Title: Two Timelines

Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel

Story Summary: Something's gone badly wrong with history. The Doctor, along with Rose, investigates to find an airship called the Valiant, an enormous paradox and ....himself? Stars Nine, and Ten.

Setting: Just after Last of the Time Lords, series three.

Author notes:

As noted in the first chapter, this is a response to Jessa L'Rynn's August Challenge #1.

TWO TIMELINES

CHAPTER THREE

-

As time passed slowly in their cell the Doctor continued to burn like a slow fuse, his mood growing darker the longer he sat there, saying nothing.

Rose was feeling pretty worried by now. The only time she'd ever seen the Doctor quite like this was when he'd tried to shoot the Dalek with that giant gun when it was basking in the sunlight, and his murderous fury had swiftly turned to something desperately vulnerable and broken. This time though, the dangerous look in his eyes just kept getting deeper and deeper, as the darkness grew.

Rose couldn't help glancing over at where he sat silently, brooding. His face was an expressionless mask, which she knew was a bad sign. Who knew exactly what was turning over in his mind?

-

Searching for something to divert his attention, Rose suddenly thought of her confusion from earlier, forgotten until now.

"Doctor, if that old bloke was you, why'd he look different? I mean, I can understand getting old, but he's got brown eyes, not blue. You don't change eye color just coz you're getting on a bit."

The Doctor winced a little, marginally distracted from his brooding contemplation of more pressing issues.

"Oh, I can answer that one," Jack put in, smiling a bit more wickedly than was necessary. "It's a Time Lord thing. You don't die, do you Doctor? You just change."

"Change?" Rose repeated apprehensively.

The Doctor shot Jack a black look, sighed, and resigned himself to explaining.

"Time Lords have this way of cheating death, see," he began reluctantly. "If something makes sick or injured enough that it'd do us in, then we can trigger this process that… heals us, I s'pose. Thing is, it also rewrites our DNA completely, so when it happens we get a new body, new personality."

Rose stared at him.

"All the times we've nearly died, and you never thought to mention this before?"

"Well, humans tend to find it a bit upsetting," the Doctor said, rather lamely.

"What, so you just let it come as a complete surprise?" Rose said incredulously. "Anyone ever actually stay with you after that happens?"

The Doctor thought about telling her about Adric, and Tegan, and everyone else who'd gotten over the shock quite well, thanks, but thought it best to say,

"Not often, no."

Rose shook her head.

"Anyone ever tell you you're a bit daft sometimes?"

The Doctor let a grin slip through.

"Not often, no."

"No, they're too busy marvelling at the greatness that is the Doctor," Jack said lightly. He gave a suggestive grin. "I've been to Proclaria, you know. They've got this legend about you, the sky goddess, and the inadequacies of a toga –"

"That was a complete misunderstanding," the Doctor said darkly.

"I am so hearing that story later," Rose told him, grinning.

The Doctor huffed, but lapsed back into silence.

"Oi, stop brooding," Rose leaned over and pushed his shoulder, "we'll work something out."

The Doctor didn't respond.

Rose looked at Jack.

"I'm starved," she said. "They feed you in here?"

Jack's face turned grim.

"Once a day, if we're lucky. If we're really lucky, I don't have to pay for it."

"Pay for it?" Rose asked carefully.

"Yeah." Jack stared at the wall. "Remember how I told you I was immortal?"

Rose nodded.

"Yeah, well, I can die, I just don't stay dead. So the Master sees that as a challenge to his creativity." Jack gave a mirthless smile, his eyes bleak.

Rose put a hand to her mouth.

"Oh my God, Jack…" She put her hand over his. He gave her a faint, weary smile.

"Don't worry Rosie, I'll live." There was a slight undercurrent of dark humour in his voice.

"Doesn't mean you should have to live with it," the Doctor spoke up. "I'll stop him, Jack."

The Doctor met Jack's eyes, his gaze very serious and intense.

Jack stared back for a moment. Then he nodded.

"Thanks, Doc."

