Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Rose and Nine The Inbetweens and backstories ❯ Chapter Twelve ( Chapter 12 )

`You are gonna love this, Rose,' enthused the Doctor as he leaped from panel to panel of the TARDIS console, his eyes alight with childish optimism in the reflected green glow of the grinding central column.

As always, Rose felt the Doctor's enthusiasm building the same anticipation and excitement in her. She grabbed the edge of the console as the TARDIS gave one of its customary lurches and smiled over at him. `Tell me more.'

The Doctor spun a dial and threw a lever. `Kegron Pluva,' he announced grandly.

`OK,' mused Rose. `That a person or a place? Or some sort of oven spray?'

`Planet.' The Doctor beamed. `It's got the maddest ecosystem in the universe.' He flung his arms about, demonstrating. `You've got six moons going one way, three moons going the other way, and a sun that only orbits the planet! Forty-three seasons in one year. The top life form, it's a kind of dog-plant-fungus thing . . .'

`Top dog-plant-fungus,' laughed Rose.

`Yeah.' The Doctor nodded. `Plus the water's solid and everyone eats a kind of metal plum . . .'

Rose held up a hand. `Enough spoilers. Just let me see it.' She was tingling with pleasure, goose bumps coming up on her arms at the prospect of stepping out from the TARDIS onto this bizarre alien world.

`I'm really gonna regret pointing this out,' said a third voice, `but . . . does that mean what I think it means?'

Rose and the Doctor looked up to see Captain Jack, who had joined them in the control room and was pointing to one of the instruments built into the base of the console, a small black box which was emitting a steady flashing red light. He knelt down and fiddled with some buttons on the box.

The Doctor joined him and slapped his hand playfully. `You're still here, then,' he said, shaking his head mock-ruefully. `I've gotta remember, put the parental control on.'

Rose looked the captain over. He had obviously been plundering the Doctor's incredibly extensive wardrobe in the depths of the TARDIS. She imagined that he'd been inspired by being on that submarine in Novrosk. He was wearing an old-fashioned Merchant Navy outfit in blue serge with white piping.

`Hello, sailor,' she said with a cheeky grin as she joined him and the Doctor under the console.

Captain Jack smiled. `I wondered which one of you was gonna say that first.'

Rose winced. `Could those trousers be any tighter?'

`Is that a request?' he asked with raised eyebrows, before returning his attention to the flashing light. `So, isn't that a temporal distortion alert?'

The Doctor pressed some buttons on the box and then he stood up. `Yeah. I've linked the relay to the screen so we can trace the distortion to its point of origin.'

Rose and the captain stood up and looked over the Doctor's shoulder as he hammered away at the keyboard under the TARDIS's computer screen. A maze of graphics, in the incomprehensible alien script the Doctor always worked in, flickered across it, changing shape every time he pressed the return key.

`Should be able to narrow it down in a bit,' said the Doctor.

`Temporal distortion's a bad thing, then?' Rose surmised. `I don't suppose it's coming from Kegron Pluva?'

The Doctor performed a final flourish on the keyboard and a row of alien symbols appeared on the screen with a satisfied beep. `No such luck,' he said dismissively, gesturing to the screen. `Nobody on Kegron Pluva would be as stupid as . . .' He left the sentence unfinished, looking slightly awkwardly across at Rose.

Rose recognised the tone of voice the Doctor reserved for dissing humans. `Oh, right, it's coming from Earth,' she said. `Interesting year?'

`Let's have a look,' said the Doctor, and rattled at the keyboard again. Another row of symbols appeared. `Yeah,' he said, intrigued. `Pretty interesting.'

The captain read the display and turned to Rose. `Interesting, cos why the hell is someone using a dirty rip engine to travel to your time?'

The Doctor performed another manoeuvre on the keyboard and got another result. `To visit Bromley,' he added, mystified. He started adjusting the controls on the console, obviously changing course to the source of the distortion.

Rose shrugged. `Ah, well. Kegron Pluva, Bromley . . . probably both about as weird.'

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Weird did not even cover how Rose felt at the moment. From about waist height, she was looking at her own body sitting on the jump seat in the console room. It was dressed like Raquel Welch in that film “One Million Years BC”, all legs and cleavage; in a rather sexy fur bikini top, loin cloth and furry, ankle high moccasins, which she felt she carried off rather well.

Living and travelling with the Doctor certainly kept her body fit. It was a good job Jack wasn't here at the moment to see it. Although she felt even he would be put off by the fact that her head was missing, and currently being held under the Doctor's arm.

Rose had always imagined that mad scientists were elderly men with wild, white hair; white coats and a crazy look in their eyes (or was that “Back to the Future?”). The bitch who did this to her had been an incredibly tall, incredibly beautiful dark-haired woman.

