Of the Vortex Born: Chapter Five
Jul. 16th, 2008 07:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberfocus
Chapter Five: Getting to Know You
“So, Doctor, you never said. How’d you get here?” Rose asked him. They were walking through dome Delta, a dome completely given over to the hydroponics gardens and a large park, complete with several small animals and various pollinating insects.
“I don’t really know,” he said. “One minute I was piloting the TARDIS and the next everything went crazy. Then we crashed on the moon. Your moon. We weren’t even near the other Earth at the time. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it was you. You brought me here when you used the power of the Vortex.”
“Hmm. You’d think if I had the power to do that, I would have done it when I got pregnant with Landon,” Rose mused. “Not that any of it really matters. The important thing is that you’re here. And you’re not alone anymore. You’ve got others of your kind.” She smiled at him. “And I’m so honored to be the one to have given them to you. Restoring your people is the greatest gift I could give you.”
“Rose…” He didn’t finish his thought as Rose was looking off over his shoulder with a thoughtful frown on her face.
“Luke’s a good kid, right?” she asked.
“He’s brilliant.”
“I mean, he’ll behave himself. With Jamie?” The Doctor turned to look at what had caught Rose’s attention. Luke and Jamie were hanging partly over a rail, looking down at the gardens below. Jamie leaned a little further forward, pointing out something to Luke and bringing her head in closer to his.
“Luke’s a little bit socially backwards. I don’t think you need to worry about him acting improperly with Jamie. Not even sure he’d know what to do with a girl, other than talk physics with her. That usually doesn’t go over well.”
Rose bit her lip. “It would with her. It’s not necessarily Luke that I’m worried about here anyway. Jamie’s…well, she’s Jamie. She’s a force of nature. If she decides she wants something, she’ll go after it full force. The boy might not know what hit him.”
“I don’t think anything’s going to happen in the short amount of time we spend here. I just need to fix a few things in the TARDIS and then we can go back home. It should only take me a couple of weeks,” he said.
Rose went silent at his remark. After a couple of minutes she sighed. “If you don’t know how you got here, how do you plan on getting home?”
“I don’t know, Rose. But I have to. I have to get Luke back to his mother. I have to get Sarah back to Earth. She thought getting left in Aberdeen was bad. Toroptikan’s a great place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there.”
“So you and Sarah Jane are…what?” Rose asked wistfully.
“We’re friends. Same as we ever were. I see her maybe twice a year.”
“Oh,” said Rose. “So, is there anyone…special?” she asked him with a sideways glance. “I mean, you said it’s been eighty-seven years for you. It’s not like you wouldn’t have gotten close to anyone again.”
He stopped walking and turned to her. “I’ve had companions,” he said. “Too many, I suppose.”
“And were any of them…did you get close to any of them?” Rose asked.
“There was Donna. She made me laugh. She made me a little bit better…after you. But she wasn’t…she was a friend. A good friend. Drove me crazy and we fought all the time and she treated me like a slightly backwards little brother. It was nice. I liked her. She didn’t try to make me be anything but what I was. Didn’t want anything from me but to travel. I miss her.”
“What happened to her?” Rose said quietly.
“She’s queen of Sassifras Magna,” he said with a grin. “She made quite an impression on King Porige.”
“Porridge?” Rose asked. “Like mush?”
“Sounds the same. Spelled differently, though. He was infected with a bad strain of Runpidge. Made him a little crazy, went on a bit of a rampage, and came close to killing some children. Donna knocked him out, tied him up and sat on him until he came around. She waited until he was in his right mind again before she’d let him go.”
“And he proposed?”
“Well, on Sassifras, knocking a man out and tying him up is kind of a…courtship rite. The women there can be a bit…forceful.” The Doctor went quiet and Rose wondered if one of the women there had done it to the Doctor and he was remembering. He looked vaguely embarrassed. “He was rather impressed that Donna would do that to a king, even a bachelor king, and he was grateful she hadn’t let him kill the children while he was sick with the infection. And he had a thing for red hair, too. So he offered and she kind of got swept off her feet.”
