Collab Fic: To the Waters and the Wild (3/12?)
Title: To the Waters and the Wild: Chapter 3 (3/12ish?)
Authors: ladychi and the_tenzo
Beta: spikewriter
Rating: Adult
Characters/Pairings: Ten II/Rose/Ten (yes, all together), and many other characters from the New-Whoniverse (but if we tell you who they are, we'd have to kill you).
Dedication: Written for unfolded73 and fid_gin for their birthdays
Summary: Rose and her two Doctors try to make the new configuration of Team TARDIS work after Journeys End. Meanwhile, an old foe has other plans for them entirely.
A/N: Updated weekly, on Tuesdays (except for Sunday, 17 May, to celebrate fid_gin's birthday). the-tenzo and I will alternate whose journal we post at.
Previous Chapters: Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
Chapter Three
When the Doctor came to, it was difficult to tell if he was blind-folded or had lost his vision through other, more violent means. His head pounded out the rhythm of his single heart and his shoulders ached with the strain of having his arms tied behind his back.
The ground beneath him was not solid, that much became clear quickly. He was jostled at semi-regular intervals, and the vibrations of a car engine swam into clarity after a few moments. He was on the floor of a vehicle, a van perhaps, or the bed of a lorry. Scrunching up his face, he felt the scratchy fabric of a handkerchief. So. Blindfolded it was.
His mind immediately began to race, pictures of Rose and the other Doctor flooding his brain. Were they captured like him? No, not likely. He tried to take a deep breath to clear his thoughts but his lungs burned. Rose and the Doctor had been in the TARDIS, sleeping, or shagging (again), or having breakfast, getting ready to take another trip. And who knows when they'd actually realize he'd gone? The TARDIS was a big place-perhaps not as big as she'd once been, but still large enough that not being able to locate someone in the immediate vicinity was hardly a big deal.
He was alone, truly alone this time, and he inwardly smiled at the irony. He'd wanted to be away from them, to match his physical proximity to his emotional alienation, and now he was well and truly cut off.
He went back in his mind, over what had happened, looking for clues. Had he been the true target of the trap, or were his captors actually looking for a Time Lord? It seemed likely that, at any rate, it was the Doctor-any Doctor-whom they'd been luring with the breathtakingly simple bait of a young child calling for help. Anyone who had met the Doctor even once would know he'd not be able to resist this.
But the woman's voice, it was so familiar yet at the same time hazy and indistinct. Posh accent, or at least posh-ish. Young-sounding, but cold, without emotion. And she'd wanted him knocked out but not dead. He idly wondered whether he'd be signing his death warrant by alerting them to his status as not-really-quite-the-proper-Doctor, or if that might throw his captors off for long enough to make an escape.
The brakes of the vehicle squealed as it came to a stop, and it shook as doors were opened and close again with multiple slams. The Doctor swallowed hard with a dry mouth and got ready to start talking.
***
"I think we should go look for him," Rose said firmly. "It's not good for him to be alone when he gets like this. The both of you. You just get so wrapped up in your own thick heads and you don't think."
"Oi, I do a lot of thinking. I can't hardly avoid it, can I?." The Doctor took off down one of the corridors, without looking behind him. "He'll be fine!" he called.
"Oi, yourself! Stop right where you are!" Rose was actually a little bit surprised when he did. "Doctor." She walked the few steps to where he was standing and laid a gentle hand on his arm. "Let's just go check, yeah? It can't hurt. Just a walk around the TARDIS, just to be sure."
"You can just go yourself, can't you? Besides, I'm sure he'll be back. We're going to leave Earth today-I'd have thought he'd be excited. Maybe he just popped out for some..." He looked hopefully at Rose, who stood with her arms crossed over her chest. "Some provisions?"
Rose sighed and pointed to her own two feet. "No shoes," she reminded him impatiently. "Aren't you just a tiny bit curious as to where he's gone in his bare feet?"
The Doctor inclined his head and stood for a moment, unmoving. "All right." He lifted his head and smiled sadly. "Let's go for a stroll."
