A Fixed Point (1/1)
Title - A Fixed Point (1/1)
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Ten, Rose, OCs
Spoilers - I've started to think I may reference events without thinking, so, to be safe: Through the specials.
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for the kids, they're all mine.)
Summary - A family trip to Chicago.
Author's Notes - Everyone, this is a momentous occasion. Bringing up the rear, here, finally, is azriona 's Support Stacie fic, which is the last of my major Support Stacie fics. I want to thank her -- and all my lovely winners -- for their kind patience with me. azriona's prompt wanted the family involved with the Great Chicago Fire (as there is a theory that it was caused by aliens, not poor Mrs. O'Leary's cow).
jlrpuck has been a fabulous beta and lovely friend throughout.
The icon was created by swankkat , commissioned by jlrpuck for my birthday.
Rose opened the door of the TARDIS , stepped outside and frowned. It was warm and it was dusty and it was crowded. She was not pleased. She turned to the Doctor, who was stepping outside behind her, holding Fortuna.
“What is this?” she asked, hands on her hips.
He paused at her obvious displeasure. “You said you wanted to go somewhere modern,” he pointed out.
“This is not modern.” Rose’s arm swept out, encompassing the horses and wagons caught in an old-fashioned traffic jam along the dirt path that was passing as a street.
“Looks like modern traffic,” the Doctor told her.
“Modern traffic would have cars,” she said.
“’Modern’ is a relative term,” he pointed out, and turned back to the TARDIS, where Brem and Athena had been waiting impatiently in the doorway for the outcome of the conversation. “Stay close to Mummy and Daddy, it’s crowded,” he said, as they hopped out and he pulled the TARDIS door closed.
“Doctor,” said Rose. “When I said ‘modern,’ what I wanted was someplace comfortable, with modern conveniences. You know, like indoor plumbing.”
“We’ve got a TARDIS,” the Doctor pointed out. “We can rough it for a bit.” He started walking down the street, Fortuna firmly tucked against his hip.
Rose sighed, taking the hands of Brem and Athena. “You just made me do two weeks during the construction of Stonehenge,” she said.
“And wasn’t it fascinating?” he threw over his shoulder.
“It was lovely, and the people were very nice, but indoor plumbing, Doctor.”
“We’ve got the TARDIS,” he reminded her again, negligently.
“We always end up too far away from the TARDIS for me to get back easily to take advantage of the indoor plumbing, Doctor,” grumbled Rose.
“Mummy’s grumpy,” the Doctor told Fortuna.
Rose frowned at the back of his head and decided that he was never going to have sex again. He wouldn’t be too happy when he found that out, but it served him right, hating indoor plumbing for no good reason.
“Where’s your sense of adventure, Mummy?” asked Athena, skipping happily along and kicking up great clouds of dust as she went.
“You can have adventures even with modern amenities, you know. It’s possible.”
“Where are we?” asked Brem, clearly having had enough of his mother’s complaining.
“Chicago,” answered his father. “1893. We’re going to the World’s Columbian Exposition. You’re going to love it. First Ferris wheel ever.”
“Fantastic!” exclaimed Athena, still skipping along.
“A Ferris wheel,” said Brem, wrinkling his nose. “Pretty tame, isn’t it?”
“The first Ferris wheel ever?” rejoined his father, mildly. “Could collapse at any moment. Hardly tame.”
“Will it collapse?” asked Fortuna, worriedly.
“Absolutely not,” his father assured her. “I’m just saying, it’s going to be a bit…rickety.”
Rose listened to her family discuss the Ferris wheel and when the technology of the Ferris wheel had been perfected, and stepped over a newspaper that had been abandoned in the dry, dusty road. The newspaper gave her pause. She retraced her steps, dragging Brem and Athena with her, and peered down at the newspaper. “Doctor!” she called, interrupted his monologue about amusement parks throughout the universe.
He turned back. “Hmm?”
“What year did you say it was?”
“1893.”
“So I would think it would be odd that this newspaper says it’s 1871, huh?”
“What?” he squeaked.
“October 8, 1871,” Brem read.
The Doctor went still. “October 8, 1871,” he repeated.
“Yeah.” Rose looked at him, because he was acting oddly. “Do you know the date?”
“Yes. I know the date. We have to leave.”
“What?” Rose blinked. “Why?”
