Chapter Text
The next day, Rose skipped out on a check for the fourth time in her life. In her defense, it was the first time she had done so knowing she was intending to do so when she went in. She had been extra careful to choose a restaurant that catered to the “Grey Mice” as she had heard the female troops stationed here called. A quick flash of the psychic paper and she was in. A flutter of her long lashes and the (true, though not in the way they were thinking) implication that she was waiting for someone and they’d left her alone for the whole meal.
She figured none of them would want to admit her existence, let alone her conning them out of food and rations that she hadn’t paid for. It was a little bit exhilarating, if she was perfectly honest. If she was lucky, she would be gone from this time and place in no more than a few days and would never be back again.
She hoped so anyway. Having to smile and play polite when interacting with anyone wearing that particular uniform was nauseating, to say the least. She had developed quite the poker face over the years, if she did say so herself, but this was… trying.
Rose spent most of that second day trying to gather information. It may not have been her time or her city, but if there was one thing that Rose had always been good at, it was talking to people. She had even happened across a hair salon that, due to having no electricity and so no indoor lights, was operating on the stoop out front. She confessed straight away that she had no money with which to pay them, but the gentleman running the place coaxed her into at least letting him give her a trim while she listened to the gossip around her.
Rose came off of that stoop with a new coiffure and a renewed sense of hope about the people in Paris. Tales of small resistances, like Jaqueline’s cartoons, were more common than Rose had ever dreamed, so many here doing their little part to fight the Nazis in their own everyday sort of way. She might not have been able to pay in francs or reichsmarks, but some of the tales she told of England and what she remembered about this Earth’s history was more than enough to give them hope. Even just hearing that the Brits and Americans were planning something big in the next year or so struck a chord with the people gathered there, and Rose took off into the afternoon with a spring in her step and a grin on her face.
That night she returned to the Master’s TARDIS, scouting it from a distance before picking her position. A rooftop, but not the one of the building she had slept in the night before. She didn’t want to be too easy to find.
The small alley square where the Master’s TARDIS lurked like a squat, fat spider remained silent all that night and into the next day. Rose only ventured far enough to nick what little bit of food she could find (it turned out that the hairdresser had been absolutely correct about Monsieur Gardet being involved in the black market after all) before returning to watch, and wait.
If nothing happened by tomorrow, she’d go out looking for the Doctor more actively, she resolved.
--
It had been many, many years since the Doctor had used a wireless setup like this. Despite that, her Morse code was still crystal clear in her mind, even if she wasn’t using it at the moment. She would, later, for the message she’d get Noor to send out. (There was one advantage to the Prosper Network having been compromised already, at least.)
Right now, it was just four dots. To anyone else, it would have been a mindless string of the letter ‘h’, repeated again and again, into infinity. To her it echoed the pulse running through her veins, the thump of her hearts, the constant drumming in her chest--and not just hers.
“That's not a code,” Noor pointed out, watching the Doctor tap away on her machine.
“Not to you,” she explained. “If this works, I'm going to need you to find something for me. Maybe someone.” A few more series of four taps on the wireless, pausing a moment between each series. He had to be out there, somewhere. “This is a very personal code. The rhythm of two hearts. Only a few people would get this.”
She doubted that Rose, however long she had been here and however long it had been since she had wrested herself free from the Master, had found herself a wireless unit of any kind. The Doctor hoped she was okay. But the quickest way to know for sure, she knew, was this. Was to talk to the Master, was to trick him into revealing himself, and hope she found Rose along the way.
Or that Rose would find her which, the Doctor was willing to admit, would be far more likely. She was good at that sort of thing, her Rose Tyler.
Before the Doctor could contemplate whether she really had the right to call Rose “hers” anymore, four answering beeps came across the airwaves, into her ears. Then another four. She grinned. “That got his attention.” She concentrated, using parts of her (frankly magnificent) brain that hadn’t been stretched in a while. “He’s not so far. I can sense him,” she told her companions. Then, only to him, she established contact.
Contact, came the response. Old-school.
“You're not the only one who can do classic.” She knew that Noor and Ada would only be getting one side of this conversation anyhow, but it also felt rude to leave them out of this exchange entirely. So she opted for a middle ground, speaking her responses out loud and telepathically.
So, how are you holding up without a TARDIS, or your friends or a hope? A fugitive in time? He sounded smug. Nothing new there then.
“All right,” she conceded. “You've come all this way. You've got me cornered. I'll meet you. No troops. No soldiers. Just us.” No soldiers, no allies, no potential hostages. She was pretty sure he didn’t have Rose anymore, but if he did, this would certainly get him to bring her out as both barb and bait.
Where?
There was only ever one place it could have been in gay Paree, even in the middle of the Nazi occupation. “Where do you think?”
--
By the third day, Rose was becoming restless. She figured the Master wouldn’t have landed too far away in time from where the Doctor was going to, but she didn’t know for sure. He also hadn’t returned to his TARDIS in the last two days--not that she had seen anyway. However, she had heard rumors of a new commandant having been assigned locally that everyone was still trying to get a read on. Even for an everyday citizen not formally involved in the Resistance knowing the local leadership that the Germans had installed could be the difference between getting through another day and… not.
