The Watchmaker's Daughter: Chapter Eight

[amberfocus]

Title: The Watchmaker's Daughter (8/12ish)
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: Recognizable dialogue is from the episode Human Nature.

Previous Chapters: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/565160.html

Chapter Eight: Revelations

After dropping the children off back in the village, Martha and Rose set off for the abandoned stable in which the TARDIS had been hidden. Martha was terrified of her own behavior. She had taken an enormous risk telling Rose the truth. She was generally such a careful person, not prone to making impulsive choices, unless you counted the one where she went travelling with the Doctor in the first place. She felt as if she had taken a step into the blankness of space with no thought as to whether or not anything would be there to prevent her from falling. Yet so many little things about Rose had added up into one big one and her instincts had told her to take the chance, to not protect the Doctor from this particular woman.

She glanced at Rose who was lost in her own thoughts as they trudged along. It amazed her how ordinary Rose was. She didn’t mean that in a catty or jealous way. Rose was fun and nice and pretty, but she wasn’t the woman that Martha had built up in her mind. She was just a girl, like any other girl. She wasn’t a savior or a princess or a goddess. She was just normal.

“Why did he fall in love with you?” Martha asked into the silence.

Rose gave a startled noise and then said wistfully, “Why does anyone fall in love with anyone? Right time, right place, right set of circumstances, I suppose.”

“There’s got to be more to it than that,” Martha said.

Rose gave her a long look. “You said you’ve travelled with him for a year. Then you know how he is.”

“Sad,” said Martha. “He’s always so sad.”

“Maybe you don’t know, then,” Rose replied. “He was mad and joyful and untamed. He had this…exuberance for life that I’ve never seen in anyone else. But at the heart of it he was so very lonely. His people—do you know about his people?”

Martha nodded and Rose continued. “His people were all gone. He was left travelling on his own because there was nobody left, just this mad man and this beautiful time machine that had run away together so very long ago.” Rose kicked a rock and it skittered down the path ahead of them.

“It has to destroy you a little, to know your whole planet is gone,” Martha said. “To think you’re the only person who will ever remember your entire race.”

“Yeah. I think when I met him he wanted to die. I think he’s got a darkness in him that won’t go away. And he is driven to find someone with light in them so that he can borrow it and stay alive. I’m probably not making any sense at all.”

“You’re making perfect sense,” said Martha. She’d seen it in him herself when they’d gone to Manhattan and he’d let that darkness take him over. He’d nearly died. Martha had thought at the time that he’d wanted to.

“I met him because he saved my life. He blew up my job. I was trapped in the basement and he came and he rescued me, and then blew it up. I think…sometimes I think, that if I hadn’t been there, he might have stayed in the building when it exploded.” She glanced at Martha again. “You don’t seem surprised.”

“I’m not,” Martha said.

“So you’ve seen the darkness in him?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t. Not at first. He saved me and then I saved him and he wanted me to come with him so bad. When he asked me, everything in me shouted yes, but I let my responsibilities on Earth make me say no. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, because I knew I was giving up the chance to be around something and someone so extraordinary. It hurt when he left, but then he came back. He came back and asked me again and I knew I’d never be able to say no to him again. And somehow, from there we just…we fell in love. It was instant and yet so slow all at the same time. I never saw it coming and yet I knew it from the start.”

Rose shook her head. “If that sounds confusing, that’s because it was, but I wouldn’t change a single minute of the time we had together.” She laughed hollowly. “Except the being torn from each other part. It had only been…two weeks, maybe since we made our vows. We lived so much in those two weeks. It wasn’t perfect, and he was a real git on that last day, but…he’s it. There will never be another man for me.”

“It must be nice, to be that much in love,” Martha said with a sigh. “To have him love you back.”

Rose didn’t say anything for a long time and they walked on in the darkening night. The stars were just beginning to twinkle in the sky and they were beautiful.

“You said you once fancied a man who was hung up on a girl named Rose. You meant him, didn’t you?” Rose asked. Martha hesitated. “You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.”

“How could any woman not fall a little bit in love with him?” she asked. “But…I’ve known for a long time that it was a lost cause and I’ve tried to make my heart not be so fragile when it comes to him. I was jealous of you. He talked about you all the time. ‘Rose would know,’ was his favorite thing to say in a bad situation when he couldn't figure out what to do.”

“If it makes you feel any better, usually Rose wouldn’t know,” Rose said with a self-deprecating laugh. “If you’ll pardon the horrible pun, the Doctor looked at me through rose-colored glasses. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just tended to guess right a lot. I hope he didn’t make me sound insufferable.”

“Not exactly. But I have to admit I did think that if you were so great, why weren’t you still there then. And I’m feeling worlds of guilt about it now that I know just exactly why you weren’t,” Martha admitted.

