amberfocus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amberfocus) wrote2008-05-23 10:02 pm
amberfocus) wrote2008-05-23 10:02 pm
Entry tags:
Repercussions (40-44 of 55)
Banner by Megz33
Chapter Forty: Changes
For some reason I cannot fathom the TARDIS has put my mum in the room next to the Doctor’s. When we walk into our room it’s to find a twin bed. “What’s going on?” I ask.
“I think the TARDIS is trying to respect your mother’s wishes,” he says with annoyance in his voice.
I frown. “It’s only for a few days,” I say. But I don’t like it either. I have gotten used to sleeping in the same bed with him, his arms bringing me comfort. I return to my old room, a few doors away from Mum’s. Even my bed is smaller. I am not happy with the TARDIS for making these changes.
It is hard for me to sleep. I am restless and unsettled and when I do drift into sleep it’s into fractured, helpless nightmares that bring the Doctor running to my side, his link with my mind aware of my fear. Despite the size of the bed he scoots me over against the wall and wraps his arms around me, trying to sooth me back into peace, but I cannot fall back into sleep.
We have not made love since the attack and I have not been ready to, but with the fear so strong in my mind, I turn to him. “I can’t sleep,” I tell him. “When I close my eyes, all I can see is that day. Please, Doctor, make me forget. I can’t do this anymore.”
“I thought you didn’t want your memories tampered with again,” he says softly even as his hands rise to my temples.
“I didn’t. And maybe if I’d talked to someone like I’d said I would it would be different. But all I can think about when I lay down to sleep is what happened. Just…take it away from me?”
His cool fingers press against mine and he searches out the painful memories. “Let go of it, Rose,” he murmurs when he encounters resistance. “I can’t take it away if you fight me.”
I try to do as he asks but I realize it’s not me resisting. “It’s the baby,” I say. “It won’t let me let go.” I look deep into the womb and realize its protective shield was woven at the time of the attack. “The only way to take the memories away is to tear down the shield the four of us placed around the baby. I can’t do that.”
I should have known it would not be that easy. Nothing has been since the day I let go to follow my original Doctor into the Void. I decide to find another way, to replace bad memories with good ones.
I reach down low, my hand between our bodies. “Help me make new memories,” I say, “to replace the painful ones.”
“Are you sure, Rose? Are you sure you’re ready for this?” he asks me. Beneath my hand I can tell he is ready for this.
“I’m sure,” I whisper. I am surprised when the Doctor goes slow, is leisurely and careful and gentle. His hands move lightly, his usual forceful lusting restrained.
His mouth takes mine with gentle strokes of his tongue, little nibbles of my lips between his teeth, easy swirls and circles. There is no rushing to possession. This is a quiet study of my body, a worshipful bliss of caresses and loving and I wonder why we’ve never done it this way before.
He makes love to me slowly, unrushed and gently and the heat burning inside me makes it unlike anything I have ever experienced before. I feel him inside my mind, whispering on a primal level of his love and desire and devotion and want and need. And then I am in his mind, and I see just how intensely he is driven by those whispers and how much I am his life.
Silver light flares and wraps around my own golden glow and then I am all nerve endings and explosions and floating bliss beyond any place we have yet gone together and I feel as if I will never come down from this and that is okay because I never want to.
Chapter Forty-one: Normal
A week on Calixis with my mum is enough to try the patience of a saint, and believe me my Doctor is no saint, but somehow he grins and bears it. Thankfully the TARDIS has returned our bed to its previous size and moved my mum’s room a few doors away so our sleeping arrangements are back to normal. I wish I knew what had gotten into her. She is very regretful after my nightmare. It isn’t easy being mad at a sad ship and I forgive her pretty quickly.
The nightmares do not return when I lay in the Doctor’s arms. Mum doesn’t mention the sleeping arrangements or the fact that her room has been moved. I don’t know if she is having parental blindness or figures we are as good as married or what. I'm not going to bring it up, though, in case she is simply oblivious.
We find my wedding dress on day six and have it sent for alterations, then the Doctor skips forward four weeks and we pick it up and mum finishes the last of her shopping on day seven. When I try on the dress with my veil she starts to cry. “You’re beautiful, Rose,” she tells me.
“Now don’t make me cry and get mascara all over my dress,” I warn her sternly. I step away from her and take one last look in the mirror before I return to the changing room and remove the gown. It feels strange stepping back into a pair of jeans and a red hoodie after looking like a princess.