Or so she had heard.
Finally, she resolved to herself that if the Master had not returned by nightfall, she would see about getting back into his TARDIS. Flying it was likely not an option, for a few reasons, but perhaps she could convince it to give her some information on where the Doctor was, or what was happening.
Information was in high demand, here in Occupied Paris. Sometimes, when you were fighting an enemy that seemed so overwhelmingly powerful that things seemed hopeless, information was the best weapon possible. So Rose intended to get as much of it as she could.
After all, she might need to rescue the Doctor.
Nightfall came, and Rose put her plan, such as it was, into motion. The perception field of the Master’s TARDIS appeared to be holding, as the few people out on the streets hurried past it without seeming to see it. Rose only hoped it would cover her too, as she casually approached it.
It was past curfew by now, but Rose knew that if you just looked like you knew where you were going and what you were doing, people tended to ignore you. Regular citizens, anyway. She didn’t know if that would work on Nazi patrols, but if she was lucky, she wouldn’t have to find out.
Sidling up to the door, she tried the handle, cursing under her breath when she found it locked. Pulling her own sonic screwdriver from her pocket, she took another look around the street to make sure no one was around before keying it on. A brief whirr and pink light, and she heard the lock snick open.
Not a second too soon, as she heard footsteps approaching. Rose slipped quickly in through the doors, keeping one open just a crack so she could hear.
The footsteps paused, then a voice asked, “How does that fit here?”
The fact that someone had noticed the Master’s TARDIS, despite its perception filter, piqued Rose’s interest.
“She did say, look for something anomalous,” another voice answered.
Rose’s breath caught. She. Taking a chance, Rose stepped out of the TARDIS, getting a good look at the two women who had found the machine. One looked like she belonged in 1940s Paris, but the other was wearing a dress that hadn’t been in fashion for over a hundred years. Rose smiled as the women stared at her. “You must have been sent by the Doctor.”
The Parisian looked more suspicious of her than the other woman. “How did you know that?”
“I’m Rose,” she answered easily. “I’m a friend of the Doctor’s. Now come inside before someone sees you."
Once all three were inside, Rose mostly shut the door again, leaving it just that tiny bit ajar for lookout purposes.
“I’m Ada, this is Noor,” the woman out of her time said, apparently deciding to trust Rose. “The Doctor gave us a...device.” She held, in her elegantly gloved hands, what was obviously--to Rose--a cell phone.
“Here, let me.” Rose held out her hand and Ada, after a look to Noor, handed it over. She wasn’t entirely sure whose phone this had been, but the Doctor was the first on the speed-dial when she keyed to it.
Someone answered on the first ring, the whirr of the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver coming through. ”Sent it to voicemail,” the Doctor’s voice said. “Probably just asking if I've had an accident in the last five years.”
Rose knew that the Doctor wasn’t talking to her, keeping silent and holding up a hand to Ada and Noor when they gave her questioning looks. Who was she talking to?
”They hate it when you give them a list, though, don't they?”
”Why didn't you die when the Kasaavin attacked you?”
Rose gasped, recognizing the voice instantly. The Doctor was with the Master, and Rose was stuck on the other end of a telephone line.
”Me and Yaz, both time travellers, fizzing with artron energy, and my DNA not matching the rest of humanity, we confused them. And I don't think they're as stable in this dimension as they'd like to be. What deal have you made with them?”
“I showed them and Barton what was possible. They helped me lay a trap for you, and I raised their ambitions. Of course, ultimately the Kasaavin are just the mechanism. They... they don't have my vision, you know?”
“And what vision is that?
”Maximum carnage.”
“I don't understand.”
“No, no, I know you don't. But you will. And of course, the best thing is everyone loses except me. Barton and those creatures do the dirty work, and once they're done, I get rid of them, having destroyed your precious human race in the process. And I have your ‘special friend’ to boot. I had such fun exploring her little human mind. No, not exploring, what’s the word… pillaging. So fragile, those jumped-up apes you pal around with. Win-win-win, all for me.”
Rose had to grit her teeth to stop herself from doing something foolish like shouting. It wouldn’t effect the Master and if the Doctor had kept the phone call connected without letting him know for a reason, then it would give it away immediately. How dare he try to use her against the Doctor?
Maybe the Doctor knew that he was bluffing, at least to the part about Rose. ”When does all this stop for you? The games, the betrayals, the killing?”
“Why would it stop? I mean, how else would I get your attention? When did you last go home?”
It was a hell of a subject change. The Doctor sounded just as confused as Rose felt. ”What do you mean?”
”I took a trip home, to Gallifrey, hiding in its little bubble universe. Not sure how to describe what I found. Pulverised? Burned? Nuked? All of the above. Someone destroyed it. Our home, razed to the ground. Everyone killed. Everything burned.”
Rose couldn’t help the gasp that came out of her mouth, hoping no one on the other end of the call had heard.
”You're lying.” Seemed the Doctor didn’t believe him.
