SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW
Chapter Fifty Four After finishing the movie, Alan and Awinita decided to talk while Rose listened. He explained the Bad Wolf to her while she listened in stunned silence. “So, she saved your life then as this Bad Wolf thing…I mean, the Doctor’s life,” Awinita said. He nodded. “Yes, although she was lucky she didn’t die in the process like the Doctor did.” He frowned. “It’s always been a kind of mystery why she managed to survive. The Doctor pondered that for many a night because you see, the power within her should have fried her brain and yet, it didn’t.” “Maybe you’re an alien, Rose?” Awinita offered. “You were switched at birth with a human baby and your mother raised you and all along you had this weird alien power within you?” Alan stared at her. “You have quite an imagination, you know that?” he said. “Yeah, plus I don’t think my mum would like to hear that. She’s already had to deal with the Doctor and his clone, never mind finding out that I’m not even her real kid. I’m pretty sure that I’m human though.” “Hey, it was just a suggestion. Makes as much sense as you being possessed by this time vortex thing. So, what did your other Doctor look like then?” “Get in my purse, Alan. I have a little photo book in there and find her one of the pictures of my other Doctor,” she said. “Okey-dokey.” He grabbed her purse and pulled out a little black plastic photo album. He looked through it and found a close up of Rose and the ninth Doctor. “Here he is in all his big-eared glory,” he said, pointing to the picture. Awinita took the photo album and stared at the picture. “Not bad looking. Kinda more rugged looking than you are, but he’s handsome,” she said. “Nice blue eyes too.” “Oh, I know, I loved his eyes,” Rose said. Alan leaned up. “But, brown eyes are better, yeah? Big, brown puppy dog eyes?” “Nah, blue ones are better.” She giggled and patted his cheek when he shot her a look and sat back down. He took the photo album. “So, how did you manage to keep this?” “I had several of my favorite ones that I kept in my pocket so I could take them out and look at them on occasion. That’s why I was able to hold on to them when I first came here. There’s a couple of that Doctor and a couple of your Doctor in there.” He frowned while he stared at the picture. “Where was this taken?” “You don’t remember?” “No, I mean, it’s a close up and I really can’t see the background. You took several pictures of you and him, as I recall.” “Well, let me see it. I don’t know which one you’re looking at.” He held the photo album up by her face and she glanced at it. “That was when the Doctor and I went to the Riviera. Remember? They had that photographer there?” “Oh yeah, I remember now. You had that spaghetti dinner.” “Yup, that was delicious.” He looked through the other photos and found one of the tenth Doctor. He was lounging in the captain’s chair with his feet up on the rim of the console and a smile on his face as he gazed at the camera. Alan grinned. “I think I remember this one. You had just brought your new digital camera and was trying it out, weren’t you?” he said, showing the photo to Rose. She smiled. “Yup, I loved the Doctor there. He was so relaxed and happy, which you know was rare for him.” Awinita took the photo album. “Yup, you are definitely his clone,” she said. “Except you aren’t wearing a brown suit.” “Yeah, well, that’s the outfit he usually wears,” Alan said. “The outfit the other Doctor had on, the leather jacket and jumper, that was his main outfit.” “Jumper?” “Sweater,” Alan clarified. Awinita turned the page and saw two more photos of the Doctors. On the left side, the ninth Doctor was sitting on a blanket by a lake with his back up against a tree smiling lazily at the camera. On the other side, the tenth Doctor was making google eyes and sticking his tongue out while he flipped the camera off. Awinita snickered. “I can definitely see the resemblance between you two,” she said to Alan. “What’s that?” Rose said. “This one where the Doctor is making a silly face.” Rose giggled. “Yeah, he was being a goof that day. I told him to smile and he gave me that instead,” she said. “He didn’t hear you correctly. He had tons of space dust in his ears,” Alan said. “Yeah, well the space dust must have been a problem because I had trouble getting him to pose properly for any kind of picture. That one where he’s sitting in the jump seat is the calmest he ever was. He’s just like you; see a camera and he becomes a complete show-off. Not only that, the little bugger was into all manner of practical jokes. Always causing trouble, he was. I can’t tell ya how many times I woke up with whipped cream on my face after he put it in my hand and tickled my nose. And now, I get that times two since this one also has Donna running through his system and apparently Donna has quite a mouth on her judging from some of the pesky things he’s said.” She sighed wistfully. “Still, those were the good days before Canary Wharf…” She trailed off