The shop girl puts the dress in a protective travel bag and we head back to the TARDIS. The Doctor feigned the need for repairs to get out of this last day of shopping and since I hadn’t wanted to risk him seeing me in the dress before the wedding I had let him get away with it. Really, he hasdone more than his duty in shepherding us around for six days. The relief on his face when we reappear and I tell him we are done is almost comical.
We return to Earth rather quickly. I never understand why it takes so long to go to some planets but others take only hours or minutes to arrive on. I’ve never got a straight answer out of the Doctor. His usual response is to say it’s a TARDIS quirk. I’ve come to realize that’s what he says when he doesn’t know the answer.
We drop mum off, parking the TARDIS in its usual spot behind the Powell Estate one day after we left. I go with her to say hello to my dad and have a talk with the Martha Jones, who gives me the name of a psychiatrist who’s been working with the people who are recovering from being partially cyberized.
It takes me a whole day to work up the courage to go and see her. The woman is on loan from U.N.I.T. so she is aware of aliens other than the Cybermen and I don’t have to tell half-truths to tell her my story. It’s very hard saying it out loud to anyone besides the Doctor, but as our sessions continue I begin to feel better.
My mum enjoys planning my wedding immensely and the Doctor and I simply hand over the reigns to her. My only request is that she keep it simple. In exchange, I’ve taken over some of mum’s duties with the deconverted humans that she normally helps care for. I end up spending a lot of time with Martha because of this and the two of us soon become best friends.
The Doctor is working with U.N.I.T. until the wedding. Everything is going so peacefully I’m almost worried. It feels like the calm before the storm, because in my life, there is always a storm, there will always be a storm. It’s the way it has been since I first met the Doctor.
It’s tense waiting for the other shoe to drop, especially when I can’t enjoy the fact that for once everything is perfect. Maybe it’s the restlessness in me, the need to travel, or maybe I’ve just gotten so accustomed to there being big disasters when I return home that not having one this time is driving me a bit around the bend.
In order to take my mind off the completely normal life I’m leading at the moment I go for a walk with Martha. We walk towards the city center and my eyes take in the progress that has been made. Much of the rubble has been cleared away, but we can still see where exploding bits of concrete gouged chunks out of the tarmac. It’ll be a long time before all the roads are fixed and London’s double-decker buses are back on their previous routes again.
Every so often we’ll see a burnt out building that hasn’t been attended to. “That used to be an antique bookstore,” said Martha. “I spent hours there when I was a girl, just reading whatever I could get my hands on. Found an old medical text from the 1800’s once and it was the most amazing thing.”
I sigh. “Here you are almost a doctor and you’re walking around London with a girl who never got her A-levels.”
“Well, you can always go back to school,” Martha encourages me.
“There’s the wedding coming and then…well, I’m pregnant, Martha.”
She stops and hugs me. “Congratulations.”
“And we’ll be travelling again, me and him and the baby. I don’t see as how I can manage A-levels now,” I tell her.
“Distance learning, Rose. Correspondence. If you want your A-levels there are always ways to do it,” Martha tells me.
I think that over for a bit as we walk along in a comfortable silence. I bet the folks who created distance learning never thought it would be used by a time travelling human wife of an alien. It would certainly mean more visits to Earth for me to mail back my course work. Though I imagine once the baby is born my parents will expect more frequent visits anyway. Maybe I could just manage it.
I’m torn from my thoughts when I hear the hauntingly familiar voice up ahead saying, “Delete, delete, delete.”
Chapter Forty-two: Into the Shadows
Martha and I both freeze at the familiar words and then I reach for her hand and pull her backwards with me into a nearby alley. We turn and run to a dumpster, slipping into the narrow space between it and the back of a building. The sound of metal boots hitting pavement rings in my ears and I feel Martha reach for my hand again. I can feel her shaking, or perhaps I am the one shaking as the noise comes closer.
I can just barely see from my position as twelve Cybermen, in rows of three, march past the alley and down the street we’d been on seconds earlier. Martha is breathing hard, but I find I have been holding my breath. I let it out and force myself to inhale.
I shake off Martha’s death grip and move towards the street. “What are you doing?” she asks in a harsh whisper.
“I have to see where they’re going. Someone has to warn the Doctor, but I don’t want to run into them again.”