”You should really take a look. Oh, wait, you won't be able to. I just thought I'd let you know before I…” He trailed off.
”Can you hear voices?” The Doctor asked.
”Why are there police coming up the stairs?”
The Doctor’s answer was bright. ”Oh. That's me, and one of Blighty's bravest radio operators. Very good at sending messages, particularly fake ones designed to be intercepted. Now, finish what you were saying!” All the brightness was gone, only anger there now.
”What have you done?” The Master’s voice was a roar of rage and the phone call cut off.
Rose folded up the flip phone, jumping into action. “C’mon, let’s see if we can get this TARDIS to help us out a little.”
Noor and Ada followed her over to the central console. With the Master occupied with the Doctor there was no chance of him coming back to interrupt them right away. “What is this place?” Noor asked, both of them looking around at the strange technology packed in here with subdued wonder.
"It’s called a TARDIS,” Rose explained, placing the phone down on the console. If she could convince it to work, maybe she could get a location trace on the Doctor. Even if she couldn’t go get her she could at least try and help from here. “It’s a machine from another time and place and if I can just get it to…” She trailed off, hesitantly manipulating a few lighted controls. The interface stayed stubbornly in circular Gallifreyan, but Rose had worked with that enough in the past that it was more annoyance than hindrance to her.
“There she is!” The map of Paris was familiar even to a Londoner like Rose, the basic shape of the river and outline and all. The little red dot that this TARDIS had traced her phone to moved steadily toward the stationary black star Rose figured was their location. “She’s not so far away. You two go out there, see if you can spot her.” She smiled at Ada and Noor. “Just, y’know, duck back in if there are any patrols. You’ll be fine.”
She went back to trying to coax this TARDIS into letting her do more than basic information, maybe even get ready to fly. It was a long shot, but the sooner they could get out of here, the better Rose would feel about everything.
“Over here,” Noor’s voice called to the Doctor.
There was a bit of softer conversation that Rose couldn’t catch before the Doctor pushed open the door. “Knew you could do it, my best secret agents--” She stopped at the sight of Rose over by the console, grinning brilliantly. A moment later they were running to each other, meeting in the middle of the room in a fierce hug. “Knew you had to be alright.”
It sounded to Rose like she had been trying to convince herself of that. Rose gave her an extra squeeze as reassurance before they let go. The Doctor turned to the other two women. “I see you met Rose.”
“She got us into this house--this machine,” Noor confirmed.
Ada still had unanswered questions. “Why is this machine so important?”
The Doctor was in motion again, practically bouncing up to the console. “This is our way back to finding my other friends and saving humanity.” She was grinning brightly as she started manipulating controls, directing Rose to help where she could. “I know you think I'm mad, but give me five minutes and you'll think I'm the sanest person alive.” Rose snorted and the Doctor gave her a mock glare.
“I’d call that an overstatement,” Rose teased.
The Doctor couldn’t hold her glare, melting back into a grin. “Yes, well. I said the Master's arrogant, but arrogance can trip you up.”
Pulling out her own sonic screwdriver, she gave the console a quick buzz. Begrudgingly, the same map that had been displayed on the wall of the hut back when it was a simple hut appeared on the console. Then, more hexagons began to appear with portraits. “I know what this is,” she explained. A temporal map, showing every significant person in the development of computers through history, starting with you, Ada. This is the plan. See?”
“No,” Ada, Noor, and Rose chorused.
Ada fixed on a particular word. “Wh-what is a computer?”
The Doctor looked chagrined. “Oh, forget you heard that word, otherwise I've just disrupted the whole of history.”
“Again,” Rose added, smiling back at the look the Doctor shot her.
She was right back in it though. “Okay. Ah, my brain's fizzing. Good. The Kasaavin posted an agent on every person on that map, because that's what spies do, what Barton does. They gather all the data. Where does the DNA fit in? Kasaavin, technology, DNA. How are they all connected?”
“Human DNA,” Rose clarified.
The Doctor looked delighted. “Oh! Human DNA! That's what they were testing.”
Noor looked at Ada and Rose, the confusion clear on her face. “How much of that did you understand?”
Ada could only shrug and shake her head, not having gotten much more than Noor herself, but Rose just laughed. “Welcome to life with the Doctor."
“Ada,” the Doctor in question called. “You remember that statue Babbage had, the Silver Lady? Barton had it in his office too. I know it’s important somehow, but…” Her fingers flew across the display.
Rose smiled reassuringly at the other two women before moving up to the console herself, ready and able to help. “So what if we follow it? Through history like?”
The Doctor grinned back at her. “Perfect! Rose Tyler, still a genius. Here, hold this down,” she gave over control of several glowing buttons on a panel over to Rose as the Doctor input what appeared to be coordinates. An image of the statue in question appeared on the clear screen, glowing in silver lines.
“Hold on,” Rose said, furrowing her brow. “I saw that, in here. The Master had it.”
“Bingo.” The Doctor swiped up on the display with a flourish, sending the Master’s TARDIS into the Vortex. Clearly she was missing the tangible controls of her own ship, compared to this much sleeker interface.