“Look!” Fortuna pointed into the sky, and everyone in the family looked, at a small, dazzling, gold light streaking through the sky, landing at a point that looked not very far away from them.
“That’s why,” said the Doctor, grimly.
The kids jumped around them, asking in a chorus, “What is it? Can we go see it? Can we? Can we? Please?”
“I don’t think so,” Rose said, looking at the Doctor for guidance.
The Doctor looked a bit confused, staring off into the sky.
“Doctor,” she said, drawing him out of his reverie. “What is it?” she said, once he looked at her.
“The truth is I don’t know,” he admitted. “I thought it was…This is the day the Great Chicago Fire breaks out. I thought that was the glow in the sky from the fire. But it wasn’t, it was…”
“A meteor,” said Athena.
“A spaceship,” said Brem.
Rose looked at the eager, curious faces of her family and sighed. “We’re going to investigate, aren’t we?”
“Can we?” asked the Doctor. “It’s just that that wasn’t what I expected, and I’d like to see what it is.”
“You just wanted to leave,” Rose pointed out. “I don’t think it’s safe here.”
The Doctor looked down at Brem and Athena, who looked stubbornly at their mother.
“Mum,” said Brem. “We are old enough to handle a silly spaceship.”
“It’s what’s on the spaceship that I’m concerned about,” drawled Rose.
“But,” reasoned Athena, “it might be a meteor, and then it wouldn’t be dangerous at all.”
“If Brem and Athena get to go, I’m going, too,” proclaimed Fortuna, not one to be left behind.
Rose hesitated. Sometimes her kids were exposed to danger no matter what she did. This seemed like going begging for trouble. And, at the same time, she didn’t really want to send the Doctor off without having some idea what he was facing. The Doctor frequently did his world-saving alone these days. She liked the idea of at least tagging along with him for a little while, to assure herself that maybe it was nothing and he would be okay and she didn’t have to spend another afternoon fretting on the TARDIS and trying not to show it to her kids.
“Alright,” she said, finally. “If it’s a meteor, we can examine it. And if it’s not, we are coming straight back to the TARDIS.”
She found herself engulfed in grateful hugs and expressions of gratitude, and then Brem, Athena, Fortuna, and the Doctor headed in the direction of the golden spark, Brem and Athena trotting to keep up with their father and gazing up at him adoringly as he told them something about how he would take them to go see the Great Meteor Shower of the Juun Constellation and they would absolutely love it because it was the most beautiful meteor shower in all of space and time. Rose couldn’t help but smile, watching them and reflecting on this family that thrived on adventure. They were eventually going to drive her close to madness with worry, she thought, but she still wouldn’t change anything about them.
There was some negotiation about where the spark had fallen.
“Well, someone’s having a party,” remarked Rose, because they could hear laughter, the buzz of conversation.
“That probably doesn’t have anything to do with the spaceship,” the Doctor replied, impatiently.
“Or meteor,” Athena reminded him.
“Or meteor.”
“Or maybe it does ,” Rose responded, simply. “How are we to know?”
She watched her family contemplate.
“I guess we have no other leads,” admitted the Doctor. “Come on.”
They all moved in the direction of the party, which seemed to be happening at a random house and seemed to have nothing to do with any spaceship falling from the sky.
The Doctor said this. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the spaceship falling from the sky,” he told Rose, as they stood in front of the house that was clearly holding the party.
Rose opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by a man suddenly limping very quickly in their direction. Limping because he had a wooden leg, Rose saw. He was white as a ghost, and he half-fell onto the Doctor, grabbing at his lapels. The Doctor lifted his eyebrows in surprise as he caught him automatically.
“A spaceship!” he stammered. “Fell out of the sky!”
“What?” said the Doctor. “Where?”
The man pointed a trembling finger across the street. “There! Little green men!”
“Wait for me!” shouted the Doctor, as Brem and Athena took off, and then froze at the man’s next words.
“In the O’Learys’ barn,” said the man.
The Doctor’s stillness lasted only for an instant, and then, lips thin, he shouted, “Brem! Athena! Stop right now!”
Brem and Athena drew to a sudden halt, recognizing their father’s serious tone, which he seldom used on them. They looked at him curiously, as he came up to where they were and then turned and handed Fortuna to Rose.
