Chapter Text
“You’re going to see Clara again, twice.”
The TARDIS phone rang, and Rose and the Doctor’s eyes met in confusion. He was under the console doing a quick bit of maintenance, and she was in one of the chairs by the bookshelves on the Mezzanine.
“The first, it’ll be innocent.”
There was always worry when someone rang the TARDIS and not Rose. Most of their friends knew better than to call the former, and so it usually meant a crisis. UNIT ringing, or Torchwood.
The Doctor got to his feet, and upon meeting Rose’s eye again, picked up the receiver and put it to his ear. “Clara!” He said with much put on enthusiasm, as often time streams didn’t always match up. He frowned. “Clara?” He repeated.
“The second… she’s going to cross a line. She will lose someone she loves, and she’ll go too far.”
Rose closed the book she had in her lap, shelving it without looking as she got up and went down the stairs to stand beside her husband.
“We’ve been busy, you?” A pause. “Well, you’re only human.” He said meeting Rose’s eye wearily.
She’d told him what his future self said. And while she couldn’t remember the particulars of the Doctor, Rose did remember the words they spoke, the warning given about Clara.
They just hadn’t expected it so soon. It seemed they barely got back from their travels with her. Something simple, as was told. They went for dinner on a distant planet, took her shopping, even brought her to see Jenny, Tim, and Olivia now that the newest member of the family had arrived. That had been no more than a week ago for them.
“So,” The Doctor continued his conversation. “What can we do for you, Clara? Of course, we’ll come get you. When are you?” He asked, putting the coordinates into the TARDIS controls as he was given them. “Right. Be there in a jiff.” He said as he put the receiver down.
He looked up at Rose again. “You don’t remember anything else?”
Rose shook her head. “Only that it’s an attempted betrayal. Not a successful one.”
“What do you think she wants?” He asked.
“I dunno,” Rose replied as he flipped the switch and sent them off. “I really don’t.”
They landed, though Rose wasn’t sure where, and since the Doctor didn’t make to exit neither did she. He reached down, grabbing a part he’d been working on, presumably one that wasn’t essential, and began tweaking it.
Rose pursed her lips, then turned back to the stairs to get her book.
She only made it with her foot on the bottom step before the doors were open.
“Start her up!” Clara said with a smile as she entered, practically floating past the Doctor before she headed down to the lower deck.
“Where are we going?” He asked her, eyes toward the stairs where she disappeared.
“Away,” Clara replied far too casually.
“From?” He questioned.
“Just away.”Her voice carried, and the Doctor met Rose’s eyes.
“She’s hiding something,” He said in her mind.
“Forward or backward?” Rose called.
“Doesn’t matter,” Clara replied, her voice coming closer.
“Location helps.” The Doctor supplied.
“A volcano.” She said with a shrug before resuming her strange sort of dance about the levels of the console room.
“I’m sorry,” The Doctor frowned, turning to watch her. “I’ve never seen an active volcano. Do you know one?”
Rose snickered.
“Is this some sort of joke?” He asked.
“She doesn’t know I sent you to Pompeii for your time out, love,” Rose replied, stiffening as the TARDIS showed her images of Clara collecting TARDIS keys. Presumably by the way the Doctor stiffened, the information was shared with him as well.
“I’ve never seen lava,” Clara called.
“It’s rubbish.” The Doctor said, subtly flicking a switch and shutting down the power to the controls.
“Shush,” Rose said as she pretended to set coordinates but turning inactive knobs and dials, the TARDIS obliging their little charade by making noises.
“Do you still have those sleep patch things?” Clara called.
“You can’t have one.” The Doctor immediately replied.
“In the really old medicine chest on his desk,” Rose added.
“She’s going to use it on us.” He said through their bond.
“Not like they work,” Rose replied.
They could hear the drawers move as she searched, and then stop, Clara likely having found what she was looking for.
“No, we’re a bit more immune to them now.”
Rose moved around the console, going to stand beside her husband, meeting his eye and knowing that this was likely it, what the warned attempted betrayal would be.
“So,” The Doctor said as they heard Clara’s footsteps behind them. “What’s so good about lav-”
He was cut off as Rose screamed at the unexpected, sharp pain piercing her side.
In her thousands of years of life, Rose had lost count of the times she’d been stabbed. The worst, she came to realize, was when she wasn’t going to die from it. Fast healing was great and all, but she was still sore and tender for days instead of the minutes to an hour after a death.
As she wrapped her hand around the handle of whatever was sticking out of her, which turned out to be a rather large pair of scissors, she looked up through narrowed, rage and pain-filled eyes to see the Doctor maneuver Clara’s hand up and off his neck, a sleep patch adhered to her hand as her eyes lost focus.
She stood still, the patch’s effects slowly taking over.
“Did she just try to kill me?” Rose grit out, yanking the scissors out and tossing the bloodied things aside.
“She did.” The Doctor said coldly, moving around to the other side of Rose and looking at the wound. “It’s already closing up.” He said.
“What the hell is going on?” She asked. “Why would she do this? What is her-”
“We won’t know until her dream state is formed enough that she thinks it's real.” He replied, taking out his sonic and flicking to the setting to help speed along the stab wound’s healing. The wound now close but still tender and raw, the Doctor looked at her with a grin. “Play dead.”
“Excuse me?” Rose demanded, eyebrows shooting upward.
“She’s going to believe she killed you, play dead.”
Rose grumbled as she laid down on the TARDIS floor, at least making herself comfortable and watching as the Doctor did the same, closing his eyes.
After almost a minute, Clara blinked, reached in her pocket, and took out the TARDIS keys, turning to face the Doctor as she held them in palm out to be seen. A few beats after that, the Doctor slowly got up as if just waking.
“Clara?” He asked, sounding confused.
“It’s on your neck,” She said simply, and he felt about his neck while looking over at Rose.
“What did you-”
“She’ll come back. She always does.” Clara said without feeling. “You asked me ‘what’s so good about lava.”