Moments later, they landed. The Doctor answered Rose’s quizzical look with an almost sheepish grin. “This one’s designed to be flown by only one person,” she explained.
“That explains a lot,” Rose teased, grinning back at her cheekily. Neither noticed the look that passed between Noor and Ada.
The Doctor shook her head, but it was good natured, before she straightened the lapels of her black coat and strode out the doors. Rose, Ada, and Noor followed dutifully.
They emerged in Barton’s office just as the Doctor finished sonicing the hidden cameras that Yaz and Ryan had missed before. “Should give us a half hour or so. Enough time to let me deal with this.”
She turned to the Silver Lady, gleaming on its pedestal in a place of pride. Applying the sonic to it, she soon had the glass cover off of the wire mechanism. Another setting and the Doctor had a scan of the device.
“So what’s it do then?” Rose asked.
Ada answered her as the Doctor scanned again, presumably with a different setting. “It dances, and occasionally projects those creatures of light.”
The Doctor was prying a panel off of the front of the pedestal--it appeared that the circuitry continued down into the base. “It’s part of the Master’s plan--Barton’s, the Kasaavin’s, whoever’s plan--it’s not just gathering data, what’s it doing with it?” The other three didn’t answer. “Oh!” The Doctor clapped her hands, whirling to Noor. “Spies! They don’t just gather intelligence to have it, they gather it to use.”
Noor nodded, still bewildered.
“Gathering data, putting it into use,” the Doctor continued, turning back to the device and pulling a carefully-selected bunch of wires out. “And that’s where the Master comes in. And the DNA.”
“Wait…DNA and data...” Rose put in, trying to remember an article she had read once, years before and a universe away. “DNA data storage?”
“DNA data storage!” The Doctor crowed triumphantly, grinning madly at Rose for a moment before applying the sonic to the wires she held.
Ada and Noor were looking more and more lost. “DNA? Like genetics?” Noor ventured.
Rose nodded, taking up the task of explaining while the Doctor was busy doing… whatever it was she was up to with the machine. “Yeah. It’s basically a little code inside every living cell, telling it what to do. But if someone were to change that code…”
“Then all sorts of information could be stored,” the Doctor summed up, stuffing the wires she had been working on back into the casing, then refitting the panel and sonicing it closed. “Mucking up every other instruction in there, but you’d have your data.”
At her gesture, Rose helped her lift the glass cover back over the pedestal. It looked exactly as it had before they had arrived. “There we are then,” the Doctor said brightly, smiling at her three current companions. “Time for a little hop to the future.”
Neither Rose, Noor, nor Ada understood exactly what it was the Doctor had done, but they dutifully followed her back into the Master’s TARDIS for the next step of her plan.
--
A gray sky glowered over the old hangar that they landed outside next. This was where the instrumentation said the Silver Lady was, so this was where they had followed.
The hangar doors stood open, and Rose was able to pick out the Master’s voice as the four of them approached, the Doctor in the lead. “Conversion and transmission. We're transmitting Kasaavin energy around the world all at once into every device, hitting every human being and erasing all their DNA simultaneously.”
Entering, Rose saw energy crackling out from something on a pedestal to what looked like Yaz, wrapping up her arms, crawling with light. Rose was about to run to her when the Doctor put a hand on her arm, stopping her.
Rose looked questioningly at the Doctor, but she was watching, rapt.
“I can't let go of it!” Yaz cried.
Only Rose was close enough to hear the Doctor, saying something under her breath. “C’mon, come on, please…”
The Master was in full-on gloating mode. “First her. Then you,” he pointed to Ryan, then to Graham, menacingly. “Then you.”
Rose was about to shake off the Doctor and go do whatever she could to help (even if it was only to punch the Master in his all-too-smug face) when the Silver Lady stopped, suddenly still and silent.
“Argh!” The Master stood in front of the unmoving Silver Lady, all his braggadocio drained in an instant. “Don’t do this.”
The Doctor strode forward, all confidence and swagger now, Rose, Ada, and Noor arrayed behind her. “Sorry. I think that might have been me. And I'll admit, it was close.”
As she spoke, the tendrils of energy that had been surrounding Yaz broke and snapped, as if cut off from their power source. She jerked away from it, rubbing her hand momentarily. Within seconds though, she had her super-cool façade back up and took her own place between Ryan and Graham.
Rose could tell that the Master was furious, that seething rage beginning to bubble up to the surface again. “No,” he hissed.
But the Doctor was in her element now, explaining just how she had foiled this latest plan of his. “Two can play at embedding things in history. I knew the Silver Lady was important, and that you built it for a reason, but I couldn't work out why. So I traced its movements through history. And when I saw that Barton now owned it, we stopped by his office. Middle of last year, using your Tardis, I built a fail-safe into that machine. Planted a virus. If it ever detected the massing of a Kasaavin army within its systems - total shutdown.”
As if summoned by their name, an army of Kasaavin emerged from the Silver Lady like arcs of electricity, filling the hangar in eerie formation. Rose felt a chill go up her spine again, even though she knew it was something very different from the Cybermen.
