Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

‘Where are we going today?’ Rose yawned, stepping into the console room.

‘Oh good, you’re up.’

'You’ve parted your hair,’ Rose observed sleepily.

'Is it bad?’

’S'Alright.’

'Apalapucia.’

'Sorry?’

'Apalapucia. Voted the number two destination for the discerning intergalactic traveller.’

'Discerning traveller- That’s tourist isn’t it?’

The Doctor grinned. 'Space tourist.’

'Isn’t Apa- Apala- Isn’t that in America?’

'That’s Appalachia. Not quite the same thing. Could go there instead if you want-’

'Nah. Let’s be space tourists.’

'Space tourists it is! Allons-y!’

It was a relatively long flight, almost upwards of half an hour, the planet was that distant in space and time. The Doctor spent most of this time explaining the intricacies of the theoretically acceptable interactions between civilizations of varying levels of time travel proficiency that often met on planets such as this. This resulted in a considerable amount of only half-joking eye rolling.

'You’ve broken literally every one of those since last Friday.’

'I said in theory.’

'You’re such a nerd.’

'Time nerd.’

'Time nerd the space tourist.’

They dissolved into a fit of giggles, in the giddy way you do when you feel completely ridiculous and ridiculously complete.
They may not have been paying that much attention to steering the TARDIS.

Chapter Text

The TARDIS didn’t stick the landing. It wasn’t quite a crash, but something seemed to have punctured the outer shell of the TARDIS and part of it was sticking through the wall.

‘Shields are down. This is not good. This very not good.’

‘You left the shields down?’

'I didn’t do it on purpose!’ the Doctor said shrilly.

He ran around the console to check the time and space coordinates on the monitor.

The blood drained from his face. 'Daleks,’ he muttered under his breath.

'Daleks?’

'Not literally.’

'Did you just use “Daleks” as a curse word?’

'Maybe. It was either that or-’ the Doctor emitted a long series of high-pitched staccato syllables.

'What does that mean?’

'You don’t want to know.’

'I do though.’

'Look, I’m not teaching you to swear in pidgin Gallifreyan.’

'Why not?’

'We’ve landed too late. Or too early. Apalapucia is the middle of a viral pandemic, fatal to life forms that have a binary vascular system.’

'But something’s gone and stabbed through the wall of the TARDIS… I didn’t think anything could do that- I thought you said the assembled hordes of Genghis Khan-’

'When the shields are up it’s all but impenetrable, yes. But right now-’ the Doctor stroked the wall of the TARDIS soothingly. 'It’s basically just coral and wood and a wee bit of Zieton-7… I’m so sorry, old girl.’

'But what about-’ Rose was reaching for the apparently mechanical object that jutted from a cracked panel beside the door. It was flashing red and jagged wires seemed almost to be digging into the metal panel like a parasitic plant.

'For heaven’s sake, don’t touch-’

But it was too late. An explosion of red light filled the room and everything went dark.

Chapter Text

The Doctor awoke in a high-ceilinged room and promptly hit his head on the iron headboard of a strange old-fashioned bed. He rubbed the back of his head, blinking into the grey early-morning light streaming through the half open curtains. Somewhere far off he thought he heard the sound of a mobile phone ringing.

He stood up and stretched, aware that for some reason the t-shirt and boxers he was wearing were not his own.
Then he noticed the image printed on the duvet cover. A Dalek. He stared at this in horror for several seconds. Where was he?

The wall of the room were painted white, and a clothes drying rack and ironing board were propped against the far wall.
The Doctor walked over to the window and peered outside. Cardiff. Of course Cardiff. Had something gone awry with the rift in space and time?

There were several objects on the small table beside the bed.

A novel, tentatively dog-eared about a quarter of the way through, a handheld video camera, some kind of schedule with pen scribblings on it and a thick packet of paper with a watermark.

The front page was printed with the cryptic Roman numerals of a television production code.
He turned to the next page.

INT. TARDIS

Enter ROSE. Drowsy.

ROSE

Where are we going today?

DOCTOR

Oh good, you’re up!

ROSE

You’ve parted your hair.

The Doctor dropped the script, letting it fall to the floor, a shiver running down his spine. This wasn’t possible. He suddenly felt dizzy and wondered if he hadn’t hit his head harder than he’d thought.

He picked up the script again and stared at the words on the page.

He definitely knew that conversation. He had been with Rose just moments before. Where was Rose? And how had their morning ended up in a television script?

The Doctor’s lines in the script were underlined. In the same pen that had scribbled on the production schedule.

