#gitf fixit

“How much longer d’you think it’s gonna be?” he asked Dyana. “Feels like it’s been hours.”

“It has been hours,” replied Dyana, arms crossed over her chest as she leaned against a pillar. “Not that I’m too keen on them rushing into things. Don’t really want to become someone’s property any sooner than I have to, thanks.”

“Nah, it won’t come to that. The Doctor will talk some sense into the Council, if nothing else.”

Dyana offered a wistful smile. “That would be nice. Wouldn’t get your hopes up, though.”

“Trust me, he’s got a talent for it. Only took him six words to uproot our entire government back home.”

“Sure it did,” teased Vareem.

“It sure did!” Mickey replied. “I wasn’t exaggerating. Just six words, and he toppled the whole thing. Poof! Done and done.”

Vareem frowned. “That’s sort of terrifying.”

“Nah, it’s fine. Well, I reckon it’s not so great for Harriet. And probably not for the people who work for her. And probably it’s causing some problems in the long run,” said Mickey thoughtfully. “But I’m sure it’ll be fine. Point is, he takes care of things. That’s what he does. And sometimes Rose ‘n me, we help. Isn’t that right, Rose?”

Rose did not reply, lost in thought as she sat still on a fluffy white hospital bench, staring at nothingness like it wronged her. A flash of silver peeked from her wrist and upper arm, two of several high-tech mesh bandages peppering Rose’s body, slapped here and there over bruises and cuts. The bandages were good stuff, futuristic high-tech mesh infused with something that would greatly expedite the healing process, or at least that was what Mickey had garnered from the physician’s explanation—the physician, not the Doctor, because he’d waltzed off the moment they’d arrived. Strange, that; Mickey would have expected the Doctor to insist on tending Rose’s wounds himself, or at least he’d hover over the physician while they did it and drive them batty explaining everything they were doing wrong. But no, he’d vanished almost immediately. Mickey wondered why.

A flurry of raised voices erupted from the monitors, pulling Rose’s attention and Mickey’s, too. They both watched as an onscreen Doctor and Rose bickered heatedly. Mickey had every intention of teasing Rose about it, but stopped upon glancing back at her; her gaze sharpened into a glare, her mouth tightening at the sight of the Doctor onscreen, tiny and digital and utterly confused, and oh dear, but this would be a very bad time for teasing, wouldn’t it?

Mickey’s brow furrowed in concern. “Rose?”

Wordlessly, she pushed up from the bench and stalked out of the room.

 **

 “All right,” Rose said impatiently, pushing aside the privacy screen—didn’t matter how he might try to hide, she’d recognize the telltale whir and buzz of the sonic screwdriver anywhere. “We can’t keep dancing around this, Doctor. We’ve got to—”

The Doctor’s gaze snapped up to hers, eyes wide in alarm, but that wasn’t what killed Rose’s words, left her breathless, nor was it the sight of him shirtless and exposed, though that was certainly unusual in its own right. No, it was the bandages, dozens and dozens of them. Some of them were wrapped round his arms, others pasted on his shoulders, others still slapped on his flanks, curled around his ribs and peeking round from the back; stepping to the side, Rose could see even more bandages slathered along his spine. What few patches of skin left uncovered by the bandages were dotted with little pink cuts and bluish-yellow bruises and angry purple welts, a perverse sort of rainbow playing out across his skin.

Bruises and cuts and wounds, a whole tapestry of hurt, and—and how long had he been wearing those special healing bandages, now? They’d been waiting here for hours, hours, and the bandages had already helped Rose and the others so much—so why did it look like the Doctor had fought and lost a round with a heavyweight champion? Or were the original wounds just that bad? When had he even gotten those wounds?

Had he been hurting this entire time, and Rose just hadn’t noticed, somehow?

“God,” she breathed, aghast. She reached out to touch him, but drew back at the very last second. She didn’t want to put pressure anywhere he hurt. “What is all this? What happened?”

“Erm, like you said earlier, average line-of-duty stuff,” said the Doctor just a little too quickly, avoiding Rose’s gaze. He continued his work with the sonic, scanning something in his hand--that pet-chip-thing, by the looks of it--and he frowned. “Just a couple of action hero wounds. Normal stuff. Standard. Run-of-the-mill, even. Nothing a couple of Beznisian battle-bandages can’t cure—and isn’t that funny, that they’ve got battle-bandages here? Definitely unexpected, considering the technology outside these walls doesn’t appear to have advanced much past the Middle Ages, but then, I suppose we’ve encountered stranger and more out-of-place things, haven’t we?”

Rose swallowed against the suspicion bubbling up sickly in her stomach. “Doctor, how’d you get hurt?”

“I just told you,” said the Doctor, pocketing the sonic and the pet-chip. “Standard stuff. Nothing worth discussing. Certainly nothing worth worrying about.” He stood up, grabbing his shirts from where he’d discarded them and pulling the tee-shirt over his head, only wincing a little as he did so. “Now, they did offer me some acetylsalicylic acid to help with the discomfort, and that actually is worth worrying about, because you know what they say about Time Lords and acetylsalicylic acid: they don’t mix. Or rather, they shouldn’t. They occasionally do. But that’s why you always have a handy spare bar of chocolate on hand!” He pulled on his oxford and hastily buttoned every other button. “There’s a bit of advice for you: Always keep spare chocolate around, Rose Tyler; you never know when you might need a good source of simple trigclycerides.

“Anyhoo, now that we’ve all had a chance to rest and recover a bit, I rather think it’s time to get going, don’t you? Shall we collect Mr. Mickey and the TARDIS and call it a day?”

“Doctor…”

“Speaking of chocolate, it’s probably time we restocked, or added to the current stock, as it were. You can never have too much chocolate, you know. It’s demonstrably proven to be the one thing in the universe you can never have too-much-of—”

“Doctor, please,” Rose interrupted, firmer this time. “Would you just—”

“Finish saving the day, first? Yes, of course,” said the Doctor. He grabbed his suit jacket and pulled it on. “Give a good speech, give a good glare, give the baddies a good what-for, don’t you reckon?” He whipped his coat about his shoulders with only the tiniest of grimaces. “Oh, and good job on recognizing what the pet-chip-thing was, by the way. It gave me a couple ideas, so I scanned and poked around a bit and I think it might end up being rather important after all. But isn’t that always nice, when something so small actually ends up being rather big in the grand scheme of things? Always a fun revelation, never a dull moment there.

“All right, shall we?” he asked, setting off before Rose had a chance to answer.

She hung back for a moment, hesitating. Even if she didn’t recall every moment of the adventure today—which she did, in startling detail—the footage playing on the screens overhead, over and over and over again, would have reminded Rose that there was no rational explanation of how the Doctor had sustained those wounds. There was no moment when he would have received them, no time he could have received them, and there was certainly no reason. Except as she watched the scene playing out onscreen, following the progress of her tiny digital self as she struggled to steer a sickly-glowing dragon, and it disappeared behind the mountainside in a hail of fire and a thunderous boom that shook the speakers around her, Rose realized that there was, in fact, a moment when the Doctor could have been hurt, and moreover, there was certainly a reason.

(And the screen flooded black with smoke, and Rose remembered awakening, groggy and sore but relatively unhurt despite everything, and what had happened to the dragon, and where was the Doctor, and was he hurt, and later, Mickey couldn’t believe she’d survived, and how…?)

Worrying her lip between her teeth, Rose followed after him.

 **

 The Doctor, Dyana thought with a sick-clenching throat, was going to get them all killed.

(It was not surprising that the guard had no inclination to bring the Doctor and co. before City Council; what was surprising was how easily the Doctor managed to convince them otherwise, and how suddenly, in a matter of seconds it seemed, the group was bursting through the Council doors.)

“About time,” Mickey muttered under his breath, but everyone else stayed quiet as their Golden Guardsman guide typed a series of characters into the keypad next to the chamber door. Dyana couldn’t guess what held Rose or the Doctor’s tongue, but a look over at Vareem let her know that Vareem, too, was likely clenching her teeth against the urge to vomit, fighting all of the instincts screaming at her to run, run, run while she had the chance, that they were both silent for the same reason:

This was it, for them.

Their entire lives had been building up to this single event, this single conversation, this one moment, a slice of time dangling their futures precariously over the knife-sharp edge of a narrow precipice. After this handful of moments, one way or the other--whether they were punished for their insolence, executed for their crimes, or maybe, just maybe, pardoned and offered freedom--their lives would forever change.

The robotic chime of the keypad sliced through the silence, paving the way for the heavy groan of the doors as they swung inward, revealing, bit-by-bit, the darkened chambers within. The second the doors parted enough, the Doctor surged on ahead, Rose and Mickey following immediately after; Dyana and Vareem hung back, frozen in uncertainty and fear. It was all good and well for Rose and her blokes to forge ahead without a second thought, but they didn’t know the Council like everyone on Hohm did. They didn’t know enough to be afraid.

(For all her plans of rebellion, Dyana had never imagined she’d meet the Council in the flesh--she had hoped to escape the Championship with her freedom intact, or die trying. Never had it crossed her mind that fate would bring her here, face-to-face with her planet’s own personal devils, confronting the pieces of filth responsible for so much death and destruction. The very same monsters who had sanctioned the her sister’s murder.)

Dyana closed her eyes against the memory that fought its way to the surface, her fists clenching in anger. She forced herself to drink in a deep, calming breath. It didn’t matter how terrified she was. She would do what she could with this chance--a chance her sister never got.

Swallowing hard, she grabbed Vareem’s hand, squeezing it; Vareem squeezed back, as if in thanks. Dyana led them both in.

Blinking against the dark, Dyana waited for her eyes to adjust as the Councilors murmured in response, and she grimaced at what she saw. It was about what she’d expected, a mixture of old money and new tech, marble pillars and velvet curtains blossoming out of the semi-darkness amidst softly glowing lights and screens. A grand table spread out before them, a great polished wooden thing that cost more than Dyana’s family could earn in an entire generation; behind it, gilded in the finest golds and silks and gems and slim electronic accoutrements the surrounding systems had to offer, sat a half-dozen humans and horse-people, gazing down imperiously.

The Council. Dyana felt Vareem shudder next to her.

Rose glanced back at the two of them and offered an encouraging smile; Dyana knew she was telling them, without words, the same things Mickey had said earlier. The Doctor will help fix everything. It’ll all work out in the end.

Gods, Dyana hoped they were right.

“What is the meaning of this?” demanded one of the Councilors.

“Six hours and fourteen minutes,” the Doctor announced as he strode confidently forward. “And eleven seconds, in case you were wondering.”

The Council stared down at the group, each of them distinctly unimpressed. “Guard, we did not send for these offenders. Why have you brought them before us?”

“And counting,” continued the Doctor, consulting his wrist as if he wore a timepiece there--which, he didn’t. “That’s more enough time to collect the facts and render a decision, wouldn’t you say?”

“We would not,” said another Councilor. “We have not yet decided your fate.”

“Oh, I’m not talking about your decision,” the Doctor replied cheerfully. “I’m talking about mine.”

The Council stared down at them, unimpressed. “Guard, remove the offenders,” ordered the Prime Councilor, “and report to your superior for suitable punishment.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said the Doctor, waving his hand dismissively before the guard could reply. “In fact, here in a few moments, none of this--” he continued, gesturing to the room around him, “--will be necessary, because here in a few moments, none of this will be in operation. See--”

Flashing the Council a cheeky grin, the Doctor rummaged around in his pockets, presenting a slim black wallet that he flipped open, displaying its contents for all to see. Normally Dyana might have delighted in seeing all of these stuffy upper-crusts breaking out of their dusty indifference, some of them stiffening in alarm at the sight of the wallet while others grew pale, but she didn’t understand--when the wallet flashed her way, all she saw inside was a small white paper that simply read: Trust me :D.

She and Vareem glanced at each other in confusion, then turned to Rose, a question half-formed on their lips. Rose shot them a little wink.

“See, things are about to change around here,” said the Doctor, absolutely beaming with mischief.

Even the Prime Councilor seemed surprised at what she saw in the wallet--which, Dyana could only imagine, must have differed wildly from what she and Vareem each saw, somehow. “I see,” the Prime Councilor murmured. Her gaze switched back to the Doctor, her mouth pressed into a thin smile. “My apologies, High Commander. We were unaware the Shadow Proclamation had chosen to honor us with their presence today. Were we not?” she asked, glancing at her fellow Councilors, as if perhaps one of them had invited a guest to the party without her permission. Dyana wondered if any of the lower Councilors would end the day without a head attached to their neck.

“Had we known a member of the Proclamation would deign to enter our humble competition, we would have proceeded quite differently,” said the Prime Councilor. “Forgive us, High Commander. You and your party are, of course, free to leave, winnings and usual fees fully intact, and we will deliver your ship promptly.”

“Excellent, most excellent. And after that, you’ll dismantle the Championship, lift your technology ban, and all of you will resign from office, effective immediately.”

The Council broke out in a murmur, but the Prime Councilor simply glared at the Doctor, her smile tightening unpleasantly. “We beg your pardon?”

“Which you most certainly will not receive,” replied the Doctor. “I’m not interested in winnings or usual fees, whatever they might be--”

“Sounds an awful lot like bribes,” muttered Rose darkly.

“--which, I suppose, sort of makes me your worst nightmare, doesn’t it?” the Doctor laughed. “After all, you must have had great success bribing anyone who came before me, mustn’t you? It’s the only thing that makes sense with all of the statutes-violations and felonies bloodying up your ledger. No way you’d have been permitted to run things so poorly for so long, otherwise.”

The Prime Councilor drew back, eyes flashing. “High Commander, those are very serious allegations, none of which, I assure you, you have any evidence to support.”

“So you’re not forcing people into your stupid little knockoff Olympics, then?” Mickey demanded.

“Or promoting the use of kidnapping and date-rape drugs?” added Rose.

“Or denying us access to vital and sometimes life-saving technology?” blurted out Vareem.

“Our people have been denied nothing,” the Prime Councilor said sharply. “The Honorable Council ensures that the people of Hohm do not descend into anarchy and chaos. We are not your mothers and fathers; it is not our place to award trinkets and treats. We cannot be blamed for those of you who have not earned your way.”

“And what about giving us away as bloody prizes, huh?” Dyana spat out before she could stop herself. “What about pawning us off on a bunch of rich off-worlders, just moving us like we’re so much rubbish? You gonna tell us you don’t do that, either?”

The Prime Councilor turned Dyana’s way. Dyana forced herself to hold the woman’s gaze even as she shuddered at the cold.

“Certainly the Honorable Council would never do such a thing,” replied the Prime Councilor. “But should any member of our population choose to volunteer themselves as bride-prizes in the Championship, we will not stop them; your lives are your own, to do with as you choose.”

“Horse shit,” Dyana tried to say, but her words were trampled by the Prime Councilor’s continued insistence that “Freedom, on Hohm, is valued above all things, even the freedom to devote oneself as a winning token. We cannot strip our people of their liberty to make such decisions, however inadvisable they may seem to others. We will not deprive our people of the right to choose.”

“Except we don’t choose at all,” Dyana argued. “Your Champions choose for us.”

“And is it not a great honor to be chosen by one of our Champions? For our Champions to pay a generous price in your name, to fight and compete and strive for your hand?”

“No!” shouted Dyana. “We don’t want that--you know we don’t want that!”

“Save your breath, Dyana,” said Vareem, pulling her back with a gentle hand on her arm. “It’s not like they can hear you over their jangling purses, anyway.”

Dyana managed not to pull out of Vareem’s grasp, but only just barely, and only because she was surprised at Vareem’s candor in front of the Councilor. She didn’t think Vareem felt so strongly about all of this. She’d never been happier to be wrong.

“It is unfortunately true that few things speak louder than money,” the Doctor agreed. “Which, I suspect, is why most of your Champions, especially the wealthy offworlders, pay such a hefty fee to enter the Championship. Does that sound about right?” he asked Dyana and Vareem. “Forgive me if I’m wrong; it’s just a hunch, as Mr. Smith and I didn’t exactly enter the competition via the usual circumstances, sort of bypassed the whole exchanging-of-money bit.”

“You’re not wrong,” Dyana replied. “They call it an entry fee or a fee to participate, but everyone knows what it really is. They put out a call to everyone in the surrounding systems, and anyone with money can pay a fortune to come here and either compete for a wife or watch the blood spilling from the stands. We’re out there risking our lives, stripped of our freedom, and rich offworlders just sit there and watch it like it’s bloody theatre.”

“All while the Council sits up here with their silks and their gold and they watch everything from behind their pristine screens,” Vareem spat.

“And they don’t even allow us to own so much as a telecommunications device.”

“Of course they don’t,” scoffed Vareem. “Otherwise they know we’d band together and stop them getting rich off violence and selling us as slaves!”

“We’re Hohm’s greatest export,” Dyana said bitterly.

“As I said,” the Prime Councilor replied, her voice as smooth and cool as the marble surrounding them, “you have no evidence to support your claims. Nor, I assure you, will you find any.”

“You know, on some level that may be true,” the Doctor admitted, shoving his hands in his pockets as he rocked back on his heels. “On the other hand, I’m certain there are scores upon scores of native Hohmish citizens who would loudly object to their mistreatment at your hands, if given the opportunity to do so--is that an accurate presumption, Dyana? Vareem?”

“Yes,” Vareem nodded, as Dyana muttered a sharp, “Very.”

“Although, if pressed by the Proclamation, I’m certain you would do your utmost to convince your citizens into stating otherwise,” the Doctor continued, to the Prime Councilor, “via your usual methods of coercion, pressure, threats, violence, et cetera et cetera. There’s the video footage of the Championship, of course, but certainly that could be easily erased, if it hasn’t been already. And unfortunately an official investigation into your many (many) sentient-beings’-rights violations could take weeks, months, possibly years, even if we did have physical, tangible evidence at our disposal. Sadly, folks like Dyana and Vareem don’t have that sort of time.

“You know what they do have, though?” the Doctor asked, and here his smile grew downright manic. “They have us,” he said, gesturing to Rose, Mickey, and himself. “And one of us has some of your oft-requested evidence conveniently hiding right in his pockets.”

He withdrew something from his coat-pocket, a small, rectangular silver thing with a series of numbers stamped across its face, and tossed it onto the table before the Prime Councilor. It clattered over the wood and slid to a stop beneath the Prime Councilor’s nose; unmoving, she peered down at it, lip curled in a disgusted sneer. “What is this?” she asked.

“That, my dear Prime Councilor, is an identifying integrated circuit, also known as a passive integrated transponder tag, outfitted with the very latest in local radio frequency identification and remote control technology; in short, as my brilliant friend here just happened to notice, it’s a pet chip,” the Doctor explained. “But Doctor, whatever are you doing with a loose pet chip floating about your considerable pockets? you might ask. Why, I’ve got a loose pet chip floating around my considerable pockets because I found it in the arena after the oh-so-mysterious explosion of a dragon, and it has yielded a surprising amount of helpful information, I would answer. In fact, I would go on to say, a scan of this particular pet chip just so happens to inform me that its original  host was a squamata basilisk draconus, a species that is massively illegal to be imported, purchased, or otherwise owned in this quadrant of the universe due to its status as an endangered species.”

“You want to shut us down because of illegal animal ownership?” asked one of the Councilors, amused.

“No, I want to shut you down because you’re denying your people access to things they want and need purely in the name of control, you’re turning a profit off violence, you’re running a thriving slave trade, and you’re dabbling in illegal pet ownership,” the Doctor replied. “Oh, and the fact that you murdered a endangered animal in cold blood. Can’t overlook that.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over the Council, but the Prime Councilor did not flinch. “Once again, I must assert that you have no evidence to support your claim--”

“Ah, but I do! It’s right there on the chip. It’s oh-so-helpful and absolutely packed with information. For example, it tells me who engineered the dragon, and when, and where, and why, and most importantly, for whom. And that whom is you!”

The Prime Councilor glared at him. “The Honorable Council would never--”

“Now, admittedly the chip doesn’t tell me how or why you inserted a remote detonation device into your pet dragon, but it doesn’t have to; anyone with a working brain can tell you that,” the Doctor breezed on as if the Prime Councilor had never spoken. “You, being fully aware of this creature’s status as an endangered (and therefore protected) species, asked the engineers of this specimen to implant a remote detonation device in case something happened and you needed to take dramatic action very, very quickly--say, for example, a devastatingly handsome agent from the Shadow Proclamation just happened to drop by unannounced, or a pair of disgruntled Championship participants stole your dragon for a joy ride and flew a little too close to the sun, figuratively speaking, and you lot got nervous. All you needed to do was press a little button, and boom goes the dragon.”

He leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially, “Unfortunately for you, the dragon might have gone boom, but that pet chip? It’s made out of none other than some of your very own Hohmish ore, and that stuff is nigh indestructible. The chip survived totally intact, with all your damning evidence written right across its face. Really, you should have made your money exporting your ore instead of your citizens, but you know what they say: hindsight’s 20/20, though there’s no time like the present to start sporting a pair of spectacles.

“Anyhoo, I may not have physical proof that you’re violating your people’s rights, but I have plenty of physical proof to charge you with multiple counts of violations of Proclamation Article 72.3 subsection 17-B, being the illicit breeding and destruction of an endangered, protected species,” said the Doctor, his hands clasped behind his back like an office manager delivering an only-mildly-unpleasant presentation to his wayward employees. “My report is on its way to my superiors right now, with the full details. Once they receive it, and find you guilty of your charges--which, make no mistake, they certainly will; dragon-breeders are notorious for turning on their clientele, no confidentiality amongst thieves I’m afraid--you’ll be stripped of your titles, fined of all your wealth, and thrown into a Proclamation prison for a minimum of ten years.”

A self-indulgent little laugh escaped his lips. “And once you’re locked away in prison, it’s only a matter of time before your other crimes are uncovered. After all, with you lot in the brig, who’s going to intimidate your citizens into silence for you?”

Finally, the Prime Councilor had the decency to look nervous, and inwardly, Dyana rejoiced.

“We could kill you where you stand,” the Prime Councilor said, her words slicing the air like shards of ice.

“Could do, but it wouldn’t stop the report from going through,” the Doctor replied. “It’s already on its way. No one can stop it going through, except me.”

Councilors whispered nervously amongst themselves in a low susurrus of mounting desperation. “What do you want?” the Prime Councilor asked the Doctor.

“Ooh, is that another veiled reference to a bribe? How exciting. It just so happens that what I desire is for you--all of you--to resign from your posts, effective immediately.”

“You can’t be serious,” one of the Councilors balked.

The Doctor laughed. “Of course I can! In fact, for every time you argue with me, or say any other silly or inane thing, I’ll add another punishment to the list. This time, you get to donate seventy-five percent of your total net worth to your citizenry.” He grinned beatifically. “Would you like to argue some more?”

“Please, be reasonable,” protested another Councilor, and the Doctor just chuckled in response. “And now I’m banning you from the planet Hohm altogether,” he said. “Tomorrow morning, you’re off the planet. All of you. It’s that, or prison for a decade.”

His grin grew sharp. “A decade, if you’re lucky.”

This time no one dared argue with him; the only response the Doctor received was a bunch of open-mouthed, disbelieving stares.

“Uh-oh, hear that?” asked the Doctor, pointing to the imaginary timepiece on his wrist. “Sounds like it’s make-a-decision-already o’clock.”

“You would really break our world like this?” asked the Prime Councilor. “Break our foundations, shatter our economy, leave our people leaderless and wandering?”

“I’m sure your new Councilors-in-interim will smooth things along nicely.”

“There are no other Councilors. We have not chosen successors.”

“Nor would any reasonable person permit you to. I am referring, of course, to Dyana and Vareem,” the Doctor replied, brow quirked in amusement, as if the Prime Councilor was terribly stupid. “Both excellent candidates for Councilor-ship. That is, if they’d like the job?”

All eyes turned to Vareem and Dyana, and Dyana’s throat ran dry. She had strode into the arena fully expecting to escape, or die trying. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined any of this would happen. Never had she dared hope that she would help make it happen! And now, this bright, shining gift sat just before her, the chance to help guide her world into the future, to make things better for everyone, to give every person on Hohm the choices they needed, the choices they deserved…

Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. She wished her sister had lived to see this. She would have been so, so proud.

“Yes,” Dyana whispered, warmth blossoming from her cheeks to her fingertips to her toes, bringing joy and hope and relief flooding with it. “Yes, I’ll do it.”

“Me too,” added Vareem, nodding emphatically.

The Doctor beamed at them. “Wonderful. You’ll both do brilliantly. I’m certain of it.”

He turned back to the Council, clapping his hands together in anticipation. “All right! You’ve got a choice before you, which quite frankly in rather generous considering the choices you’ve robbed your people of over the years; you can voluntarily resign, leaving behind most of your fortunate and all of your privilege and prestige, but living otherwise modest lives somewhere far, far away from the people you’ve hurt, or, my report goes through, my superior officers at the Shadow Proclamation get a nice little arrest warrant handy, and the swift hammer of justice strikes fast, hard, and without mercy.”

His smirk was one of the smuggest things Dyana had ever seen, as if he knew the answer even before asking, but wanted to savor the satisfaction of it, anyway. “So,” said the Doctor. “Which’ll it be?”

 ***

 Rose was willing to bet the Councilors had never made a decision so quickly in all their pampered lives.

“How are you doing?” she asked in a low voice, sidling up to Dyana as they watched the Council exiting their chambers, some of them leaving with heads held high and proud while others slunk away like perhaps, if they tried hard enough, they might disappear into the shadows before anyone caught them. “You gonna be all right?”

Dyana shrugged, eyes wide. “I think so? I don’t know. I never expected anything like this to happen. I think I’m sort of in shock, actually.”

Chuckling, she shook her head. “Kind of funny, though--they’ve been so horrible, for so long, made such a huge mess and made things so bad for so many people--only to be brought down by something so small.”

“Ah, I sort of love it when that happens. Poetic justice.”

Dyana shifted, shooting Rose a glance full of suspicion. “And you deliver that sort of thing often, then? The poetic justice?”

“We’ve been known to,” said Rose with a smile.

“As agents of the Shadow Proclamation.”

“But of course,” replied Rose, tapping the side of her nose knowingly, and the two of them laughed.

They both fell quiet as a pair of Golden Guards wheeled in the TARDIS from its hiding spot somewhere in confiscation-land, watching as Vareem poked about the ship in confusion and Mickey excitedly explained it to her. The Doctor was oddly quiet as he looked on, patting the TARDIS doors in greeting, like the arm of an old friend.

“Wouldn’t have mistaken any of you for the authoritarian type,” Dyana said thoughtfully. “Doesn’t really seem like any of you care too much for any sort of rules.”

As if he could sense her watching, the Doctor glanced Rose’s way. Their gazes locked. His expression was neutral, perfectly inscrutable. But something about it twisted in Rose’s gut anyway.

“But then again I didn’t think the Doctor’s paper-thing said anything important, so, I dunno,” Dyana continued. “I guess looks can be pretty deceiving, huh?”

The Doctor ducked into the TARDIS, breaking their gaze. Rose frowned.

“Yeah,” she murmured, worrying her lip between her teeth. “I guess so.”

 **

 “Okay, look. I know you don’t want to talk about this,” Rose called out, closing the TARDIS doors quietly behind her. “Not really, not in any way that actually means anything. And that’s fine. You don’t have to talk. Just listen.”

Surprised, the Doctor looked up from the console, watching wordlessly as Rose fidgeted in place. God, why was this so difficult?

She swallowed, loudly. “You hurt me,” she said. “Back on that spaceship. Back in France. You said things and you did things that hurt me.”

Before the Doctor had a chance to reply, Rose shook her head, rushing along with, “Maybe you didn’t mean to, maybe you didn’t think about it that way. Maybe you didn’t think about it at all. And I mean, I guess that matters, at least a little. But when you share your life with someone--because that’s what we’re doing, Doctor, we’re sharing our lives right now, that’s what’s happening whether you want to call it that or not--when you share your life with someone, you have to think about how your actions affect others. You have to.”

The Doctor didn’t reply, just kept watching her, his brow knit in concentration, or maybe concern.

“I know you’re hurt because of me,” Rose said, her voice quiet. “Because you protected me. That’s what happened, yeah? I don’t remember, and it was too dark and smoky to make it out on the screens back there--but you kept me safe when we were falling. Right? Cos I don’t have barely a scratch on me, but you look beat to hell under all those layers. So you must’ve protected me, put your arms around me and broken the fall, somehow. You must have done.”

Now the Doctor couldn’t meet her gaze, scratching his neck uncomfortably as he looked away.

“I wanted to say thank you for that,” Rose said, forcing her words to stay clear and strong, not to shake the way they wanted to. “I’d probably be dead if it weren’t for you. Honestly, I’d probably be dead several times over if it wasn’t for you. Of course, the same is probably true in reverse. But that’s what we’re both there for, yeah? To watch out for each other, keep each other company, keep each other safe. To trust each other.”

Drawing a deep breath, Rose closed her eyes. “What you did a few days back--leaving us behind on the spaceship, kissing Reinette and bragging about it after--that was a violation of trust,” she said, her cheeks flushing red-hot with embarrassment. “Whether or not you meant it that way. It was--it felt like a betrayal.”

She opened her eyes and looked up at him; big mistake. He was staring into the distance, mouth tight, jaw taut, fingers clenched round the edge of the control desk. To an outsider, it might have appeared that he was fighting not to be angry at Rose; Rose knew him well enough to suspect he was trying not to show his anger with himself. The thought broke Rose’s heart.

She kept going.

“It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way,” she said, carefully. “But you need to know how it felt to me.”

Silently, the Doctor issued a curt nod.

Rose suppressed a sigh. She wasn’t entirely sure why, but she felt disappointed, somehow. Although really, she’d given him the option not to speak, so maybe she shouldn’t be surprised he was taking her up on the offer. Still, she’d hoped…

But that didn’t matter. She’d said her piece and he’d heard it, and acknowledged it, at least a little bit. That was worth something, right?

Rose turned to leave, to give the Doctor some space, but stopped in her tracks at the sound of him clearing his throat.

“Rose?”

She turned back to look at him, her heart convulsing painfully in her chest, so hard she thought her ribs might crack from it. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry,” said the Doctor, slowly. “What I did--it was a betrayal.”

Now Rose’s pulse was hammering in her ears. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

The Doctor’s gaze met hers. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

Relief flooded Rose like waters through a broken dam. Before her brain had a chance to make any choice in the matter, her feet had carried her across the console room, up the stairs, and launched her straight into the Doctor, her arms wrapping snugly round him, purely of their own volition, she was sure. She squeezed him tight in a reassuring hug and he responded in kind, embracing her in a way that felt only a little bit desperate. Rose buried her face against his shirt and let out a long, pent-up sigh of release.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, her voice muffled by his shirt.

The Doctor did not reply, but hugged her harder instead.

***

Previous | Next

***

“Mm?” Rose slurred in puzzlement.

“Well, 's not like you to go on so little sleep.”  He pushed her teacup towards her and she put her fingers around it, straightening up in her seat slightly and using her now free hand to bob the string of the teabag up and down.

“I had a really weird dream,” she said.  “You know, one of those ones you can't shake unless you get up and have a cup of tea first.”

“Ah.  I see.”  The Doctor blew steam away from his cup and took a sip.  “Care to spill?  Er, the dream, that is, not the tea.”

Rose chuckled slightly, rolling her eyes.  “It was really weird.  I mean it was a nightmare really. You, me, and Mickey, we were on this spaceship.  It was an abandoned spaceship.  And there was this fireplace that you could see through, and a little girl lived inside.  Only it turned out she was real. The fireplace, it was like a window into another time.  And time moved more quickly there, because she grew up really fast.”

The Doctor grinned.  “Look at you. You been on the Tardis so long, you're having space dreams.”

Rose laughed.  “Yeah, guess I am. Anyway, you went through the fireplace, and me and Mickey wandered off--”

“Blimey, you even wander off in your dreams!  What is it with you humans!”

Rose frowned.  “Doctor, do you want to hear my dream or not?”

He cringed.  “Right.  Sorry.”  He scratched the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Anyway,” she said with emphasis, “We found the spaceship was being powered by all these human organs.  We looked into little windows and saw hearts and eyeballs and such, all wired into the ship.”

The Doctor grimaced in distaste. “Well, that's rather...”

“Yeah, I know.  Totally gross. Anyway, you ended up falling in love with this girl in the fireplace--”

“The little girl?” the Doctor cried in horror.

“No!  No, I mean after she grew up. Remember, her timeline was moving faster than us.”

The Doctor shuddered.  “Right.”

“So there were these weird clockwork robot things, and in order to save the girl—woman, sorry,” she amended with a roll of the eyes, “you had to break the connection to the ship.  But the way you did it...” she trailed off, looking grim, finally emitting a sigh and taking a sip of her tea.

“What?  What'd I do?”

She glanced sheepishly up at him.  “You left.  You broke the link to the ship, but you did it by trapping yourself in her world.  You... you abandoned us.  Me and Mickey and the Tardis.”

He stared at her aghast.  “What?  I would never!”

“Yeah, I mean that's what I thought... but it was so real.  I had to get up after that.”

“Rose...” the Doctor reached over and put a hand over hers.  “Really.  I would never.  That's a promise.  Not for anyone... especially some random woman.  Blimey! You don't really think...?”

“No!  No, Doctor... I just... I mean, it was just a dream, but... that night... when I met Sarah Jane, and the things you said... I did wonder...”

“Rose!”  He stood and scooted into the seat next to her, pulling her into a hug.  “Never.  Never ever.”

Rose leaned into him.  “But Sarah Jane...”

“That was different.”

“How?” she asked, unable to keep the incredulity out of her voice.

The Doctor pulled back and looked into her eyes.  “I'd been summoned back to Gallifrey.  She couldn't come.”

“But you could have gone back.”

He shook his head.  “No.  I couldn't.”

“Why not?”  Rose fought back tears.

He glanced at her grimly, then looked away.  “It was the Time War, Rose.  I...  I wasn't the same man.  I couldn't go back.  I couldn't face her...  Couldn't face anyone.  Not after what I'd done.”

She stared wordlessly.  His expression had turned so stern, so dark, she almost couldn't bear looking at him.  She reached up and put a hand on his cheek.

He turned his gaze back to her, expression softening slightly.  “Rose... I was lost.  I never would have found my way back without you.”

“No, Doctor.  You would have.  The path was always there.  You just needed a hand to guide you back, that's all.  Could have been anybody.”

“No.  I needed a hand, yes, but... I needed a light, too.”  He pulled her back into his arms, resting his chin on her head.  “A pink and yellow one,” he said with a smile in his voice.

She giggled.  “Stop it, Doctor,” she chided.

“No, I mean it!” he said, releasing her from the hug.  She sat up straighter, relieved to see he was smiling again.  “Don't you see?  You're my compass!  How could I ever leave you behind?”  He cringed.  “Blimey, I'd be like Moses in the desert!”

Rose laughed, shoulder-bumping him. “All right, fine, guess I'm stuck with you.”

“Like gorilla glue!”

She laughed again, more softly this time.  The tension she'd been feeling had melted away, leaving her more relaxed, and she couldn't help but yawn again, eyes feeling heavy.

“Come on, Rose,” he said, standing and pulling her to her feet.  “You need the rest of your forty winks.”

“Hate to say it, but I think you're right.”

He pulled her shuffling form back to her room and pulled the covers back on the bed.  She crawled in and settled down, but as he pulled the blankets back up, she squirmed in discomfort, feeling around beneath the blankets and finally pulling a book out from under her ribs.  She chucked it lazily onto the foot of the bed and rolled over, falling asleep almost immediately.

The Doctor smiled faintly, reluctant to leave, looking down at his pink and yellow miracle sleeping peacefully.  She deserved a nice long kip.  Besides, Mickey was asleep, too.  Best to keep everyone on the same schedule if their next adventure was to be anything worthwhile.

As he turned to go, he glanced down at the book.  Madame de Pompadour.

oOoOoOoOo

Rose felt the breeze on her face first, then her vision cleared and the Doctor’s face swam into view. Her heart clenched when she saw the deep furrow between his brows. As soon as she could move her hand, she reached up to smooth it away.

“Rose.”

She heard the suppressed sob in his voice and wondered how long she’d been stuck as a statue. Before she could ask, the Doctor wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close.

Rose tilted her head back and met his kiss. His movements were frenzied, nipping at her lip, darting his tongue into her mouth to taste her, trailing kisses along her jawline before returning to her mouth.

She understood his desperation a few hours later when she held her breath and poured the green potion over his head. This time, she was the one to whisper his name, the one who needed to feel the warmth of his blood flowing beneath his skin as she touched him.

When he ran his hands up and down her back, Rose wound her arms around his neck and kissed him urgently, letting him feel her worry and her relief as they celebrated the unspeakable pleasure of being together.

Their kisses finally softened into a series of pecks, and then the Doctor pulled back and cupped her face in his hand. Rose smiled up at him and turned to press a kiss to his palm.

They were all right. They’d always be all right.

oOoOoOoOo

The Doctor stared up at the dark ceiling in Jackie’s lounge. Seeing Sarah Jane again had been hard. Seeing how he’d hurt her by leaving and never coming back…

A soft shuffling noise distracted him from his thoughts, and he rolled over to look towards the hallway. Rose’s figure was silhouetted in the pale light coming in through the window.

“I thought you were in bed,” he whispered.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she answered. “Budge up.”

The Doctor pushed himself up so his legs were stretched out on half of the couch, leaving room for Rose. But instead of sitting on the empty half, she wedged herself in between the back of the couch and his legs, resting her head on his chest.  

“What’s bothering you, love?” His hand dropped to her head, his fingers playing with her silky hair.

She shifted so he could see her face. “Why’d you leave Sarah Jane behind, Doctor?”

His throat closed when he heard the vulnerability in her voice. He would rather kiss a Slitheen than explain his fears to Rose, but he couldn’t leave that fear unanswered.

“I don’t age. I regenerate. But humans decay—you wither and you die.”

She sucked in a breath, but the Doctor continued on, needing her to understand this.

“You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can’t spend the rest of mine with you. I wish I could, but I can’t.”

Rose climbed into his lap. “Then let’s enjoy the forever we have.”

oOoOoOoOo

The library’s dim lights cast the Doctor’s face in shadow, but Rose could still see his frown. “Why do I feel like you’re angry with me?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “You knew I didn’t want to bring Mickey along!” she hissed. “I shook my head and told you no when he asked. So why’d you do it, Doctor?”

He raked his hand through his hair. “I really don’t understand why you’re so upset about this. You wanted Sarah Jane to join us—that was your idea. How is Mickey any different?”

Rose narrowed her eyes. “Really? You can’t think of any reasons why having my ex-boyfriend along would be different?”

“No!”

“It didn’t occur to you that it might be… awkward, considering how our relationship has changed?” The Doctor’s eyes widened, and his obvious surprise made Rose wonder if she’d misread his motivation.

“But he… you’re not… you haven’t been together in months!” he finally spluttered.

Rose sighed, and most of her anger drained out of her with the gust of air. “Yeah but Mickey still cares about me, and I don’t want to hurt him by rubbing our relationship in his face.”

The Doctor tugged on his ear, and Rose finally smiled at him. “Never mind.” She crossed the room and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I thought you were pulling back, that’s all.”

He shook his head. “Never,” he swore. “You promised your forever, and that’s what I want.”

oOoOoOoOo

The Doctor stared at Reinette, who was stalking him across the room with a coy smile on her face. It was similar to Rose’s teasing smile, but instead of wanting to catch her in his arms and kiss her, his hearts pounded with a frantic need to run away.  

He backed up to the wall, a few feet from the fireplace. “Listen, lovely to catch up, but better to be off, eh? Don’t want your mother finding you up here with a strange man, do we?”

“Strange?” she repeated. “How could you be a stranger to me? I’ve known you since I was seven years old.”

The logic was impeccable, but it also shot a hole in the Doctor’s argument. He shifted towards the fireplace and said, “Yeah, I suppose you have. I came the quick route. But now that I’ve seen that you’re still all right, I should just…”

Reinette crossed the remaining space between them, her eyes glittering with amusement. “Will you not allow me to thank you properly for keeping me safe all these years?” she purred, matching him step for step as he inched sideways.

“No thanks needed—all in a day’s work for a fireplace inspector.” Finally close enough, he grabbed the lever, then leapt through to the spaceship when the fireplace turned on its base.

Rose and Mickey were gone, and after his hearts slowed down, the Doctor followed them. Best if he stayed close to Rose until they were done dealing with Reinette.

oOoOoOoOo

“You’re going to do what?” Rose asked.

