Chapter Text
One would think a road trip to Bergen would be wind in their hair, full of anticipation, gorgeous views and a sense of freedom from mundane obligations like reporting into UNIT and that call from your Mum demanding you show up for tea and family time.
Sadly, or maybe not so sadly, this was not the case for Rose and the Doctor.
The Doctor effect came into play. Or maybe it was the Rose and Doctor effect. Together, they were a duo of chaotic energy, adventure and a little oops we stumbled into a possibly save the world problem. Or in this case, save the locals and some tourists.
Rose was the designated driver on this trip. Despite a certain Metacrisis asserting he had a human license. On another Earth. Teasing and banter about Norway, food and rubbish chips they’d enjoyed was interrupted by two abandoned cars and a lorry that blocked the road with car doors hanging open.
Rose was the first out of the car quickly followed by the Doctor. So much for get to know you all over again road trip.
“Traffic’s a bit rubbish.” He nudged her side, eyes crinkling with that essence of Doctor excitement. She had to admit, even tired from saving the multiverse, she was just as much an adrenaline junkie as the Doctor.
“It’s weird. Not the traffic or the accident. This is a main highway but why abandon the cars and lorry? No one’s even called out to us. Makes one wonder.”
“Like how there’s no birds or insects making sound. Dark and ominous forest is lining the road on both sides, or how the hair on my manly hand just stood up.” He held up said hand, the one that he grew out of, to be exact.
While the Doctor vibrated with excitement and adventure, Rose fell back into heart pounding the world is about to end training. Barely breathing, she made a quick survey of the vehicles noting dents and gouges that didn’t come from car on car damage. The trees rose up into an overcast covering a rocky incline leading up to more mountainous terrain. It gave her an icy chill up her spine. The kind she sometimes felt…no.
“I don’t have my Cyber kit,” she breathed out, every muscle locked.
“I don’t want to know what’s in a Cyber kit do I?” the Doctor asked, with a familiar Time Lord disdain. All affection and excitement vanished.
“I’m sure you don’t.” Rose refused to put up with mighty Time Lord morality when she’d seen so many people die. “You can stay here and judge. I need to look in the cars. Keep an eye on the woods.” She eased forward, tension coiling in her middle.
“Should I salute now?” he called out and Rose caught herself from whipping around.
Arguing his hurt ego and the dynamics of who took the lead was not her priority. If there were Cybers, they didn’t have time for a row or losing focus on their surroundings. Instead she ignored him. A first for her when so much of her time had been spent trying to find him.
The cars were a few meters away, steam floated from the front of the generic white lorry. The only sound was her boots on the pavement.
She didn’t see any blood. Yet. A sour, swampy scent came from nearby. Not Cybers then, but the list of what it could be was just as ugly. Jake liked to talk about his Yeti assignment and then there was that one report of a basilisk. And her least favorite werewolves. There were reports pockets of them lived in remote regions. The Mountains of Norway weren’t out of the question.
“The universe hates me,” Rose muttered.
“I doubt as much as me.” The Doctor waltzed by straight to a white Volkswagen Golf that was missing a door. He stuck his head inside oblivious to their surroundings.
“Might want to be a little less eager to stick your neck out. You only have one life.” She hated to be that nagging whatever she was to him. But he still seemed oblivious to danger. Or he didn’t care. Her stomach clenched at darker aspects in his personality she’d witnessed on a few past adventures. And since arriving, he’d had one panic attack already. That she knew about.
She couldn’t discount how often he didn’t care about his own life. Especially, in the face of what happened on the Dalek Crucible.
“Well this answers one question,” he said cheerily climbing out of the car.
“What do you mean?”
“Agent or is it commander or some other title they call you?” He pulled out his sonic and waved it over the scraped metal.
“Agent and I’m not going to apologize for doing my job. Which includes keeping you safe, even from yourself.”
“Nine hundred three years and I’ve done just fine,” he answered. “On that beach I asked to spend my life with you, not for you to be my keeper.” He focused too long on the sonic.
“Partners,” Rose reminded him, taking a look at the interior of the car noting broken glasses, and a handbag with contents spilled on the floorboard. “And that means listening to each other, talking and not letting someone you love do something that might get him hurt, and especially after facing Daleks. So please remember I’d like you around longer than a day. This isn’t cybers.”
“Got that,” he ignored her and stared into the woods.
“There’s something off in the dark and spooky woods,” Rose acknowledged, again getting that sick scent sitting heavy in the air. “And we aren’t prepared for the number of things it could be.”
That captured his attention.
“Theories?” he asked, calmer and less a prat this time. But not by much given that tick in his jaw.
“Bloody Norway,” Rose breathed out and reached for her mobile. Which oddly had no signal. “I can call across the Void and on the beach but not when I actually need help. We’re on our own.”
“Better that way. Or does Agent Tyler—”
“Stop it!” Rose was setting him straight. “You were fine letting me handle Cthulhu. What’s the problem now?”
“The problem is we’re establishing a pattern where you, Rose Tyler, don’t trust me. Metacrisis doesn’t mean useless.”
“No, it doesn’t. And it doesn’t give you a free pass to treat me like I haven’t lived in this world and know a bit more than you about it. There are things here that aren’t in universe prime. Let me suss out which thing it is and then you go do your brilliant solution Time Lord thing. Without dying, please.”
“A bit of morbid fascination you have with my mortality,” he kicked a pebble off the road.
“I’m tired of losing you.” Her voice shook more than she wanted. She blinked back tears and walked away from him around the car until she reached a gravel strewn area on the side of the road.
