Don't Blink - 28/?
Title: Don't Blink - 28/?
Characters: Ten, Rose
Summary: AU. What if Rose had stayed through Doomsday and was the one to end up in 1969 with the Doctor? How would they get back to their proper time? Would they want to?
Rating: PG
Beta: nattieb
Hello, all you lovely people! It's so nice to be back at lj. I have finally returned to post once more.
(ch 1) (ch 2) (ch 3) (ch 4) (ch 5) (ch 6) (ch 7) (ch 8) (ch 9) (ch 10) (ch 11) (ch 12) (ch 13) (ch 14) (ch 15) (ch 16) (ch 17) (ch 18)
(ch 19) (ch 20) (ch 21) (ch 22) (ch 23) (ch 24) (ch 25) (ch 26) (ch 27)
The University of Cambridge. Seat of learning. Established in the early 1200’s. Francis Bacon. Sir Isaac Newton. The laws of motion. The discovery of hydrogen. The structure of DNA.
It was incredibly exciting, being around all that academia and prestige. Or at least, it ought to have been exciting. Under normal circumstances the Doctor would have enjoyed himself. He hadn’t counted on his position, though. Being a research assistant was dead boring. He was expected to teach classes and grade papers and do all the work for the professor he was assigned to.
That he could do with one hand tied behind his back, blindfolded. It just wasn’t very stimulating, teaching courses that his people would have mastered at a much younger age than his current pupils.
He didn’t mind the travel up to the college itself. He hopped on a train in the early hours of the morning, long before Rose or Billy were awake. He was home an hour or so after dinner those nights.
It was manageable. Certainly after being involved in countless wars and skirmishes, the hardships associated with commuting weren’t even worth mentioning. It was not seeing Rose as often as he liked that he hated.
“I am an idiot,” the Doctor said to himself. He was alone in the lab at the time, a stack of papers to be graded beside him. “A great, big idiot.” He’d gone and gotten a job that required he be away from Rose until late at night, right when she was about to go to bed.
He missed her more than he was willing to admit.
“Hello! Smith? You still here?” A man with white hair and spectacles knocked on the open door before walking in. The Doctor stood up, smoothing down his suit jacket.
“Hello, Roger.” He managed a nice smile for the head of the science department. The kindly old man held multiple degrees from various universities and commanded an enormous amount of respect wherever he went, but he preferred to be called by his given name.
“Just the man I wanted to see. Although,” and here Roger glanced at his watch, “it’s getting on to dinner time. Shouldn’t you be heading home?”
The Doctor smiled a real smile this time. “Just getting ready to pack up. Can I help you with something? Come to rate me on my first week on the job?” He laughed as though the notion were absurd. Which it was, seeing as how he was brilliant.
“No, of course not. Wanted to introduce you to our newest faculty member! Drat, where’d he go?” Roger stepped back into the hallway. “Ian! Where are you, man? Oh, there you are.”
“Sorry.” A tall, dark-haired man entered the lab behind Roger. “Saw someone I went to school with.” He looked from Roger to the Doctor.
“This is Ian,” Roger said the to Doctor. “Ian, this is John Smith, one of our physics men. Working on his doctorate right now.”
“Physics! Very nice. Nice to meet you. Ian Chesterton.” Ian Chesterton held out his hand, and the Doctor took it automatically, without quite being aware that he was doing so.
“And you,” the Doctor returned mechanically.
“We’re very lucky to have Ian,” Roger confided to the Doctor. “He took a two-year sabbatical from teaching to travel, and then he wrote a book.”
“About, about your travels?” The Doctor dared to ask. He knew exactly where Ian had been traveling - would there be a book about time and space? With a time-traveling alien? Surely Ian wouldn’t do that.
Ian shook his head with a slight smile. “When I got back, er, returned to London, I didn’t want to go back to teaching. So I began researching, got a grant and wrote a book. Then I polished up my credentials to teach at the university level. That took up the past four years.”
“And now he’s back and ready to return! We’re glad to have him in our department.”
The Doctor nodded, not speaking. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Ian. It was Ian, his Ian. Here was the first human he’d ever allowed on his TARDIS. Here was the last link he had to Susan. His Susan. A granddaughter that he should never have taken off of Gallifrey. But he had, and they had met Ian and Barbara, and Ian had known Susan, had actually known her, and spoken to her, and touched her.
And if the Doctor said any of this Ian would think he was mad, because as far as Ian was concerned, the Doctor was an old, crotchety man with a penchant for not listening. It had been just several years since Ian had said goodbye to the Doctor, and in that time the Doctor had lived nine other lives. How would Ian ever understand that?
Ian and Roger were talking, but the Doctor didn’t hear any of it. He continued to stare at Ian, a painful drumming going on behind his temples.