They did rather comically walk around the TARDIS's actual perimeter, the Doctor scanning the 6-foot-square area with his sonic screwdriver as a matter of course rather than with any hope of it providing information. They'd walked a few paces towards a copse of trees, the Doctor remarking on how inviting the shade there looked, when his nostrils flared.
"He went this way. I can smell his..." He made a distasteful face, and took another long whiff. "Aftershave," the Doctor said, and took off at an easy lope towards the grove of trees, gibbering to himself about shaving and skin care. Rose followed on his heels, suddenly wishing she had just come alone and left the Doctor back on his ship. She didn't want the other Doctor feeling like they were ganging up on him when they found him.
They stopped, abruptly, the Doctor swirling around 360 degrees, coat swishing impressively behind him. Rose watched him through narrowed eyes. "Doctor, what's wrong?"
"Nothing. It's... well... it's not nothing. It's definitely something. Something right here, in fact. I can smell it." The Doctor dropped to a squat, running his hands over the grass and looking around.
"His aftershave again?" Rose asked, Rose dropping her eyes to the ground before her.
"No, thankfully. Remind me to take him to 1952-Paris, I should think-to get him something a bit more suitable if he's going to insist on trying to cover up his natural human odor."
"I like how he smells," Rose said tentatively, now squatting down herself and examining the blades of grass near her feet. What she saw there after a moment made her heart race. Hoping she was wrong, she plucked a blade of grass covered in a dark, not-quite-congealed substance. "Doctor?"
"Hmm?" He didn't lift his head.
"I think you should see this. I think it might be..." Rose backed off as the Doctor ran over and slid his glasses over his eyes. His tongue slipped out of his mouth as he brought the blade of grass to his lips. He closed his eyes and dropped his head. "What?"
"He was here... But he didn't leave voluntarily," the Doctor said darkly. "This is his blood. The only kind like it the universe."
"Human/Time Lord, you mean?" Rose asked.
"Yeah." The Doctor stood to his full height and put his hands in his pockets.
"He's been... kidnapped?" Rose said, her voice sounding flat and small amid the trees. She would have thought that by now either of her Doctors being in mortal peril would be old hat, but it never got easier. If anything, it got worse.
"Looks like," the Doctor said, distracted now as he brought out his sonic screwdriver in earnest and very carefully went over the entire area with it, frequently pausing to study its tiny screen.
"But who... why? I mean, was it on purpose or just, like, an accident?"
"Precisely," the Doctor said. "Who'd want to take him? Someone thinks they've got the Doctor, but they haven't."
"But they have a Doctor."
"Probably not the one they want," the Doctor remarked sternly, putting his glasses away and heading back to the TARDIS at a run.
"But maybe it was just a mugger or something," Rose ventured.
"At noon on a Monday in Hyde Park? I'd say that's a mugger that needs mugging lessons." He unlocked the blue doors and flung his coat over a railing immediately upon entering. Rose jogged along behind, still feeling that something unquantifiable wasn't right.
"But if they took him when they wanted you then that could mean..." She trailed off, feeling all the blood drain out of her face.
"It means he's expendable. Or bloody good bait."
***
The room was dark when the woman entered. There was a tall, almost painfully thin man propped up on a chair by the floor-to-ceiling windows. He stared out over the sliver of London skyline that he could see through the other nearby office blocks. The man ran a hand vigorously through his thick brown hair, then looked at the same hand almost disdainfully.
"I wish I could stop doing that," he said with open, yet casual disgust.
"I've done what you asked," the woman said, shifting her weight from foot to foot in the smart pumps she wore. She knew they were the sort he liked, and endured the discomfort of wearing them even while on the more active sort of errands he sent her on.
"How'd it go?" the man asked, turning to her now and sweeping his eyes from the top of her head to her aching feet, and back up again.
"No problems," she said flatly.
