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megabadbunny · 6 years

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No Place Like Hohm (5/8)

“Right, new plan,” said the Doctor. “Run!”

***

(Aka the obligatory post-GitF fic, for anyone else who ever wondered what might have taken place between a trip to France and an adventure in a parallel universe. Ten/Rose, all ages, full of angst, fluff, a pinch of romantic bickering, a dash of mutual pining, and a dollop of swashbuckling adventure!)

***

Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Chapter 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 8

Alarms screeched and blared overhead, lights flashing and popping off the console like a police car as the TARDIS violently quaked all around them.

“Are you usually so bad at this?” Mickey yelled over the din, clinging to the railing for dear life. “The TARDIS doesn’t like these landings,” the Doctor explained. “We’re getting ready to materialize in a highly public space, full to brimming with spectators. No chance we’ll go overlooked—we’re establishing ourselves as part of the timeline, permanently. Creating a fixed event!” “And that’s bad?” asked Mickey, struggling to remain upright as the ship jostled and shook around him. “It’s a tricky business. Anytime we land, it’s really best to disturb things as little as possible—little tweak here, little tweak there, try to blend in then disappear. You know, help where we can without making too much of a splash!” “Yeah, right!” Mickey snorted in disbelief. The Doctor scoffed amidst a new set of sirens wailing around them. “Excuse me, I happen to be very good at what I do! So unless you want to fight your way through the pre-games and gallivant about the tournament with loincloths and spears, we’re going to have to bend the rules a bit!” “Why?” asked Mickey. “Not that I want to wear a loincloth,” he added hurriedly. The TARDIS gave one last great shudder as it began to materialize. After the Doctor input a series of commands, anchoring the TARDIS to this time, this place, the chaos around them slowly began to calm, lights fading and noise ebbing. The Doctor grabbed his coat. “Because,” he said, averting his gaze from Mickey’s as he pulled his coat on. “It’s Rose.” He looked up to see Mickey watching him with a shrewd expression. He didn’t like it. Something about Mickey the Idiot being shrewd—or even worse, astute—just made him grumpy. “Well?” he snapped. “Are you going to be useless in here or are you going to be useless out there?” Mickey scoffed. “Like I’d let you take all the credit for the rescue!” “That’s the spirit!”

Trainers squeaking against the ramp, the Doctor sprinted toward the TARDIS doors. “Well, this is it, Mr. Smith,” he said, placing his hands on the door handles. “Out into the unknown!” He drank in a deep breath and flung the doors open. The Doctor and Mickey stepped out into the stadium, Mickey throwing up an arm to shield his eyes from the bright lights shining overhead. In-person, the Doctor could indeed confirm that the arena had been terraformed into a mountainous landscape, but it was more than that—aside from the sloping hills and jutting rocks, it had an almost theme-park feel to it, complete with tinny music, plaster trees, cheesy fake castle-ruins, and at the far end, a giant, towering mountain crowned with a white citadel that could have been airlifted right off the top of Cinderella’s castle in Disneyworld. The arena looked, for all the world, like a glorified sword-and-sorcery film set. To top it all off, the entire stadium was surrounded by five-meter-high slick white walls, upon which were mounted giant speakers, huge floodlights, and dozens of cameras. And just back from those walls, a massive audience—thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands, if the Doctor were to venture a guess—sat protected behind black one-way screens. The Doctor wondered at that. The population of Hohm was quite small by most planets’ standards—it would be a stretch to say that it had five thousand people between all its habitable continents. So who were all of these audience members? And what was the story behind this entertainment technology? He hadn’t seen so much as a simple electric light back in town—where did all of this technology come from, and why didn’t more Hohmish people have it? “Well, at least no one’s seen us yet, right?” Mickey piped up behind him. As if on cue, a horn boomed out through the speakers and Mickey and the Doctor found themselves smack in the center of a pair of spotlights. The audience surrounding them began to boo and hiss, their shouts filling the stadium and bouncing off the walls. “Just had to say it, didn’t you?” the Doctor muttered before grabbing Mickey by the wrist. “Come on!” “It looks like we’ve got us some stowaways, ladies and gentlefolk and sundry!” an announcer boomed overhead as the Doctor and Mickey darted over the uneven earth. “Security experts are telling me we have no idea how they smuggled their aircraft inside—stay tuned for updates on whether they keep their jobs after this! In the meantime, we’re waiting on the final word from City Council on whether or not their entries will be disqualified…” “What happens if we’re disqualified?” Mickey asked. “Wellll, they’ll probably kill us on the spot.” “What?” “Oh, come on, Mickey!” the Doctor shouted back gleefully. “This is the stuff adventures are made of!” Leaping over a grassy knoll, the Doctor was pleasantly surprised at how well Mickey was keeping up with him as they both ran nearly side-by-side, legs and arms pumping in mad unison. Had Mr. Smith been practicing? The two of them scrambled up a set of steps carved into a hill, at the summit of which stood a flag flapping lazily in the breeze. It looked like a marker of some sort—the Doctor was willing to bet they would find the captives waiting for them on the other side. “All right,” the Doctor yelled, “We should find Rose at the bottom of the hill. All we have to do is nab her, then we can split back to the TARDIS and soar on out of here. Easy-peasy!” But when they reached the hill’s crest, and gazed down at the stone plinth and pillars below, the Doctor just stopped. And stared. It was empty. The captives’ area—which it most definitely was, there was nothing else it could be, not unless the city council had set up a stone platform and two dozen chain-covered stone pillars for kicks—was completely deserted, its former inhabitants gone without a trace. The pillars’ chains dangled limply where people should be. “What?” Mickey gasped out, eyes wide in disbelief. “Where the hell’s Rose?” The Doctor scoured the surrounding area for any clue, any hint, even a shred of a splinter of a shadow of an idea, but he came up empty. “I don’t know,” he murmured, panic thudding dully in his throat.