“Ah, he was a looker then?”
“Not exactly. Big ears, big nose, not much hair, a little overly fond of leather. Couldn’t figure the attraction there really,” he shrugged.
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Rose said giving him a searing glance as she remembered his former self. Her look made him swallow audibly.
After a moment he continued. “But he was kind and she, well…Donna was never the sort to do anything like sleep with alien B from planet A or anything like that but for some reason she did and…well, I gather she was quite impressed. Not that she told me, mind but I was sleeping in the next room. Well, I say sleeping. Couldn’t really sleep over all that racket. Good thing I don’t need much sleep. Wouldn’t have gotten it that night. Anyway, after that she took him up on his offer. I’ve been back once or twice. They have half a dozen kids and she’s the happiest I’ve ever seen her. Still miss her, though.” His words trailed off and he walked over to a nearby bench.
“So, yeah, she was special, but not like you’re asking about. She wasn’t…she wasn’t you. No one was ever you. No one was ever her again, either, for that matter. But,” he reached out and took her hand, “I’ve never…I’ve never…Rose, you were…I just…no one could ever replace you. No one ever will.”
She smiled at him, her hearts settling. “No one could ever replace you, either,” she told him. He shot her a little sideways glance and smiled. He shook off her hand and wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him. “I missed you,” she said softly.
He pulled her a little closer and kissed the top of her head. “I missed you, too.”
“So how old are you then?” Jamie asked looking up at Luke who was a fair bit taller than her.
“Mum figures I’m about sixteen, nearly seventeen.”
“Doesn’t she know?”
“My…erm, birth was a little unusual,” he said. “I wasn’t born in the usual manner. Sarah Jane adopted me.”
“I’ve heard about her. Mum’s told me stories,” Jamie said. “Do you really have a robot dog?”
“K-9? Yeah. The Doctor gave him to mum as a present. She used to travel with him a long time ago,” Luke said.
“So did my mum. Was she in love with him?”
“I don’t know. I think so. She doesn’t talk about that sort of thing, really,” Luke told her.
“My mum was.”
“Your mum is,” Luke said. “That’s obvious. So is the Doctor. I think I’ve heard the story of every adventure he ever took Rose on at least three times now. He never talks about any of his other companions, well, except my mum and Donna.”
“Who was Donna?” Jamie said suddenly feeling a little bit concerned.
“A bit of a nut case, but she was a lot of fun. She helped eliminate a Tharoshin infestation from my high school, but not before telling off the evil principal in front of the entire school.”
“What are Tharoshin?” asked Jamie.
“Bit like scorpions. Do you have scorpions in this universe?” She nodded. “Yeah, well, a bit like them. Only six feet tall. Donna’s the one figured out how to kill them,” Luke said.
“How?” she asked eyes wide.
“Mustard,” he said.
“Mustard?”
“Plain, cheap yellow mustard. Made them explode. It wasn’t much fun to clean up. The stains were awful. Oh, we got the dead scorpion stains out no problem but there are still mustard stains on the cafeteria ceiling,” Luke said. Jamie giggled and Luke smiled, enchanted at her laughter.
“So, do you have a girlfriend back in your universe?” she asked him.
“Well, there’s Maria. She’s my friend,” he said oblivious to what she was asking him.
“I meant a special girl.”
“Maria’s special. All my friends are.”
Jamie wasn’t used to having to work quite this hard. She flipped her hair over her shoulder in annoyance. “But is she any more special than anyone else you’re friends with?”
“Well, she was my first friend, so I suppose that makes her a little more special than everyone else,” he mused.
Jamie gave up. “That’s nice,” she managed.
“I like it here,” said Luke. “There’s no one living on the moon of my Earth. Is it fun to live up here?”
“I like it,” said Jamie. “But I was born on the moon. I’ve always lived here.”
“Have you ever been on Earth?” he asked.
