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locker_monsterTitle: The Other Side of the World (5/31)
Rating: PG
Characters: Rose, Martha
Timeline: Season three
Summary: Season three AU; After a fateful visit to Royal Hope Hospital, Rose finds herself lost in time and space with medical student Martha Jones. As they struggle to find a way home, they meet old friends, and old enemies, along the way...
Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine. Any borrowed dialogue belongs to Russell T Davies and the BBC.
A/N: A sequel to "The Other Side". It's not necessary reading; it just sets up the premise that it was the Doctor who was trapped in Pete's World, not Rose. And a shout-out to my awesome betas:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
joking and quean_of_swords. This story wouldn't have been posted without you guys.
Chapter One. Chapter Two. Chapter Three. Chapter Four.
The rumbling of the TARDIS only lasted a few seconds more, but it had been intense enough that when it stopped, Martha’s legs felt like jelly. She wobbled as she let go of the railing, her footing unsteady as a newborn colt’s.
The stillness of the TARDIS seemed to escape Rose and she continued to race around the console, pounding on every control that could be manipulated. The young woman appeared almost lost within herself, like the rest of the world had faded away and she could see nothing else but the manic need to hit the controls. She was so wrapped up in her actions that she failed to notice her fingers were bleeding from nicking the shards of glass from the column that still littered the surface of the console.
Martha called Rose’s name, first softly and then more loudly. When Rose didn’t stop, Martha grabbed her arms and pulled her away from the console. “Rose, just stop.”
The young woman remained tense for a moment but then she relaxed as her senses came flooding back. Martha let her go, satisfied Rose would do no more harm to herself. She leaned back against one of the railings, an awkward silence falling over them. Though she was used to speaking with patients of all ages and from different backgrounds and cultures, Martha was at a loss for words. What did one say after fleeing from a planet potentially ready to fall into a malfunctioning quantum fold?
She settled on a topic she did know and that was medicine. “Let me look at your fingers,” she said to Rose.
Rose clenched her hands into fists, hiding the cuts from view, as if embarrassed by her carelessness. “It’s fine.”
With that conversation topic a dead end, Martha went back to being silent. She wanted to talk with Rose, but if the young woman wasn’t willing, there wasn’t much point. Forcing a dialogue would yield nothing. For now, the deeper mechanics of who Rose Tyler was would have to wait.
“I wonder where we are,” said Martha. She spoke the thought out loud, hoping to engage Rose in some manner though Rose barely looked at her as she walked over to open the doors.
A black void punctuated with distant stars waited beyond the threshold.
Martha’s heart leaped into her throat and she scrambled back, pushing at the doors to slam them shut. It took her a few seconds to notice that she wasn’t being sucked out into the vacuum of space. Her breaths, slightly frantic, still came to her easily. As she adapted to the idea that the TARDIS wasn’t under the threat of sudden decompression, a second realization dawned on her.
There were no planets.
They were floating in the depths of space, completely alone.
Rose had found the box of bin liners in one of the cupboards in the kitchen, behind a stack of bowls. She had almost laughed upon her discovery, for she knew the box wouldn’t have moved on its own accord, but the laugh quickly died as her thoughts turned to who had moved the bin liners and placed them in an illogical place. Choosing not to dwell, she pulled a bin liner free from the box and returned to the console room.
She pushed the moment to the back of her mind as picked up the pieces of glass with a pair of tongs she had found in the bag of tools hanging from the console and threw them into the bin liner. Each tip of her fingers was wrapped up in a plaster. The cuts had been minor but they had stung every time Rose had tried to pick up something. But now that her fingers were protected, she was having a hard time keeping grasp of an object. The tongs felt awkward in her hands and pieces of glass would often slip free as she attempted to catch them between the two claws.
If anything, it helped to drag out the task. It gave Rose something else to focus on. Cleaning up the console was far easier to accomplish than trying to figure out a way to land the TARDIS somewhere.