and became lost in her thoughts as Alan and Awinita glanced at each other. She quickly brought herself back to the present and looked around at them. “Sorry, I was strolling down memory lane for a moment,” she said. Alan reached up and squeezed her shoulder. Rose squeezed his hand in return and he sat back. “Anyway, the other pictures are of me and my mum and Mickey and dad and Jake and Tony if you want to look through them. Not all that interesting in my opinion, but in case Awinita wants to take a look at my family.” She took the photo book from Alan and quietly looked at the pictures. Alan stared at Rose, silently aching for the loss she suffered when she was first torn from the Doctor. He actually did remember all the photos and remembered how happy Rose had been during that time. He noticed she had gone quiet again, seemingly lost in her thoughts as she drove. “You have a beautiful family, Rose,” Awinita said. She smiled. “Thanks.” Alan looked at her. “You have any pictures of your family?” “Um, I have a couple. I have one of my grandmother and one of my mothers and brothers. Hang on, they’re in my backpack.” She squeezed past Alan and sat down in the back seat. She rummaged through her rucksack, found the pictures and gave them to Alan. He smiled as he looked at them and held them up so Rose could see them. “You have a beautiful family too,” Rose said as Alan nodded. “Thanks,” she replied as Alan handed the photos back to her. “The whole family is very close, which is good since my grandmother didn’t get carted off to a nursing home when she got sick. I can’t bear to think of her in one. Besides I think it would kill her if we stuck her there.” “Oh, I know, I’m the same way ‘bout mum or dad. I don’t want them going into the old folk’s home either,” Rose said. “They took care of me so I need to help provide for them.” “Um…does that mean we are taking them on the TARDIS eventually?” Alan asked. “No, but I want to make sure they are well cared for. With dad’s fortune, they can have private care with private nurses so don’t panic and think that my mum will be on the TARDIS with us beating you with her cane. I seriously doubt she’d want to travel with us anyway. I just mean that I’ll be there to check up on them every once in awhile just in case something happens.” “But, if we’re in a time machine, you won’t have to worry about that because we can just keep going back to a time when they weren’t old and feeble,” Alan said. “No, I would like to visit them in the present time as well,” she said. “Just like I did when I was with the Doctor.” “So, where is this time machine of yours?” Awinita said. “I thought you guys were stuck here.” “We are for the moment, but the Doctor actually left us a piece of his TARDIS that will grow into a TARDIS of our own in ten years time.” He grabbed his rucksack and searched through it until he found the coral. Awinita stared at it in wonder. “Wow, this is gonna be a time machine someday?” she asked, admiring its beauty. “Yup.” “So, this TARDIS is a living thing?” “Absolutely and it has a sex. The Doctor’s TARDIS is a girl, but we’ll have to wait to see what ours will be.” She raised her eyebrow. “Can you talk to it?” “In a way, yes. It responds with grunts and groans and you can feel it kinda nudge your mind sometimes. Every TARDIS bonds with its owners and this one will bond with us so we’ll be able to feel it and sense its emotions.” “And feel it die…” Rose murmured. Alan frowned. “Die?” he said. “In the Crucible, when the TARDIS was in the core, the commander Dalek told the Doctor that he was connected to the TARDIS so he could feel it die.” “Oh! Yeah, um…yes, that’s also a possibility although I hope that will never happen with us. It’s not a very pleasant thing.” “What did it feel like for the Doctor?” Rose asked. “He felt her screaming in pain inside his head.” “Oh my God, “Awinita said. “The TARDIS can scream?” “Oh yeah, she feels anger, sorrow, happiness, pain. She has a symbiotic relationship with the Doctor and feels what he feels. And she felt what Rose felt and every other companion as well. She does bond with everyone in the TARDIS; however she doesn’t bond as deeply with the Doctor’s companions as she does with him. But, she can love and she does love the Doctor and has loved Rose. Probably still does, I expect. It’s the most magnificent ship in the universe as Rose can attest.” “Yes, it is. I agree with that totally,” Rose said. “That’s why I’m glad we have one of our own. I missed the TARDIS so much. Living inside her, you just get used to her being in your mind and when I was separated from the Doctor, I was also torn away from her and I mourned that loss just as much as I mourned the Doctor. It’s just indescribable the bond that formed between us. And not only that, but she also translates any language you can think of, written or spoken. Um…except for very, very old languages I guess since she couldn’t decipher the alien writing on Krop Tor.” “Well, that writing was waaaaaay before the end of the dark times,” Alan