The Master was regaining a little bit of his smug demeanor. “You're going to have to explain yourself to them, Doctor.”
The Doctor was unfazed. “Am I? Listen, you lot,” she raised her voice to address the Kasaavin directly. “ I've rigged the Silver Lady to exile you back to your own dimension. This planet's off-limits. Oh, and you know that deal he made with you?”
She held up her sonic screwdriver, and, with a whirr, played back part of the conversation that Rose had overheard between the two. ”Barton and these creatures do the dirty work, and once they're done, I get rid of them, having destroyed your precious human race in the process.”
The Kasaavin moved closer, and the Master’s face drained as he knew the jig was well and truly up. “Oh.”
“That's your name. Don't wear it out,” the Doctor quipped brightly. “That's the trouble with modern technology. You never know when you're being spied upon.”
The Master turned to the advancing Kasaavin, holding his hands up placatingly. “Don't... don't listen to her.”
Within seconds, the Kasaavin had enveloped him and, as suddenly as they appeared, they were gone, taking the Master with them.
Rose couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face at having taken care of the Master, though it faltered a bit when she caught the icy looks Graham, Ryan, and especially Yaz were giving the Doctor.
“What?” The Doctor asked.
Yaz shook her head. “You have a lot of explaining to do,” she told her.
The Doctor was indignant. “Like what?”
Graham picked up from there. “Like who are those two? And are we being replaced?”
“No,” the Doctor answered in a tone indicating that that was the silliest thing she’d ever heard. Rose rolled her eyes, but held her tongue, at least for now. “This is Ada, this is Noor. 1834, 1943. They helped me out. I'm dropping them back in a sec. And Rose, well,” the Doctor gestured in a ‘you know’ sort of fashion.
“How did you manage to save our lives on the plane?” Ryan asked.
“The plane,” the Doctor repeated blankly, then, “Oh, I forgot.”
“You forgot?” Rose repeated as the Doctor turned to run back to the Master’s TARDIS.
The Doctor’s only answer was a shouted, “Come on!”
Ada, Noor, and Rose piled back into the Master’s TARDIS after her, the Doctor immediately at the console putting in coordinates. Rose shut the door behind herself. “I can’t believe you forgot.”
The Doctor grimaced at the console. “I was a bit preoccupied at the time.”
Rose shook her head laughing. “So what’s the plan now?”
With a shudder, the TARDIS landed, and the Doctor swept toward the door. “Rose, come help me!”
Shooting an apologetic smile over her shoulder to Noor and Ada, Rose complied. They emerged this time into the vast, echoing space of what Rose realized was not just another airplane hangar, but an assembly building for airplanes. It seemed to be either the night-shift or a holiday, because they appeared to be the only two people in the entire place. The Doctor had made a beeline for some tools and, as soon as Rose joined her, started handing her things.
“I’m assuming,” Rose said, gamely taking the stack of aluminium plates handed to her and piling them on top of the vise already in her arms. “One of these planes is destined to be one Mr. Barton’s?”
“Right in one!” The Doctor hefted a blocky machine in one arm and what appeared to be a rolled-up projector screen in the other. Rose couldn’t exactly complain about being over-burdened if the Doctor was in the same situation. “Best way to stop a plane crash--never let it go down in the first place.”
Hauling everything back to the TARDIS, the next half hour or so was a whirlwind of productivity. The Doctor made several little plaques to be affixed under the seats, with extremely specific embossing. While Rose was putting those in place, hyper-vigilant for any security or anything that might wander across, the Doctor filmed the video to be shown to the terrified passengers of a suddenly not-so-doomed private plane.
Rose returned right as the Doctor finished the last playback. “There we are then. All ready to go.” She produced her sonic screwdriver from the pockets of her (increasingly tattered-looking, though Rose was in no state to judge) coat, pressing it against the camera for a brief whirr.
“All done?” Rose asked, brushing off her skirt from the invisible dust she was sure it must have picked up, crawling around on what was to be the cabin floor of the only mostly-built plane.
“Almost,” the Doctor replied cheerily. Buzzing back over to what Rose thought might be the same laptop she had been using back when they thought this was nothing more than O’s hut, she hit a few keys with a flourish, printing out a sheet of colorful paper.
It barely had time to dry before the Doctor was snatching it up and slotting it into the sleek plastic sheeting next to her next machine. With a whirr, this one much gentler than that of the sonic, the paper and plastic fed into the machine, the Doctor watching with delight. “I love a laminator.”
Rose couldn’t help her fond laugh. “You really don’t change, do you?”
There was a wistfulness she couldn’t quite keep out of her voice entirely. She knew it caught the Doctor's attention. But as she saw the Doctor’s eyes dart to their other two companions, Rose knew that this wasn’t the time for that conversation.
“So,” Rose returned her attention to the plan. “They’ve got a video, printed instructions--”
“Laminated,” the Doctor corrected.
“Laminated instructions, and an app. And they’ll be able to fly the plane from there?”
“Yep.” The Doctor brandished the sonic in one hand and the freshly-laminated instructions in the other. “Easy peasy apple squeezy.”