“You stabbed my wife!” He said heatedly.
“And she will survive,” Clara replied, her voice staying level. “But a TARDIS key? You said lava was the only thing that would destroy it, that’s what is so good about it. And I have all seven, from all your hiding places and from around Rose’s neck.”
Rose could feel the weight of her TARDIS key still there, so assumed that must have been one of the bits Clara believed happened.
“Clara,” The Doctor said as she lifted an invisible key from her hand, showing it to him. “Don’t. Those are very, very-”
She tossed the invisible key off to the side, and Rose’s eyes grew wider in time with the Doctor’s.
“Do I have your attention?” Clara asked.
“Yes,” The Doctor said simply.
“Good.”
“No, not good Clara.”
“Danny Pink.”
The Doctor blinked. “Yeah?”
“Is dead.”
“Oh,” Rose said to him, groaning and slowly getting up. The Doctor glanced at her, then turned to Clara.
“And?” He asked.
“Seriously?” Clara scoffed, the first sign of emotion in her voice since she began her imaginary quest to destroy TARDIS keys, a bit of anger seeping out.
“And?” He asked again, a bit more angrily.
“And fix it,” Clara said.
“He can’t.” Rose groaned.
“He can,” Clara said firmly. “I’ve seen him change things, he can change what happens.”
“He can’t,” Rose replied.
“He can!” Clara screamed.
“No.” The Doctor said in a way that should have been the end of it.
But Clara picked up a key, a real one this time, and tossed it over her shoulder on the console room floor.
They both stared at her in shock.
“ All this over PE? ”
“ She’s lost someone, someone she loves.” Rose reminded him as Clara spoke.
“Five left,” Clara said as she picked one up and held it out. “Every time you say no to me, I will throw another key down there, do we understand each other?”
“I understand you, let’s not get carried away.” The Doctor said calmly.
“Time can be rewritten,” Clara stated.
“Minor things,” Rose said as she moved to stand with her husband, clutching her side and playing up the agony a bit.
“Not minor things. Big things.” Clara said with certainty.
“Big things that don’t change the events that brought you here.” The Doctor growled back. “It’s a paradox loop. If I bring back Danny, you’ll have never come here, stabbing Rose, threatening us, the timeline disintegrates. Your timeline disintegrates.”
“Did you just say no?” Clara questioned with an edge of disbelief.
“Yes I did, throw away the key,” the Doctor said in a far calmer voice as he gestured for her to give the key a toss. He inched toward Rose, grabbing her waist and pressing her gently to his side as if he needed to help keep her steady.
Rose played up the wince of pain that shot through her as her still healing wound brushed against the Doctor, and he sent through a quick apology through the bond as Clara spoke.
“I have seen you change time, I have seen you break any rule you want.” She protested.
“Right, yeah, he just goes around and changes things willy-nilly,” Rose said as she straightened up a bit. “Might as well toss it, you’ll never get the answer you want.”
Clara’s nose wrinkle in fury. “He made you.” She said bitterly.
“No,” Rose grit her teeth, moving closer to Clara, barely restraining herself from snarling. “ I made me. I did this. I am the one who broke more laws of time than he has since I’ve been on board. I have created an immortal out of one of my best mates, I tied myself to the Doctor, and yeah, even brought back the dead once because I could. You come into my home, you stab me almost literally in the back when I have been a friend to you when we both have, and you start making demands. You threaten us.” She scoffed. “Probably won’t even follow through, will you?”
Clara stared her down. “I know what you’re doing.” She said. “You’re trying to take control, both of you.”
“We are in control, the Doctor said as he came beside Rose again. “Throw away the key.”
Clara smiled. “You know, for all your long lives, when it comes to taking control, you two really are out of your depth.” She threw the handful of keys off to the side, the metal making a racket that should have snapped her out of it, but didn’t. Clara remained still, holding that one key up.
“One last chance,” Clara said. “And I don’t care about the rules, I don’t give a damn about paradoxes. Save Danny. Bring him back or I swear you will never step inside your TARDIS again.”
“She does realize that we have 2 daughters with keys, and a good number of friends who used to travel with us we could get one from, yeah?”
“She thinks we’re inside a volcano, ” The Doctor reminded her.
“We have a daughter with a TARDIS. And another with a vortex manipulator. Hell, we’re on Earth in her mind, we could have bloody UNIT airdrop us a spare from Mickey or Martha or someone .”
The Doctor might have smirked on that one, causing Clara’s gaze to narrow on them.
“I’m serious.” She said.
“I know.” The Doctor said calmly. “And it’s still a no.”
“Do it.”
“No.” He repeated.
“Say it again, so I know you mean it.”
“No,” He said sharply.
“I’m not kidding!”
“Neither am I.”
“I will do it!”
“So do it,” Rose said simply.
Clara looked ready to scream, instead, she threw the key.
She watched in horror at whatever scene played out in her mind, her hand coming shakily to her mouth as she collapsed on her knees. “Oh,” She gasped out, her voice breaking. “I’d say I’m sorry but I’d do it again.” She sobbed.
“She was willing to kill me, betray us, for him,” Rose said through the bond, looking at her husband.
“Love makes everyone crazy,” He replied. “ We can’t bring him back. ”
“No, we can’t.” Rose agreed. “ And while I want to say, maybe let her say goodbye- ”
“You think she’ll do what you did with your dad in your youth.” He understood even before Rose nodded.
“What are you doing?” Clara gasped out. “Why are you standing there? Do you not understand what I’ve just done?” She asked, gesturing to who knew what, because Rose couldn’t see what Clara did, and she doubted the Doctor did, either.
The Doctor turned to Clara. “Look in your hand.”
“There’s nothing in my hand,” Clara said as she got to her feet, her bravado leaving her, all the exhaustion grief seemed to crash down on her at once. “The keys, they’re gone, they’re down there, they’ve gone.”
“Clara, ‘s not real,” Rose said with a sigh. “Look at your hand.”
