The One True Free Life (16/26)
Title: The One True Free Life (16/26)
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/N: A bit of an interlude, this. Saving the world (and snogs) to follow. To gear up for the next phase of this story and replenish my creative well a bit, I'm not going to post any new chapters until the weekend. But I promise you, Chapter 17 by Saturday afternoon. :)
The forced intimacy of the motorbike ride north in to East Anglia via minor roads saw them melt back in to one another slowly, as the city turned to suburbs and then to a pastoral idyll. The Doctor felt the tension in Rose's shoulders dissipate as the land around them became more sparsely populated and greener, long rows of houses giving way to farm fields and the occasional copse of trees. It was fortunately a fine day and he was able to put out of his head for the moment what having a motorbike as their primary mode of transportation would be like when it rained.
It was in to a shaded lay-by that Rose suddenly slowed and then stopped the bike. Her hair was mussed from the helmet and there were dark circles forming under her eyes. The Doctor had a strong urge to hold her and comfort her, but something in the way she was standing warned him off.
"I'm sorry, I can't go on. I haven't really slept in...what day is it?"
The Doctor just shrugged as she walked the bike back behind some shrubs and stood in appraisal of how well hidden it was.
"Let's just walk a bit in to the trees, yeah?" She shouldered her bag and began to march grimly through the under brush, until they came to a shallow drainage ditch, where she stopped and just peered at it dumbly.
The Doctor came up behind her and touched her shoulder lightly. "It's flowing off that way, look. I bet we'll come to come to a stream if we follow it. Might be able to have a bit of a bathe. Would you fancy that?"
She turned on him, her eyes wide but red-rimmed, and almost surprised to see him there. "Yes, good idea, that. That's why I keep you around, right?" She pulled a weary smile and began walking along the ditch where the Doctor had indicated until after a few minutes they did indeed come to a narrow canal, where ducks and a few swans bobbed lazily in the afternoon sun.
By the time the Doctor caught up the last few yards, Rose was already removing her socks and shoes, her bag and helmet cast off under a large spreading oak. The Doctor walked up to the canal's edge and wrinkled his nose. "Do you want me to tell you what's in there, or keep it to myself?"
She joined him on the bank, her bare toes each tipped with a dab of black earth. "If it's good enough for the ducks, it's good enough for me," she remarked pointedly, and sat down on a bit of tree root, plunging both feet in to the water. "Come on, Doctor, it's lovely!"
The sight of her smiling and relaxed finally trumped his desire to steer well clear of agricultural pollution, and he discarded his rucksack along with his socks and shoes and eased himself down next to her.
"This makes me feel like a whole new woman," she sighed.
"Not too new, I hope. I rather like the regular old Rose."
She looked up at him coyly. "Is that so?"
"It is. One could even say that I love her, that beautiful, courageous, brilliant Rose Tyler. You know, the one who saved my life? About this tall, blond--no, I'm sorry--brown hair, quite surprisingly rides a motorbike? You know the one?"
"No, I don't think so. Tell me about her." She made a splash with her foot and then started both feet in lazy circles, resting her head on his shoulder.
"Well, she's quite brilliant, did I mention that? And I've loved her since the day I met her. And when people do things that upset her or hurt her, I just can't bear it." He turned to her so she had to remove her head from his shoulder, and he brought a hand up to the side of her face. "I can't. I mean, I never could, but right now, all I want to do is hurt the people who've done this, because they've upset you and put your life in danger."
"That's a very human reaction," she said as she took his hand from her face and held it between both of hers. "I feel it too."
His brow darkened and he sucked on his lower lip for a few seconds. "But that's all I want to do right now. It's like this thing in me and I keep pushing it down, but it keeps coming back up." He felt the urge to throw things, to hit things, to stomp and yell, emerge again as he invoked it, and he was sure that the Rose Tyler he knew could never love a man like this. His jaw was clenching tight and with every breath it was a concious effort to remain seated and relaxed.