The bin liner made a tinkling sound when Rose picked it up an hour later, the console now free of any finger slicing danger. She hefted the bag a few times, making the pieces of glass jingle like chimes in the wind. Her gaze drifted to the damaged time rotor. About half of encasement was gone, exposing the mechanism inside. She had looked into the heart of the TARDIS once, but what she was seeing now was like looking at the ship’s exposed organs. It sent a shiver down her spine.
Tossing the tongs aside, she ran to the doors. The sight of the darkness of space rather than the surface of the planet gave her pause but she pushed past her discomfort and with a frustrated grunt, she threw the bin liner out of the TARDIS. The second it went over the threshold of the doors, it became weightless in the vacuum of space. As the bin liner tumbled end over end away from the ship, the pieces of glass floated free, circling around the plastic bag like hundreds of tiny satellites.
“That’s one way to take out the garbage.”
Rose closed the doors and turned around to face Martha. The young doctor stood at the other end of the room, her expression one of veiled amusement.
“I made some tea.” Martha held up the thermos she was holding and walked over to meet Rose in the middle of the room. “At least, I think it’s tea. Some of the boxes I opened were full of things that didn’t look remotely edible.”
Taking the thermos from Martha, Rose took off the lid and took a whiff of the steaming liquid inside. She caught the familiar aroma of English Breakfast and had a sudden vision of morning breakfast with her mum, drinking tea before she had to go off to work at Henrik’s.
“Thanks.” Rose poured herself a cup and leaned against the console, putting her back to the broken time rotor. She cradled the cup in her hands, watching the steam swirl into the air.
“I’m sure we can fix it,” said Martha. She perched herself on the edge of the jump seat, her legs dangling above the grating. “I mean, once we…” The sentence went unfinished, the words unsaid, dangling like Martha’s legs.
If they found a way to pilot the TARDIS, Rose corrected silently. Her trick of hitting all the buttons and throwing all the levers until something happened did work, but the result was unpredictable. She didn’t want to send them careening into the heart of a sun, but after four days of just sitting they needed to try something. “I promised myself I would look after it.” Staring down at her untouched tea, Rose found her reflection staring back at her. “The TARDIS is so old, the last of its kind, and this is how I treat it.”
She was afraid to lose the ship. It was all she had left.
“Maybe you were right. Maybe you should have left the TARDIS alone. Then we’d all be better off.”
Rose looked up from her tea. Martha spoke casually but there was no mistaking the implication of her words. “Maybe you should have stayed at the hospital.” Her retort was sharp and came out more angered than she had planned but once she spoke the words, she didn’t regret them. It was the truth after all. If Martha hadn’t chased after her and the Judoon, she wouldn’t be in this mess.
“You’re right. I should have. I should have minded my own business.” Martha hopped off the jump seat and put down the thermos on the console. She spoke with quiet intensity. Her emotions raged but her words were precise, like she was slowly cutting away at Rose. “It’s just my luck that I had to take pity on the one person in the entire city with a malfunctioning time machine she doesn’t know how to fly.”
Rose slammed down her cup of tea, spilling half the contents on the controls. “You don’t even deserve to be here. I travelled with a Doctor and you’re nothing.”
“And you’re just a shop girl. Who gave you the responsibility to fight aliens?” By now they had come face to face, mere inches between them.
Never in her life had Rose felt so angry. Her hands trembled and she was acutely aware of her heart pounding in her chest. This ship was her home and some doctor-in-training had no right to come in and question her decisions.
She reached for the thermos, clenching it tight in her hand.
And in the blink of an eye, her aggression was gone. Her anger left her so quickly, Rose literally slumped, as if it had been physically removed from her. She looked to the thermos held in her right hand and she stared at it, barely remembering picking it up. Martha, too, looked equally perplexed and stumbled back until she ran into the jump seat. They stared at each other, the sting of their words still fresh, but neither of them spoke.
On the console, the screen crackled to life and a tinny voice sounded from hidden speakers. “This is the captain of the cargo ship Augustus hailing the… Police Public Call Box. Do you require assistance? Please respond.”
Rose took a deep breath and slowly let it out before bringing the screen around. An image of a clunky grey ship was displayed there. The ship barely looked space worthy but it was still a welcomed sight. “I repeat, this is the Augustus. We noticed your distress beacon. Please respond.”