Ian and Barbara. Susan. Daleks and Robespierre. Marco Polo. Sensorites and Rome and Nero and the Animus. Susan. Oh, Susan, I just let you go. I left you and now you’re gone.
“Don’t you think so, John?” Roger asked, and the Doctor was jerked out of his reverie.
“Yes,” he said immediately, without knowing what he was agreeing to. “Yes.”
“Thought so!” Roger looked very satisfied.
The Doctor nodded, still looking at Ian and wondering, for the countless time, if he had been wrong in locking Susan out of the TARDIS, forcing her to stay with a man they barely knew. He should have let her in, should have taken her with him.
But then she would have gone to Gallifrey with him, at the end, of course she would have. And she would be dead.
But she was dead still, a voice taunted him inwardly. She died when the Time Lords died, and it didn’t matter where or when in time she was. Susan was gone, and he was alone, and the pain was too much to bear. That was why he never thought about it, why he forbade Rose from asking questions. It was just too hard.
“Grandfather, can we stay a while?”
“Eh? Stay where?”
“Here. On Earth. I think I’d like to go to school.”
“You want to go to school! Here? They don’t the first thing about anything, these humans!”
“Please, Grandfather! Please! You need to repair the TARDIS anyway! I can go to school and pretend to be a human girl.”
“Ridiculous. We’re Time Lords! These humans are beneath us.”
“Well, I’d like to just the same.”
“If you really want to, child, then you may. But only until I repair the ship!”
“Thank you, Grandfather!”
Roger was speaking but the Doctor didn’t hear any of it. Caught up in memories that he usually repressed, he couldn’t follow the conversation. Seeing Ian was too much of a shock.
“You’re working on your doctorate, Mr. Smith?” Ian asked, and the Doctor forced himself back.
“Yes. Chaos theory.”
Ian looked taken aback. “Chaos theory. That’s not a very popular discipline, is it?”
“No, not yet. But it will be.”
“Mr. Smith is quite clever,” Roger said. “Some of his earlier works are genius.”
“Thank you,” the Doctor said, trying for a measure of modesty and probably failing.
“I look forward to reading some of your work,” Ian said. “In the meantime, I must be going.”
“Ah, yes. You’re a family man now, yes?”
Ian smiled at the faint mockery in Roger’s voice. “Yes.” He pulled a photo out of his billfold and offered it to the Doctor. A black and white snap of Barbara, holding a small infant.
“His name’s John,” Ian said proudly. “That’s my wife, Barbara. She teaches, too, but not just now, obviously. She helped me with my book.”
“A lovely family,” the Doctor said.
“I’ll be off,” Ian said, tucking the snap back into his pocket. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Smith. I look forward to working with you.”
“Good seeing you again,” the Doctor replied automatically, still stunned to see him. Ian turned to look at him quizzically, and he quickly amended his words. “Good to see you, I mean. Good meeting you. By the way, what is your specialty, Mr. Chesterton?”
Ian smiled. “Astronomy. I’ve developed quite a love for space in the past few years.”
“A good man,” Roger said after Ian had gone. “Bit of a mystery, but nice enough, eh?”
Before the Doctor could respond, someone poked his head into the room.
“Roger!” he said in an urgent whisper, stepping inside. “Did I just see-” his voice lowered even more - “Ian Chesterton?”
“You did, Paul. That was him.” Roger sighed as if he were saddened by the admission.
“Well?” Paul all but danced up and down in impatience. “What did he say?”
The Doctor came out of his reverie long enough to study the newcomer. He looked to be in his fifties, a distinguished - looking man with grey hair and a custom suit. He did not appear to be the type of person to indulge in gossip, and yet apparently he was doing exactly like that.
“Nothing, really. Just that he’d been on sabbatical.”
“Sabbatical!” Paul snorted. “Is that what he’s calling it?”
Roger glanced at the Doctor. “You’ll be hearing the stories soon enough, I’m afraid. Ian Chesterton is a bit of a mystery down in London. He left his teaching position one day, just walked out of the school and never returned. He and his wife, in fact. Not married then, of course. Disappeared for two or three years! Then they showed up again in London acting as if nothing had happened.” He shook his head.
“It was in all the papers,” Paul added. “Shocking. And now you have him. I’m surprised he was hired.”
“His recent works on time and space were very interesting. We can use someone like him. I imagine it will be all right.”
Paul shook his head. “Let me know if you find out anything else. My money is on them spending all that time in the Virgin Islands.”
“Who,” the Doctor asked after he’d gone, “was that?”
Roger heaved a sigh. “Paul Landsdowne. Dean of Mathematics. Brilliant man, but a bit of a gossip, I’m afraid. Not very seemly in his position, but there you are.”
The Doctor nodded. Humans.
