bodldops | (no subject)

So, instead of working on the DW fic I already have in progress, I wrote the beginnings of another one that's been bashing around in my head for the last month. Tenth-Rose for now. :D So, I am asking my flist for a beta, preferably someone who's seen both Tennant!Doctor and McCoy!Doctor eras. And my rants (mostly about why volunteers do not get the right to be rude, even if they aren't being paid) will have to wait until tomorrow morning when my brain comes back from Bermuda.

“So… what is this place again?” Rose asks as she leans against the metal railing surrounding the TARDIS’s central console, addressing the owner of the pair of stripped trousers that are disappearing underneath said console. He’s assured her repeatedly that her jeans and hoodie won’t be out of place at their next destination, but other than that, he’s been frustratingly spare with the details.
“A small little planet called ‘Merrlius’, you’ll love it, fantastic place, it’s said the sunsets manage to produce every color in the spectrum every night. We’ve landed two hours before today’s sunset – just enough time to find a good seat. Just give me a mo’ to fix this short… there.” The Doctor, his hair and coat rumpled from digging around under the console, pulls himself up from under there and triumphantly presses a button. In response, a previously darkened board lights up, and he beams like a kid at Christmas. Rose has to smile back – there’s no way anyone can just ignore such bright flashes of joy. Besides, he’s her Doctor, and when he’s happy, everything’s just that much better. Then, rousing with a sudden burst of energy, he whirls to the other side of the console to the pile of supplies he left there before starting the landing sequence.
“Now, we’ll just gather up our coats and a bit of something to eat…” He rambles on enthusiastically, but Rose is impatient to see the new world he has landed them on, and bounces off down the connecting walk to the door. “You’ll just love it, Rose. The sea air, the lanara gyrfalcons coasting on the rising thermals…”
“My mum’s cooking…” Rose chimes in, with a faintly smug edge, as she peers out the door.
“Your mum’s… what?” The Doctor, startled out of his ramble, stares dumbly at her back for a moment before charging down the walk after her, his long brown coat flapping behind in his wake. “Not that I would agree with that statement in the first place, but what would your mum be doing on Mer…?” Then she pulls the door open a little further, and he can see what she’s already discovered.
The view from outside the TARDIS is the distinctly un-exotic alleyway being the Powell Estates.
They have come back home.
The Doctor’s first reaction is stubborn, outright refusal to believe the TARDIS has brought them here on purpose, while Rose follows in his wake, trying to keep up with his million-mile-an-hour rant on why, exactly, they cannot be in London in the year 2005, and must instead be, at least on some level, on Merrlius in the year 5346 (by the revised calendar). Furiously he checks the coordinates – they definitely still read for somewhere other than Earth, Rose can tell that by now. Stymied, the Doctor begins checking every dial, every gauge, every lever, trying to find the one missing piece that once found will solve this mystery. Moreover, the whole time, without missing a beat, he throws out theories as to why, exactly, they can see London outside the TARDIS without London actually being outside the TARDIS, because it can’t be, really. Sometimes the Doctor’s diatribe is so convincing Rose has to go back to check outside the door to make sure that yes, it is indeed the old alleyway.
“Doctor, can’t we just go out there? I mean… it does look like home.” She asks once, tired of watching him pace and fret, but she receives such a long and convoluted answer that sums up to ‘no, because I do not know what is going on now do try to be helpful’ that she doesn’t ask again.
Then he stops. He stops so suddenly that it is almost a physical shock to Rose, who has resorted to perching on the metal railing, her chin in her hands as she was watching him circle.
“What?” When that gets no answer, she asks again. “Doctor, what is it?” She’s suddenly more than a little nervous. He looks so focused, and so utterly bewildered – she’s found she doesn’t like it when he looks confused, not like that. Bad things tend to happen when he starts looking like that.
“Someone’s called for the TARDIS. Like a… emergency beacon of some kind.” The Doctor answers, slowly, almost hesitant.
“Isn’t that like those… what did you call them… mauve alerts?”
“No.” Rose slips off the railings quietly and hurries over to where he’s standing. He looks like someone’s sucker-punched him, his voice dark and cold.
“Doctor?” She asks, as she wraps both her hands around his free one, chaffing it a little to warm it.
“Someone called the TARDIS. This TARDIS, specifically. Someone had the codes to call this TARDIS specifically, and the TARDIS responded to it without even checking with me first. As if she knew who was calling. Or it was an override.” He looks down at her, and his brown eyes are ancient. “Rose… no one should be able to do that anymore. Only Gallifrey…” He chokes on the words, and doesn’t continue. He doesn’t need to. She knows the story as well as he does, by now.

It doesn’t take much convincing after that for them to both end up in the Tyler family flat, with Rose making tea since her mum is still out, probably shopping somewhere considering the hour. The Doctor started idly flipping through the channels on the telly to search for clues, but after two game shows, a talk show with some boy band he knows will never make it, and three cooking shows centering on various uninspiring dishes, he gives up. He feels, with some irritation, that if someone is going to be so rude as to drag them completely off course for an unexplained emergency, they should have the common decency of sending a little follow-up message telling them what’s going on. Better yet, meeting them once they landed, that would have been nice.

But who could have sent such a signal anyway?