She heaved a long sigh and turned her eyes fully on him, so that he was sure she could see the ugliness that was simmering beneath the surface. "It's anger, Doctor. You're feeling normal human anger. When someone hurts the people you love, you get angry. I'm furious, myself. I can barely stand it, actually, and it's just that I'm so tired now I can't go on trying to deal with it any more."
"I've been angry before," he said with a sniff, tossing a bit of tree bark in to the water and watching the ripples outward, resisting the temptation to follow them with his mind. "I'm famous throughout the universe for it, apparently."
She cocked a sympathetic half-smile. "No, that's rage. Fury. Righteous indignation. Desire for justice. Normal human anger is different from all that. It's not very pleasant, is it?"
"All those times, when you did the right thing, you can't have been feeling this."
"I did," she said simply. "It's my first impulse, actually. You may have noticed that the Tyler women are somewhat prone to violent outbursts. My great aunt Millie used to say that we're passionate, and that's what anger is. It's love, but upside-down. And the more you feel love, the more angry you get when someone causes your loved-ones pain. Sometimes I think it'd be nice to be rid of my anger, and I try, but it means I have to let go of the love too. It never lasts for very long."
They both turned to look out over the water in time to watch three swans begin to run on top of the water and then ascend in to the sky and out over the fens, the eerie sound of their wing beats fading in to the rustling of leaves and the splash of water at their feet.
"Beautiful," she sighed.
He just gaped at her, unwilling to believe that the woman he knew could ever feel this base, violent, terrifying emotion.
"Stop that, Doctor, you're giving me the creeps." She stood, bringing her dripping bare feet up to balance on the root shakily. "Come on, I've got something to show you."
Back at where their bags were tossed, she pulled out a couple of large towels and laid them on the ground, then rooted around for a few more objects, which she placed in front of her in a row: mobile phone, a metal box about the size of a deck of cards, and a pocket Sudoku book.
"We need to get in contact with home," she said, completely incongruously to most of the items she was gesturing to. "I'm hopeless at this sort of stuff, so that means you, mister." She handed each item to him as she gave its history. "This is my mobile, but I took the SIM card out of it before I came to get you. Before I left home, Pete gave me these two things. These are spare SIM cards--they go in the phone, and hold the data, like the phone number and so forth--and this...I don't know what this is for. But it must be for something, I don't think he gave it to me because he thought I'd be bored."
The Doctor flipped through the book and then opened up the metal box, took out one card and inspected it closely.
"So, Doctor, you figure this out for me. The book and the cards, how do they fit together? When you've worked it out, wake me up." She began to move things around her bag so it could act as some sort of crude pillow, brushing dirt and leaves off of it.
"It's obvious," said the Doctor, before she'd even put her head down. "I'm sorry, was that implying something about people that it's not obvious to?"
He looked legitimately contrite and it was too funny to be annoyed. "Well, go on genius. How's it work?"
He sat up straight and he felt the keen absences of his glasses, which would have been perfect for just such an occasion. "There's eighty pages in this book, and forty cards in the box. Assuming that Pete has a similar box of cards, that makes eighty cards total. Eighty pages, eighty cards. The puzzles, when complete, will give us the number to dial, and if he has the same book, he'll know which number to expect us to ring him at, and vice-versa with us and him."
Rose rubbed her eyes. "Blimey," was all she could get out for a good while. "Did he know we'd need all of this cloak and dagger business?"
The Doctor was now bouncing up and down a little where he was sitting. "Are we going to try it?"
"You're like a kid on Christmas with this, aren't you?" she laughed.
He grinned, a big open toothy grin the likes of which she hadn't seen for far too long. "Maths is my best subject!" he chirped.
"But hold on," she said, taking the book from his hand. "These only have nine digits going in any direction. A phone number will be at least ten or eleven."
He snatched the book from her again, closed the cover and held it up. "Would you say that 75 might be a likely area code?" He pointed to the title: Pocket Sudoku Madness 75. He felt sure that her muted response was just because she didn't want to give him a big head.
"Well, 075 maybe. But now that leaves us with an extra number in the puzzle."