Sitting on the train on the way home, he found himself lost in his thoughts. He didn’t often think about the life he’d left behind. In fact, he tried very hard to never do so. But seeing Ian had rocked him in a way that seeing Sarah Jane had not. Perhaps it was because so much time had passed since Ian and Barbara had left him. So many experiences and changes. They’d been his first companions, back when he’d wanted none. And here he was, stranded on Earth with his current companion.
The thought of Rose made him smile, and the vision of her smiling face cleared away the cobwebs from his brain. Ian and Barbara were married and happy. They had a child! How glad he was that they were well. And with that thought, he was able to say goodbye to his memories again, if only for a short while. He may never come to terms with his past, but at least he was able to move on.
Even so...
Would he be able to work with Ian? What would Ian do, if the young man working with him revealed himself to be the Doctor?
Ah, well. Time enough to worry about that, wasn’t there?
With that in mind, he was able to look around and take note of his surroundings. The train to London wasn’t packed at this time of night. People sat in seats, smoking or reading the paper or chatting to their neighbors. He coughed slightly as a stream of cigarette smoke drifted his way. Why humans persisted in doing that to their lungs he would never know.
Shifting in his seat, his attention was caught by a young woman sitting across from him. There was nothing very extraordinary about her. She appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties. She was dressed professionally, if somewhat plainly, in a brown tweed jacket and matching skirt. As the Doctor fixed his gaze upon her, he was startled to see a faint yellow glow emanating from her head. As he watched, startled, the glow grew brighter and spread down over her shoulders. As he leaned forward in fascination, the girl glanced his way. Just then someone stepped in front of him, and when his line of sight was clear the glow was gone. Soon after the next stop was reached, and she stepped off the train without a backwards glance.
The Doctor hastily leaned back in his seat. He didn’t want to look like someone who gawked after young girls.
The flat smelled like curry. He used the sonic screwdriver to unlock the door, locking it again behind him as he closed it. Rose and Billy were laughing.
“Doctor, is that you?” Rose’s voice called.
“I’m home!” He tossed his briefcase onto a chair and followed the noise to the kitchen. Rose and Billy were sitting at the table, empty plates in front of them and cups of tea in their hands.
“There you are!” Rose jumped up to give him a hug.
“Hi.” He hugged her tightly, breathing in the scent of her shampoo. Over Rose’s head he caught sight of Billy watching them in amusement. The Doctor cleared his throat and straightened his tie as Rose stepped away.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“I’ll get it!” Billy carried the empty plates to the sink. “I made a curry,” he explained over his shoulder, dishing some up onto a new plate. “Have a seat.”
The Doctor made all kinds of appreciative noises as he ate. “This is terrific!”
“Isn’t it?” Rose sat back down across from him. “Billy’s a genius.” She watched him take a gulp from her teacup and refilled it for him. “How was work?”
He paused with his fork in his mouth. “Good,” he said when he’d finished chewing and swallowing. “Uneventful. Same old teaching and grading.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good.”
He nodded, avoiding her questioning gaze. “How about you, Billy? What did you do today?”
“Looked for a job. Turns out I’m not qualified without any identification or experience. Plus, the fact that I’m black seems to bother certain people.”
“We’ll get you the proper papers,” the Doctor promised. “Won’t take me but a few minutes. So.” He looked at them expectantly. “What were you two laughing about?”
Billy smirked. Rose smiled.
“Oh, I was just telling him about the time you and Jack were trapped in that little house with no doors, and Jack had to take off his -”
“Good grief,” the Doctor muttered. “Will I never live that down?”
Billy laughed even harder.
After the dishes were washed and dried and put away, Rose excused herself to change out of her work clothes. As she was pulling on a soft pair of slacks - not polyester, because that seemed to make her skin break out - she heard a knock on the door. Buttoning up a blouse, she headed back to the living room. Jeff was sitting on the couch, chatting with Billy and the Doctor.
“Hi, Jeff.” Rose sat down beside the Doctor, who had to shift to make room for her but didn’t seem to mind.
“I was just inviting you guys to come over and watch the moon landing tomorrow night,” Jeff told her. “It’s going to be an all-nighter.”
“That sounds like fun!” Rose looked at the Doctor for confirmation. He nodded. Billy was more enthusiastic.
“We’d love to.”
“Excellent! My flat’s a bit larger.” Jeff glanced around critically. Even though Rose had hung pretty curtains at the windows and bright pictures on the wall, there was no disguising the fact that the flat was on the small side. “So a few friends will be over, too. Should be quite a time!” He paused and looked at Billy in puzzlement.
“You’re staying here, aren’t you?”
Billy nodded cautiously, not sure what Jeff was after.
“Well, er, where do you sleep? In here?”
Billy nodded towards the couch. “Right there.”