The Doctor nodded once, then went silent again. This time though it seemed to be in thought, not so he could brood some more, so Rose was able to talk to Jack in a lighter mood.

-

They talked of his adventures, some with Rose and the Doctor in them, but mostly without, and his job at an organisation called Torchwood that had become his life and in a sense, his family. He glanced at Gwen and Tosh now and then as he talked; Gwen was still near catatonic, and Tosh was near death. He checked on her every now and then, but her condition remained the same.

"You should get rid of it," the Doctor stated when Jack told Rose about Torchwood's unofficial mascot, a pterodactyl named Myfanwy. He'd looked disapproving at a number of Jack's stories.

"Nah, she's harmless, and she can't leave the base," Jack dismissed his concerns, "besides, what are you supposed to do with an animal that's been extinct for 65 million years? Except for this one time when I was a Time Agent, there was this huge amount of temporal flux and for a day or so all the birds on earth were replaced with dinosaurs. They were back to birds again by the next day."

The Doctor snorted.

"That happen often?" Rose asked curiously. "Things happening that weren't supposed to and then going back to not happening, I mean."

"Surprisingly often," Jack said thoughtfully. "Some of it needs to be fixed because it deviates too far from the timeline, but a lot of it's just little hiccups that'll correct itself."

"Like what?" Rose wanted to know. "What's the most interesting thing you've ever seen that wasn't meant to happen?"

Jack was silent for a moment. Then he said slowly,

"The Time Lords in London in 1962."

"The what?" the Doctor asked sharply.

Jack shrugged.

"There was this really attractive girl wandering around by herself, clearly didn't know where to go, had 'tourist' written all over her. So I, being the chivalrous person I am –" a snort from the Doctor "– kindly went over to offer her my help. As soon as she spoke I knew she wasn't human. The Doctor," he tipped his head in the man's direction, "and his TARDIS are used to other languages so he doesn't have any problems with the accents, but she clearly wasn't and it came though in her voice. It was like an instrument, all chiming bells instead of a voice. When I asked her about it, she admitted she was a Time Lady on Earth for her honeymoon, and that the reason she was wandering around was because her husband had vanished somewhere and she had no idea where he was. He turned up after a while though, babbling about something and dragged her off to see it. So, for this one day, there were Time Lords."

Rose looked at the Doctor, who had gone very still and stiff. He wasn't looking at either of them.

"Did they have names?" she suggested to Jack.

"Yeah. The girl's name was Bellanatar, at least that's as close as I can get it, and her husband's was –"

"Theta," the Doctor said softly.

Both Jack and Rose gawked at him. In all the time either of them had known him, he practically never said anything about his planet or people, and then only in the vaguest terms.

"We were so young," he said so softly they could barely hear them, still not looking at them, his eyes distant.

Then he snapped back to the present and sent them a look, dark and closed-off.

"Not a word," he ordered, "I don't want to talk about it."

Since this was followed up with a glare, they didn't say anything, just sat back in silence to ponder what they'd heard.

-

Rose's mind whirled. It had sounded very much as though the Doctor had implied that the young Time Lord had been him. Rose had known that the Doctor was nine hundred years old, but somehow it'd never occurred to her that he might've been married at some point. She remembered that he'd said he'd lost his family, once. Did he mean a wife? Kids, even?

The thought of it was an unpleasant shock, but at the same time it made her want to wrap her arms around him and tell her that she was here for him. She suddenly had a new perspective on why he avoided 'domestic' so virulently.

Jack hadn't missed the possible implications either. He watched the Doctor, reflecting on the cheerful young man who'd dragged his laughing young wife off to experience the delights of London. Kids on holiday, just a couple of innocent tourists.

Jack couldn't help the pang he felt at the contrast between the happy newlyweds and the taciturn man in front of him. If that really had been the Doctor, he didn't think he wanted to know exactly what had transpired to change him so much.

oo o0o oo

"Rise and shine, Doctor!" the Master hollered, walking beaming into their cell, a moment after the door whooshed open, while they blinked, disoriented, "Captain, Rose! I've got something to entertain you all!"