The Doctor somehow found his way to the bathroom and splashed water onto his face, hoping to dispel his growing sense of dissociation. He was a Time Lord from Gallifrey. He had two hearts. And he wanted to brush his teeth.

Chapter Text

She was in the TARDIS. The real TARDIS, or at the very least a TARDIS that went all the way around. And there was the Doctor, looking around in confusion.

There was a sound like a fishing line being drawn in and snapping and something dislodged from wall of the TARDIS. Billie heard the whirring of a small engine and saw the wall of the TARDIS fold in on itself and seal off the hole.

Definitely the real TARDIS.

She turned around to look at the Doctor. He was pale and there were marks on the sides of his nose like he had been wearing glasses for several hours, and his hair wasn’t quite as impressive, but she supposed allowances had to be made for reality.

She wasn’t sure why she was being so calm or whether this was even actually happening, but she thought she knew what she had to do.

‘Virus out there that’s fatal to Time Lords, yeah?’

He nodded.

‘Then you have to stay here.’

'There’s people out there that-’

'It’s an airborne virus, isn’t it?

'Yes but-’

'That’s what humans are good for, no?’

'But they need to have…’

'I can help them Doctor, you can’t. You have to stay safe.’

'But I’m not-’ the Doctor, squinting peculiarly, like he was trying to focus his vision got between her and the door, 'At least let us come up with a plan first.’

'Alright. But you’re not going outside.’

'You’re not going outside either.’

He was following the script. That was helpful, but at the same time extremely disconcerting. It was uncanny and she did her best to ward off the rising feeling of panic. What if she was trapped here? Pretending to be Rose Tyler. What would happen when they ran out of lines? When the Doctor realized she wasn’t who he thought she was. Could he get her home? Would he even care, or just leave her somewhere random in this universe’s version of Britain? The Doctor wasn’t supposed to be like that, but he might be.
Or maybe this was just a dream. She almost hoped it was a dream.

Chapter Text

The Doctor considered there was no harm in trying to find out what was going on. The filming schedule, judging from where the scribbling out and re-writing stopped, said they were supposed to be filming today in a studio called Roath Lock.

He pulled on a pair of jeans and a coat and was out the door.

A cinnamon-chamomile smell clung to the coat. Human pheromones. Disgusting.

The man who greeted him at the studio was someone important. Telling-people-to-do-things important. The director.

‘What time do you call this, Doctor?’

The Doctor looked at the sky and hazarded a guess, ‘9:37?’

'9:27, actually. But you’re still an hour and a half late.’

'You started at 7:53?’

'If you’re going to be a smart-arse about time, can you at least do us the favor of being on time?’

The Doctor raised both eyebrows at this.

The director continued in a softer voice, 'I called you but you didn’t answer the phone.’

'I was sleeping.’

'You feeling alright, David?’

'Yeah. I’m fine.’

'Well, you’re lucky it’s a Doctor-lite episode. We’ve had to rearrange the filming order of a few scenes, but no harm done, really.’

'Doctor-lite?’

'That’s the technical term Russell and Ben cane up with. Anyhow. Makeup and costume. Now. Go, go, go.’

The Doctor was handed his suit, nearly identical down to the tiniest mud stain, and was ushered into a dressing room, and subsequently a mirrored makeup trailer.

'Been out in the sun a bit, have ya?’ asked the girl armed with a brush and powder.

'What?’

'Just don’t have to do as much as I usually do, Paisley boy.’

Next he was handed off to a man that ran his fingers through his hair. He tried not flinch, but saw quickly that he knew what he was doing.

'You’ve already got product in.’

'Is that okay?’

'Have to check with continuity.’

'Continuity?

'Only got a couple scenes this episode, so it should be fine. Probably for the best, as we don’t really-’

They were interrupted by someone tall and Welsh.

'So David has finally decided to make an appearance? I was thinking of writing you out.’ He was smiling. A joke. 'I suppose it is Doctor Who, not Companion Who, although Billie can really carry an episode. Which is why I wrote it like that, of course.’

'Billie?’ the Doctor wondered.

Chapter Text

The Doctor leaned against the side of the doorframe, not really blocking the exit. ‘Not until we come up with a plan,’ he repeated. He closed his eyes, an expression of anguish taking over his features.

‘Doctor?’ Billie whispered. They were off script now.

The man standing beside the door shook his head. 'Can’t remember the next bit.’

'In Apalapucian history?’

'That wasn’t it. Russell changed it last night and I can’t remember-’

'Russell?’