“It’s a squeeze,” the Doctor said easily, “but it’s temporary.”
“Hmm.” Jeff was lost in thought for a moment. “You know that Mrs. MacMurray has a storage unit in the basement? Sometimes people move out and leave things behind. I bet there’s a bed down there.”
Billy jumped up. “Let’s go. That thing is damned uncomfortable.”
They trooped out of the flat in single file, Billy following Jeff.
“I didn’t think the couch was that uncomfortable,” the Doctor murmured to Rose as he closed the door behind them.
“You don’t sleep on it,” she reminded him.
Jeff had stopped at the landlady’s door. “Just need to get the key,” he explained. “Hello!” He grinned at Mrs. MacMurray. “Mind if I borrow the key to storage? I need a few chairs for the moon landing.”
Mrs. MacMurray opened the door and smiled at them. “Well, hello! Isn’t it exciting? I can’t believe men will actually step on the moon.” She dug around in the pockets of her pink and yellow housecoat. “Here you are. I just locked up down there. Isaac Hastings left without a word, can you imagine? I had to take care of all of his things.”
“Isaac?” Rose interrupted. “Isaac from down the hall? We just met him.”
“Didn’t even pay his rent for the month. No family at all, apparently, but I put his belongings in the basement just in case. Help yourself, Jeff.”
“Thanks, Mrs. M. I’ll bring the key back to you.”
“That’s so weird,” Rose said on the way to the storage room. “I mean, we just met Isaac and now he’s gone.”
“What so weird about that?” Billy wanted to know. “People disappear all the time. Sometimes it’s not even their own fault.” He shot a look at the Doctor, who stared after him in open-mouthed indignation.
“As if the Weeping Angels were my fault!”
Jeff glanced back at them. “The Weeping what?”
“Nothing,” Rose said quickly. “Just an old joke. You know how it is.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes.
Jeff unlocked a door and switched on a light. A short flight of stairs led to another locked door. When he’d unlocked the second door and turned on another light, he propped the door open to make room for the others.
“This is storage for old belongings?” The Doctor was incredulous. “Look at all of this!”
Billy was equally amazed. “Beds, chairs, lamps, boxes. It could be a furniture store!”
Furniture was stacked up along all four walls: chairs, tables, even a bed frame or two. Sealed boxes were everywhere. Picture frames leaned up against the boxes and beside old lamps and various vases, pillows and bookcases.
“Some of this stuff looks pretty old.” Jeff blew the dust off of a picture frame. The couple in the photo wore fifties-era clothing.
The Doctor slipped on his glasses. “This is just unreal.”
“Ah! I knew I’d seen a bed down here!” Jeff was wrestling a fold-away bed from a corner of the room. “I borrowed a lamp from here when I first moved in,” he explained. “Mrs. MacMurray doesn’t mind.”
“Awesome.” Billy took the bed, ignoring the dust and praying that there was nothing alive in the mattress.
“Here, John. Give me a hand with a couple of chairs?”
The Doctor, busy peering inside a box, did not respond to his assumed name. Rose had to nudge him.
“What?” he asked in surprise.
She inclined her head in Jeff’s direction. “Grab a chair.”
He sighed and grabbed two. Billy needed both hands for his bed, and Rose managed to wrestle one out of the room. Jeff delivered the key back to Mrs. MacMurray, who accepted his thanks with an offer of freshly baked scones and tea.
The scones were cream and the tea was delicious. Mrs. MacMurray soon showed herself to be one of those women who liked to know all the details about the young people she watched over, as she put it. By the time they’d revealed that Rose and the Doctor had no other family, and that Billy’s family was far away in Jamaica, Rose was ready to call it a night.
“I’m ready for bed,” she announced as soon as they were back in the flat, Jeff and his chairs delivered to his flat. “Billy, good luck with that bed. I’d shake out the mattress if I were you.”
“Don’t worry.” The Doctor produced the sonic screwdriver. “This will drive away anything living in there.”
Billy looked from the sonic screwdriver to his new bed with a pained expression.
“Make sure whatever’s driven out doesn’t stay alive in the flat,” Rose warned him. “Or else.”
“Or else what?” the Doctor wanted to know.
“Or else,” she repeated in dire tones.
“Man,” Billy commented once Rose had disappeared into the bedroom. “You have it bad.”
The Doctor tore his eyes away from the direction Rose had gone, a goofy grin still on his face.
“What?”
“You have it bad.” Billy unfolded the bed. “She does, too. Both of you go around with smiles on your faces and you can’t keep your eyes off of each other. And you’re not even sharing the same room with her.”
“I, she, we,” the Doctor sputtered.
Billy held up a hand. “Whatever the two of you get up to, or don’t get up to, it’s your business. Just bring that screwdriver thing over and kill anything that’s living in this mattress.”
