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eponymous_roseStory: The Wanderer Fantasy
Chapter: Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast (2/???)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eponymous_rose
Beta: The inimitableimsanehonest, without whom much of this would have made very little sense.
Word Count: 5,714
Genre: Adventure, humour
Characters: Rose, Ten
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence, profanity.
Spoilers: Pre-Doomsday. This fic was manufactured in a facility that deals with season three of the new series; those with spoiler allergies should nevertheless be safe.
Disclaimer: “Doctor Who” and all related whatsits are the property of the BBC.
In which: Secret agents are revealed to have perplexing codenames, journeys are begun, and Napoleon is (rather awkwardly) explained.
Previous Chapters
Link:
Author’s Note: Apologies for the delay! Music exam’s over – more time for writing! Thank you to everyone who reviewed the first chapter. I appreciate every bit of feedback I can get!
The Wanderer Fantasy
Part II: Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Matt Timms had always known this stupid job would be more trouble than it was worth.
On his first day, he’d had to cover for the kid selling pot out the back door and, in the confusion, had wound up directing a pair of young girls into a grisly horror flick instead of the inspiring, almost-based-on-a-true-story romance they’d been hoping to see. Secretly, Matt felt he’d done them a favour – nobody ever got anywhere waiting for the man of their dreams to ride up on a white horse, and if you’re going to waste a few hours staring catatonic at a screen, you might as well get some blood and guts for your trouble. He wasn’t sure the girls’ parents would agree with that pragmatic viewpoint.
The second day had him clambering up a rickety ladder to reset the electronic marquees announcing the day’s entertainment fare. Though rather indifferent to heights in general, Matt found himself developing a profound dislike for them when a group of boys decided to shake the ladder on their way past. He’d fallen the last couple of rungs, skinned his left knee, and spent the rest of his shift moaning and complaining enough that his manager eventually sent him home. Trudy, giggling at his bedraggled form in the doorway, had kindly offered to skin his other knee so that he’d have a matching set.
And then, on the third day, he’d nearly been killed by two mysteriously cloaked strangers with swords, only to be rescued by secret agents from MI-6.
While this latest set of Bond-like occurrences wasn’t entirely unwelcome given the mundane nature of the rest of his week, when it came to his own life Matt was hoping for a happy ending. He strongly suspected, balancing on his tiptoes and staring down the length of a very sharp sword, that the fellow on the other end wasn’t terribly concerned about that preference.
“What did I do?” For an agent of her Majesty’s Secret Service, the lanky, wild-haired man seemed awfully prone to panicking. He looked back at the blonde – all things considered, Matt didn’t blame him for taking every possible opportunity to do so – and she shrugged a little, eyes wide.
The figure holding the sword didn’t seem much better off than his would-be rescuers, judging by the sniffling sobs coming from under the cloak, and Matt wondered whether real-life superheroes and assassins were usually this shaky, this unsure. He didn’t think so, but then his experience in this sort of thing was pretty limited.
“Where’s my Dad?” the figure bawled. “What’ve you done with my Dad?”
There was an awkward silence, and Matt twitched his fingers, trying to keep his balance without making any grand movements that could result in decisive action of the stabbing variety. His toes were cramping in the stupid black shoes Trudy had insisted he buy for the interview. “Um,” he said, and winced at the way his voice broke. “I’m gonna fall on my ass now, if that’s okay.”
Nobody seemed to have any objections, so he let gravity take its course, gasping when he landed harder than anticipated on the sidewalk. The cloaked figure, apparently unconcerned by the change in position, simply adjusted its aim so that the tip of the sword pricked Matt’s chest. Adaptability, Matt decided vaguely, was an excellent skill for an assassin to cultivate.
The MI-6 bloke had come a few steps closer in the intervening moments. “What’s your name?” he asked, voice surprisingly gentle, soothing. Matt almost answered before he realized the man was speaking to the robed guy with the sword.
“Don’t mind the victim,” he mumbled, then wondered whether his mouth and brain had come disconnected during the fall. Everyone ignored him, which was probably for the best.
The cloaked figure was staring at the other man, now, and Matt knew that this was the part where he, no longer a helpless victim, was supposed to kick out at the sword and roll energetically away from the fray, accompanied by a swell of dramatic music. He tensed. Then, with a grimace, he let his head rest back against the pavement, and the moment passed. He’d always been rubbish at athletics, anyway.
“I-“ Sword-man seemed perplexed at the question. If he weren’t expending so much energy being terrified out of his mind, Matt supposed he’d be confused at the MI-6 man’s interest in social niceties as well. “My name is-“ At this, the assassin rattled off a bizarre series of syllables, creaks, and finally ended with a noise that faintly resembled a twittering bird.
“Oh,” said the tall man, waving a hand distractedly to encompass the group. “I’m called the Doctor, our friend on the ground is Matt and he’s happy to help you, if his name tag was any indication, and this is Rose Tyler.” Rose gave a half-hearted wave and smile, and Matt was temporarily distracted from the sword at his chest when he realized that he hadn’t bothered to register the colour of her eyes. When she met his gaze – brown, her eyes were brown – and grinned reassuringly, he felt his face flush. Acting like a normal eighteen-year-old bloke for once, he reflected; Trudy would be so proud. Of course, normal eighteen-year-old blokes didn’t often wind up with creepy assassins on their trail, as far as he knew.
“You won’t mind if I call you Fred, will you?” the Doctor asked sword-man brightly. Rose smacked his arm and he shot her a wounded look over his shoulder.
“Fred?” the robed figure – possibly a very tall child, Matt considered for the first time – squeaked indignantly.
“Don’t worry, he gets that way,” Rose explained with a roll of her eyes. “Doesn’t have a proper name of his own, has to mock everyone else’s. It’s a defensive thing.”
“Oh, so now I’m insensitive on top of being aggravating and rude?” the Doctor said snippily, glancing over his shoulder.
“I can’t bring you anywhere,” Rose groaned, and they glared at each other.
Matt wondered whether it was worse to have your adversaries or your rescuers be barking mad. Of course, given the current situation, he wasn’t entirely sure that he could vouch for his own sanity.
“Um,” he said again, and worried that he was making a habit of it. This time, everyone’s gaze turned to him, and he felt the tips of his ears turn red. “There’s a sword,” he started, then realized that he hadn’t a clue how to finish the sentence. He let it hang in the air.
Luckily, the Doctor seemed adept at catching half-formed thoughts and abandoned his staring contest with the pretty blonde. “Right you are, Matt! Priorities, eh?” He winked at Rose, and Matt felt a little pang in his stomach when she blushed faintly. “First things first. You and your Dad, Fred, you’re Cultelli, right?”
The cloaked figure – Fred – nodded hesitantly.
“From Xifos,” the Doctor added, the strange word rolling off his tongue effortlessly, and Fred nodded again. “Long way from home, aren’t you? This your first Hunt?”
It was like listening to a boring conversation about the weather with all the key words replaced by gibberish. Matt was getting dizzy trying to follow it all, and so tried to focus on his half-forgotten geography lessons. Xifos. Somewhere near Greece, he reckoned. Or possibly Asia, somewhere in that cluster of tiny countries. Yes, it was definitely Asia. They had sword-wielding madmen in Asia, didn’t they?