***

A few moments earlier…

“—a return to tradition!” The crowd erupted in a frenzy of noise once again, stomping and cheering and clapping and shouting, and if nothing else, Rose wished her hands were free so that she could cover her ears. The din was so loud, it reverberated in her chest, pressing against her eardrums and ringing in her teeth. It even rattled the chains holding her captive. She screwed her eyes shut against the overwhelming sound. It will be all right, she reminded herself, straining to hear her own thoughts over the relentless screaming. This was an adventure just like any other. The Doctor had saved her from much worse scrapes than this—hell, she’d managed to save herself a time or two. She was going to be fine. Rose chanced a look over at Dyana, chained to the pillar next to her. Dyana flashed her an encouraging smile. “It’ll be all right!” she shouted, or possibly mouthed—it was impossible to tell with all the noise, but Rose appreciated the sentiment all the same. Dyana was right, more right than she knew. If her plan didn’t work, then the Doctor would save them; it was only a question of whether he would save them now, in the stadium, or later after everything had settled down. It would hardly be the first forced marriage he’d saved Rose from, after all. Rose just needed to be patient. She believed that wholeheartedly until the dragon soared overhead. Mouth falling open, Rose shook her head, growing dizzy with disbelief. But surely it couldn’t be real…? A hush fell over the crowd, blanketing the stadium with terrified silence. Rose could only think everyone else was just as shocked as she was—everything she’d seen and she still couldn’t trust her eyes. Huge and scaled and powerfully muscled, with great bat’s-wings casting massive tremors through the air after every stroke, the dragon bore a massive pair of horns atop its head, setting off lines of dinosaur-ridges down its back. Its great scaly flanks glistened scarlet, its eyes flashed golden, and its wicked claws glittered black. The creature looked like something straight out of a movie or a storybook, except none of those beasts ever looked so huge or so capable of tearing a human apart as if they were made of tissue paper. The dragon passed overhead and out of sight, toward the far end of the stadium, where Rose knew the Champions awaited the start of the pre-games. Seconds later, the arena shook with the force of an earth-shattering roar. “Well, that wasn’t so bad,” said Rose, her voice trembling only a little bit. “Maybe its bark is worse than its—” Dozens of screams drifted their way, ear-splitting shrieks cut-off mid-sound. Then, silence again. “—bite,” Rose finished in a whisper, feeling the blood drain from her face. “Well, would you look at that,” the announcer’s voice boomed overhead, and even he sounded shaken. “The pre-games have barely begun, and we’re already down four Champions. Nothing but ashes, ladies and gentlefolk and others. Now that’s what I call efficient!” “But it won’t hurt us, right?” Vareem shouted over the swelling sound of the audience around them. “Not like the city would let anything happen to the prizes—right?” Dyana did not answer, her eyes fixed toward the far end of the stadium. She was waiting, Rose knew, and probably had little attention to spare for anything or anyone else. “They did say this year was a return to tradition,” Rose realized aloud. “What were these things like in the past?” Now it was Vareem’s turn to go pale. Amidst more screams from the Champions and more cheers from the audience, Rose frantically scanned the stadium for any sign of the Doctor, but there was no flash of blue, no hint of engines vworp-vworping into existence. But surely he was looking for her. He had to be. He wouldn’t have just stranded her on a strange planet after their fight, right? Certainly he wouldn’t have abandoned her? (Right, and he wouldn’t abandon her on a spaceship in the 51st-century, either.) “Forget this,” Rose muttered as the voice overhead announced two more deaths-by-dragon. Wrists struggling against her chains, pulling so hard that she was sure to find bruises there later, she reached into her hair and pulled out two hairpins. Twisting her arms, she just managed to insert a hairpin into one of her manacles. “What are you doing?” Dyana hissed. “That’s not part of the plan!” “Yeah, well, last I checked, dragons weren’t a part of the plan either,” Rose shot back. She jiggled the hairpins about, straining to hear the tumblers inside while remembering Keisha’s instructions on one of several youthful-indiscretion-filled evenings back at the Estate. Rose grinned like a madwoman when she felt one of the tumblers click into place. “Besides,” she said, panting with exertion, “what good is a plan if you can’t improvise a little?” The dragon screeched out another deafening roar, shaking the ground beneath their feet. “Sod the plan,” said Vareem. “Do me next!”

