Into the Howling: Chapter 2

[timelord1]

Title: Into the Howling
Rating: Teen
Pairing: 10/Rose
Category: Drama, Romance, Humor, Action/Adventure
SPOILERS: AU on end of Doomsday and points west.
Summary: What if things had happened just a bit differently there at the end, with the levers?
Notes: This chapter was posted without a beta, so it's my fault if it's no good lol. :) Many, many thanks to the lovely people who posted responses to my Britglish question, both on my page and at dw_britglish!!

It would have been a lot easier to pilot the ship through the gap if he’d had some convenient way of seeing where they were going. There was a massive viewscreen directly in front of the control console, but he could not get it to work. The only means he had of seeing where they were going was in a six-by-six-inch window at the far left end of the curving console. Looking backwards to see where you were going while driving forwards made him a bit seasick, but he managed to get them through the gap and into proper space. The release of pressure on the hull of the ship was palpable on the inside, and he exhaled the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding as he brought the ship into orbit around the first planet they encountered.
 
Readings from the planet’s surface streamed in to the control console, displaying on an info screen to his right. High concentrations of sulphur in the atmosphere. Temperature extremes from -110c to 95c in an 18-hour period. And yet, the ship was able to detect technology on the surface. Fairly advanced technology. The Doctor reminded himself that this was not an exploratory journey, but merely one to find a place where he could repair the ship and get them home. No tourist stops.
 
His initial assessment of the Void ship indicated that the orbital stabilizers, life support, gap location system, close-proximity planet sensors, defenses, flight control, and one small, inconvenient navigational viewscreen were working. The star charts were offline, as well as their radar, cloaking device, universe identification system (if he couldn’t make sense of it, it was as good as broken), the main viewscreen, weapons and the teleport platform that was positioned directly in front of the broken viewscreen. Even if he could figure out how to land the ship, he wasn’t certain they would be able to get out of it without climbing out the hatch somehow.
 
Rose was sitting on the teleport platform, elbows on her knees, resting her head in her hands. She was pale and hadn’t spoken in several minutes. He saw her take her phone out of her pocket, examine it, then put it back into her pocket with a sigh.
 
“Please rest,” he said, looking around for somewhere to make her comfortable. “You have a great shock and require time to recover.”
 
Rose sighed, pulling her hair away from her face. “I’m all right.” He came over to her and took off his jacket so he could put it around her shoulders. She looked up at him with a grateful smile, but there were tears in her eyes.
 
“Do not – don’t – be ashamed of feeling unwell,” he said, shaking his head at the stupid way he was talking. “I know how to speak correctly. This is an unnecessary frustration at this…now. Being in the Void is not…done…by humans before.” He groaned his annoyance and waved away the rest of what he was trying to say. He was an idiot to have used the TARDIS as a crutch for so long. He probably had not spoken actual English in thirty years or more. He knew what he wanted to say, but had to search for the right words and try to remember the right word order and anyway he had always been rubbish at spoken English, whom was he kidding? That was why he’d begun to rely on the TARDIS in the first place.
 
“The more upset you get, the worse it gets,” Rose pointed out.
 
He gave her a strained smile and searched the ship for some manner of sustenance for her. She needed to start a regimen of fluids as soon as possible, if she was anywhere near as dehydrated as he felt after that little jaunt through eternal nothingness.
 
“Do you have thirst?” he asked. She laughed and clapped her hand over her mouth to hide her smile.
 
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to laugh but you’re so serious, and the whole situation is so serious, and believe me I am terrified, but then you say something like ‘do you have thirst’ and I can’t help laughing,” she said.
 
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You are…you’re…not angry with me? For cheating?”
 
It was as if a light went on behind Rose’s eyes that he hadn’t noticed had gone out until that moment. She looked up at him and a tear fell down her cheek. “Why would I be angry with you? So you’re in the bottom set when it comes to speakin’ English. You’re the one who should be angry with me. It’s my fault we’re here. I’m so sorry!” She hung her head and began crying again.
 
“Oh, beloved, I am not so much as a little angry at you,” he said with such awkward earnest it made Rose smile through her tears. He knelt beside her, taking her hands so he could kiss them. “You have so much bravery and strength that I can’t do anything but love you. You could have remained with your mother in safety, and you chose me instead. Who could find anger with this? I am a lucky man to have you.”
 
“But we’re lost!” she cried.
 
He held up one finger to correct her. “Lost together. That is not so bad.”
 
“What if we can’t get back?” she asked.
 
“Have you forgotten the man with whom you travel?” he asked. “I am the Doctor. I have seen far more difficult circumstances than this is. You and I will return to London, and soon. That is a promise.”
 
“That’s,” she said.
 
“That’s,” he repeated, winking at her. He helped her to her feet. “We are in stable orbit and not descending until you are well rested. Would you care to help me search the ship?”
 