A stupid little voice in the back of his head was chattering about outer space, and he ignored it resolutely.
“It was supposed to be,” Fred admitted. He sounded more and more like some little lost kid and less and less like the sort of guy who’d be pointing a sword at Matt, which was making the situation still more surreal.
The Doctor whistled. “Bad luck, then, eh? Bit of a rough start to the whole thing, losing your quarry.” His voice didn’t lose its cheeriness, but his eyes took on a new intensity. “Don’t worry; I’m sure you’ll be back to butchering people in no time.”
Rose elbowed him in the ribs and muttered something about his being “not ginger”, but Fred seemed entirely immune to the sarcasm in the Doctor’s words. “I don’t understand what you’ve done to my Dad,” he said, and his voice seemed steadier, less frantic. At least the Doctor’s cheerful all-lads-together routine was working on somebody, reflected Matt, shivering. “He was supposed to take my hand and lead me through the Vortex. I don’t even have a Manipulator, yet!”
The Doctor looked over his shoulder at Rose and they exchanged a significant glance. “Stolen technology,” he said. “It’s all in the advertising brochure. For an astronomical fee, the Cultelli travel through time and space to bump off your enemies!” His voice took on a contemplative air. “Fantastically rich society, though, full of the culture and traditions and technology they’ve taken from their employers or their victims. It’s a real shame; the only way they can hope to advance is through more killing.” Rose nodded slowly; Matt wondered whether his ears were working right. Maybe the shock of the attack had messed with his mind, so it was just spitting out random words. Maybe the Doctor and Rose were having an ordinary secret-agent conversation with code words and secret phrases. And maybe, just maybe, he was asleep and Trudy was about to shout from the kitchen that he was late for work.
“So these two travelling - that was the disruption in the TARDIS? That quantum slingshot you mentioned?” Rose’s voice was serious, despite the gibberish she was spouting. Matt stared up at the sky and focused intently on the unbroken clouds overhead. A drop of rain spat down and splashed across his nose. He hated the rain. All things considered, though, it ranked fairly low on his list of concerns at the moment; the first of which was, of course, that he was starting to panic.
The Doctor shrugged. “It’s possible. Given the dimensions of the Vortex and the trajectory of the TARDIS, though, it’d be about one chance in a trillion that there’d be such a precise intersection. And just at the moment when this lot was travelling!”
“Knowing the TARDIS, a trillion-to-one chance sounds about right,” Rose grinned. The Doctor grinned back at her. Barking mad, the lot of them. As quietly and unobtrusively as possible, Matt pinched himself and crushed his eyes shut, waiting to wake up. Trudy. Kitchen. Bedroom. Home.
Nothing happened, and he felt tears welling up behind his closed eyelids. This was pathetic.
“Matt?” It was the Doctor.
There was a rustle of clothing and a little surprised squeak that Matt realized must have come from Fred. “I didn’t do anything!” the would-be assassin protested, absurdly.
“’Course you didn’t,” said Rose. At some point, she’d crouched down beside Matt, and he finally opened his eyes to see her face swim into view mere inches above his own. For the first time, he wasn’t entirely certain he wanted to wake up from this dream.
But Matt was dreaming all this – had to be – so any second now, like in the movies, the Doctor’s voice would fade into Trudy’s. He’d be late for work if he didn’t get up now. He couldn’t afford to get fired on his third day.
The Doctor was still talking: “Matt, just focus on breathing, all right? Listen to my voice. Breathe.” His ears were ringing – funny, he’d never had an asthma attack in his sleep – and, for lack of a better plan, he started doing as the Doctor said. Breathe slow. Keep the rhythm going, even if you’re not getting air. Don’t panic.
When the whistling wheeze in his chest had faded, Matt relaxed at the familiar sense of detachment, enjoying the simple sensation of breathing deeply. The pounding roar had faded from his ears, and he felt like he was an inch off the ground, floating, and the world was spinning around him. The Doctor was standing behind Rose now; their faces seemed the only fixed points in the swirling haze of his vision.
Matt blinked stupidly. “Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” Rose answered with a grin, and he decided to memorise her smile, dream or no dream. “Sorry,” she added. “More than a few minutes around the Doctor tends to have this effect on people. Culture shock. Time shock, more like.”
“Right,” Matt said hoarsely. “No problem.” If she was speaking dream-nonsense, at least it was compelling dream-nonsense. She helped him sit up, and he swiped at his streaming eyes, trying not to look quite as pathetic as he felt.
The Doctor was looking past him, at Fred, who had retreated to a few paces away. Matt was immensely relieved to see the sword hanging at his side. “See, what I’ve never understood,” the Doctor said with an odd intensity, as though continuing an uninterrupted conversation, “is why you lot are so obsessed with killing.” He leaned forward, his voice quickening as he warmed to his topic. “You can do it ruthlessly, silently, quickly, delicately enough that some of them try to thank you for the release. And yet you’ve got so much at your fingertips – the art, the science, the brilliant technology. You’ve even made strides in time travel, millennia ahead of most other civilised races! How can you keep doing this, with everything you know, all the wisdom you’ve learned? How can you keep it all to yourselves, hide away on your own little planet except when someone hires you to kill?”
Fred cocked his scarved head to the side. “To be honest,” he said, “I’ve never really understood the Time Lords, either.”
Matt flinched instinctively as the Doctor took a step towards Fred. His expression hadn’t changed, still stuck somewhere between contemplation and righteous anger, but he’d assumed an almost palpable intensity once more. Matt asked himself what sort of secret agent was called a ‘Time Lord’, and couldn’t come up with a plausible response. Maybe they weren’t MI-6 at all. Fakers, frauds. But there’d been the documentation and it’d looked so real-
For a brief moment, he wondered whether MI-6 had any sort of psychological screening process, then winced at the traitorous thought. These people didn’t have to keep rescuing him, after all. Better to have insane rescuers than none at all.
But Matt fancied that Rose’s eyes had suddenly become a little scared at the Doctor’s rage.
Fred stumbled back a step, bearing the full force of the Doctor’s stare; he didn’t seem to have expected such a powerful reaction. “No, I- I didn’t mean-“ he stammered, but the Doctor had already backed off, seemed to wilt.
“No,” he said, his voice suddenly soft, broken. “I don’t suppose you did.”
Before Matt could further process the impossibility of the situation, something far more impossible happened and inconsiderately blew his rationalisations to the wind.
The air faded, shimmered, sparkled, then seemed to give up on dramatics and, with a little whoosh, expelled a second cloaked figure from nowhere onto the pavement.
It spun, raising a sword, and Matt shuffled back instinctively when it faced him; there was blood at the tip of the blade. Rose squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, and he felt the old shame bubbling up, heard the bullies at school mocking him for hiding behind Trudy. He’d always fit a bit too easily into the role of cowardly baby brother.
Then he reminded himself that this Rose girl, in spite of appearances, was supposedly an MI-6 agent, and felt a little better.