The Doctor shoved his hands into his hair and tugged. “I know. I know, Rose. But timelines are dissolving around Reinette—if I don’t save her, there will be disastrous consequences.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Rose replied. And she did—sometimes he had to act. “But I’m not staying behind.”

“Oh!” His eyes brightened. “But didn’t I explain the next part?”

Rose looked at Mickey, then they both said, “No.”

“Ah. Well.” He tugged on his ear and grinned sheepishly. “You two are coming to get me.”

Rose blinked. “How’re we gonna do that?”

The Doctor stuck his hands in his pockets and grinned, like he’d been very clever. “When you get into the TARDIS, there will be a big red button on the console. That will tell her to follow our telepathic connection so she can come after me.”

There were a lot of questions Rose wanted to ask, but there wasn’t time. Instead, she grabbed the Doctor’s tie and pulled him down while she pushed herself up on her toes. His lips met hers in a searing kiss, and she knew his rescue plan wasn’t quite foolproof.

“You be careful,” she warned after she backed up.

He swung himself up on the horse and beamed down at her. “See you in a minute, Rose Tyler.”

Mickey stared at her after the Doctor broke the window. “So. You and him?”

Scrabbling at the ridges lining the creature’s spine, the Doctor hoisted himself up, reaching back for Rose as the dragon lifted its head to let out an angry roar. Wings flexing, the dragon coiled its haunches, catlike, a spring tensed and ready to burst, preparing to launch itself into flight. The Doctor lunged for Rose and clutched her about the waist just as the dragon sprang into the air. Rising higher with every beat of its wings, the dragon lurched, sending both Rose and the Doctor slipping. Feet sliding on the dragon’s slick scales, Rose cried out at the stomach-plummeting sensation of takeoff, at the sight of the landscape shrinking below. Sweat beaded and trickled down the Doctor’s neck as he mustered every last ounce of his strength to haul Rose up the rest of the way, fighting gravity for its sorely-wanted prize. He pulled and she heaved and finally she was safe—relatively speaking, anyway, as she straddled the dragon’s neck—but the Doctor didn’t dare let go of her waist.

“Please tell me you’ve got a good reason for this!” Rose shouted over her shoulder.

“I’ve got a good reason for this,” the Doctor replied automatically. Rose craned her neck to shoot him a disbelieving look and the Doctor offered her his very best charming grin. “Now, whatever you do, don’t let go!”

Soaring over the stadium, the dragon violently shook its head to dismount its riders. When that didn’t work, the creature barked out a great roar, one that made the Doctor’s teeth chatter. Muscles rippled and sinews strained beneath the Doctor, heat blossoming and glowing sickly yellow just beneath the slick purple scales, and the Doctor knew the dragon was preparing to let forth another fiery blast.

Smoke flying from its nostrils, the dragon circled back round, surging straight back for the mountain—right to Mickey and the others. The dragon opened its mouth to fire.

The Doctor ran a series of figures in his head at lightning-speed and threw the end of Rose’s wrist-chain out into the wind, his other hand clasping her by the ribs hard enough to bruise. Casting out into the windstream, the chain whipped right back round, looping through the dragon’s open mouth and hurtling right back toward Rose, who caught it with a gasp. Thanking his biology for the gift of long arms, the Doctor shot his hands around Rose to grab the chain by both ends.

“Help me pull it tight!” the Doctor commanded.

Rose obeyed, winding her manacled hand around the chain just before both of them yanked back as hard as they could. The dragon’s head snapped backward, spewing a stream of fire singing the air up above. Screeching, the dragon pulled up, soaring away from Mickey and the others.

“Yes!” Rose shouted, craning her neck to double-check that Mickey was safe. He and Dyana and Vareem were only just visible from this vantage point, tiny colorful specks fleeing up the mountain, but they were moving, they were all right, they were alive.

“Oh my god, I thought we were all done for,” Rose said, her voice shaking.

“Oh, come on, have a little faith,” the Doctor laughed. “It would take more than a dragon to bring us down!”

“Right! So what’s step two, here?”

“No clue,” the Doctor said cheerfully, and he could just hear Rose rolling her eyes.

The dragon lurched forward and without even thinking, the Doctor grabbed Rose round the waist again, steadying them both. A brilliant pink flush crept up the back of her neck and the Doctor wondered at that—her dress was awfully flimsy and thin, surely she couldn’t be overheated, somehow?—but no, he realized, it only happened after his hands slid down her belly, anchoring her close, her back pressed firmly against his chest, sandwiched so tightly together he could feel her heart hammering beneath his fingertips, against his ribs…

He suspected, suddenly, that her reactions had less to do with the imminent danger, and more to do with something else entirely.

The Doctor relaxed his grip. “Maybe we could give any lingering Champions a little scare, clear the way for Mickey and the others, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rose replied, clearing her throat. “Let’s give it a go.”

The Doctor shifted, ready to show Rose how best to steer the dragon, but she was already pulling on one end of her chain, guiding the dragon back around.

“You’re not the only one with surprise talents!” she shot over her shoulder with a cheeky grin.

The Doctor smiled, settling his hands and arms more comfortably around her. “Oh, you always surprise me, Rose Tyler,” he said quietly into her ear.

Rose blushed again.

***

Alien planets, Mickey had decided, were highly overrated.

First, there were the local customs. Certainly, Mickey knew Earth had its fair share of local customs that outsiders might consider silly, or harmful, or downright bad. But as far as he was aware, there were no officially-sanctioned Earth customs that involved drugging or kidnapping, certainly none that encouraged the use of Bronze Age weapons amidst Stone Age gender politics.

Then, you had the sports. Normally Mickey quite liked sports. He was, in fact, something of a sports aficionado; there were very few sports back on Earth that were incapable of holding his interest. But there also weren’t any sports back on Earth that involved running over a theme-park-movie-set, up a mountain, away from a real-live dragon.

Ah, yes. The dragon. That was another thing.

“Holy hell,” Mickey whispered. He shielded his eyes against the floodlights, the better to watch the dragon’s shadowy form as it retreated to the other end of the stadium, swooping low and scattering a cluster of lagging Champions. “Did you see that? Rose and the Doctor—!”

“Yeah, yeah, they’re buying us time,” said Dyana absentmindedly, scanning the mountainside for stray Champions. “We’d better take it!”

Mickey’s feet were loathe to move, strangely reluctant to turn away from the blip in the distance that was the dragon and its riders, but upon feeling a tug, Mickey glanced over to see Vareem pulling on his shirtsleeve, her eyes wide with fear and anxiety.

“Come on,” she urged. “Let’s go. Please!”

After another glance backward—there the dragon went again, diving low over the Champions until they ran back the way they’d come—Mickey nodded, and followed.

The three of them ran up the mountain, alternately sprinting and climbing and pulling themselves up over dirt and rocks and great moss-covered stones. Vareem galloped up ahead, cantering up the ever-steepening hillside as easily as a mountain goat, and Dyana followed closely behind, but Mickey lagged. He couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from the dragon for very long. Something kept urging him to turn round, crawling uncomfortably down his spine; he wasn’t certain if it was sweat, or something else.

Instinctively, the company ducked as the dragon soared overhead, the ground trembling with every stroke of its great wings. With a great roar, the dragon dove low, sending cowardly Champions running in all directions, abandoning their would-be prizes without a second thought.

“So, erm,” Mickey huffed as the bride-prizes cheered and the dragon flew off once more. “What’s at the top of the mountain again?”

“The Citadel, where you’ll claim us as your wives,” replied Vareem.

Mickey’s feet chose that precise moment to wrap around each other. “Oh yeah?” he said, trying to sound casual as he pulled out of the stumble (and failing spectacularly).

“Don’t get too excited,” Dyana said drily. “All you do is hit the button and say the words. You’re setting us free right afterward.”

“Or we could talk about it,” protested Vareem. “I don’t mind sharing!”

Both women laughed at the flush that darkened Mickey’s cheeks and ears at that. Maybe alien planets weren’t so bad after all, he decided.

The earth shuddered beneath him once more, in time to the great slow slap-slap of leathery dragon’s wings—and there it was again, that feeling of something pricking and trickling down the back of his neck. Mickey turned to watch the dragon as he climbed, but his hands and feet slowed to a crawl; squinting against the floodlights, he couldn’t quite make it out, but the dragon’s flight seemed shakier than before, its body sagging and dipping, and was Mickey imagining it, or was it glowing all over?

“Oh for goodness’ sake, come on!” pleaded Vareem. “We haven’t got time—”

“Wait,” said Mickey, watching as the dragon approached. Its flight grew slow and lazy, its body shaking violently. “Something’s wrong.”

The dragon flew overhead and disappeared round the mountainside.

Seconds later—

BOOM.

The impact threw Mickey and the others through the air, each of them slamming into the earth amidst a deluge of rocks and earth. Panting for breath, Mickey cast himself in front of Vareem, shielding her with his body as much as he could as a second wave of debris flew their way. The crack-snap-BOOM of the explosion echoed throughout the stadium and bounced off the walls, ringing in Mickey’s ears. He screwed his eyes shut against the noise and the dirt.

When the quaking and the noise stopped, Mickey looked up to see that the air was filled with smoke and ash, an ominous dark cloud forming on the other side of the mountain.

His heart skipped a few beats and he thought he might choke.

An explosion—and Rose had been on the dragon when it—and there was no way she could have—

“Rose,” Mickey panted, pushing himself off the ground, heedless of the scrapes and cuts that lined his body. He stumbled toward the darkening smoke-plume, gagging on the fire and ash that burned the back of his throat. “Rose! Rose!”

“Hush!” Dyana hissed furiously. “You’re gonna draw attention!”

“I don’t care!” Mickey croaked. Heart racing and lungs pumping until he was lightheaded from it, Mickey stumbled over churned earth and upturned rocks, inching ever-closer to the blast site.

“Rose!—”

“Hey!” Dyana said sharply, darting in front of him. “Hey, look at me!” She grabbed Mickey by the collar, forcing him to look her in the eyes. “Look at me.”

Mickey forced his eyes to focus on Dyana’s face, forced his ears to hear something over the ringing and the rush of his blood and the screaming panic.

“Rose told me about that bloke she’s with, that Doctor fellow,” Dyana said slowly. “He’s some sort of miracle worker or something, right?”

Mickey shook his head, uncomprehending. “But, the explosion—”

“Rose said he’s done incredible things, got out of way worse scrapes than this, saved loads of people. And you’ve been there, you’ve seen it. You know what he can do. You trust him, don’t you?”

Shaking violently, Mickey struggled to think. A fleeting vision of Rose flashed in his mind, first strapped to a table while an android prepared to dissect her for scrap bits, then later, her eyelashes fluttering and lower lip quivering as she tried not to cry, stranded on a space station a thousand years away from home. He remembered the fear at being strapped to a table of his own, the sick feeling that settled in his stomach, a twin to the sensation that weighed heavy in his gut now.

He wanted to say yes—but was that true anymore?

Before he had a chance to answer, the sounds of scuffling and murmuring at the base of the mountain let him know that they weren’t alone; both turned to see a fresh new batch of Champions running and climbing their way. And this time, none of them offered Dyana a salute.

“You two, get up the mountain,” Mickey said, taking off once more toward the smoke. “We’ll meet you up there!”

“Mickey—”

“I’m not leaving her!” Mickey shouted over his shoulder.

Dyana did not reply, but Mickey heard her swear under her breath. He glanced back to see her grabbing Vareem by the hand as they set up the mountain once more, the Champions quickly closing the gap between them. In any other situation, Mickey might have felt guilty for abandoning the women, but they were far handier with a weapon than he’d ever been. And there was no way in hell he was going up this damn mountain without Rose.

He prayed that she was all right.

***

“D’you really think Rose is okay?” Vareem asked as they climbed.

Dyana did not reply.

***

A groan tore from Rose’s lungs as she rolled onto her side. She felt like she’d been hit by a truck. Or, more accurately, like she’d been hurled into a mountainside.

Slowly, gingerly, she sat up, wincing at the dull aches and sharp pains that stabbed her seemingly everywhere. Her lungs stung with the stench of smoke and Rose coughed, wincing at the hurt that blossomed in her ribs after.

Where was she…? And where was the Doctor?

Trembling, Rose tried to stand but her legs shook and ached in protest, pain shooting through her body. Fingers running a path down her arms and torso and legs, she searched herself for damage, and while she certainly discovered a large number of tender cuts and feverish burns and bruises (her lonely bruise from before now had plenty of friends, she thought with a grimace), she was relieved to find nothing too serious, though whatever had gone down, it had taken most of her wrist-chain with it, leaving only a small length dangling limply behind. She suspected she’d got off pretty well considering what had happened, whatever that might be.

Seriously, though—what had happened?

Frowning, Rose struggled through the heavy fog in her mind, pulling together the puzzle-pieces of her memory so she could assemble them into a shape that made sense. They were riding the dragon, she remembered. They managed to steer the dragon and scare away some Champions, but then it started to shake and glow beneath them. And Rose had smelled smoke, and the scales beneath her had grown hot, and she’d heard the Doctor shouting, but after that...well, everything went grey after that. It was easy enough to figure out that she’d been thrown from the dragon, but Rose couldn’t recall anything that would explain why she got thrown from the dragon, or where the Doctor went, or why the dragon had vanished without a trace, or why everything all around her was on fire.

All good questions, Rose thought dimly; good questions for the Doctor, if she could find him. For all his talk of wandering off, she thought with a grump.

First things first, though, she needed to do something about this whole breathing situation. Rifling through her skirt for the cleanest patch of fabric she could find, Rose tore the flimsy material easily, holding it over her mouth as a makeshift handkerchief. Her lungs still stung and throat still burned, but at least it no longer felt like she was swallowing fire every time she inhaled.

She huffed grumpily into the handkerchief. Probably the fires were just another challenge set up by the City Council, as if this whole stupid thing wasn’t already dangerous enough. Honestly, did they want any of their participants to survive?

Rising on wobbly legs, Rose squinted through the smoke and ash, searching for any hint of familiar brown pinstripes.

“Doctor?” she coughed. God, what she wouldn’t do for a cup of water right now; her throat was parched, thick, like a dried-up well. She called out again, stumbling across the uneven earth. She strained to catch a glimpse of him through the grey-hazed air.

Rose hoped he wasn’t hurt, or worse.

(No. She shook her head sharply, winced at the dizziness that flared up after. She didn’t have time to think like that.)

“Over here!” called the Doctor, and Rose sighed in relief. Stumbling, she followed the sound of his voice until his outline appeared in the smoke, followed by the rest of him.

Rose stifled a laugh. Here she was, covered in bruises and soot, and the Doctor had barely a speck of dirt on him. He could have floated through the air as easily as Mary Poppins with her umbrella, for as unrumpled and composed as he was. But of course, Rose thought—how else would it be?

“Now what do you think of this?” asked the Doctor, his tone perfectly conversational, as if they weren’t standing in a smoke-ridden battlefield. He held a small silver rectangle in one hand, regarding it with no small measure of curiosity as he turned it over and over, examining it from all angles. It gleamed a dull silver through the ash and mud, and amidst the bits of grass and debris, Rose could make out a series of numbers stamped into its face.

“Doctor?” Rose coughed. “What happened?”

“Found it half-stuck in the ground, nearly tripped on it,” the Doctor continued, and Rose struggled not to roll her eyes, because why on earth would he think she was asking about that? “Any thoughts on what it could be?”

Rose shrugged, coughing into her handkerchief. The Doctor might have been able to breathe in this nasty air well enough, but she certainly couldn’t, and something about him just standing there so casually, in the smoke, while she was struggling to breathe without gagging, irritated her a little bit. Or maybe that was just the ash drifting lazily into her eyes, or her bruises making themselves loudly known.

(Or really, couldn’t he wait for two seconds before he went tracking down the next stupid shiny thing? Her thoughts had shifted to him almost immediately after she regained consciousness—couldn’t he arse himself to think about her, or worry about her, even just a little bit? Weren’t friends supposed to do things like that?)

“Dunno,” Rose said, bouncing impatiently on her heels. He could stand here looking at weird little pieces of metal all he liked, but she wasn’t interested in waiting around to get caught by more Champions, or the dragon again, or whatever other nasty beasty things might come their way. “Looks like a dog tag or one of those pet chips or something?”

The Doctor’s eyebrow piqued in question. “Pet chip?”

“Yeah, like one of those things people put in their pets in case they run away or get lost. They’ve got numbers on them, like a barcode or something, and you scan ‘em to find out where the pets belong.”

“Curious,” the Doctor murmured thoughtfully, giving the piece another look-over before shoving it into one of his pockets. “Think it would work on humans, get them to stop wandering away or running off in the middle of would-be rescue attempts? Maybe I should get one for you, mmm?”

“Oi, I’m not a dog,” Rose grumped, her nose scrunched in disgust beneath the handkerchief.

“No, no, of course not. A dog knows how to stay,” the Doctor teased.

Any other day, Rose would have glared daggers at him, then laughed at the look of abashed sheepishness that crossed his face afterward. Now, she just sighed, heavily, gathering her singed skirts so she could plow on ahead. Onward, upward, anything was better than looking back. Right?

“Not a dog,” she repeated as she climbed, “nor a cat, nor a bird, nor a pet of any kind. Just another silly human trying to survive. Besides, I only ran off in the first place cos you took your sweet time rescuing me. I wasn’t gonna sit and wait around for another five and a half hours.”

For a moment, all she could hear behind her was the sound of fires crackling. Then, the Doctor’s plimsolls scuffed against the earth as he climbed after her. “Five and a half hours,” he said. “Oddly specific amount of time.”

Rose forged on ahead with a heavy sigh. She hadn’t really meant for those words to spill out; she wasn’t too keen on nagging or fighting, especially right now. But there was just something about being compared to an animal that rubbed her the wrong way.

Because that’s what he really thinks of you, she thought irritably. His sweet little pet, nips at his heels and knows a few tricks and is awfully cute when she tries. Sit, Rose. Speak, Rose! Play dead! Good girl!

Not to mention the number of owners that have no trouble leaving their pets behind when it’s time to move away.

Lost in thought, Rose didn’t notice the crumbling earth until it was too late and she was already slipping. But the Doctor grabbed her hand before she could slide too far, setting her back upright.

“I’ve got it, thanks,” Rose grumbled, pulling her hand away.

“You sure? You seem a little—”

“I said I’ve got it.”

The Doctor frowned. “You didn’t happen to sustain a concussion in the fall, did you?”

“Would it make a difference if I had?” she snapped.

With a great huff, the Doctor stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “All right,” he said impatiently. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or have I got to guess?”

“Nothing’s wrong. Let’s just keep moving.”

“Nope, not until you tell me what’s eating you.”

“Why, are you going to pretend to care now?”

The Doctor blinked in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean? Of course I care!”

Humming impatiently, Rose rubbed at her temple, pushing against the ache threatening to blossom there. God, but she was thirsty. She was going to get a migraine soon from the dehydration, she could just tell.

“It’s nothing, forget it,” Rose sighed. “Let’s just go, yeah?”

“Why won’t you tell me what’s going on, though? One minute you’re fine, next minute, it’s the end of the world—you said I hurt you, chattered a whole bunch of veiled nonsense about abandonment and expiration dates and betrayal, and now you won’t say anything at all. I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

“Guess you don’t know everything about everything, then,” Rose shot back, stepping around the Doctor so she could continue her climb.

The Doctor groaned in frustration as he followed after her. “Oh, excellent, more opaque, snippy little barbs. Love those. So wonderfully helpful! Honestly, you’ve been a right pain ever since—”

“France?”

“Yes,” the Doctor said, impatience evident in the tension of his voice. “Since France, whatever that’s got to do with anything.”

Rose laughed nastily. “Right, yeah, whatever could France have to do with anything?”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Rose,” the Doctor sighed, and Rose heard his feet scuff to a stop behind her. “Just spit it out already!”

Rose slowed to a halt, worrying her lip. “Do you really want to talk about this right now? Or ever?”

She turned back to look at the Doctor, found him standing with crossed arms and furrowed brow and pinched mouth, as if to say, Get on with it, then.

Well. If he was going to give her an honest-to-goodness opening, then Rose should take it, right? No matter what the sick little feeling in her stomach said. She could do this. She wasn’t the one afraid to have a proper conversation.

(But if she really wasn’t afraid, then why hadn’t she said anything yet?)

She pulled down the handkerchief and twisted it in her hands, grateful for something to distract them with. “You left Mickey and me behind,” Rose said quietly. “On the space station, when you jumped through that mirror.”

“Yes, and?”