***

A few moments later…

“Did someone already take her?” Mickey asked. Scrutinizing the land around them, the Doctor shook his head. “No,” he murmured. “None of the so-called Champions have made it this far yet.” “How do you know?” The Doctor pointed to the mountain towering at the end of stadium. “That’s where everyone is headed—the citadel up top is where competitors have to take their prize and claim it. So it’s a fair bet the pre-games took place at the opposite end—” the Doctor pointed back the way they came, “—that way.” “And ours are the only footprints coming from that direction,” Mickey realized aloud, glancing at the ground beneath their feet. “Exactly. Good eye.” “So what happened to all the captives?” “I’m guessing that one way or the other, the captives are all headed straight for the citadel right now,” the Doctor said, speaking to himself just as much as Mickey as he retraced their steps back up the hill. “Our best bet would be to get back to the TARDIS and try to pick them up before—” He froze. Several dozen hooded Champions dotted the landscape between them and the TARDIS. Several dozen hooded Champions with bows and arrows, boomerangs and spears and swords. Several dozen hooded Champions with an assortment of deadly weapons and a bone to pick with the two sneak-in contestants. One of them let out a shout, brandishing his weapon high in the air, and charged for Mickey and the Doctor. The rest followed. “Right, new plan,” said the Doctor. “Run!”