The Doctor shifted his stance so that he was facing the newcomer instead of Fred. He grinned toothily and waved. “Well, then! Problem solved, Fred – here’s your Dad come to pick you up from school. A little late, but it shouldn’t happen again! Thanks for being such a good boy and waiting with me when all the other kids went home.”
The cloaked figure, who was probably not grinning back, stuck its sword inches from the Doctor’s face. “Do not interfere, Time Lord,” it spat. Matt wondered what good a secret alias was if everyone seemed to know it.
“Oh, and here I thought you were just being clever and deducing my species all on your own. You cheated! You were just trying to analyse my blood when you cut me before.” The Doctor, clearly enjoying himself, swatted the bloodstained blade away. “And now you want me to let you kill your target, to stop getting in your way. But it’s what I do best! In fact, just the other day, Napoleon – you know Napoleon, chap with a sword, bit taller than everyone makes him out to be – called me-“ He frowned. “What was it, Rose?”
“A meddling little swot,” Rose offered. The Doctor shot her a wounded look, and she shrugged. “Something like that, anyway.”
“Only cleverer,” the Doctor added.
“He was ordering our deaths at the time,” Rose protested. “I was a little too distracted to be taking notes for posterity!”
Matt swallowed hard and hoped fervently that Napoleon was yet another codename. His brain was still hard at work on an explanation for the whole appearing-from-thin-air problem, and he didn’t much fancy having to concentrate on another impossible thing.
Fred’s father seemed just as baffled by the direction the conversation had taken; his sword had lowered a few inches, and his head was cocked to one side in an almost comical expression of puzzlement. He cleared his throat. The Doctor, locked in another absurd staring contest with Rose, had stuck out his lower lip and seemed on the verge of pouting, but at the sound, he spun back around, blinding grin back in place.
“Right. Sorry. Where were we?”
“Dad was about to take me home?” Fred suggested optimistically. His father looked back at him, and Matt wondered how his glare could be so powerful when his entire face was covered by scarves and cloaks and cowls. Fred shrank back.
“I think that’s a lovely idea,” the Doctor bubbled. “Rose, don’t you think that’s a lovely idea?”
“Brilliant,” Rose agreed. “What about you, Matt?”
“Um,” said Matt again, because it seemed like the right thing to say.
The sword came up again, threatening to take a slice out of the Doctor’s nose, and again the Doctor flicked it out of his face without batting an eyelid. “Looks like you’re outvoted!” he crowed. “Can’t really say it’s been nice knowing you, but it’s been nice saying goodbye. Goodbye!” He took a step back.
In response, the cloaked figure thrust its sword out at the Doctor with unbelievable speed.
Matt squeezed his eyes shut, felt Rose’s hand tighten convulsively on his shoulder. There was a rustle of cloth, and something clattered on the pavement. Rose chuckled. Cautiously, half-expecting to find the Doctor dead and the blade at his chest again, Matt opened his eyes.
The Doctor was hiking up his coat, tugging at – Matt’s eyes widened in disbelief – the sword, from where it was tangled in the loose material. He caught Matt staring and grinned. “Old bullfighter’s trick,” he explained with a wink. Fred’s father let out a bellow of range, apparently undeterred by his lack of weapon, and lunged, gloved hands outstretched.
The Doctor danced out of range, still working on extricating the sword from his coat. “Listen, I’m sorry I had to steal your sword. I know it’s an important part of your physiognomy – essential to life, unless I miss my mark. But you’re not giving me much of a choice, are you?” He gave a victorious cry as the weapon finally dislodged itself from the cloth. The cloaked figure seemed to be moving slower, now, but he still stumbled towards the Doctor with a ragged persistence. “Don’t come any nearer,” the Doctor warned, “or I’ll snap this sword over my knee. I’m rather good at that sort of thing.” Fred’s father either obeyed or ran out of energy, and staggered to a stop, swaying on his feet.
“You’re weakening without it, aren’t you?” The Doctor mused, and that nameless intensity was building around him again. Matt, glancing up at Rose’s pale face, wondered again about this Doctor’s sanity; such a rapid swing from gleefully cheerful to menacing and full of rage couldn’t possibly be par for the course.
Again, the Doctor’s voice became quiet, but this time it held a twinge of disappointment. “This is who you are. For all your knowledge and wisdom, you’re still just a weapon, to be used by whoever has the most money.” The Doctor stared at the sword in his hand. “You lot, you’re nothing without this. Nothing.”
Fred’s father was still swaying on his feet. “Please,” he choked. “The sword.”
The Doctor was still staring at the blade, at the blood on the tip, as though transfixed. The cloaked man slumped to one knee before him.
“Doctor!” Rose stood, fists clenched. “What are you doing?”
He turned to look at her – his face was white, surprised, and for a moment he looked terribly young. And then there was the sound of pounding feet, and Fred, still very much in possession of his sword, gave a cry and threw himself at the Doctor.
Matt only had a moment to marvel at the Doctor’s quick reflexes before he realized what Fred had intended all along. He hadn’t been attacking the Doctor – he’d been pushing him out of the way.
And now the sword was pointing at Matt’s chest again. Brilliant.
“If you don’t give my Dad back his sword, I’ll finish the job we came here for!” Fred’s voice was high, panicked, afraid. Matt stared up the length of steel and wished he could push it away with the Doctor’s nonchalance.
“I’ll kill him!” Fred shouted. Matt didn’t particularly appreciate the reminder.
“I’ve got a suggestion for you,” the Doctor said after a moment. “I’ll give your Dad back his sword on one condition, and only one. That you get out of here, tell your… your client that you’ve failed in your mission, and leave us alone. Simple as that.” Fred’s father moaned, now prostrated at the Doctor’s feet.
The tip of Fred’s sword wavered. “How do you know we won’t just kill you when you give him back his sword?”
The Doctor leaned down in front of Fred’s father, addressing both cloaked figures in a soft voice. “Because I’m going to trust you. Because I think there’s still something left of a civilised society in you lot. Because I think you’ve still got a sense of honour.” He paused. “Because I think you know what I’m capable of.”
With that, he placed the sword on the ground. Almost grudgingly, Fred’s father picked it up and stood shakily, beckoning to his son; Matt couldn’t resist a sigh of relief when the sword disappeared from his line of sight.
The two cloaked and cowled figures stood hand-in-hand for a moment, then Fred’s father spoke, his voice shaking and cracking. “I’m-” He swallowed, then tried again. “I’m afraid that I-I cannot obey one of your instructions, Doctor,” he said. “I cannot explain the situation to my client, as there is no client to explain matters to.”
And then, in a sudden and blinding flash of absolutely nothing, they were gone.
Matt winced and reminded his brain to start working overtime on coming up with an explanation for that; it was getting disconcerting. He blinked, just to see if that would help matters along, then blinked again. No luck; the two cloaked figures were still gone, and he was left lying on the sidewalk with the pretty blonde beside him and the wild-haired, lanky madman staring off into space.
“Well,” the Doctor breathed finally, scrubbing a hand through his not-entirely-sane-scientist hair so it all stood on end. “That went well, didn’t it? I thought that went well.” He shrugged his coat back on, apparently unaware of the fact that there was a hole right through the middle of it where the sword had been caught.