Rose was going to protest that she was pretty sure the phrase didn’t go like that, but the Doctor was already out the door to put the final flourishes on the plan in the plane. She was shaking her head in bemusement when she caught Noor’s look. “What?”
“Nothing…” Noor seemed to consider for a moment, before continuing. “I assume you must be the one they were talking about on the network, in Paris?”
Rose blinked, bewildered. ”What do you mean?” She wasn’t aware that there had been any chatter about her during her brief stay there.
Noor shrugged. “You know how some operators get codenames from nursery rhymes--one that had appeared just before the Doctor… the big bad wolf.”
“Oh.” It had been many years since Rose had stopped counting when and where that phrase had shown up, again and again, her alter-ego spreading itself through the universe so thoroughly it had leaked over into others. “Yeah, that’s…. That’s me.” She tried to play it off as something halfway between a ‘ta-da’ sort of reveal and a chagrined confession.
“You’ve known the Doctor for a long time then?”
Rose couldn’t help but smile fondly, absently touching one hand to the other, the memory of a single whispered word as clear to her as the day it was spoken. “A lifetime.”
Ada and Noor shared a look that Rose could not fathom the meaning of. Noor was about to say more, before the doors burst open again and the Doctor’s frenetic energy took over.
“I don’t know about you all, but I’m ready to get home,” the Doctor declared, striding to the console.
Ada looked the most relieved out of all of them. “I should very much like that.” Rose supposed it had been a long, strange day for her and Noor.
The Doctor glanced at Ada, before the machine landed again. “Right then, one more pitstop first.” She glanced up at Rose, who had taken what felt like her usual place at the Doctor side, next to her at the console. “You know the interesting thing about his TARDIS?” the Doctor asked, busily manipulating the lighted haptic controls.
“What?” Rose asked.
The Doctor smirked at her, flinging a light control with a flourish that would have been much more impressive with a physical interface. “It has a perfectly functional chameleon circuit.”
Her gesture ended at the door, indicating that they should exit. Rose’s headshake was full of fondness, even more than any exasperation it contained for this flamboyant, vibrant alien she loved. She followed Noor and Ada out into a California twilight, overlooking the same vineyard from Barton’s estate.
Once outside, Rose turned back to look: the Master’s TARDIS was no longer a house. Instead, sitting just off from a pillar was a double of it, down to the same paint and plaster. When the Doctor shut the door behind her, it melded seamlessly into the ‘stone’ of the rest of it.
“Come on.” The Doctor strode confidently to the short fence overlooking the vineyard and smoothly hopped over it. She was about to stride off toward her ship when Rose pointedly cleared her throat, stopping her. Rose climbed over a little more carefully, her and Noor just a little hampered by their knee-length skirts.
After helping Ada (and Ada’s dress--19th century fashion was its own creature, Rose knew) over the fence the Doctor turned her footsteps to where she had left the TARDIS in the vineyard. Rose caught up and grabbed her hand, and the Doctor smiled back at her.
As they approached, Rose pulled the key out from her blouse to unlock the door without prompting. She did notice the Doctor’s eyes on her as she did so, and realized--belatedly--the other object she carried on that chain.
The Doctor didn’t say anything right that moment though, so neither did Rose, pushing open the door and ushering the other two women in. If anything, Noor and Ada were even more impressed by this than they had been by the Master’s TARDIS-disguised-as-house.
“Magnificent,” Ada breathed, taking in the crystal cavern with unconcealed wonder as the room lit up in soft golds and luminous blues, the TARDIS welcoming the Doctor back.
Noor was better at hiding her emotions, but she was just awed by the place as Ada. “But it was just a box.”
The Doctor was already flitting about the console, so Rose took this one. “Time and Relative Dimensions in Space.”
“Meaning,” Ada said slowly, placing a cautious hand on one of the crystal struts. “The outer dimensions and inner dimensions do not, necessarily, correspond.”
Rose blinked, thought about it, and laughed delightedly. “It’s bigger on the inside, yeah.”
“First stop!” The Doctor announced, throwing a lever with a flourish that was much more natural here in this machine of physical switches and dials. “France, Paris, nineteen forty-three, about an hour and 26 minutes after we left.”
Rose grinned at her and the Doctor gave a quelling look back (muttering about how that was one time and neither saw the look that, even after only a few hours with them, had been exchanged between Noor and Ada a fair few times.
Noor clasped Ada’s hands in her own, the gesture halfway between an embrace and a handshake. “Strange and short as our acquaintanceship has been, it was a pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Ada returned.
Noor seemed to shake herself a little bit right before stepping out of the TARDIS doors into her small Paris flat, the half-light coming through the window an early dawn or firelight. It was the quiet of the wee hours of the morning out there, Rose slipping out through the doors after Noor and the Doctor.
The Doctor followed Noor all the way to her bedroom, Rose stopping in the doorway. “This is where I leave you,” the Doctor pronounced.
After a brief moment of consideration, Noor set her shoulders. “Answer me one question. The fascists, do they win?”