"It's funny," he continued, "you know, I'm just not as eager to see him as I once was. There was a time, I would have crossed half the universe just to watch him slip on a banana peel. Devotion of that sort just isn't found in your species, such narrow-minded little apes that you are." He chuckled, which turned in to a dry, hacking cough. "No offense- Oh, who am I kidding? You have my permission to be deeply offended." He looked at her and gave a twisted half-smile, enjoying her lack of response immensely, it would seem. "No? Not at all? Ah, well, you continue to inspire me to greater achievements. I'll just have to try harder, won't I?"
She looked down at her feet, at her posh footwear, at her silk stockings, and pressed her lips together until they hurt and her teeth began to bite in to them.
"Not to say that you haven't been a terribly devoted companion, in your own adorable little way." He rose from his chair and slowly crossed the room to her, with halting steps. Her eyes went out of focus, and her mind went so blissfully blank as he touched the side of her face with long, shaking fingers. "My dear, where would I be without you?" He grasped her chin with a strength that seemed impossible in such a frail frame and forced her head up to look him in the eye. Such wide, innocent eyes he had now, like a child whose features haven't quite caught up to one another. "That was a question," he said quietly.
"I-" she whispered, trying to bring her mind back from the place it had already fled minutes before. "I just did as you asked. It's all I ever want to do."
"Good girl," he said, and drew her mouth up to his in a punishing kiss. "I'll show you the stars again," he murmured against her mouth. "Do you remember what you said to me, that first time?"
She nodded mutely, allowing herself to be pulled tighter to him, daring herself to be even more yielding than the time before, and the time before that, and the time before that.
"Tell me." He was so much taller than her now, he had to duck his head down in order to bite at the sensitive flesh of her neck, under her ear.
"I said I'd stay with you..."
"How long?" he prompted automatically-they'd rehearsed these lines so many times before.
"Forever. I said I'd stay with you forever."
He released her, so suddenly that she stumbled a half step backwards, and he began laughing. He held his side, and bent over, tears forming in his eyes. "That's what I love about you!" he choked out, getting a hold of himself. "You're so bloody stupid! Forever!" he hooted, and turned his back to her. "I don't think that word means what you think it means."
Authors: ladychi and the_tenzo
Beta: spikewriter
Rating: Adult
Characters/Pairings: Ten II/Rose/Ten (yes, all together), and many other characters from the New-Whoniverse (but if we tell you who they are, we'd have to kill you).
Dedication: Written for unfolded73 and fid_gin for their birthdays
Summary: Rose and her two Doctors try to make the new configuration of Team TARDIS work after Journeys End. Meanwhile, an old foe has other plans for them entirely.
A/N: Updated weekly, on Tuesdays (except for Sunday, 17 May, to celebrate fid_gin's birthday). the-tenzo and I will alternate whose journal we post at.
Previous Chapters: Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
Chapter Three
When the Doctor came to, it was difficult to tell if he was blind-folded or had lost his vision through other, more violent means. His head pounded out the rhythm of his single heart and his shoulders ached with the strain of having his arms tied behind his back.
The ground beneath him was not solid, that much became clear quickly. He was jostled at semi-regular intervals, and the vibrations of a car engine swam into clarity after a few moments. He was on the floor of a vehicle, a van perhaps, or the bed of a lorry. Scrunching up his face, he felt the scratchy fabric of a handkerchief. So. Blindfolded it was.
His mind immediately began to race, pictures of Rose and the other Doctor flooding his brain. Were they captured like him? No, not likely. He tried to take a deep breath to clear his thoughts but his lungs burned. Rose and the Doctor had been in the TARDIS, sleeping, or shagging (again), or having breakfast, getting ready to take another trip. And who knows when they'd actually realize he'd gone? The TARDIS was a big place-perhaps not as big as she'd once been, but still large enough that not being able to locate someone in the immediate vicinity was hardly a big deal.
He was alone, truly alone this time, and he inwardly smiled at the irony. He'd wanted to be away from them, to match his physical proximity to his emotional alienation, and now he was well and truly cut off.
