Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Rose and Nine The Inbetweens and backstories ❯ Chapter Nine ( Chapter 9 )

That night, while Rose slept, the Doctor stood at the console, watching the green cylinder of the Time Rotor pump up and down. He thought about her grief at seeing her father run over outside the church, and how he failed save him. He'd tried, but time wouldn't let him.

He thought about the Katurian dictator, Shade Vassily and all the people he had killed. He thought about the Katurian revolutionary who had accused the Doctor of being that mass murderer. Was his past that obvious?

That made him think about the Dalek in van Statten's bunker, how he had wanted to kill it, destroy it, eradicate it from existence. But Rose had a different view of things.

[`It couldn't kill van Statten, it couldn't kill me. It's changing. What about you, Doctor? What the hell are you changing into?']

She was right of course. He was becoming that which he most despised.

[`The Daleks have failed! Why don't you finish the job and make the Daleks extinct. Rid the Universe of your filth. Why don't you just die?']

[`You would make a good Dalek.']

His intense blue eyes stared at the Time Rotor as finally, he thought about the end of days on Gallifrey, the old barn where he had done it . . . where he had ended the war. His memory was sketchy at best on the events of that day. A long walk; he remembered walking for miles and miles. "No more!” the mantra he chanted to himself as he walked. There was a big, red button.

`Then that's your punishment. If you do this, if you kill them all, then that's the consequence. You live. Gallifrey . . . You're going to burn it, and all those Daleks with it, but all those children too. How many children on Gallifrey right now?' he heard Rose say behind him.

Puzzled, he turned around, but she wasn't there. She was fast asleep in her room. He frowned as he thought about what he'd heard. It was Rose's voice, but she'd spoken without her London accent. It was a typical Rose question, but how could she ask it? She had no idea what he had done that day.

He moved around the console to the monitor, and started typing. Concentric circles and lines appeared on the screen, the written language of the Time Lords.

“Galactic demographic database. Begin search.”

He typed “Kasterborus 10-0-11-00:02 from Galactic Zero Centre”, and then “Gallifrey”.

A stream of data scrolled down the screen, showing the gross statistics of his home planet. Cold, impersonal data that told him nothing. He selected Capitol from the displayed list of all the cities on Gallifrey, and the specific data for Gallifrey's capitol city appeared. He saw what he was looking for. “Population . . . 8,406,000”.

With trembling hands, he typed “Narrow parameter. Number of children?” Tears stung his eyes as he read the result. “Children - 280,201”.

He selected another. “Arcadia: Children - 229,015”, and another. "Old Harbour: Children - 109,201”. City by city, town by town, village by village, he counted through the night, keeping a running total in his head. By early morning, he had his answer, 2,470,000,000.

When Rose wandered into the console room later that morning, the Doctor had his arms crossed and was leaning with his back against a wall, staring across at the hexagonal console in the centre of the room, on which a myriad of lights flickered and sparkled. His face shone green in the glow from the Time Rotor, which indicated that they were in flight.

Rose didn't know where they were going, but perhaps the Doctor could tell from observing these things exactly where in the universe the time-and-space machine was taking them.

`I thought I'd better call home,' she said, waving her phone at the Doctor.

He nodded at her, his thoughts drifting to his home light years away, on a planet that no longer existed. A planet where the terrified screams of 2,470,000,000 children echoed in his memories.

She felt slightly cheated, having geared herself up for . . . well, not an argument, just that flicker of displeasure that occasionally crossed his face when she mentioned family, or more specifically, when she mentioned her mum.

Not this morning though. This morning he envied her the family she had, be it ever so small, it was still a family . . . her family.

She pushed a bit further, unaware of the penance he had paid during the night. `It's just that my mum'll worry. You know that my mum'll worry. And I did promise. Sort of.'

He nodded again. `And you think she'll worry less if you tell her you've been out facing aliens but at the moment you're just spinning through the space-time vortex.'

Rose frowned. He seemed a bit subdued this morning, as though he had something on his mind. She knew there was no point asking, he would never tell her if there was.

`She'll worry less if she thinks I'm not dead!' she said with a smirk.

