The One True Free Life (15/26)
Title: The One True Free Life (15/26)
Characters: Alt!Ten/Rose, and everyone else I can cram in to the Alt!Verse, plus several OCs
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: Everything
Disclaimer: It would be a very different, and possibly quite upsetting, world if I owned these characters. For the sake of the world's children, I don't.
Summary: When Rose and Alt!Ten return to Pete's World, after a much longer absence than planned, they find that things have begun to go a bit pear-shaped there. Can Our Heroes save the British Republic while at the same time working out their own Byzantinely complicated personal issues?
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26/ Epilogue | Whole story on Teaspoon
A shout-out to jaradel for retroactive beta duties!
"We'll have to get you a helmet," Rose noted, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she appraised the Doctor.
He looked down at himself. "Don't you think that's the least of our worries?"
"I am making a list, and it's not in order of importance. I'm just going from the top down, so be quiet and let me think."
He sat down on an old wooden crate and watched her carefully as she held up fingers and then bent them over as she ticked off more items.
"Some new clothes, clearly, for you and also I think for me since I seem look like a ninja. What's your waist size? You don't even know, do you? Well, I guess you've never had to buy off-the-rack. You'll need a jacket as well, it gets cold riding on this thing. Shoes for you, and socks. I'm sorry I made you run all that way in bare feet. Did you hurt yourself badly? There's some more plasters in my bag. Do you reckon I should get more of those? Oh! And we'll need to get you a rucksack too. Some food, and bottles of water, and you look like you could use some lip balm-- What?" Rose caught him looking at her, his brow furrowed, eyes dark and full.
"Please slow down," he said.
"Those are three words I never thought I'd hear you say. Or at least, not all together and in that order. There's no time, though, we can't stay here." She looked around the alley, wondering how it was that the graffiti at the Powell Estates was curiously exactly the same in this universe as the other.
"I think we can spare a minute. Or rather, if we can't, we're in worse trouble than we think we are." He patted a spot on the crate next to him. "Sit down. Just for a minute."
She eyed him warily, as if she was trying to figure out if the invitation was legitimate, and primly sat on the edge of the box. Something in her wanted to run, not from him necessarily , but sitting still and being alone under his gaze was almost too much for her to take while trying to be the brains of the operation. She reached over and touched the plaster on his arm, where one of the IVs had been.
"Thank you," he said against the top of her head as he planted a kiss there.
"Yeah, well, I couldn't well not, could I?" She stood again. "Right then, you've got to do something to change your appearance, and that means either more hair or less. What's it going to be? Shall I get you some razors, or are we going to cultivate the lumberjack look? And I'll get us a couple of towels so we can stop and have a wash somewhere.That'll be nice. Won't that be nice?"
He just looked at her silently, and she could see his irises move even in the dim light of the coming dawn, as he searched her eyes.
"Please don't look at me like that. I'm sorry, you're probably in shock or something, but we really need to be moving on, and we need to talk about what's happened, but not now. Not here. There's too many things we need to do and it's almost light and we have to get out of London. I've got to--I mean, we've got to keep moving." As she spoke, she began to gather her gear together again and adjust the straps of her helmet and put it back on her head. "You stay here. I mean that. Stay here. If anyone comes along, hide behind the bins or something."
"Are you alright?" he asked, approaching where she was getting herself arranged on the motorbike.
"Me? 'Course I am." And she started the bike and drove off down the alley, turning right on to the main road and disappearing.
The Doctor sat back down on his crate and listened to the Doppler shift of her retreat. Physically, he felt fine, though he noted that Rose had not really asked after his health, perhaps assuming that, as with the other Doctor, he didn't need much looking after in that department. He was hungry, thirsty, a little shaky on his feet, but otherwise felt alright. Sitting in a clammy alleyway on a council estate was boring and not how he'd really imagined his first few hours of freedom, but he found an old transistor radio on the ground and spent a little while fiddling with it, trying to get it to work again. He'd almost managed to get it sorted when one of the knobs popped off and he couldn't for the life of him get it to stay back on again. He twisted it round, tried to just use brute force, turned the whole thing upside-down to get a better look at what the problem was, but there was nothing for it. It wouldn't go back on.
And in that moment it was like someone else stepped in to his body and he didn't even realise what was happening until he saw the radio fly through the air and hit the opposite wall, shattering in to a couple dozen pieces. He stood there, barefooted and half-starved, looking between the shards of radio and his own hands, trying to figure out what had transpired, when Rose roared up again on the main road, cut the engine and coasted the bike back in to the alley. Bags and packages were strapped haphazardly to every available surface and she wore one full rucksack on her back, and her messenger bag swung around across her chest.
She lifted the visor of her helmet and winked. "Goin' my way?"
The Doctor just blinked at her.
"No, you're supposed to say 'Is there any other way to go?'" she chided as she dismounted.
"Right, sorry! You do not mess about when it comes to shopping, do you?"