“Nobody’s dead,” Rose agreed, standing and offering a hand to Matt. He stared at it blankly. “Better than average.”
“Little worse than average,” the Doctor corrected her, then stumbled. Rose took a step forward, but he waved her back, fiddling with the bloodstained handkerchief wrapped around his wounded arm. “Ow.”
“Baby,” Rose teased.
“It hurts!” the Doctor protested, indignant.
“Didn’t hurt while you were being all Time Lordly with those sword-wielding aliens, did it?” Rose grinned down at Matt, waggled the fingers on her outstretched hand. “Come on, I’ll help you up. It’s okay, they’re gone.”
“Napoleon?” Matt squeaked. Rose and the Doctor exchanged a significant look.
There was an awkward silence.
“Oh!” Rose said with a grin. “Napoleon! Dear old, uh-“
“Nappy,” the Doctor offered. “Yes, Nappy’s a good friend of ours. Nickname.”
“He’s a bit of a weird one,” Rose added conspiratorially. “Thinks he can time travel, the cheek.”
“No,” said Matt, because he was getting fed up with impossible things. He pointed an accusing finger at Rose, trying to ignore how ridiculous he felt, still sitting on the sidewalk. “You were talking about the real Napoleon! And-and aliens!” He pointed to the Doctor. “And you were going on about being a different species! And-“ He started to point, only to realize there was nothing left to point at, and so waved his hand expansively. “And they just disappeared! Completely vanished!”
“Yes, um,” said the Doctor.
“Well,” said Rose.
“But I think I understand,” Matt said slowly. “You know, I think I really do. It’s obvious, only one possible explanation.”
Rose took his outstretched arm and hoisted him to his feet. “What’s that?” she asked.
He wobbled for a moment before getting his bearings, then drew in a deep breath. “It’s simple. Either you’re absolutely barking mad, or-“ He swallowed. “Or I am.”
The Doctor laughed. “I’m fairly sure I’m not insane. Rose?”
“Well,” she said slowly. “I wouldn’t say you’re sane, necessarily, but insane’s probably taking it too far. No, you’re probably not insane. And I’m pretty sure I’m not.”
“Unless you just don’t know it,” the Doctor pointed out. Rose leaned over and smacked his arm. “Ow!”
“Oh,” said Matt. “That leaves me, then.”
The Doctor threw his arm around Matt’s shoulders. “Matty,” he said fondly. “Matty Matt Matt. I realize we’ve only just met and so any assumption I make about your sanity is a little hasty at best, but I’m almost nearly positively certain you’re not mad.”
“Really?”
“Sort of,” the Doctor conceded, releasing his grip on Matt, who straightened his shirt self-consciously. “Though why someone would hire the Cultelli to kill you begs quite a few questions.”
“Just the one, really,” Rose corrected. “Why?”
“Hang on a minute!” Matt realized he was pointing again and stuffed the offending hand back in his pocket. “Let’s start at the beginning. Who, exactly, are you?”
The Doctor was rifling through his own pockets for the piece of identification he’d been flashing earlier. “MI-6, right? Remember? I can see how you’d get confused – asthma attacks can be quite disorienting.” He pulled an impossibly large ball of twine from his pocket and stared at it blankly. “How did that get in there?”
“Doctor,” Rose said warningly. “I think we should tell him.”
“I’d like to know a bit more about my rescuers,” Matt added, though he really wasn’t sure he did.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. “I hate doing this bit,” he whined. “Every time, the same questions.” He took a deep breath. “I’m the Doctor. Not Doctor anyone, just the Doctor. I travel through space and time in my TARDIS. That’s Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, so you can see why we’ve gone with the abridged version. I’m an alien.”
“Like, from another planet?” Matt breathed, then realized how stupid the question sounded.
The Doctor’s face was inexplicably clouded, but only for a moment. “Something like that, yeah. A Time Lord.” He snatched Rose’s hand. “This one’s Rose Tyler.”
“Charmer,” Rose muttered, but she twined her fingers through his without protest.
“And what are you, then? A Venusian-“ Matt realized he was waving his hands again and jammed them back in his pockets. “A Venusian something-or-other?” he finished lamely.
She burst out laughing. “I’m from London.”
“Oh,” he said, relieved.
“Mind you,” she added, “I’m also from 2006.”
“Oh,” he said again, his voice an octave higher. “Right, then.”
“Anyway,” the Doctor said. “Travellers, just passing through, etcetera. Got knocked off course by that lot of time-travelling assassins and wound up here. Inconsiderate of them.” He glanced over at Rose. “Does that cover everything?”
“No,” she winced.
“This is really, really weird,” Matt felt he should point out. “Really weird.”
“Isn’t it just?” said the Doctor. “I think we should go back to the TARDIS. Figure out why someone would pay an astronomical fee to have a twenty-first century teenager killed.”
“You said they were from Xifos? Could we pop over there, maybe ask ‘em?” Rose frowned. “Or would that be too risky?”
“It just might, with Matt around,” the Doctor agreed.
Matt didn’t like the way the conversation was going. “I should probably go home, anyway. Sorry for taking up your time and all that, but I really need to see my sister right now.” Trudy would know what to do. She’d laugh and explain something brilliant about silly practical jokes played by her mates in the government, and then he’d-
“Matt,” said the Doctor, placing a hand on Matt’s shoulder so he couldn’t help but meet his gaze. His eyes were dark brown, liquid like a whirlpool, fluid but inexorable, pulling deeper into darkness. “Matt, listen to me. I know it’s a lot to take in just yet, and you’re definitely still in shock, but we don’t have time for all this. The Cultelli are a determined race – they have to be, for what they charge – but they absolutely cannot trace you in my TARDIS.” He paused. “Well, probably.”
“We can keep you safe until we’ve got this all sorted,” Rose added quickly. “The Doctor’s good at this, really. It’s what he does.”
Matt licked his lips, which had suddenly gone dry. “Why do you care so much?” He realized how that sounded and cleared his throat. “Not that I’m not grateful and everything, but-“ He gestured wordlessly at the Doctor’s bandaged arm. “You’ve already been hurt. Why help me?”
It was Rose who replied, her smile brilliant. “If you knew the Doctor for as long as I have, you’d know how silly that question sounds.”
Matt scrubbed a hand across his eyes, stared at Rose, an ordinary girl, then back to the Doctor, an impossible man. He took a deep breath. “All right, then,” he said. “But can you promise to have me back before Thursday? It’s Trudy’s twenty-fifth birthday.”
“Matt,” the Doctor said with a grin, “I can have you back here in time for her twenty-fourth.”
End Part II
Coming soon – Part III: Kalthan, in which tensions rise, the TARDIS is – believe it or not – bigger on the inside, and Earth is forced to relinquish its monopoly on awkward First Contact stories.
Chapter: Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast (2/???)
Author:
eponymous_roseBeta: The inimitable
imsanehonest, without whom much of this would have made very little sense.Word Count: 5,714
Genre: Adventure, humour
Characters: Rose, Ten
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence, profanity.
Spoilers: Pre-Doomsday. This fic was manufactured in a facility that deals with season three of the new series; those with spoiler allergies should nevertheless be safe.