The Doctor . . . her best friend, the Doctor, who outwardly seemed to be a striking, forty-ish human with a soft northern accent, but was, she knew, actually a 900-year-old alien from some galaxy far, far away . . . could be a bit dismissive of her mum's worries sometimes.

She wasn't sure if it was something to do with not being human, or just something to do with being the Doctor. She didn't even know if he'd ever had a mum of his own. If you didn't understand mums in general, there was no way you'd get Jackie Tyler.

`I'll just give her a quick call. Well, I say quick, she'll keep me on for hours, wantin' to know everythin' . . . she can talk for England, my mum can. Hope you weren't plannin' to stop off at any planets this mornin'.'

His mood lifted as Rose joked about her mother. After all, there was no point moping about something that was time locked and unchangeable, no matter how horrific it was. He switched on his grin. `My planet-hopping can wait till this afternoon.'

She smiled back, and pressed the speed-dial button that called her mum. She just had to accept that, through the Doctor's genius, her ordinary mobile could now transcend space and time; if she thought about it too much her mind began to feel like it was overheating.

The phone rang six times before it was picked up, which surprised Rose. Her mum loved nothing better than a good old natter, and the phone was usually snatched up when it had barely got out its first brring.

`Hiya, Mum.' she said.

The voice at the other end was exuberant. `Rose! What are you doin'? Where are ya?' Then a slight pause. `Are you still with `IM?'

Rose smiled. `I'm just hangin' around in the time machine. And yeah, I'm still with him.'

The Doctor looked up at this and did a sarky wave that she knew was directed at Jackie. Rose waved back happily. `Mum says hi,' she said, with her hand over the phone.

`And are you plannin' on coming home any time soon?' Jackie was saying. `Everyone misses you. Mickey misses you. I miss you. You know, one of these days you'll decide to come home and it'll be too late, I won't be here any more.'

Rose sighed. `Don't be silly, Mum. I'll pop back for a visit soon. Make sure the family silver gets a good polish ready.'

`Family silver!' Rose could hear Jackie's voice go up a notch. `It might please you to joke, my girl, but I'll have you know that I've just won the lottery.'

`Y'what?' Rose said. `That's incredible! I don't believe it! How much?'

There was a sound, somewhere outside Jackie's end of the phone call. A shout, or a cry, or something. `Listen love, I've gotta go now. Lovely to hear from ya. Gotta go.'

There was a click, and the phone was silent. Rose looked down at it in surprise. Then, shaking her head, she slipped the phone back in her pocket.

`Talk for England, you said,' the Doctor commented, strolling over to the central controls. `Can't get her off the phone.'

`My mum's won the lottery!' Rose started pacing around the control room, her eyes shining. `How brilliant is that? We'll be able to get a great big house . . .'

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, gesturing at the enormous room in which they stood.

`. . . go on holiday . . . the Caribbean or somewhere . . . or Florida!'

The Doctor stared at her. `I can take you anywhere in time and space!'

She wasn't listening. `I've always wanted to go to Disneyland.'

`Yeah, brilliant, grown men dressed up as mice and kids being sick on roller coasters. I can take you to planets where there are real talking mice. And ducks!'

She shrugged. `But you haven't, though, have ya? And y'wouldn't take my mum, anyway.'

He grinned. `Well, maybe not. Don't wanna scare the mice.' He carried on before Rose could respond. `She all happy then, is she? Too busy spending to talk to you?'

Rose grimaced. `Yeah, that was weird.' She paused for a second, and then gave him what she hoped was a winning smile. `Don't s'pose we could pop home for a bit, could we? Just to check on her.'

`D'you think something's up?' he asked.

`No, not really. But she did say somethin' about not bein' there when I get back,' Rose said. `Don't want to turn up one day and find she's gone off to some country mansion and chucked out all my stuff.'

`A couple of old posters and a teddy bear? Yeah, that'd be a tragedy.'

Rose gave him a mock glare. `I'm nineteen years old, I think I have grown out of teddy bears, and I do have a few more possessions than that. Some of which have sentimental value, I'll have you know. So could we go home please? Just for a flyin' visit, I promise.'

`Yeah, all right.' He nodded, and started setting a course. `I don't know, humans, always come with so much baggage . . .'

`Yeah, it's a crime, ain't it?' she agreed. And then, after a moment. `You don't really think she'd chuck out Mr Tedopoulos, do you?'