He went back in his mind, over what had happened, looking for clues. Had he been the true target of the trap, or were his captors actually looking for a Time Lord? It seemed likely that, at any rate, it was the Doctor-any Doctor-whom they'd been luring with the breathtakingly simple bait of a young child calling for help. Anyone who had met the Doctor even once would know he'd not be able to resist this.
But the woman's voice, it was so familiar yet at the same time hazy and indistinct. Posh accent, or at least posh-ish. Young-sounding, but cold, without emotion. And she'd wanted him knocked out but not dead. He idly wondered whether he'd be signing his death warrant by alerting them to his status as not-really-quite-the-proper-Doctor, or if that might throw his captors off for long enough to make an escape.
The brakes of the vehicle squealed as it came to a stop, and it shook as doors were opened and close again with multiple slams. The Doctor swallowed hard with a dry mouth and got ready to start talking.
***
"I think we should go look for him," Rose said firmly. "It's not good for him to be alone when he gets like this. The both of you. You just get so wrapped up in your own thick heads and you don't think."
"Oi, I do a lot of thinking. I can't hardly avoid it, can I?." The Doctor took off down one of the corridors, without looking behind him. "He'll be fine!" he called.
"Oi, yourself! Stop right where you are!" Rose was actually a little bit surprised when he did. "Doctor." She walked the few steps to where he was standing and laid a gentle hand on his arm. "Let's just go check, yeah? It can't hurt. Just a walk around the TARDIS, just to be sure."
"You can just go yourself, can't you? Besides, I'm sure he'll be back. We're going to leave Earth today-I'd have thought he'd be excited. Maybe he just popped out for some..." He looked hopefully at Rose, who stood with her arms crossed over her chest. "Some provisions?"
Rose sighed and pointed to her own two feet. "No shoes," she reminded him impatiently. "Aren't you just a tiny bit curious as to where he's gone in his bare feet?"
The Doctor inclined his head and stood for a moment, unmoving. "All right." He lifted his head and smiled sadly. "Let's go for a stroll."
They did rather comically walk around the TARDIS's actual perimeter, the Doctor scanning the 6-foot-square area with his sonic screwdriver as a matter of course rather than with any hope of it providing information. They'd walked a few paces towards a copse of trees, the Doctor remarking on how inviting the shade there looked, when his nostrils flared.
"He went this way. I can smell his..." He made a distasteful face, and took another long whiff. "Aftershave," the Doctor said, and took off at an easy lope towards the grove of trees, gibbering to himself about shaving and skin care. Rose followed on his heels, suddenly wishing she had just come alone and left the Doctor back on his ship. She didn't want the other Doctor feeling like they were ganging up on him when they found him.
They stopped, abruptly, the Doctor swirling around 360 degrees, coat swishing impressively behind him. Rose watched him through narrowed eyes. "Doctor, what's wrong?"
"Nothing. It's... well... it's not nothing. It's definitely something. Something right here, in fact. I can smell it." The Doctor dropped to a squat, running his hands over the grass and looking around.
"His aftershave again?" Rose asked, Rose dropping her eyes to the ground before her.
"No, thankfully. Remind me to take him to 1952-Paris, I should think-to get him something a bit more suitable if he's going to insist on trying to cover up his natural human odor."
"I like how he smells," Rose said tentatively, now squatting down herself and examining the blades of grass near her feet. What she saw there after a moment made her heart race. Hoping she was wrong, she plucked a blade of grass covered in a dark, not-quite-congealed substance. "Doctor?"
"Hmm?" He didn't lift his head.
"I think you should see this. I think it might be..." Rose backed off as the Doctor ran over and slid his glasses over his eyes. His tongue slipped out of his mouth as he brought the blade of grass to his lips. He closed his eyes and dropped his head. "What?"
"He was here... But he didn't leave voluntarily," the Doctor said darkly. "This is his blood. The only kind like it the universe."
"Human/Time Lord, you mean?" Rose asked.
"Yeah." The Doctor stood to his full height and put his hands in his pockets.
