Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Donna and Ten - The Inbetweens and backstories ❯ Chapter Two ( Chapter 2 )

The Doctor put the key in the TARDIS door and took one last look at the sky before stepping inside. He was on the coast of Meta Sigmafolio, and the sky looked like oil on water, the colours swirling from a burst of star fire. It really was beautiful, but without having someone to share it with, it was sort of flat.

 

Rose would have been hugging his arm and bouncing on her toes in excitement, that radiant smile on her gorgeous lips, and a childlike wonder in those gorgeous, hazel eyes. Once again his thoughts had turned to his lost love, and once again he wondered how she was doing in Pete's World.

 

He strolled up the ramp to the console and put the TARDIS into the Vortex, before moving around the console, making various adjustments to the settings as he looked up at the time rotor. He materialised the TARDIS into normal space so that he could take the extrapolator shields off line and calibrate them properly after the Master had messed with them to create the paradox engine.

 

BARRRRRRPPP!

 

CRUNCH!

 

He was suddenly thrown to the floor, as the TARDIS lurched sideways under the impact of a collision, debris flew across the room.

 

'What?!' he said as he held on to the console.

 

BARRRRRRPPP! The fog horn sounded again, as if in answer to his question.

 

'What?' he asked again in disbelief, as he pulled himself upright. He could hear a ships bell dinging from the bow of what appeared to be an ocean going liner that was sticking through the TARDIS's domed wall. He noticed a piece of wreckage that appeared to be a large ring and reached for it, and turned it over to read the name `Titanic'.

 

'What?' He jumped up to the console and started manoeuvring the TARDIS out of the path of the vessel. The wall panels pulled together and the ship was slowly pushed back outside. He then set the controls, and materialised the TARDIS inside the ship.

 

Stepping outside, he had a quick look around, and noticed he had landed in a kind of store cupboard. He walked through a door into an opulent dining room of dark wood panelling, and brass fittings. Diners dressed in expensive clothing stood chatting and socialising; two golden robots dressed as angels, and . . . ooh, now that was something you didn't see every day, a small red Zocci from Sto in white tie and tails.

 

He wandered over to a window and looked out. 'Righttttt,' he said slowly in realisation, as a voice made an announcement over the Tannoy.

 

'Attention all passengers. The Titanic is now in orbit above Sol Three, also known as Earth. Population, Human. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Christmas.'

 

 

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It had started so well on the Titanic, he'd changed into his dinner suit and did what he always enjoyed doing best, meeting people. But that suit seemed to be jinxed, because when he wore it, bad things seemed to happen, although, to be fair, bad things happened when he wore his brown pinstriped suit, his blue pinstriped suit, his pyjamas . . .

 

And it ended so badly; so many people dead, one of whom reminded him SO much of Rose. Her name was Astrid, an ordinary woman, working as a waitress so that she could travel.

 

`You enjoying the cruise?' she had asked him, after he helped her pick up some glasses off the floor.

 

`Er, yeah, I suppose, I don't know. It doesn't quite work, a cruise on your own,' he had told her.

 

`You're not with anyone?' she had asked in surprise.

 

If only she'd known how painful that question was. `No, no, just me. Just, er, used to be but, er, no.' One recently lost, one recently left, that was enough for now. `What about you? Long way from home, Planet Sto.'

 

`Doesn't feel that different,' she had said wistfully. `I spent three years working at the spaceport diner, travelled all the way here and I'm still waiting on tables,'

 

`No shore leave?' That had seemed a bit mean.

 

`We're not allowed. They can't afford the insurance. I just wanted to try it, just once. I used to watch the ships heading out to the stars and I always dreamt of. It sounds daft.'

 

It hadn't sounded daft to the Doctor at all. `You dreamt of another sky. New sun, new air, new life; a whole universe teeming with life. Why stand still when there's all that life out there?'

 

She'd had a sense of adventure, a sense of humour, and a sense of what was right, and it was these qualities that had eventually gotten her killed. She had given her life so that he could survive and save the Titanic and the Earth.

 

The majority of the passengers and crew survived Max Capricorn's attempt to crash the Titanic into the Earth, although he wasn't sure all of them deserved to. There again, Mr. Copper had hinted at some of the Doctor's demons, when a businessman called Slade had told them that he had made a fortune by selling his shares in Max Capricorn Cruise Liners.

 

'Of all the people to survive, he's not the one you would have chosen, is he?' Copper asked him. 'But if you could choose, Doctor, if you decide who lives and who dies, that would make you a monster.'

 

The Doctor thought of a previous incarnation, a renegade who had done just that. And Copper was right, it had made him a monster, a monster that had chosen to destroy a planet and murder billions, so that everyone else in the universe would be safe.

 

'Mister Copper, I think you deserve one of these,' he told him, handing him a teleport bracelet, and they ended up on Hampstead Heath, near to the TARDIS, which had followed its emergency programme and landed on the nearest source of gravity, which happened to be the Earth. Mr. Copper was the tour guide on the Titanic for the on-shore excursions, and supposedly was an expert on Earth history with a first class degree in Earthonomics.

'So, Great Britain is part of Europey, and just across the British Channel, you've got Great France and Great Germany,' Copper said.

 

'No, no, it's just . . . it's just France and Germany. Only Britain is Great.'

 

'Oh, and they're all at war with the continent of Ham Erica.'

 

'No. Well . . . not yet. Er, could argue that one. There she is. Survive anything.'

 

'You know, between you and me, I don't even think this snow is real. I think it's the ballast from the Titanic's salvage entering the atmosphere,' Copper said, looking up to the sky.

 

'Yeah. One of these days it might snow for real.'

 

'So . . . I . . . I suppose you'll be off.'

 

'The open sky.'