***

The freed captives sprinted toward the mountain, dozens of pairs of slippered feet slapping frantically against the rocky earth. “So your people won’t panic if they don’t find us back there, right?” Rose asked. “They’ll figure it out,” Dyana gasped as she ran, her skirts hiked up and flapping about her knees. “We just need to make it as close to the top of the mountain as we can. My people will find us and claim everyone who doesn’t want to be a bride-prize!” “And if the Doctor gets there first, he can just claim all of us.” “Right. But he’ll set us free afterward, won’t he?” “Absolutely,” Rose shot back. She thought of the look on the Doctor’s face when he found out he’d just been saddled with twenty-something wives, and she laughed. “You’ve got nothing to worry about!” “Except for the other Champions,” Vareem pointed out, casting a worried look over her shoulder. Just at that moment, almost as if they’d only been waiting for someone to say it, several hooded Champions came hurtling out from behind the trees. One of them pounced on Vareem, slapping a golden chain on her wrist before she had a chance to react. A horn sounded overhead. “Our first prize has been claimed, honored guests!” the announcer’s voice boomed over the arena. “Let’s see if he can keep her!” Another Champion seized a captive and the horn sounded once again. “Shona!” Dyana called out in dismay, only to see Shona squeal with delight when her captor tore off her hood. The horse-woman pulled Shona in for a quick kiss and she happily responded in kind. “True love, gentle viewers!” the announcer shouted. “Always warms the soul to see two sweethearts reunited in the arena!” “It’s all right!” Shona told Dyana and Rose as she ran past them, hand-in-hand with her captor—or her girlfriend, rather, Rose told herself. “Keep going!” “Well, that’s actually sort of sweet, isn’t it?” Rose laughed, and Dyana nodded in agreement. They reached the base of the mountain, and both of them darted up after Vareem and her would-be Champion. Vareem struggled against the chain that bound her to him, kicking and pulling back with all her strength. The Champion struggled to hold onto her, but his feet were steady and his grip true. “Hang on, Vareem!” Dyana called out. “We’re coming for—” Her shout was sliced in half by something hurtling straight into her, knocking her into the ground. Rose whipped round just in time to see a giant boomerang bouncing off Dyana and zipping back to its Champion, who ran forward and slapped a chain on Dyana’s wrist. “Dyana!” Rose cried, halting in her tracks. “Behind you!” Dyana shouted, and Rose turned just in time to see a Champion sneak up behind her, his face hidden by one of the Champions’ hoods. He twirled a golden chain in one hand and cast it at Rose—it clamped onto her wrist and tightened, winding around her wrist like a snake. With a shout, Rose pushed and pulled, fingernails scrabbling uselessly against the links, but the chain remained stubbornly tight. The Champion yanked on it, pulling Rose toward him. Rose swore under her breath. It was that traitorous cad Geoffrynn under the hood. It had to be. Pitching forward, Rose balled her hands into fists. “Oh, I am so gonna murder you!” she yelled, and instead of waiting for him to reel her in, she ran full-pelt at him. Surprised, he stumbled back, fumbling for a weapon at his side, but Rose was too fast—she’d closed the gap between them within seconds. With all the force of her momentum behind her, Rose punched him in the face. “That’s for drugging me!” Rose shouted as he stumbled back again, reeling in surprise. Before he had a chance to recover, Rose sprang forward. Drawing her hand back, she slapped him in the jaw with a satisfying thwack. “And that’s for being a lying, two-faced git!” she shouted as he tripped over his own two feet, falling to the— Wait. His own two feet? Standing over the fellow, Rose bent down and ripped the hood off his face only to find it wasn’t Geoffrynn at all—it was his smarmy human friend. “The hell?” Rose demanded. But she didn’t have time to mull things over in her head any further than that—all around her, she could see other Champions tackling and capturing prisoners, binding their wrists with prehensile golden chains before they dragged them away, hauling them up the mountain like so much pirate’s treasure. The announcer’s voice boomed all round the stadium with each capture and the audience shrieked and cheered in reply. Well. That just made Rose even more bloody stubborn. Upon feeling another strong yank on the chain, Rose slipped out of her delicate golden slippers and planted her feet firmly in the dirt, using her toes as ten little anchors. Geoffrynn’s friend (who didn’t deserve the dignity of a real name, Rose thought angrily) tugged until Rose’s feet skidded through the grass and tripped over the hem of her dress, tearing a hole in the flimsy fabric. “Stop!” Rose shouted, pulling back on the chain in a tenacious tug-of-war. But her arms shook with the strain—that blasted idiot was stronger than he looked—and soon she found herself dragged toward him. “Stop it!” she shouted again. “I don’t want this! I don’t want to be your bride-prize!” Her captor stopped