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Rose laughed as she watched him run around flipping switches and turning knobs making the tardis hum with the delight of a new adventure.
"Where should we go next? Egypt, the year 2062?"
He looked over at her with excitement shining in his eyes.
Her smile grew as she replied. "What about Rome? We've never been there before."
"Rome! That's brilliant, past or present?"
She looked at him with a puzzled gaze.
"There's a future Rome?"
"Well you know what they say about history Rose. It has a tendency to repeat itself. The Doctor said with a wink.
"Future than." She replied.
He grabbed her hand placing it on the lever that would send them hurling towards her chosen destination.
"Allons-y!" He said as she slammed the lever down.
Instead of the content hum the tardis was making moments ago there was a loud screeching. The tardis began to hurl through the sky slinging them against the wall.
"I don't think that was supposed to happen." Rose said startled.
As the tardis settled the Doctor stood and made his way to the entrance to peer out at their surroundings.
Rose approached from behind to follow his gaze to a man standing over a child.
"Whose that?" She asked, watching the man.
"If it's who I think it is then we are not where we intended to be."
"Where are we then?" Rose asked as she stepped around him to stand outside.
"Rose, I believe we are in Rome during the year 269 and that man is Saint Valentine."
"Valentine,Like the holiday?" Rose chuckled.
He glanced at her and back at the saint leaning over the child lying in the dirt at his feet.
"Exactly like the holiday actually." He replied as he began walking towards them.
Her eyebrows rose with confusion as she followed behind him. “I thought the day was named after the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre!”
The doctor turned to look at her. “Why on earth would you think that? It’s a day of love Rose.”
“That still doesn’t explain why we are here.” She said as she a shadow fell over them.
Their gaze traveled to the sky to see what had caused the sudden shadow and saw a reaper hovering over them.
“Oh that’s not good,that’s not good at all!” He grabbed her hand and ran into the old church nearby screaming for everyone to follow them.
“I thought they only showed up when there was damaged time.” She gasped out between deep breaths.
“They do, which answers why we were brought here. Someone is messing with time.” His eyes grew dark as he sat in the back pew lost in thought.
Rose sat beside him, taking his hand in hers and giving it a quick squeeze to pull him back from wherever his mind had wandered before speaking. “The question then is what happened on this day that someone would want to change.”
He gave her a half hearted smile. “What indeed?”
He stood and grabbed her hand. “We have to get back to the tardis and make sure these people don’t leave this church while we are gone.”
Rose’s brows furrowed with confusion. “Gone, gone where?”
As they walked out the church he sealed the doors with his sonic screwdriver making sure to keep the people inside safe from the Reaper hovering over them.
“The question isn’t just what is being changed, it's how. How are they traveling in time in order to change this day? The only person we know that can do that besides us is Captain Jack Harkness so that’s where we must go to find our answers!” Said the doctor as he once again began turning knobs and flipping switches.
They opened the doors to find Jack sitting on the floor rewiring a control panel.
“I’d know that sound anywhere, if it isn’t the doctor and the lovely Rose.” Jack stood to greet them and sighed at the look of concern on their faces.
“Well I take it you're not here because you missed me.” Jack said with a small smile.
“Who all has those space hoppers?” The Doctor asked as he began walking around the room.
Jack rolled his eyes at the Doctor’s dismal view of the device made by the time agency. “It’s called a vortex manipulator which you know and all time agents possess them. Why the interest Doctor?”
He stopped walking around the room. “How many agents?”
“Unsure it’s not as if we get together for tea.” Jack replied.
The Doctor flared at him.”So you're telling me there are an unknown amount of people hopping through space causing mayhem as they please?”
Jack leaned against the wall facing them. “I wouldn’t exactly put it that way.”
Rose sighed. “This may prove more difficult than we previously thought.”
“You still haven’t actually said what “this” is.” Jack said teasingly.
“There’s damaged time in Rome during the year 269. We thought you’d be able to tell us who was responsible for it since it wasn’t us and you're the only other person we knew could travel through time.” Rose replied.
“Which is clearly no longer the case since it appears there’s an entire group of people meddling around damaging the time vortex!” The Doctor retorted as he walked into the tardis closing the door behind him.
“I’ll come take a look at it. Depending on what model manipulator they are using I might be able to track them.” Jack replies as he grabbed his coat off the floor where he had been sitting.
“You can do that?” Rose asked surprised.
“Absolutely, these “space hoppers” can do all sorts of things if you know how to use them!” He gave her a quick wink before entering the tardis.
They stood in the tardis looking out at the reaper still hovering over the church as Jack tinkered with the space manipulator on his wrist.
“The person that did this isn’t an agent.” Jack said quietly as he focused on his device.
“How do you know?” Rose asked, looking over his shoulder at the manipulator.