“Be careful, Rose,” she murmurs.
I nod at her and then slip back towards the road. I poke my head out into the street and watch the backs of the Cybermen as they march on. Then I look back the way they came. Everything is still in that direction. I gesture to Martha that it is safe to come out. She hurries to my side.
We walk on towards the city center and stare around us in horror at the bodies, so many dead. I flash back to the day of the first attack and for a moment I stand still. We round another corner and come face to face with another cyber patrol. We backpedal furiously as screams of “Delete,” follow us.
Martha pulls me into a nearby shop and we run to the back and out the door there as a Cyberman crashes through the shop window in pursuit. Back into an alley and in through the back door of another shop we go and then into the street. We run and we run, dodging more patrols until there is no way we can avoid them any longer. We take a lift up and seek refuge on the roof of a building, barricading the door behind us.
I pull out my super phone and punch in the number for U.N.I.T. and the Doctor’s extension. “Yes,” his voice is curt and crisp as he answers.
“Doctor, it’s me.”
“Rose? What’s wrong?” He must hear the fear in my voice.
“There’s Cybermen in the city center of London.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course, I’m sure!” I snap. “Wasn’t born yesterday, Doctor. I know what a cyber patrol or two looks like.”
“Sorry. Where are you? Are you safe?” he asks.
“Martha and I are trapped on top of a building. We’ve barricaded the door.”
“What building?”
“I don’t know, Doctor. I didn’t have time to stop and search for street signs when I was running for my life!” My exasperation takes over.
“I’ll program the TARDIS to home in on your phone,” he says. “I’ll be there shortly.”
The pile of things in front of the door shakes and topples over. “Doctor, hurry! They’re breaking through.”
“Rose? Rose!”
I hear his voice calling through the phone that I have dropped. Martha pulls me over to the fire escape and we scramble down onto it as the door bursts open.
Forty-three: How Can it Be?
Martha and I sit hunched on the fire escape. Down below us in the street I can see another cyber patrol. I gesture in their direction and see Martha’s eyes widen. I put a finger to my lips as I point towards the roof, wondering how this can be happening. The Doctor had used the code I’d provided him with to destroy the inhibitor chips of all the Cybermen worldwide. It had been successful.
Which only means one thing. These Cybermen are different. Either they are immune to the code or they hadn’t been here when it had been issued. The easiest way to find out would be to repeat what we had done before, but somehow I don’t think it will be that easy. Nothing has been easy since the Void opening shut, despite the joys the rearrangement of my reality has brought me.
So, new Cybermen immune to the code is the theory I lock onto. Which means we either need to find a new code or we need to find the source of their arrival onto this planet. Could it be that a factory survives intact somewhere and has only been activated after the death of the other Cybermen?
I try to think back to how we’d first gotten involved with the Cybermen, how they’d just started appearing around the world and all of it could be traced back to a signal emerging from the Void wall of Torchwood Tower. Perhaps the answer is still inside that building; perhaps the Void is not as tightly closed as we think. Or perhaps those idiots at Torchwood haven’t learned their lesson the first time around and have gotten the ghost shifts up and running again. I wouldn’t put it past them. Especially that Hartman woman who’d managed to survive the destruction around her with nary a hair out of place.
The more I think about it, the more I decide on Yvonne Hartman as the most likely culprit. Now, if I can only get back to the Doctor and explain my theory we might be able to do something. I cringe as the sound of metal boots come close to the edge, fearing all the time that a Cyberman will come close enough to the fire escape and look down to where Martha and I huddle together.
“There is no one here,” grates the voice of a Cyberman. “We will resume our search through the building.” The clanking of their feet retreats and silence greets our ears. We sit unmoving for several minutes. It isn’t until I hear the sound of the TARDIS materializing on the roof that I poke my head up over the side and feel relief wash over me at the sight of the familiar blue box.
I signal to Martha to stand up and we clamber back onto the roof as quietly as possible. The door to the TARDIS is flung open and the Doctor emerges. I see him pick up my phone and look around, his face fearful until his eyes meet mine and then he smiles and runs to me, pulling me into his arms and hugging me tightly.
He sets me back down and gestures for Martha and I to enter the TARDIS. He hustles Martha forward when she stops in shock. Shutting the doors he hurries to the console and hits the recall button that returns us to the last position the TARDIS had been in.