"He's been... kidnapped?" Rose said, her voice sounding flat and small amid the trees. She would have thought that by now either of her Doctors being in mortal peril would be old hat, but it never got easier. If anything, it got worse.
"Looks like," the Doctor said, distracted now as he brought out his sonic screwdriver in earnest and very carefully went over the entire area with it, frequently pausing to study its tiny screen.
"But who... why? I mean, was it on purpose or just, like, an accident?"
"Precisely," the Doctor said. "Who'd want to take him? Someone thinks they've got the Doctor, but they haven't."
"But they have a Doctor."
"Probably not the one they want," the Doctor remarked sternly, putting his glasses away and heading back to the TARDIS at a run.
"But maybe it was just a mugger or something," Rose ventured.
"At noon on a Monday in Hyde Park? I'd say that's a mugger that needs mugging lessons." He unlocked the blue doors and flung his coat over a railing immediately upon entering. Rose jogged along behind, still feeling that something unquantifiable wasn't right.
"But if they took him when they wanted you then that could mean..." She trailed off, feeling all the blood drain out of her face.
"It means he's expendable. Or bloody good bait."
***
The room was dark when the woman entered. There was a tall, almost painfully thin man propped up on a chair by the floor-to-ceiling windows. He stared out over the sliver of London skyline that he could see through the other nearby office blocks. The man ran a hand vigorously through his thick brown hair, then looked at the same hand almost disdainfully.
"I wish I could stop doing that," he said with open, yet casual disgust.
"I've done what you asked," the woman said, shifting her weight from foot to foot in the smart pumps she wore. She knew they were the sort he liked, and endured the discomfort of wearing them even while on the more active sort of errands he sent her on.
"How'd it go?" the man asked, turning to her now and sweeping his eyes from the top of her head to her aching feet, and back up again.
"No problems," she said flatly.
"It's funny," he continued, "you know, I'm just not as eager to see him as I once was. There was a time, I would have crossed half the universe just to watch him slip on a banana peel. Devotion of that sort just isn't found in your species, such narrow-minded little apes that you are." He chuckled, which turned in to a dry, hacking cough. "No offense- Oh, who am I kidding? You have my permission to be deeply offended." He looked at her and gave a twisted half-smile, enjoying her lack of response immensely, it would seem. "No? Not at all? Ah, well, you continue to inspire me to greater achievements. I'll just have to try harder, won't I?"
She looked down at her feet, at her posh footwear, at her silk stockings, and pressed her lips together until they hurt and her teeth began to bite in to them.
"Not to say that you haven't been a terribly devoted companion, in your own adorable little way." He rose from his chair and slowly crossed the room to her, with halting steps. Her eyes went out of focus, and her mind went so blissfully blank as he touched the side of her face with long, shaking fingers. "My dear, where would I be without you?" He grasped her chin with a strength that seemed impossible in such a frail frame and forced her head up to look him in the eye. Such wide, innocent eyes he had now, like a child whose features haven't quite caught up to one another. "That was a question," he said quietly.
"I-" she whispered, trying to bring her mind back from the place it had already fled minutes before. "I just did as you asked. It's all I ever want to do."
"Good girl," he said, and drew her mouth up to his in a punishing kiss. "I'll show you the stars again," he murmured against her mouth. "Do you remember what you said to me, that first time?"
She nodded mutely, allowing herself to be pulled tighter to him, daring herself to be even more yielding than the time before, and the time before that, and the time before that.
"Tell me." He was so much taller than her now, he had to duck his head down in order to bite at the sensitive flesh of her neck, under her ear.
"I said I'd stay with you..."
"How long?" he prompted automatically-they'd rehearsed these lines so many times before.
"Forever. I said I'd stay with you forever."
He released her, so suddenly that she stumbled a half step backwards, and he began laughing. He held his side, and bent over, tears forming in his eyes. "That's what I love about you!" he choked out, getting a hold of himself. "You're so bloody stupid! Forever!" he hooted, and turned his back to her. "I don't think that word means what you think it means."