As Clara looked at her hand, the Doctor sighed. “We had a forewarning. Our own sort of paradox loop.” He explained as Clara peeled off the patch. Rose went about, picking up the keys Clara had tossed about. “We allowed the scenario to play out.”
“I stabbed Rose, I stabbed her for real.”
“Yeah,” He said as Rose finished collecting the keys, the TARDIS opening a little compartment on the console that was never there before for her to drop them in. She turned to look at Clara as the Doctor took out his screwdriver, thumbing through the settings.
“She’d have stopped me.”
“Probably,” he said as he started to scan Clara.
“I love him.” She said, utterly rung out, practically unaware that the Doctor was circling her.
“Yes,” He said as he finished the scan and looked at the results. “You’re quite the mess of chemicals, aren’t you. Your hCG hormones are quite high.” He said, meeting Rose’s eye from the other side of Clara.
Rose’s heart fell.
“I was tellin’ ‘im,” Clara said. “He doesn’t even know, I didn’t… I didn’t even get to it.”
“We can’t risk it. ” Rose said, sensing what the Doctor was feeling, how much he wanted to help. “ She’ll do worse than me.”
“Maybe we can find a way to let her say goodbye .”
“Not possible.” Rose frowned.
“We could try. ” He said, and Rose caught a glimpse of his mind through their bond. The image of Jenny cradling newborn Olivia, of Tim looking so damn happy and in love with his little girl.
And that Clara had witnessed that exact scene. Maybe she had already known she was pregnant. Maybe she didn’t, but Rose could imagine their companion had probably remembered that moment when she’d discovered that she was going to be a mum herself.
“So what happens now?” Clara asked. “Us… what happens?”
“You betrayed us.” He said. “You stabbed Rose, tried to kill her so you could subdue me, and then tried to take away our home. I should tell you to go to hell, but I think a large part of you is already there.” He moved to the console, turning the power to the controls back on, but leaving off the nav-com. He then moved to the telepathic interface. “You remember this?” He asked Clara.
She nodded numbly. “We umm… we ended up all over Danny’s time stream.”
“Because you and he are linked. Your timestreams are intertwined,” He said, a pointed glance at her abdomen. “We can’t bring him back, but this might let you call him before he dies. Call him before it's too late and tell him all about the little one you’re growing.”
“It’s your chance to say goodbye.” Rose offered Clara, looking over at her as Clara's hands hovered over the strange-looking gel matrix. “Suppose we owe you that much, given some of the misadventures you’ve been on.”
Clara smiled weakly. “I’m sorry.” She said as the Doctor took her wrists and guided her hands toward the gel. “Truly sorry for what I did to you.”
Rose wasn’t sure she completely believed it, but she let it go, nodding once as the Doctor sunk Clara’s hands into the interface.
“Think about Danny.” He instructed. “Think about the man you lost. Let it hurt, let it burn. But don’t bleat. Don’t ask why, ask where. Where is there a chance for you to speak to him again? Where, and when.”
Rose felt the TARDIS startle before the engines started to go, followed by the sheer panic of both the time ship and her spouse as they were suddenly sent traveling to parts unknown.
“Thought this was supposed to be a call.” She asked as she grabbed onto the edge of the console.
“It was.” The Doctor replied. “But apparently Danny Pink is somewhere the TARDIS can go.”
When the TARDIS landed, there was a feeling of trepidation, like the Old Girl was very wary about being where they were.
The Doctor frowned.
“Do you hear a buzzing?” He asked through the bond.
Rose strained, then shook her head.
“Where are we?” Clara asked nervously.
“We’re somewhere where we can reach Danny.” The Doctor said.
“Do you think he’s here?” Clara asked, eyes wide and hopeful as she looked between Rose and the Doctor.
Rose shook her head. “He’s gone.” She said, gentle but firm. “He’s not gonna be on the other side of those doors, we weren’t even supposed to move.’
“So why are we here?” Clara asked.
“Because this is where your timelines intersect.” The Doctor said as he moved to the stairs, his footsteps echoing as he headed below. “You need to be skeptical, clever, critical.” He called from below, his voice moving around. “Whatever is out there, you must be weary.” He came up the other stairs, a torch in his hand, which he gave to Clara, holding her gaze. “And understand this: if we walk out those doors, and it’s the day Danny dies, you will be watched. You will be monitored. And if it looks for a moment like you’re going to do something that will stop him dying, Rose or I will stop you. Do you understand?”
Clara bit her lip but nodded.
“Good.” He said as he tightened his grip on his sonic. “Let’s go.” He said as he ventured to the doors, opening them slowly to a room in pitch black.
Rose got her own sonic out, going to the torch setting and shining it about the room along with the Doctor and Clara. Her light caught on a stone that had a strange circle with a smaller circle next to it that looked familiar in a way that made her stomach churn, but the reason why was just out of her mind’s reach. Trying to think on it too long gave her a headache, so she looked up, frowning at the various tanks around the room, going as high as the ceiling.
“Bloody bizarre, that.” She said.
“Are they fish tanks?” Clara asked.
The Doctor looked at her, face revealing none of the confusion inside his mind that Rose could sense as plainly as her own.
“In a mausoleum?” He countered, turning toward the stairs and heading up them, Clara following. Rose lingered, her protective instincts beginning the chafe, not quite fully coming to the surface but buzzing under her skin.
“ Different sort of buzzing,” The Doctor said as he and Clara knelt at something that looked like a monument.
When they shone their light at it, the same pair of circles were etched in it. And just like the smaller stone, the words Rest in Peace were engraved in the circle, with the addition of We Promise beneath it.
“Same thing down there.” Rose gestured to the black marble that had been near the TARDIS as she slowly climbed the stairs.
“What does it mean?” Clara asked.
“It means those are definitely not fish tanks.” He said with a touch of worry, a hint of excitement.
He waited for Rose to be at his side again before taking her hand, guiding her toward the stairs on the right, and running up them. They could hear Clara following close behind, but he didn’t slow down in the slightest.
