The Watchmaker's Daughter: Chapter One

[amberfocus]

Title: The Watchmaker's Daughter
Author: amberfocus
Characters/Pairings: The Tenth Doctor(John Smith)/Rose Tyler, Pete Tyler, Martha Jones, Joan Redfern, Timothy Lattimer, various original characters
Genre: Action/Adventure, Romance, HN/FOB rewrite
Rating: Teen (for now, may go up later)
Betas: amyo67, thetesh
Summary: At the Doomsday wall an unexpected twist of fate sends Rose and Pete Tyler back to 1913 instead of to the parallel universe. While the Doctor and Martha are hiding from the Family of Blood at Farringham School for Boys the Tylers try to make a life for themselves in the nearby village.

Author's notes: I have hesitated in the past to rewrite these episodes, but sometimes an idea takes such fierce hold of a writer that it won't let go. I've learned to go with those impulses. Hence this story.


Chapter One: Arrival

The third to last thing Rose Tyler felt was her heart breaking in half as her body lifted parallel to the floor. Despite the rush of air and noise going past her, she could still hear the Doctor’s sobs as he called her name, as he begged for her to hold on. She tried not to scream as her fingers left the lever, she tried to be brave, but she couldn’t help herself. It was torn from her throat as she plunged toward the Void.

The second to last thing she felt was her body impacting against something solid and she thought for just one second it was the wall and that it had closed just in the nick of time, but it was too soft and as she felt arms going around her she looked back just long enough to see the man who had held her heart for the past two years, before the disorientation that was a teleport tingled through her.

The final thing she felt was her shoulder dislodging from its socket as she hit the ground wrong. Her vision started going black from the pain. She laid catching her breath, trying not to faint, and gulping in huge gasps of air. She realized then that it wasn’t her eyes that had gone dark, but that she was under a night sky lit with more stars than she had ever remembered seeing.

As she fought to get the pain and the nausea under control she heard panting beside her. “Rose?”

It was Pete. He must have come back for her, probably sent by her mother. But if they’d teleported back to the parallel world, why weren’t they in the parallel control room like the first time?

“Rose?” Pete said again. “Are you all right?”

“Wind knocked out of me,” she managed. “Do you know how to put in a dislocated shoulder?”

“Which one?” he asked.

“The left.”

He was fast about it and she screamed for just a second as it moved back into place with a horrible noise. He helped her to her feet.

“We need to get back,” Rose said. “The Void will be closed now and the Doctor will be thinking I’m lost to him. Where’s the teleport?”

Pete was holding it in his hand. “It’s burnt out, Rose. It wasn’t meant to carry two people.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Given the right tools, I think so.”

“Where are we, do you think?” Rose asked.

She watched Pete tilt his head skyward. “Not in London,” he said. “We better start walking. This night is cold enough we could freeze if we stay still.”

“Which way do you reckon we should go? I can’t see any lights,” Rose said.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Pete replied.

“I think I see something. Over there. Is that a light?”

“Only one way to find out. And it gives us something to aim for.”

They started walking. Rose fell into silence, her mind awash with ways to get back to the Doctor, before the simplest one occurred to her. “Wait, my phone.”

“Probably no reception out here,” Pete said.

“There’s always reception with this phone. The Doctor made sure of it.” She called the TARDIS but for the first time since she had known the Doctor, the device failed her. She didn’t want to think about what that might mean for her future. She wouldn’t think of one that didn’t have the Doctor in it.

“Let’s go.” They started off again.

“How did you know to come rescue me?” Rose asked.

“I didn’t. Your mother sent me after you.”

“You know I wouldn’t have come.”

“I know. But I had to try.”

“Why? I’m not your daughter,” Rose says. “You made that clear enough the first time we said good-bye.”

“Rose, look at it from my side. I’d just lost my wife, a woman I loved very much, and there you were looking like a cross between her and me. It hurt to look at you, to know that I’d never had that chance with my Jackie. It was too fresh,” he told her.

“Well, you were certainly able to look at my mother,” Rose said in a caustic voice.

“It had been three years by the time I first saw her. The heart wants what the heart wants.”

“You just didn’t want me,” she said trying not to sound bitter.

“Rose, I very much wish that I’d had a Rose of my own. I wish I’d had a daughter, or a son for that matter. I wanted to be a father. It just never happened.”

“I’m sorry,” Rose said after a while. “I just…my dad died when I was a baby. Meeting you felt like a second chance.”

“I can’t be your dad, Rose. I’ll never be that Peter Tyler.”

“I know.”

The small light that they’d been following suddenly went out, but they were close enough that they could make out the shape of a building. “It’s a barn,” said Rose. “We’re in the country. Where’s the house?”