“Right, where do you want to start?” he says looking at Martha.
She stares all around her. “It’s bigger on the inside than the outside?” she manages faintly.
“Is it?” he asks in feigned amazement. I narrow my eyes and shoot him a look that very clearly tells him to behave himself.
Martha doesn’t even notice his sarcasm. Instead she walks over to a coral support strut and runs her fingers over its surface. The TARDIS flickers her lights and hums lightly in response.
“It’s alive?” she asks. This does surprise the Doctor. It doesn’t surprise me. Martha is sharp.
“She is,” he answers.
Martha gives herself a little shake, and then turns to the Doctor. “So, the Cybermen are back,” she says. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Figure out where they’re coming from and put a stop to it,” the Doctor says with complete confidence.
“Right,” says Martha. “Need any help with that?”
Chapter Forty-four: Deductions
The Doctor looks grumpy. “Shouldn’t do,” he mumbles, “But apparently yes.”
“What’s happened, Doctor? I thought we stopped the Cybermen with the Binary-9 code. How’s it that they’ve come back?” I ask him.
“Well, now if I knew that, I wouldn’t be needing Dr. Jones’ help now, would I?” he asks.
“No need to be sarcastic,” I say plopping myself down on the jump seat in a huff. “Think he’d be a little nicer to the mother of his child,” I grumble to Martha.
The Doctor shoots me a glance and then walks over to me and pulls me out of the jump seat, whirls me around, bends me over the console and kisses me thoroughly. So thoroughly in fact that I forget we have company and my hands creep up to his tie and start taking it off. I’ve got the first three buttons undone before Martha coughs.
“Standing right here,” she says dryly.
The Doctor lets go of me and grins. “Nice enough for you, Rose?”
I give him a goofy smile and sink back down on the jump seat. I nod, because my toes are still curling from the kiss he gave me and thinking isn’t high on my list of priorities after that. I do note that now neither one of us seems grumpy.
“To answer you question, Rose--.”
“What question?” I ask, totally forgetting that I’d asked one.
“Your Doctor must be some kisser,” laughs Martha. “You asked where the Cybermen were coming from,” she reminded me.
“Oh, that.”
“Well,” the Doctor says, “I have to think that maybe they’re coming through from somewhere else. So the code we transmitted shut down the ones that were already here, but these ones weren’t.”
“So then we just transmit the code again and we’re home free, right?” Martha asks.
“No. I tried that on the way over but it did nothing. These ones have adapted or they’re not affected at all. If they’re coming in from somewhere else, then the likelihood is that the code is slightly different. I have the TARDIS computing the most common variables, but it’s a long shot that it’ll work again even if we hit on the right numbers,” the Doctor explains.
“Where else could they be coming from?” I ask.
“Parallel worlds,” the Doctor announces.
“Parallel worlds?” Martha laughs. “You must be joking. That’s the stuff of bad science fiction movies.”
“Look around you,” the Doctor says. “You’re currently travelling is a space ship that’s bigger on the inside than the outside and by the by, also travels in time. You're living in a bad science fiction movie.”
Martha’s eyes grow wide. “But that’s…time travel...that's impossible!”
“Tell, you what, Martha Jones. We get through this and Rose and I will take you…well, where do you want to go?” he asks.
“To meet Shakespeare!” she says. “Not to say I believe you, but if I were going to be able to go somewhere in time, I’d like to meet Shakespeare.”
“So, where were we? Parallel worlds, separated by the Void. And something somewhere, somewhen has cracked through. I think that has to be it. The Cybermen are coming from the other side of the Void, from some other Earth,” he says as he works it through.
“But that means that we didn’t close the Void all the way,” I tell him.
“We closed the one at Canary Wharf,” the Doctor muses. “But there must be another tear somewhere, a crack, an opening, a rift…”
“Cardiff!” I say excitedly.
“Cardiff?” Martha wrinkles her nose. “What could possibly be in Cardiff?”
“Lots of nice things in Cardiff,” the Doctor says defensively.
“But the Rift, Doctor,” I say trying to get the focus back onto solving our problem. “The one that the Gelth tried to rip open and come through. It’s still there, we couldn’t quite close it. What if it’s spewing out Cybermen?”
“But if they’re coming through in Cardiff how are they getting to London? Wouldn’t U.N.I.T. have heard something from Cardiff?” I ask.