Distress beacon. Rose frowned, unsure what the captain meant. Then she saw it. The bin liner, floating in space, with its hundred pieces of glass.
Standing in the doorway of the TARDIS, Rose looked around at the cargo hold of the Augustus. The time machine was a distinct sight, a blue box standing amongst stacks of dull brown crates and pyramid of boxes covered by green tarpaulins. The emptiness of outer space was gone. The captain of the Augustus had offered them a ride to a nearby supply station and Rose had jumped on the chance to go somewhere, anywhere.
The sound of footsteps in the sizeable cargo hold did not go amiss by Rose and she stepped out of the TARDIS. Down one row of crates, she came face to face with Martha. They regarded each other carefully, both hesitant to make the first move.
“I asked the ship’s doctor to look me over,” Martha said softly. “He couldn’t find anything wrong. What happened on the TARDIS…”
“Wasn’t us,” finished Rose. Her replied garnered a raised eyebrow from Martha. “I think it was the TARDIS trying to get our attention to tell us the Augustus was approaching.” She had thought about it while the time machine had been loaded onto the cargo ship and it felt like the only reasonable explanation. “The TARDIS can read our thoughts. Why wouldn’t it be able to put thoughts in our mind?”
“If the TARDIS could make us think something, why not just plant a thought saying a ship was approaching? Everything that was said, that was us, Rose. And I know because…” Martha sighed. “I’ve thought about saying those things to you.”
Rose swallowed heavily as a reply refused to form in her mind. The heightened emotions might have been the result of the TARDIS trying to get their attention, but Martha was right about everything else. Their words had been based on the truth, on the thoughts they had kept hidden from each other and themselves.
“I don’t blame you.” It was all Rose could think of to say.
“Rose.” Martha spoke her name firmly and took a step towards her. “We’re lost, there’s no denying that, but you’re doing everything you can to get us home. And you will get us home. You made a promise, remember?”
Martha smiled and Rose found herself joining in. They were in this together, no matter the outcome.
Rating: PG
Characters: Rose, Martha
Timeline: Season three
Summary: Season three AU; After a fateful visit to Royal Hope Hospital, Rose finds herself lost in time and space with medical student Martha Jones. As they struggle to find a way home, they meet old friends, and old enemies, along the way...
Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine. Any borrowed dialogue belongs to Russell T Davies and the BBC.
A/N: A sequel to "The Other Side". It's not necessary reading; it just sets up the premise that it was the Doctor who was trapped in Pete's World, not Rose. And a shout-out to my awesome betas:
joking and quean_of_swords. This story wouldn't have been posted without you guys.Chapter One. Chapter Two. Chapter Three. Chapter Four.
The rumbling of the TARDIS only lasted a few seconds more, but it had been intense enough that when it stopped, Martha’s legs felt like jelly. She wobbled as she let go of the railing, her footing unsteady as a newborn colt’s.
The stillness of the TARDIS seemed to escape Rose and she continued to race around the console, pounding on every control that could be manipulated. The young woman appeared almost lost within herself, like the rest of the world had faded away and she could see nothing else but the manic need to hit the controls. She was so wrapped up in her actions that she failed to notice her fingers were bleeding from nicking the shards of glass from the column that still littered the surface of the console.
Martha called Rose’s name, first softly and then more loudly. When Rose didn’t stop, Martha grabbed her arms and pulled her away from the console. “Rose, just stop.”
The young woman remained tense for a moment but then she relaxed as her senses came flooding back. Martha let her go, satisfied Rose would do no more harm to herself. She leaned back against one of the railings, an awkward silence falling over them. Though she was used to speaking with patients of all ages and from different backgrounds and cultures, Martha was at a loss for words. What did one say after fleeing from a planet potentially ready to fall into a malfunctioning quantum fold?
She settled on a topic she did know and that was medicine. “Let me look at your fingers,” she said to Rose.
Rose clenched her hands into fists, hiding the cuts from view, as if embarrassed by her carelessness. “It’s fine.”