Chantal Osterberg possessed even, symmetrical features, with vivid ocean blue eyes, framed by long, exquisitely curled lashes. And forget the white coat; this mad scientist had worn a handsomely tailored business suit with large lapels.

Rose's thoughts were in the past tense of course, because Osterberg had killed herself when trying to travel back to the 439th century, by stepping into the rip engine and being torn apart by the time winds.

And so, here she was travelling back to the year 29,185 BC to find scientists who weren't mad, but had worked with Osterberg, and might know how to reattach her head. It was a long shot, but what other choice did she have? She didn't want to spend the rest of her life as a Halloween novelty act.

And how the hell would she explain this to her mum?

While she was admiring her body, she had a random thought and stood it up to do a slow twirl. `Oh, that's all right then,' she said.

The loin cloth hung down at the front and back, forming a fur mini skirt, with the side openings showing the top of her shapely thighs and hips.

`Eh?' the Doctor said, turning his attention from the console to look down at her.

`My bum,' she said, nodding with her eyes, because she couldn't move her head. `It doesn't look big in that furry skirt thing.'

The Doctor looked over at her body, which was standing with its back to him. He raised his eyebrows and smiled. He had to admit, she had a nice bum . . . for a human.

He landed the TARDIS and shut down the console before heading for the doors. Because Rose's head was held looking at the doors, she had to walk her body like a blind person, feeling for the handrail and following it down the ramp.

The Doctor poked his head out, and got a gob of saliva spat on his nose. `Thanks mate,' said the Doctor, rubbing at it. It was Rose's husband, and he was trying to spit fire at the perceived threat coming out of the strange, blue box.

Yes, Rose had a Neanderthal husband called Tillun. He was the king of his tribe, which meant that she was a queen, and the Julien Macdonald outfit her body was now wearing happened to be her wedding outfit.

As for the fire spitting, the Doctor had used Osterberg's futuristic technology to give the prehistoric humans the temporary ability to spit fire, so that they could defend themselves against Osterberg's genetically engineered Hy-Bractors.

Her mad plan was to release these perfect, flawless Hy-Bractors into pre history and let them feed on the Neanderthals until they had replaced them, creating a utopia of hybrid humans with no aggression, no emotions . . . no humanity.

`Good job I put a time limit on that,' the Doctor said as he stepped out.

`Where is my wife?' demanded Tillun. He raised his spear. `I want her back!'

`Hiya,' said Rose's head tentatively from under the Doctor's arm.

Tillun stared at her, stared at the Doctor, then dropped his spear and ran off backwards into the woods, screaming.

`Must have been something you said,' said the Doctor.

Rose's body emerged from the TARDIS. `Shame. I could have married worse people.'

`You still might, with your record at picking them,' the Doctor said. Rose stuck her tongue out at him from under his arm. He turned to address Quilley, Jacob and Lene, Osterberg's scientists, and held up Rose's head. `Chantal's dust, the Hy-Bractors are all dead . . .'

Jacob got to his feet. `Do you want it putting back?'

`No, I love it.' Rose gave him a sarcastic look, forgetting he was an Osterberger and it would be wasted. The inhabitants of Osterberger had their emotions controlled by advanced pharmaceuticals; he wouldn't understand sarcasm. But to her surprise he returned her look with an ironic smile.

The Doctor handed Jacob the instruments. `Please.'

`I don't know how,' said Jacob.

The Doctor's heart sank and he swallowed hard. He didn't dare look into Rose's eyes, so he kept her head facing away from him. He'd failed her again, and he felt that despair that he'd felt in van Statten's bunker, when he thought the Dalek had killed her.

He started to think of all the worlds and time periods where there might be a medical facility that could reattach her head. Maybe the Sisters of Plenitude on New Earth . . .

`I can do it,' said another voice, bringing him out of his desperate thoughts.

Lene was trying to stand up. `It's easy,' she said weakly. `All you have to do is reverse-lock the kinetic seal. I used to do it all the time.'

Jacob looked at her anxiously. `You're too sick. It's a delicate operation.'

Lene took his hand. `You can help me. That's what a husband is for.'

She gave him a smile that was entirely genuine.

Jacob felt a prickling behind his eyes and, though it was a wrong feeling, wondered how he could ever have lived without it.

The Doctor took Rose's head from under his arm, cupped her cheeks, and held her face so that he could look into her eyes. She gave him a nervous smile as he nodded and handed her over to Lene.

Lene settled Rose's head on her shoulders, adjusted it slightly and switched on a tiny spherical device. Rose looked anxiously over at the Doctor. He took her hand, and interlinked his fingers with hers. Jacob pressed the device to Rose's forehead and there was a tiny click.