 

'And, what about me?' Copper asked hesitantly.

 

'I travel alone. It's best that way.' No one to lose, no one to leave, no one to die, he thought to himself.

 

'What am I supposed to do?'

 

'Give me that credit card.'

 

'It's just petty cash. Spending money. It's all done by computer. I didn't really know the currency, so I thought a million might cover it.'

 

'A million? Pounds?' the Doctor asked, surprise in his voice.

 

'That enough for trinkets?'

 

'Mister Copper, a million pounds is worth fifty million credits.'

 

'How much?'

 

'Fifty million and fifty six.'

 

'I've got money.'

 

'Yes, you have.'

 

'Oh, my word. Oh, my Vot! Oh, my goodness me. Yee ha!'

 

'It's all yours, planet Earth. Now, that's a retirement plan. But just you be careful, though.'

 

'I will, I will. Oh, I will.'

 

'No interfering. I don't want any trouble; just, just have a nice life.'

 

'But I can have a house. A proper house, with a garden, and a door, and . . . Oh, Doctor, I will make you proud. And I can have a kitchen with chairs, and windows, and plates, and . . .'

 

The Doctor watched Mr. Copper wandering off.

 

'Er, where are you going?'

 

'Well, I've no idea.'

 

'No, me neither.'

 

'But Doctor, I won't forget her,' Copper said, meaning Astrid Peth.

 

(A streak of blue starlight zig-zags across the sky.)

 

Neither would the Doctor, he remembered everyone he had failed. Astrid was the latest in a roll call of the dead, joining Katarina, Sarah, Adric, Kamelion, his family and friends on Gallifrey, and Rose. He knew she wasn't dead, and that gave him so much solace, even though he would never, ever see her again. May be Martha was right to get out when she did, while she was still alive.

 

'Merry Christmas, Mister Copper.'

The Doctor stepped into the TARDIS, walked up the ramp to the console, and activated the time rotor. He thought about what Mr. Copper had said when he found out that he was rich.

 

['But I can have a house. A proper house, with a garden, and a door, and I can have a kitchen with chairs, and windows, and plates.'] It reminded him of a similar conversation he'd had with Rose once, when they thought they had lost the TARDIS on Krop Tor.

 

['I don't know. Find a planet, get a job, live a life, same as the rest of the universe,'] Rose had said.

 

['I'd have to settle down. Get a house or something. A proper house with, with doors and things. Carpets. Me, living in a house. Now that, that is terrifying.'] Unlike Mr. Copper, he wasn't that enthusiastic about settling down, especially now that he'd lost Rose.

 

['You'd have to get a mortgage,'] she'd teased.

 

['No!']

 

['Oh, yes.']

 

['I'm dying. That's it. I'm dying. It is all over,'] he'd joked at the time.

 

['What about me? I'd have to get one, too. I don't know, could be the same one. We could both, I don't know, share. Or not, you know. Whatever. I don't know. We'll sort something out,'] she had ventured hesitantly. He'd give anything now to have the opportunity to have a house with Rose.

 

['Anyway.'] He had tried to change the subject.

 

['We'll see.']

 

['I promised Jackie I'd always take you back home,'] he had guiltily reminded her.

 

And, being Rose, she had tried to ease his feelings of guilt. ['Everyone leaves home in the end.']

 

['Not to end up stuck here,'] he had replied dejectedly.

 

['Yeah, but stuck with you . . . that's not so bad.']

 

['Yeah?'] He had asked her.

['Yes.'] Her answer echoed in his memory as he watched the time rotor pump up and down.

 

He straightened up and took a deep breath. Time to move on, no point dwelling on the past, even for a Time Lord . . . although . . . He went through to the kitchen and used the replicator to produce a simple meal of shepherd's pie. He smiled as he remembered Jackie Tyler offering to cook it for him all those years ago when he was all ears and moody.

 

He put the plate on a tray, with a knife and fork and glass of beer, before going to the library and putting the tray on the old, dark oak table. He then went to a bookcase and selected a thick, bound volume which he put in the book holder. He started eating, and opened the book, which contained photographs of his family and friends.

 

There were pictures of his early life at Lungbarrow on Gallifrey, with birthdays, Otherstides and holidays with his parents and his brother, with different faces from different regenerations. Pictures of his own family, with his wife and children, and his grandchildren. That made him think of his second childhood from a different time line, where he had no parents, just forty one cousins from the Lungbarrow loom.

 

Somehow, that time line ceased to exist when the Hand of Omega took him through the Backtime Field Buffers, to the old Capital city before the fall of Pythia. There were no photographs, and no mementos, how could there be, it never happened, just as “the year that never was” never happened for anyone who wasn't on the Valiant, at the epicentre of the paradox machine.

 

He continued to turn the pages as he ate, working his way through his regenerations and his companions, until he got to his love, Rose. In the first photo she was wearing that burgundy period dress in Cardiff, when he'd first realised she was a beautiful young woman. He smiled at the photo of her in the Union Jack T shirt, with Jack and him either side of her, oh, and Jack had taken the one at San Kaloon, where they had their arms around each other.

 

He looked at their first Christmas together in his new body, all crackers, paper hats, and turkey. After that, she had posed as the goddess Fortuna, while she was still in her toga, and then they had been in the film the Italian Job. Eventually he got to their visit to the 2012 Olympic Games, and those pictures became painful to look at, as it was their last trip together before the events of CanaryWharf.

Finally, there was Martha with Shakespeare, who was looking bemused at having a small, futuristic device pointed at him while he fondled her bum. Martha in front of the TARDIS, looking down at the camera phone, so she could get the Statue of Liberty towering over her in the background. He finished his meal, and closed the cover on nine hundred years of memories.