Rose stopped and reached out, halting Martha as well, her hand on Martha’s arm. “Please don’t. You couldn’t have known. He never bothered to tell you that part, I’m sure. He leaves so much out that he can’t figure out how to say. He doesn’t like to talk about things that hurt so very much. The fact that he opened up to you about his home or even mentioning me at all should be taken as a sign of how much he values you as a companion. I’m sure you made his life better.”

Martha felt her eyes welling up and her throat rising. “I didn’t mean to hate you.”

Rose’s hand slid down her arm and grasped her fingers. “I don’t believe you have hate in you, Martha Jones.” She squeezed Martha’s hand and then let it go. “How much further?”

“Just around the bend.”



When they at last reached the stable, Rose was hesitant to go inside. “It’ll be okay,” Martha said. “It’s just the TARDIS.”

But it wasn’t. As Rose stepped inside and saw the comforting sight of the ancient machine she felt her eyes tear up. The TARDIS was so many things to her. Home. Love. Heart. Part of her soul was still wrapped inside the TARDIS’s essence. You couldn’t share what they had shared and ever be the same person again.

“Why’s she so dark?” Rose asked at last. “Is something wrong with her?”

“She’s powered down. We’re in hiding.”

“Why?”

“Let’s go inside and I’ll tell you. We can talk about a lot of things outside the safety of the ship, but this one thing, I can’t take the risk.”

Rose felt a bittersweet tinge of jealousy as Martha removed a key fob from her skirt pocket. It was silly, she knew. It came from her wanting to always be the only one in the Doctor’s life that had access to something as spectacular as his ship. She fingered her own key on a chain under her dress. It glowed warmly and she felt the slight, reassuring heat. It was unworthy of the love she had for the old girl. She’d shared the TARDIS with Jack and had had no reservations. Martha was as worthy as Jack, if not more so, to have a place here. It was natural, she supposed, to feel it, but she shouldn’t let it get in the way of returning to her life.

Martha pushed open the door and stepped inside. “Come on, then,” she said with a touch of impatience as Rose stood there undecided. It felt almost painful going into the ship without the Doctor, knowing he wasn’t waiting for her inside.

She stepped across the threshold. The darkness was almost frightening. The ship didn’t look as dead as it had when they’d passed into the parallel world, but the emergency lighting made it stark and empty, like the ship’s soul had departed and left only a husk pretending to be a sentient ship. She walked up the ramp and fancied she felt a slight wind against her spine. An almost holy susurration swept through her. As she reached the console, she couldn’t help but touch it. “Oh, dear heart,” she whispered.

With a loud, groaning hum the TARDIS lit up, every part of her coming to life under the touch of Rose’s hand. Rose heard singing in the back of her mind and the thrum of a power older than the universe, the threads of time strumming in harmony as they pulled taut. For just a moment she felt like the most powerful being in the universe as she and the TARDIS recognized the tiny bits of each other that had once made the two of them the most intimate of creatures.

“No,” said Martha. “No, no, no, you can’t! They’ll find us. Shut back down. Please!” She flipped buttons frantically.

“I’m happy to see you, too,” Rose whispered. “But please, you must hide yourself as Martha says.”

The tone in her head turned sad, but reluctantly the melody dissipated as the lights dimmed and the thrum shut down. Martha looked frightened. “They might find us now.”

“It was only a few seconds,” Rose said.

“You don’t understand. These things that were chasing us, these things that we’re hiding from, they can literally smell the Time Vortex. And if they sniff out the TARDIS, it will only be a matter of time before they figure out that the Doctor is hiding in human form.”

“Hiding in what?” Rose asked, shocked at Martha’s words.

“He made himself human. This thing,” Martha pointed to a contraption of wires with a vaguely helmet-like shape in the center that was hanging from the ceiling, “he called it the chameleon arch. It can rewrite the body’s genetic coding. He rewrote his own, made himself human to hide from the Family of Blood.”

“Why would he do that?” Rose asked. “He’s so much more than that.”

“Because of them, the Family. If they find him they will use his power, his—do you know about regeneration?”

“Tell me he hasn’t done that again?”

“Again?”

“What’s he look like?” Rose asked suddenly fearful. Of course she’d adapt, but she didn’t want to have to do that all over again.

“Tall, skinny bloke, lots of brown hair, pinstriped suits.”

Rose relaxed. “It’s just he’s regenerated on me before, so when you mentioned it, I thought maybe he’d done it with you, too.”

“No, he’s not done. But these creatures, they could suck all his remaining regenerations right out of him. It would make them immortal. Right now he said they were like Mayflies. They only live 3 months. They are desperate to live longer. They are desperate to take what is his. So he changed himself to wait them out. We’ve got a little over a month left and then we’ll be safe and free of this time period.”

“So he’s human. But that’s okay. I don’t understand why I can’t just go see him then. He’ll know me.”

“Rose, I told you earlier, he’s not the Doctor. The TARDIS didn’t just rewrite his genetic code. It rewrote him. It created a whole new personality and gave him a backstory. He’s not a Time Lord. He’s just a man, a human man. He’s a history professor at the Farringham School for Boys and he’s, well, he’s a product of this time period. He’s sexist and prudish and…well, he’s not racist at least, but he’s really kind of a big…arse.” Martha trailed off. “He won’t know who you are.”