Taken aback, Rose laughed uncertainly. “And it was sort of a stupid thing to do? And it hurt our feelings? And it made us scared? And we were worried about you? And we didn’t know if or when you’d get back, or we’d get home again? That enough and’s for you?”

“But it all turned out for the best, didn’t it? Everything’s fine, everyone’s fine, it all worked out in the end. So what’s the problem?”

“You didn’t know any of that when you jumped through, though,” Rose insisted. “For all you knew, you could have been stuck for hundreds or even thousands of years!”

“Nah,” said the Doctor, waving a hand dismissively. “I would have just hitched a ride with an earlier me. I’m bound to show up in France every other decade or so.”

“A decade?” Rose asked, her voice shaking. “Maybe that’s just a blink for you, but that would’ve been a long time for Mickey and me, stranded on that station.”

“Nope! The Emergency Programme would have kicked in long before that, taken you right back home, quick as you like,” the Doctor countered, stepping up the mountainside until they stood almost face-to-face. “Then hey presto, my younger self stops for a visit at merry old Versailles after a few years in my timeline, brings me back straightaway in your timeline. You wouldn’t have even had time to miss me.”

“Want to bet?” Rose muttered sadly.

An awkward silence fell between them, punctuated only by the sounds of the fires cracking and spitting behind the Doctor. He studied Rose’s face openly, searching, like her expression might reveal something her words didn’t.

She looked away. “It’s just...why’d you have to do it that way? You didn’t have to leave me and Mickey behind. We could’ve taken the TARDIS to a nearby town or something, or hopped back to Versailles a few minutes before the time windows opened up, right?”

“Er, technically, yes, I suppose either of those options would have worked,” the Doctor conceded, tugging uncomfortably on one ear. “Still, what’s done is done. The timelines are protected, that’s what matters.”

“And...is that all that matters?” Rose asked. She knew she was treading on thin ice; instead of retreating, she inched out a tentative foot, exploring just a little further. “Is that the only reason you did it, I mean?”

“Well, yes. What else would there be?”

Drawing in a deep breath, Rose steeled herself. She would have to give a little to get a little, she knew; she couldn’t expect to make any progress unless she ventured out onto the ice properly, ignoring the spiderweb-cracks that fanned out beneath her feet. She wrapped her arms around herself as a defense against the chill.

“I wasn’t really thinking of a what,” she said slowly, “so much as a who.”

The Doctor arched an eyebrow in suspicion and Rose braced herself, oh god, here it came, the judgment and disgust, the awkwardness, the rejection; Rose could feel it washing over her like a plunge into Arctic waters.

“Ah,” said the Doctor, quietly. “Ah.”

Rose gulped.

“Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said, his voice soft, contemplative. Then, Rose watched as his face split into a slow and wicked grin. “Rose Tyler,” he said again, and now his words were warm with mischief. “You are jealous!”

“Wait—what?” spluttered Rose, her cheeks flushing hotly beneath his gaze. “No! No, that’s not at all what I—”

“So Mickey was right. Fascinating,” the Doctor marveled, chuckling. “Travel with humans for a millennia, you’d think you’d be used to it all by now, but you lot still surprise me sometimes. But that’s what’s been bothering you this whole time? The jealousy?”

“No,” Rose said stubbornly, rubbing her hands over her gooseflesh-prickled arms. How could she blush so hotly and still feel so damn cold all at the same time?

“And to think, I almost fell for your little charade earlier,” the Doctor laughed. “Rose Tyler, jealous!”

“Was not,” Rose muttered, wrapping her arms around herself more snugly.

The Doctor smiled a knowing smile and shrugged out of his overcoat, stepping forward to drape it around Rose’s shoulders. “Were so,” he teased.

“Was not.”

Stepping nearer, the Doctor drew the coat tightly around Rose, pulling the lapels together across her chest. His hands never touched her, never so much as brushed over the fabric, but they hovered so close Rose could practically feel their heat through the coat. She was suddenly blisteringly aware of his proximity and just how much flesh her thin silk dress exposed. She begged her body not to flush any further, not to give her away.

“Were so,” said the Doctor again, beaming in self-satisfaction, and god, he was so stupid and pretty and smug, Rose couldn’t decide if she should smack him or kiss him. It didn’t help that his coat was lovely and warm and smelled of him, that curious clean smell somewhere between the smoke of a wood stove and freshly fallen snow, and his hands were stalling on the coat-lapels, like he was reluctant to move away, and he was standing close enough that they were certainly breathing the air from each other’s lungs, and—

And god, what was wrong with her?

Years of repressing these ridiculous notions—it had only gotten worse after he came out looking like this, all fantastic hair and flirtatious grin and boyish charm, but those feelings had always been there, always, even if Rose had done her damnedest to stomp them down—and all it took to undo that hard work was two bare minutes’-worth of conversation and meaningful looks? Just how many other silly human girls had thought all the same things, fallen into all of the same traps as her? How many of them had trailed after him just like this, inches away and universes apart, fantasizing about grabbing him by the hair and snogging that stupid grin off his face? How many of them felt these feelings and dreamed these dreams only to be overcome later with disgust and self-loathing, when they remembered that he would never feel anything for them in return, that he was so much older and wiser and grander and so much more alien than any of them could ever be?

But the way he looked at her, with a smile twinkling in the corners of his eyes—but the way he said her name—but the way he always grabbed her hand—

With a shake of her head, Rose squeezed her eyes shut. If she couldn’t see him, then she couldn’t get distracted by his stupid hands and stupid hair and stupid kissable mouth.

“I know what you’re doing,” she said. “You’re trying to deflect. Answering my questions with more questions, and turning everything around on me, and trying to get my attention elsewhere, and—and—and other distract-y things.”

“Mmm, well-put. Is it working?”

Rose opened her eyes to find him watching her still, his gaze hooded and dark, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. And with the way he kept glancing down at her lips—well, if she didn’t know any better, she’d think he was planning to kiss her.

“Yes,” she admitted breathlessly, and prepared to drown.

And almost as if she had looked into the heart of the TARDIS all over again, she could sense how this would all play out, could track each and every fateful string weaving in and out in this little tapestry of theirs; she could catalogue the incline of his head, the subtle dilation of his pupils, the flutter of his lashes as he calculated optimum angles and pressure and friction. She could feel how his grip would tighten around the coat lapels, nervous but sure, closing what little space remained between them. His breath would kiss her lips first, his mouth after, pressing gently. Rose’s ribs would seize in a gasp, and her hands would land on his chest, striving for balance as shock shot through her; already she could feel the scratchy wool of his suit beneath her fingers, fibers clinging to the ridges of her fingerprints like they’d never let go. His double pulse would hammer beneath her fingertips, speeding up at her touch, and her own pulse would crash thunderously in her ears. Rose imagined how the Doctor’s hands would drop to her waist as he deepened the kiss, opening his mouth against hers, and she thought of the buzz that would fill her head at the sensation, a feeling like fizzing and falling and flying worse than anything she’d experienced in the air just moments before. He would pull her snug against him and she would bury her fingers in that glorious hair of his, because yes, she had been looking, of course she had, who was she kidding, anyway? And when she would pull back for a lungful of air, because not everyone is blessed with a respiratory bypass, she would only have half a moment before the Doctor chased after her, and the kiss would transform into an urgent thing, the Doctor coaxing her tongue into his mouth because even if he’d never admit, it drove him just a little bit mad every time she trapped her tongue between her teeth in that cheeky little grin of hers, and it was his turn this time. He would kiss her and taste her and cling to her as if she might vanish at any moment, and that would be it. She’d be gone. She’d be lost. There would be no coming back, not for her, not ever.

(And then, because this really was just a distraction—because even if he was looking at her like that, it wasn’t Rose he was thinking of—then it would all be over, and even though it would burn and ache in Rose’s chest every time she thought about it, the Doctor would pretend it had never happened. They would never talk about it again.)

The Doctor leaned in and, cursing herself with every hurtful invective she could summon, Rose turned her head.

She stepped back.

A moment passed in horrible silence. Finally, eyes wide with surprise, the Doctor backed off. His lips parted as if he might speak, probably to ask any number of questions, but whatever words might have come out, he must have swallowed them. Pocketing her makeshift handkerchief, Rose unwound the Doctor’s fingers from the coat lapels hanging about her neck, pulling his hands away from her body.

She couldn’t meet his gaze anymore.  

“Just, erm,” Rose started to say, and stopped. She was trembling again, though she certainly wasn’t cold any longer. She closed her eyes; maybe that would make things easier.

“Look,” she sighed. “Doctor, I—”

“Oh my god, Rose!” a familiar voice rang out, and Rose turned to see Mickey sprinting toward her round the mountainside, coughing and fanning smoke out of his eyes. “Rose, you’re alive!”

Rose risked a glance at the Doctor, only to find him staring at her in confusion.

Oh, god. Why did Mickey have to find them right now?

“God, I thought you were dead,” Mickey laughed, pulling Rose into a hard hug. “What the hell happened? And where’d the dragon go? And how the heck did you manage to survive that explosion?”

“Explosion?” Rose asked, startled. “Wait—is that why everything’s on fire?”

“Well, yeah—don’t you remember—?”

“Ah, yes, the dragon might’ve exploded a bit,” interrupted the Doctor, “but we were thrown off long before that happened. Now that’s what I call luck!”

“The dragon exploded?” Rose asked in alarm, but the Doctor just brushed past her, overlapping her words with, “So the others have gone ahead, then? Brilliant! Shall we play a bit of catch-up?”

“That’s the plan,” Mickey replied, but his eyes kept darting to Rose’s face, as if he was trying to puzzle something out. (That made two of them, didn’t it?)

“Excellent, good plan, very astute.” The Doctor grabbed Rose by the hand and took off at a sprint, pulling her along. “Let’s go claim some wives, shall we!”

“Don’t forget, we’ve got more Champions to look out for as well!”

“That’s what makes it fun!” the Doctor shouted back at Mickey. “Now come along, Mr. Smith—we’ve got a Championship to win!”

***

“Where are they?” Vareem asked, chewing nervously on her lip as her hooves tapped an impatient tattoo on the citadel floor. Not that Dyana could hear it; the speakers had switched back on sometime in the last few minutes and now the chatter and cheers of the audience could be heard again, their voices bouncing around the walls of the citadel and the stadium and Dyana’s skull. Between that and the stream of Champions cycling through, screaming their victory through the speakers each time one of them slammed the great red button and claimed their prize, Dyana was about to claw her eardrums out.

“Shouldn’t Mickey be here by now?” Vareem continued. “Should we be worried?”

“Yeah, we should,” Dyana replied, peering down the mountainside. Several specks moved up the mountain, running their way, but they were still too far off for her to make out whether they were friend or foe.

Vareem dragged her hands through her hair. “What about one of your people, can they claim us?”

“If they haven’t all already come and gone, yeah, sure. But I think they all probably got out in the first wave.”

Rolling her eyes, Vareem groaned. “This was a really rubbish plan, you know that?”

“Yeah, well, next time someone tries to enslave us, you can come up with the plan. Okay?”

Vareem mumbled something under her breath, but beneath the overwhelming susurrus of the murmuring crowd, Dyana didn’t catch it; besides, she was too busy watching the approaching specks, now close enough that they were starting to take form. Those closest to her, she could identify as Rose and her friends—so Rose and her Doctor had survived after all, what a pleasant surprise for once—but the others closing in—

“Rose, behind you!” Dyana shouted, snatching the boomerang out of Vareem’s hands before she ran down the mountainside. She drew her arm back, ready to throw her weapon at the nearest Champion, but they had closed the gap and now this one was too close to the Doctor, that one was too close to Mickey, and more were coming, all of them focused on the two men.

“Take her!” said the Doctor, shoving Rose into Dyana’s arms before several Champions seized him by the arms and legs. The audience cheered all around them, clapping and howling as the Champions pinned the Doctor’s arms behind his back. “Get up to the citadel!” he shouted.

“What about you two?” Rose shot back.

“We’ll be fine—just go!”

Dyana yanked Rose away just before the Champions wrestled the Doctor to the ground, forcing Mickey down as well. One Champion withdrew a sword from its sheath and the audience roared.

“They’re gonna kill them!” Rose cried, pulling back, but Dyana just gritted her teeth and dragged her along.

“Oh, no you don’t!” she shouted, heaving Rose up the mountain with every ounce of her considerable strength. “I will be damned before I let this Championship claim another friend!”

“We’ve got company,” said Vareem the moment they hit the citadel; darting over to the other side of the floor, Dyana looked down the mountain to see yet more Champions rushing up toward them. Soon, they would be surrounded—

Soon they would all be claimed.

Next to her, Rose balled her hands into fists, watching frantically as Champions approached from all sides. “Do we fight?” she asked. “What do we do?”

She looked to Dyana for guidance, but Dyana’s thoughts were empty, her brain totally at a loss amidst the never-ending noise from the audience and their doom slowly encroaching upon them.

“I—I don’t know,” she said numbly, her voice barely audible over the audience. She’d half-expected to die in this Championship; she certainly had not planned to get this far, only to be captured now. “There’s no one else to claim us now, I don’t know, I don’t—”

“Wait, wait,” Vareem breathed, her face lighting up. “Oh, ladies. We’re all idiots.”

Before anyone could ask her what she meant, just as the audience began screaming for blood and glory while the first of the Champions crossed the citadel threshold with their weapons drawn, Vareem flew to the center of the room and hit the red button with a great big smack.

“We claim ourselves!” she shouted, and the speakers boomed her voice echoed throughout the arena, bouncing it over and over between the stadium walls. “We are our own Champions! We claim ourselves!”

The Champions stilled and the audience fell quiet around them. Silence descended with a thickness you could feel, a heaviness you could taste.

Dyana’s throat seized up, her breath trapped inside.

Did Vareem just—did she really—

“Oh my god,” Rose muttered, eyes wide in shock. “Did that actually work?”

Vareem gulped loudly. “Guess we’ll find out.”

***

Dinner takes place, at some point, somewhere. A grand hall, probably, but Rose is three swallows deep into her third (or fourth?) glass of so-called “ritual wine” and things are starting to get just the littlest bit blurry around the edges. Mostly she notices that the hall is packed full of people, and it’s loud, and there’s food, and a whole host of traditions accompanying it all. Each food item is laden with symbolic meaning, and eaten only after a session of chant-and-repeat, the entire dining hall buzzing with the rhythmic hum of people reciting scripture, lifting their faces toward the lightning scrawling overhead. Rose moves her lips along with everyone else, if only not to disrespect Uruud and the other Votaries, and after, she dutifully places the food into her mouth and chews and swallows, because it’s there, and she should, regardless of the protests of the seized-up beartrap that seems to have replaced her stomach. Probably some of the food she eats is tasty, and some of it isn’t. She doesn’t notice one way or the other.

(Uruud is kind enough to help Rose with her hair and makeup, styling both after the latest high Therran fashions, all gently sculptural curls and dew-glittering glaze painted on her skin. The whole process is so mirror-reminiscent of her time in France that Rose can’t decide whether to laugh or cry; in an effort to convince herself that she has, in fact, been rescued by the Doctor, and is not still somehow trapped millennia in the past surrounded by strangers and unknown customs and unspoken rules, she asks Uruud any and every question she can think of, and absorbs herself in their replies. She inquires about their choice to become a Votary (they were Called) and if they’ve got any family (two parents, three siblings) and the meaning of the ornamental dots on each Therran’s face (one dot for every Allstorm they’ve survived, according to tradition hearkening back to the ancient times, and with a smile, Uruud places a gem beneath Rose’s lower lip, gifting her with a temporary honorary badge of her own). Rose encourages them to speak until the words flow as freely as the wine outside, and privately takes comfort in the paint they brush over her skin. When they’re done, Rose’s collarbone sparkles as if covered with a necklace, her glitters as if topped with a tiara, and her back could almost sport a pair of wings glinting in the flashing light. It feels like a shield, a second skin, a mask, one that doesn’t slip even when Rose reunites with Mickey and the Doctor in the dining hall and the latter barely manages to spare her a glance.)

Downing the rest of her fourth (possibly fifth) glass of wine, Rose tries not to stare at Mickey and the Doctor, but it’s sort of difficult considering that they’re seated directly across from her. They both look quite sharp in their suits, tailored to perfection by talented Votaries, Rose assumes. (Distinctly tuxlike, their suits are; Rose wonders if they requested them specifically or if tuxes are just some sort of universal standard, somehow.) Between that and the Doctor’s customary chattiness, it isn’t long before most of the occupants of their table start leaning in to hear more from this fascinating couple, this charming Doctor fellow and his pretty-boy husband Mickey.

(Unfortunately, Rose suspects there’s nothing Uruud can do to help her with that particular mess.)

“And how did you two get together?” asks a friendly cat-person, ears swiveled forward in interest.

“He stole my girlfriend,” Mickey deadpans.

Clapping him on the back, the Doctor laughs. “Aww, what a sense of humor my beloved has!” he chuckles. “We did meet through Rose, actually—yes, that’s her right there, across the table, hullo Rose—but there was no romance involved. At least, not at first,” he adds with a wink sent Mickey’s way, and Rose struggles not to roll her eyes, or throw up, or both. “That’s all he meant. Isn’t that right, Honey Bear?”

“Sure is, Fudge Nugget.”

“See, Rose and I met through her workplace. You know how it goes, she’s closing up shop, you’re scheduled to do demolition on said shop, you run into each other on the lift in a classic meeting-your-future-husband’s-best-mate-meetcute. Instant friendship! Wouldn’t you say, Pootsy-Pie?”

“Whatever you say, Pudgy McGee.”

“Let’s just say Rose found me very charming, once upon a time,” the Doctor continues, “and Mickey here, feeling jealous that someone was encroaching on the territory of his best mate—that’s Rose, hullo again, Rose—well, he decided that he should find out what all this cattywhumpus was about, meet this Doctor bloke that Rose couldn’t stop raving over. And the rest, as they say, is history. Wouldn’t you agree, my little Muffin Top?”

“You got it, Sugar Tits.”

Rose watches as the Doctor chokes on his wine and Mickey pats him on the back perhaps just a little more enthusiastically than the situation warrants. The Doctor shoots him a teeth-gritted grin afterward and Mickey just smiles the universe’s most beatific serene smile. And that, for whatever reason, inspires Rose with a funny little thought.

“My dear Doctor,” she says sweetly, indulging in a delicate sip of her wine, “that’s all very good and well, but you must realize that isn’t actually what our friend here was asking. She wants to know about how the two of you became a couple.”

Rose locks eyes with him over the table, affecting a friendly smile. “She wants to know how the two of you fell in love.”

It’s doubtful that anyone else at the table registers the shadow that flickers over the Doctor’s face; it’s gone as soon as it appears, and the Doctor answers with barely a hitch.

“Well, I think I’ve hogged the spotlight long enough,” he says to Mickey. “Why don’t you tell them, my love?”

Mickey’s glee can barely restrain itself, oozing out the seams as he grins like a Cheshire cat. “Oh, no, my pet,” he says, planting his elbows on the table and his chin in both hands, watching the Doctor with adoring eyes, “I insist that you tell them. You do it so wonderfully, after all.”

“Thank you, sweetie,” replies the Doctor, his voice only a little strained as everyone aww’s around them, and Rose bites her lip to keep from laughing.

“So, that part of the story is—here we come to a part that’s—well, it’s a little difficult to know where to start, is all,” the Doctor says, tugging nervously on one ear. “It just feels like we’ve been in love for so long, you see, that it’s all sort of rolled together into one giant…love mass. Sort of like, y’know. The Thing or something.”

“Oh, stop that,” Rose laughs. “He’s just being shy,” she tells the rest of the table. “He doesn’t want any of you to know about all the late-night chats the two of us had together, with him just gushing on and on about how wonderful Mickey was, how handsome he is, how lucky the Doctor is to have him, all that.”

“Ah, that might be just the slightest smidge of an exaggeration—”

“No, no, go on,” Mickey says, his grin widening until his face might split from it. “Tell everyone how wonderful I am!”

“He’d wax poetical for hours about the beauty of Mickey’s eyes,” Rose says when the Doctor doesn’t reply.

“Can’t blame him, they’re quite nice,” Mickey adds.

“He’d talk about how safe and warm he felt in Mickey’s arms.”

“Front-row tickets to the gunshow, right here.”

“But by far, I think his very favorite thing about Mickey has always been his intellect,” Rose continues, choking down her laughter as the Doctor’s mouth purses thinner and thinner. “In fact, I used to stay up late reassuring him that, no, Mickey wasn’t too smart for him—”

“Aww, babe,” says Mickey, looping an arm around the Doctor’s shoulders.