The Doctor just grinned.

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It turned out that Mr Tedopoulos was safe! Which was more than could be said for a lot of people on the estate. Jackie hadn't really won the lottery; she'd won a games console on a free, promotional scratch card, which she'd given to Mickey. What she really wanted to win was one of the holidays.

"Mrs Hall down the road won one; it's wasted on someone like that, you know what she's like, probably won't take her hat and coat off even if it's eighty degrees, and there's me with a bikini still with its label on, stuck in the drawer that I've never had a chance to wear . . .“ she'd told Rose when she'd arrived.

Sitting in a dark, alien pyramid, with the remains of people from the estate scattered around her, she knew her mother didn't want to win this holiday. No, seriously, she REALLY didn't want to! She'd seen Mrs Hall, still with her tea cosy hat on her head, even if her head wasn't attached to her body. There were bits of Johnny Deans scattered about who she'd known at school.

They were dead because the games consoles weren't really games consoles. They were remote control units that moved the people like avatars in an alien shoot 'em up game. The people who had won the holidays, had control disks fitted to their foreheads which took away their free will and turned them into puppets.

And when they had travelled to the planet Toop to try and rescue the people from the ruthless, porcupine-like Quevvils, Rose had been forced to become an avatar, and the Doctor had been forced to use her to infiltrate the Mantodean stronghold, and overcome their defences so that the Quevvils could invade.

Rose had played some innocent video games when she was younger, running a blue hedgehog around the screen to collect gold rings, and a couple of plumbers so they could collect stars. But then the consoles got more advanced, and the games more realistic, and now, having been one of those characters . . . well, it just wasn't fun anymore.

In fact, it had been terrifying. She screwed her eyes shut as she imagined what the people who didn't survive had gone through. Just standing there, unable to move as a two metre tall mantis-like alien approached and bit your head off.

Rose's only comfort was that she knew her body was being controlled by her best friend, a person she trusted implicitly and knew wouldn't let her down . . . okay, hoped wouldn't let her down. There had been a few close calls, where she was just standing still, not knowing that the Doctor had needed to overcome the Quevvil guard.

And now it was over, and she was sitting on a wide ledge. Behind her was a steep slope that she couldn't get purchase on to climb. To her side was a fellow avatar survivor from the Powell estate, Daisy Watson. In front of them was a bottomless pit.

She was trying to think of ways of getting over the pit, when she heard a sound that wasn't just music to her ears, it was the most wonderful music ever, it was the greatest symphony ever written, performed by the best orchestra in the world. It was the sound of the TARDIS.

Rose had to grab Daisy, who had started to back away in astonishment and fear, forgetting . . . or no longer caring . . . that there was a very deep pit behind. And then, suddenly, there was the TARDIS in front of them, its flashing light banishing the darkness, banishing their fear.

The door opened. A young lad poked his head out . . . and saw Daisy.

`Bobbles!' she screamed. `Oh, my darling, my darling!'

The lad put up with her massive embrace with fairly bad grace. `Mum,' he said, `my name is Robert.'

Then the Doctor appeared, still the same as ever, grinning away. `Rescue party!' he said.

He turned to Daisy, and seemed to be checking her out. Rose coughed, pointedly.

`Is this your mum then?' he said to Robert. `Funny, that. She's not really how I imagined her from your description . . .'

Robert shrugged and made a face.

`Hello,' said the Doctor to Daisy, holding out a hand. `I'm the Doctor.'

She grabbed at his hand with both of hers, thanks pouring out of her mouth. It took a while for the Doctor to extricate himself. Then he turned to Rose. `There you are then. All right?'

`Yeah,' she lied. `I'm all right.' She was far from all right, but she would be.

They went into the TARDIS, and in the Medi-bay, the Doctor removed the control discs from Rose and Daisy's foreheads, along with the neural filaments that had infiltrated their motor cortex's. Rose then went to the kitchen to make a pot of tea.

They landed back on the Powell Estate, opposite the Chinese and the youth club, and Rose wasn't a bit surprised. The place was deserted, though . . . the latest of late nighters had gone to bed and the early birds weren't up yet. It was that depressing time in the early morning where the only people about were milkmen, police officers . . . and time travellers.