The Master walked out again, the guards dragging them after him. Rose sent a questioning look at Jack and the Doctor, but the two men looked grim. There was something triumphant in the Master's air, and that boded ill.

They emerged onto the bridge, where the older Doctor was already waiting in his wheelchair, looking resigned.

The master aimed something that looked a bit like a sonic screwdriver, and a giant flat TV screen sank down from the ceiling.

"A bit of excitement for my children," the Master proclaimed, gesturing towards the hovering Toclafane. "Miss Martha Jones has been sighted!"

A flick of the wrist and the screen was suddenly filled with grainy video, clearly a live video feed. It was fro man aerial view, but the camera was rapidly zooming in on something on the ground.

"There is a slight lag," the Master said happily, "but what you are seeing is happening right now, with a delay of only a few seconds. Practically instantaneous."

No one was paying him much attention, because they were watching the screen instead. The sound of distorted, childish laughter came from the screen as the camera pursued a dark-skinned figure in black, running for its life.

The Toclafane were chasing a young woman, probably pretty, although with the video quality it was hard to tell. As they watched she tripped, and went sprawling. She rolled onto her back as the Toclafane came in close, her face full of desperate fear.

"We win," one of the Toclafane giggled. What made it truly horrifying was the way the creatures sounded like children; gleeful, murdering children to whom the suffering of the humans they hunted was nothing more than a game.

"We caught you!" agreed a second voice, from a hovering sphere just visible at the edge of the screen. "You lose."

There was the whine of something electrical powering up and a bolt of white-hot crackling energy shot past the camera hitting the Toclafane next to it. Bits of metal flew everywhere.

"Hey!" the surviving Toclafane exclaimed, startled and indignant. The camera whirled as the Toclafane turned, to look down the barrel of an enormous blaster.

Before it could react there was a brief electrical noise, blinding light, and a sizzling crackly sound as the video feed was cut off abruptly, leaving meaningless static to play on the screen.

The Master let out a shout of rage.

"That shouldn't have happened!" he bawled, kicking the nearest chair. "Find out what happened to those two Toclafane and Martha Jones!" he yelled at the nearby Toclafane.

"Yes Master," they chorused, and blinked out.

Furious, he strode up to the Doctor in the wheelchair.

"I will find Martha Jones, and when I do I promise you Doctor, she will beg for death!" the Master declared venomously. "Take them away!"

He whirled in a sudden change of mind and added,

"Take the Captain to the torture chamber. I need to work off some frustration."

-

Rose and the Doctor were dragged back to their cell while Jack was taken off in a different direction.

Just as they reached the cell that Rose and the Doctor shared with Jack and Gwen and Tosh, a female voice spoke from further up the hallway.

"Don't lock up the girl again yet. I want to talk to her. Have her brought to the sitting room."

Without a word the guards propelled the Doctor through the cell door and shut it behind him, and escorted Rose in the direction that the Master's wife had gone.

The sitting room proved to be a large room furnished with a rich carpet and luxurious armchairs, and a couple of matching sofas. There was a giant television cabinet at the other end of the room, but Lucy Saxon was sitting on one of the sofas, pouring tea from a delicate china teapot into equally delicate teacups where they rested on a tray atop the low coffee table.

"You can wait outside the door," Lucy told the guards without looking up. They left silently.

-

"There's milk and sugar if you'd like it," Lucy said, finally looking up and surveying Rose intently, with that absent gaze that disturbed Rose. "Do sit down."

"What I'd like is for your husband to stop torturing Jack and the Doctor and feed those poor people in the cells," Rose responded tartly, but she sat down on the couch opposite. She added milk and sugar to her tea. She hadn't eaten or drunk anything in the entire time she'd been there, and she was feeling hungry and dizzy and her throat was parched.

She took a sip of the tea, and was grateful for it. It helped.

"What d'you want to talk to me for?" Rose demanded. She knew that she was channelling her mother, but didn't care.

Oh God, her Mum. Was she down there somewhere, suffering or even dead?