“Landon took me once. It was pretty. Kind of hard to get used to the sky, though. Not used to having an atmosphere or even open air. I’ve always had a dome over my head. Mum won’t go back to Earth. Torchwood’s down there and they’re evil.”
“We have a Torchwood. They’re not so bad.”
“Well, ours is. If you’re not completely human, they’ll try to dissect you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if we go down to the planet,” Luke said.
“What do you have to worry about?” Jamie asked.
“Well, technically I was only born three years ago. And my brain is…different than regular humans. Since I’d really rather keep it in my head, I’ll just take your word for it and avoid Torchwood altogether.”
Jamie smiled. “That’s wise. Oh, look,” she said grabbing onto his arm with one hand and pointing with another. “See that?”
“What?” he asked.
“Right there!” She pointed to a tropical palm tree and right on the outermost leaf he saw a brilliant purple bird that had feathers and a plume on its head that looked like fur.
“What is it?” he asked in a low voice, impressed with its vibrant appearance.
“We’ve named them minus. U.N.I.T. found them in a derelict space craft in the asteroid belt. There’s a small flock. Seven breeding pairs. They only came in three weeks ago and they’re just now getting brave enough to be seen. At first they hid in the branches and they still prefer to sleep in their cages in the university lab at night. Count yourself lucky to have seen one,” Jamie explained.
“They’re beautiful,” he said. “Thank you for pointing them out.”
“Of course,” she said nonchalantly. She suddenly realized that she still had a hold of Luke’s arm from when she’d grabbed it in her excitement. As he didn’t say anything about it or try to extricate himself from her grasp, she left it there, keeping their arms linked as she leaned forward and pointed out other bits of flora and fauna, their heads tilted close together as they discussed what was in front of them.
When at last Rose and the Doctor came up behind them, Rose coughing to get her daughter’s attention, they both jumped apart. Jamie was happy and just a little bit surprised to notice that Luke had a slightly guilty look on his face, a bit like a child who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. So he hadn’t been quite as impervious to her as she’d thought.
“Time to go kids,” Rose said. “The Doctor and Luke will be staying with us tonight.”
“Oh, we don’t want to impose,” said the Doctor. “We can sleep in the TARDIS.”
“Don’t be silly,” Rose said in her best Jackie Tyler voice. “You’re staying with us and that’s final.”
The Doctor decided he really didn’t have any reason to argue and wasn’t all that keen on leaving Rose’s side so soon, so he nodded his agreement and the four of them headed for the station to catch the magtrain back to dome Gamma.
Ch. 6: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/101241.html
“Rose…” He didn’t finish his thought as Rose was looking off over his shoulder with a thoughtful frown on her face.
“Luke’s a good kid, right?” she asked.
“He’s brilliant.”
“I mean, he’ll behave himself. With Jamie?” The Doctor turned to look at what had caught Rose’s attention. Luke and Jamie were hanging partly over a rail, looking down at the gardens below. Jamie leaned a little further forward, pointing out something to Luke and bringing her head in closer to his.
“Luke’s a little bit socially backwards. I don’t think you need to worry about him acting improperly with Jamie. Not even sure he’d know what to do with a girl, other than talk physics with her. That usually doesn’t go over well.”
Rose bit her lip. “It would with her. It’s not necessarily Luke that I’m worried about here anyway. Jamie’s…well, she’s Jamie. She’s a force of nature. If she decides she wants something, she’ll go after it full force. The boy might not know what hit him.”
“I don’t think anything’s going to happen in the short amount of time we spend here. I just need to fix a few things in the TARDIS and then we can go back home. It should only take me a couple of weeks,” he said.
Rose went silent at his remark. After a couple of minutes she sighed. “If you don’t know how you got here, how do you plan on getting home?”
“I don’t know, Rose. But I have to. I have to get Luke back to his mother. I have to get Sarah back to Earth. She thought getting left in Aberdeen was bad. Toroptikan’s a great place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there.”
“So you and Sarah Jane are…what?” Rose asked wistfully.
“We’re friends. Same as we ever were. I see her maybe twice a year.”