She explained to Daisy and Robert where they were. `There won't be buses for an hour or two, I don't reckon,' she said. But Daisy said that was fine; they'd find a night bus, or they'd walk, or get a taxi, or something.

She looked at the Doctor and sighed. `Suppose we'd better hang around till the mornin' then. Go and see everyone. Thank Mickey for savin' the day, and all that. Make sure he's given Mrs Burton her shoppin' basket back. Stuff like that.'

The Doctor looked horror-stricken. `Tell Mickey the idiot that he saved the day? What d'you wanna do that for?'

`You said he did! You told me all about it!'

He shook his head. `No I didn't. Didn't say anything of the kind. I said he'd been of some slight use, and at least he didn't muck everything up like normal.'

`You could tell him that then,' she said. `It's high praise, comin' from you.' But he looked quite alarmed.

`And then there's my mum,' she said. `I need to call the hospital, find out how she is.' Jackie had been mugged by Darren Pye, a local thug and had her winning holiday ticket stolen.

Rose glanced at Bucknall House, up high at her flat. There was a light on in the window. `Mum said that Darren Pye nicked her keys!' she said. `We've got burglars!' And she raced off.

Rose let herself into the flat as quietly as she could. The Doctor was following on behind. Burglars didn't stand a chance against them.

Light was coming from under the door to her right. Her mum's room. She pushed the door open, ready to shout or fight or scream. But inside there was just her mum, asleep. The bruises on her face shone brightly coloured in the illumination from the lamp, and Rose's heart twisted.

She put up a hand to stop the Doctor coming any further, and padded softly over to the bed. But she must have made some noise, because Jackie's eyes flickered open. There was alarm in them for a moment, then relief and happiness as she recognised Rose. `Hello, darlin',' she whispered.

`Hello, Mum,' said Rose. `They let you out then?' She hadn't thought they would, not yet. Her mum had looked so awful. But the sense of relief, knowing it hadn't been as bad as all that . . . it was overwhelming.

Jackie smiled sleepily. `Mm. Said I'll be fine. Just take it easy.' She yawned.

`Go back to sleep,' Rose said.

`Will you still be here in the mornin'?'

Rose leaned over and kissed her mum gently on the forehead. `Dunno,' she said. `But I'll see you soon, whatever.'

Then, as Jackie's eyes closed again, Rose crept out of the room.

The Doctor was making a cup of tea in the kitchen.

`Mum's asleep,' Rose said, yawning herself. `Not a bad idea, I reckon. I've got my room and you can have the sofa.'

The Doctor helped himself to a biscuit. `Yeah, then maybe tomorrow we could go and feed the ducks in the park, or p'raps there'll be a good film on telly.'

She gave him a hard stare. `So, you're tellin' me you don't want to hang around.'

`'S boring,' he said. `Who wants to do ordinary things like sleep, when there's a universe to explore? What would you rather do, catch forty winks, or nip off to have a look at the moons of Jupiter?'

`I don't know,' she said, teasing. `Isn't it quite cold up there?'

`Somewhere warm, then!' he said. `We could watch the building of the Great Pyramid, or investigate this rumour I heard about this mad scientist who tried to build asbestos robots to colonise the sun.'

And all of Rose's tiredness fell away as he spoke. She looked out of the window as the sun rose upon another grey London day, and thought about the alternatives the Doctor was offering. And she realised that while she might truly be the mistress of her own destiny, sometimes there really wasn't much of a choice.

`Yeah, all right,' she said as the cup of tea perked her up.

They finished their drinks; Rose washed the cups, and then left her mum a note. Arm in arm, they left the flat, and Rose spotted some missing persons posters on the walls and columns as they walked along the landing to the stairs.

She thought about the time she was a year late coming home, and how her mum had worried that she might be dead and would never see her again.

`How many d'ya think died?' Rose asked as she looked over the estate from the landing.

`Too many,' he replied solemnly. He'd recently counted a group of casualties; he didn't want to make a habit of it. `Families will file missing person reports. Police will investigate. The people we rescued can give statements, and maybe a final count will be made.'

“But there would be no bodies,” Rose thought, “no closure for the families.”

Yes, it was definitely time to move on.