“Communications are still spotty at best. For all we know, Cardiff could be a disaster area,” the Doctor says slowly.
“So then, we’re going to Cardiff?” I ask.
“We’re going to Cardiff!” He turns to Martha. “We can drop you off, if you like.”
For a moment she looks as if she’s going to take him up on the offer, but then a mad grin comes over her face, one I recognize from having seen it on both myself and the Doctor on numerous occasions.
“Not on your life,” she says.
“Oh, Martha Jones, welcome to our life,” he says. I laugh. She has no idea what she’s just let herself in for. The adventure of a lifetime.
We have not made love since the attack and I have not been ready to, but with the fear so strong in my mind, I turn to him. “I can’t sleep,” I tell him. “When I close my eyes, all I can see is that day. Please, Doctor, make me forget. I can’t do this anymore.”
“I thought you didn’t want your memories tampered with again,” he says softly even as his hands rise to my temples.
“I didn’t. And maybe if I’d talked to someone like I’d said I would it would be different. But all I can think about when I lay down to sleep is what happened. Just…take it away from me?”
His cool fingers press against mine and he searches out the painful memories. “Let go of it, Rose,” he murmurs when he encounters resistance. “I can’t take it away if you fight me.”
I try to do as he asks but I realize it’s not me resisting. “It’s the baby,” I say. “It won’t let me let go.” I look deep into the womb and realize its protective shield was woven at the time of the attack. “The only way to take the memories away is to tear down the shield the four of us placed around the baby. I can’t do that.”
I should have known it would not be that easy. Nothing has been since the day I let go to follow my original Doctor into the Void. I decide to find another way, to replace bad memories with good ones.
I reach down low, my hand between our bodies. “Help me make new memories,” I say, “to replace the painful ones.”
“Are you sure, Rose? Are you sure you’re ready for this?” he asks me. Beneath my hand I can tell he is ready for this.
“I’m sure,” I whisper. I am surprised when the Doctor goes slow, is leisurely and careful and gentle. His hands move lightly, his usual forceful lusting restrained.
His mouth takes mine with gentle strokes of his tongue, little nibbles of my lips between his teeth, easy swirls and circles. There is no rushing to possession. This is a quiet study of my body, a worshipful bliss of caresses and loving and I wonder why we’ve never done it this way before.
He makes love to me slowly, unrushed and gently and the heat burning inside me makes it unlike anything I have ever experienced before. I feel him inside my mind, whispering on a primal level of his love and desire and devotion and want and need. And then I am in his mind, and I see just how intensely he is driven by those whispers and how much I am his life.
Silver light flares and wraps around my own golden glow and then I am all nerve endings and explosions and floating bliss beyond any place we have yet gone together and I feel as if I will never come down from this and that is okay because I never want to.
Chapter Forty-one: Normal
A week on Calixis with my mum is enough to try the patience of a saint, and believe me my Doctor is no saint, but somehow he grins and bears it. Thankfully the TARDIS has returned our bed to its previous size and moved my mum’s room a few doors away so our sleeping arrangements are back to normal. I wish I knew what had gotten into her. She is very regretful after my nightmare. It isn’t easy being mad at a sad ship and I forgive her pretty quickly.
The nightmares do not return when I lay in the Doctor’s arms. Mum doesn’t mention the sleeping arrangements or the fact that her room has been moved. I don’t know if she is having parental blindness or figures we are as good as married or what. I'm not going to bring it up, though, in case she is simply oblivious.
We find my wedding dress on day six and have it sent for alterations, then the Doctor skips forward four weeks and we pick it up and mum finishes the last of her shopping on day seven. When I try on the dress with my veil she starts to cry. “You’re beautiful, Rose,” she tells me.
“Now don’t make me cry and get mascara all over my dress,” I warn her sternly. I step away from her and take one last look in the mirror before I return to the changing room and remove the gown. It feels strange stepping back into a pair of jeans and a red hoodie after looking like a princess.
The shop girl puts the dress in a protective travel bag and we head back to the TARDIS. The Doctor feigned the need for repairs to get out of this last day of shopping and since I hadn’t wanted to risk him seeing me in the dress before the wedding I had let him get away with it. Really, he hasdone more than his duty in shepherding us around for six days. The relief on his face when we reappear and I tell him we are done is almost comical.