Once on that upper level, the light from the tanks made the torches almost pointless. Rose and the Doctor pocketed the screwdrivers, but Clara kept her torch handy.
Rounding the corner, getting a full view of the tank contents, made Rose grip her husband’s hand, squeezing it in shock.
“What the hell?” She asked, frowning at the skeleton sitting in a chair, posed as if it were simply relaxing, waiting for a cuppa to be brought over.
Clara stared. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” The Doctor said voice baffled and gruff. He turned, looking about, seeing the same thing Rose did: that those tanks from floor to ceiling all had one, singular person inside them.
“More money than brains when alive?” Rose wagered as they began to move down the hall. When Clara paused, looking at Rose over her shoulder, she shrugged. “My mum woulda thought that. Probably were told the water would… preserve them or somethin’ so they could be revived. Or, they just thought it was a bit nifty.”
“Pays to die rich,” The Doctor agreed, placing a hand on the glass of one tank and peering inside.
“Oh… god, am I going to find Danny now?” Clara asked, a slight panic creeping into her voice. “Is that why the TARDIS brought us here? I don’t want to see him like that.”
“You won’t,” Rose assured, even though it wasn’t exactly something she could. She reached out a hand to comfort Clara, then felt the pull in her side from her recently given stab wound. Lowering her arm, she licked her lips as the Doctor stopped in front of another tank, inspecting the name. “Danny… he was a soldier, yeah? Don’t think they’d put soldiers somewhere like this. Feels a bit disrespectful.”
“Good point.” The Doctor frowned. “Tombs with windows, who wants to watch their loved ones rot?”
“There are some fairly morbid people out there, Doctor.” Rose reminded him. “Can think of a collection of heads in jars, for a start.” She said as he looked around the room.
“But those heads are still living, love. This is different. Why would anyone go to so much trouble just to keep watch on the dead?” He looked around, then found a podium to the right, nestled in a corner across from a shadowed corridor. Rose approached much slower than Clara, who practically ran to the Doctor’s side as he opened a book on the podium.
Rose, however, stared at the shadow.
She could feel it. She could feel something there, something heightening her desire to take the Doctor and shove him behind her, to protect him and keep them alive. Something grated on her in a way she hadn’t felt in decades, possibly centuries.
She was distracted, though, by her husband making a tossing motion toward the dark, an image of a cube floating only an arm's length from him. He touched it as she got closer to him, and the cube changed to an outline of that same, odd circle symbol with 3W inside it.
“3W,” A soft, feminine, Scottish voice said, the symbol disappearing, and words taking its place, the voice moving along with it like the building had subtitles. “Death is not an end. But we can help with that”
The Doctor narrowed his eyes, glancing at Rose.
“Don’t think I’d have done this.” She murmured as the voice continued along with the scrolling words.
“Ever since 3W encountered the truth about the death experience, ‘we’ve been working hard to find a better life for the deceased. At 3W, afterlife means aftercare.”
“Bit strange,” Clara said as the words disappeared, changing back to the logo from the start.
“Very. Why have the scrolling and a voice?”He asked, eyes darting just past where the words were. “Is it difficult?”
“You sense it too?” Rose asked.
“I do, something’s there, reading the words back to front.” He said to her, then turned back to the shadows. Rose noted them just as she was sure the Doctor had: a pair of beautiful blue eyes that bore mischief and excitement looking back at them. “Come on, we’ve come a long way.”
A woman Rose could only describe as a wicked version of Mary Poppins came through the image, breaking the pixels apart as she got right into the Doctor’s space.
“Hello,” She said, “I hope you’re well. How may I assist you with your death?”
“Well, there is... Er,” The Doctor stuttered.
“We aren’t in the immediate market,” Rose said with a customer service grin. “Just sorta having a look around, yeah?”
The woman looked at her, and Rose noted those eyes held something else she didn’t notice before: ancientness.
“Please, take all the time you need.” The woman said, looking between her and the Doctor. “At 3W, you always have the rest of your life.”
“Oh, good.” The Doctor said nervously, grabbing Rose’s hand and holding tight. “That’s good to know.”
“What is 3W?” Rose asked with a frown, glancing around. “What’s it stand for exactly?”
“Apologies,” the woman said. “Clearly you have not received the official 3W greetings package.”
“Well, you know, it’s just-”
It took a lot to catch Rose off guard. She’d been around for over a thousand years and had been the Bad Wolf for most of her life. She’d blame age for the fact that the woman, who was clearly trying to act like some sort of bot but was far too lively to get it right, managed to catch her off guard. That the reason there were enough seconds that passed for the Doctor to be pushed against the nearest wall by this woman, and then snogged for a few seconds, was all down to the fact that it was not exactly a danger that came up on Rose’s radar.
She did act quickly, though, pulling the woman off her husband.
Before she had a chance to say anything, though, before she could protest, she was also pinned beside him and snogged as well.
The woman pulled off her with a smack, patting Rose’s cheek before grinning at the Doctor and backing up.
“What… was that?” Rose managed to ask after a second when her brain finally cataloged the events, finding no danger to what happened but finding it hard to settle the need to defend against this strangely strong woman. Perhaps she was part bot.
“Welcome to the 3W institute.” She said with a friendly smile and a tilt of her head. She then looked at Clara. “You have also not received the official welcome package.”
Clara raised her hands and backed up a step, “Oh, I’m good, thanks.” She said, but the woman’s heart didn’t seem to be as in the attempt as it had been with the Doctor and Rose.
“Who are you?” The Doctor asked, frowning from where he remained back against the wall, an odd lilt to his tone.
“I am Missy.” The woman said with a smile.
“Hello, Missy. ‘M Rose,” She introduced herself, deciding to take the lead while her husband remained pressed against the wall, his body seemingly no longer functioning. “That man’s my husband, the Doctor. And that’s Clara.” She indicated, and Missy nodded along. Rose narrowed her eyes, looking Missy over, noting the flicker of a smirk on those red painted lips as she did. “Tell me, does Missy… stand for something?”