Disclaimer: “Doctor Who” and all related whatsits are the property of the BBC.
In which: Secret agents are revealed to have perplexing codenames, journeys are begun, and Napoleon is (rather awkwardly) explained.
Previous Chapters
Link:
Author’s Note: Apologies for the delay! Music exam’s over – more time for writing! Thank you to everyone who reviewed the first chapter. I appreciate every bit of feedback I can get!
The Wanderer Fantasy
Part II: Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Matt Timms had always known this stupid job would be more trouble than it was worth.
On his first day, he’d had to cover for the kid selling pot out the back door and, in the confusion, had wound up directing a pair of young girls into a grisly horror flick instead of the inspiring, almost-based-on-a-true-story romance they’d been hoping to see. Secretly, Matt felt he’d done them a favour – nobody ever got anywhere waiting for the man of their dreams to ride up on a white horse, and if you’re going to waste a few hours staring catatonic at a screen, you might as well get some blood and guts for your trouble. He wasn’t sure the girls’ parents would agree with that pragmatic viewpoint.
The second day had him clambering up a rickety ladder to reset the electronic marquees announcing the day’s entertainment fare. Though rather indifferent to heights in general, Matt found himself developing a profound dislike for them when a group of boys decided to shake the ladder on their way past. He’d fallen the last couple of rungs, skinned his left knee, and spent the rest of his shift moaning and complaining enough that his manager eventually sent him home. Trudy, giggling at his bedraggled form in the doorway, had kindly offered to skin his other knee so that he’d have a matching set.
And then, on the third day, he’d nearly been killed by two mysteriously cloaked strangers with swords, only to be rescued by secret agents from MI-6.
While this latest set of Bond-like occurrences wasn’t entirely unwelcome given the mundane nature of the rest of his week, when it came to his own life Matt was hoping for a happy ending. He strongly suspected, balancing on his tiptoes and staring down the length of a very sharp sword, that the fellow on the other end wasn’t terribly concerned about that preference.
“What did I do?” For an agent of her Majesty’s Secret Service, the lanky, wild-haired man seemed awfully prone to panicking. He looked back at the blonde – all things considered, Matt didn’t blame him for taking every possible opportunity to do so – and she shrugged a little, eyes wide.
The figure holding the sword didn’t seem much better off than his would-be rescuers, judging by the sniffling sobs coming from under the cloak, and Matt wondered whether real-life superheroes and assassins were usually this shaky, this unsure. He didn’t think so, but then his experience in this sort of thing was pretty limited.
“Where’s my Dad?” the figure bawled. “What’ve you done with my Dad?”
There was an awkward silence, and Matt twitched his fingers, trying to keep his balance without making any grand movements that could result in decisive action of the stabbing variety. His toes were cramping in the stupid black shoes Trudy had insisted he buy for the interview. “Um,” he said, and winced at the way his voice broke. “I’m gonna fall on my ass now, if that’s okay.”
Nobody seemed to have any objections, so he let gravity take its course, gasping when he landed harder than anticipated on the sidewalk. The cloaked figure, apparently unconcerned by the change in position, simply adjusted its aim so that the tip of the sword pricked Matt’s chest. Adaptability, Matt decided vaguely, was an excellent skill for an assassin to cultivate.
The MI-6 bloke had come a few steps closer in the intervening moments. “What’s your name?” he asked, voice surprisingly gentle, soothing. Matt almost answered before he realized the man was speaking to the robed guy with the sword.
“Don’t mind the victim,” he mumbled, then wondered whether his mouth and brain had come disconnected during the fall. Everyone ignored him, which was probably for the best.
The cloaked figure was staring at the other man, now, and Matt knew that this was the part where he, no longer a helpless victim, was supposed to kick out at the sword and roll energetically away from the fray, accompanied by a swell of dramatic music. He tensed. Then, with a grimace, he let his head rest back against the pavement, and the moment passed. He’d always been rubbish at athletics, anyway.
“I-“ Sword-man seemed perplexed at the question. If he weren’t expending so much energy being terrified out of his mind, Matt supposed he’d be confused at the MI-6 man’s interest in social niceties as well. “My name is-“ At this, the assassin rattled off a bizarre series of syllables, creaks, and finally ended with a noise that faintly resembled a twittering bird.
“Oh,” said the tall man, waving a hand distractedly to encompass the group. “I’m called the Doctor, our friend on the ground is Matt and he’s happy to help you, if his name tag was any indication, and this is Rose Tyler.” Rose gave a half-hearted wave and smile, and Matt was temporarily distracted from the sword at his chest when he realized that he hadn’t bothered to register the colour of her eyes. When she met his gaze – brown, her eyes were brown – and grinned reassuringly, he felt his face flush. Acting like a normal eighteen-year-old bloke for once, he reflected; Trudy would be so proud. Of course, normal eighteen-year-old blokes didn’t often wind up with creepy assassins on their trail, as far as he knew.
“You won’t mind if I call you Fred, will you?” the Doctor asked sword-man brightly. Rose smacked his arm and he shot her a wounded look over his shoulder.
“Fred?” the robed figure – possibly a very tall child, Matt considered for the first time – squeaked indignantly.
“Don’t worry, he gets that way,” Rose explained with a roll of her eyes. “Doesn’t have a proper name of his own, has to mock everyone else’s. It’s a defensive thing.”
“Oh, so now I’m insensitive on top of being aggravating and rude?” the Doctor said snippily, glancing over his shoulder.
“I can’t bring you anywhere,” Rose groaned, and they glared at each other.
Matt wondered whether it was worse to have your adversaries or your rescuers be barking mad. Of course, given the current situation, he wasn’t entirely sure that he could vouch for his own sanity.
“Um,” he said again, and worried that he was making a habit of it. This time, everyone’s gaze turned to him, and he felt the tips of his ears turn red. “There’s a sword,” he started, then realized that he hadn’t a clue how to finish the sentence. He let it hang in the air.
Luckily, the Doctor seemed adept at catching half-formed thoughts and abandoned his staring contest with the pretty blonde. “Right you are, Matt! Priorities, eh?” He winked at Rose, and Matt felt a little pang in his stomach when she blushed faintly. “First things first. You and your Dad, Fred, you’re Cultelli, right?”
The cloaked figure – Fred – nodded hesitantly.
“From Xifos,” the Doctor added, the strange word rolling off his tongue effortlessly, and Fred nodded again. “Long way from home, aren’t you? This your first Hunt?”
It was like listening to a boring conversation about the weather with all the key words replaced by gibberish. Matt was getting dizzy trying to follow it all, and so tried to focus on his half-forgotten geography lessons. Xifos. Somewhere near Greece, he reckoned. Or possibly Asia, somewhere in that cluster of tiny countries. Yes, it was definitely Asia. They had sword-wielding madmen in Asia, didn’t they?
A stupid little voice in the back of his head was chattering about outer space, and he ignored it resolutely.
“It was supposed to be,” Fred admitted. He sounded more and more like some little lost kid and less and less like the sort of guy who’d be pointing a sword at Matt, which was making the situation still more surreal.