“—but he just insisted that no matter how hard he tried, he’d never be Mickey’s intellectual equal,” Rose says, disguising her snickers as a cough. “In fact, after their first kiss, the Doctor called me straightaway to tell me—”

“His hands,” the Doctor blurts out, and everyone at the table turns back to him.

“Sorry?” asks the cat-person from earlier.

The Doctor doesn’t spare a glance for her; his eyes are locked squarely on Rose.

“Just—they’re nice hands,” the Doctor says, with a shrug. “Good for holding. That’s what it’s really all about, isn’t it? A hand to hold. Wouldn’t you say, Rose?”

She doesn’t reply; she’s too busy watching his fingers as they entwine with Mickey’s hand on his shoulder, and once again, the table lights up with the sounds of an audience enraptured, the cat-person pressing her paw to her chest at the cuteness of it all. The conversation starts again, picking up where it left off, but it’s all just white noise to Rose’s ears now as she watches Mickey and the Doctor resituate themselves to clasp their hands together atop the table, practically beneath Rose’s nose. The Doctor even finishes his dinner one-handed to accommodate the whole thing, eating and drinking with his left hand like he does it all the time, and it might all be terribly funny if his thumb wasn’t absentmindedly stroking over Mickey’s knuckle, the way it does with Rose.

The way it used to do.

Something about the mindless meaninglessness of the gesture sets klaxons blaring in Rose’s head, screaming at her for her stupidity, for ever thinking anything the Doctor did anything meaningful, for ever thinking she was anything more than a joke to him, just a joke, a joke, a worthless stupid joke and nothing he says ever means anything and you’re an idiot for ever thinking it did and the words ricochet around her skull over and over until she drowns it out with another glass of wine.

“Good stuff, isn’t it?” the Doctor asks cheerfully, and a second later, Rose realizes he’s talking to her. “Therran wine is quite lovely—when you’re not choking on it, anyway.”

The other occupants at the table laugh politely, nodding along.

“Just a tad potent, though,” the Doctor adds. “A few glasses is really all anyone needs. Everything in moderation, hm?”

He looks at Rose meaningfully, eyes darting to the glass in her hand. She wonders if he’s been keeping track of her intake this whole time, if he’s trying to say, in that stupid precious roundabout way of his, that she’s had enough, maybe more than. Probably the Doctor is right, but then again, probably if he thinks she should stop, then probably he should just come out and say it. She’s bloody well sick of all this dancing around.

With a serene smile of her own, Rose pours herself another glass. “Cheers to moderation,” she says, tilting the glass in a toast before she downs its contents in one gulp.

“Cheers!” shouts Mickey and everyone else along the table, following suit with their glasses clinking and wine-draining after, but the Doctor doesn’t drink, doesn’t cheer, doesn’t tear his eyes away from Rose. She forces herself to hold his gaze, wills her face to turn to stone so nothing can show through. If he can do it whenever he wants, then so can she.

“Well, aren’t we having a lovely time?” purrs a soft voice behind Rose, and she turns to see the scarlet-dressed woman from earlier, now swathed in a crimson gown so gorgeous it makes Rose’s eyes water. “Whatever is happening over here, it’s far more fascinating than the events transpiring at my table.”

“Ah, then you should join us!” declares the Doctor. “Not at the table, though. We were just leaving.”

The woman piques an immaculate eyebrow in interest. “Oh?” she says. “Leaving for where?”

“Yeah,” Mickey says, confused, and Rose’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “Leaving for where?”

“Not entirely sure yet, but I thought we might nose about a bit,” explains the Doctor, standing up from the table. “Get the lay of the land, go for the inside scoop, poke our beaks in where they aren’t wanted, so to speak. See what we can learn about this Allstorm business and why it’s suddenly taking place over the course of a month instead of a handful of days. The Votaries don’t seem to know anything, the computers are functionally worthless, and for the life of me I can’t seem to find any trace of the High Chauncery anywhere.”

Nodding, the woman frowns. “He has not been seen for many years now, it’s true,” she says slowly.

“Exactly. For all intents and purposes, he’s vanished, along with anyone else who might have a clue about what’s going on. It’s all just a little bit funny, don’t you think?”

In her peripheral vision, Rose sees Mickey trying to catch her eye—he’s alarmed at the Doctor’s sudden candor with this stranger, she knows. But Rose doesn’t share his gaze, or his worries. She knows exactly what the Doctor is doing, or what it feels like he’s doing, anyway, and she’s too busy sensing every ounce of the acid boiling up in her throat to weigh Mickey’s concerns.

“Oh, my,” the woman is saying now. “A conspiracy theory. How intriguing!”

“It is, at that. Would you care to join us?”

As if she can sense the daggers that Rose is glaring at the Doctor—or if she can see them, which, she probably can, Rose is fairly certain she’s being none-too-subtle at the moment—the woman glances between the two of them, hesitating. “I wouldn’t want to intrude…”

“Excellent,” Rose interjects, only wobbling a little bit as she stands up from the table. “We’ll just see you around, then—”

“Oh, nonsense, it’s no intrusion, none at all,” interrupts the Doctor, circling round the table so he can extend an elbow to the woman. “Shall we?”

Once again, the woman looks back at Rose (what, is she asking permission? Is she gloating?) before accepting the Doctor’s offer, threading her arm through his with a gracious “I think we shall.”

Without waiting for Rose (or even his supposed husband, for that matter), the Doctor takes off, arm-in-arm with the strange woman. Rose watches them as they stride away, her hands balling into fists. Nonplussed, Mickey turns around just long enough to offer Rose a confused shrug before he jogs after the Doctor and his newfound friend, or the latest thing that captured his five-second attention span, or whatever this woman is.

Sighing darkly, Rose swipes a bottle of wine off a passing tray and starts drinking.

 **

 Naami, as the woman introduces herself, soon proves herself to be quite charming (not two minutes after they’ve left the dining hall, and already Mickey and the Doctor are more relaxed than they’ve been all day) as well as delicately humorous (as evidenced by Mickey and the Doctor’s smiles and laughter, and not in that polite why you do with strangers at a party) not to mention annoyingly diplomatic (as proven by her continual attempts to rope Rose into the conversation, no matter how noncommittal Rose’s responding hums and grunts become). She’s also devastatingly insightful, if the Doctor’s eager conversation with her regarding Therran politics and society are anything to go by. In short, Naami turns out to be the sort of person that’s difficult to hate—which, of course, only makes you want to hate them all the more.

“So, Rose,” says Naami conversationally—as if the four of them aren’t creeping quietly through the Temple archives, as if the Doctor didn’t break them in with the sonic so he could hack into the information network, as if they aren’t all constantly swiveling at every tiny noise and every flash of light up above because what if it’s a guard this time?—“Far be it from me to eavesdrop, but even from my table, I heard quite a bit about your companions this evening, and very little of you. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

She shoots Rose a winning smile, perfect teeth framed by ideal sweetheart-shaped lips, and it lights up something somewhere in the dimming recesses of Rose’s alcohol-warmed brain. It occurs to her that this woman, this upper-class, gold-gilded, well-mannered prat, can probably smell an Estate girl from a hundred miles away, just like half the shrews at the French court before Reinette set them all to rights, or a shark scenting blood on the water. Any other day, Rose’s hackles might rise at the thought, but now, she just chuckles under her breath, swaying ever-so-slightly on her feet. What has she got to be ashamed of, what has she got to hide? It isn’t like she can make this woman’s opinion of her any worse, nor, at this point, would she even care if she did.

“Pretty general question. Why don’t you be more specific?” Rose asks, swigging from her bottle.

“All right. Where did you grow up?”

“A nice, big ol’ trash-heap in the middle of nowhere,” Rose replies brightly.

Mickey clucks his tongue disapprovingly. “Oh, come on, Rose. The Estate’s not that bad.”

“Sure it’s not, if you don’t mind a surplus of graffiti and crime and overflowing trash bins,” Rose shoots back. “Next question?”

The briefest flash of uncertainty flickers across Naami’s features before she tries again, her smile sliding back into place like it never left. “What inspired you to go traveling with Mickey and the Doctor?”

“Eh, you know how it is. Girl like me, you’ve got three options: the bloke who hits you, the bloke who cheats on you, or the bloke who promises you adventure and then up and changes his personality on you, dragging you around like so much baggage from star to star,” Rose counts off, steadfastly ignoring whether or not the Doctor reacts to any of the words streaming out of her mouth. “So I figure, hey, at least with the last option, I’m out of the house. Next?”

“Erm, very well, then,” says Naami, brow knitted in concern before she opts for what surely must seem like safe territory. “What about your friends, your significant other, your family? Tell me about them.”

“Sure thing,” Rose replies, downing another gulp of wine. “Which one would you like to hear about first—my single, lonely, unemployed mum, or my dead dad?”

“Jesus, Rose,” Mickey breathes, as Naami’s eyes widen with shock. Rose absolutely expects her to form that perfect mouth into the shape of a pout, her big beautiful eyes brimming with false tears as sublime and round as the most luxurious of pearls while she gently pats Rose’s hand, trying to hide her cringe as her delicate princess-skin comes into contact with such a low commoner, all while she murmurs some retch-worthy patronizing claptrap about Oh, you poor thing, you poor wretched little thing, no wonder these generous two men took such pity on you, no wonder you’re all alone.

Rose nearly jumps out of her skin when Naami gently grasps her shoulder instead. “My gods, I’m so sorry,” Naami says quietly, and—and is Rose imagining things, or does she look like she actually means it? “Was it—was it very recent?”

Taken aback, Rose stammers, searching for words, but Naami just shakes herself. “Oh, of course, I’m so sorry, my dear; of course you don’t want to talk about such things with a stranger,” she says. “I only thought to ask because you seemed unusually out-of-sorts for someone attending the Allstorm celebration, and stupid me, I’m nosy even on the best of days and that just makes it even more of a problem with the attraction to emotionally unavailable people—but you didn’t ask about all that, I’m sorry, I’m babbling!”

She takes Rose’s free hand in both of hers, and she looks so sincere, so bleeding earnest, that Rose can’t help but believe her. “Please forgive my impudence,” Naami says, “and please accept my condolences for you and your mother. What a dreadful thing to happen. I’m really so sorry, darling.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Naami,” the Doctor pipes up, typing away at a computer terminal and frowning when he doesn’t like what he sees. “It happened a long time ago.”

“Yeah,” Rose replies, her voice shaking. “Why be upset about that when there are so many more current things to be angry about?”

The clickety-clack of the Doctor’s fingers over the keyboard grows a little louder, his fingers tapping the keys just a little harder. “Or perhaps you could retire for the night, stop drinking for five entire minutes.”

“Oi, now, am I gonna have to separate you two?” Mickey jokes feebly, but Rose ignores him.

“Why, what’s wrong, Doctor?” she asks. “Am I embarrassing you?”

“You’re embarrassing yourself,” is the quiet reply.

Shame floods through Rose, leaving her lightheaded. Distantly, she hears Mickey snapping at the Doctor, hears the anger in his voice as he leaps to her defense, but she can’t hear his actual words over the sound of her blood rushing in her ears; she can only feel the hot anger of them, and the cool nothingness of the Doctor’s nonexistent reply. Rose’s cheeks burn and her stomach churns and she feels like she might be sick.

“Actually, I could do with a bit of a rest myself,” Naami tells Rose, her well-manicured hands fidgeting nervously. “Would you like company on your walk back, Rose?”

“No, ta,” says Rose tiredly, avoiding looking Naami in the eye; it’s exhausting to be so wrong about so many things all in one day, and she’s not quite ready to admit to herself that Naami may actually be a decent person, that maybe she lashed out at her without reason. Just another thing to make her want to curl up into herself like a pillbug until she dries out on the front porch, nothing but a hollow little husk left behind. “Don’t worry. He’s all yours.”

She leaves before anyone can stop her, skirts gathered in one hand, wine bottle in the other. Before too long, she finds her room again and slips out of her shoes, leaving them behind her as she walks, like the world’s most pathetic drunken Cinderella. She wonders if it’s midnight, yet, if her carriage will poof back into a pumpkin and her gown return to rags.

(Certainly no prince will come calling after her, not after the way she behaved tonight.)

Climbing into bed with her illicit treasure, Rose drinks until her eyes won’t stay open any longer.

 ***

“Is this normal?” Mickey asks under his breath.

Rose watches the Doctor as he wanders off, chattering loudly to no one in particular, and she tries to ignore the sick feeling bubbling up in her chest, the hurt aching in her gut. It’s just because she didn’t sleep well last night, she reasons. For all that she had dreamed of being back aboard the TARDIS, snuggling into her bed replete with plush foam and soft blankets and squishy pillows, she slept absolutely dreadfully. Probably she’d just got used to the hard and unforgiving beds back at the palace; certainly the lack of sleep can’t be blamed on anything else. Or anyone, for that matter.

Great fat rain droplets smack against her head like a dozen tiny missiles and Rose wipes water out of her face, deploying her umbrella with a sigh. “No,” she replies. “This is new.”

“Did something happen last night?”

“No. Nothing happened.”

Rose knows Mickey doesn’t believe her, would be able to tell by his suspicious silence even if she couldn’t see the eyebrow arching off his forehead, but mercifully, he doesn’t press for more. Instead, he proffers his arm to Rose, standing ramrod-straight like he’s posing for a school formal photo. He would look a little silly even if his umbrella wasn’t covered in bright yellow smiley faces.

“C’mon, babe,” he says in response to her questioning look. “Let’s go for a stroll and you can tell me all about your adventures back in fancypants France.”

Rose smiles despite herself. “Are you sure you’d rather hear about that than whatever thrilling greenhouse trivia the Doctor’s throwing our way?”

“Nah, we’ll just make sure to toss a few uh-huh’s and oh how fascinating’s his way every once in a while.”

Threading her arm through his, Rose laughs.

 **

 “…and here it is!” announces the Doctor, several thousand steps and two grumpy and wet-shoed humans later. The trail stops at an impressive, five-meter tall wall, rainbow-bismuth-colored and extending as far as the eye can see in either direction; the Doctor presents it all with a flourish of his umbrella. “The main attraction, the big to-do, the pièce de résistance—the grand Temple of the High Chauncery, perfect for viewing Therran Vox’s universe-renowned celebration of transient luminous events!”

He turns to Rose and Mickey with a wide grin, only to be met by a pair of identical blank stares. “Oh, come on,” says the Doctor, undeterred. “Mickey, you must have heard me mention the High Chauncery’s luminous wassail at least once!”

“Pretty sure I’ve never heard any of those words in my life,” Mickey replies flatly.

“So what’s a transient luminous event?” asks Rose. “I mean, luminous—that means light, right?”

“Right you are,” the Doctor replies, and is Rose just imagining it, or does he meet her gaze even less than usual? “The term refers to electrical phenomena produced during a thunderstorm.”

“So, lightning,” says Mickey, unimpressed.

“Well, yes, if you want to be reductive,” the Doctor responds, rolling his eyes. “But it’s not just lightning, it’s spectacular lightning. Like I said, phenomenal. Lots of worlds experience it, Earth included, but on most planets the events flash by so quickly, so high in the atmosphere, that you can’t observe them with the naked eye. That’s what makes the storms on Therran Vox so special; the chemical composition of the atmosphere here makes for an event that’s far more visible. You can catch the light show in all its glory, from front-row seats! Nothing quite like it in the universe, but why would I tell you when I can just show you?”

He raps his knuckles against the gate wall and a small round window opens in the metallic surface, a liquid movement like oil springing away from soap. A humanoid face appears on the other side, her eyes a fascinating multicolor, her forehead bedecked in rows of ornamental dots.

“Invitation?” the owner of the face inquires.

The Doctor produces the psychic paper from his jacket-pocket. “Sir Doctor and his traveling companions, Dame Tyler and Majordomo Smith of the Powell Estate,” he says rather grandly, “here to view some of the universe’s finest luminescent theatre!”

“Of course, your Grace,” replies the gatekeeper, peering at the psychic paper through the rain. She turns around and issues a curt nod to her comrade (another humanoid, another set of ornamental dots), and the window in the wall slowly opens up, widening by inches into a round doorway.

“Your timing is most fortuitous, sir—all of the other guests have already arrived, and we’re closing the outer shield any moment now,” the gatekeeper continues. “Per your itinerary, the first ritual doesn’t take place until the morning, but that gives you the evening to settle in and enjoy the first stirrings of the storm. In the meantime, Votary Uruud here will give you a quick tour through the Temple before showing you to your quarters, and we’re happy to take your luggage for you as well—”

“Sorry, sorry,” says the Doctor, his eyebrow arching in confusion. “Our quarters?”

“Our luggage?” asks Mickey under his breath.

“Yes, Sir Doctor, your quarters. For the duration of the event.”

The Doctor blinks. “The duration of the event,” he repeats, his eyebrow arching further.

“For the month, sir.”

The Doctor’s eyebrow has now arched so high it’s in danger of disappearing into his hairline. “Right,” he says. “The month-long ritual. The month-long ritual storm celebration. The month-long ritual storm celebration for which we are totally, completely, and utterly prepared. With luggage and toiletries and things. For a month.” He tugs on one ear. “Except—”

“Oh, silly us!” Rose interrupts, throwing her hands up in mock-surprise. “We left all of our things back at our ship!”

“Yes, quite!” the Doctor agrees. “So we’ll just run back and grab it all, shall we?”

Rose and Mickey nod vigorously.

Glancing at each of them, the gatekeeper’s face wrinkles in concern. “Forgive my impudence, your Graces, but it’s too late to turn back now. You won’t reach your ship before the Allstorm arrives.”

“The Allstorm?” Mickey asks, incredulous even as rain dodges his umbrella to splatter against his cheek. Rose elbows him in the ribs and he clears his throat. “I mean, of course, the Allstorm!” he laughs nervously. “I know what that is. Sure, why not?”

“Thanks for the warning, but we’ll take our chances,” says the Doctor. “Bit of rain will do us more good than harm.”

“Please, your Graces, I must protest—the blessed High Chauncery is a generous man and will supply you with all that you could need. You mustn’t remain outdoors any longer, it’s not safe—”

No sooner has the Doctor turned to leave than a great bolt of lightning splits open the sky, followed by a blast of thunder so violent it shakes the ground beneath everyone’s feet, their ears ringing after. Looking skyward, Rose can’t help but notice that the formerly friendly-looking clouds appear significantly more ominous now, less fluffy-pink and more threatening-red and heavy with rain. They cluster overhead, slowly blocking out the sun, and Rose watches as the world is painted crimson around them. She suddenly thinks of Sunday school, of pharaohs and plagues and endless night, of storms that send blood pouring from the skies and swelling in the rivers. She shudders.

Another barrage of thunder strikes, so loud Rose can feel it in her bones, rattling her teeth. The Doctor heaves an impatient sigh. “Our quarters it is, then,” he says reluctantly.

The gatekeeper beams at him. “Oh, very good, sir. Thank you, sir. Welcome to the High Chauncery’s Temple of the Allstorm!”

 **

 While the storm rages overhead, its searing white lightning and murderous clouds all-too-visible through a ceiling that, to all appearances, seems to be made of a thick stained glass, Votary Uruud leads the Doctor, Rose, and Mickey on a tour of the opulent beauty that is the Temple. They show the party through a marble-lined courtyard into a veranda replete with columns and overflowing in ornamental greenery and other Votaries carrying a generous surplus of niblets on trays. Mickey and Rose inspect the food eagerly, sampling things spicy and salty, sugary and sweet; Rose tries not to notice how the Doctor, strangely, avoids all of the niblets altogether. The veranda opens to a garden lush with flora of every color imaginable, vibrant vermillion and stunning cobalt and brilliant fuschia and everything in-between. Some of the flowers bloom as large as dinner plates, others as small as thimbles, and Rose watches in fascination as each of them slowly turn their faces toward the sky, almost as if they’re looking for the storm, like they can sense it.

“They’re lumosynthetic,” the Doctor murmurs to Rose. “They’ve evolved to feed off light from any source, even lightning in a storm. You should see them when the real storm starts.”

She nods in response, and wonders at how he doesn’t lean in nearly as close as usual, how he draws away so much quicker.

The garden leads to a chamber of swimming pools nearly identical to the perfectly round lakes outside, save that their water glows with the otherworldy light of bioluminescent algae. At Uruud’s gentle urging, Rose and Mickey each dip a hand into the water and delight at the glow that dances across their skin, lingering in a smattering of ghostly footprints several moments after leaving the pool.