He grinned again, almost giving in to an urge to clear his throat pretentiously before speaking. "But you see, an extra number at the end doesn't matter. Even if we dialled it in, which we needn't, the call would still be placed correctly."
She looked at him sceptically. "Alright then, let's give it a go. I don't want to place a voice call though, I'm sure the house is still bugged, and now they'll be looking for us as well. And I haven't a pen, I don't think...." She began plumbing the depths of her bag and then his rucksack as he sat staring at the first puzzle, but came up empty. "Damn."
"No, I've got it," he said thoughtfully, holding the book open with one hand and tugging at his ear in with the other.
"A pen?" she said with her head almost completely stuck in to his rucksack.
"No, the number. I've got the number."
She popped up and sat back on to her ankles. "You're infuriatingly clever."
He was already examining the box of cards, taking each one out and flipping it over and around, squinting at them. "If I'm right, then the even numbered pages are our cards, and the odd numbers are his. Look, you can see the last few digits here. So if we take each leaf of the book, that supplies a card for us and a number for him." Before he'd finished talking he fished a card out of the box and opened the back of the phone to insert it. Flipping the phone open and turning it on, he took a deep breath and licked his lips. "Here we go, Mata Hari!"
"Oi, enough with that. Give it here," she said when he'd finished dialling the number in, and entered a brief text message. She looked over at him, "Okay? Good to send?"
He nodded and craned his neck to try to see the screen as well. "Now what?"
She closed the phone again and put it on to the bare ground. "Now we wait, I guess. Could be a few minutes, could be a few hours, I'd imagine. And I know we still need to compare notes and figure out who or what is behind this." Moving some things around on their towels she created a space to lie down again and then fidgeted a bit to get comfortable. He remained sitting, examining the book and the cards again, doing the puzzles one by one in his head.
"But," Rose continued sleepily after a pause of many minutes, "I think I just want to lay here with you for a bit. Is that alright? Just for now. We'll save the world later, okay? It'll be just like old times, except with more snogging." She opened one eye to look up at him. "There will be snogging, right?"
"Oh yes. I think so."
(To Chapter 17)
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/N: A bit of an interlude, this. Saving the world (and snogs) to follow. To gear up for the next phase of this story and replenish my creative well a bit, I'm not going to post any new chapters until the weekend. But I promise you, Chapter 17 by Saturday afternoon. :)
The forced intimacy of the motorbike ride north in to East Anglia via minor roads saw them melt back in to one another slowly, as the city turned to suburbs and then to a pastoral idyll. The Doctor felt the tension in Rose's shoulders dissipate as the land around them became more sparsely populated and greener, long rows of houses giving way to farm fields and the occasional copse of trees. It was fortunately a fine day and he was able to put out of his head for the moment what having a motorbike as their primary mode of transportation would be like when it rained.
It was in to a shaded lay-by that Rose suddenly slowed and then stopped the bike. Her hair was mussed from the helmet and there were dark circles forming under her eyes. The Doctor had a strong urge to hold her and comfort her, but something in the way she was standing warned him off.
"I'm sorry, I can't go on. I haven't really slept in...what day is it?"
The Doctor just shrugged as she walked the bike back behind some shrubs and stood in appraisal of how well hidden it was.
"Let's just walk a bit in to the trees, yeah?" She shouldered her bag and began to march grimly through the under brush, until they came to a shallow drainage ditch, where she stopped and just peered at it dumbly.
The Doctor came up behind her and touched her shoulder lightly. "It's flowing off that way, look. I bet we'll come to come to a stream if we follow it. Might be able to have a bit of a bathe. Would you fancy that?"
She turned on him, her eyes wide but red-rimmed, and almost surprised to see him there. "Yes, good idea, that. That's why I keep you around, right?" She pulled a weary smile and began walking along the ditch where the Doctor had indicated until after a few minutes they did indeed come to a narrow canal, where ducks and a few swans bobbed lazily in the afternoon sun.
By the time the Doctor caught up the last few yards, Rose was already removing her socks and shoes, her bag and helmet cast off under a large spreading oak. The Doctor walked up to the canal's edge and wrinkled his nose. "Do you want me to tell you what's in there, or keep it to myself?"