“Everyone is staying here,” he said. “No one is coming into the barn with me.”
“But what’s going on in the barn?” asked Rose.
“Nothing,” he said. “It’s perfectly safe.”
“If it’s perfectly safe, why can’t we go in?” asked Brem.
“Yeah, and if it’s not perfectly safe, maybe we should have a plan,” said Rose.
“I never have a plan,” said the Doctor.
“Trust me,” replied Rose. “I know.”
“Alright.” The Doctor looked toward the barn, and then back to Rose. “What if I stick my head in the door to investigate? What about that?”
Rose considered. “And then, once you know what’s in there, we’ll discuss a real plan?”
He sighed impatiently. “Yes, yes,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He marched off toward the barn, muttering under his breath. Nine centuries of planlessness, now Rose suddenly wanted him to change his tactics.
Coming up to the barn door, he took a deep breath to steel himself. Any minute now, the Great Chicago Fire was going to break out in this barn. He couldn’t stop it, he knew-it glowed as a fixed point in his head-and, for that reason, he wasn’t sure why he had come to investigate at all. However it started, it started, and why had he foolishly allowed curiosity to get his family wrapped up in this?
He glanced behind him. Rose was standing with Fortuna in her arms, Brem and Athena beside her. Brem frowned as if he couldn’t understand why he was delaying. Athena simply waved, grinning at him. He smiled and sent her a small wave in return and then turned back to the barn door. The Great Chicago Fire, and his kids were standing a few meters away because he’d led them there.
He really was the universe’s worst father.
Well, there was nothing for it now. They had gone too far for him to turn back and drag them all back to the TARDIS and get them out of it. Aside from the uproar it would cause with Brem and Athena, he would know that he’d set an example of being too scared to face something, and fear was not something he wanted to teach his children.
So he stuck his head into the barn door.
Little green men. The man with the wooden leg had been telling the truth. They were chattering among themselves, angrily, a disagreement because someone had taken a wrong turn and they had ended up in a barn on Earth. The Doctor smiled and turned back to his family and gave them a thumbs-up. And then he wondered if he’d ever done that before in his life. And then he decided to never do it again.
He turned back to the barn door and sauntered through it, sticking his hands into his pockets to keep himself from giving any more ridiculous thumbs-up signals. “Need directions?” he asked, casually.
The knot of little green men jumped, startled, and all regarded him suspiciously.
“Honestly,” he said, and took his hands out of his pockets and held them up to show he was unarmed. “I can give you directions.”
They continued to look suspicious. “To the Hadri Constellation?”
“Yes, if that’s where you’re trying to go, but you’re a long way off.”
One little green man turned to another little green man. “I told you,” he exclaimed.
Another little green man uttered a meep and held up an unnaturally long green finger, pointing past the Doctor. “How many of there are you?”
The Doctor looked over his shoulder at the rest of his family, who had now entered the barn. He hadn’t really realized they would follow him in, but now that he thought about it it was obvious. His eagerly curious family, and he’d given them a thumbs-up, which, while absurd, had apparently conveyed its message effectively.
The Doctor looked back at the little green men. “Oh,” he said. “Not many.”
“It’s an invasion!” squeaked one little green man.
“No, it’s not,” the Doctor said, trying to reassure them.
But they were already reacting in a panic, all of them shouting things like “Run for your lives!” and “The giants are coming!” They were really rather melodramatic little creatures, thought the Doctor, watching them race into their spaceship, which was a small silver disc…that had landed right next to a flickering lantern. The Doctor realized it at the same moment that the last little green man clambered into the ship and pulled the door shut behind him, and he reacted automatically, shouting, “Wait!” even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to. But it happened with the inevitability he should have expected, the ship rising into the air and tipping the lantern over as it went. The glass shattered, and a few flames began licking through the straw.
“Oh!” exclaimed Fortuna, and then Athena moved forward, toward the fire.
The Doctor caught her as she walked by him, pulling her back.
“But, Daddy,” she said, confused, turning to him, “there’s a fire.”
“I know,” he replied. “Let’s go.”
“Go?” she echoed, still obviously puzzled. “But we need to put out the fire.”
“We can’t put out this fire. Let’s go.”