We return to Earth rather quickly. I never understand why it takes so long to go to some planets but others take only hours or minutes to arrive on. I’ve never got a straight answer out of the Doctor. His usual response is to say it’s a TARDIS quirk. I’ve come to realize that’s what he says when he doesn’t know the answer.
We drop mum off, parking the TARDIS in its usual spot behind the Powell Estate one day after we left. I go with her to say hello to my dad and have a talk with the Martha Jones, who gives me the name of a psychiatrist who’s been working with the people who are recovering from being partially cyberized.
It takes me a whole day to work up the courage to go and see her. The woman is on loan from U.N.I.T. so she is aware of aliens other than the Cybermen and I don’t have to tell half-truths to tell her my story. It’s very hard saying it out loud to anyone besides the Doctor, but as our sessions continue I begin to feel better.
My mum enjoys planning my wedding immensely and the Doctor and I simply hand over the reigns to her. My only request is that she keep it simple. In exchange, I’ve taken over some of mum’s duties with the deconverted humans that she normally helps care for. I end up spending a lot of time with Martha because of this and the two of us soon become best friends.
The Doctor is working with U.N.I.T. until the wedding. Everything is going so peacefully I’m almost worried. It feels like the calm before the storm, because in my life, there is always a storm, there will always be a storm. It’s the way it has been since I first met the Doctor.
It’s tense waiting for the other shoe to drop, especially when I can’t enjoy the fact that for once everything is perfect. Maybe it’s the restlessness in me, the need to travel, or maybe I’ve just gotten so accustomed to there being big disasters when I return home that not having one this time is driving me a bit around the bend.
In order to take my mind off the completely normal life I’m leading at the moment I go for a walk with Martha. We walk towards the city center and my eyes take in the progress that has been made. Much of the rubble has been cleared away, but we can still see where exploding bits of concrete gouged chunks out of the tarmac. It’ll be a long time before all the roads are fixed and London’s double-decker buses are back on their previous routes again.
Every so often we’ll see a burnt out building that hasn’t been attended to. “That used to be an antique bookstore,” said Martha. “I spent hours there when I was a girl, just reading whatever I could get my hands on. Found an old medical text from the 1800’s once and it was the most amazing thing.”
I sigh. “Here you are almost a doctor and you’re walking around London with a girl who never got her A-levels.”
“Well, you can always go back to school,” Martha encourages me.
“There’s the wedding coming and then…well, I’m pregnant, Martha.”
She stops and hugs me. “Congratulations.”
“And we’ll be travelling again, me and him and the baby. I don’t see as how I can manage A-levels now,” I tell her.
“Distance learning, Rose. Correspondence. If you want your A-levels there are always ways to do it,” Martha tells me.
I think that over for a bit as we walk along in a comfortable silence. I bet the folks who created distance learning never thought it would be used by a time travelling human wife of an alien. It would certainly mean more visits to Earth for me to mail back my course work. Though I imagine once the baby is born my parents will expect more frequent visits anyway. Maybe I could just manage it.
I’m torn from my thoughts when I hear the hauntingly familiar voice up ahead saying, “Delete, delete, delete.”
Chapter Forty-two: Into the Shadows
Martha and I both freeze at the familiar words and then I reach for her hand and pull her backwards with me into a nearby alley. We turn and run to a dumpster, slipping into the narrow space between it and the back of a building. The sound of metal boots hitting pavement rings in my ears and I feel Martha reach for my hand again. I can feel her shaking, or perhaps I am the one shaking as the noise comes closer.
I can just barely see from my position as twelve Cybermen, in rows of three, march past the alley and down the street we’d been on seconds earlier. Martha is breathing hard, but I find I have been holding my breath. I let it out and force myself to inhale.
I shake off Martha’s death grip and move towards the street. “What are you doing?” she asks in a harsh whisper.
“I have to see where they’re going. Someone has to warn the Doctor, but I don’t want to run into them again.”
“Be careful, Rose,” she murmurs.
I nod at her and then slip back towards the road. I poke my head out into the street and watch the backs of the Cybermen as they march on. Then I look back the way they came. Everything is still in that direction. I gesture to Martha that it is safe to come out. She hurries to my side.
We walk on towards the city center and stare around us in horror at the bodies, so many dead. I flash back to the day of the first attack and for a moment I stand still. We round another corner and come face to face with another cyber patrol. We backpedal furiously as screams of “Delete,” follow us.
