilted his head back and was about to clear Lynley's airways for CPR, when water gushed out of his mouth. `What the hell is that?'

 

`I've never seen a death like it. His lungs are full of water. He drowned and then, I don't know, like a blow to the heart, an invisible blow.

 

The Doctor stood and turned to Dolly. `Good mistress, this poor fellow has died from a sudden imbalance of the humours. A natural if unfortunate demise. Call a constable and have him taken away.'

 

`Yes, sir,' Dolly said and was about to leave when the serving girl appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

 

`I'll do it, ma'am,' she said and turned away, smiling. Rose had been watching her, and noticed that “pleased with herself” look again.

 

`And why are you telling them that?' Martha asked him. There was nothing natural about drowning in a courtyard with no water.

 

`This lot still have got one foot in the Dark Ages. If I tell them the truth, they'll panic and think it was witchcraft.'

 

`Okay, what was it then?' asked Martha.

 

`Witchcraft,' the Doctor replied.