“Never,” Rose said firmly and immediately. Noor looked back at her questioningly and Rose nodded, pouring all of the sincerity she had in that plain truth. “Ever.”
The Doctor nodded too, giving Noor a smile. “Not while there's people like you.”
She reached out with her hand toward Noor, and Noor flinched away. “It’s all right,” she reassured. “I'm just removing me from your mind.”
Oh-so-gently, the Doctor placed her fingers to Noor’s temple and she allowed it. A moment later Noor was sinking to the bed, guided by the Doctor’s hands as she collapsed down into sleep. There was a sadness in the Doctor’s smile, Rose could see that much. “Bonne chance,” the Doctor murmured.
Rose thought she seemed a little subdued, but she shook it off as Rose followed her back to the TARDIS for their next stop.
Soon enough, they had landed again, this time in the middle of a sitting room, still and empty at the late hour. Rose lingered in the TARDIS' doorway after the other two.
"Doctor, does this have to be the end?" Ada asked. Rose bit her lip. There had to be a reason the Doctor hadn't asked Ada to come along, even for just a little bit, but Rose couldn't help but think that she'd make a pretty good traveling companion. "All the things I've learned, the advances, the machines. I would dearly love to see more."
The Doctor seemed chagrined and a little reluctant. "I'm afraid I need to do something about that."
"What do you mean?"
The Doctor approached. "I'm ever so sorry, Ada," she apologized.
"Doctor, what are you doing?” Ada flinched back.
The Doctor was calm as she explained. “Wiping the things you shouldn't have knowledge of. Including me."
“But I want that knowledge,” she protested. Despite this, the Doctor continued her approach. “Don't take it away. Please don't take it a…”
The Doctor’s fingers made contact with Ada’s temple. In the doorway of the TARDIS, Rose flinched away as her stomach clenched. The Doctor caught Ada easily and carefully laid her down on a handy chaise lounge, making sure she was fast asleep before withdrawing. “Sweet dreams, Ada Lovelace,” she murmured.
Quietly, the Doctor came back to where Rose stood, closing the TARDIS’s door on Babbage’s house with a soft click, then bounding up toward the console.
“She doesn’t need a preview,” the Doctor told Rose merrily as she followed. Rose could tell the lightness in her tone was masking any turbulent emotions she might have felt about having to do what she just had. “She figures it out way before anyone! The first one to see potential in things like that difference engine, to work out what it could be. What they can really do. Computers start with her.”
Briskly she sent them into the time vortex, Rose joining her at the console. “What happens to Noor?” Rose asked softly.
The Doctor focused on the controls for a long moment. Rose couldn't work out whether it was to try and remember or to avoid telling her. Finally, she blew out a breath. “The life expectancy for wireless operators in occupied France was six weeks, at the time.”
It was a roundabout way of telling her without really saying properly, but Rose understood. She placed a gentle hand on the Doctor’s arm. “But she… she does make a difference, right?”
The Doctor smiled at her sunnily. “‘Course! The Prosper network was one of the biggest and most important wireless networks in the whole war! She was a big part of that.”
Rose could tell there was more that she wasn’t saying, but the Doctor moved on before she could ask. “Some really extraordinary people, those two.”
She had thought that the Doctor would take them right back to London, to pick up the ‘fam’ and continue on through space and time, but it looked like something was bothering her. Rose had started to pick up on the way the Doctor was now, even after only a day or so. So many things were echoes of or sideways versions of the Doctors that she had known before. Even if she had only known two-ish versions of him, she had helped the Doctor back to himself from war and death and destruction, two times over. She had helped him find himself again and, in the process, learned more about this particular alien than just about anybody else living knew--she figured, anyway. Something was eating at her. “Doctor?”
“We should change,” the Doctor said briskly, avoiding the question. They were in the time vortex for now, a sort of standby state for the TARDIS.
Rose looked down at the outfit she had worn for the past three days, grimacing a little at the dirt and stains and general worn-ness of it all. “I suppose… But then we’re going back for your friends, yeah?”
“Yep.” The Doctor started to shoo Rose off to do so but, at Rose’s pointed look, followed her into the halls instead. They parted ways far sooner than Rose remembered them ever doing in the past, but then the TARDIS was always rearranging herself, she supposed.
Rose changed quickly, throwing on jeans, plaid button-up and flats for the first time in days. Sighing at her hair in the mirror, she pulled it into a messy bun. There would be time to deal with it later, she hoped.
Despite how quick she had been, the Doctor still managed to beat her to the console room. She was stalling though, Rose saw, idly flipping switches and peering at displays with no real interest until Rose stepped back into the room.
“So,” Rose asked, making her way down the stairs to the Doctor. “Pick up the others?”
“We could--” she paused, looking up at Rose and she could see the thoughts whirling away in her head. “You heard the conversation, right? From the Tower?”
Rose nodded, frowning as she thought she caught the drift of the Doctor’s thoughts. “The Master, he… he said something about Gallifrey.”
The Doctor busied herself at another set of controls, trying to look busy. “He was probably lying. Does that a lot, him.”