The Doctor whistled. “Bad luck, then, eh? Bit of a rough start to the whole thing, losing your quarry.” His voice didn’t lose its cheeriness, but his eyes took on a new intensity. “Don’t worry; I’m sure you’ll be back to butchering people in no time.”
Rose elbowed him in the ribs and muttered something about his being “not ginger”, but Fred seemed entirely immune to the sarcasm in the Doctor’s words. “I don’t understand what you’ve done to my Dad,” he said, and his voice seemed steadier, less frantic. At least the Doctor’s cheerful all-lads-together routine was working on somebody, reflected Matt, shivering. “He was supposed to take my hand and lead me through the Vortex. I don’t even have a Manipulator, yet!”
The Doctor looked over his shoulder at Rose and they exchanged a significant glance. “Stolen technology,” he said. “It’s all in the advertising brochure. For an astronomical fee, the Cultelli travel through time and space to bump off your enemies!” His voice took on a contemplative air. “Fantastically rich society, though, full of the culture and traditions and technology they’ve taken from their employers or their victims. It’s a real shame; the only way they can hope to advance is through more killing.” Rose nodded slowly; Matt wondered whether his ears were working right. Maybe the shock of the attack had messed with his mind, so it was just spitting out random words. Maybe the Doctor and Rose were having an ordinary secret-agent conversation with code words and secret phrases. And maybe, just maybe, he was asleep and Trudy was about to shout from the kitchen that he was late for work.
“So these two travelling - that was the disruption in the TARDIS? That quantum slingshot you mentioned?” Rose’s voice was serious, despite the gibberish she was spouting. Matt stared up at the sky and focused intently on the unbroken clouds overhead. A drop of rain spat down and splashed across his nose. He hated the rain. All things considered, though, it ranked fairly low on his list of concerns at the moment; the first of which was, of course, that he was starting to panic.
The Doctor shrugged. “It’s possible. Given the dimensions of the Vortex and the trajectory of the TARDIS, though, it’d be about one chance in a trillion that there’d be such a precise intersection. And just at the moment when this lot was travelling!”
“Knowing the TARDIS, a trillion-to-one chance sounds about right,” Rose grinned. The Doctor grinned back at her. Barking mad, the lot of them. As quietly and unobtrusively as possible, Matt pinched himself and crushed his eyes shut, waiting to wake up. Trudy. Kitchen. Bedroom. Home.
Nothing happened, and he felt tears welling up behind his closed eyelids. This was pathetic.
“Matt?” It was the Doctor.
There was a rustle of clothing and a little surprised squeak that Matt realized must have come from Fred. “I didn’t do anything!” the would-be assassin protested, absurdly.
“’Course you didn’t,” said Rose. At some point, she’d crouched down beside Matt, and he finally opened his eyes to see her face swim into view mere inches above his own. For the first time, he wasn’t entirely certain he wanted to wake up from this dream.
But Matt was dreaming all this – had to be – so any second now, like in the movies, the Doctor’s voice would fade into Trudy’s. He’d be late for work if he didn’t get up now. He couldn’t afford to get fired on his third day.
The Doctor was still talking: “Matt, just focus on breathing, all right? Listen to my voice. Breathe.” His ears were ringing – funny, he’d never had an asthma attack in his sleep – and, for lack of a better plan, he started doing as the Doctor said. Breathe slow. Keep the rhythm going, even if you’re not getting air. Don’t panic.
When the whistling wheeze in his chest had faded, Matt relaxed at the familiar sense of detachment, enjoying the simple sensation of breathing deeply. The pounding roar had faded from his ears, and he felt like he was an inch off the ground, floating, and the world was spinning around him. The Doctor was standing behind Rose now; their faces seemed the only fixed points in the swirling haze of his vision.
Matt blinked stupidly. “Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” Rose answered with a grin, and he decided to memorise her smile, dream or no dream. “Sorry,” she added. “More than a few minutes around the Doctor tends to have this effect on people. Culture shock. Time shock, more like.”
“Right,” Matt said hoarsely. “No problem.” If she was speaking dream-nonsense, at least it was compelling dream-nonsense. She helped him sit up, and he swiped at his streaming eyes, trying not to look quite as pathetic as he felt.
The Doctor was looking past him, at Fred, who had retreated to a few paces away. Matt was immensely relieved to see the sword hanging at his side. “See, what I’ve never understood,” the Doctor said with an odd intensity, as though continuing an uninterrupted conversation, “is why you lot are so obsessed with killing.” He leaned forward, his voice quickening as he warmed to his topic. “You can do it ruthlessly, silently, quickly, delicately enough that some of them try to thank you for the release. And yet you’ve got so much at your fingertips – the art, the science, the brilliant technology. You’ve even made strides in time travel, millennia ahead of most other civilised races! How can you keep doing this, with everything you know, all the wisdom you’ve learned? How can you keep it all to yourselves, hide away on your own little planet except when someone hires you to kill?”
Fred cocked his scarved head to the side. “To be honest,” he said, “I’ve never really understood the Time Lords, either.”
Matt flinched instinctively as the Doctor took a step towards Fred. His expression hadn’t changed, still stuck somewhere between contemplation and righteous anger, but he’d assumed an almost palpable intensity once more. Matt asked himself what sort of secret agent was called a ‘Time Lord’, and couldn’t come up with a plausible response. Maybe they weren’t MI-6 at all. Fakers, frauds. But there’d been the documentation and it’d looked so real-
For a brief moment, he wondered whether MI-6 had any sort of psychological screening process, then winced at the traitorous thought. These people didn’t have to keep rescuing him, after all. Better to have insane rescuers than none at all.
But Matt fancied that Rose’s eyes had suddenly become a little scared at the Doctor’s rage.
Fred stumbled back a step, bearing the full force of the Doctor’s stare; he didn’t seem to have expected such a powerful reaction. “No, I- I didn’t mean-“ he stammered, but the Doctor had already backed off, seemed to wilt.
“No,” he said, his voice suddenly soft, broken. “I don’t suppose you did.”
Before Matt could further process the impossibility of the situation, something far more impossible happened and inconsiderately blew his rationalisations to the wind.
The air faded, shimmered, sparkled, then seemed to give up on dramatics and, with a little whoosh, expelled a second cloaked figure from nowhere onto the pavement.
It spun, raising a sword, and Matt shuffled back instinctively when it faced him; there was blood at the tip of the blade. Rose squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, and he felt the old shame bubbling up, heard the bullies at school mocking him for hiding behind Trudy. He’d always fit a bit too easily into the role of cowardly baby brother.
Then he reminded himself that this Rose girl, in spite of appearances, was supposedly an MI-6 agent, and felt a little better.
The Doctor shifted his stance so that he was facing the newcomer instead of Fred. He grinned toothily and waved. “Well, then! Problem solved, Fred – here’s your Dad come to pick you up from school. A little late, but it shouldn’t happen again! Thanks for being such a good boy and waiting with me when all the other kids went home.”
The cloaked figure, who was probably not grinning back, stuck its sword inches from the Doctor’s face. “Do not interfere, Time Lord,” it spat. Matt wondered what good a secret alias was if everyone seemed to know it.