Twenty-nine
Characters: Ten, Rose
Summary: AU. What if Rose had stayed through Doomsday and was the one to end up in 1969 with the Doctor? How would they get back to their proper time? Would they want to?
Rating: PG
Beta: nattieb
Hello, all you lovely people! It's so nice to be back at lj. I have finally returned to post once more.
(ch 1) (ch 2) (ch 3) (ch 4) (ch 5) (ch 6) (ch 7) (ch 8) (ch 9) (ch 10) (ch 11) (ch 12) (ch 13) (ch 14) (ch 15) (ch 16) (ch 17) (ch 18)
(ch 19) (ch 20) (ch 21) (ch 22) (ch 23) (ch 24) (ch 25) (ch 26) (ch 27)
The University of Cambridge. Seat of learning. Established in the early 1200’s. Francis Bacon. Sir Isaac Newton. The laws of motion. The discovery of hydrogen. The structure of DNA.
It was incredibly exciting, being around all that academia and prestige. Or at least, it ought to have been exciting. Under normal circumstances the Doctor would have enjoyed himself. He hadn’t counted on his position, though. Being a research assistant was dead boring. He was expected to teach classes and grade papers and do all the work for the professor he was assigned to.
That he could do with one hand tied behind his back, blindfolded. It just wasn’t very stimulating, teaching courses that his people would have mastered at a much younger age than his current pupils.
He didn’t mind the travel up to the college itself. He hopped on a train in the early hours of the morning, long before Rose or Billy were awake. He was home an hour or so after dinner those nights.
It was manageable. Certainly after being involved in countless wars and skirmishes, the hardships associated with commuting weren’t even worth mentioning. It was not seeing Rose as often as he liked that he hated.
“I am an idiot,” the Doctor said to himself. He was alone in the lab at the time, a stack of papers to be graded beside him. “A great, big idiot.” He’d gone and gotten a job that required he be away from Rose until late at night, right when she was about to go to bed.
He missed her more than he was willing to admit.
“Hello! Smith? You still here?” A man with white hair and spectacles knocked on the open door before walking in. The Doctor stood up, smoothing down his suit jacket.
“Hello, Roger.” He managed a nice smile for the head of the science department. The kindly old man held multiple degrees from various universities and commanded an enormous amount of respect wherever he went, but he preferred to be called by his given name.
“Just the man I wanted to see. Although,” and here Roger glanced at his watch, “it’s getting on to dinner time. Shouldn’t you be heading home?”
The Doctor smiled a real smile this time. “Just getting ready to pack up. Can I help you with something? Come to rate me on my first week on the job?” He laughed as though the notion were absurd. Which it was, seeing as how he was brilliant.
“No, of course not. Wanted to introduce you to our newest faculty member! Drat, where’d he go?” Roger stepped back into the hallway. “Ian! Where are you, man? Oh, there you are.”
“Sorry.” A tall, dark-haired man entered the lab behind Roger. “Saw someone I went to school with.” He looked from Roger to the Doctor.
“This is Ian,” Roger said the to Doctor. “Ian, this is John Smith, one of our physics men. Working on his doctorate right now.”
“Physics! Very nice. Nice to meet you. Ian Chesterton.” Ian Chesterton held out his hand, and the Doctor took it automatically, without quite being aware that he was doing so.
“And you,” the Doctor returned mechanically.
“We’re very lucky to have Ian,” Roger confided to the Doctor. “He took a two-year sabbatical from teaching to travel, and then he wrote a book.”
“About, about your travels?” The Doctor dared to ask. He knew exactly where Ian had been traveling - would there be a book about time and space? With a time-traveling alien? Surely Ian wouldn’t do that.
Ian shook his head with a slight smile. “When I got back, er, returned to London, I didn’t want to go back to teaching. So I began researching, got a grant and wrote a book. Then I polished up my credentials to teach at the university level. That took up the past four years.”
“And now he’s back and ready to return! We’re glad to have him in our department.”
The Doctor nodded, not speaking. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Ian. It was Ian, his Ian. Here was the first human he’d ever allowed on his TARDIS. Here was the last link he had to Susan. His Susan. A granddaughter that he should never have taken off of Gallifrey. But he had, and they had met Ian and Barbara, and Ian had known Susan, had actually known her, and spoken to her, and touched her.
And if the Doctor said any of this Ian would think he was mad, because as far as Ian was concerned, the Doctor was an old, crotchety man with a penchant for not listening. It had been just several years since Ian had said goodbye to the Doctor, and in that time the Doctor had lived nine other lives. How would Ian ever understand that?
Ian and Roger were talking, but the Doctor didn’t hear any of it. He continued to stare at Ian, a painful drumming going on behind his temples.