said. “That was a one in a trillion rarity. Other than that one time, she has been able to decipher every other piece of writing and language she’s come across.” “The more I get to know you guys, the more I’m glad I met you. It’s just incredible all the things you have seen and done and know. Makes me feel tiny by comparison.” “Nah, you’re not tiny, there’s no such thing,” Alan said. “There’s no such thing as an insignificant life. Everyone makes a difference in the universe whether for good or bad. You are just as important as we are.” There was a long pause. “Well?” Rose finally said. Alan frowned. “Well, what?” “You aren’t gonna add, “Of course, I’m slightly more important,” or something like that,” she said, winking. “Uh, no, I stand by my statement.” “Well, that’s a switch considering the Doctor has a huge ego,” she said. “Yeah, but I’m not the Doctor.” “I know, that’s my point. You just said something the Doctor would never say,” she teased. “He’d be saying something like you’re important, but not as important as me because I’m more brilliant than all you apes combined.” “When has he ever said something like that to you, Rose?” “Oh, several times,” Rose said. “Name them,” he said as she giggled. “Well, there was that time when we were on that moon in that galaxy and we were doing such and such and that just flew out of his mouth while I was busy solving a problem of some kind.” “Right, Rose,” he said as she laughed. “Yeah, I’m sorry I ever doubted you about him actually saying that to you.” “Okay, he didn’t say that exactly, but you know, there’s that whole arrogance about him that just screams that.” Alan’s mouth fell open. “He was never arrogant!” Rose snorted. “Well, he wasn’t arrogant to the degree that he was strutting around crowing about how he was more superior to apes.” Rose snorted even louder. “He wasn’t arrogant!” Alan insisted. “Oh no? How many times did he tell people how brilliant he was?” Rose challenged. “That wasn’t being arrogant. That was stating a fact. Most of the time when he said that he was talking to idiots who couldn’t think their way out of a paper sack. It isn’t arrogance when you are staring the simple truth!” “And then he’d do things like call people idiots.” “When did he ever do that, Rose?” “Mickey the idiot!” “Well, he was an idiot, that’s another fact,” he said as Awinita laughed. “He’s one of those examples of people who couldn’t think their way out of paper sacks!” “Then why did the Doctor trust him with taking out the Cybermen?” “Because…he needed a way to get him out of the TARDIS so he could have you to himself and Jake and the Cybermen were a handy dandy excuse.” “No, I believe in the beginning he was just jealous of my relationship with Mickey.” “Spot on, Tyler, he was.” “Then why did he let Mickey come on board with us after we defeated the Krillitaines? I tried to tell him I didn’t want Mickey to come but he went ahead and let him come anyway!” “Well, first off, he felt sorry for the boy since the poor git had been reduced to comparing himself to K9 and secondly, he felt compelled to do it just as he felt compelled to come back for you a second time. Traveling with him was a part of his destiny just like it was a part of yours.” He glanced over at Awinita. “Have we lost you?” “Yeah, but keep on talking, I’m just sitting here listening to you,” she said. “Well, my point is that the Doctor did regard her ex-boyfriend as something of a doofus when he first met him.” “Because he was jealous of him being clingy towards me.” “He was clingy, Rose. The boy apparently thought of you as a human security blanket.” He looked at Awinita. “I don’t know how many times he jumped down the Doctor’s throat about him and Rose. Even after Rose didn’t want him any more, there he was getting in the Doctor’s face with his whole, well, you better leave Rose alone because she’s mine and blah, blah, blah. I can tell you right now, it took all the Doctor had not to punch him in the face whenever he started in with that crap. And yes, Rose, he did end up respecting him in the end but that’s only because he stopped harassing him about you being in the TARDIS with him and finally stopped being this cringing little whiner and started pulling his own weight.” “Yes, that’s exactly my point, eventually he stopped referring to him as an idiot, but he was never an idiot to begin with. Now, I realize that was mainly my other Doctor and my other Doctor was kind of an ass to people on occasion and I suppose that’s how I made him better, but the point is, he never gave him or my mum a chance.” “Your mum slapped him in the face!” “Because I was gone for a year and she thought I was missing!” “He wasn’t intending to do that, it was an accident.” “Yeah, well, not in mum’s eyes.” “Her mother slapped the Doctor?” “Yes, her mother slapped the Doctor. Not the Doctor I came from, the ruggedly handsome one. He took her in the TARDIS and he was bringing her back and he thought they had only been gone for twelve hours, but he miscalculated and it ended up being