“Oh,” said Rose. “So, is there anyone…special?” she asked him with a sideways glance. “I mean, you said it’s been eighty-seven years for you. It’s not like you wouldn’t have gotten close to anyone again.”
He stopped walking and turned to her. “I’ve had companions,” he said. “Too many, I suppose.”
“And were any of them…did you get close to any of them?” Rose asked.
“There was Donna. She made me laugh. She made me a little bit better…after you. But she wasn’t…she was a friend. A good friend. Drove me crazy and we fought all the time and she treated me like a slightly backwards little brother. It was nice. I liked her. She didn’t try to make me be anything but what I was. Didn’t want anything from me but to travel. I miss her.”
“What happened to her?” Rose said quietly.
“She’s queen of Sassifras Magna,” he said with a grin. “She made quite an impression on King Porige.”
“Porridge?” Rose asked. “Like mush?”
“Sounds the same. Spelled differently, though. He was infected with a bad strain of Runpidge. Made him a little crazy, went on a bit of a rampage, and came close to killing some children. Donna knocked him out, tied him up and sat on him until he came around. She waited until he was in his right mind again before she’d let him go.”
“And he proposed?”
“Well, on Sassifras, knocking a man out and tying him up is kind of a…courtship rite. The women there can be a bit…forceful.” The Doctor went quiet and Rose wondered if one of the women there had done it to the Doctor and he was remembering. He looked vaguely embarrassed. “He was rather impressed that Donna would do that to a king, even a bachelor king, and he was grateful she hadn’t let him kill the children while he was sick with the infection. And he had a thing for red hair, too. So he offered and she kind of got swept off her feet.”
“Ah, he was a looker then?”
“Not exactly. Big ears, big nose, not much hair, a little overly fond of leather. Couldn’t figure the attraction there really,” he shrugged.
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Rose said giving him a searing glance as she remembered his former self. Her look made him swallow audibly.
After a moment he continued. “But he was kind and she, well…Donna was never the sort to do anything like sleep with alien B from planet A or anything like that but for some reason she did and…well, I gather she was quite impressed. Not that she told me, mind but I was sleeping in the next room. Well, I say sleeping. Couldn’t really sleep over all that racket. Good thing I don’t need much sleep. Wouldn’t have gotten it that night. Anyway, after that she took him up on his offer. I’ve been back once or twice. They have half a dozen kids and she’s the happiest I’ve ever seen her. Still miss her, though.” His words trailed off and he walked over to a nearby bench.
“So, yeah, she was special, but not like you’re asking about. She wasn’t…she wasn’t you. No one was ever you. No one was ever her again, either, for that matter. But,” he reached out and took her hand, “I’ve never…I’ve never…Rose, you were…I just…no one could ever replace you. No one ever will.”
She smiled at him, her hearts settling. “No one could ever replace you, either,” she told him. He shot her a little sideways glance and smiled. He shook off her hand and wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him. “I missed you,” she said softly.
He pulled her a little closer and kissed the top of her head. “I missed you, too.”
“So how old are you then?” Jamie asked looking up at Luke who was a fair bit taller than her.
“Mum figures I’m about sixteen, nearly seventeen.”
“Doesn’t she know?”
“My…erm, birth was a little unusual,” he said. “I wasn’t born in the usual manner. Sarah Jane adopted me.”
“I’ve heard about her. Mum’s told me stories,” Jamie said. “Do you really have a robot dog?”
“K-9? Yeah. The Doctor gave him to mum as a present. She used to travel with him a long time ago,” Luke said.
“So did my mum. Was she in love with him?”
“I don’t know. I think so. She doesn’t talk about that sort of thing, really,” Luke told her.
“My mum was.”
“Your mum is,” Luke said. “That’s obvious. So is the Doctor. I think I’ve heard the story of every adventure he ever took Rose on at least three times now. He never talks about any of his other companions, well, except my mum and Donna.”
“Who was Donna?” Jamie said suddenly feeling a little bit concerned.