She began to hand him things from all directions. "Here, put these on, I hope they fit. If not, I got you a belt, though that might not fit either. Good god, you're skinny! How did I never notice that before? And this too. And these."
He looked around, his arms laden. "Where am I supposed to change?"
"Shy all of a sudden? We can change in that doorway over there if you're feeling exposed." She followed behind him, her own arms full of new clothes and stepped up in to a deep-set service doorway that she knew went to a shop that had been closed for years, both in this universe and the other. "We'll toss this old stuff in the bin on our way out," she said, unzipping her top while the Doctor pulled his shirt over his head.
Looking at him, bare-chested, ribs poking out here and there, hands busy trying (rather unsuccessfully) to figure out how to get the tag off of his new t-shirt, Rose was overcome with a feeling of fragility, and she wanted to reach out and touch him, to see if he would pop like a bubble. Before she could though, the words welled up in her again and she couldn't stop their tumbling out.
"Here, give me that, I'll do it. Take your trousers off, I want to see if these jeans fit you. I didn't get you any pants, hope that's okay. You said you didn't wear any, but I didn't know if you were just trying to be a sexy rebel. Were you just trying to be a sexy rebel?"
He cocked his head to one side and undid the drawstring of his trousers. "Am I a sexy rebel?"
She handed him his shirt back, now minus one tag. "Could be. That shirt's a brilliant colour on you, by the way. Here, hold these so I can change real quick."
She should have felt self-conscious stripping down to bra and knickers in an alleyway in front of the Doctor, even this version of him, but she didn't. It seemed like a very straightforward business, this. It was a process, removing things, handing them to him, taking the new items that he was also holding, putting them on, step by step becoming a new person. At the end of it all they stood looking one another up and down, making mental notes about each other as best they could in the pale grey light.
The Doctor leaned down a little and got close to Rose's ear. "I'm wearing jeans, Rose," he said, as if she was not the one who'd purchased them in the first place.
"I've got brown hair, Doctor. We all make sacrifices. At least yours makes you look good."
He looked down at his feet and then back at her again. "I think you look beautiful."
She stood on her tip-toes and kissed him chastely on the cheek. "You would. Let's go, no time for love. If we leave right now we can be out of town in an hour."
He followed after her, relishing the warm, dry feeling of his feet now firmly encased in socks and new trainers. "Whereabouts are we going, then?"
She tossed him a new helmet and a bottle of water, then began to rearrange all of their gear so it would fit in just their two bags. "Dunno. I'll think of something."
"You always do."
(To Chapter 16)
Characters: Alt!Ten/Rose, and everyone else I can cram in to the Alt!Verse, plus several OCs
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: Everything
Disclaimer: It would be a very different, and possibly quite upsetting, world if I owned these characters. For the sake of the world's children, I don't.
Summary: When Rose and Alt!Ten return to Pete's World, after a much longer absence than planned, they find that things have begun to go a bit pear-shaped there. Can Our Heroes save the British Republic while at the same time working out their own Byzantinely complicated personal issues?
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26/ Epilogue | Whole story on Teaspoon
A shout-out to jaradel for retroactive beta duties!
"We'll have to get you a helmet," Rose noted, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she appraised the Doctor.
He looked down at himself. "Don't you think that's the least of our worries?"
"I am making a list, and it's not in order of importance. I'm just going from the top down, so be quiet and let me think."
He sat down on an old wooden crate and watched her carefully as she held up fingers and then bent them over as she ticked off more items.
"Some new clothes, clearly, for you and also I think for me since I seem look like a ninja. What's your waist size? You don't even know, do you? Well, I guess you've never had to buy off-the-rack. You'll need a jacket as well, it gets cold riding on this thing. Shoes for you, and socks. I'm sorry I made you run all that way in bare feet. Did you hurt yourself badly? There's some more plasters in my bag. Do you reckon I should get more of those? Oh! And we'll need to get you a rucksack too. Some food, and bottles of water, and you look like you could use some lip balm-- What?" Rose caught him looking at her, his brow furrowed, eyes dark and full.
"Please slow down," he said.
"Those are three words I never thought I'd hear you say. Or at least, not all together and in that order. There's no time, though, we can't stay here." She looked around the alley, wondering how it was that the graffiti at the Powell Estates was curiously exactly the same in this universe as the other.
"I think we can spare a minute. Or rather, if we can't, we're in worse trouble than we think we are." He patted a spot on the crate next to him. "Sit down. Just for a minute."
She eyed him warily, as if she was trying to figure out if the invitation was legitimate, and primly sat on the edge of the box. Something in her wanted to run, not from him necessarily , but sitting still and being alone under his gaze was almost too much for her to take while trying to be the brains of the operation. She reached over and touched the plaster on his arm, where one of the IVs had been.
"Thank you," he said against the top of her head as he planted a kiss there.