twelve months. When he tried to explain and apologize, she hauled off and slapped him across the face!” “Well, I don’t blame her; I would have done that too.” “Thank you!” Rose said. “The Doctor doesn’t get that. He thinks it was no big deal since he lives in a time machine, but my mum was furious at him and frankly, it’s a wonder she talked to him at all after that. And my mum tried to be kind to the Doctor, but it was a little hard with him making sarky remarks to her face.” “Rose, are you aware of what your mum was doing the first time she saw the Doctor?” “Um…no, what was she doing?” “Coming on to him!” Rose blinked. “What?” Alan folded his arms over his chest. “Yes, her royal randiness saw a new man in the house and thought to herself, “Oh! Fresh meat!” and she tried to chat him up while she was wearing this ugly pink bathrobe. Ugh! It gives me the chills and I’m not the one that went through it! So, forgive the Doctor for not warming up to your mother the first time he saw her especially since he couldn’t get the color pink out of his brain for about a fortnight afterwards.” “Well, I’m sorry she did that to the Doctor and you have to live with the memory. I had no idea that was going on at the time.” “Because you were too busy being attacked by a killer mannequin arm.” “That was after the Doctor came in the room with me.” “Yeah and it took you about a minute and a half to realize the man was smothering to death. Jabbering on about nothing while a heap of plastic was choking the life outta him. “I was trying to be sociable; I didn’t realize that arm was still alive.” Alan glanced at Awinita who was listening intently. “Go on,” she said to him. “Don’t mind me; just go on with talking about killer mannequin arms.” Rose laughed. “That was shortly after our first meeting,” she told her. “Our very first meeting was in Henrick’s department store where I worked. I was down in the basement and these mannequins came to life and just as I was about to get killed, this door opened and the Doctor took my hand and told me to run. He took me out of the building, asked me my name and told me to run for my life. Then the whole building exploded. After that and the killer arm happened to me, I looked on the internet trying to find out more information about him and I found a website this guy was running that was asking people if they had seen him.” “Huh?” Alan said. “What website? Who ran it?” “Some bloke named Clive. I met with him and he had several photos and drawings of the Doctor from different points in history.” “Such as?” “Well, the photo he had on the front page of his website was a close up of you when you were watching John F. Kennedy the day he was assassinated.” “Really? Oh, I had no idea someone had taken a picture of that.” “Well, not the Doctor specifically. I mean whoever took the picture was taking the picture of the motorcade but the Doctor just happened to be in the crowd at that moment.” “Is that true?” Awinita asked. “Oh yeah, it wasn’t the Doctor I came from though, that was ruggedly handsome Doctor again. He went there out of curiosity to see if there really was someone on the grassy knoll that day, but he didn’t find anyone.” “He wasn’t there to save Kennedy?” He shook his head. “He couldn’t, that’s a fixed point in time.” He noticed her confusion. “Some events can be changed and some can’t. A true Time Lord can tell the difference although that hasn’t stopped some people in the past. But, anyway, Kennedy’s assassination is fixed, so there’s no meddling in it.” “Okay, I guess,” she said, shrugging. “What else was there?” Alan asked. “They had a drawing of my other Doctor at Krakatoa and then one where he was with this family before they were supposed to get on the Titanic. According to Clive, he stopped them from getting on board.” “Oh, yeah. Well, the guy he stopped was a doctor who was actually able to help save quite a few people when the Spanish Flu broke out in 1918. He was instrumental in helping to contain the disease so that’s why the Doctor stopped him.” “Oh, okay, that makes sense,” Rose said. “Then, he got on board and sailed with the ship.” Rose’s eyes widened. “What? Why?” she said. Alan fell silent. “Why, Alan?” she said when he didn’t say anything. Alan glanced at Awinita. “It was about six months before he met you and…he was…suicidal.” Rose’s mouth fell open. “You’re joking, right?” “No, this time I’m not.” Both Rose and Awinita were speechless. “Why? I mean, why did he want to kill himself?” Awinita finally said. Alan briefly summarized the Time War and the destruction of Gallifrey to her. “Oh my God,” Awinita said when he was finished. “His whole planet, all his people are gone?” Alan nodded. “Yeah and after it happened, he had survivors guilt, among other things, and in a fit of madness and despair, he decided to go down with the ship, so to speak.” He noticed the tears streaming down Rose’s face and shifted into the passenger seat. He laid a hand on her arm. “Rose, I’m sorry. I know it’s hard for you to hear but that’s how depressed