“A bit of a nut case, but she was a lot of fun. She helped eliminate a Tharoshin infestation from my high school, but not before telling off the evil principal in front of the entire school.”
“What are Tharoshin?” asked Jamie.
“Bit like scorpions. Do you have scorpions in this universe?” She nodded. “Yeah, well, a bit like them. Only six feet tall. Donna’s the one figured out how to kill them,” Luke said.
“How?” she asked eyes wide.
“Mustard,” he said.
“Mustard?”
“Plain, cheap yellow mustard. Made them explode. It wasn’t much fun to clean up. The stains were awful. Oh, we got the dead scorpion stains out no problem but there are still mustard stains on the cafeteria ceiling,” Luke said. Jamie giggled and Luke smiled, enchanted at her laughter.
“So, do you have a girlfriend back in your universe?” she asked him.
“Well, there’s Maria. She’s my friend,” he said oblivious to what she was asking him.
“I meant a special girl.”
“Maria’s special. All my friends are.”
Jamie wasn’t used to having to work quite this hard. She flipped her hair over her shoulder in annoyance. “But is she any more special than anyone else you’re friends with?”
“Well, she was my first friend, so I suppose that makes her a little more special than everyone else,” he mused.
Jamie gave up. “That’s nice,” she managed.
“I like it here,” said Luke. “There’s no one living on the moon of my Earth. Is it fun to live up here?”
“I like it,” said Jamie. “But I was born on the moon. I’ve always lived here.”
“Have you ever been on Earth?” he asked.
“Landon took me once. It was pretty. Kind of hard to get used to the sky, though. Not used to having an atmosphere or even open air. I’ve always had a dome over my head. Mum won’t go back to Earth. Torchwood’s down there and they’re evil.”
“We have a Torchwood. They’re not so bad.”
“Well, ours is. If you’re not completely human, they’ll try to dissect you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if we go down to the planet,” Luke said.
“What do you have to worry about?” Jamie asked.
“Well, technically I was only born three years ago. And my brain is…different than regular humans. Since I’d really rather keep it in my head, I’ll just take your word for it and avoid Torchwood altogether.”
Jamie smiled. “That’s wise. Oh, look,” she said grabbing onto his arm with one hand and pointing with another. “See that?”
“What?” he asked.
“Right there!” She pointed to a tropical palm tree and right on the outermost leaf he saw a brilliant purple bird that had feathers and a plume on its head that looked like fur.
“What is it?” he asked in a low voice, impressed with its vibrant appearance.
“We’ve named them minus. U.N.I.T. found them in a derelict space craft in the asteroid belt. There’s a small flock. Seven breeding pairs. They only came in three weeks ago and they’re just now getting brave enough to be seen. At first they hid in the branches and they still prefer to sleep in their cages in the university lab at night. Count yourself lucky to have seen one,” Jamie explained.
“They’re beautiful,” he said. “Thank you for pointing them out.”
“Of course,” she said nonchalantly. She suddenly realized that she still had a hold of Luke’s arm from when she’d grabbed it in her excitement. As he didn’t say anything about it or try to extricate himself from her grasp, she left it there, keeping their arms linked as she leaned forward and pointed out other bits of flora and fauna, their heads tilted close together as they discussed what was in front of them.
When at last Rose and the Doctor came up behind them, Rose coughing to get her daughter’s attention, they both jumped apart. Jamie was happy and just a little bit surprised to notice that Luke had a slightly guilty look on his face, a bit like a child who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. So he hadn’t been quite as impervious to her as she’d thought.
“Time to go kids,” Rose said. “The Doctor and Luke will be staying with us tonight.”
“Oh, we don’t want to impose,” said the Doctor. “We can sleep in the TARDIS.”
“Don’t be silly,” Rose said in her best Jackie Tyler voice. “You’re staying with us and that’s final.”
The Doctor decided he really didn’t have any reason to argue and wasn’t all that keen on leaving Rose’s side so soon, so he nodded his agreement and the four of them headed for the station to catch the magtrain back to dome Gamma.
Ch. 6: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/101241.html
