Unscheduled

[lone_defender]

After their latest adventure, Rose hadn't found it surprising at all that Amelia and Donna chose to take a few weeks off from traveling. Although, she imagined they wouldn't last the full month, she could understand why they'd want the break in the first place. It'd been emotionally and physically draining for everyone.

Rose herself felt exhausted enough that she'd almost gone with Donna's not-so-subtle nudges to take the weeks off herself, and spend a bit of time with Torchwood instead. Almost. She wouldn't have been able to live with herself for an entire week of sitting on her hands instead of looking for the Doctor. She had limited time to find him, and the universe couldn't just have her idling about, wasting time, instead of looking.

She'd lasted a few hours of chatter and catching up on paperwork before she'd slipped out to the TARDIS and escaped. She didn't have a specific destination in mind, but maybe that was for the best. She could stumble across something important. And with the way her luck had been lately? It seemed more likely she would if she wasn't guessing.

She managed a few moments of aimless flight, scrolling through possible destinations, before she crashed. Or, more accurately, before colliding with something hard enough to send her sprawling painfully--as opposed to those times when it was just amusing--to the grating. And that alarm, unfamiliar as it was, couldn't be good.

She groaned, rubbing her head, and blinked up at the rotor, gathering her wits about her once more. "You're not s'posed to..."

...Be there.

How in the world was there suddenly someone standing TARDIS?

Comments

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

The Doctor was just trying to get Tegan and Nyssa to the Great Exhibition to cheer them, after... Adric, when he and the girl were knocked off their feet. "Right!" he told the TARDIS, as he tried to discover what on Earth or Gallifrey or the Universe had just happened. "Settle down, now."

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

She blinked. There was someone in the TARDIS. Talking to the TARDIS. And was she mistaken, or had the TARDIS just brightened a bit? She couldn't get a straight answer through her silent questions to the ship, so she pulled herself to her feet.

"How-" Well, this had happened before. Sort of. She glanced toward the monitor, but the information scrolled by too quickly to read. "What th'hell is going on?" That was actually directed toward the ship, not the man, but she'd take any answer.

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

He was near the monitor before he realised that the person with him in the TARDIS was neither Tegan nor Nyssa. He stared at her in confusion. "What?" he asked. "Who are you?"

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

It seemed like there was a ready-made answer provided by the TARDIS, but it reverberated painfully in the back of her mind for some reason.

She frowned, and might have come up with something snappy to respond with, but was shortly distracted with reaching out to flip a flashing switch. Flashing was never a good thing to ignore. "Who are you? And how'd you get here?"

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

"I'm the Doctor!" he replied with some peevishness. "Who are you?"

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

"You're--" No. Couldn't be. He'd know her, even if he changed his face. Even if he'd suddenly jumped across universes. Even the parallel Doctor she'd met did. "No, cos I know him and you're...not. You can't be."

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

"I rather think I'd know that better than you!" he replied, whipping off his hat. "Now, something is very wrong with my TARDIS and I've got to do something about it very, very quickly." He looked around in consternation at the scenery. "What have you done to my TARDIS? You've changed the desktop theme, haven't you?"

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

She frowned, staring at him. She'd never called it a TARDIS. And he'd spoken to the ship, hadn't he? Like he knew what he was doing.

Could he have been a Doctor before the one she knew? She'd never asked just how many times he'd changed...and there was Sarah Jane. She hadn't been his first companion, so perhaps that hadn't been his first face, either.

She didn't have long to say anything about it, though. His speech quickly shifted to a question, and she blinked, mentally catching back up. "Oi! I haven't done anything to her! If something's changed, you did it."

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

"Coral?" he replied, though more in disbelief at his own bad taste. "Worse than leopard print!" He returned to face to the console, slipping on a pair of gold rimmed glasses.

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

She made a face at the thought of the TARDIS in leopard print, and in response, there was a distinct sound of amusement in the strangely chaotic song of the ship.

At the golden glasses, however, her lingering doubt over whether this was the Doctor faded somewhat. "...Y'don't really change, do you?"