pulling for a second as he pushed up from the ground, a smirk flitting across his face. “Really?” he asked, his grip tightening as Rose tugged on the chain again. “Why not?” Rose struggled to find the words—surely he wasn’t that thick, surely it was so obvious she didn’t actually need to tell him…? “I don’t know you?” she said, mouth gaping in disbelief. “And I don’t want to be your property? It’s pretty basic stuff!” The Champion threw his head back and laughed. “Wow,” he said, shaking his head. “A girl in town during festival-time, who flirts with you, accepts your tokens, and then says she doesn’t want you? Sure thing, sweetheart. That’s hilarious. You’re funny.” Laughter subsiding, his smile grew wicked and predatory, as if he suddenly had more teeth than he did before, and sharper ones, too. “I like funny in a girl,” he said, his voice darkening. The words summoned up nausea in Rose’s gut but she tamped it down, pushed it away. As the Champion gave her chain one last mighty pull, Rose threw herself to the ground. If he wanted to take her up the mountain, he would have to drag her dead weight there. “Oh, come on,” the captor sighed in frustration, pulling at the chain and swearing under his breath when Rose’s body budged only an inch. “You’re gonna have it so easy! I’ve got money—you’ll never have to lift a finger again in your life. I’m not gonna shout at you like those other jerks, I’d never smack you around or anything. Hell, I’ll even let you out of the house sometimes, if you ask nice!” “Well now, if that isn’t an enticing offer,” a familiar voice chimed up behind Rose, “then I don’t know what is.” Rose sat up and whirled around to see the Doctor standing just a few meters off, a cheeky grin slapped on his face. Relief and happiness surged through her, inflating her chest til it felt like her ribs might burst. “Did you hear that, Rose?” the Doctor continued. “He’s promised not to hit you and everything! What a shining example of humanoid decency!” The captor leapt to Rose’s side and yanked her up from the ground by the wrist, whipping a knife from his hip faster than Rose could blink. One arm pinning her to his side, his other hand held the knife up against Rose’s throat, pressing just hard enough that Rose could feel the bite of the blade. “Rose!” shouted Mickey, springing from behind the Doctor, but the Doctor grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back, his eyes trained on Rose. All signs of mirth had completely evaporated from his face; his mouth had gone thin and his eyes blown wide. “Let her go,” he said calmly. “Back off!” the Champion demanded, tightening his grip on Rose. “By all rights, she’s mine!” “She isn’t anyone’s!” Mickey shot back, struggling against the Doctor’s grip. Lurching away from Mickey, the Champion dragged Rose with him, his knife slipping with the movement. Rose gasped at the razor-sharpness of its sting, watched the Doctor’s gaze grow sharp and deadly. She shuddered despite the evening heat. She wasn’t sure what she was more afraid of—the Champion’s knife at her throat, or that look on the Doctor’s face. “If you don’t let her go, someone’s going to get hurt,” the Doctor said, his voice deceptively even, “and that someone’s going to be you.” “No! I claimed her!” the Champion shouted, his grasp clenching around Rose until she grit her teeth in discomfort. “By the rites of tradition, I—” His words were cut off by a boomerang to the back of the skull. He twisted round to see what the hell had just happened, but no sooner had he turned than the boomerang came sailing right back, smacking him square in the face and throwing his head back with the force of the blow. Stumbling, he swayed on his feet for a moment, as if his brain couldn’t decide whether to lose consciousness or not. Then he fell like a sack of bricks. Two pairs of hands hauled Rose away, and she glanced up to see Dyana and Vareem. “How—?” Rose asked, astonished. “Had some help,” Dyana grunted, pulling Rose to her feet. She held up the boomerang, a huge grin lighting up her face. “And this didn’t hurt, either.” Rose found herself wrapped up a great bear hug before she had a chance to reply, Mickey slamming into her with a joyous shout. Grinning, she returned the embrace—how had she ever been irritated with him for coming onboard the TARDIS?—and stood back, his hands clasped in hers. “So you got to see the Tournament after all, huh?” she said, laughing. “Is it everything you dreamed?” “More like a nightmare,” replied Mickey with a grimace. “Yeah, and you haven’t even seen the dragon yet, have you?” Mickey’s eyes widened. “So there really is a dragon? A real-life, full-size, honest-to-goodness—” “Monster,” Dyana finished for him. Spotting a group of hooded Champions, she visibly tensed (Ready for battle, thought Rose), but relaxed when the leader of the group saluted her. She repeated the gesture and pointed toward the Citadel, and the group took off; Rose could only guess they weren’t Champions after all, but some of her people in disguise. “And it’s only a matter of time before it comes round this way again, so we’d better hurry,” Dyana added, warily scanning the space above the arena. “Real quick, though—don’t suppose your