With that conversation topic a dead end, Martha went back to being silent. She wanted to talk with Rose, but if the young woman wasn’t willing, there wasn’t much point. Forcing a dialogue would yield nothing. For now, the deeper mechanics of who Rose Tyler was would have to wait.
“I wonder where we are,” said Martha. She spoke the thought out loud, hoping to engage Rose in some manner though Rose barely looked at her as she walked over to open the doors.
A black void punctuated with distant stars waited beyond the threshold.
Martha’s heart leaped into her throat and she scrambled back, pushing at the doors to slam them shut. It took her a few seconds to notice that she wasn’t being sucked out into the vacuum of space. Her breaths, slightly frantic, still came to her easily. As she adapted to the idea that the TARDIS wasn’t under the threat of sudden decompression, a second realization dawned on her.
There were no planets.
They were floating in the depths of space, completely alone.
Rose had found the box of bin liners in one of the cupboards in the kitchen, behind a stack of bowls. She had almost laughed upon her discovery, for she knew the box wouldn’t have moved on its own accord, but the laugh quickly died as her thoughts turned to who had moved the bin liners and placed them in an illogical place. Choosing not to dwell, she pulled a bin liner free from the box and returned to the console room.
She pushed the moment to the back of her mind as picked up the pieces of glass with a pair of tongs she had found in the bag of tools hanging from the console and threw them into the bin liner. Each tip of her fingers was wrapped up in a plaster. The cuts had been minor but they had stung every time Rose had tried to pick up something. But now that her fingers were protected, she was having a hard time keeping grasp of an object. The tongs felt awkward in her hands and pieces of glass would often slip free as she attempted to catch them between the two claws.
If anything, it helped to drag out the task. It gave Rose something else to focus on. Cleaning up the console was far easier to accomplish than trying to figure out a way to land the TARDIS somewhere.
The bin liner made a tinkling sound when Rose picked it up an hour later, the console now free of any finger slicing danger. She hefted the bag a few times, making the pieces of glass jingle like chimes in the wind. Her gaze drifted to the damaged time rotor. About half of encasement was gone, exposing the mechanism inside. She had looked into the heart of the TARDIS once, but what she was seeing now was like looking at the ship’s exposed organs. It sent a shiver down her spine.
Tossing the tongs aside, she ran to the doors. The sight of the darkness of space rather than the surface of the planet gave her pause but she pushed past her discomfort and with a frustrated grunt, she threw the bin liner out of the TARDIS. The second it went over the threshold of the doors, it became weightless in the vacuum of space. As the bin liner tumbled end over end away from the ship, the pieces of glass floated free, circling around the plastic bag like hundreds of tiny satellites.
“That’s one way to take out the garbage.”
Rose closed the doors and turned around to face Martha. The young doctor stood at the other end of the room, her expression one of veiled amusement.
“I made some tea.” Martha held up the thermos she was holding and walked over to meet Rose in the middle of the room. “At least, I think it’s tea. Some of the boxes I opened were full of things that didn’t look remotely edible.”
Taking the thermos from Martha, Rose took off the lid and took a whiff of the steaming liquid inside. She caught the familiar aroma of English Breakfast and had a sudden vision of morning breakfast with her mum, drinking tea before she had to go off to work at Henrik’s.
“Thanks.” Rose poured herself a cup and leaned against the console, putting her back to the broken time rotor. She cradled the cup in her hands, watching the steam swirl into the air.
“I’m sure we can fix it,” said Martha. She perched herself on the edge of the jump seat, her legs dangling above the grating. “I mean, once we…” The sentence went unfinished, the words unsaid, dangling like Martha’s legs.
If they found a way to pilot the TARDIS, Rose corrected silently. Her trick of hitting all the buttons and throwing all the levers until something happened did work, but the result was unpredictable. She didn’t want to send them careening into the heart of a sun, but after four days of just sitting they needed to try something. “I promised myself I would look after it.” Staring down at her untouched tea, Rose found her reflection staring back at her. “The TARDIS is so old, the last of its kind, and this is how I treat it.”