“Oh, and here I thought you were just being clever and deducing my species all on your own. You cheated! You were just trying to analyse my blood when you cut me before.” The Doctor, clearly enjoying himself, swatted the bloodstained blade away. “And now you want me to let you kill your target, to stop getting in your way. But it’s what I do best! In fact, just the other day, Napoleon – you know Napoleon, chap with a sword, bit taller than everyone makes him out to be – called me-“ He frowned. “What was it, Rose?”
“A meddling little swot,” Rose offered. The Doctor shot her a wounded look, and she shrugged. “Something like that, anyway.”
“Only cleverer,” the Doctor added.
“He was ordering our deaths at the time,” Rose protested. “I was a little too distracted to be taking notes for posterity!”
Matt swallowed hard and hoped fervently that Napoleon was yet another codename. His brain was still hard at work on an explanation for the whole appearing-from-thin-air problem, and he didn’t much fancy having to concentrate on another impossible thing.
Fred’s father seemed just as baffled by the direction the conversation had taken; his sword had lowered a few inches, and his head was cocked to one side in an almost comical expression of puzzlement. He cleared his throat. The Doctor, locked in another absurd staring contest with Rose, had stuck out his lower lip and seemed on the verge of pouting, but at the sound, he spun back around, blinding grin back in place.
“Right. Sorry. Where were we?”
“Dad was about to take me home?” Fred suggested optimistically. His father looked back at him, and Matt wondered how his glare could be so powerful when his entire face was covered by scarves and cloaks and cowls. Fred shrank back.
“I think that’s a lovely idea,” the Doctor bubbled. “Rose, don’t you think that’s a lovely idea?”
“Brilliant,” Rose agreed. “What about you, Matt?”
“Um,” said Matt again, because it seemed like the right thing to say.
The sword came up again, threatening to take a slice out of the Doctor’s nose, and again the Doctor flicked it out of his face without batting an eyelid. “Looks like you’re outvoted!” he crowed. “Can’t really say it’s been nice knowing you, but it’s been nice saying goodbye. Goodbye!” He took a step back.
In response, the cloaked figure thrust its sword out at the Doctor with unbelievable speed.
Matt squeezed his eyes shut, felt Rose’s hand tighten convulsively on his shoulder. There was a rustle of cloth, and something clattered on the pavement. Rose chuckled. Cautiously, half-expecting to find the Doctor dead and the blade at his chest again, Matt opened his eyes.
The Doctor was hiking up his coat, tugging at – Matt’s eyes widened in disbelief – the sword, from where it was tangled in the loose material. He caught Matt staring and grinned. “Old bullfighter’s trick,” he explained with a wink. Fred’s father let out a bellow of range, apparently undeterred by his lack of weapon, and lunged, gloved hands outstretched.
The Doctor danced out of range, still working on extricating the sword from his coat. “Listen, I’m sorry I had to steal your sword. I know it’s an important part of your physiognomy – essential to life, unless I miss my mark. But you’re not giving me much of a choice, are you?” He gave a victorious cry as the weapon finally dislodged itself from the cloth. The cloaked figure seemed to be moving slower, now, but he still stumbled towards the Doctor with a ragged persistence. “Don’t come any nearer,” the Doctor warned, “or I’ll snap this sword over my knee. I’m rather good at that sort of thing.” Fred’s father either obeyed or ran out of energy, and staggered to a stop, swaying on his feet.
“You’re weakening without it, aren’t you?” The Doctor mused, and that nameless intensity was building around him again. Matt, glancing up at Rose’s pale face, wondered again about this Doctor’s sanity; such a rapid swing from gleefully cheerful to menacing and full of rage couldn’t possibly be par for the course.
Again, the Doctor’s voice became quiet, but this time it held a twinge of disappointment. “This is who you are. For all your knowledge and wisdom, you’re still just a weapon, to be used by whoever has the most money.” The Doctor stared at the sword in his hand. “You lot, you’re nothing without this. Nothing.”
Fred’s father was still swaying on his feet. “Please,” he choked. “The sword.”
The Doctor was still staring at the blade, at the blood on the tip, as though transfixed. The cloaked man slumped to one knee before him.
“Doctor!” Rose stood, fists clenched. “What are you doing?”
He turned to look at her – his face was white, surprised, and for a moment he looked terribly young. And then there was the sound of pounding feet, and Fred, still very much in possession of his sword, gave a cry and threw himself at the Doctor.
Matt only had a moment to marvel at the Doctor’s quick reflexes before he realized what Fred had intended all along. He hadn’t been attacking the Doctor – he’d been pushing him out of the way.
And now the sword was pointing at Matt’s chest again. Brilliant.
“If you don’t give my Dad back his sword, I’ll finish the job we came here for!” Fred’s voice was high, panicked, afraid. Matt stared up the length of steel and wished he could push it away with the Doctor’s nonchalance.
“I’ll kill him!” Fred shouted. Matt didn’t particularly appreciate the reminder.
“I’ve got a suggestion for you,” the Doctor said after a moment. “I’ll give your Dad back his sword on one condition, and only one. That you get out of here, tell your… your client that you’ve failed in your mission, and leave us alone. Simple as that.” Fred’s father moaned, now prostrated at the Doctor’s feet.
The tip of Fred’s sword wavered. “How do you know we won’t just kill you when you give him back his sword?”
The Doctor leaned down in front of Fred’s father, addressing both cloaked figures in a soft voice. “Because I’m going to trust you. Because I think there’s still something left of a civilised society in you lot. Because I think you’ve still got a sense of honour.” He paused. “Because I think you know what I’m capable of.”
With that, he placed the sword on the ground. Almost grudgingly, Fred’s father picked it up and stood shakily, beckoning to his son; Matt couldn’t resist a sigh of relief when the sword disappeared from his line of sight.
The two cloaked and cowled figures stood hand-in-hand for a moment, then Fred’s father spoke, his voice shaking and cracking. “I’m-” He swallowed, then tried again. “I’m afraid that I-I cannot obey one of your instructions, Doctor,” he said. “I cannot explain the situation to my client, as there is no client to explain matters to.”
And then, in a sudden and blinding flash of absolutely nothing, they were gone.
Matt winced and reminded his brain to start working overtime on coming up with an explanation for that; it was getting disconcerting. He blinked, just to see if that would help matters along, then blinked again. No luck; the two cloaked figures were still gone, and he was left lying on the sidewalk with the pretty blonde beside him and the wild-haired, lanky madman staring off into space.
“Well,” the Doctor breathed finally, scrubbing a hand through his not-entirely-sane-scientist hair so it all stood on end. “That went well, didn’t it? I thought that went well.” He shrugged his coat back on, apparently unaware of the fact that there was a hole right through the middle of it where the sword had been caught.
“Nobody’s dead,” Rose agreed, standing and offering a hand to Matt. He stared at it blankly. “Better than average.”
“Little worse than average,” the Doctor corrected her, then stumbled. Rose took a step forward, but he waved her back, fiddling with the bloodstained handkerchief wrapped around his wounded arm. “Ow.”
“Baby,” Rose teased.
“It hurts!” the Doctor protested, indignant.
“Didn’t hurt while you were being all Time Lordly with those sword-wielding aliens, did it?” Rose grinned down at Matt, waggled the fingers on her outstretched hand. “Come on, I’ll help you up. It’s okay, they’re gone.”