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

He was about to ask her what she meant by that when an alarm started blaring. "That's an alert," he told her, pulling his glasses back off himself. "Level five! Indicating a temporal collision!" he hurried around the console. "It's like two TARDISes have merged but there's definitely only one TARDIS present." He works the console again. "It's like two time zones are moored in the heart of the TARDIS." He looks away. "That's a paradox. Could blow a hole in the space time continuum the size of..." he paused before heading to the screen. "Well," he decided with embarrassment. He looked at Rose. "The exact size of Luxembourg, actually. Bit undramatic. Luxembourg?"

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

She only half listened to him, still trying to decipher what the TARDIS' song was trying to convey. But his words--two TARDISes merged from different times--fit, didn't it? They were the same TARDIS, she might be able to hear it from before her time, so the problem stemmed from hearing two. One of which was probably not accustomed to her.

She'd been about to say such, when he mentioned the size of the hole. "Luxembourg? That's...not so bad, is it? Sortov anti-climactic." Then again, any tear wasn't a good thing, and a tear like that just might grow.

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

"Well, exactly," he replied, working at the controls. He stopped and look at her. "Who are you?"

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

She frowned at the monitor, trying to puzzle out what he'd said even with the painful echo of the TARDIS, but glanced up at his question.

She considered briefly whether she ought to tell this Doctor from the past anything...but he'd lived for hundreds of years. Her name wasn't exactly unique. "Rose Tyler. What d'we do about Luxembourg?"

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

The alarms didn't give him much time to respond. He rushed around the console flipping switches. "Two seconds! What are you doing here? Where am I?" he asked her as he worked.

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

Now, that... "I can't tell you that." She was able to make out a demand from the TARDIS, then, to pull a nearby lever. Or, as close to a demand as the TARDIS could get, anyway. "I'm just...lookin' after her."

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

"Just looking after her?" he demanded. "Stay

away

from her!"

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

"OI!" She pointed at the younger Doctor. Rationally, she understood his reaction. Emotionally, the concept that his return would shortly be followed with her ejection terrified her. "You've got no idea what's goin' on right now. If I weren't here, there'd be no TARDIS t'look after, alright? I take care of her."

Mind. She wasn't in the best position to argue her case, currently.

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

"Oh, yes, you've killed me and now you want your prize, is that it?" he replied. "You've created a universe damaging paradox! Fine job!"

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

"I did nothing!" She snapped, and maybe she was a bit touchy about the blame for his loss. "You're just...just gone. And th'only thing I can do about it is keep her company. And, by th'way Doctor, it takes two to crash, so you've created the bloody paradox as well."

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

"No it doesn't!" he snapped back. "It's hardly a tree's fault when a car goes careering into it! I've managed nine centuries without crashing into myself and you're, well! Humans and TARDISes don't work well together!"

He worked at the console. "Just gone, indeed!"

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, well, sorry I haven't had nine hundred years t'learn how t'fly her." Or, really, more than a quick overview by anyone but the TARDIS herself. Despite her annoyance, she frowned over at the Doctor a moment, thoughtful.

Nine centuries...was this the face he had right before the one she'd known?

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

"Gone

where

?"

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

"I'm not telling you your future, Doctor." She frowned at the monitor rather than looking up at him. "If I tell you where, you'll be warned away, and won't that cause a paradox? An' that's not gonna help when we're already dealin' with one, right?" She did glance up briefly at him, then. "Or you'll just...not avoid it when y'could, and maybe if I hadn't told ya, you would've avoided it. I'm not gonna be the one t'cause it."

Her reasoning was a bit...Matrix, granted, but all she knew about what she could and couldn't do with time was what she could cobble together with what the Doctor told her, what Jack remembered, and what tidbits she could find. It wasn't ideal. It wasn't even acceptable. But it was the only thing she or the universe had, until she could get the Doctor back.

And she was, obviously, flat-out ignoring the fact that her reasoning meant it was already her fault just for crashing into him and influencing his history at all.

"So just...stop asking."

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

"I'm a Doctor," he replied. "I have experience with dealing with paradoxes!" The cloister sounded. "That's the cloister bell! We've just created a blackhole that's strong enough to swallow the entire universe. Forgot the shields, did you?"

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

"You said Luxembourg!" That wasn't angry, or even exasperated. Simply worried. Destroying the universe was the exact opposite of what she was trying to do.

She frowned after a moment. "I...s'pose I might've. Had a bit of a time just before this. Can you fix it?" If the universe survived, Donna would never let her live the sneaking off without rest thing down.