She was afraid to lose the ship. It was all she had left.
“Maybe you were right. Maybe you should have left the TARDIS alone. Then we’d all be better off.”
Rose looked up from her tea. Martha spoke casually but there was no mistaking the implication of her words. “Maybe you should have stayed at the hospital.” Her retort was sharp and came out more angered than she had planned but once she spoke the words, she didn’t regret them. It was the truth after all. If Martha hadn’t chased after her and the Judoon, she wouldn’t be in this mess.
“You’re right. I should have. I should have minded my own business.” Martha hopped off the jump seat and put down the thermos on the console. She spoke with quiet intensity. Her emotions raged but her words were precise, like she was slowly cutting away at Rose. “It’s just my luck that I had to take pity on the one person in the entire city with a malfunctioning time machine she doesn’t know how to fly.”
Rose slammed down her cup of tea, spilling half the contents on the controls. “You don’t even deserve to be here. I travelled with a Doctor and you’re nothing.”
“And you’re just a shop girl. Who gave you the responsibility to fight aliens?” By now they had come face to face, mere inches between them.
Never in her life had Rose felt so angry. Her hands trembled and she was acutely aware of her heart pounding in her chest. This ship was her home and some doctor-in-training had no right to come in and question her decisions.
She reached for the thermos, clenching it tight in her hand.
And in the blink of an eye, her aggression was gone. Her anger left her so quickly, Rose literally slumped, as if it had been physically removed from her. She looked to the thermos held in her right hand and she stared at it, barely remembering picking it up. Martha, too, looked equally perplexed and stumbled back until she ran into the jump seat. They stared at each other, the sting of their words still fresh, but neither of them spoke.
On the console, the screen crackled to life and a tinny voice sounded from hidden speakers. “This is the captain of the cargo ship Augustus hailing the… Police Public Call Box. Do you require assistance? Please respond.”
Rose took a deep breath and slowly let it out before bringing the screen around. An image of a clunky grey ship was displayed there. The ship barely looked space worthy but it was still a welcomed sight. “I repeat, this is the Augustus. We noticed your distress beacon. Please respond.”
Distress beacon. Rose frowned, unsure what the captain meant. Then she saw it. The bin liner, floating in space, with its hundred pieces of glass.
Standing in the doorway of the TARDIS, Rose looked around at the cargo hold of the Augustus. The time machine was a distinct sight, a blue box standing amongst stacks of dull brown crates and pyramid of boxes covered by green tarpaulins. The emptiness of outer space was gone. The captain of the Augustus had offered them a ride to a nearby supply station and Rose had jumped on the chance to go somewhere, anywhere.
The sound of footsteps in the sizeable cargo hold did not go amiss by Rose and she stepped out of the TARDIS. Down one row of crates, she came face to face with Martha. They regarded each other carefully, both hesitant to make the first move.
“I asked the ship’s doctor to look me over,” Martha said softly. “He couldn’t find anything wrong. What happened on the TARDIS…”
“Wasn’t us,” finished Rose. Her replied garnered a raised eyebrow from Martha. “I think it was the TARDIS trying to get our attention to tell us the Augustus was approaching.” She had thought about it while the time machine had been loaded onto the cargo ship and it felt like the only reasonable explanation. “The TARDIS can read our thoughts. Why wouldn’t it be able to put thoughts in our mind?”
“If the TARDIS could make us think something, why not just plant a thought saying a ship was approaching? Everything that was said, that was us, Rose. And I know because…” Martha sighed. “I’ve thought about saying those things to you.”
Rose swallowed heavily as a reply refused to form in her mind. The heightened emotions might have been the result of the TARDIS trying to get their attention, but Martha was right about everything else. Their words had been based on the truth, on the thoughts they had kept hidden from each other and themselves.
“I don’t blame you.” It was all Rose could think of to say.
“Rose.” Martha spoke her name firmly and took a step towards her. “We’re lost, there’s no denying that, but you’re doing everything you can to get us home. And you will get us home. You made a promise, remember?”
Martha smiled and Rose found herself joining in. They were in this together, no matter the outcome.
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