In addition to the wonders that call the Temple home, Rose, Mickey, and the Doctor also encounter other guests as they dutifully follow Uruud, people of all shapes and shades and sizes, everyone from other Therrans to bird-people with special goggles to fish-people with special suits to upright rhinoceri and even a group of New Earth’s cat folk, though thankfully, Rose notes, none of them appear to be nuns. Almost all of the Therrans bear the same dots on their faces as Uruud and the gatekeeper, all in different numbers and configurations. One such woman, a gorgeous figure clad in a semisheer gold and scarlet gown with facial markings to match, watches them from the safety of her richly-clad party, her eyes lingering on the Doctor long after he walks by.

(Half a year ago, Rose would have threaded her arm through the Doctor’s and shot the woman a dagger-filled glance until she drew back in surprise, would have done it without even thinking. Now she just bites her lip and silently wishes for the woman to slip on a banana-peel.)

As they pass through the menagerie afterward, peering through latticework enclosures at a host of incredible creatures (winged lizards and scaled mammoths and jewel-skinned snakes, oh my), Rose starts to notice the walls around them—wide as they are, and as full as the space is between them, it’s sort of difficult to tell, but she could almost swear they were curved. In fact, she thinks, stepping closer so she can fit her palm to one wall’s smooth surface, she would be willing to bet that all the rooms in the Temple are built this way, round-walled and circular like the lakes outside.

“It’s like a ripple,” she realizes aloud when the party reaches the entertainment library, whose walls are lined with curving shelves that are not packed with books or movies so much as hundreds upon hundreds of glowing white orbs.

“Beg pardon?” asks Votary Uruud with a polite small.

“The Temple. It’s built like a ripple, isn’t it?”

Uruud’s smile brightens into something genuine then. “It is indeed, your Grace!”

“You’re not wrong,” says the Doctor thoughtfully. “The Temple is made up of a series of concentric rings, each split into different chambers for different purposes. The deeper into the Temple you go, the smaller and more important the chambers become—entertainment and feasting and grand ritual gives way to spaces of study, sleep, work, and personal worship.”

He pauses for a moment, musing. “And with the glass ceiling exposing everything to the gods above, I’d imagine you’re right—from a bird’s-eye view, the structure would look just like a ripple. Well-spotted, Rose.”

“Your Graces are most observant,” says Uruud, beaming at each of them in turn. “Although few are as resplendent as the High Chauncery’s Temple, each of the Allstorm Temples is inspired by the form of water in honor of They Who Provide.”

“Who’s that? Like a bunch of gods?” Mickey asks, interest piqued.

“They are one god,” Uruud replies, and then, continuing in much the same fashion as someone reciting an oft-spoken Bible verse, “for just as our gods cannot be tamed by earthly will, neither can man nor woman tame the form of water.”

Confused, Rose and Mickey both turn to the Doctor. “They Who Provide is the genderless water god,” he explains. “Our hosts don’t really adhere to a binary the same way you lot tend to. Gender isn’t assigned at birth, but rather chosen at the coming-of-age. You choose one or the other, or both, or neither, and you can change it at any time.”

“So which one did you choose?” Mickey asks Uruud. “If that’s not a rude question or anything,” he adds hurriedly.

“I follow in the footsteps of They Who Provide,” replies Uruud, bowing their head in deference.

“So, like, do you have a special party for it, or something? Like a bar mitzvah?”

Uruud laughs, quickly sobering after. “Forgive me, your Graces! I’m merely surprised—even though the Temple receives a great many honored guests for each Allstorm, most of them seem to prefer the delights of our leisure chambers and pleasure rituals rather than inquire after our ways. Storm bless them, but…”

“Let me guess,” Rose cuts in with a grin. “They’re all either snooty prigs, entitled prats, or insufferable know-it-alls who love telling you how to do your job?”

“Oh, I would never dare besmirch the name of our honored guests,” replies Uruud, the very picture of politeness even as a spark of mirth twinkles in their eyes. “But I also wouldn’t dare argue with the wise words of such an honored guest, either.”

“Of course not,” Rose replies, tapping the side of her nose.

A chirping sound fills the air then, and Uruud lifts their wrist to check their watch (or at least Rose assumes it’s a watch, though she imagines they probably call it a timekeeper or something fancy like that). “And now, your Graces, I must assume my other duties for the evening,” says Uruud. “However, I would be happy to show you to your quarters first!”

They rap their knuckles on a blank patch of wall, just like the Doctor did earlier, and just like before, a round doorway opens up, widening like a mouth. Uruud steps through, Mickey following after; the Doctor pauses, however, so Rose does as well. She watches him as he stares up through the ceiling, his hands tucked in his pockets, his brow wrinkled in deep consideration.

Rose draws a deep breath. All right. They’re alone, now. Just the two of them. No big deal. They can still be normal. Right?

“Penny for your thoughts?” Rose prompts.

The Doctor’s eyes narrow at a particularly bright arc of lightning dancing overhead. “I’m still mulling over what the gatekeeper said. For the duration of the event, for the month. But I checked and double-checked the TARDIS chronometer before we stepped out, and this is the wrong time of year for the Allstorm, I’m sure of it. I wanted to show you two the sights, to be sure, but this isn’t quite what I had in mind. It’s like trying to buy a dog and receiving a coyote instead. I wouldn’t have brought us here if I’d known…”

Sighing, he shakes his head. “At any rate, why would so many people willingly lock themselves up in one building for an entire month? Spectacular lightning-show or no, that’s a dreadfully long time to be cooped up in the same building.”

“Well, Uruud mentioned other stuff too, pleasure rituals and whatnot,” Rose points out. An unfortunate thought pops into her head and her eyes widen in alarm. “Oh god, that’s not like a fertility ritual or forced-mating thing, is it?”

“What? No!” laughs the Doctor. “It’s just regular ol’ fun, sanctioned by the god of your choice. Feasts and plays and weddings and galas and drinking a little too much of the holy libations, that sort of thing. An Allstorm is always an excuse for celebration.”

“Even if it’s taking place at the wrong time?”

“Even if.” The Doctor quiets then, suddenly thoughtful. “Still, though. An entire month? Granted, it’s been a few decades since my last visit. Not to mention, they don’t call it the Allstorm for nothing—it covers the whole planet, wrapping all of Therran Vox in a brilliant display of water and light. But you’re talking about something that lasts a few days, a week, tops. Certainly not a whole month!”

“Well, I’m sure Uruud would be happy to tell us more about it, if we asked,” Rose suggests. “Maybe it’s a one-off thing, or—I don’t know, maybe things are just different now.”

The Doctor’s gaze shifts to her, and Rose could swear a shadow flickered across his face for just the briefest second. If she didn’t know any better, she would say it looked a little like sadness. Or worse, resignation.

“Yep,” he says, his voice clipped even as he smiles. “You’re probably right.”

Rose frowns. It feels like something just happened, like she just said the wrong word and the Doctor shuttered the gates after, but she can’t put her finger on it, and the Doctor hardly seems in the mood to help. He brushes past her without another word, following after Mickey and Uruud through the round doorway, hands firmly tucked in his pockets.

Worrying her lower lip between her teeth, Rose lingers for a moment after, wondering. Guilt and frustration bubble up in her gut, churning in equal measure. Is this just how it’s going to be between them, now? Awkward and distant and stiff, and forever?

(How the hell is she supposed to fix this?)

 **

 “My sincerest apologies,” says Uruud, frowning as they peruse the screen of their wristwatch. The light from the screen bathes their face in a gentle blue, highlighting their dots in stark relief. “I’m so sorry, but I cannot seem to find your names in the database. I can only think the electrical interference from the Allstorm is affecting our information network…”

“Oh, it’s no worries,” replies the Doctor with a breezy wave of the hand. “Just chuck a few rooms our way, any rooms will do.”

“Of course, sir. I have two rooms available; will that suit the needs of your party?”

“If you need additional space,” calls a soft voice behind them, smooth and silken, “I would be delighted to share.”

Rose and the Doctor turn to see the red-and-gold woman from before, her immaculately-painted crimson mouth spread in a beatific smile, and god, she’s even more beautiful up close. Voluminous black hair, eyes as blue as lapis, features that couldn’t be more perfect if they’d been chiseled by a master sculptor; Rose can’t blame the woman for being so beautiful, or showcasing it so well (how can she, when even she can’t tear her eyes away?), but the self-assurance she projects, the confidence in her gait as she strolls up to their party, looking the Doctor up and down, makes something burn in Rose’s chest, twisting and growling like a tiny little green-eyed beast. This, Rose thinks, is a woman who has received everything she has ever wanted, and has no doubts now that anything else she wants will soon be hers as well.

And then there’s the fact that the Doctor hasn’t said anything to rebuff her, and Rose fumes, and worries, and wonders if—

"He’s taken,” she blurts out.

In her periphery, Rose sees the Doctor glance her way, his expression unreadable. The woman, however, offers her an imperious look that she knows all too well. Her gaze travels over Rose, appraising. Rose is suddenly very aware of what she must look like right now, all damp jeans and dripping umbrella and shoes squelching with mud. But she didn’t spend half a year in the French court for nothing; she draws herself up to her full height, chin up, and looks the woman square in the eye, offering a sly smile.

“Thank you for your kind offer, but I’m afraid we can’t accept,” Rose says, the words falling into place like the dials on a slot machine. “See, he’s married—”

“To Mickey!” the Doctor interrupts with a mad grin.

Now it’s Rose’s turn to stare.

What?

The Doctor just beams at the noblewoman, his smile gigawatt-bright. Rose turns to Mickey for help, for a dose of sanity, for anything, but he can’t offer anything useful; he’s too busy looking surprised.

“Ah, it feels like it was just yesterday,” the Doctor says wistfully, looping an arm around Mickey’s shoulders. “Quite possibly because it was just yesterday. It’s all still very new, you see. Bit of a whirlwind affair. Almost completely unexpected. But the heart wants what the heart wants. Isn’t that right, Peaches?”

“Erm,” says Mickey.

“And we thought, what better place to honeymoon than Therran Vox during the Allstorm?” continues the Doctor. “I wanted a trip to Barcelona, personally, but I just can’t say no to this face.” He tenderly pinches Mickey’s chin and Mickey looks very much like he wouldn’t mind being swallowed up by the floor right about now. “He’s a dreadful romantic, my Mickey.”

“Peaches?” Mickey asks, voice faint.

“We’re still figuring out the pet names,” the Doctor whispers conspiratorially to the noblewoman, and Rose fights the urge to roll her eyes, or stomp her foot, or maybe to scream. “Like I said, it’s all very new. But we’re very much in love, isn’t that right?”

Mickey shoots Rose an uncertain look, and the Doctor tightens his arm around Mickey’s shoulders until he yelps in surprise. “So in love, right, darling?”

“So in love it’s almost unbelievable,” Mickey replies through a teeth-gritted smile.

“So in conclusion, my dove and I would be more than happy to share a room,” the Doctor finishes.

“Very good, sir,” replies Uruud, relief washing over their face. “Now, if you’ll just follow me, we’ll get you settled in!”

“Anyway, thanks again for the generous offer!” the Doctor calls back to the red-and-gold woman as he follows Uruud down the corridor. Mickey trails after the two of them in something of a daze, as if he still can’t quite believe what’s going on. Rose can’t say she blames him. She’s having a little trouble processing it all herself.

(So is she just supposed to pretend that everything is normal, then, except when the Doctor starts to feel flighty? Five and a half months she waits for him, she waits, and at the end of it he’ll shout and then fall silent and then act all remorseful, he’ll insult Rose and then apologize and then, out of nowhere, apropos of nothing, grab her and kiss her, not six hours after he was ready to jump through that window and leave her and Mickey stranded, not six hours after he was kissing another woman? And then after all that, the mood swings and the almost-confessions and the bullshit refusal to discuss anything that truly matters, and now he’s the one pushing her away? And what, is Rose just supposed to accept it, roll with the punches, fall in line like a good little tin soldier? She’s just supposed to stand there and take it?)

The guilt from earlier subsides, a tide drawing back to reveal a shore littered in broken shells and bits of glass and something black and sticky, an oil spill slowly staining the sand.

“Rose?” Mickey calls from down the corridor, stopping to wait for her.

Hands balled into fists, Rose follows after them, wondering how her day could possibly get any worse.

***

Next Part (forthcoming)

Trainers squeaking against the ramp, the Doctor sprinted toward the TARDIS doors. “Well, this is it, Mr. Smith,” he said, placing his hands on the door handles. “Out into the unknown!” He drank in a deep breath and flung the doors open. The Doctor and Mickey stepped out into the stadium, Mickey throwing up an arm to shield his eyes from the bright lights shining overhead. In-person, the Doctor could indeed confirm that the arena had been terraformed into a mountainous landscape, but it was more than that—aside from the sloping hills and jutting rocks, it had an almost theme-park feel to it, complete with tinny music, plaster trees, cheesy fake castle-ruins, and at the far end, a giant, towering mountain crowned with a white citadel that could have been airlifted right off the top of Cinderella’s castle in Disneyworld. The arena looked, for all the world, like a glorified sword-and-sorcery film set. To top it all off, the entire stadium was surrounded by five-meter-high slick white walls, upon which were mounted giant speakers, huge floodlights, and dozens of cameras. And just back from those walls, a massive audience—thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands, if the Doctor were to venture a guess—sat protected behind black one-way screens. The Doctor wondered at that. The population of Hohm was quite small by most planets’ standards—it would be a stretch to say that it had five thousand people between all its habitable continents. So who were all of these audience members? And what was the story behind this entertainment technology? He hadn’t seen so much as a simple electric light back in town—where did all of this technology come from, and why didn’t more Hohmish people have it? “Well, at least no one’s seen us yet, right?” Mickey piped up behind him. As if on cue, a horn boomed out through the speakers and Mickey and the Doctor found themselves smack in the center of a pair of spotlights. The audience surrounding them began to boo and hiss, their shouts filling the stadium and bouncing off the walls. “Just had to say it, didn’t you?” the Doctor muttered before grabbing Mickey by the wrist. “Come on!” “It looks like we’ve got us some stowaways, ladies and gentlefolk and sundry!” an announcer boomed overhead as the Doctor and Mickey darted over the uneven earth. “Security experts are telling me we have no idea how they smuggled their aircraft inside—stay tuned for updates on whether they keep their jobs after this! In the meantime, we’re waiting on the final word from City Council on whether or not their entries will be disqualified…” “What happens if we’re disqualified?” Mickey asked. “Wellll, they’ll probably kill us on the spot.” “What?” “Oh, come on, Mickey!” the Doctor shouted back gleefully. “This is the stuff adventures are made of!” Leaping over a grassy knoll, the Doctor was pleasantly surprised at how well Mickey was keeping up with him as they both ran nearly side-by-side, legs and arms pumping in mad unison. Had Mr. Smith been practicing? The two of them scrambled up a set of steps carved into a hill, at the summit of which stood a flag flapping lazily in the breeze. It looked like a marker of some sort—the Doctor was willing to bet they would find the captives waiting for them on the other side. “All right,” the Doctor yelled, “We should find Rose at the bottom of the hill. All we have to do is nab her, then we can split back to the TARDIS and soar on out of here. Easy-peasy!” But when they reached the hill’s crest, and gazed down at the stone plinth and pillars below, the Doctor just stopped. And stared. It was empty. The captives’ area—which it most definitely was, there was nothing else it could be, not unless the city council had set up a stone platform and two dozen chain-covered stone pillars for kicks—was completely deserted, its former inhabitants gone without a trace. The pillars’ chains dangled limply where people should be. “What?” Mickey gasped out, eyes wide in disbelief. “Where the hell’s Rose?” The Doctor scoured the surrounding area for any clue, any hint, even a shred of a splinter of a shadow of an idea, but he came up empty. “I don’t know,” he murmured, panic thudding dully in his throat.

***

A few moments earlier…

“—a return to tradition!” The crowd erupted in a frenzy of noise once again, stomping and cheering and clapping and shouting, and if nothing else, Rose wished her hands were free so that she could cover her ears. The din was so loud, it reverberated in her chest, pressing against her eardrums and ringing in her teeth. It even rattled the chains holding her captive. She screwed her eyes shut against the overwhelming sound. It will be all right, she reminded herself, straining to hear her own thoughts over the relentless screaming. This was an adventure just like any other. The Doctor had saved her from much worse scrapes than this—hell, she’d managed to save herself a time or two. She was going to be fine. Rose chanced a look over at Dyana, chained to the pillar next to her. Dyana flashed her an encouraging smile. “It’ll be all right!” she shouted, or possibly mouthed—it was impossible to tell with all the noise, but Rose appreciated the sentiment all the same. Dyana was right, more right than she knew. If her plan didn’t work, then the Doctor would save them; it was only a question of whether he would save them now, in the stadium, or later after everything had settled down. It would hardly be the first forced marriage he’d saved Rose from, after all. Rose just needed to be patient. She believed that wholeheartedly until the dragon soared overhead. Mouth falling open, Rose shook her head, growing dizzy with disbelief. But surely it couldn’t be real…? A hush fell over the crowd, blanketing the stadium with terrified silence. Rose could only think everyone else was just as shocked as she was—everything she’d seen and she still couldn’t trust her eyes. Huge and scaled and powerfully muscled, with great bat’s-wings casting massive tremors through the air after every stroke, the dragon bore a massive pair of horns atop its head, setting off lines of dinosaur-ridges down its back. Its great scaly flanks glistened scarlet, its eyes flashed golden, and its wicked claws glittered black. The creature looked like something straight out of a movie or a storybook, except none of those beasts ever looked so huge or so capable of tearing a human apart as if they were made of tissue paper. The dragon passed overhead and out of sight, toward the far end of the stadium, where Rose knew the Champions awaited the start of the pre-games. Seconds later, the arena shook with the force of an earth-shattering roar. “Well, that wasn’t so bad,” said Rose, her voice trembling only a little bit. “Maybe its bark is worse than its—” Dozens of screams drifted their way, ear-splitting shrieks cut-off mid-sound. Then, silence again. “—bite,” Rose finished in a whisper, feeling the blood drain from her face. “Well, would you look at that,” the announcer’s voice boomed overhead, and even he sounded shaken. “The pre-games have barely begun, and we’re already down four Champions. Nothing but ashes, ladies and gentlefolk and others. Now that’s what I call efficient!” “But it won’t hurt us, right?” Vareem shouted over the swelling sound of the audience around them. “Not like the city would let anything happen to the prizes—right?” Dyana did not answer, her eyes fixed toward the far end of the stadium. She was waiting, Rose knew, and probably had little attention to spare for anything or anyone else. “They did say this year was a return to tradition,” Rose realized aloud. “What were these things like in the past?” Now it was Vareem’s turn to go pale. Amidst more screams from the Champions and more cheers from the audience, Rose frantically scanned the stadium for any sign of the Doctor, but there was no flash of blue, no hint of engines vworp-vworping into existence. But surely he was looking for her. He had to be. He wouldn’t have just stranded her on a strange planet after their fight, right? Certainly he wouldn’t have abandoned her? (Right, and he wouldn’t abandon her on a spaceship in the 51st-century, either.) “Forget this,” Rose muttered as the voice overhead announced two more deaths-by-dragon. Wrists struggling against her chains, pulling so hard that she was sure to find bruises there later, she reached into her hair and pulled out two hairpins. Twisting her arms, she just managed to insert a hairpin into one of her manacles. “What are you doing?” Dyana hissed. “That’s not part of the plan!” “Yeah, well, last I checked, dragons weren’t a part of the plan either,” Rose shot back. She jiggled the hairpins about, straining to hear the tumblers inside while remembering Keisha’s instructions on one of several youthful-indiscretion-filled evenings back at the Estate. Rose grinned like a madwoman when she felt one of the tumblers click into place. “Besides,” she said, panting with exertion, “what good is a plan if you can’t improvise a little?” The dragon screeched out another deafening roar, shaking the ground beneath their feet. “Sod the plan,” said Vareem. “Do me next!”