Martha pulls me into a nearby shop and we run to the back and out the door there as a Cyberman crashes through the shop window in pursuit. Back into an alley and in through the back door of another shop we go and then into the street. We run and we run, dodging more patrols until there is no way we can avoid them any longer. We take a lift up and seek refuge on the roof of a building, barricading the door behind us.
I pull out my super phone and punch in the number for U.N.I.T. and the Doctor’s extension. “Yes,” his voice is curt and crisp as he answers.
“Doctor, it’s me.”
“Rose? What’s wrong?” He must hear the fear in my voice.
“There’s Cybermen in the city center of London.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course, I’m sure!” I snap. “Wasn’t born yesterday, Doctor. I know what a cyber patrol or two looks like.”
“Sorry. Where are you? Are you safe?” he asks.
“Martha and I are trapped on top of a building. We’ve barricaded the door.”
“What building?”
“I don’t know, Doctor. I didn’t have time to stop and search for street signs when I was running for my life!” My exasperation takes over.
“I’ll program the TARDIS to home in on your phone,” he says. “I’ll be there shortly.”
The pile of things in front of the door shakes and topples over. “Doctor, hurry! They’re breaking through.”
“Rose? Rose!”
I hear his voice calling through the phone that I have dropped. Martha pulls me over to the fire escape and we scramble down onto it as the door bursts open.
Forty-three: How Can it Be?
Martha and I sit hunched on the fire escape. Down below us in the street I can see another cyber patrol. I gesture in their direction and see Martha’s eyes widen. I put a finger to my lips as I point towards the roof, wondering how this can be happening. The Doctor had used the code I’d provided him with to destroy the inhibitor chips of all the Cybermen worldwide. It had been successful.
Which only means one thing. These Cybermen are different. Either they are immune to the code or they hadn’t been here when it had been issued. The easiest way to find out would be to repeat what we had done before, but somehow I don’t think it will be that easy. Nothing has been easy since the Void opening shut, despite the joys the rearrangement of my reality has brought me.
So, new Cybermen immune to the code is the theory I lock onto. Which means we either need to find a new code or we need to find the source of their arrival onto this planet. Could it be that a factory survives intact somewhere and has only been activated after the death of the other Cybermen?
I try to think back to how we’d first gotten involved with the Cybermen, how they’d just started appearing around the world and all of it could be traced back to a signal emerging from the Void wall of Torchwood Tower. Perhaps the answer is still inside that building; perhaps the Void is not as tightly closed as we think. Or perhaps those idiots at Torchwood haven’t learned their lesson the first time around and have gotten the ghost shifts up and running again. I wouldn’t put it past them. Especially that Hartman woman who’d managed to survive the destruction around her with nary a hair out of place.
The more I think about it, the more I decide on Yvonne Hartman as the most likely culprit. Now, if I can only get back to the Doctor and explain my theory we might be able to do something. I cringe as the sound of metal boots come close to the edge, fearing all the time that a Cyberman will come close enough to the fire escape and look down to where Martha and I huddle together.
“There is no one here,” grates the voice of a Cyberman. “We will resume our search through the building.” The clanking of their feet retreats and silence greets our ears. We sit unmoving for several minutes. It isn’t until I hear the sound of the TARDIS materializing on the roof that I poke my head up over the side and feel relief wash over me at the sight of the familiar blue box.
I signal to Martha to stand up and we clamber back onto the roof as quietly as possible. The door to the TARDIS is flung open and the Doctor emerges. I see him pick up my phone and look around, his face fearful until his eyes meet mine and then he smiles and runs to me, pulling me into his arms and hugging me tightly.
He sets me back down and gestures for Martha and I to enter the TARDIS. He hustles Martha forward when she stops in shock. Shutting the doors he hurries to the console and hits the recall button that returns us to the last position the TARDIS had been in.
“Right, where do you want to start?” he says looking at Martha.
She stares all around her. “It’s bigger on the inside than the outside?” she manages faintly.
“Is it?” he asks in feigned amazement. I narrow my eyes and shoot him a look that very clearly tells him to behave himself.
Martha doesn’t even notice his sarcasm. Instead she walks over to a coral support strut and runs her fingers over its surface. The TARDIS flickers her lights and hums lightly in response.
“It’s alive?” she asks. This does surprise the Doctor. It doesn’t surprise me. Martha is sharp.
“She is,” he answers.