'Yeah, you know. Thinks of stuff and adds it in last minute.’

Billie realized then what must have happened, although she couldn’t think why or how. Knowing someone else was lost and stuck here as well, and not having to pretend anymore was a relief. But at the same time it seemed increasingly unlikely that they would be able to make it home.

'Oh David!’ she sighed.

'Hi, Billie. Er… Why are you hugging me?’

She frowned. 'Have you got contacts in?’

'No.’

'Can you see anything?’

'Not really.’

'Turn around.’

David spun around several times, trying to process what his eyes were telling him in the form of blurred shapes and different shades of brown. There was no open space at the far side of the TARDIS cluttered with wires and lights and boom mikes.

'It goes all the- It’s not- This isn’t our set.’

'It REALLY isn’t. Please stop spinning.’

'Sorry.’

'How did you not notice that?’

'Because I’m an idiot.’ He took hold of the interior door handle in an attempt to steady himself and shouted in surprise as it gave under his hand, opening the door onto a landscape with strange blurry mountains on the horizon. He pulled the door shut quickly.

'Billie.’

'Yes?’

'We’re on another planet.’

'I know.’

'And I can’t even see properly. Like, there’s not a space program on Earth that would ever even allow me to-’

'Is that something you actually considered?’

David looked at the floor. 'Maybe.’

'The Doctor has glasses, doesn’t he?’

'Reading glasses, that’s not going to help.’

'But you’ve got the sonic thingy, you can use that to-’

'To change the concavity of the lenses! Brilliant! You are a genius-’ in a habitual motion, he reached into the interior pocket of the jacket where the Doctor typically kept his sonic and his glasses, 'Oh, that is so weird.’

'What?’

'Pockets bigger on the inside. It feels so strange… What setting do you suppose works on polycarbonate?’

There must have been some strangeness in the way their universe had bled into that of the Doctor and Rose, because for some reason the number '405’ came into Billie’s head.

'How do you change the settings?’

'The prop one doesn’t do anything, it’s just a light, but this one…’ David held the screwdriver up to his ear, manipulating the small sliding switch on the side. 'It’s like there’s a dial… I think it’s slightly psychic- Speaking of slightly psychic-’ He dug into another pocket and withdrew a small black wallet, 'What does it say?’

'David John McDonald, Actor’s Equity Union.’

'Oh gosh. Probably has my wobbly old signature on it too.’

'It just looks like your normal handwriting.’

'Hey… Here, you try it.’ He handed her the psychic paper.

'What’s it doing?’

'It’s your driver’s license, I think. But it lists your address as 10 Downing Street, and there’s a really great photo.’

'You’re being ironic.’

'Am not.’

David perched the Doctor’s no-longer-reading glasses on the bridge of his nose, the world snapping into sharp relief. He looked around the TARDIS. 'Blimey. This is the real deal, isn’t it?’

Chapter Text

‘You okay over there, Dave?’

The Doctor peered into the bright film lighting, sure that he had sweated off all the makeup by now. Time Lords sweat slightly more than humans, a necessity for maintaining a cooler internal temperature. They had different bacteria on the surface of their skin so it didn’t smell and it evaporated faster, but it was still slightly embarrassing.

‘It’s fine. Just the lights are really hot.’

'No they’re not, we switched them out for 650s.’

'Oh. Uh… That’s nice.’

'They are really hot,’ the woman beside him whispered in agreement.

'Thanks.’

She was wearing the same jacket and jeans Rose had been wearing earlier and she looked exactly the same right down to the slightly smudged eyeliner above her left eye. How was that possible?

'I think I’m getting some of the words wrong,’ she admitted.

'Well, there was… Uh, there was a rewrite wasn’t there?’

'They rewrote your lines, not mine.’

The Doctor frowned. The notes that this 'David’ individual he was evidently impersonating had left in the margins of the script hadn’t made it terribly clear who was speaking.

'You’re doing fine! You’ve got the feeling of it. Doesn’t have to be word-perfect,’ the director called from somewhere beyond the jungle of wires and blinding lights.

The cameraman snorted, 'Don’t let Russell catch you saying that.’

'Deadlines, Richard, we’ve got deadlines…’

'Rolling,’ the cameraman replied.

'Speeding,’ pronounced the boom operator, casting a looming shadow on the perpendicular wall of the studio.

'Wait. Do we need to move the light?’

'Not again!’ the Doctor moaned.

'English accent really isn’t helping, you know.’

'Isn’t helping what?’