“I don’t know, but maybe we should wait until morning before approaching anyone. We can sleep in the barn. There’s a hayloft. We can hide up there and use the hay to keep warm. Maybe even sleep a little.”

Rose sighed. She’d done enough travelling with the Doctor to know that people didn’t welcome a knock on the door in the middle of the night. “Yeah, okay. If I can get up there.”

Rose used her phone to make light and the two of them managed to find the ladder leading up to the hayloft. They climbed up it, Rose slow enough to favor her bad shoulder, and settled down. The lowing of cows and the occasional bah from a sheep lulled them both to sleep.



Morning dawned bright and cold and Rose woke to find she was alone. “Pete?” she called out in a low voice.

“Over here,” he said. She followed his voice and saw him looking out a window.

“What are you doing?”

“Watching,” he said. “Trying to figure out where we are.”

“And have you?”

“Not where, no, but unless we’ve stumbled onto the set of one of those reality shows where they go and live as people did in the olden days, I’d say we’ve travelled backwards in time. And judging from the style of the carriage I saw leaving earlier, we’re not in my universe, we’re still in yours. Can this Doctor of yours find us?” he asked.

“Only if he knows to look,” Rose said. “And he won’t. He’ll think we went to the parallel world. He’ll think I’m safe.”

“But he’ll try to get you back, won’t he?”

“The walls have closed. He made it very clear it would be impossible for me to see Mum again,” Rose said.

“Then your mother’s trapped on the other side.”

Rose closed her eyes then breathed deep. “Mickey’s with her. She’ll survive. She’s a good survivor, my mum is. We can’t think about her right now. We have to save us. Then we’ll figure out how to get Mum back. Have you figured out what year it is?”

“Judging from the clothing I’d say early 1900’s, before the Great War,” Pete said.

Rose looked down at her bright turquoise top and her form-fitting black trousers. “We’re going to have to find clothing. I’d get arrested in this. You might pass as someone from somewhere else, but I’m not sure. People tend not to notice suits, but that one is particularly modern.”

“Maybe we can steal something from the manor house.”

Rose glanced across the way. “There are an awful lot of servants about,” she said. She thought for a minute, wondering if the perception filter on her TARDIS key would still work without the TARDIS around.

“Pete,” she said slowly, “what am I wearing?”

He glanced at her and his eyes kind of slid to the side. “Whoa,” he said.

“What?”

He moved his gaze back to her and focused directly on her. “It’s kind of hard to see the details. I mean, I can tell you are you, but I really have to look to see what you’re wearing.”

“It still works.”

“What does?”

“My key. I didn’t know if it would without the TARDIS. It sort of makes people not be able to really pay attention to me. It would give me time to get properly outfitted in some of the places we visited. I thought it was the connection to the Doctor’s ship, but it must work independently. I think we can find the closest village and figure out a way to get the proper clothes to fit in. And we’ll need to find a place to stay if we’re going to be stuck here for a bit while you fix the teleport.”

“I’m not sure about that, Rose. I’d need some very specific tools and I don’t know if I can find them here. Maybe if there’s a watchmaker’s shop. One of my hobbies is antique watches. I like repairing them so they run again. Some of the tools I used for that I also used when constructing the first teleports.”

Rose sighed. “Hope whatever village it is isn’t too small for something like that.”

“Tommy? Tommy!” a rough female voice called from the courtyard. “Now where has that boy got to? Tommy, I’ve got your lunch pail.”

The woman sighed when there was no response. “Well, I’ve not got time to be waiting for ya.” She walked to the barn and put down the bucket just inside the door. “Wherever you’ve got to, boy, I’ve left your pail in the barn. Don’t blame me if the goat eats it before you get to it!”

“There’s breakfast,” Pete said in a low voice. “I’ll get it. You don’t climb down until you have to. You don’t need to strain your shoulder more than once.”

He returned quickly and they shared a meal of thick, crusty bread and butter, cheese, hard boiled eggs, and dried apples. Afterwards Pete helped her go down the ladder. It was harder than going up had been as her shoulder had stiffened in the night, but eventually she made it.

It took a while for the barnyard to empty of servants, but they were eventually able to make it into the orchard and from there onto a road. “Which way do you think?” Rose asked.

“West. Then we won’t have the sun in our eyes.”

“All right, then.” They began their journey.

Ch. 2: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/562696.html

Comments

[reetinkerbell.livejournal.com]

I have always loved Human Nature rewrites with Rose, and I've never read one with Pete before (or right after Doomsday for her, but he's had time to miss her). This should be very interesting and I can't wait to read more.

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I haven't either, but I thought it would be a good way of sending them back together without what has now become a standard plot device for these episode rewrites, the Weeping Angels.