Ian and Barbara. Susan. Daleks and Robespierre. Marco Polo. Sensorites and Rome and Nero and the Animus. Susan. Oh, Susan, I just let you go. I left you and now you’re gone.
“Don’t you think so, John?” Roger asked, and the Doctor was jerked out of his reverie.
“Yes,” he said immediately, without knowing what he was agreeing to. “Yes.”
“Thought so!” Roger looked very satisfied.
The Doctor nodded, still looking at Ian and wondering, for the countless time, if he had been wrong in locking Susan out of the TARDIS, forcing her to stay with a man they barely knew. He should have let her in, should have taken her with him.
But then she would have gone to Gallifrey with him, at the end, of course she would have. And she would be dead.
But she was dead still, a voice taunted him inwardly. She died when the Time Lords died, and it didn’t matter where or when in time she was. Susan was gone, and he was alone, and the pain was too much to bear. That was why he never thought about it, why he forbade Rose from asking questions. It was just too hard.
“Grandfather, can we stay a while?”
“Eh? Stay where?”
“Here. On Earth. I think I’d like to go to school.”
“You want to go to school! Here? They don’t the first thing about anything, these humans!”
“Please, Grandfather! Please! You need to repair the TARDIS anyway! I can go to school and pretend to be a human girl.”
“Ridiculous. We’re Time Lords! These humans are beneath us.”
“Well, I’d like to just the same.”
“If you really want to, child, then you may. But only until I repair the ship!”
“Thank you, Grandfather!”
Roger was speaking but the Doctor didn’t hear any of it. Caught up in memories that he usually repressed, he couldn’t follow the conversation. Seeing Ian was too much of a shock.
“You’re working on your doctorate, Mr. Smith?” Ian asked, and the Doctor forced himself back.
“Yes. Chaos theory.”
Ian looked taken aback. “Chaos theory. That’s not a very popular discipline, is it?”
“No, not yet. But it will be.”
“Mr. Smith is quite clever,” Roger said. “Some of his earlier works are genius.”
“Thank you,” the Doctor said, trying for a measure of modesty and probably failing.
“I look forward to reading some of your work,” Ian said. “In the meantime, I must be going.”
“Ah, yes. You’re a family man now, yes?”
Ian smiled at the faint mockery in Roger’s voice. “Yes.” He pulled a photo out of his billfold and offered it to the Doctor. A black and white snap of Barbara, holding a small infant.
“His name’s John,” Ian said proudly. “That’s my wife, Barbara. She teaches, too, but not just now, obviously. She helped me with my book.”
“A lovely family,” the Doctor said.
“I’ll be off,” Ian said, tucking the snap back into his pocket. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Smith. I look forward to working with you.”
“Good seeing you again,” the Doctor replied automatically, still stunned to see him. Ian turned to look at him quizzically, and he quickly amended his words. “Good to see you, I mean. Good meeting you. By the way, what is your specialty, Mr. Chesterton?”
Ian smiled. “Astronomy. I’ve developed quite a love for space in the past few years.”
“A good man,” Roger said after Ian had gone. “Bit of a mystery, but nice enough, eh?”
Before the Doctor could respond, someone poked his head into the room.
“Roger!” he said in an urgent whisper, stepping inside. “Did I just see-” his voice lowered even more - “Ian Chesterton?”
“You did, Paul. That was him.” Roger sighed as if he were saddened by the admission.
“Well?” Paul all but danced up and down in impatience. “What did he say?”
The Doctor came out of his reverie long enough to study the newcomer. He looked to be in his fifties, a distinguished - looking man with grey hair and a custom suit. He did not appear to be the type of person to indulge in gossip, and yet apparently he was doing exactly like that.
“Nothing, really. Just that he’d been on sabbatical.”
“Sabbatical!” Paul snorted. “Is that what he’s calling it?”
Roger glanced at the Doctor. “You’ll be hearing the stories soon enough, I’m afraid. Ian Chesterton is a bit of a mystery down in London. He left his teaching position one day, just walked out of the school and never returned. He and his wife, in fact. Not married then, of course. Disappeared for two or three years! Then they showed up again in London acting as if nothing had happened.” He shook his head.
“It was in all the papers,” Paul added. “Shocking. And now you have him. I’m surprised he was hired.”
“His recent works on time and space were very interesting. We can use someone like him. I imagine it will be all right.”
Paul shook his head. “Let me know if you find out anything else. My money is on them spending all that time in the Virgin Islands.”
“Who,” the Doctor asked after he’d gone, “was that?”
Roger heaved a sigh. “Paul Landsdowne. Dean of Mathematics. Brilliant man, but a bit of a gossip, I’m afraid. Not very seemly in his position, but there you are.”
The Doctor nodded. Humans.