Rose blanched. “He won’t know me? But I’m…” She looked down at the grating. “I’d be nothing to him.” She closed her eyes.

“I don’t know. Some things, they bleed through, Rose. He dreams of this life.” She gestured around the ship. “So maybe he won’t remember you. That’s not the problem though. The problem is that maybe he will.”

Rose swallowed hard. “And if he does...”

“Then that might be all he ever does again.”

Rose couldn’t stop the tears. They slid silently down her face. To be so close and to yet still be denied him, it wasn’t fair. But when had the universe ever been fair?

“How much longer have we got to wait?” she asked.

“A little over five weeks. You can do that, can’t you, Rose?” Martha asked.

“I’ll have to,” Rose said. She wiped the tears away from her face. There wasn’t any other choice.



Pete stepped outside the back door of the Jenkins’ home and looked toward the woods for Rose. Onna had stopped back with the picnic baskets and blankets an hour ago before heading home and said something about Rose and Martha being a few more hours. He wanted to talk to her. He needed to warn her about John Smith and his uncanny resemblance to the Doctor.

It was doubtful that she and John would run into each other, unless John and Joan went to the pub after their shopping. He didn’t think Joan was the sort of woman who would frequent a pub, but perhaps with John as escort she would. And if Rose stopped there with Martha as she’d mentioned she might, anything was possible.

He sighed and looked up at the stars. There were so many of them. In his time and on his own world, there were less of them. There had been five that had blinked out in recent days. The scientists had called it the death of a nebula caused by a massive catastrophic cosmic event. What they didn’t know, but had spent endless time theorizing about.

Suddenly the sky lit up green and something flashed overhead. A high-pitched whine followed the sickening green streak and then a sonic boom nearly rocked him off his feet. He didn’t know what it was. He couldn’t know. But he didn’t think it could be of this world and it was headed in the direction that he knew his daughter had gone in. He didn’t even stop to think. His body took off before his brain could register anything more than that, racing him towards Cooper’s Field and Rose.

The light shone down ahead of him, a green beam like a search light brighter than he could stand to look at for long. It turned off and on twice more, sudden and startling each time. He increased his pace, his legs burning and his lungs begging for air. He was gasping as he made it to the edge of the field. There was no sign of Rose and no sign of whatever had come from the sky, but he could smell the burning stink of ozone and hear the sound of engines pushed far past their capabilities.

He leaned against a tree, panting as he tried to get his breath back. Clearly the week here with little exercise and too much of Mrs. Jenkins’ good food was making him pay a price. He kept his eyes on the field and then saw the grass bending over. The light shone again, beautiful and less violently bright. He was about to walk towards it when a boy emerged from a different part of the woods, approaching it as if hypnotized.

The light disappeared and the boy seemed to snap out of his daze and approach it with more caution. “Hello?” the boy called out. “I said hello.” He glanced up at the sky and then back at the ground. “Is that some kind of aeroplane?” He continued onward, undeterred by the lack of response. “Are you chaps all right?” he asked and was immediately hit by an enormous green bubble that swayed in a way that almost made Pete motion sick, before encompassing the boy completely.

Then it shut off and the only sign that something was there was a shadow on the grass and the indentation of something large. The boy edged forward mere inches, his hands before him. They contacted something and again the bubble erupted. Pete could see the outline of a space ship and his heart, which had started to return to normal after his frantic run, began pounding again.

“But, what,” the boy said withdrawing his hands and looking from side to side in confusion. An owl called in the darkness, distracting the teen for a few brief seconds before his attention again returned to the thing before him.

The boy banged his hand forward and pulled it back, shaking it in pain from the contact that had once again lit an outline of the ship. “But…but, that’s—that’s impossible.” He edged sideways a few steps then reached forward again with both hands, clearly trying to understand a situation that a mind from 1913 could not hope to understand.

Pete heard the loud clang of metal and the boy’s hand pushed forward into empty space. “Some kind of door,” the boy said. “Hello?” The kid’s voice echoed metallically and for a moment Pete’s mind flashed back to the Cybermen before he ruthlessly pushed that thought back down. “Is—is anyone there?” He pushed his way forward, his whole body enveloped in green and then suddenly disappeared from sight.

As he did, Rose and Martha came running into view. Pete stepped out of the woods. “Dad!” Rose called out.

“Come away from there,” Pete called gesturing urgently for the women to join him.

“Did you see it, Dad?” Rose asked.

“Yes, and we need to go right now. It’s—.” He broke off and glanced at Martha. “Something fell from the sky,” he said, hedging.

“I rather think it was a space ship, sir,” Martha said. “And you’re right. We need to go, because it’s not safe here.”

Pete’s mouth fell open, but he allowed Rose and Martha to hustle him back into the shelter of the woods.

Ch. 9: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/584210.html