'Well, it’s one thing having David complain, coz it’s a bit commiseratory, you know? But the Doctor complaining is just kind of annoying.’

He’s supposed to be Scottish, the Doctor remembered. He felt vaguely offended at being deemed 'annoying’ but rather suspected it was a sidelong way of telling him not to complain at all.

Billie, or whatever her name was (by Rassilon she looked exactly like Rose) looked back and forth between him and the gaffer.

He pouted and said, in a flawless approximation of a Renfrewshire accent 'I don’t complain. Ask anyone. Do I complain?’

'Yes!’ Rose- he couldn’t process her as anyone but Rose- insisted.

'Ask someone else.’

'We really need to get going, you two. Behind schedule.’

'Speeding.’

'Rolling.’

'Shot fifteen, take five.’

Chapter Text

‘Do you think-’ David muttered, looking at the incomprehensible writing on the screen of the TARDIS console interface that was still flashing red. He was nervously running his teeth across the skin between his knuckles.

Billie slapped at his wrist.

'Ow.’

'Don’t put your fingers in your mouth.’

'Sorry… There’s got to be a way to switch this over to English.’

'You sure about that?’

'No.’

'Did you- Ah, did you read the whole script?’

'I was meaning to, but-’

'You had a system.’

'I did have a system.’

'Should have followed the system.’

'Yeah. I mean, I learned my bit and everything-’

'By “and everything” you mean “and nothing.”’

'What- what’s happening.’

'A plague. Or a virus. Something. People are dying out there.’

'So it wasn’t- Well…’ the curved plastic of his glasses lenses made his eyes look smaller, but Billie could see they were wide with panic.

'It’s okay. We’re safe.’

'It’s not okay.’ He took a deep breath and combed his fingers through his hair. 'We literally did not sign up for this.’

'The Doctor would want us to-’ Billie began, but she was interrupted by high, slightly hysterical laughter.

'The Doctor? The TARDIS? Saving the world?’

'We can. Here. Now. I know what to do.’

'But what about- What about… After?’ the word hung in the air. The unspoken apprehension of being trapped, millions of light years from earth, quite possibly in a parallel universe.

'We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Actual people’s lives are in danger and the universe is counting on Rose Tyler being there to save them.’

'Assuming-’

'Assuming quite a lot, I know.’

David stared at her in awe. She was really going to do this. Save an alien planet. For real. 'I’m coming with.’

'Want your share of the glory, eh?’

He shook his head. 'Truth is, I’m bloody terrified.’

'Me too,’ she whispered, 'me too.’

Together they stepped through the TARDIS doors. Onto an alien planet. And it was absolutely nothing like a quarry in Wales.

Chapter Text

‘It’s not something I ever wanted, you know?’ David said, surveying the landscape and the smoke rising from the village at the edge of the nearest foothills.

'What?’

'Being a Time Lord. I never wanted it. I wanted to act, ’s all. It wasn’t me trying to be realistic because- because- it’s really not…’

'You’re not a Time Lord. And if you were, I’d have you locked up in the Zero Room by now.’

'The Zero Room! Was that in the script?’

'It is now.’

'It is now? What do you mean “it is now”?’

'Well it goes both ways, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it have to?’

'Noooooo. We have to do what Russell wrote. Otherwise- otherwise-’

'Breathe.’

'I am breathing! What- Start from the beginning- what do we need to do?’

'The end goal-’

'The end goal is no’ the beginning.’

'Do you want me to tell you or not?’

It was so much easier to settle into a pattern of banter than to face what was before them, what they had evidently been called upon to do. Just beneath the surface it was clear they had none of the assurance that would be expected of space-faring heroes. As actors they might thrive on fear and accept danger, but it was not the fear and danger of being billions of light years from any version of home with the fate of a world in their hands.

'A quarantine in a dilated timestream.’

'What?’

'That’s the solution.’

'There’s not a cure?’

'No cure.’

'But I thought they’d cured everything- I thought-’

'Not yet. Few billion years to go. Viruses have a long road ahead of them.’

'This is ridiculous.’

'We’re lucky it only affects people with two hearts,’ she said evenly.

'So you’re saying- The only reason we’re alive right now is a plot device?’ his voice rose in pitch towards the end of the question.

'It’s a good thing you didn’t read the script earlier on, make it hard for everyone with your “suggestions,” eh?’

'I don’t- they’re not- I’m just concerned with preserving narrative integrity!’

'Narrative integrity is just about the last thing we need right now.’

'Well.’ He had to admit that Billie had a point, and hoped Russell had cooked up some particularly ludicrous deus ex machina to get them out of this mess. 'Let’s get to the village, shall we?’