hairpins will work on the chains, do you?” asked Vareem. She gestured at the chain coiled round her arm; its tail trailed out for quite a distance behind her, shining bright in the dirt. “Only they’re a bit inconvenient.” “Not so great for running away,” Dyana agreed, still watching the skies. Mickey pulled Rose’s hand closer for inspection, flinching at the bruises already forming beneath the chain on her wrist. “Yikes,” he said, fingering the chain, giving it a tug. “Think the sonic would do the trick?” Rose shrugged. “Only one way to find out, I guess. Doctor—?” But when she turned to address him, the Doctor wasn’t there. Frowning, Rose glanced over the surrounding area, silently reminding herself to chide him later (Looks like I’m not the only one with a bad habit of wandering off, hm?). She found him quickly enough, just a ways off from where she saw him last, crouching down next to something low on the ground as his lips moved in a murmur. He was talking to her captor, Rose realized. His hand landed on the man’s bare shoulder, ostensibly so he could push himself up, except that the man convulsed afterward, his body jerking in a single great tremor Rose could see even from this distance. She wondered what just happened, what the Doctor just did. “Gonna tell me what was that all about?” she asked as the Doctor approached. He didn’t meet her eyes. “Do you really want to know?” (Upon seeing the sheer terror flashing in her captor’s face, the way he couldn’t tear his fear-stricken eyes away from the Doctor’s retreating form, Rose wondered if this was a stone best left unturned. Still, discomfort churned in her gut, an uneasy feeling that whatever just transpired was worse even than the threat of the dragon hanging overhead.) “Right, I heard Mr. Mickety-Mick here say something about the sonic,” said the Doctor, snapping instantly back into a cheerful mood as he whipped the screwdriver out of a coat-pocket. “Let’s see what we can do about those cumbersome chains, shall we?” He offered a hand to Vareem, who took it without question (but with a healthy looking-up-and-down, Rose couldn’t help but notice with a little jealous twinge). Scanning the chain clamped onto Vareem’s wrist, the Doctor’s eyebrow shot up in surprise. “Triple-deadlocked,” he announced. “And with a magnetic crypto-seal, to boot.” “Blimey, that’s a bit over-the-top, isn’t it?” asked Mickey. “It doesn’t quite make sense,” the Doctor agreed, thoughtful as he gestured for Dyana to show him her hand so he could study her chain as well. “This is just another example of technology that far outstrips anything we saw in the city. Think about it—it’s all the Dark Ages out there. Why keep with the sticks and stones if you’ve got stuff like this available to you?” “Maybe it’s a cultural choice?” Rose suggested, looking to Dyana and Vareem for insight as the Doctor grabbed her hand, as if her chain would tell him something different than the other two had. “Or religious?” “Definitely not,” replied Dyana. “We don’t have that stuff cos we’re not allowed to.” Mickey scoffed. “What d’you mean, not allowed to? Why not?” “It’s all about control,” the Doctor muttered under his breath, but he hardly seemed to be paying attention to the conversation. His gaze wandered from the chain sealed round Rose’s wrist to the bruises forming a pink-blue halo behind them, further up to Rose’s bicep, where a darker, bigger bruise blossomed barely hidden beneath a golden armlet. The Doctor unhinged the armlet and cast it to the ground, grasping Rose’s bicep gently, his thumb brushing the edge of the bruise. Rose could tell he was mentally tracing the wound’s outline—cuts and scrapes were fairly typical in their lifestyle, just another danger of the job, and therefore generally went unacknowledged except for having some plasters and antiseptic tossed her way, but this bruise had a definite palm-and-fingers shape to it. There was no mistaking, or downplaying, how someone had hurt Rose. “Did your Champion do this?” the Doctor asked, and although his voice sounded casual enough, Rose knew better. “No,” she said, slowly extracting her arm from his grasp. She tried not to wince; she didn’t want him to know that actually, the bruise was quite tender, and throbbed where he’d touched it. Gathering her skirts, she set off toward the Citadel, throwing over her shoulder as casually as she could, “Just your average line-of-duty stuff.” “If he hurt you—” “It wasn’t him,” Rose interrupted, jaw jutting out in defiance, “and you don’t get to do that.” “Do what? Be concerned?” “You don’t get to make this about you.” Catching up to her, the Doctor spluttered indignantly. “What? I never—!” “Yeah, yeah,” said Rose, rolling her eyes. “I know the Oncoming Storm look when I see it, right? Cos no one’s allowed to hurt your friends except you.” He stopped in his tracks, oblivious to Mickey and Dyana and Vareem as they passed him by, and Rose grudgingly hesitated too. The Doctor just stared at her, mouth open, one eyebrow piqued in confusion. “I hurt you?” he asked. The question seemed so genuine, so sincere, that Rose actually took a step back. Flabbergasted, she searched his face to see if she could detect any hint of him