he was at that time. That whole thing about you made him better, you really did, Rose. I know you know that you gave him a reason to live, but I don’t think you know just how deep in the depths of despair he really was.” Rose swallowed hard. “What…what stopped him?” she asked. Alan thought about that. “I think he just realized that suicide was not the solution and decided that it would dishonor the memory of his people to go out like that. I know you don’t know much about the Time War, Rose, and the events that led up to his having to destroy Gallifrey but he was actually chosen to do it because he was the only one who really stood up to the Daleks and fought back. He was also the only one who was out there making a difference and so the High Council chose him when they saw no other solution to ending the war. He didn’t want the honor, believe me. He argued vociferously with the council for several hours trying to get them to change their minds, but he finally caved in out of that sense of duty I told you about. He was hoping that perhaps he would go down with the planet so he purposely stayed near the epicenter when it finally came time to do it, but the TARDIS is resilient as you know and although it was a wreck after the blast, it managed to repair itself. The Doctor however was not so lucky. The explosion nearly tore the TARDIS to bits and a piece of flying debris impaled him in the chest.” “Oh God,” Awinita murmured as Rose flinched. Alan took her hand. “The whole thing about me being born in the midst of blood and battle and filled with anger and revenge? That’s why your Doctor said that because that’s how your other Doctor was born. He was enraged that he survived and was just a total basket case for several years. He got better over time but he did have his relapses and the Titanic episode was one of them.” Unable to keep her mind on the road, Rose pulled off into a rest stop. She parked the minivan and switched the car off. “Do you want me to take over?” Alan asked. She nodded. “I think you better because I’m not in the mood to drive right now,” she said. “But, first I wanna hear the rest of it. How did he survive?” “Well, he knew what was coming, obviously, and he stayed in a stateroom until the moment the iceberg hit and when that happened, he climbed onto it and basically clung there while the ship went down.” Rose was taken aback. “He clung to the iceberg?” Alan nodded. “Yeah, he shifted himself and found a nook so that he was out of harm’s way, but he had a bird’s eye view of it all and when it was over, he waited until the lifeboat came back for the survivors and he dove into the water and swam to it. Then, he rode the Carpathia back to Southampton and retrieved his TARDIS.” Both women were silent. “So, he wasn’t the one that went through the Time War then,” Rose finally said. “No, the eighth incarnation did.” Rose shook her head. “It’s just like before when I met Donna in the parallel world and the Doctor had died. All those terrible things that happened because he wasn’t around to stop them. Oh God, all that could have happened in the other universe and I could have gone my whole life without having met him all because he went temporarily insane.” He squeezed her hands. “I keep telling you, Rose; you made a huge impact on his life. You did something no other companion ever did. You turned him away from all that and gave him a reason to smile again. You showed him that even he had some happiness left in the universe and that’s why you became his whole entire world and like I said, it became ingrained so deeply that it just became a part of me.” Rose turned her head away from Awinita and mouthed something to herself. Alan read her lips and flinched when she said… “And now his insanity could come back again.” He glanced at Awinita but he could tell she didn’t catch that. She was sitting quietly by herself and he could tell she was taking it all in and trying to process it as best she could. He felt sorry for her having to hear all this all at one time and having to make sense of it after only knowing them for a short time. He knew that their lives were crazy enough without an outsider trying to make sense of it. Still, he admired her for sticking by them even though she had every reason to run. The Doctor has that talent, he thought. He has that knack for finding people who are steadfast and mature enough to deal with the things that happen in his life and are loyal enough to stay by his side, come what may. I guess that’s one thing that managed to stay with me. He glanced over at Rose and saw that she had managed to regain her composure for the most part. He smiled tenderly at her. “Listen, while we’re here, why don’t we take a bathroom break and I’ll drive for awhile while you rest, okay?” Rose nodded. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and whispered, “I love you,” in her ear. All of them got out, closed the doors and headed over to the little wooden building to use the toilets.
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