“Mobile Intelligent Systems Interface,” She rattled off, her eyes growing wider, her posture and movements stiffer. “I am a multi-function, interactive welcome droid.” She moved her head from person to person in a way that simulated robotics. “Helping you to help me to help you.”
“You’re very… realistic.” The Doctor commented, and Rose snorted.
“Tongues?” Clara asked, amused.
“Near there.” Rose replied as the Doctor said, “Shut up.”
“I am fully programmed with social interaction norms appropriate to a range of visitors,” Missy said as if the conversation around her hadn’t happened, rolling her r in range. “Please indicate if you’d like me to adjust my intimacy settings.”
“ She’s having on with you, ” Rose said but realized a bit too late that the bond was very firmly sealed shut. She couldn’t even really feel the mental link with her husband, almost as if he were millennia and lightyears away from her all at once.
“Please do that,” The Doctor said to Missy, coming to Rose’s side. “Only just got back in my wife’s good graces.”
Missy moved her head, looked away as if she was adjusting a setting, but Rose also noted the way she barely repressed a smile.
“I need to speak to whoever’s in charge.” The Doctor said, and Missy looked up at him.
“I am in charge.” She said, hands in front of her, holding the umbrella that really made the Mary Poppins look she bore.
“Well, who’s in charge of you?” The Doctor asked.
“I’m in charge of me,” Missy replied.
“Well, who repairs you? Who, who maintains you?” He asked, clearly getting worked up. Rose watched him and sent out a mental knock, but he ignored her. She glanced back at Missy, then to the Doctor, then to Missy again.
“I am programmed for self-repair,” Missy said. “I am maintained by my heart.” She darted forward again, grabbing the Doctor’s hand and putting it in the middle of her chest. She gasped, eyes wide as if she hadn’t placed those hands there on purpose, and Rose watched something in her husband’s face shift.
Disbelief. Fear. Worry. Hope. He looked unmoved to anyone who hadn’t known him like she did, to anyone who hadn’t known multiple lifetimes of the man tucking away all those emotions so no one would see them but her.
“Is everything in order?” Missy asked coyly.
With only a slight tremor to his voice, the Doctor asked, “Who maintains your heart?”
“My heart is maintained by the Doctor,” Missy replied, an eye twitching like she wanted to wink.
“Doctor Who?” The Doctor asked.
After a beat, Missy craned her head back and shouted, “Doctor Chang!”
She let go of the Doctor’s arm, stepping off to the side while the Doctor’s hand remained hovering in the air.
“What’s wrong?” Rose asked him softly as a young man, about Clara’s age, and with a friendly smile came down the hall.
“I dunno.” The Doctor confessed, looking at Rose. “I don’t know.” He said more firmly, then seemed to realize that this Doctor Chang was present and talking to Clara.
“Is there a particular dead person you want to talk to?” Doctor Chang asked Clara, and she nodded.
“Yes, yes there is.”
“This way then.” He said, gesturing for the trio to follow him.
Rose took her husband's hand, and still, his walls were high and firm. She looked at him in confusion, and when he looked back he merely shook his head.
Whatever was happening, she knew instantly he wouldn’t tell her. Not out loud where Missy, just down the hall and watching, could hear. And, she was beginning to worry, not through the bond where Missy might hear.
~DW~
They were led into a room that was fairly nondescript. It was bland, white walls, a couple of desks, no wall hangings.
All in all, it could have been any office from almost any point in time, and yet there was something utterly sinister about the place. Maybe it was the tanks with the human skeletons about the room like they simply hadn’t been put in the mausoleum with the rest. Which, Rose figured, may just well be the case.
“Going to need to take a reading off you,” Doctor Chang said to Clara as she stood about in the room, dazed once more like the surrealness of what was happening was catching up to her.
“She’s pregnant,” Rose said. “Will the reading…?”
“No,” Doctor Chang assured as he crossed the room and flicked a switch with a smile.“It won’t affect the baby at all. It may even help if the person she wishes to contact is the baby’s father.”
“Yeah,” Clara said numbly. “It is.”
“How does the body keep its integrity?” The Doctor asked as he looked into one of the tanks, gesturing at the person inside it. “Why isn’t it just a bunch of bones floating about?”
Chang beamed. “Each body is encased in a support exoskeleton.”
“Sorry, a what?” Rose smirked, glancing at her husband who continued to look around the office, pacing about like a caged animal.
“A support exoskeleton,” Chang repeated, gesturing excitedly, regaining her attention. “We put the body inside after death, and then put them inside the tanks.”
“So, it’s invisible?” Clara asked.
“It’s only invisible in the water,” Chang explained. “There’s a specially engineered refraction index in the fluid so we can see the tank resident unimpeded by the support mechanisms.”
“So,” the Doctor said as he came up beside Rose. “Each skeleton is inside something?”
“Yes.” Chang nodded. “It’s quite amazing.”
“X-ray water, now that’s amazing,” Clara said, perking up a bit, a little life coming through.
“It’s so cool.” Chang agreed, then turned to one of the desks, gesturing at a cylinder of the same, blue-tinted fluid that appeared to be in the tanks sitting on a little cart beside it. “Look at this, we call it dark water.” He said, then raised his left hand, showing them his watch, then slowly stuck his arm into the cylinder. Not only did the watch seem to vanish, but so did the sleeves of his clothes, showing his arm as though it were bare. “Only organic matter can be seen through it.” He said before he withdrew his hand, grabbing a towel off the lower shelf off the cart. “I keep saying they should use this stuff in swimming pools.”
“Why?” The Doctor asked.
“Think about it,” Chang said as he dried off.
“I am thinking about it.” The Doctor replied. “Why?”
“I can think of enough reasons not to,” Rose said with a curl of her lip. “Specially where I grew up. Get enough dirty ol’ men leering at you when they can’t see through your clothes.”