being an arse, but his expression betrayed no clues beyond surprise, nothing that would let her know whether she should be furious or take pity on him. But how could he not know? Unless… Rose swallowed and tried to ignore the feeling of something sinking, deep and heavy and solid and immoveable, into the pit of her stomach, just like it did when he jumped through that mirror. “Doctor,” she asked, willing her voice not to shake, and failing miserably. “How do you define ‘betrayal’?” His eyebrow arched even higher. “We’re on the run from a traditionalist maniac mob bearing literal torches and pitchforks, and you want to stop for an etymology lesson?” “Just answer the question, please?” Glancing all around them, at the rocks and the grass and the plaster trees and the other three people stopped up ahead who were pretending, very badly, not to listen to this conversation, the Doctor grew visibly uncomfortable, shifting weight from one foot to the other. “I would say…it’s sort of a violation of a contract,” he said, slowly. “A mutually-agreed-upon contract, whether spoken or unspoken, professional or patriotic or personal, but always with an element of trust involved. A knowing violation of that mutual trust.” “Right,” Rose replied softly, nodding. “But it’s all got to be mutual.” “Well, yes, otherwise any grievance isn’t a betrayal per se, it just falls somewhere on the spectrum of asshattery. There’s generally got to be some degree of closeness on both sides, some level of personal attachment for all parties involved.” “And you don’t think--you can’t think of anything--that doesn’t sound familiar to you at all, right now? Nothing recent comes to mind?” The Doctor shrugged. “Nothing in recent memory, no.” His eyes narrowed, suddenly shrewd, suspicious. “Why are you asking me this?” Biting back something between a hysterical laugh and a throat-clenching sob, Rose tried to think of a suitable response—Because I just needed you to say what we are, Because I’d hoped I was wrong, Because I’m an unforgivably naïve idiot—but all that came out was, “Do you really want to know?” “Okay, sorry to interrupt whatever undoubtedly fascinating thing you’ve got going on here,” said Vareem, pushing between Rose and the Doctor before he had a chance to do anything more than blink in confusion, “but d’you think we could get on with escaping, maybe? I really don’t fancy waiting around for another round of Champions to have a go at me.” “Wait—where are the other Champions?” called Mickey from his spot up ahead, scouring the landscape around them. “There were still a whole bunch of them right behind us. Seems like they should’ve caught up by now.” “Any chance your people got to them?” Rose asked Dyana, ignoring the Doctor and the strange expression on his face. “I really doubt it.” “‘Your people’?” asked Mickey. Nodding, Dyana looked about warily as she hoisted her boomerang into a defensive position. “Mercs, mostly. My sister and I paid them to infiltrate the Tournament disguised as Champions, smuggle in arms for those willing to defend themselves, and claim as many bride-prizes as they could to set them free. But we didn’t pay them to fight. They’d be far more likely to save their own skins and run.” “Oh, who cares what happened to the bloody Champions?” Vareem said, exasperated. She grabbed Mickey by the hand and pulled. “We’ve probably just outrun them—we should go before they catch up!” “No,” said the Doctor, his brow furrowed. Stepping back, he turned to examine the landscape behind them, where he and Mickey had entered the scene. He held up a hand to shield his eyes from the bright floodlights. “No, they were right on our heels, and then we never saw them again after we crossed that ridge.” He pointed to the ridge in question, frowning. “Something’s happened, and we just didn’t notice.” The Doctor took off toward the ridge, and Rose and Mickey—after exchanging equally bewildered glances—followed after, Rose’s wrist-chain clinking all the while. It trailed behind her like a tail as she climbed up the embankment after Mickey and the Doctor. When they crested the hill, Rose let out a gasp. A sea of burnt-black earth met her eyes. Gone were the trees, the grass, the rocks and fake castle-ruins. Instead, scorch marks marred the face of the entire land before them, thick black smoke rising and curling from the trenches like blood seeping from a wound. Scattered throughout were several piles of ash, stark and white against the darkened ground. Rose had a horrible, sickening feeling that some of those ashes used to be people. “Oh my god. The dragon,” said Mickey breathlessly, holding his hand over his nose and mouth to block out the stench of smoke and burning things, things Rose didn’t want to think about. “It had to be the dragon, right? But how come we didn’t hear it?” “They didn’t want us to,” the Doctor replied, glaring at the black screens surrounding the stadium. “Why not?” asked Rose. “Entertainment.” The Doctor spared her a single sharp glance before turning back the way they came, back toward the impatiently-waiting Dyana and Vareem. “It’s all about control!” he shouted back at them. “So where’s the dragon now?” Mickey asked Rose. As if it had only