Fic: Five Times the Doctor Reduced Things to Science (and One Time He Didn’t) 2/2
Fic: Five Times the Doctor Reduced Things to Science (and One Time He Didn't)
Author: wmr
Rated: PG
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler
Disclaimer: Not mine. You think I'd have done what they did in Last of the Time Lords?
Summary: He hasn't changed much at all, then, has he? Still a bloody killjoy.
Five Times the Doctor Reduced Things to Science (and One Time He Didn't) Chapter 1
IV
“So what’s this amazing thing you said we had to see when I phoned, then?” Rose jumps up, collects the teacups, including the one Jackie grudgingly gave the Doctor. “You haven’t mentioned it once since we got here.”
“Had to wait till it was dark, didn’t I?” She ushers the two of them out of the flat and onto the balcony. And there they are again, the strange white, red and orangey lights flashing at odd intervals in the distant sky.
There’s no pattern to the lights. They come and they go, sometimes different colours together, sometimes one at a time, and in random order. They’re not there every night and, even when they are, they disappear for a while and then return.
“What is it?” Rose wants to know.
“They say it’s aliens making contact. People from another world. An’ that’s not so far-fetched, not now. I mean, we’ve ‘ad them Slitheen an’ the Sycorax, right? But maybe this lot’re friendly. Or maybe not. They’re just... out there. Sending signals. An’ nobody knows if anyone’s sending signals back to them. Government’s saying nothing.”
She gives the Doctor a sidelong look. You’re not the only one who can find aliens, mister.
“Oh, course aliens exist,” the Doctor says, in that tone of voice that always says he’s gearing up for a long speech. “Anyone who denies it’s just... well, in denial. Or covering up. Just like your government’s been doing for decades. But these...” He waves his hand vaguely towards the sky. “These aren’t alien.”
“No?”
“Nah. Course not. They’re not even particularly mysterious.” Now he’s looking smug, the git.
“Yeah? Well, all right, then. If you’re so clever, tell me what’s causing it.”
He sighs. “It’s just a perfectly ordinary reflection, Jackie.”
“A reflection?” Those lights aren’t reflections. They can’t be. Anyway, if they were someone would’ve said so by now, wouldn’t they? This time he’s got to be talking through his arse. Just doesn’t want to admit that maybe other people - humans, not all-powerful Time Lords - can work stuff out for themselves.
“Yep. That’s all. But you humans, you’re always looking for the more complicated explanation, aren’t you? Mysterious lights in the sky - it’s got to be aliens, or magic, or proof of God’s existence or something like that. The answer’s usually far, far simpler, but you just don’t want to see it.”
“Oh, thanks! Real nice, you are. Beats me why you take Rose with you in that blue box o’yours. She’s human too, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Oi! I am here, you know,” Rose protests, but she’s laughing. Enjoying this, is she? Probably just waiting for the Doctor to wipe the floor with the stupid human again.
“I like humans!” the Doctor protests. “No, really, I do. But this... I’m serious, Jackie. Happens all over. The Marfa Lights in Texas. Brown Mountain in North Carolina. Circles of light on the sides of houses. The Hessadalen Lights in Norway. Lots of places, all around the world. Everyone thinking it’s a UFO or alien smoke-signals or something like that. And it’s almost always just a reflection of something perfectly ordinary.”
“Like what?” Oh, there goes Rose again, with that hero-worshippy look she always wears around the Doctor. Oh, all right, sometimes he does deserve it, but still...
“Oh, could be anything, really. Sometimes it’s the sun. In Marfa it was car headlights. Probably the same thing here. I mean, look at the colours. Red - that’s brake-lights. The orange ones are indicators. And the white - look how they appear most often? They’re the headlights.”
“That’s just ridiculous!” Jackie protests. “Headlights? Cars’ve been driving around this city at night for decades! This only started a few weeks ago.”
“Something’s changed, then.” The Doctor leans over the balcony, peering off into the distance, and then after a few moments puts his glasses on. Though what he thinks he can see she has no idea. Okay, it’s not pitch-dark, not over London, but it’s not like it’s broad daylight.
“See, out there!” he announces after a couple of minutes. “This faces away from the city, right? So twenty, thirty miles from here there’s actually some open fields in between towns. And at night light travels much further. What we’re seeing’s coming from a long way away. There’s a new building that way.” He points. “Something tall and diamond-shaped. Wasn’t there before - I’d remember seeing it at Christmas.”
He’s right. “Yeah. New sports arena, about twenty-five miles from here. Opened just a month ago. Caused a lot of fuss, too, cause two of the sides are completely made of glass. Won some design award, didn’t it? Lot of money wasted on something that looks stupid, far as I can see.”
“Glass! See, that’s it.” He gives her a triumphant grin. “There’s your reflective surface. It’s picking up the lights - and see the occasional green one? That’s traffic lights. And it’s reflecting them into the sky. And when you don’t see them it’s because it’s cloudy, or it’s raining, so the reflection doesn’t carry as far. Simple!”
Okay, so he probably is right. But does he have to be so bloody smug about it all the time?
***
V
It’s her old dad come back to visit. She’s sure of it. Or, at least, she was, before the Doctor got up to his tricks again. Oh, he’s so sympathetic at first, and that makes a change, but there he goes once again, destroying all her illusions, trampling on her dreams.
“It’s like a psychic link. Course you want your old dad to be alive, but you're wishing him into existence. The ghosts are using that to pull themselves in.”