Sitting on the train on the way home, he found himself lost in his thoughts. He didn’t often think about the life he’d left behind. In fact, he tried very hard to never do so. But seeing Ian had rocked him in a way that seeing Sarah Jane had not. Perhaps it was because so much time had passed since Ian and Barbara had left him. So many experiences and changes. They’d been his first companions, back when he’d wanted none. And here he was, stranded on Earth with his current companion.
The thought of Rose made him smile, and the vision of her smiling face cleared away the cobwebs from his brain. Ian and Barbara were married and happy. They had a child! How glad he was that they were well. And with that thought, he was able to say goodbye to his memories again, if only for a short while. He may never come to terms with his past, but at least he was able to move on.
Even so...
Would he be able to work with Ian? What would Ian do, if the young man working with him revealed himself to be the Doctor?
Ah, well. Time enough to worry about that, wasn’t there?
With that in mind, he was able to look around and take note of his surroundings. The train to London wasn’t packed at this time of night. People sat in seats, smoking or reading the paper or chatting to their neighbors. He coughed slightly as a stream of cigarette smoke drifted his way. Why humans persisted in doing that to their lungs he would never know.
Shifting in his seat, his attention was caught by a young woman sitting across from him. There was nothing very extraordinary about her. She appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties. She was dressed professionally, if somewhat plainly, in a brown tweed jacket and matching skirt. As the Doctor fixed his gaze upon her, he was startled to see a faint yellow glow emanating from her head. As he watched, startled, the glow grew brighter and spread down over her shoulders. As he leaned forward in fascination, the girl glanced his way. Just then someone stepped in front of him, and when his line of sight was clear the glow was gone. Soon after the next stop was reached, and she stepped off the train without a backwards glance.
The Doctor hastily leaned back in his seat. He didn’t want to look like someone who gawked after young girls.
The flat smelled like curry. He used the sonic screwdriver to unlock the door, locking it again behind him as he closed it. Rose and Billy were laughing.
“Doctor, is that you?” Rose’s voice called.
“I’m home!” He tossed his briefcase onto a chair and followed the noise to the kitchen. Rose and Billy were sitting at the table, empty plates in front of them and cups of tea in their hands.
“There you are!” Rose jumped up to give him a hug.
“Hi.” He hugged her tightly, breathing in the scent of her shampoo. Over Rose’s head he caught sight of Billy watching them in amusement. The Doctor cleared his throat and straightened his tie as Rose stepped away.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“I’ll get it!” Billy carried the empty plates to the sink. “I made a curry,” he explained over his shoulder, dishing some up onto a new plate. “Have a seat.”
The Doctor made all kinds of appreciative noises as he ate. “This is terrific!”
“Isn’t it?” Rose sat back down across from him. “Billy’s a genius.” She watched him take a gulp from her teacup and refilled it for him. “How was work?”
He paused with his fork in his mouth. “Good,” he said when he’d finished chewing and swallowing. “Uneventful. Same old teaching and grading.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good.”
He nodded, avoiding her questioning gaze. “How about you, Billy? What did you do today?”
“Looked for a job. Turns out I’m not qualified without any identification or experience. Plus, the fact that I’m black seems to bother certain people.”
“We’ll get you the proper papers,” the Doctor promised. “Won’t take me but a few minutes. So.” He looked at them expectantly. “What were you two laughing about?”
Billy smirked. Rose smiled.
“Oh, I was just telling him about the time you and Jack were trapped in that little house with no doors, and Jack had to take off his -”
“Good grief,” the Doctor muttered. “Will I never live that down?”
Billy laughed even harder.
After the dishes were washed and dried and put away, Rose excused herself to change out of her work clothes. As she was pulling on a soft pair of slacks - not polyester, because that seemed to make her skin break out - she heard a knock on the door. Buttoning up a blouse, she headed back to the living room. Jeff was sitting on the couch, chatting with Billy and the Doctor.
“Hi, Jeff.” Rose sat down beside the Doctor, who had to shift to make room for her but didn’t seem to mind.
“I was just inviting you guys to come over and watch the moon landing tomorrow night,” Jeff told her. “It’s going to be an all-nighter.”
“That sounds like fun!” Rose looked at the Doctor for confirmation. He nodded. Billy was more enthusiastic.
“We’d love to.”
“Excellent! My flat’s a bit larger.” Jeff glanced around critically. Even though Rose had hung pretty curtains at the windows and bright pictures on the wall, there was no disguising the fact that the flat was on the small side. “So a few friends will be over, too. Should be quite a time!” He paused and looked at Billy in puzzlement.
“You’re staying here, aren’t you?”
Billy nodded cautiously, not sure what Jeff was after.
“Well, er, where do you sleep? In here?”
Billy nodded towards the couch. “Right there.”
“It’s a squeeze,” the Doctor said easily, “but it’s temporary.”