“I didn’t realize you noticed.” The Doctor quipped, and Rose gaped at him over her shoulder.
He shrugged. “I’m old. May have leered a little.” He said unapologetically.
“Enough of that,” Clara waved them off, inching closer to the doctor. “3W, what kind of name is that? What does it mean?”
“Well, you know, don’t you?” He replied, finishing with the towel and chucking it back on the cart before leaning on the desk. “You’re here on business or they wouldn’t have let you in.” He slowly started to frown in worry. “Sorry, should have checked. W-who are you?”
“I thought that you would never ask.” The Doctor sprang into action, withdrawing his psychic paper from inside his jacket and moving around the desk to hand it over the Chang. “Sort out your security protocols, they’re a disgrace.”
Chang took the billfold and looked at it, his lip curling anxiously. “Another government inspection. So soon?”
“Got to keep you lot on your toes,” Rose said as she took the psychic paper out of the man’s hand and glanced at it.
Nothing. The paper showed her nothing because the Doctor wanted her to see absolutely nothing from his mind. She quickly closed it and handed it back to the Doctor without looking at him, giving Chang a gentle smile. “Walk us through it like we’re a bunch of pudding brains, yeah? We just wanna make sure you know what you’re supposed to. So, like our associate said, what’s 3W stand for?”
Chang swallowed. “Well, it stands for the three words.” He hesitated. “Are you… are you sure… cause, people who don’t know, when they hear about this, they can freak out.”
“We’re not going to freak out.” The Doctor assured, rolling his Rs instead of his eyes like Rose suspected he really wanted to.
Chang glanced at Clara. “If you’ve had a recent loss, this might be… disturbing.”
“Tougher than she looks,” Rose said, glancing at Clara to see her nod.
Chang sighed, resigned, clearly not certain he should continue but was going to anyway. “You know how people are scared of dying? Like, everybody?” He said as he went over to the wall, pushing a few buttons, causing a completely clear monitor to turn in such a way that they could all see it if they sat at the desk together. The 3W logo came up on the screen.
“Of course,” The Doctor said. “It’s the most fundamental fear in the universe.”
Chang nodded ever so slightly. “They’d be a lot more scared if they knew what it was really like.” He gestured for them to take a seat, and they did, Clara sitting closest to the monitor and Change while the Doctor sat in the middle, arms folded, looking far too bored and skeptical for his own good.
Rose sat in the last chair, leaning forward on the desk, hands folded, mirroring Chang’s posture but with a lot less nerves.
“White noise off the telly,” he began. “We’ve all heard it. A few years ago, Doctor Skarosa, our founder, did something unexpected. He played that noise through a translation matrix of his own devising. This is what he heard.” He leaned over and pushed some sort of button Rose couldn’t see on the base of the monitor.
There was a hum, quiet, like voices in a crowded room. People were talking, but it wasn’t really possible to hear what any of them were saying.
“Okay, people, voices,” Clara said as the Doctor leaned forward, putting his hands on the table by Rose’s.
“So what?” He asked Chang, utterly unimpressed.
“Over time, Doctor Skarosa became convinced these were the voices of the recently departed. He believed it was a telepathic communication from the dead.” Chang explained.
“Sorry, hold on.” Rose cut in, lifting her hand. “Been around a while, me. Even a bit familiar with telepathic things. ‘S not being heard with our mind, that has a different feel. This is with our ears. Best case scenario, it's voices heard on a different frequency. Like, voices a second out of time, or a dimension over.”
“Have I ever told you how sexy you are?” The Doctor asked with a smirk.
“Not the place for it, love,” Rose smirked back.
“Would you two shut up?” Clara said, her focus entirely on the man across the desk. “Why would he say that? Why would Skarosa think that white noise was communication from the dead?”
“He was able to isolate some of the voices,” Chang replied.
“Of course he would.” The Doctor said, tossing a hand about as if to brush off the reasoning. “It’s through his own translation matrix. It could say or be whoever he wanted.”
“I don’t think anyone would want to hear what comes through.” Chang defended.
“Yeah, why’s that?” The Doctor challenged.
“Because they change your life, and not for the better.” When the Doctor tilted his head, clearly waiting for more, Chang swallowed. His hand moved for the monitor again, then stopped. “These are the three words which caused Doctor Skarosa to set up institutes like this one, all over the world: to protect the dead. If you’d rather no hear these words, there’s still time-”
“Can you just hurry up, please, or I’ll hit you with my show?” The Doctor interrupted, rubbing at his brow with one finger, and Rose bit down a grin as she realized it was the middle one.
With great hesitation, Chang pushed the button on the monitor.
“Don’t cremate me.” A voice pleaded. “Don’t cremate me!”
As they listened to the voice repeat the words over and over, Chang began to talk.
“There is one, simple, horrible possibility that has never occurred to anyone throughout human history: the dead remain conscious. The dead are fully aware of everything that is happening to them.”
It was a long few seconds of heavy silence with the exception of the voice on repeat before Rose snickered. And when she started, she caught her husband’s amused glint, and positively lost it. She threw her head back and laughed, listening to her husband’s throaty chuckles along with her own. She laughed even as her barely healed stab wound hurt. After a moment, when she realized Clara and Chang were looking at them with horror, she managed to calm herself down.
“Sorry, sorry, just… that’s the biggest load of toss I have ever heard.”
“Rose!” Clara snapped.
Clara, I’ve died… hundred of times. I’ve died, blimey, I’ve lost count. I’ve been blown up, been mauled, had the life literally sucked out of me-”
“And you. Feel. Pain.” Clara pounded at the desktop.
“After I come back.” Rose reminded her. “When I’m gone, I’m… gone. I don’t know anything. I’m aware of nothing. The Doctor has literally moved me from one location to another and I never know. I don’t feel anything. I’m not aware.”
“Sorry,” Chang frowned. “You’ve… died?”