“Napoleon?” Matt squeaked. Rose and the Doctor exchanged a significant look.
There was an awkward silence.
“Oh!” Rose said with a grin. “Napoleon! Dear old, uh-“
“Nappy,” the Doctor offered. “Yes, Nappy’s a good friend of ours. Nickname.”
“He’s a bit of a weird one,” Rose added conspiratorially. “Thinks he can time travel, the cheek.”
“No,” said Matt, because he was getting fed up with impossible things. He pointed an accusing finger at Rose, trying to ignore how ridiculous he felt, still sitting on the sidewalk. “You were talking about the real Napoleon! And-and aliens!” He pointed to the Doctor. “And you were going on about being a different species! And-“ He started to point, only to realize there was nothing left to point at, and so waved his hand expansively. “And they just disappeared! Completely vanished!”
“Yes, um,” said the Doctor.
“Well,” said Rose.
“But I think I understand,” Matt said slowly. “You know, I think I really do. It’s obvious, only one possible explanation.”
Rose took his outstretched arm and hoisted him to his feet. “What’s that?” she asked.
He wobbled for a moment before getting his bearings, then drew in a deep breath. “It’s simple. Either you’re absolutely barking mad, or-“ He swallowed. “Or I am.”
The Doctor laughed. “I’m fairly sure I’m not insane. Rose?”
“Well,” she said slowly. “I wouldn’t say you’re sane, necessarily, but insane’s probably taking it too far. No, you’re probably not insane. And I’m pretty sure I’m not.”
“Unless you just don’t know it,” the Doctor pointed out. Rose leaned over and smacked his arm. “Ow!”
“Oh,” said Matt. “That leaves me, then.”
The Doctor threw his arm around Matt’s shoulders. “Matty,” he said fondly. “Matty Matt Matt. I realize we’ve only just met and so any assumption I make about your sanity is a little hasty at best, but I’m almost nearly positively certain you’re not mad.”
“Really?”
“Sort of,” the Doctor conceded, releasing his grip on Matt, who straightened his shirt self-consciously. “Though why someone would hire the Cultelli to kill you begs quite a few questions.”
“Just the one, really,” Rose corrected. “Why?”
“Hang on a minute!” Matt realized he was pointing again and stuffed the offending hand back in his pocket. “Let’s start at the beginning. Who, exactly, are you?”
The Doctor was rifling through his own pockets for the piece of identification he’d been flashing earlier. “MI-6, right? Remember? I can see how you’d get confused – asthma attacks can be quite disorienting.” He pulled an impossibly large ball of twine from his pocket and stared at it blankly. “How did that get in there?”
“Doctor,” Rose said warningly. “I think we should tell him.”
“I’d like to know a bit more about my rescuers,” Matt added, though he really wasn’t sure he did.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. “I hate doing this bit,” he whined. “Every time, the same questions.” He took a deep breath. “I’m the Doctor. Not Doctor anyone, just the Doctor. I travel through space and time in my TARDIS. That’s Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, so you can see why we’ve gone with the abridged version. I’m an alien.”
“Like, from another planet?” Matt breathed, then realized how stupid the question sounded.
The Doctor’s face was inexplicably clouded, but only for a moment. “Something like that, yeah. A Time Lord.” He snatched Rose’s hand. “This one’s Rose Tyler.”
“Charmer,” Rose muttered, but she twined her fingers through his without protest.
“And what are you, then? A Venusian-“ Matt realized he was waving his hands again and jammed them back in his pockets. “A Venusian something-or-other?” he finished lamely.
She burst out laughing. “I’m from London.”
“Oh,” he said, relieved.
“Mind you,” she added, “I’m also from 2006.”
“Oh,” he said again, his voice an octave higher. “Right, then.”
“Anyway,” the Doctor said. “Travellers, just passing through, etcetera. Got knocked off course by that lot of time-travelling assassins and wound up here. Inconsiderate of them.” He glanced over at Rose. “Does that cover everything?”
“No,” she winced.
“This is really, really weird,” Matt felt he should point out. “Really weird.”
“Isn’t it just?” said the Doctor. “I think we should go back to the TARDIS. Figure out why someone would pay an astronomical fee to have a twenty-first century teenager killed.”
“You said they were from Xifos? Could we pop over there, maybe ask ‘em?” Rose frowned. “Or would that be too risky?”
“It just might, with Matt around,” the Doctor agreed.
Matt didn’t like the way the conversation was going. “I should probably go home, anyway. Sorry for taking up your time and all that, but I really need to see my sister right now.” Trudy would know what to do. She’d laugh and explain something brilliant about silly practical jokes played by her mates in the government, and then he’d-
“Matt,” said the Doctor, placing a hand on Matt’s shoulder so he couldn’t help but meet his gaze. His eyes were dark brown, liquid like a whirlpool, fluid but inexorable, pulling deeper into darkness. “Matt, listen to me. I know it’s a lot to take in just yet, and you’re definitely still in shock, but we don’t have time for all this. The Cultelli are a determined race – they have to be, for what they charge – but they absolutely cannot trace you in my TARDIS.” He paused. “Well, probably.”
“We can keep you safe until we’ve got this all sorted,” Rose added quickly. “The Doctor’s good at this, really. It’s what he does.”
Matt licked his lips, which had suddenly gone dry. “Why do you care so much?” He realized how that sounded and cleared his throat. “Not that I’m not grateful and everything, but-“ He gestured wordlessly at the Doctor’s bandaged arm. “You’ve already been hurt. Why help me?”
It was Rose who replied, her smile brilliant. “If you knew the Doctor for as long as I have, you’d know how silly that question sounds.”
Matt scrubbed a hand across his eyes, stared at Rose, an ordinary girl, then back to the Doctor, an impossible man. He took a deep breath. “All right, then,” he said. “But can you promise to have me back before Thursday? It’s Trudy’s twenty-fifth birthday.”
“Matt,” the Doctor said with a grin, “I can have you back here in time for her twenty-fourth.”
End Part II
Coming soon – Part III: Kalthan, in which tensions rise, the TARDIS is – believe it or not – bigger on the inside, and Earth is forced to relinquish its monopoly on awkward First Contact stories.
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Date: 2007-08-13 05:10 am (UTC)Re: the Arthur Dent comment - I have never received a higher compliment on my writing! Thank you thank you thank you; I don't really do OCs, as a general rule, so writing this chapter was a big massive leap outside the ol' comfort zone. It means a lot to know I didn't completely botch it. :D
As a rule of thumb, I never mind friending by people whose writing I unabashedly fangirl! Heehee.
And Tennyson icons? That would be all kinds of awesome.
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Date: 2007-08-13 05:47 am (UTC)Not only did you not botch it, you rocked it. Like, hardcore, baby. I don't make comparisons to the great Douglas Adams lightly. ;)
But now, this is great! We can do the mutual fangirling thing. I'll giggle incoherently at you and you giggle incoherently at me and everyone sensible within listening distance shall wish to smack us. It'll be brilliant!
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Date: 2007-08-13 03:15 pm (UTC)