Martha gives herself a little shake, and then turns to the Doctor. “So, the Cybermen are back,” she says. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Figure out where they’re coming from and put a stop to it,” the Doctor says with complete confidence.
“Right,” says Martha. “Need any help with that?”
Chapter Forty-four: Deductions
The Doctor looks grumpy. “Shouldn’t do,” he mumbles, “But apparently yes.”
“What’s happened, Doctor? I thought we stopped the Cybermen with the Binary-9 code. How’s it that they’ve come back?” I ask him.
“Well, now if I knew that, I wouldn’t be needing Dr. Jones’ help now, would I?” he asks.
“No need to be sarcastic,” I say plopping myself down on the jump seat in a huff. “Think he’d be a little nicer to the mother of his child,” I grumble to Martha.
The Doctor shoots me a glance and then walks over to me and pulls me out of the jump seat, whirls me around, bends me over the console and kisses me thoroughly. So thoroughly in fact that I forget we have company and my hands creep up to his tie and start taking it off. I’ve got the first three buttons undone before Martha coughs.
“Standing right here,” she says dryly.
The Doctor lets go of me and grins. “Nice enough for you, Rose?”
I give him a goofy smile and sink back down on the jump seat. I nod, because my toes are still curling from the kiss he gave me and thinking isn’t high on my list of priorities after that. I do note that now neither one of us seems grumpy.
“To answer you question, Rose--.”
“What question?” I ask, totally forgetting that I’d asked one.
“Your Doctor must be some kisser,” laughs Martha. “You asked where the Cybermen were coming from,” she reminded me.
“Oh, that.”
“Well,” the Doctor says, “I have to think that maybe they’re coming through from somewhere else. So the code we transmitted shut down the ones that were already here, but these ones weren’t.”
“So then we just transmit the code again and we’re home free, right?” Martha asks.
“No. I tried that on the way over but it did nothing. These ones have adapted or they’re not affected at all. If they’re coming in from somewhere else, then the likelihood is that the code is slightly different. I have the TARDIS computing the most common variables, but it’s a long shot that it’ll work again even if we hit on the right numbers,” the Doctor explains.
“Where else could they be coming from?” I ask.
“Parallel worlds,” the Doctor announces.
“Parallel worlds?” Martha laughs. “You must be joking. That’s the stuff of bad science fiction movies.”
“Look around you,” the Doctor says. “You’re currently travelling is a space ship that’s bigger on the inside than the outside and by the by, also travels in time. You're living in a bad science fiction movie.”
Martha’s eyes grow wide. “But that’s…time travel...that's impossible!”
“Tell, you what, Martha Jones. We get through this and Rose and I will take you…well, where do you want to go?” he asks.
“To meet Shakespeare!” she says. “Not to say I believe you, but if I were going to be able to go somewhere in time, I’d like to meet Shakespeare.”
“So, where were we? Parallel worlds, separated by the Void. And something somewhere, somewhen has cracked through. I think that has to be it. The Cybermen are coming from the other side of the Void, from some other Earth,” he says as he works it through.
“But that means that we didn’t close the Void all the way,” I tell him.
“We closed the one at Canary Wharf,” the Doctor muses. “But there must be another tear somewhere, a crack, an opening, a rift…”
“Cardiff!” I say excitedly.
“Cardiff?” Martha wrinkles her nose. “What could possibly be in Cardiff?”
“Lots of nice things in Cardiff,” the Doctor says defensively.
“But the Rift, Doctor,” I say trying to get the focus back onto solving our problem. “The one that the Gelth tried to rip open and come through. It’s still there, we couldn’t quite close it. What if it’s spewing out Cybermen?”
“But if they’re coming through in Cardiff how are they getting to London? Wouldn’t U.N.I.T. have heard something from Cardiff?” I ask.
“Communications are still spotty at best. For all we know, Cardiff could be a disaster area,” the Doctor says slowly.
“So then, we’re going to Cardiff?” I ask.
“We’re going to Cardiff!” He turns to Martha. “We can drop you off, if you like.”
For a moment she looks as if she’s going to take him up on the offer, but then a mad grin comes over her face, one I recognize from having seen it on both myself and the Doctor on numerous occasions.
“Not on your life,” she says.
“Oh, Martha Jones, welcome to our life,” he says. I laugh. She has no idea what she’s just let herself in for. The adventure of a lifetime.