“Yeah,” Rose said flatly. “Over and over, got a lot of first-hand experience, me.”
Chang frowned deeper. “Then, how is it you’re not-”
“It’s all fake.” The Doctor said as he got to his feet. “Fakery fake, all of it. It’s a con, it’s a racket.”
Clara stood as well, looking ready to chase after the Doctor, probably believing in Chang’s protests, when the beeping stopped her and the Doctor both.
“What’s that beeping?”Clara asked Chang desperately.
“Never mind about beeping,” the Doctor said, stopping and turning on his heel. “Who cares about beeping? The dead are dead. They’re not talking to you out of your television sets-”
“Well,” Rose shrugged as Chang began to fiddle with something on the desk that looked like a webcam, the screen on the monitor changing to look like it was loading something.
“They weren’t dead.” He pointed at her firmly. “Just lost their faces. I fixed that, everything went back to normal. This, this can’t be fixed. Those poor souls down there in these tanks,” he said, moving to stand by the nearest one and rapping his knuckles gently on the glass before shrugging. “I’m sorry, but they’re just dead, and they’re not coming back.”
“Clara?” Danny’s voice came from the vicinity of the monitor, and everyone in the room immediately froze. “Clara? Clara, are you there?”
“Danny!” Clara gasped, shifting to be as close to the monitor as she could be. “I can hear you. Is that you? Oh please, say it’s you.”
“That’s-” Danny’s voice faded out, and Clara looked to Chang with wide, doe eyes.
“Just lost the signal,” Chang said calmly. “But I can track it back, I’m pretty sure.”
“I don’t understand, what’s happening?” Clara asked, hopeful, and panicky all once.
“We’ve been scanning you telepathically since you came in. You said you wanted to speak to someone who's passed, and we’ve found you a match in the Nethersphere.”
“This isn’t possible,” The Doctor said from directly behind Rose, his hands coming up and resting on her shoulders, kneading away as if she was the one wound tight and blocked off. “The dead don’t come back.”
“What about Jack?” Clara asked. “And Rose? What about you?”
“Jack is a fixed point. Rose will only die when I do, and in a way, I do die. When I change, I’m both the same man and an entirely new one. I can never go back to how I was before, otherwise, I’m sure I’d have made myself stay gobby in a tight suit.”
Rose rolled her eyes, refraining from pointing out that he hadn’t exactly lost any level of vanity since then, that was simply the one where the memory of it stuck.
“But it was him, that was his voice.” Clara protested.
“They’ve been scanning you, reading your brain.” Rose reminded her gently. “Could’ve picked up on the memory, yeah? Used that voice?
“Clara, can you hear me?” Danny’s voice came back.
“Yes!” She cried out. “Danny, I can hear you, can you hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah I can hear you.”
“Clara,” He half cried. “Oh god, Clara.”
“What do I do?” Clara asked them, eyes prickling with tears.
“Who are you talking to?” Danny asked as the Doctor patted Rose's shoulder and headed for the doors.
“Be skeptical,” He said to Clara as Rose got out of her chair. “Question him, ask him things only he’d know the answer to. Be sure.” He then looked at Chang. “You, with us.”
“Where are you going?” Clara asked.
“To check out those tanks. There’s something I’m missing.” The Doctor said as he headed for the doors.
“Clara?” Danny’s voice came through.
Rose met her husband’s eye, and waved him on, before turning to Clara.
“Just remember what the Doctor said, yeah?” She said, putting a reassuring hand on Clara’s shoulder. “And if this is all hogwash… least you get closure somehow.” She left Clara to talk to what might be Danny, going to her husband’s side as Chang spoke quickly to Clara.
“Who would harvest dead bodies?” The Doctor asked Rose before heading through the sliding doors. “I feel like I’m missing something.”
“The Gelth,” Rose suggested. “Speaking from the ‘other side’, wants dead bodies.”
“But they wanted those bodies because they released gases they could live in.” He pointed out as they moved into the hall, pausing for Chang to catch up. “These bodies are in tanks, rotted, contained in something.”
The three of them turned the corner and noticed something very different than before.
“They supposed to be bubbling?” Rose asked as Chang’s eyes widened.
“Never mind the bubbling, the dead are standing.” The Doctor pointed out as he moved down the hall, his voice deepening with anger and panic.
“The tanks are activating!” Chang exclaimed as Rose followed the Doctor, the feeling of fight that had dulled over their visit heightening once more. “They’re not supposed to do that.”
“Now, now children,” Missy said, and Rose spun around, keeping an arm slung out to block the Doctor from her even as Missy’s attention was focused on Chang who was back where they came in. “Naughty, naughty,” Missy added coyly, lifting her hand and pointing something first at Rose and the Doctor, then to Chang before lowering her arm.
“Doctor Chang,” The Doctor said, grabbing Rose’s outstretched arm and pulling her with him as he went closer to Missy. Rose ground her feet in, keeping him back, making sure there was distance still between them, and enough that she could protect him if need be. “Your welcome droid has developed a fault.”
Chang looked utterly confused as Missy smirked.
“That’s not a droid… that’s my boss.” He replied, his brow wrinkling a little.
“You know, I might have been guilty of just a teensy little fibette,” Missy said to the Doctor in a way that might have flirty. She then turned back to Chang, and lifted her arm again, for a moment, once more pointing something at him. She then lowered her arm and put her hands on her hips. “Doctor Chang, I really liked working with you. I’ve enjoyed every day of it.”
Chang smiled for a brief moment before he became confused. “I’m sorry?”
“You know, I’ve even got a little photograph of you looking so sweet.” She cooed, glancing back at the Doctor and Rose, “I’m always going to keep it. Always.” She swore as if it would mean something to them.
There was a pause before Chang asked, “Are you going to kill me?”
“Now come on,” Missy chided. “Let’s not dwell on horrid things. This is going to be our last conversation, and I’m the one who’s going to have to live with that.” She said with faux grief.
