Notes: First time dipping my toes into a new fandom so read-at-own-risk warnings apply. Written for Sephy, because she's a geek who's been force-feeding me 4th doctor eps in between airings of the current season. I may tack more onto this later as the plotbunnies are multiplying, but I'm leaving these pieces fairly open ended so I can pick them up when I like without stressing over finishing something painfully long. Echoes of You A Doctor Who Fanfiction by Amet "The past isn't dead. It isn't even past." -William Faulkner Rose Tyler thought she'd been through a lot in recent weeks. She'd found herself smack in the middle of not one, but two alien invasions, watched the world explode and rejoiced in the play of lights as the sun hit supernova. She'd stared down the barrel of a Dalek weapon and survived, fought off alien-possessed zombies and plastic monsters, and worse yet--faced her Mum's confused anger when all was said and done. A lot had changed since she'd followed the Doctor back into the Tardis that day, and it was changing her, the realization that for all she was top of the food chain back home, here she was little better than a fly on the wall for all the pause it gave the creatures they met before they swatted her down. Everything she'd come to depend on as truth was being systematically torn apart. She mostly found she loved every minute of it, but--and there was always a but in these situations, she was learning--with fantastical adventure came considerable danger. Something the Doctor was pointing out at every opportunity of late, a weird obsessive guilt over her mother's accusations overshadowing his usual giddy enthusiasm since that last visit to her Earth. It was all amusement and rambling explanations and business as usual until something reminded him to be parental and then it all switched to, "Mind the plants, Rose, they'll kill you in less than a minute if they prick you," and "Don't talk to anyone, Rose, if you say the wrong thing it'll be a disaster," when all the while those dark eyes said he knew she would grow tired of it eventually, demand to be taken home and the threat of never seeing him again wouldn't be enough to bind her here any longer. She'd gathered that there had been other... companions before her, seen their things scattered about the inner labyrinth of the Tardis. She wondered sometimes what had happened to them, if one too many an adventure had finally done them in or if they'd just grown tired of the Doctor's volatile lifestyle and shuffled off. She'd nearly asked a couple of times when he was in a particularly glib mood and likely to tell her the truth just to see if it stung, but the look on his face whenever he noticed one of their effects lying around stayed her tongue. Rose would have wondered why he kept them if it hurt that much, but she was learning that the Doctor very rarely forgave himself his faults. His whole life was one long prodding at old wounds. It was hardly an excuse to start treating her like a child. Not that she couldn't have used a little coddling right now, she thought, poking at the rapidly growing swelling at her ankle. It didn’t hurt all that much unless she touched it, but walking was going to be a problem when--and it was when not if--she got out of here. She'd had exactly half a second to be proud that she'd somehow landed on her feet as she hit the ground before her ankle buckled helpfully beneath her, sending her into an ungainly sprawl across the craggy surface of the--what was this place anyway, a cave? It was too dark to see much with the way the ground collapsed inward overhead, a thin sliver of what passed for sunlight on this awful planet the only illumination at all and it did little beyond casting frightfully long shadows over everything, indistinct shapes rising in the darkness and Rose tried not to think too hard about what they could possibly be, feeling along the walls behind her to find nothing but jutting rock and an odd, sticky wetness she was busy telling herself was water. It was difficult to tell, in this place. The surface of the planet was nothing but soot and grime and smog as far as the eye could see. An entire ecosystem raped of its natural resources by a single corporation, the Doctor had said, wincing at the screeching of the giant automated drills that mined the planet surface. All for want of a mineral that was as unpronounceable as it was alien to Rose, which just made the whole thing seem that much more pointless. The cave in was probably the result of all that mining weakening the ground, the scuffle above and the man who had tried to save her adding just enough weight to collapse the surface of destabilized earth beneath their feet and send them tumbling. She noticed the miners had managed to escape the tumult, which was lovely. Though it was probably better that she wasn't trapped down here with the shrill little things, rabbiting on in a guttural language she couldn't understand as they advanced on her. And her rescuer-- --was off his nut, as far as she could tell. He was