“Well it would appear they over jumped their original destination. The readings show that there wasn’t damage done here just a slight ripple of time manipulation. That’s what the reaper senses but it should be leaving soon because the signal is disappearing quickly.” Jack replied looking out the tardis doors.
The reaper was suddenly gone as if it overheard their conversation.
“There ya see, just as I said.” Jack remarked as he walked back over to where the doctor stood.
“So you can track their signature?” The doctor asked.
“I should be able to as long as the signal doesn’t become too weak.” Jack replied, still looking down at the device.
Rose watched as they input the coordinates for the location where the signal was the strongest.
Though it appeared there were traces of the person jumping from place to place before actually arriving where they intended, making it appear as the user wasn’t knowledgeable of how the vortex manipulator functioned.
The tardis had barely materialized at the location when there was a loud explosion nearby causing the tardis to shake.
“Bloody hell, what was that?” Rose exclaimed.
The Doctor walked over to help her back onto her feet with a grim expression on his face. “If the coordinates are correct than that was a bomb and we are in Dresden Germany the year 1945.”
“Why would anyone want to come to a place that's being bombed?” she asked loudly to try and be heard over the bombs going off all around them.
“I can't answer that but I can tell you that all the places the signal left traces has one thing in common, they are all on February fourteenth.” Jack replied.
“Well that can't be a coincidence, now can it ?” The Doctor followed Jack and Rose outside to begin following the signal.
Rose watched as young children scurried into buildings and cried out for their parents as bomb after bomb crumbled the homes around them muffling their cries with the sounds of explosions and screams.
“What's happening here?” Rose's voice broke as her gaze drifted over the mangled bodies of men, women and children, their faces frozen in fear.. the last expression they would ever feel.
The Doctor pulled her close to him, turning her face away from the death around them. “This is the Dresden Bombing, it lasted several days many lives were lost, this is what war looks like. This is the part nobody talks about; they sum it up with who won and who lost. But nobody talks about what it took to win.”
Jack stopped abruptly in front of a large splintered red door that once covered the entrance to the home they stood in front of. “Whoever has been bouncing around space is in there.”
Rose looked from Jack to the entrance before slowly walking in, stepping over broken glass and splinted wood she heard the sound of crying. “Hello, is someone in here?” she asked softly.
The mumbled sound of a man's voice came from the back room. “I'm too late, I have to try again. I'm too late.”
They followed the voice till they found a man sprawled out on the floor cradling a woman that appeared to be in her mid twenties and a young boy no older than five.
“Mister?” Rose reached over softly laying her hand on his shoulder.
The man looked up at them with tears streaking his dirty face. “I'm too late.”
A tear rolled down Rose's face. “You're the one traveling through time aren't you? You're trying to change what happened today.”
The man nodded weakly. “I saw a man use it and I knew this was my only chance to fix it, to save them.”
Jack knelt down beside them. “You couldn't figure out how it worked though that's why you were bouncing through time from one Valentines day to another.”
“I had bought her flowers. It was supposed to be a good day, a day of love.” The man said sobbing.
Rose looked over at The Doctor standing against the wall, his face hidden in the shadows. “You weren't too late, time won't allow you to change what happened. It's a fixed point in history, to change it would cause a rip in time and the reapers would devour everything and everyone.”
The man looked at him with disbelief and fear etched on his face. “What are you saying? Are you telling me they were meant to die? I just have to allow it to be this way?” Tears streamed down his face as he held tight to the limp bodies of his wife and son.
“I'm so sorry.” The Doctor replied softly.
The man shook his head refusing to accept the truth of his words though the look in his eyes said part of him had already known it was impossible to fix the past. The Doctor leaned down and took the man's hand helping him to his feet.
“I can't fix this but I can take you away from here. Come with us, this will always be a part of you but it doesn't have to be all you ever become.” The Doctor watched a fleeting moment of hope flash in the man's eyes.
“Where would I go? I have no home, no family.” He replied.
Rose gave him a weak smile. “We can show you things nobody's ever seen.”
The man cradled his wife and son close to him. “They must be buried far from here, I don't want their final resting place to be a place of such destruction.”
The Doctor nodded at him and led them back to the Tardis knowing just the place for the man's family. The look of surprise upon arriving atop the mountain overlooking the field of sunflowers made The Doctor smile for the first time since this adventure has begun.
“What is that box? How did it bring us here?” The man stood on the mountain looking out at the valleys below.
“I call it the Tardis. It's our home that we are now offering to share with you, if you would like to travel with us.” The Doctor stood in the doorway watching him say goodbye to his family.
The man walked into the tardis and looked at the three of them. “I would like to accept.”
The Doctor smiled as he grabbed Rose's hand and closed the tardis door. “Well than on to the next adventure.”