***

A few moments later…

“Did someone already take her?” Mickey asked. Scrutinizing the land around them, the Doctor shook his head. “No,” he murmured. “None of the so-called Champions have made it this far yet.” “How do you know?” The Doctor pointed to the mountain towering at the end of stadium. “That’s where everyone is headed—the citadel up top is where competitors have to take their prize and claim it. So it’s a fair bet the pre-games took place at the opposite end—” the Doctor pointed back the way they came, “—that way.” “And ours are the only footprints coming from that direction,” Mickey realized aloud, glancing at the ground beneath their feet. “Exactly. Good eye.” “So what happened to all the captives?” “I’m guessing that one way or the other, the captives are all headed straight for the citadel right now,” the Doctor said, speaking to himself just as much as Mickey as he retraced their steps back up the hill. “Our best bet would be to get back to the TARDIS and try to pick them up before—” He froze. Several dozen hooded Champions dotted the landscape between them and the TARDIS. Several dozen hooded Champions with bows and arrows, boomerangs and spears and swords. Several dozen hooded Champions with an assortment of deadly weapons and a bone to pick with the two sneak-in contestants. One of them let out a shout, brandishing his weapon high in the air, and charged for Mickey and the Doctor. The rest followed. “Right, new plan,” said the Doctor. “Run!”

***

The freed captives sprinted toward the mountain, dozens of pairs of slippered feet slapping frantically against the rocky earth. “So your people won’t panic if they don’t find us back there, right?” Rose asked. “They’ll figure it out,” Dyana gasped as she ran, her skirts hiked up and flapping about her knees. “We just need to make it as close to the top of the mountain as we can. My people will find us and claim everyone who doesn’t want to be a bride-prize!” “And if the Doctor gets there first, he can just claim all of us.” “Right. But he’ll set us free afterward, won’t he?” “Absolutely,” Rose shot back. She thought of the look on the Doctor’s face when he found out he’d just been saddled with twenty-something wives, and she laughed. “You’ve got nothing to worry about!” “Except for the other Champions,” Vareem pointed out, casting a worried look over her shoulder. Just at that moment, almost as if they’d only been waiting for someone to say it, several hooded Champions came hurtling out from behind the trees. One of them pounced on Vareem, slapping a golden chain on her wrist before she had a chance to react. A horn sounded overhead. “Our first prize has been claimed, honored guests!” the announcer’s voice boomed over the arena. “Let’s see if he can keep her!” Another Champion seized a captive and the horn sounded once again. “Shona!” Dyana called out in dismay, only to see Shona squeal with delight when her captor tore off her hood. The horse-woman pulled Shona in for a quick kiss and she happily responded in kind. “True love, gentle viewers!” the announcer shouted. “Always warms the soul to see two sweethearts reunited in the arena!” “It’s all right!” Shona told Dyana and Rose as she ran past them, hand-in-hand with her captor—or her girlfriend, rather, Rose told herself. “Keep going!” “Well, that’s actually sort of sweet, isn’t it?” Rose laughed, and Dyana nodded in agreement. They reached the base of the mountain, and both of them darted up after Vareem and her would-be Champion. Vareem struggled against the chain that bound her to him, kicking and pulling back with all her strength. The Champion struggled to hold onto her, but his feet were steady and his grip true. “Hang on, Vareem!” Dyana called out. “We’re coming for—” Her shout was sliced in half by something hurtling straight into her, knocking her into the ground. Rose whipped round just in time to see a giant boomerang bouncing off Dyana and zipping back to its Champion, who ran forward and slapped a chain on Dyana’s wrist. “Dyana!” Rose cried, halting in her tracks. “Behind you!” Dyana shouted, and Rose turned just in time to see a Champion sneak up behind her, his face hidden by one of the Champions’ hoods. He twirled a golden chain in one hand and cast it at Rose—it clamped onto her wrist and tightened, winding around her wrist like a snake. With a shout, Rose pushed and pulled, fingernails scrabbling uselessly against the links, but the chain remained stubbornly tight. The Champion yanked on it, pulling Rose toward him. Rose swore under her breath. It was that traitorous cad Geoffrynn under the hood. It had to be. Pitching forward, Rose balled her hands into fists. “Oh, I am so gonna murder you!” she yelled, and instead of waiting for him to reel her in, she ran full-pelt at him. Surprised, he stumbled back, fumbling for a weapon at his side, but Rose was too fast—she’d closed the gap between them within seconds. With all the force of her momentum behind her, Rose punched him in the face. “That’s for drugging me!” Rose shouted as he stumbled back again, reeling in surprise. Before he had a chance to recover, Rose sprang forward. Drawing her hand back, she slapped him in the jaw with a satisfying thwack. “And that’s for being a lying, two-faced git!” she shouted as he tripped over his own two feet, falling to the— Wait. His own two feet? Standing over the fellow, Rose bent down and ripped the hood off his face only to find it wasn’t Geoffrynn at all—it was his smarmy human friend. “The hell?” Rose demanded. But she didn’t have time to mull things over in her head any further than that—all around her, she could see other Champions tackling and capturing prisoners, binding their wrists with prehensile golden chains before they dragged them away, hauling them up the mountain like so much pirate’s treasure. The announcer’s voice boomed all round the stadium with each capture and the audience shrieked and cheered in reply. Well. That just made Rose even more bloody stubborn. Upon feeling another strong yank on the chain, Rose slipped out of her delicate golden slippers and planted her feet firmly in the dirt, using her toes as ten little anchors. Geoffrynn’s friend (who didn’t deserve the dignity of a real name, Rose thought angrily) tugged until Rose’s feet skidded through the grass and tripped over the hem of her dress, tearing a hole in the flimsy fabric. “Stop!” Rose shouted, pulling back on the chain in a tenacious tug-of-war. But her arms shook with the strain—that blasted idiot was stronger than he looked—and soon she found herself dragged toward him. “Stop it!” she shouted again. “I don’t want this! I don’t want to be your bride-prize!” Her captor stopped pulling for a second as he pushed up from the ground, a smirk flitting across his face. “Really?” he asked, his grip tightening as Rose tugged on the chain again. “Why not?” Rose struggled to find the words—surely he wasn’t that thick, surely it was so obvious she didn’t actually need to tell him…? “I don’t know you?” she said, mouth gaping in disbelief. “And I don’t want to be your property? It’s pretty basic stuff!” The Champion threw his head back and laughed. “Wow,” he said, shaking his head. “A girl in town during festival-time, who flirts with you, accepts your tokens, and then says she doesn’t want you? Sure thing, sweetheart. That’s hilarious. You’re funny.” Laughter subsiding, his smile grew wicked and predatory, as if he suddenly had more teeth than he did before, and sharper ones, too. “I like funny in a girl,” he said, his voice darkening. The words summoned up nausea in Rose’s gut but she tamped it down, pushed it away. As the Champion gave her chain one last mighty pull, Rose threw herself to the ground. If he wanted to take her up the mountain, he would have to drag her dead weight there. “Oh, come on,” the captor sighed in frustration, pulling at the chain and swearing under his breath when Rose’s body budged only an inch. “You’re gonna have it so easy! I’ve got money—you’ll never have to lift a finger again in your life. I’m not gonna shout at you like those other jerks, I’d never smack you around or anything. Hell, I’ll even let you out of the house sometimes, if you ask nice!” “Well now, if that isn’t an enticing offer,” a familiar voice chimed up behind Rose, “then I don’t know what is.” Rose sat up and whirled around to see the Doctor standing just a few meters off, a cheeky grin slapped on his face. Relief and happiness surged through her, inflating her chest til it felt like her ribs might burst. “Did you hear that, Rose?” the Doctor continued. “He’s promised not to hit you and everything! What a shining example of humanoid decency!” The captor leapt to Rose’s side and yanked her up from the ground by the wrist, whipping a knife from his hip faster than Rose could blink. One arm pinning her to his side, his other hand held the knife up against Rose’s throat, pressing just hard enough that Rose could feel the bite of the blade. “Rose!” shouted Mickey, springing from behind the Doctor, but the Doctor grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back, his eyes trained on Rose. All signs of mirth had completely evaporated from his face; his mouth had gone thin and his eyes blown wide. “Let her go,” he said calmly. “Back off!” the Champion demanded, tightening his grip on Rose. “By all rights, she’s mine!” “She isn’t anyone’s!” Mickey shot back, struggling against the Doctor’s grip. Lurching away from Mickey, the Champion dragged Rose with him, his knife slipping with the movement. Rose gasped at the razor-sharpness of its sting, watched the Doctor’s gaze grow sharp and deadly. She shuddered despite the evening heat. She wasn’t sure what she was more afraid of—the Champion’s knife at her throat, or that look on the Doctor’s face. “If you don’t let her go, someone’s going to get hurt,” the Doctor said, his voice deceptively even, “and that someone’s going to be you.” “No! I claimed her!” the Champion shouted, his grasp clenching around Rose until she grit her teeth in discomfort. “By the rites of tradition, I—” His words were cut off by a boomerang to the back of the skull. He twisted round to see what the hell had just happened, but no sooner had he turned than the boomerang came sailing right back, smacking him square in the face and throwing his head back with the force of the blow. Stumbling, he swayed on his feet for a moment, as if his brain couldn’t decide whether to lose consciousness or not. Then he fell like a sack of bricks. Two pairs of hands hauled Rose away, and she glanced up to see Dyana and Vareem. “How—?” Rose asked, astonished. “Had some help,” Dyana grunted, pulling Rose to her feet. She held up the boomerang, a huge grin lighting up her face. “And this didn’t hurt, either.” Rose found herself wrapped up a great bear hug before she had a chance to reply, Mickey slamming into her with a joyous shout. Grinning, she returned the embrace—how had she ever been irritated with him for coming onboard the TARDIS?—and stood back, his hands clasped in hers. “So you got to see the Tournament after all, huh?” she said, laughing. “Is it everything you dreamed?” “More like a nightmare,” replied Mickey with a grimace. “Yeah, and you haven’t even seen the dragon yet, have you?” Mickey’s eyes widened. “So there really is a dragon? A real-life, full-size, honest-to-goodness—” “Monster,” Dyana finished for him. Spotting a group of hooded Champions, she visibly tensed (Ready for battle, thought Rose), but relaxed when the leader of the group saluted her. She repeated the gesture and pointed toward the Citadel, and the group took off; Rose could only guess they weren’t Champions after all, but some of her people in disguise. “And it’s only a matter of time before it comes round this way again, so we’d better hurry,” Dyana added, warily scanning the space above the arena. “Real quick, though—don’t suppose your hairpins will work on the chains, do you?” asked Vareem. She gestured at the chain coiled round her arm; its tail trailed out for quite a distance behind her, shining bright in the dirt. “Only they’re a bit inconvenient.” “Not so great for running away,” Dyana agreed, still watching the skies. Mickey pulled Rose’s hand closer for inspection, flinching at the bruises already forming beneath the chain on her wrist. “Yikes,” he said, fingering the chain, giving it a tug. “Think the sonic would do the trick?” Rose shrugged. “Only one way to find out, I guess. Doctor—?” But when she turned to address him, the Doctor wasn’t there. Frowning, Rose glanced over the surrounding area, silently reminding herself to chide him later (Looks like I’m not the only one with a bad habit of wandering off, hm?). She found him quickly enough, just a ways off from where she saw him last, crouching down next to something low on the ground as his lips moved in a murmur. He was talking to her captor, Rose realized. His hand landed on the man’s bare shoulder, ostensibly so he could push himself up, except that the man convulsed afterward, his body jerking in a single great tremor Rose could see even from this distance. She wondered what just happened, what the Doctor just did. “Gonna tell me what was that all about?” she asked as the Doctor approached. He didn’t meet her eyes. “Do you really want to know?” (Upon seeing the sheer terror flashing in her captor’s face, the way he couldn’t tear his fear-stricken eyes away from the Doctor’s retreating form, Rose wondered if this was a stone best left unturned. Still, discomfort churned in her gut, an uneasy feeling that whatever just transpired was worse even than the threat of the dragon hanging overhead.) “Right, I heard Mr. Mickety-Mick here say something about the sonic,” said the Doctor, snapping instantly back into a cheerful mood as he whipped the screwdriver out of a coat-pocket. “Let’s see what we can do about those cumbersome chains, shall we?” He offered a hand to Vareem, who took it without question (but with a healthy looking-up-and-down, Rose couldn’t help but notice with a little jealous twinge). Scanning the chain clamped onto Vareem’s wrist, the Doctor’s eyebrow shot up in surprise. “Triple-deadlocked,” he announced. “And with a magnetic crypto-seal, to boot.” “Blimey, that’s a bit over-the-top, isn’t it?” asked Mickey. “It doesn’t quite make sense,” the Doctor agreed, thoughtful as he gestured for Dyana to show him her hand so he could study her chain as well. “This is just another example of technology that far outstrips anything we saw in the city. Think about it—it’s all the Dark Ages out there. Why keep with the sticks and stones if you’ve got stuff like this available to you?” “Maybe it’s a cultural choice?” Rose suggested, looking to Dyana and Vareem for insight as the Doctor grabbed her hand, as if her chain would tell him something different than the other two had. “Or religious?” “Definitely not,” replied Dyana. “We don’t have that stuff cos we’re not allowed to.” Mickey scoffed. “What d’you mean, not allowed to? Why not?” “It’s all about control,” the Doctor muttered under his breath, but he hardly seemed to be paying attention to the conversation. His gaze wandered from the chain sealed round Rose’s wrist to the bruises forming a pink-blue halo behind them, further up to Rose’s bicep, where a darker, bigger bruise blossomed barely hidden beneath a golden armlet. The Doctor unhinged the armlet and cast it to the ground, grasping Rose’s bicep gently, his thumb brushing the edge of the bruise. Rose could tell he was mentally tracing the wound’s outline—cuts and scrapes were fairly typical in their lifestyle, just another danger of the job, and therefore generally went unacknowledged except for having some plasters and antiseptic tossed her way, but this bruise had a definite palm-and-fingers shape to it. There was no mistaking, or downplaying, how someone had hurt Rose. “Did your Champion do this?” the Doctor asked, and although his voice sounded casual enough, Rose knew better. “No,” she said, slowly extracting her arm from his grasp. She tried not to wince; she didn’t want him to know that actually, the bruise was quite tender, and throbbed where he’d touched it. Gathering her skirts, she set off toward the Citadel, throwing over her shoulder as casually as she could, “Just your average line-of-duty stuff.” “If he hurt you—” “It wasn’t him,” Rose interrupted, jaw jutting out in defiance, “and you don’t get to do that.” “Do what? Be concerned?” “You don’t get to make this about you.” Catching up to her, the Doctor spluttered indignantly. “What? I never—!” “Yeah, yeah,” said Rose, rolling her eyes. “I know the Oncoming Storm look when I see it, right? Cos no one’s allowed to hurt your friends except you.” He stopped in his tracks, oblivious to Mickey and Dyana and Vareem as they passed him by, and Rose grudgingly hesitated too. The Doctor just stared at her, mouth open, one eyebrow piqued in confusion. “I hurt you?” he asked. The question seemed so genuine, so sincere, that Rose actually took a step back. Flabbergasted, she searched his face to see if she could detect any hint of him being an arse, but his expression betrayed no clues beyond surprise, nothing that would let her know whether she should be furious or take pity on him. But how could he not know? Unless… Rose swallowed and tried to ignore the feeling of something sinking, deep and heavy and solid and immoveable, into the pit of her stomach, just like it did when he jumped through that mirror. “Doctor,” she asked, willing her voice not to shake, and failing miserably. “How do you define ‘betrayal’?” His eyebrow arched even higher. “We’re on the run from a traditionalist maniac mob bearing literal torches and pitchforks, and you want to stop for an etymology lesson?” “Just answer the question, please?” Glancing all around them, at the rocks and the grass and the plaster trees and the other three people stopped up ahead who were pretending, very badly, not to listen to this conversation, the Doctor grew visibly uncomfortable, shifting weight from one foot to the other. “I would say…it’s sort of a violation of a contract,” he said, slowly. “A mutually-agreed-upon contract, whether spoken or unspoken, professional or patriotic or personal, but always with an element of trust involved. A knowing violation of that mutual trust.” “Right,” Rose replied softly, nodding. “But it’s all got to be mutual.” “Well, yes, otherwise any grievance isn’t a betrayal per se, it just falls somewhere on the spectrum of asshattery. There’s generally got to be some degree of closeness on both sides, some level of personal attachment for all parties involved.” “And you don’t think--you can’t think of anything--that doesn’t sound familiar to you at all, right now? Nothing recent comes to mind?” The Doctor shrugged. “Nothing in recent memory, no.” His eyes narrowed, suddenly shrewd, suspicious. “Why are you asking me this?” Biting back something between a hysterical laugh and a throat-clenching sob, Rose tried to think of a suitable response—Because I just needed you to say what we are, Because I’d hoped I was wrong, Because I’m an unforgivably naïve idiot—but all that came out was, “Do you really want to know?” “Okay, sorry to interrupt whatever undoubtedly fascinating thing you’ve got going on here,” said Vareem, pushing between Rose and the Doctor before he had a chance to do anything more than blink in confusion, “but d’you think we could get on with escaping, maybe? I really don’t fancy waiting around for another round of Champions to have a go at me.” “Wait—where are the other Champions?” called Mickey from his spot up ahead, scouring the landscape around them. “There were still a whole bunch of them right behind us. Seems like they should’ve caught up by now.” “Any chance your people got to them?” Rose asked Dyana, ignoring the Doctor and the strange expression on his face. “I really doubt it.” “‘Your people’?” asked Mickey. Nodding, Dyana looked about warily as she hoisted her boomerang into a defensive position. “Mercs, mostly. My sister and I paid them to infiltrate the Tournament disguised as Champions, smuggle in arms for those willing to defend themselves, and claim as many bride-prizes as they could to set them free. But we didn’t pay them to fight. They’d be far more likely to save their own skins and run.” “Oh, who cares what happened to the bloody Champions?” Vareem said, exasperated. She grabbed Mickey by the hand and pulled. “We’ve probably just outrun them—we should go before they catch up!” “No,” said the Doctor, his brow furrowed. Stepping back, he turned to examine the landscape behind them, where he and Mickey had entered the scene. He held up a hand to shield his eyes from the bright floodlights. “No, they were right on our heels, and then we never saw them again after we crossed that ridge.” He pointed to the ridge in question, frowning. “Something’s happened, and we just didn’t notice.” The Doctor took off toward the ridge, and Rose and Mickey—after exchanging equally bewildered glances—followed after, Rose’s wrist-chain clinking all the while. It trailed behind her like a tail as she climbed up the embankment after Mickey and the Doctor. When they crested the hill, Rose let out a gasp. A sea of burnt-black earth met her eyes. Gone were the trees, the grass, the rocks and fake castle-ruins. Instead, scorch marks marred the face of the entire land before them, thick black smoke rising and curling from the trenches like blood seeping from a wound. Scattered throughout were several piles of ash, stark and white against the darkened ground. Rose had a horrible, sickening feeling that some of those ashes used to be people. “Oh my god. The dragon,” said Mickey breathlessly, holding his hand over his nose and mouth to block out the stench of smoke and burning things, things Rose didn’t want to think about. “It had to be the dragon, right? But how come we didn’t hear it?” “They didn’t want us to,” the Doctor replied, glaring at the black screens surrounding the stadium. “Why not?” asked Rose. “Entertainment.” The Doctor spared her a single sharp glance before turning back the way they came, back toward the impatiently-waiting Dyana and Vareem. “It’s all about control!” he shouted back at them. “So where’s the dragon now?” Mickey asked Rose. As if it had only been waiting for someone to ask, at that exact second the entire stadium began to quake with the sound of a huge-throated roar. Without even thinking, Rose clasped Mickey’s hand in fear, watched the Doctor freeze in place. Vareem drew close to Dyana, both of them scanning the skies, Dyana holding her boomerang at the ready. The roar tore through the stadium like a tidal wave, shaking the ground beneath their feet before it diminished into echoes, leaving the arena chillingly quiet and still. Silence, then, except for how Rose could hear everyone holding their breath. “Okay,” she said, pulling Mickey by the hand. “Now we’ve really got to—” Another earsplitting howl sliced through the stadium, this time equaled in volume and ferociousness by the thousands of surrounding spectators shouting and stomping their feet. Rose still couldn’t see them, hidden behind their black screens as they were, but she could hear their voices chanting in excitement, almost as if they were one giant feral creature themselves; she could feel the tremors from their pounding feet sure as sure as she could feel great wings casting ripples through the air. The creature, however, remained invisible, its presence detectable only by the sounds of giant leathery bat’s-wings and the pungent smells of sulphur and smoke. Suddenly the arena bucked as if shaken by an earthquake, throwing Rose and Mickey to their knees. Even the Doctor seemed to have trouble standing upright, stance wide and hands held out defensively as the earth rattled around him. “Rose!” he shouted. “Grab Mickey and back away from the ridge--get out of there, now!” But something had landed in the ash-field, and Rose and Mickey were both frozen, anchored in place as the invisible something crept toward them. Mickey might have sworn under his breath, or he may simply have said something along the lines of How? or What? or Oh god oh god, but Rose couldn’t be sure; she couldn’t hear much over the sounds of her heart pounding relentlessly in her ears, or the heavy whisper of something huge and monstrous slithering through the dirt. Slowly, the air began to shimmer, a veil torn asunder to reveal something hideous beneath. The cloak melted away to reveal a dragon standing before them, easily twenty meters long and with a wingspan twice that wide, its rows and rows of massive spearpoint-teeth glittering in the floodlights and close enough to touch. The dragon opened its mouth, and Rose wondered how long it would take to burn her to cinders, if she would feel her brain boiling in her skull. A violent jerk on her wrist-chain and she was slipping backward and grabbing Mickey without a thought, pulling him with her over the ridge. The two of them tumbled down the embankment just in time to avoid a barrage of fire bursting from the dragon’s maw. Rose smelled the scorched-air above and bit back a cry at the thought that that was almost her and Mickey, that the dragon had nearly--that they’d almost--but her chain--the Doctor must have-- The Doctor pulled Mickey up roughly out of the dirt, helping Rose up after. He shoved her chain into her hand with a curt nod. “Erm, thanks for yanking my chain?” Rose said weakly. “Any time,” replied the Doctor. “Now, come on--time to run!” He took off and Rose followed, running as fast as her legs could carry her, with a shout for Mickey to move. The three of them charged after Dyana and Vareem away from the dragon, toward the mountain and the Citadel. As they ran, Rose felt the ground quake beneath her feet once more, watched as a great inky-black shadow sailed over the rocks in front of them, a harbinger of the dragon soaring overhead. “Doctor, wait,” panted Rose, the air burning in her lungs; “How are we supposed to get past a dragon?” “No idea. We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it!” “But this is absolutely mad!” shouted Mickey. “What’s the point of this whole stupid thing if a great big dragon is just gonna--” The dragon landed in front of them once more with an eardrum-shattering whump, shockwaves ricocheting outward in a violent ripple that knocked over plaster trees and threw everyone bodily to the ground. The second they could move again, Dyana and Vareem scrambled back toward the others, Rose grabbing Dyana and pulling her in close. Snarling at each of the runners in turn, the dragon coiled itself against the base of the mountain, eyes flashing, smoke-plumes rising in tendrils from its nostrils. “Ladies and gentlefolk and miscellaneous,” the announcer declared, voice booming overhead, “I’ve just heard from our fair city councilors. I’m pleased to announce that they have reached a verdict concerning our little stowaways. Would anyone like to know what it is?” The crowd screamed in reply, a ritualistic chant of Yes-yes-yes-yes surging through the stadium. “Disqualified!” the announcer shouted, and the crowd went absolutely mad with sound. “That makes this an instant death round, honored guests!” Amidst the wall of noise surrounding them, Rose and the Doctor and the others slowly stood, each of them assuming a ready stance. Rose grasped Dyana’s hand and squeezed it tightly, hoping to convey as much reassurance as she could; she reached back for the Doctor’s hand on instinct, only to find that he was already reaching for her. Their fingers intertwined, curling around each other with the chain cool and smooth between them, and even despite the danger, even in the face of almost certain death, strangely, something settled deep in Rose’s chest--she briefly thought, if she did have to die today, this would be a good way to do it, holding hands with one old friend and one new. “Well, Doctor?” said Rose, not even bothering to mask the fear in her voice as the dragon opened its mouth, its throat glowing a bright flame-yellow hue. “Don’t suppose you’ve come up with some kind of brilliant plan in the last few minutes?” The Doctor pursed his lips, fingers tapping nervously against the chain pressed between their palms. Then, his eyes widened, as if in realization. “No,” he said, and a shot her a manic grin. “But I do have a spectacularly bad one.”