somewhere across the darkened expanse of the cave, though close enough that she could hear the scritch-scritch of chalk against the rock face as he scribbled barely visible calculations across its surface, muttering beneath his breath about r squared times pi and infernal human girls who got themselves into trouble. He hadn't so much as acknowledged her presence since they'd fallen, hunched away and examining the walls--for a weakness, she hoped, watching the fraying ends of his ridiculously long scarf slither across the floor with his movements. She'd caught enough of a glimpse of him during the scuffle to know that scarf was six colors at once, flamboyant as the orange-plaid vest beneath his battered trench coat, the gold chain of a pocket watch strewn across the man's stomach like a badge of honor. His hair was a wild tangle of curls above a face that was comically round and sharp-featured at the same time, all aquiline nose and deep set eyes that widened absurdly at the merest provocation. That expression had frightened her at first, but after everything else Rose was just grateful that he didn't seem to be the violent kind of crazy. He didn't seem particularly social either, which was beginning to make her nervous. Scooting forward, she squinted into the darkness, mindful of her ankle as she eyed the jagged writing sketched out over the wall and tried to make sense of it. She hadn't taken a proper math class since high school and none of it made much sense beyond the vaguest understanding that there was algebra or something similar involved. The Doctor would've known, but he'd disappeared into the smog almost as soon as they left the Tardis and after an hour of searching she had been just about to try and backtrack towards where she thought the Tardis was hidden when she'd stumbled onto the miners. The scritching paused as if the man sensed her scrutiny, and Rose stilled for a moment in anticipation-- --as the moment passed, the stranger picking up where he left off without a word. "So," she said, deciding she'd had enough, trying to sound innocuous as she scooted a little closer, "What're you doing?" Nothing. Rose sighed, gesturing at his rapidly growing equations. "I don't see how that's going to get us out of here. We should be looking for a door or something." Nothing. "The least you can do is talk to me. If I have to sit here staring at darkness all day until someone comes for us I think I'll go mad." The hand stilled just as Rose was opening her mouth to try again, the chalk disappearing into the man's trench coat as he turned, throwing her a manic grin. "Oh I'm quite sure no one will be coming. We're more likely to die down here." "What?" "Probably won't last more than a handful of days, really," the stranger continued, oblivious to her discomfort, "No food, no water aside from the moisture in that slime mold growing on the wall over there and I'm pretty sure that's poisonous in large enough doses--or at least a hallucinogenic. Either way I wouldn't recommend licking the walls." "I wasn't... planning on it," Rose squeaked, watching the man's grin widen. "Good, good," he said, as though they were discussing the weather and not their imminent demise, "And don't waste your strength looking for a door either. I found it an hour ago while you were prodding at your ankle. The hinge is rusted through... I'm afraid we're very stuck unless someone stumbles onto us and that is highly unlikely this far from the main complex." He shook his head, expression darkening. "Silly little human girl in a Chlorian mine. You're a long way from home, aren't you? What idiot brought you out here and left you?" "He's not an idiot," she snapped, before she really thought about it and she realized almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth how ridiculous they were. The Doctor didn't care if she defended him, and of all the information the stranger put forth that was a silly thing to focus on. She put a hand to the back of her hair, grimacing as her fingers came away sticky with "Slime... mold...?" she whispered, wiping her hands on the ruin of her jacket. The Doctor would have a thing or three to say about that when he turned up, she was sure. "And you knew there was a door here all this time? Why didn't you say anything? If it's rusted it's weakened, maybe we can pry it open. And what's a Chlorian? Who are you, anyway, and what does it matter who brought me here?" She glared at the stranger, daring him to start up again. "One question at a time, my dear," the stranger rolled his eyes. "Look, don't you think that if I," he stood up, reminding her that he had nearly twenty centimeters on her, "decided that the door was too strong to pry at, you wouldn't stand a chance? A sonic screwdriver wouldn't pry it loose, forget it." He paced over to a hollow in the wall and rapped his knuckles against it, waggling bushy eyebrows in the wake of its metallic clang. "And for your information, the Chlorians were those little buggers you were arguing with upstairs. They're rather cute without the