Rose looked around the sphere. “Not much to search, is there?”
 
“It is no TARDIS, to be sure,” he said, grinning. He paused as he thought of his beautiful ship and sighed. “We will see her again before long. At that time I can go back to sounding like myself.” He went to a bank of cabinets and opened them to search. He found two standard-issue orange spacesuits intended for humanoid bipeds, as well as two lockers full of personal items.
 
“Of course the Daleks stole this ship,” he said, showing Rose a photograph of a smiling young man and woman taped to the inside of one of the cabinets. “I would guess either one or both of the parties pictured here is falling through the Void as we speak.”
 
Rose shuddered. “I don’t wanna think about that.”
 
He flicked his eyebrows upward. “Nor me.” He went on examining the array of controls on the ship and suddenly he laughed and grinned back at Rose. “Ha! This is wonderful – there is a MRFI installed here.”
 
“What’s a Murphy?” Rose asked, approaching. The Doctor pressed a blue button and a pair of podlike beds slid out of the wall, complete with pillows and blankets folded neatly in the center of each one.
 
“Modular Repose Foundation Interface,” he said, checking the ship’s controls one more time. Their orbit was locked in and the shields were up. He was nervous orbiting a strange planet with no cloaking device, but there was nothing he could do about it. “Please lie down and rest. I require it as well after our vacation through the Void.”
 
“Trip,” Rose corrected as she climbed into her pod. “That was hardly a vacation.”
 
“Trip, yes,” he said, shaking his head. He tapped a button on the panel and the lights inside the sphere went to thirty percent. “Sorry.”
 
Rose snuggled under her blanket and turned to face the Doctor as he got into his pod. “I am sorry I got us into this,” she said.
 
He shook his head. “No more apologies, please. I could have hung on to my lever easily and let you go. I chose you, just as you chose me. We are better together.”
 
She smiled at him, saying nothing for a long time. “I like your accent.”
 
“Is it not difficult to understand me?” he asked.
 
“Not at all,” she answered. “It’s nice. It’s like I’m hearing the real you for the first time, and it’s lovely. Very exotic.”
 
He leaned out of his pod to kiss her gently on the lips. “Sleep now, my Rose.”
 
She closed her eyes and nuzzled her pillow. “Say my name again.”
 
“Rose Tyler,” he whispered. “Good night.”
 
She was asleep within minutes, while the Doctor lingered in a drowsy state for nearly an hour, practicing English in his head. He finally drifted off, listening to the sound of Rose breathing steadily next to him. She seemed to have avoided serious damage from the Void, but only time would tell for certain. At last exhaustion wrapped itself around the Doctor and pulled him down into a deep sleep.
 
He sat up with a start when he felt the ship begin its descent. He scrambled out of his pod and over to the control console. The info screen to the right of the controls indicated they were being brought to the surface of the planet by a tractor beam. The temperature extremes would be too much for Rose, and he was definitely not sure about that atmosphere. He rushed to the cabinet and pulled out one of the space suits, hurrying to her pod to bundle her in it while he was shaking her awake.
 
“Rose – Rose! Put this on, quickly as you can!” He lifted her out of the bed, sliding her into the suit as he zipped it up and locked the helmet into place on her head.
 
“What’s going on?” she cried. He went back to the cabinet and climbed into the other suit, zipped it up, and went back to the console to open the communication circuit. He stopped and slapped his forehead. What language was he supposed to use? There was Universal Default, but he didn’t know if this universe would have the same Default as his. It was all he had.
 
“Attention, this is the ship in your tractor beam – we are marooned from another universe, in need of repairs. Requesting permission to acclimate before you force open our hatch. There are fragile life forms aboard this ship that may need time to adjust to your pressure and atmosphere.” If he’d spent half the time studying English that he’d done studying Default, he wouldn’t sound like a buffoon now.
 
The ship’s communications crackled to life as a voice that sounded like a cross between a talking crow and speaker distortion formed into words spoke a reply in halting Universal Default. “You…are…unauthorized users of our…orbital pathway. You will be…detained for questioning before release or further processing. Time will be…allotted…for life forms to acclimate.”
 
“What’re they saying?” Rose asked. “They sound awful.”
 
The Doctor pressed the button on the com. “Thank you for your patience. We mean no harm, and were unaware of your planet’s protocols for orbital insertion.” He turned back to Rose with a wan smile.
 
“We are under arrest.”

Chapter 3

Comments

[country-who.livejournal.com]

*Plays dramatic music*

I have to say that the voice in my head for the Doctor is amazing and thank you so much for allowing my imagination to run wild.

Amazing chapter, I loved the little bit of lovey stuff in the middle, so very them. :)

[timelord1.livejournal.com]

:) Thank you - I figured they deserved a little lovey stuff, considering all they'd been through lately. :)

Glad you're enjoying it - the voice in my head is a lot of fun, too. Makes him sound so very alien!!! :D