***

Previous | Next

“Huh,” says Mickey, watching the Doctor’s retreating form. “That’s weird.”

“What’s weird?”

“I dunno. I guess I expected him to, like, run in here holding your hand and babbling about all your adventures or professing his eternal love or something.”

Rose laughs, and it’s only a little sarcastic. “Yeah, right. Me too.”

“I’m serious.” Mickey glances both ways before leaning in closer, his voice lower now, as if he fears being overheard. “He wasn’t half-mad while you were gone. He was downright manic. It was all sonic this and reverse the polarity that and maybe I’ll check some timey-wimey-whosie-whatsit and what if I could punch a hole in the local space-time continuum without compromising the fabric of reality and blah blah blah, just a bunch of muttering to himself while he ran around the TARDIS and pulled at his hair.”

Running a hand over his own hair, Mickey shudders. “It’s a wonder he didn’t yank it all out.”

“Yeah, well,” Rose replies, fidgeting uncomfortably. “Maintaining the timelines and all that’s sort of stressful, I guess.”

“It was almost scary, the look in his eyes,” Mickey continues, crossing his arms over his chest, protecting himself against the memory. “Like he was a wounded animal or something—you know how they get in the movies, like when they’re cornered, but they’ve got nothing to lose, nothing left in ‘em but the fight, and then everything goes to hell? It was just like that. He couldn’t see or hear anything in front of him, couldn’t think about anything that wasn’t you.”

Something sickly bubbles up in Rose’s stomach, weighing heavily at the pit of it, and she has a sinking suspicion it’s got nothing to do with the corset cinched around her waist. She can picture the Doctor just as Mickey described him, stalking about the console room, alternately muttering under his breath and shouting at the top of his lungs, his frame shaking with the effort to contain the desperate energy inside. She imagines the way his hands would fist in his hair and his mouth would contort in a grimace, his eyes scanning frantically over everything while his mind raced through nearly a thousand years’ worth of memories and facts and tricks and hints. Rose has seen it all before, when they’re trapped at the end of the line, no way out, the fate of a life or a town or a planet or a galaxy weighing on the Doctor’s shoulders.

(She has never seen him act this way because of her.)

“Anyway,” says Mickey, snapping out of his reverie, “Glad that’s done with. Bloody terrifying, that was. Not to mention exhausting. Feels like I haven’t slept in days.”

He punches Rose lightly in the arm. “What about you, though? How’ve you been? Six months, that’s impressive. Probably got a whole truckload of new stories to tell, yeah?”

Distantly, Rose hears everything coming out of Mickey’s mouth, but for some reason, she can’t seem to focus on it, much less discern any meaning. She can’t stop her gaze from wandering over to the corridor where the Doctor disappeared, twisting her hands together while her teeth sink into her lower lip.

“So, you gonna go after him, or what?”

Rose blinks. “Sorry?”

Mickey offers her a wistful grin. “You waited for him all that time, didn’t even know if he’d find you again—but you still love him, don’t you?”

Rose can’t find the words to reply, but really, she doesn’t need to; her silence seems to tell Mickey everything he needs to know.

“You know he’s not good enough for you, right?” Mickey chuckles. “You deserve better.”

Smiling, Rose wraps her arms around Mickey in a tight hug, pecking a kiss on his cheek afterward for good measure. “So do you.”

“Don’t I know it. Now run your arse over there so I can go get some sleep!”

**

Rose doesn’t try to find the Doctor straightaway. Instead, she takes her time, wandering through the halls of the TARDIS. She kicks off her heels and sighs in relief, delights in the coolness of the floor beneath her aching feet, one hand running along the wall as she walks. Its pebbly surface rasps against her fingertips until they’re pleasantly numb—she imagines it’s like a series of little kisses from the TARDIS, welcoming her back.

“Glad to have your wolf again, hmm?” she asks quietly, and maybe she’s just imagining things again, but she can almost feel the hum shifting in the back of her head, its pitch changing ever-so-briefly, like a little flash of golden happiness in her skull. Grinning, Rose pats the wall. “Missed you too,” she whispers.

She thinks of stopping by her room. This dress isn’t getting any more comfortable, after all, and a hot shower or relaxing bubble bath sounds absolutely divine. But that sick feeling still burbles in her stomach, and Rose knows that no amount of scalding water or fruity soaps will drive it away.

Rose could play dumb, if she wanted, checking the garden or the pool or the galley or any other room first, to buy herself some time, to rehearse her words in her head, but she knows exactly where the Doctor is, and she allows her feet to carry her there.

She finds him, of course, in the library.

Evidence strewn about the coffee table in front of the settee suggests that the Doctor must have been tinkering, books and papers and tools and sonic screwdriver all piled atop each other in a miniature mountainous landscape. Amidst everything else is a small globe of some sort—astrolabe is the word that comes to Rose’s mind, except that she doesn’t actually have a clue what an astrolabe is, or even how she heard of it in the first place—but it has been long-since abandoned, its mechanical guts spilled and forgotten. As for the Doctor, he leans back on the settee, his hands clenched over his face, pushing his specs up into his hair.

He doesn’t move when Rose steps into the room. She tries to remember the last time she was able to sneak up on him like this. She can’t.

Rose clears her throat and the Doctor snaps to, slipping his specs back down and reaching for the globe and the sonic as if he never let them go.

“Did you need something?” the Doctor asks. Rose can’t help but notice how tired he looks; she swears the lines around his eyes run deeper than they used to.

“Yeah,” she says. “I…”

She hesitates. Silently, she berates herself for her cowardice. Why can’t she just talk to him—why can’t she just say what’s on her mind? She’s never had this problem with anyone else, not ever, never had to stopper her words or tiptoe on a thousand invisible eggshell-thin rules the way she does around him. Squirming in her gown (god, but it’s absolutely murdering her ribcage), Rose casts about for the best words to open this discussion, because she absolutely is going to initiate this discussion, she’s not going to let him squirm away from her this time, she spent more than enough time putting up with pinching shoes and heavy underskirts and beyond-stupid 18th-century customs and she’s had enough of the bloody damn rules. She’s not going to let him close around her like a corset, cinching her closer and closer only to push her away when things get too tight; she’s going to put her foot down and they’re going to have a bloody talk because it’s ridiculous for them to keep brushing everything under the rug, and this dress is hot and scratchy, and he’s infuriating, and why didn’t she just go take her dress off before this, and wouldn’t it be so much better to have things out in the open instead?

Yes, she decides; yes, it would. Rose steels herself.

“I need help taking my dress off,” she blurts out.

The Doctor’s eyes raise a little in surprise, and Rose furiously fights the blush rising in her cheeks—of all possible things, why, why was that the one that popped out of her mouth?

“It’s just, back in France, there were people to help with this sort of thing,” she rushes, stumbling over her words. “And Mickey’s already gone to bed, and, you know, it sort of seems like a bad idea to show up on the Estate wearing something out of the 1700’s.”

“The Estate?” the Doctor asks, frowning.

“Yeah.” She swallows. “You said you were gonna take me home, remember?”

“Right,” says the Doctor, diverting his attention back to the instruments in his hands.

Rose waits for him to speak again, but he’s strangely quiet. “You are still planning to take me home, right?”

“Well.” The Doctor fiddles with the globe, tapping the sonic against it in a rat-a-tat-tat. “Certainly, yes, I did say that. And. And I meant it. That was indeed a valid threat. No, not a threat—a promise. I am absolutely, positively, definitely taking you home.”

He sneaks a glance up at her. “Unless. You know. You’re not ready to go home yet.”

Relief washing over her, Rose hides a smile. “I think I can wait a bit.”

“Good,” replies the Doctor just a little too quickly. When Rose can no longer hide her smile, he points an accusatory finger at her. “I did mean it, though,” he insists.

“Sure.”

“I am taking you home. Just not right this instant.”

“Got it.”

“It wasn’t a bluff.”

“’Course not.”

“Just…no reason to rush, right?”

Rose beams at him. “No reason at all.”

“Excellent.” The Doctor brushes some nonexistent dirt off his trousers before standing up from the settee, placing his instruments back down on the table. “Glad that’s sorted. So, I’ll see you tomorrow bright and early, then? Tomorrow and early being relative terms, of course.”

“Sure, but, erm…”

The Doctor watches her expectantly, and Rose’s cheeks grow warm beneath his gaze again. “I still need help,” she admits, gesturing over her shoulder, to the laces on the back of her dress.

Eyes following the line of her hand, the Doctor’s face goes blank. Rose thinks she can pinpoint the very moment realization dawns on him, his eyebrows arching once again in surprise.

“Right,” he says, shaking his head. “Yes, of course.” Wordlessly, he spins his finger in a circle, a silent suggestion that Rose should do the same. Rose turns away, forces herself not to twitch at the coolness of his hand on her neck as he brushes a tendril of hair out of the way.

They both fall quiet, the silence only interrupted by the soft sounds of silk and linen whispering against each other while the Doctor works, deftly untying knots and unlacing laces. But for all that his fingers are talented, the Doctor isn’t quite as adept at this as the women at court, and more than once, Rose’s breath hitches as the corset tightens before loosening.

Rose stifles a laugh. She’d be lying if she said she had never fantasized about this at least a little bit, the Doctor slowly peeling a gorgeous gown off her body, unwrapping her like a delectably rich gift. But between the pinch at her waist and the anxiety in her tummy and the ache in her ribs, this just might be one of the single unsexiest things she has ever experienced.

“So, what did you two get up to while I was away?” Rose asks—she tells herself it’s an attempt at playfulness, just a distraction, and not related in any way to what Mickey told her in the console room. (It’s certainly not a quiet way to test him, definitely not a subtle way to see how far she can push.)

The Doctor pulls a lace a little too tight and Rose bites her tongue to stop herself from grunting. “Not much,” the Doctor replies, and Rose could almost believe him. “We mostly just did a bit of research, poked around until I figured out how to get back to y—how to sort things out.”

“Yeah, Mickey said it was only a few hours here.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor echoes, but something about the way he says it is flat, empty.

His fingers still at her back. “Rose, I’m sorry.”

Rose shrugs, squirming in her half-done corset. “Eh, you’re doing your best. Eighteenth-century underwear’s a right bitch.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come back sooner.”

Rose’s lips part in surprise. “Ah,” she says, softly.

The Doctor resumes his task, pulling at the laces once again. “It shouldn’t have taken me so long to figure it out, the loose connection in the fireplace,” he continues. “It’s ridiculous, really. I don’t know what came over me.”

At that, Mickey’s words resound in her ears. He wasn’t half-mad while you were gone.

“Don’t worry, it won’t happen again,” says the Doctor. “But still: I apologize. Six months is a long period for a human to be stranded anywhere, especially three hundred years out of their own time.”

“It was only five and a half months,” Rose mumbles halfheartedly.

“Still. I should have done better.”

“Eh,” says Rose. “It’s all right. I knew what I was getting into, crashing through that mirror. I mean, you were pretty explicit about what would happen.”

She drinks in a deep breath now that her ribcage has the room to expand. She can tell by the position of the Doctor’s hands at the small of her back that he’ll be done loosening the corset soon; she tells herself that if she’s going to talk to the Doctor, really properly talk to him, she needs to do it now, while neither of them can see the other’s face. She tells herself it will be easier that way, even if she can imagine exactly expression his eyes and mouth will make.

“I’m actually more upset about how you treated me afterward,” she admits, her pulse thundering at the confession.

The Doctor falls silent once again—doesn’t even emit an irritated sigh or let loose an explanatory bit of babble. He just works on pulling the last of the laces loose, his pace steady and never-changing. Lightheadedness suffuses Rose’s head, filling it like a dull fog, and she knows this time it’s got nothing to do with the corset.

“Look, I know you were just frustrated, and concerned about the timelines, and—and maybe a little worried about me, too,” Rose rushes. (A wounded animal, she remembers Mickey saying; Couldn’t see or hear anything in front of him.) God, she hopes the Doctor doesn’t notice the way the back of her neck flushes. “But you can talk to me about it, yeah? Just let me know those things are going through your head, instead of being all mean and angry at me.”

“I was never angry with you,” the Doctor murmurs.

Brow wrinkling in confusion, Rose glances over her shoulder. “What?”

At last, the gown and corset completely loosen around Rose, enough that she has to clutch her arms to herself to keep the garments from slumping to the floor. “All done,” says the Doctor, and Rose hears him step back, step away. “You’re good to go.”

Pulling together the last threads of her courage, Rose whirls around to face him.

“Doctor—”

He stops, hands shoved in pockets, mouth stretched thin. He waits.

“Just please tell me what’s going on,” Rose says, pushing the words out before she has a chance to overthink them.

Glancing around the room—at the books on the shelves, the other books scattered on the floor, the faded rugs and comfortable old afghans, the imitation Tiffany lamp (or a genuine Tiffany lamp, one never knows)—the Doctor plays for time. “I’m sorry I was so unpleasant to you earlier,” he tells her slowly. Carefully. “You’re right. It was unnecessary. I let my frustration get the better of me. And you didn’t deserve that. You…you only did what I would have done, after all.”

Shaking her head, Rose allows her corset and gown to fall to the floor, leaving her in nothing but a thin white shift. She steps out of the garments, toward him, watching him as he watches her. If the Doctor registers how bare she suddenly is, he doesn’t show it; somehow, despite being fully-clothed, despite the gates shuttering his face, he seems more naked than she does.

Rose approaches him slowly (gently, so she doesn’t scare him off). “Please.”

“What more could you possibly want from me?” the Doctor pleads tiredly.

“Doctor,” Rose breathes, her stocking-feet padding silently over the wood-paneled floor until they come to a stop opposite his plimsolls. She stands very close to him, now, close enough to count every single one of his eyelashes, chart a starfield out of his freckles.

(Rose wonders if Reinette noticed any of these things. Did she admire the shape of his mouth when he spoke excitedly of science and adventure and awe at the majesty of the universe and the turn of the earth—did she feel a warm glow in her chest when his eyes landed on her face, did she sense his double-heartsbeat when they drew close for a kiss?)

“When everything’s said and done, what do you think you’ll regret more?” Rose asks, her voice gone quiet and soft, and maybe just a little sad. “Everything you said and did—or everything you didn’t?”

The Doctor’s hands ball into fists in his pockets, and Rose fully expects him to turn and flee. But before Rose has a chance to react, his hands are no longer in his pockets—instead they’re cupping around her jaw, shocking her with their coolness as he draws her face upward for a harsh and bruising kiss.

A strange buzzing fills Rose’s head and her mind goes completely blank.

For a moment that stretches into eternity, she can’t hear anything but her pulse rushing and roaring in her ears, can’t feel anything but the cool pressure of the Doctor’s hands framing her face and the warmth of his breath on her lips. She stiffens, mouth parting in surprise as her brain races to catch up with everything that’s happening. She half-expects the Doctor to take advantage of the opening, invade her mouth with his tongue like any other bloke would do, pushing past the swell of her lower lip and tasting her like she’s a whole new world for him to explore, but he doesn’t; for all that the kiss is frantic and she can feel his teeth in it, it’s surprisingly chaste.

It’s still too much.

Overwhelmed by the intensity of it all, by the Doctor’s closeness and the way he trembles as he clutches her, by the hormones fizzing up drunkenly in her head, raging a fierce battle with everything else crowding in there—the confusion, the hurt, the shock, and yes, the want, of course the want, the want that kept her going in France, kept her awake more nights on the TARDIS than she’d ever admit, the want that had burned so hot and so shamefully and so deep in her gut that it was easier to pretend it wasn’t there than to acknowledge its scorching existence, always the want—

(But the look on his face when he talked about Reinette, but the things she’d heard and seen back on that spaceship—)

Couldn’t think about anything that wasn’t you

—Rose shoves at the Doctor’s chest, pushing hard so she can break away with a ragged gasp. The Doctor staggers backward, panting a bit himself, his eyes blown as wide as Rose has ever seen them.

Chest heaving, Rose stammers incoherently, steadying herself against a bookshelf. Her mind fishes about for something to say (absolutely anything will do, anything, anything please), but her heart flutters madly in her chest and she can’t think of anything else but that and the taste of the Doctor on her lips.

The Doctor blinks the shock out of his eyes and pushes a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he blurts out.

Rose knows she should reply, but her vocal chords don’t seem to work at the moment.

“I’m so sorry,” the Doctor repeats breathlessly as he pushes past her out of the room.

Rose doesn’t turn to watch him leave; she’s stuck in place, her feet frozen and unmoving as if they were glued to the floor. The only thing she can do is shiver, and whether she should blame the cold or something else entirely is anyone’s guess.

Rose gulps.

***

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