She’s swallowing a lump in her throat. “You're spoiling it.”
“I'm sorry, Jackie, but there's no smell, there's no cigarettes. Just a memory.”
At least Rose understands how she feels, even if her reaction’s disappointing. She never thought the day would come when Rose wouldn’t even recognise her own granddad.
And there he goes again, the genius Doctor, absolutely having to find out what’s really causing the ghosts to appear. He can’t just believe, just this once. He has to rush outside and look at them, and then he’s setting some sort of trap to get to the truth, he’s saying. He won’t accept that they’re ghosts. He’s even saying that they’re not human.
Not her dad. Not everyone’s lost relatives coming back. Not...
All this time, every night her dad came to visit, she’s been waiting for Pete to turn up, like the bad penny that he is. Waiting, hoping, every day waking up and thinking this will be the day he comes. Even if it’s only for a couple of minutes, even if he can’t talk to her or hold her, she’ll have him with her again.
And now the Doctor’s taking that hope away from her too, even as he’s putting out that stupid equipment of his on the green outside his TARDIS.
“You're always doing this. Reducing it to science. Why can't it be real?”
Typical. He’s completely ignoring her.
She should say nothing. Just walk away. Leave him be. Let him do his stupid experiments if he wants to. She doesn’t need him to believe it for it to be true, after all. He can’t always be right.
But she just can’t help herself. “Just think of it, though... all the people we've lost - our families coming back home. Don't you think it's beautiful?”
Abruptly, he’s looking straight at her. “I think it's horrific.”
God. He would.
And yet anyone would think he’d understand. Last of his kind, isn’t he? Wouldn’t he want a chance to see his people again? His family? Rose said he had family. Would he be so dismissive - so rude - if it was his people coming back like this?
He still explains it away. Not ghosts. Not her old dad. Aliens, brought to this universe by stupid, stupid idiots who should know better. Who are paid to know better. Now, thanks to them, the whole world’s falling apart.
There’s never been a time she’s wished more that the Doctor had left her dreams intact.
***
VI
They’re standing on a cold, windswept beach for the second time when a very familiar sound, a sound none of them thought they’d hear ever again, begins and then grows in intensity.
“I thought he said it was impossible!” she exclaims, clinging to Rose’s arm.
“He did.” Rose’s eyes are shining as she stares at the blue shape that’s gradually becoming more distinct. “But, you know, he told me once - nothing’s impossible. Not really. Just means he hasn’t found a way of doing it yet.”
Oh, that sounds like him, all right. Big-headed as ever. And... well, yeah, maybe he’s got a right to be.
Rose is running now as the door opens and that familiar, tall, tousle-headed figure emerges. In seconds, they’re in each other’s arms, he’s swinging Rose around and all she can hear from the two of them is laughter.
It’s only a few minutes before they walk across the sand together, hand in hand, and then the Doctor drops Rose’s hand and holds out his arms in invitation. There’s a lump in her throat as she steps towards him for a hug.
“So, you’re back, then?” she says, completely unnecessarily, as she lets him go.
“Like a bad penny, Jackie. Always turning up.” He’s reaching for Rose’s hand again, and for once she doesn’t mind one bit to see the two of them so close.
“S’pose you’re taking her away again?”
“If she wants to come.” He exchanges glances with Rose, and it’s just so obvious that there’s no question about that. She’s wondered over the years, especially since Canary Wharf, how much of Rose’s feelings were reciprocated; whether she was just a temporary amusement to the Doctor. After all, what would a nine-hundred-year-old bloke like him see in a young woman of twenty? Yet right now there’s no question in her mind. For whatever reason, he wants Rose with him every bit as much as she wants to be with him.
“You, too!” the Doctor adds, and he’s grinning. “All of you. If you want to. I mean, you’ve probably got settled here now - jobs, lives, everything - but if you’d like...”
She looks at Pete, completely torn. Rose is leaving. How can she bear never seeing her again? And yet if she goes back with Rose she’ll be as alone as she ever was. Rose is going to be off with the Doctor all the time, and she’ll lose Pete. And Mickey and Jake, too.
Pete’s hand slides into hers. “We can talk about it, Jacks. We don’t have to decide right now, do we?” he asks the Doctor.
“Nah. Take your time. Think about it. I reckon the TARDIS can stay here for... oh, about a week without causing any damage to the walls between the universes.” The Doctor’s smile widens further. “And if you want to stay, I’ve found a way we can come back to visit. Not often, but at least once a year.”
“Really?” Rose exclaims, and he just grins down at her, his I’m so brilliant smile. Okay, yes, he’s entitled to it. This time.
Rose wraps her arms around the Doctor, and he’s holding her just as tightly with one arm around her waist. For once, though, he’s not ignoring everyone else around them, chattering away to Pete, exchanging some sort of gangsta hand-gesture with Mickey and Jake.
“Feels like some sort of miracle,” Rose says after a while, once the excited conversation’s died down and they’re all finally accepting that the Doctor’s here.
The Doctor just smiles. Unusual for him, this is. She’d have expected him to have launched into one of his incomprehensible explanations of what he did and how clever he is for doing it.
She catches his eye, shaking her head and trying to sound disapproving. “S’pose you’re going to explain this away scientifically, too.”
His smile grows soft. “Not this time, Jackie. Maybe there are things even I can’t explain. And maybe some things deserve not to be explained away, too.”
For once, she can’t disagree with him.
END