Now Athena looked annoyed. For all Rose saw him in Athena, he thought she was almost exactly like Rose. “Stop being silly-“
“There has to be a fire,” said Brem, realizing it. “That’s what’s wrong. There has to be a fire, in this city, today. Right?” Brem looked to him for affirmation.
“Yes.” He looked back at Athena. “Can’t you feel it? We’re at a fixed point.” He didn’t expect Athena to actually recognize the feeling for what it was, but she knew that she would recognize this place in time felt different from others, the same way Brem had.
“But,” said Athena, looking close to tears. “The cows.”
The Doctor glanced at the cows, who were all lowing now as the fire began to really take hold.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’ll get the cows out. But you lot have to move away from the barn. It’s full of dry hay, it’s much too dangerous.”
“Come on, Theenie, love,” said Rose, reaching a hand out. “We’ll get out of here, and Daddy will bring the cows.”
The Doctor watched them exit, and then frowned at the cows. He moved toward the closest one, who inched nervously away from him and then, for good measure, kicked a hoof out at him.
“Oi,” he said. “I’m trying to save you. Bloody cows. You know, in sixteen centuries or so, you’re going to be extinct unless you evolve to be a little less thick, huh?”
This did not seem to convince the cow that it wanted to be moved away from the fire, which was now large enough that even the Doctor, who felt heat less acutely than humans, was unpleasantly warm in his coat.
“Come on now,” he said, shedding his coat and dumping it over the first cow’s head unceremoniously. “We haven’t time.”
The cow, finding a coat over its head, mooed in bewilderment, a reaction the Doctor preferred to the kicking, and the cow stayed disoriented long enough for him to be led out to safety outside of the barn.
“Yay!” exclaimed Fortuna and Athena, jumping up and down and clapping with delight. Brem was sitting on the ground, writing in his journal. Rose looked worried.
The Doctor resisted the urge to give another thumbs-up - what was wrong with him? - and grabbed his coat from the cow’s head and ran into the barn, wasting no time in dumping the coat over the next cow’s head. He managed to get one more cow out before the barn half-collapsed behind him, which brought an end to his cow-saving operation. He walked wearily over to his family.
“Can we keep the cows?” Athena asked him.
“They belong to the O’Learys,” he told her.
She looked disappointed.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Brem looked up from his journal. “Can’t we stay to watch them put out the fire?”
The Doctor looked at his children and shook his head slowly. “No,” he said, and held out his hands. “Come on. We’ll go to the TARDIS, and I’ll tell you about the Great Chicago Fire.”
***
He told them after Rose had settled them with lemonade and made him wash the ashes out of his hair and change his suit. He sat and told them of the raging fire that would destroy nearly an entire city. He told them how the city’s bells tolled in alarm until their buildings, too, succumbed to the fire and the bells fell, dead, and the city was silent except for fire. It upset all of them, he could tell, but he wasn’t sure how to make it better. It had been a terrible event, one of the many terrible events his children would have to learn to recognize.
“But we could have stopped it,” Athena pointed out, tearfully. “And you wouldn’t let me.”
“I couldn’t,” he said, wishing she wouldn’t cry, because it broke his heart when she cried. “Come here.” He reached out and gathered her onto his lap. “We couldn’t change the Great Chicago Fire, do you know why?”
All of his children shook their heads.
“Because Chicago needed the fire to happen in order to become Chicago. They had to re-build the city, and after it was re-built, it became this great, bustling metropolis, one of the best cities on the planet, with the best deep dish pizza in all of space and time. But it had to have the fire, to be re-built , to become Chicago. You see? That’s why we couldn’t stop the fire, because we would have destroyed that timeline for Chicago, and we couldn’t have that.” He looked at each of them in turn, until he got nods from all of them. “Okay,” he said, and kissed the top of Athena’s head.
“So can we go get pizza in Chicago now?” she asked.
He chuckled a bit, and said, “Yes.”
Bonus Author's Note: Next week, I begin posting another sequel. As with "College," this sequel tends to focus on the kids, with more tangential involvement from Ten and Rose. Therefore, I won't be posting it to any comms. If you usually find my stuff through T_L or T&C, and you're interested in the sequel, please check my personal LJ for it. Feel free to friend me if you like. Also, the tag for the sequel will be "stars." I know there's a way to set up some sort of special alert every time I post something with that tag. In the meantime, hope you enjoyed azriona's Chicago Fire fic!