“Let’s just get this over with,” he sighed having quickly moved to her side. “I’m sorry.” Hands shoved in his coat pockets, he gravitated just short of doing their usual affirming hip bump.
“I’m sorry too,” Rose admitted with relief. “I’m not trying to order you around. I’m being cautious. Neither of us is in top form. And I’m still uptight from dimension jumps and everything that happened. Not exactly ready to face whatever made these tracks.” She bit her lip at the clear drag marks and unless she had it wrong, a very large indentation in the soil heading toward the trees.
“Ohhhh look at this!” the Doctor cooed, tension between them now shoved aside. “Large. Bipedal. Shuffling or could be dragging something or one.” He knelt down and scooped up some gravel.
“Please don’t lick that,” Rose felt compelled to remind him. He smirked and stood up.
“Nope,” he popped his p. “Rather lick something nicer than gravel.”
Rose’s jaw dropped at his innuendo and that naughty glint in his eyes before he shoved his gravel filled hand at her.
“Blood smears.”
“Shit,” she breathed and looked up at the trees.
“You were saying you had life forms in this universe that didn’t exist in ours?” He tossed the gravel down and Rose flinched at the noise.
“You saw the kraken. There’s more than Cthulhu out there. Dad’s a bit obsessed with old legends and unexplained phenomena. So is Jake. He had to track this big foot man-monkey thing. And Dad has tons of books in his library about myths like dragons, basilisk or the whole werewolf and Queen Victoria history.”
“Lupine Wavelength Haemovariform,” he corrected. “It existed here too? Was that the point of universal split?”
“Could be. Here it nipped the royal family and that’s how this Torchwood was formed. To hunt them down after they massacred a village and started infecting the aristocracy. People still don’t like to talk about it. Or any of the other weird stuff that only…” She drifted off before she put the pieces together.
“only?” he asked.
“They started showing up when the universal walls thinned the first time. When Pete brought Mum and me back. Rumors started. A few odd cases here and there and much worse when the Stars started going out.”
“Like what?” he asked, darting a few glances into the woods and setting his hand on the small of her back, fingers digging slightly into her jacket.
“Well at first I was sure it was aliens. Still might have been. There were these gremlin type things. Tearing up cars, electronics, motors.”
“Anything with an EM signature,” he added. “And?”
“Caused accidents, took out power grids and for the public it was chalked up to terrorists. After the cybermen, there was a lot of blaming to go around. But at Torchwood, we knew it wasn’t. Nothing showed up CCTV except the destruction. Invisible they were. Micks was all over it with theories and him and Jake really got into it.” She smiled at the memory of a pub night discussion. “They set up a trap with an EM pulse. Didn’t end so well. Green gloopy bits everywhere and—” Rose frowned and shuddered at the memory.
Rose didn’t know what the Doctor said in whatever alien language he used but she was sure it was something derogatory about humans.
“I didn’t let them do it again. Pete made them lower the power so it just scared the little invisible gremlins off. Although they were kind of helpful with the Cybers,” Rose added with a lighter tone.
“You…you sent gremlins after Cybermen? That is twisted in a weird parallel world way.” He sputtered and his entire mood lightened. “Rose Tyler, you—”
Whatever he was about to say, he never finished as a shrieking roar boomed like a thunder.
“Oh, that’s not good,” Rose admitted backing up a step and pulling him with her.
“That’s no gremlin,” he said with awe as branches snapped, leaves shook and gravel skittered down to the road.
“I think we need to get back to the jeep.” Rose again tugged at him but he was not moving fast enough. Especially, when the flipping huge brown furred, tree wearing thing emerged from the woods.
“Landvættir,” the Doctor softly uttered the Norweigen word. “Oh, it’s beautiful! Rose, this is right out of Norse mythology. I’ve only ever heard stories or seen artistic impressions.”
“Yeah, it’s big and doesn’t seem happy.” She could see black eyes boring into them as gravel and dirt flew off when it shook its head.
“Territorial and a touch cranky. You said activity was increased with the universal fluctuations, global warming, electromagnetic storms. It might have awakened or agitated it and… He lifted up his sonic. It’s responding with its own resonance. Uh, doesn’t seem to like the sonic. He..uh she..they are coming this way. Hello.” He gave a finger wiggling wave to the creature bigger than a double decker bus.
“You don’t need to prove anything. You’re the Doctor. The big brilliant Time Lord I’d like to get back in the jeep.” Rose kept tugging. He dug his trainers in and the big Land-o-vatir whatever giant came out them howling, tree-like arms raised.
“Time to run!” The Doctor raced with Rose back to their jeep. They didn’t make it.
For something so incredibly large, covered in chunks of Earth and trees…it moved fast. Which was proven when the Doctor was yanked from her grasp.
Rose spun and ducked but not fast enough as a thick branch hit her in the chest sending her flying until she landed in gravel by the road. Vaguely registering pain, She scrambled up and caught sight of the Doctor’s wide brown eyes as he was dangled in front of it. His mouth worked the word run.
Which Rose did. She wasn’t happy about it but she trusted him. One muscle burning sprint and she ducked into the woods, peering from behind prickly pine brush as the creature tucked the Doctor into its foliage and marched back toward the woods, stomping on a car hood for good measure.
Rose kept low and moved to follow.
“Not one fucking day and he gets himself kidnapped.” Rose ignored the sharp ache in her chest and knee where she’d hit the ground hard. Metacrisis or not they were back in the old routine. “And he called me jeopardy friendly.” She followed the sound of him gasping and talking because of course he would talk to the big forest monster hauling him off.
At least it wasn’t eating him.