She joined him on the bank, her bare toes each tipped with a dab of black earth. "If it's good enough for the ducks, it's good enough for me," she remarked pointedly, and sat down on a bit of tree root, plunging both feet in to the water. "Come on, Doctor, it's lovely!"
The sight of her smiling and relaxed finally trumped his desire to steer well clear of agricultural pollution, and he discarded his rucksack along with his socks and shoes and eased himself down next to her.
"This makes me feel like a whole new woman," she sighed.
"Not too new, I hope. I rather like the regular old Rose."
She looked up at him coyly. "Is that so?"
"It is. One could even say that I love her, that beautiful, courageous, brilliant Rose Tyler. You know, the one who saved my life? About this tall, blond--no, I'm sorry--brown hair, quite surprisingly rides a motorbike? You know the one?"
"No, I don't think so. Tell me about her." She made a splash with her foot and then started both feet in lazy circles, resting her head on his shoulder.
"Well, she's quite brilliant, did I mention that? And I've loved her since the day I met her. And when people do things that upset her or hurt her, I just can't bear it." He turned to her so she had to remove her head from his shoulder, and he brought a hand up to the side of her face. "I can't. I mean, I never could, but right now, all I want to do is hurt the people who've done this, because they've upset you and put your life in danger."
"That's a very human reaction," she said as she took his hand from her face and held it between both of hers. "I feel it too."
His brow darkened and he sucked on his lower lip for a few seconds. "But that's all I want to do right now. It's like this thing in me and I keep pushing it down, but it keeps coming back up." He felt the urge to throw things, to hit things, to stomp and yell, emerge again as he invoked it, and he was sure that the Rose Tyler he knew could never love a man like this. His jaw was clenching tight and with every breath it was a concious effort to remain seated and relaxed.
She heaved a long sigh and turned her eyes fully on him, so that he was sure she could see the ugliness that was simmering beneath the surface. "It's anger, Doctor. You're feeling normal human anger. When someone hurts the people you love, you get angry. I'm furious, myself. I can barely stand it, actually, and it's just that I'm so tired now I can't go on trying to deal with it any more."
"I've been angry before," he said with a sniff, tossing a bit of tree bark in to the water and watching the ripples outward, resisting the temptation to follow them with his mind. "I'm famous throughout the universe for it, apparently."
She cocked a sympathetic half-smile. "No, that's rage. Fury. Righteous indignation. Desire for justice. Normal human anger is different from all that. It's not very pleasant, is it?"
"All those times, when you did the right thing, you can't have been feeling this."
"I did," she said simply. "It's my first impulse, actually. You may have noticed that the Tyler women are somewhat prone to violent outbursts. My great aunt Millie used to say that we're passionate, and that's what anger is. It's love, but upside-down. And the more you feel love, the more angry you get when someone causes your loved-ones pain. Sometimes I think it'd be nice to be rid of my anger, and I try, but it means I have to let go of the love too. It never lasts for very long."
They both turned to look out over the water in time to watch three swans begin to run on top of the water and then ascend in to the sky and out over the fens, the eerie sound of their wing beats fading in to the rustling of leaves and the splash of water at their feet.
"Beautiful," she sighed.
He just gaped at her, unwilling to believe that the woman he knew could ever feel this base, violent, terrifying emotion.
"Stop that, Doctor, you're giving me the creeps." She stood, bringing her dripping bare feet up to balance on the root shakily. "Come on, I've got something to show you."
Back at where their bags were tossed, she pulled out a couple of large towels and laid them on the ground, then rooted around for a few more objects, which she placed in front of her in a row: mobile phone, a metal box about the size of a deck of cards, and a pocket Sudoku book.
"We need to get in contact with home," she said, completely incongruously to most of the items she was gesturing to. "I'm hopeless at this sort of stuff, so that means you, mister." She handed each item to him as she gave its history. "This is my mobile, but I took the SIM card out of it before I came to get you. Before I left home, Pete gave me these two things. These are spare SIM cards--they go in the phone, and hold the data, like the phone number and so forth--and this...I don't know what this is for. But it must be for something, I don't think he gave it to me because he thought I'd be bored."