The vertebrae in her neck realigned themselves, and nerves, ligaments, tendons, muscles and blood vessels started to knit together from the centre outwards. It was fascinating to watch as finally, her skin started to grow together to form a seamless, scarless join.

That click was the strangest sensation Rose had ever felt, stranger even than being separated from her body in the first place. In that second she felt totally connected to every part of herself, as if she had reached out for her heart and lungs and was holding them to her.

Lene stepped back and Rose shook her head experimentally, half expecting it to topple down in to the grass. But it stayed firm.

`Thanks,' said Rose. It sounded ludicrously inadequate.

Lene smiled back. Then she stumbled. Jacob caught her and supported her gently, trying to make her comfortable on the hard ground.

Then he turned to the Doctor. `You beat Chantal, Doctor. So you're cleverer than Chantal?'

The Doctor grinned nonchalantly. `S'pose I must be.'

Jacob pointed to Lene, her prone form picked out in the light shining from the TARDIS windows. `Then cure my wife. I want her to live.'

The Doctor's face fell. `I can't.'

`Doctor,' said Rose quietly. `Can't or won't?'

The Doctor crossed over to Lene, set the sonic screwdriver to diagnostic mode and ran it over her body.

`There's nothing I can do,' he said. `Her life's been massively prolonged by genetic restructuring. She had her ageing mechanism switched off. She's had about 400 transplants. But every system, no matter how hard you try, wears out in the end.'

`She's not just a system!' snarled Jacob. His first tears trickled down his face.

The Doctor couldn't answer.

Quilley came close to Jacob and held him. It was not one of Quilley's grandiose, theatrical gestures. He'd moved naturally, comforted Jacob because that was the human thing to do.

The Doctor nodded to Quilley and said quietly, `I can't take you with me. I can't take you home.'

`It was never my home,' Quilley replied evenly. `This is my home.' With a small gesture he indicated the deep forest. `I'm going to live here, and die here.' Some of his grandness seemed to return. `And I intend to feel every last sensation as I'm doing it.'

`The cave people,' said Rose. `Go and join up with them.'

Quilley nodded his thanks to Rose for her advice. Then he looked her fur-bikinied body up and down and made an indescribably lustful noise.

`Oh, please,' said the Doctor. `Now you've rediscovered human nature, can you hurry up and rediscover basic manners?'

`What are manners again?' asked Quilley. But the Doctor and Rose were already stepping back into the TARDIS. They had to go back to the 21st century and pick up Captain Jack, who had been babysitting a Neanderthal who was trapped in that time.

Like the scientists who couldn't travel to the future, Das couldn't travel to the past, and so Jack got the short straw of staying behind and educating him in the ways of the modern world.

Although Rose was glad she didn't get the gig, she was quite happy travelling on with the Doctor (even if she was forced into marriage and had her head cut off), but she did think that a time traveller from the 50th century was an odd choice to teach a Neanderthal how to live in the 21st.

Jack wouldn't argue with her on that. What he knew about the 21st century you could write on the back of a postage stamp. But he was smart and adaptable, and with the help of the internet, satellite television, and a make over that would have won him an award in a stylist competition, he'd turned Das into an integrated member of society.

Okay, he came over as a bit odd and eccentric, but he'd got a job as a labourer on a building site, and found a fiancée who only a mother (or another Neanderthal) could love. So, on the whole, he felt quite pleased with himself, and had a smug grin when the Doctor and Rose came to collect him.

`So how did you get on?' Rose asked as she came into the console room and gave Jack a hug. She'd been to her room and changed out of her cave girl outfit, and was now wearing her standard jeans, T-shirt and hoodie.

`I'll let you decide for yourself when you see him at the wedding,' he replied with his smug grin.

`A wedding!' the Doctor said from behind him, slapping him on the back. `That's almost as quick as your courtship,' he said, grinning at Rose.

Jack frowned. `Eh?'

Rose rolled her eyes; he'd let the sabre toothed cat out of the bag. `Just as long as I don't have to wear that fur wedding outfit again.'

`What?' Jack was wondering just what he'd missed.

The woman at the front of the small function room settled her glasses on her nose. `Good afternoon, everyone, my name is Lynette Coates. I am the Superintendent Registrar and I would like to welcome you all here today to celebrate the marriage of Anna Marie O'Grady and Das Dimitru.'

Jack looked across at the Doctor and Rose. The groom's side of the seating was empty but for them, alongside a huge Irish gaggle of O'Gradys.

`Next give me something hard to do,' he whispered.

The Doctor was leaning back in his chair, beaming.

Jack was stretched out like a cat, looking pleased with himself.

Rose couldn't take her eyes away from the linked hands of Das and his new wife. Jack had actually done it . . . amazing!