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

"It's still a country!" he replied. "Hold on! Let me think... right!" he dashed to the otherside of the console. "This is is a terrible idea, but... venting the thermal buffer!"

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

She gripped the side of the console, anticipating any jarring that might cause. "Terrible idea's better than no idea...but don't we need t'undo th'paradox to undo th'damage?" That...was how it went the last time she'd caused encountered a paradox, after all.

But undoing a crash to fix it seemed like it was more difficult than causing one. "We were both flyin' through time and space when we managed to collide and merge our two time zones, right? Th'car that hit the tree's not goin' anywhere unless you reverse the direction it went, yeah? Left, right, forward, radio and lights, that's not gonna unwrap it. But we're crashed in time, too...so whatever we do t'separate the two has t'be both at the same time, shouldn't it? And where the tree and th'car met, because you don't pull a car, y'push it, and you're not gonna move th'tree."

...Well. At least she's been paying attention to everything he said. And was trying. Even if the car-and-the-tree was a strange metaphor for two identical TARDISes meshing time zones, and might not even apply.

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

He went and pumped the regulator while she was talking. "... Right." He nodded and his fingers went onto the flow regulator. "Hang on." He pressed the button and the TARDIS whined.

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

Well...even if her theory was completely useless, it felt better to at least offer it than stand around uselessly while the Doctor saved the universe. While technically trapped in a parallel universe. She knew she was a pale replacement, even on her best days, and even with a full TARDIS...but that would have just been sad.

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

After a few odd sounds from the TARDIS, not to mention a little whirring about, the Doctor seemed satisfied. "Black hole and supernova at the same time!" he boasted. "Cancel either other out and all shall be well. That was what you mean, right?"

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

...Yeah, sure. She'd go with that. A black hole cold be...sort of time-y, couldn't it? And a supernova had the sort of force she was thinking of.

Nevermind she...probably wouldn't have thought of that.

"Yeah, I s'pose. So th'TARDISes are separating, then?"

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

A sound cried out as if to confirming. "Yes. Times up!" he worked the controls some more before he faded. "Right, I'm off then!"

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

"Wait!" It was a bit mad, actually, trying to keep around someone--something--that caused a paradox which almost destroyed the universe...but really. Maybe she missed the Doctor. No, not maybe. And he was the Doctor, even if he had a different face and hadn't met her yet.

With the TARDISes separating now, she could make out the proper song well enough to know what to flip to slow the process a bit.

And she had the excuse that he'd forgotten his hat, anyway.

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

"What?"

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

She bit her lip, and held out his hat. "I wish I could tell you what happened. I really wish I could just make things right before they ever went pear, but you know I can't."

And...she was stalling and wasting some of the few seconds the delay bought her. Honestly. She'd practiced this speech--even if it was for therapeutic purposes, and she'd always imagined something more like a message in a bottle.

"Just...when the time comes? However it takes, remember this. Remember I'm still here. Still alive, and still fightin'." It didn't mean anything to him now, she was sure, but one day it would. She hoped, at least. "I know this isn't the best example, but I swear, I am looking after th'TARDIS, and I'll do everythin' in my power to keep her safe and healthy. She's not alone. And...th'most important thing, Doctor? I'm never givin' up. I'm not stopping until I fix things again, so don't you give up. Not on me, and not on you." She offered a smile that was...almost apologetic. "Can y'please remember that for me? And...I'll see ya around, Doctor. One day, yeah?"

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

He took his hat off her and put it back on his head. "Right," he replied, bemused. "Of course. Well, I have a time stream to get back to."

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

She nodded quickly, digging her hands into her pockets. "Right. Sorry. Like I said then, Doctor....see ya around."

[fresh-faced-doc.livejournal.com]

"Right." He continued to look at her in bewilderment as he faded.

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

She watched the spot where he vanished from for a few moments more, before she shook her head and turned back to the console, setting the coordinates back to Torchwood.

One day soon, she told herself, she'd find out of that message got through. Despite the fact that they'd very nearly destroyed the entire universe, maybe that's what running into him was a sign of. She was getting closer to finding a way to get him back after all.

That was, if Donna didn't strangle her for making her miss out on that little crisis first.