'We don’t have to run-’

But he had already broken into a sprint, somehow avoiding tripping over tails of the coat that was slightly longer then the one he typically wore during running scenes.

Chapter Text

‘Rooooose!’ the Doctor crowed, looking down the table gleefully.

She elbowed him in the ribs. 'Billie.’

'Yes. Billie. Sorry. Look at this! Is this for us?’

'Craft services. Yeah.’

'And it’s not- It’s like-’ he was really settling into the Scottish accent now, playing with the vowel lengths.

'Is he always like this?’ Someone asked. It was the makeup girl from earlier.
The tall Welshman nodded. 'Pretty much.’

As Rose followed him along the table, filling a plate with food she reflected that perhaps there wasn’t that much of a difference between a Time Lord living off the scraps of the universe’s feasts and an actor at craft services.

'What’s the plan?’ she whispered, once he was close enough that they could speak without being commented on by various production staff and guest cast members.

'Wazzat?’ he pronounced through a mouthful of cake.

'The plan. How we get out of here.’

'We- Uh…’ the Doctor closed his eyes in enjoyment, too wrapped up in the present to consider their next move.

'Helpful as ever. There’s still a rift here, right?’

'Should be, yeah.’

'And we haven’t got the TARDIS.’

'Seems like it.’

'I do want to go home at some point, you know?’

'Oh!’

'What is it?’

'They have watermelon.’

Rose sighed. At least they were together and somehow not in any immediate danger.

Chapter Text

‘Oh God, they’re really dying aren’t they?’

‘We have to do what we have to do,’ Billie said evenly, fighting her own rising sense of dread.

David’s eyes were open alarmingly wide in a familiar panicked daze. Billie wished that expression wasn’t so familiar to her. You rarely saw it in his acting and never its most extreme form. It was the look of a deer caught in the headlights.

‘Hey,’ she said quietly, ‘you can go back to the TARDIS if you want.’

She knew better than to touch him when he got like this.

‘And there’s nothing that can be done?’

‘They’ll get to live out their whole lives in a time dilation.’

He nodded finally, steeling himself. There were worse things on this or any other world than spending the rest of your life apart from your friends and family. Weren’t there? At least they’d know you’d lived a full life?

‘I’ve got the program. It just needs to be implemented because the construction and administration itself takes place in altered spacetime.’

‘Bless our writers lunacy, honestly.’

‘I just hope it’s mad enough to get us home.’

‘If this program manipulates spacetime-‘

‘Yes?’ Billie could see he was coming up with something that wouldn’t be any less mad anything the writers had invented.

‘Into higher dimensional space-‘

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you suppose it’s possible to punch a hole through to our dimension?’

‘Universe.’

‘What?’

‘It’s a universe and not a dimension.’

‘It’s a colloquialism.’

‘I know. You explained it last week, I’m just giving you a hard time.’

‘Thanks.’

Chapter Text

Something had shifted. A seismic wave ran through a corner of the multiverse in a dimension few could imagine. Molecules spun backward, realigning.

Something huge and almost imperceptible had changed.

The Doctor and Rose were back in the TARDIS.

The Doctor whipped off his glasses and stared at them in fascination.

‘How does he see anything through these?’

‘He changed the prescription?’

‘They’re not-’

‘Yes they are. They may be a fashion statement, but I’ve seen you when you’re trying to read without them.’

The Doctor looked down at his clothes and wrinkled his nose. ‘I’ll have to have all of this decontaminated.’

‘Because of the virus?’ Rose asked, eyes wide and suddenly afraid.

‘No. It smells like chamomile. It’s disgusting.’

Rose surreptitiously sniffed at his jacket. ‘You smelled like that before.’

‘I did not. It’s human. It’s gross.’

‘Hey.’

‘You know what I mean.’

Chapter Text

‘What was up with you two yesterday?’

Billie and David looked at each other. What had happened while they were gone?

‘We had an off day-’

‘There was-’

‘A virus,’ they replied, not untruthfully.

‘But you’re alright now?’

‘I think so. Are you-’

David nodded. Already the events of the previous day were slipping into the space between dreams and memory.

‘Because we were thinking about scrapping the episode entirely, if that’s alright with you.’

‘If you-’

‘We’d be using the same guests and day players, so no one would be out of a job.’

‘This- I know it’s not my fault but I-’

‘If you can learn another script by tomorrow morning we won’t have a problem.’

The actors looked at each other again. What had the Doctor and Rose done?