Rose felt the Doctor squeeze her arm when she flinched, ready to move to intervene. She looked up at him but was distracted by the draining water of the tank.
Chang and Missy continued to converse, and Rose was vaguely aware that it was likely the man was about to be murdered, but Rose was starting to see there were far worse things about to happen to the world as a whole.
“Can’t be.” Rose shook her head, wanting desperately to be in denial, but knowing without a doubt that that was what was inside. She knew those helmets, even just by the tops of them, as they tended to haunt her nightmares.
Over her very long life, Rose hadn’t had many encounters with the cybermen without another nefarious creature looming about. There had been the incident with the Cyberplanner and Porridge, but they hadn’t been on Earth.
“There are… hundreds, thousands of cybermen,” Rose said, looking at the Doctor and meeting his terrified gaze with her own.
After a heartbeat he zoomed past her to Missy, imploring her. “We’ve got to stop them getting out.” He said to her, hands out in supplication.
Missy merely smirked. “Do you see that?” She asked, pointing to something Rose couldn’t see. She moved to stand beside her husband, narrowing her eyes at an inconspicuous and yet menacing little ball hovering just out of sight. “It’s the Nethersphere. You know, it’s ever so funny, the people that live inside that think they’ve gone to heaven.”
“Danny.” Rose realized. “So he’s… he’s actually…”
“Yeah,” The Doctor said nervously. “He is because that’s a matrix data-slice. A Gallifreyan hard drive.” He met Rose’s eye. “Time Lord technology.”
“Oh,” Rose said, and then as she looked at Missy who grinned back at her. “You told me about the matrix once,” Rose murmured, never taking her eyes off the woman in front of them.
“Where a Time Lord’s mind goes after death.” He confirmed her memory, though she doubted he took his eyes off Missy either.
“Imagine using it to upload dying human minds,” Missy said as she looked in awe at the Nethersphere. “Edit them. Rearrange them, Get rid of all those boring emotions. Ready to be re-downloaded. Meanwhile, you upgrade the bodies.” She turned back to them but focused on the Doctor. “Upload the mind, upgrade the body. Cybermen from cyberspace, now why has no one ever thought of that before?”
“Who are you?” The Doctor asked.
“You know who I am, I told you,” Missy said simply, then gasped, placing her hand on her chest, right in the middle. “You felt it, surely you did.”
“Two hearts,” The Doctor confirmed, and Rose glared up at him.
“And both of them yours,” Missy said simply.
“You’re a Time Lord.” He said as Rose started to look for an exit.
“Time Lady, please, I’m old fashioned,” Missy said teasingly as Rose slowly guided the Doctor around her toward the lift and the set of doors at the end of the hallway.
“Which Time Lady?” The Doctor asked.
“The one you abandoned, Doctor.” She said as though it were obvious, and maybe to him it was, but Rose didn’t have time to ask. With one hand on her husband’s wrist, she reached into her pocket and withdrew her sonic, and thumbed the settings for the one that would unlock doors.
“The one you left for dead,” Missy went on, following them as they went but keeping a distance. “Didn’t you ever think I’d find my way back?”
“How!?” He asked, and Missy merely giggled.
Rose hadn’t bothered with the lift, already figuring that Missy probably would have shut it down the moment the Cybermen were revealed. Instead, Rose pointed her sonic to the doors, pressed the button, and when she heard the locks click open she yanked the Doctor with her through them.
The sun, when it hit her eyes, was blinding and unexpected. The air, heavy with rain, hit her skin and cooled her down for a moment before she tensed again in confusion. Somewhere above and behind her, church bells chimed, and when she got her senses finally put together she’d realized she was near the heart of London.
“Oh dear, did the pair of you not realize where you were?” Missy asked as she strode out the cathedral doors, dropping an arm around Rose and the Doctor.
There was the sound of metal, that eerie, mechanical whir that was unique to the cybermen coming from inside the cathedral behind them, and before those bots could merge, the Doctor was running, tearing through the streets, warning everyone to get back. To run. To do what he must have known they wouldn’t do.
It had been nearly ten years since Canary Wharf, and people always tended to forget the events of years past, of what they meant. Some, Rose knew, would hesitate at the sight of the cybermen. Some may even listen to the Doctor’s advice and run. But most, Rose knew, would linger. Would look and stare and wonder.
“You’re not helping him alert the masses? Raise the alarm?” Missy asked Rose, and she turned to look this woman in the eyes, desperately trying to see her daughter or granddaughter in them all while fearing she would.
“You said he left you.” Rose countered. “Was this in the war?”
Missy smirked. “We’ve met before, too.” She countered as the Doctor returned to the square, looking around at the people staring at him like he was a loon, all while cybermen poured out of the building and down the stairs.
Much as Rose wanted answers, she felt compelled to stand with the Doctor and did so. Moving down the stairs, she looked at all the people doing exactly what she thought they might, all in those varying degrees she knew they would, and took her husband’s hand.
“We need to get them away.” He said firmly. “We need to get them as far away from here as possible. I don’t understand why they aren’t running.” And then to the crowd, he shouted. “Why aren’t any of you running!?”
“Stop shouting,” Missy said with fond exasperation as she came up beside the Doctor and ran a hand down his arm. “It’s too late. All the graves of planet Earth are about to give birth.”
“How?” Rose asked as Missy then moved to stand behind them, the Time Lady’s hand caressing their backs as she shifted.
“Because I’m brilliant, my dear.” She said simply as if Rose had known the truth. “I’m very good at taking the dead of humankind and putting them to use.”
“Who are you?” The Doctor demanded quietly.
“You know who I am. I’m Missy.”
“Who’s Missy.” The Doctor asked as Missy circled around them to face them.
“Please,” She said, the fondness fading but the exasperation still there. “Try to keep up. Short for Mistress.”
“Mistress?” Rose frowned as something in the Doctor’s face shifted, his understanding all too plain.
Missy smiled like the Cheshire cat. “Well, I couldn’t very well keep calling myself the Master, now could I?”