body armor, really, kind of like rat-faced teddy bears." Rose found that hard to imagine, the lumbering things that passed for miners on this planet were small certainly--barely rising to waist level, even--but they were hardly cuddly. They looked more like some robotic baddie out of a black and white movie, nothing of the animal visible beneath primitive, boxy armor with headpieces resembling riveter's masks, a wide view plate set into a rounded metal helmet. The oversized metal pieces were rigged on stiff hinges that drew out their movements and forced them to shuffle along gracelessly, a fact which hadn't done much to make her feel better as they'd backed her into wall aboveground, slow-moving and inexorable as an ice flow chattering sharp-tongued commands she couldn't understand. "As for the rest," the stranger continued, "I happen to know that you are dressed in pre-extraterrestrial Earth attire, so unless you were having one hell of a nostalgic moment when you woke up this morning you couldn't have possibly brought yourself here, now could you?" the stranger tipped his head in punctuation, examining her. "I ought to smack the idiot who did. Probably killed us both tossing you out here on your own." "I don't know about you," said Rose, deciding she'd more than heard enough, "But I'm not giving up yet. We've got enough air at least, and I've got a friend--he's called the Doctor--who can help. He'll find us, I know he will." 'He promised', she added silently, trying not to feel like a silly little girl pouting at a teacher. The stranger paused, features screwed up in befuddlement for a moment before the grin returned, wider than ever as he sidled over and plopped himself down beside Rose, leaning closer conspiratorially. "The Doctor, you say?" he asked, chortling a strange little laugh as he dug around inside his trench coat, nearly vibrating with excitement, "That does add a bit of hope to the situation, doesn't it? If I'm in here, and he's out there, and I don't recognize you at all, that means..." He paused, shifting to wiggle a hand inside a pocket. "Yes, I do think I should very much like to meet this Doctor of yours." He extricated a wrinkled paper bag from somewhere within the folds of his coat, reverently unfolding it to reveal-- Candy? "I've been very rude, haven't I?" the stranger said, popping one of a handful of little jelly people into his mouth, "What did you say your name was again?" "Rose Tyler," Rose replied, running on automatic and wondering if it was a good idea to remind the stranger that for all his braying about their lack of sustenance perhaps he should be conserving his candy, "And I didn't say." "Ah yes," the stranger replied, glancing at the equations he'd sketched across the wall. "I was rather busy, wasn't I?" he waved a hand at the etchings on the wall. "Completely useless calculations, really, they help me to think when I'm under pressure. I'm--" he began, then paused, popping another candy into his mouth and chewing it thoughtfully, "No, perhaps I better hadn't tell you that just yet. But you have much to tell me I'd imagine, oh yes, Rose Tyler, you have much to tell me." He threw her a sideways glance, manic eyes widening in the darkness and she wondered if it would make a difference, backing away in a cave this small. "I think you might even have given us a small measure of hope, young lady," he continued, "But you're going to have to tell me everything you know about this Doctor of yours. No sense in getting excited until we're sure." Rose choked back a childish 'Why' as she considered the man, watching him make a show of gnawing at his candy. She'd thought, back home, that she was a decent judge of character. Out here--well, things were always more complicated than that, and after nearly unleashing the ultimate evil on the world without even trying she was less liable to take anything at face value if she could help it. So the question remained-- Who was this man anyway, and what did he want with the Doctor? He seemed to know her companion, but did that mean they were old chums or the worst of enemies? The stranger seemed the type to grin even at the most repugnant situation just to see how the people around him reacted, which wasn't any help and not remotely comforting. She was fairly certain the Doctor could handle himself against one harmless nutter, but what did appearances mean this far out into the galaxy, really? The stranger paused in his chewing, drawing her attention. "I'm sorry, I'm being rude again, aren't I?" He thrust the bag of candy at her, shaking its blurry form just beneath her nose. "Would you like a Jelly Baby?" In the end it didn't really matter, Rose supposed. They were stuck, and if she wanted to learn anything about her newfound companion she was going to have to keep him talking. Rose sighed, popping the candy in her mouth as she eyed the thin stream of light shining into the cavern from the nearly invisible hole in the ceiling. She had a feeling this was going to be one very long talk. - End - return to splash page