"Because you're with the Doctor, of course," Lucy said calmly. "I don't get to talk to people very often. One doesn't gossip with the help. Besides, everyone seems to hate Harry."

"What, and this comes as a surprise?" Rose asked disbelievingly. "How'd you think they were gonna feel? Why do you stick with him, anyway? Like being queen of the Earth?"

Lucy fixed pale blue eyes on her face.

"Because I love him," she said simply. "Because he is a raging inferno, because he is like the solar winds that go screaming through space at hundreds of kilometres an hour, shredding to atoms anything that stands in their path. He is destruction and death and yet so alive. I've seen the end, and after that, nothing matters. Only him. He is the Master, and I would stay with him to the end of the universe."

Hr words could almost have come from Rose, talking about the Doctor. It was twisted, warped, but the likeness was still there. Lucy's eyes shone clear with the same absolute unwavering belief that Rose felt for the Doctor.

Rose felt the bile rise in her throat.

A human girl meeting a Time Lord, someone greater and more alive, and simply more than anyone she'd ever met, full stop. Someone who could do the impossible. Being offered a chance to be part of what he did, to be given a chance at a better life with some kind of meaning, a chance to see the stars…

The parallels made Rose feel sick.

"You understand, don't you? I thought you would. No one but us understands."

Lucy was right. In a weird sort of way, Rose did understand.

"You interest him," Lucy said quietly. It took Rose a moment to realise that the subject had changed. "Harry always gets what he wants. I don't share. If he comes to you, I will hurt you more than he will."

Again, it took Rose a moment to follow.

"If he laid a hand on me the Doctor'd kill him!" Rose spat.

"That's why," Lucy said, still with that unchanging calm.

"He's sick," Rose told her. "A sick perverted monster. So are you."

Lucy just smiled that absent detached smile.

oo o0o oo

Rose was returned to her cell unbelievably furious and deep down very frightened, although she'd never admit it, to find the Doctor carefully examining a bloody shape on the cell floor.

It took her a moment to realise it was Jack.

"Oh my God!"

Rose's hand flew to her mouth as her stomach rebelled. She tried to control it, but found herself throwing up by the door.

"I hope the Master steps in it next time he comes storming in," Jack said.

Rose looked around o see that while still bloody, Jack was once again alive and whole. He and the Doctor were watching her with concern in their eyes.

"Are you alright?" Rose asked him urgently, still horrified at what had been done to him.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Jack said, rolling his head around experimentally and shrugging his shoulders. Both arms were once again attached. "Always feels a bit weird after he does that. Oh, Rose. Hey. It's okay, I'm fine now."

Rose couldn't help the tears that kept coming, and put a fist to her mouth to muffle the sobs. Her entire body was shaking uncontrollably.

Strong arms suddenly closed around her, drawing her close. Rose turned and pressed herself against the Doctor's chest, burying her face in his shoulder.

"It's alright, Rose," the Doctor said softly. "It'll be alright."

Rose just clung, wanting to be reassured and feel safe.

"His wife," she choked, "Mrs Saxon, she said…"

"What did she say?" The Doctor's voice was still gentle, but with a thread of steel through it.

"She said he –he's probably gonna –" Rose tool a sobbing breath "– try and rape me. To get at you."

Rose felt the Doctor's entire body tense and his grip tighten. She was kind of glad she couldn't see his expression.

"I'm not gonna let him touch you, Rose," the Doctor said after a moment. "He hurts a hair on your head and he won't know what's happened to him. I promise. Alright?"

"Yeah." Rose tightened her arms around him for a moment, then stepped back.

The Doctor's face was set in stone, a blank mask to hide his feelings. But his eyes burned.

-

END CHAPTER

Author's Note:

The Time Lord & Lady in London meet Jack story is one I hope to eventually get done. It's partly written, but it's been that way for a while.

There's maybe, oh, three more chapters after this? But each chapter is getting a little longer than the previous ones…

-

Next chapter, quite possibly: The Master discovers U.N.I.T. agents have infiltrated the Valiant, Nine and Ten talk some more, and the Master has sinister intentions towards Rose…