“Hmm.” Jeff was lost in thought for a moment. “You know that Mrs. MacMurray has a storage unit in the basement? Sometimes people move out and leave things behind. I bet there’s a bed down there.”
Billy jumped up. “Let’s go. That thing is damned uncomfortable.”
They trooped out of the flat in single file, Billy following Jeff.
“I didn’t think the couch was that uncomfortable,” the Doctor murmured to Rose as he closed the door behind them.
“You don’t sleep on it,” she reminded him.
Jeff had stopped at the landlady’s door. “Just need to get the key,” he explained. “Hello!” He grinned at Mrs. MacMurray. “Mind if I borrow the key to storage? I need a few chairs for the moon landing.”
Mrs. MacMurray opened the door and smiled at them. “Well, hello! Isn’t it exciting? I can’t believe men will actually step on the moon.” She dug around in the pockets of her pink and yellow housecoat. “Here you are. I just locked up down there. Isaac Hastings left without a word, can you imagine? I had to take care of all of his things.”
“Isaac?” Rose interrupted. “Isaac from down the hall? We just met him.”
“Didn’t even pay his rent for the month. No family at all, apparently, but I put his belongings in the basement just in case. Help yourself, Jeff.”
“Thanks, Mrs. M. I’ll bring the key back to you.”
“That’s so weird,” Rose said on the way to the storage room. “I mean, we just met Isaac and now he’s gone.”
“What so weird about that?” Billy wanted to know. “People disappear all the time. Sometimes it’s not even their own fault.” He shot a look at the Doctor, who stared after him in open-mouthed indignation.
“As if the Weeping Angels were my fault!”
Jeff glanced back at them. “The Weeping what?”
“Nothing,” Rose said quickly. “Just an old joke. You know how it is.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes.
Jeff unlocked a door and switched on a light. A short flight of stairs led to another locked door. When he’d unlocked the second door and turned on another light, he propped the door open to make room for the others.
“This is storage for old belongings?” The Doctor was incredulous. “Look at all of this!”
Billy was equally amazed. “Beds, chairs, lamps, boxes. It could be a furniture store!”
Furniture was stacked up along all four walls: chairs, tables, even a bed frame or two. Sealed boxes were everywhere. Picture frames leaned up against the boxes and beside old lamps and various vases, pillows and bookcases.
“Some of this stuff looks pretty old.” Jeff blew the dust off of a picture frame. The couple in the photo wore fifties-era clothing.
The Doctor slipped on his glasses. “This is just unreal.”
“Ah! I knew I’d seen a bed down here!” Jeff was wrestling a fold-away bed from a corner of the room. “I borrowed a lamp from here when I first moved in,” he explained. “Mrs. MacMurray doesn’t mind.”
“Awesome.” Billy took the bed, ignoring the dust and praying that there was nothing alive in the mattress.
“Here, John. Give me a hand with a couple of chairs?”
The Doctor, busy peering inside a box, did not respond to his assumed name. Rose had to nudge him.
“What?” he asked in surprise.
She inclined her head in Jeff’s direction. “Grab a chair.”
He sighed and grabbed two. Billy needed both hands for his bed, and Rose managed to wrestle one out of the room. Jeff delivered the key back to Mrs. MacMurray, who accepted his thanks with an offer of freshly baked scones and tea.
The scones were cream and the tea was delicious. Mrs. MacMurray soon showed herself to be one of those women who liked to know all the details about the young people she watched over, as she put it. By the time they’d revealed that Rose and the Doctor had no other family, and that Billy’s family was far away in Jamaica, Rose was ready to call it a night.
“I’m ready for bed,” she announced as soon as they were back in the flat, Jeff and his chairs delivered to his flat. “Billy, good luck with that bed. I’d shake out the mattress if I were you.”
“Don’t worry.” The Doctor produced the sonic screwdriver. “This will drive away anything living in there.”
Billy looked from the sonic screwdriver to his new bed with a pained expression.
“Make sure whatever’s driven out doesn’t stay alive in the flat,” Rose warned him. “Or else.”
“Or else what?” the Doctor wanted to know.
“Or else,” she repeated in dire tones.
“Man,” Billy commented once Rose had disappeared into the bedroom. “You have it bad.”
The Doctor tore his eyes away from the direction Rose had gone, a goofy grin still on his face.
“What?”
“You have it bad.” Billy unfolded the bed. “She does, too. Both of you go around with smiles on your faces and you can’t keep your eyes off of each other. And you’re not even sharing the same room with her.”
“I, she, we,” the Doctor sputtered.
Billy held up a hand. “Whatever the two of you get up to, or don’t get up to, it’s your business. Just bring that screwdriver thing over and kill anything that’s living in this mattress.”
Twenty-nine