"Yeah, well, I couldn't well not, could I?" She stood again. "Right then, you've got to do something to change your appearance, and that means either more hair or less. What's it going to be? Shall I get you some razors, or are we going to cultivate the lumberjack look? And I'll get us a couple of towels so we can stop and have a wash somewhere.That'll be nice. Won't that be nice?"
He just looked at her silently, and she could see his irises move even in the dim light of the coming dawn, as he searched her eyes.
"Please don't look at me like that. I'm sorry, you're probably in shock or something, but we really need to be moving on, and we need to talk about what's happened, but not now. Not here. There's too many things we need to do and it's almost light and we have to get out of London. I've got to--I mean, we've got to keep moving." As she spoke, she began to gather her gear together again and adjust the straps of her helmet and put it back on her head. "You stay here. I mean that. Stay here. If anyone comes along, hide behind the bins or something."
"Are you alright?" he asked, approaching where she was getting herself arranged on the motorbike.
"Me? 'Course I am." And she started the bike and drove off down the alley, turning right on to the main road and disappearing.
The Doctor sat back down on his crate and listened to the Doppler shift of her retreat. Physically, he felt fine, though he noted that Rose had not really asked after his health, perhaps assuming that, as with the other Doctor, he didn't need much looking after in that department. He was hungry, thirsty, a little shaky on his feet, but otherwise felt alright. Sitting in a clammy alleyway on a council estate was boring and not how he'd really imagined his first few hours of freedom, but he found an old transistor radio on the ground and spent a little while fiddling with it, trying to get it to work again. He'd almost managed to get it sorted when one of the knobs popped off and he couldn't for the life of him get it to stay back on again. He twisted it round, tried to just use brute force, turned the whole thing upside-down to get a better look at what the problem was, but there was nothing for it. It wouldn't go back on.
And in that moment it was like someone else stepped in to his body and he didn't even realise what was happening until he saw the radio fly through the air and hit the opposite wall, shattering in to a couple dozen pieces. He stood there, barefooted and half-starved, looking between the shards of radio and his own hands, trying to figure out what had transpired, when Rose roared up again on the main road, cut the engine and coasted the bike back in to the alley. Bags and packages were strapped haphazardly to every available surface and she wore one full rucksack on her back, and her messenger bag swung around across her chest.
She lifted the visor of her helmet and winked. "Goin' my way?"
The Doctor just blinked at her.
"No, you're supposed to say 'Is there any other way to go?'" she chided as she dismounted.
"Right, sorry! You do not mess about when it comes to shopping, do you?"
She began to hand him things from all directions. "Here, put these on, I hope they fit. If not, I got you a belt, though that might not fit either. Good god, you're skinny! How did I never notice that before? And this too. And these."
He looked around, his arms laden. "Where am I supposed to change?"
"Shy all of a sudden? We can change in that doorway over there if you're feeling exposed." She followed behind him, her own arms full of new clothes and stepped up in to a deep-set service doorway that she knew went to a shop that had been closed for years, both in this universe and the other. "We'll toss this old stuff in the bin on our way out," she said, unzipping her top while the Doctor pulled his shirt over his head.
Looking at him, bare-chested, ribs poking out here and there, hands busy trying (rather unsuccessfully) to figure out how to get the tag off of his new t-shirt, Rose was overcome with a feeling of fragility, and she wanted to reach out and touch him, to see if he would pop like a bubble. Before she could though, the words welled up in her again and she couldn't stop their tumbling out.
"Here, give me that, I'll do it. Take your trousers off, I want to see if these jeans fit you. I didn't get you any pants, hope that's okay. You said you didn't wear any, but I didn't know if you were just trying to be a sexy rebel. Were you just trying to be a sexy rebel?"
He cocked his head to one side and undid the drawstring of his trousers. "Am I a sexy rebel?"
She handed him his shirt back, now minus one tag. "Could be. That shirt's a brilliant colour on you, by the way. Here, hold these so I can change real quick."
She should have felt self-conscious stripping down to bra and knickers in an alleyway in front of the Doctor, even this version of him, but she didn't. It seemed like a very straightforward business, this. It was a process, removing things, handing them to him, taking the new items that he was also holding, putting them on, step by step becoming a new person. At the end of it all they stood looking one another up and down, making mental notes about each other as best they could in the pale grey light.
The Doctor leaned down a little and got close to Rose's ear. "I'm wearing jeans, Rose," he said, as if she was not the one who'd purchased them in the first place.
"I've got brown hair, Doctor. We all make sacrifices. At least yours makes you look good."
He looked down at his feet and then back at her again. "I think you look beautiful."
She stood on her tip-toes and kissed him chastely on the cheek. "You would. Let's go, no time for love. If we leave right now we can be out of town in an hour."
He followed after her, relishing the warm, dry feeling of his feet now firmly encased in socks and new trainers. "Whereabouts are we going, then?"
She tossed him a new helmet and a bottle of water, then began to rearrange all of their gear so it would fit in just their two bags. "Dunno. I'll think of something."
"You always do."
(To Chapter 16)