“Yeah… Doctor.” Rose stopped the Doctor's hand with her own, getting the Doctor to look up from the console finally. She was right on the edge, Rose could tell. She wanted to run and run and never come back, never look back, never even think about what was behind her. But if they did that, the question would eat away at her, Rose knew. The Doctor had to see for herself.
“Right.” Suddenly she was busy setting coordinates, a much more productive busyness than before, directing Rose to help her out with dials or switches as needed.
She didn’t need to explain where they were going: there was only one possibility. It had seemed impossible when the Doctor had told her. All her long life Rose had thought that Gallifrey had been destroyed at the Doctor’s hand. The first and worst cataclysm that her husband had never been able to atone for… and the Doctor had undone it.
All too soon, Rose thought, they had landed.
The Doctor was staring at the TARDIS doors like she was working up the nerve to go open them, to see what lay beyond. Rose bit her lip as she watched, but decided this was maybe one thing she couldn’t help with. Finally the Doctor nodded to herself, heading for the doors at a brisk clip, Rose following a little behind.
Rose knew something was wrong the moment the Doctor opened the door, freezing stock still as she stared out at the landscape beyond. Rose gasped as her mind registered what she was seeing. It was a broken world under an orange sky, smoke rising from ruined buildings, the great glass dome of the citadel cracked and shattered. The devastation was reflected on the Doctor’s face as she stared out at her ruined home again.
Again and again and always.
“I never…” the Doctor began, finally, trailing off. She tore her eyes from the shattered scene to look at Rose, looking just as shattered herself. “I never wanted you to see it like this.”
That seemed to be the Doctor’s breaking point, clutching the door frame as she crumpled.
“Oh, Doctor.” Rose gathered her up in her arms. There was a second’s hesitation before the Doctor moved, clinging to Rose as she fought the tears and lost. Wordlessly, Rose soothed her, held her as she had once held another version of the Doctor, her heart breaking for her all over again.
Eventually Rose was able to coax her over to one of the crystal pillars surrounding the console dais, sitting down with her. She didn’t let go of the Doctor’s hands though. Even the TARDIS had picked up on the mood, the lighting subdued to a low, cool blue. Rose was about to suggest they go get a cup of tea or something when something in the Doctor’s pocket bleeped at them.
Confused, the Doctor removed a small disc-like object from her jacket pocket, staring at it as it bleeped again and began to glow.
“Geo-activated,” the Master’s voice said from the other side of the console. Rose and the Doctor were on their feet in an instant, rushing over to where a hologram of the Master had appeared at the top of the steps that led deeper into the TARDIS interior, one of the few areas that still glowed with golden light.
“If you're seeing this,” it continued, “you've been to Gallifrey. When I said someone did that, obviously I meant I did.”
Rose snarled, not caring that the hologram couldn’t see her. “Bastard!”
He continued, undisturbed. “I had to make them pay for what I discovered. They lied to us, the founding fathers of Gallifrey. Everything we were told was a lie. We are not who we think, you or I. The whole existence of our species built on the lie of the Timeless Child.”
The Doctor stumbled, pressing a hand to her forehead. Rose was at her side immediately even as she fell to her knees, as if she could almost shield the Doctor from the Master. “Doctor?”
The hologram of the Master was leaning over, as if he knew what this was doing to the Doctor, lording it over her. “Do you see it? It's buried deep in all our memories. In our identity. I'd tell you more, but…”
He straightened, hands on his lapels. “But why would I make it easy for you? It wasn't for me.”
With that, the hologram vanished. Rose and the Doctor stared for a breathless moment, willing there to be more, hating what there had been. Then, with a wordless cry, the Doctor threw the disc across the TARDIS, pieces scattering and ricocheting.
Rose placed a cautious hand on the Doctor’s shoulder, flinched back when the Doctor started, almost snarling at Rose. The expression melted swiftly into panic, then confusion, then the shuttered, un-feeling mask that Rose had seen too many times before to ever be fooled by it.
The TARDIS was silent, not even the ship attempting to comfort the Doctor as she stormed to the console, slamming at levers and throwing dials like it was the ship that had wronged her. A brief shower of sparks and she yelped, pulling her hand away and planting it on the console, breathing hard, still for a moment.
Slowly, Rose approached, then reached out, placing her hand on the Doctor’s back. Beneath it, the Doctor tensed, then slowly relaxed, slumping defeatedly. Rose worked her arms around the Doctor’s waist, hugging her from behind, until she was able to rest her cheek there, feel the Doctor’s breath as it slowed, the double-heartsbeat she remembered oh-so-very well.
After a small eternity the Doctor moved, turning to place her hands on Rose’s arms, her head hung low so Rose couldn’t see her face. “We should,” she swallowed, then rallied. “We should go. Pick up the fam.”
Rose bit her lip, but knew that this wasn’t the time to talk. The Doctor was going to run and, god help her, Rose was going to run right alongside her. As fast and as far as she could go. “Alright.” She flashed a brief smile she didn’t feel, giving the Doctor’s arms one last squeeze before she was pulling away. “Let’s go.”