The Doctor flipped through the book and then opened up the metal box, took out one card and inspected it closely.
"So, Doctor, you figure this out for me. The book and the cards, how do they fit together? When you've worked it out, wake me up." She began to move things around her bag so it could act as some sort of crude pillow, brushing dirt and leaves off of it.
"It's obvious," said the Doctor, before she'd even put her head down. "I'm sorry, was that implying something about people that it's not obvious to?"
He looked legitimately contrite and it was too funny to be annoyed. "Well, go on genius. How's it work?"
He sat up straight and he felt the keen absences of his glasses, which would have been perfect for just such an occasion. "There's eighty pages in this book, and forty cards in the box. Assuming that Pete has a similar box of cards, that makes eighty cards total. Eighty pages, eighty cards. The puzzles, when complete, will give us the number to dial, and if he has the same book, he'll know which number to expect us to ring him at, and vice-versa with us and him."
Rose rubbed her eyes. "Blimey," was all she could get out for a good while. "Did he know we'd need all of this cloak and dagger business?"
The Doctor was now bouncing up and down a little where he was sitting. "Are we going to try it?"
"You're like a kid on Christmas with this, aren't you?" she laughed.
He grinned, a big open toothy grin the likes of which she hadn't seen for far too long. "Maths is my best subject!" he chirped.
"But hold on," she said, taking the book from his hand. "These only have nine digits going in any direction. A phone number will be at least ten or eleven."
He snatched the book from her again, closed the cover and held it up. "Would you say that 75 might be a likely area code?" He pointed to the title: Pocket Sudoku Madness 75. He felt sure that her muted response was just because she didn't want to give him a big head.
"Well, 075 maybe. But now that leaves us with an extra number in the puzzle."
He grinned again, almost giving in to an urge to clear his throat pretentiously before speaking. "But you see, an extra number at the end doesn't matter. Even if we dialled it in, which we needn't, the call would still be placed correctly."
She looked at him sceptically. "Alright then, let's give it a go. I don't want to place a voice call though, I'm sure the house is still bugged, and now they'll be looking for us as well. And I haven't a pen, I don't think...." She began plumbing the depths of her bag and then his rucksack as he sat staring at the first puzzle, but came up empty. "Damn."
"No, I've got it," he said thoughtfully, holding the book open with one hand and tugging at his ear in with the other.
"A pen?" she said with her head almost completely stuck in to his rucksack.
"No, the number. I've got the number."
She popped up and sat back on to her ankles. "You're infuriatingly clever."
He was already examining the box of cards, taking each one out and flipping it over and around, squinting at them. "If I'm right, then the even numbered pages are our cards, and the odd numbers are his. Look, you can see the last few digits here. So if we take each leaf of the book, that supplies a card for us and a number for him." Before he'd finished talking he fished a card out of the box and opened the back of the phone to insert it. Flipping the phone open and turning it on, he took a deep breath and licked his lips. "Here we go, Mata Hari!"
"Oi, enough with that. Give it here," she said when he'd finished dialling the number in, and entered a brief text message. She looked over at him, "Okay? Good to send?"
He nodded and craned his neck to try to see the screen as well. "Now what?"
She closed the phone again and put it on to the bare ground. "Now we wait, I guess. Could be a few minutes, could be a few hours, I'd imagine. And I know we still need to compare notes and figure out who or what is behind this." Moving some things around on their towels she created a space to lie down again and then fidgeted a bit to get comfortable. He remained sitting, examining the book and the cards again, doing the puzzles one by one in his head.
"But," Rose continued sleepily after a pause of many minutes, "I think I just want to lay here with you for a bit. Is that alright? Just for now. We'll save the world later, okay? It'll be just like old times, except with more snogging." She opened one eye to look up at him. "There will be snogging, right?"
"Oh yes. I think so."
(To Chapter 17)