been waiting for someone to ask, at that exact second the entire stadium began to quake with the sound of a huge-throated roar. Without even thinking, Rose clasped Mickey’s hand in fear, watched the Doctor freeze in place. Vareem drew close to Dyana, both of them scanning the skies, Dyana holding her boomerang at the ready. The roar tore through the stadium like a tidal wave, shaking the ground beneath their feet before it diminished into echoes, leaving the arena chillingly quiet and still. Silence, then, except for how Rose could hear everyone holding their breath. “Okay,” she said, pulling Mickey by the hand. “Now we’ve really got to—” Another earsplitting howl sliced through the stadium, this time equaled in volume and ferociousness by the thousands of surrounding spectators shouting and stomping their feet. Rose still couldn’t see them, hidden behind their black screens as they were, but she could hear their voices chanting in excitement, almost as if they were one giant feral creature themselves; she could feel the tremors from their pounding feet sure as sure as she could feel great wings casting ripples through the air. The creature, however, remained invisible, its presence detectable only by the sounds of giant leathery bat’s-wings and the pungent smells of sulphur and smoke. Suddenly the arena bucked as if shaken by an earthquake, throwing Rose and Mickey to their knees. Even the Doctor seemed to have trouble standing upright, stance wide and hands held out defensively as the earth rattled around him. “Rose!” he shouted. “Grab Mickey and back away from the ridge--get out of there, now!” But something had landed in the ash-field, and Rose and Mickey were both frozen, anchored in place as the invisible something crept toward them. Mickey might have sworn under his breath, or he may simply have said something along the lines of How? or What? or Oh god oh god, but Rose couldn’t be sure; she couldn’t hear much over the sounds of her heart pounding relentlessly in her ears, or the heavy whisper of something huge and monstrous slithering through the dirt. Slowly, the air began to shimmer, a veil torn asunder to reveal something hideous beneath. The cloak melted away to reveal a dragon standing before them, easily twenty meters long and with a wingspan twice that wide, its rows and rows of massive spearpoint-teeth glittering in the floodlights and close enough to touch. The dragon opened its mouth, and Rose wondered how long it would take to burn her to cinders, if she would feel her brain boiling in her skull. A violent jerk on her wrist-chain and she was slipping backward and grabbing Mickey without a thought, pulling him with her over the ridge. The two of them tumbled down the embankment just in time to avoid a barrage of fire bursting from the dragon’s maw. Rose smelled the scorched-air above and bit back a cry at the thought that that was almost her and Mickey, that the dragon had nearly--that they’d almost--but her chain--the Doctor must have-- The Doctor pulled Mickey up roughly out of the dirt, helping Rose up after. He shoved her chain into her hand with a curt nod. “Erm, thanks for yanking my chain?” Rose said weakly. “Any time,” replied the Doctor. “Now, come on--time to run!” He took off and Rose followed, running as fast as her legs could carry her, with a shout for Mickey to move. The three of them charged after Dyana and Vareem away from the dragon, toward the mountain and the Citadel. As they ran, Rose felt the ground quake beneath her feet once more, watched as a great inky-black shadow sailed over the rocks in front of them, a harbinger of the dragon soaring overhead. “Doctor, wait,” panted Rose, the air burning in her lungs; “How are we supposed to get past a dragon?” “No idea. We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it!” “But this is absolutely mad!” shouted Mickey. “What’s the point of this whole stupid thing if a great big dragon is just gonna--” The dragon landed in front of them once more with an eardrum-shattering whump, shockwaves ricocheting outward in a violent ripple that knocked over plaster trees and threw everyone bodily to the ground. The second they could move again, Dyana and Vareem scrambled back toward the others, Rose grabbing Dyana and pulling her in close. Snarling at each of the runners in turn, the dragon coiled itself against the base of the mountain, eyes flashing, smoke-plumes rising in tendrils from its nostrils. “Ladies and gentlefolk and miscellaneous,” the announcer declared, voice booming overhead, “I’ve just heard from our fair city councilors. I’m pleased to announce that they have reached a verdict concerning our little stowaways. Would anyone like to know what it is?” The crowd screamed in reply, a ritualistic chant of Yes-yes-yes-yes surging through the stadium. “Disqualified!” the announcer shouted, and the crowd went absolutely mad with sound. “That makes this an instant death round, honored guests!” Amidst the wall of noise surrounding them, Rose and the Doctor and the others slowly stood, each of them assuming a ready stance. Rose grasped Dyana’s hand and squeezed it tightly, hoping to convey as much reassurance as she could; she reached back for the Doctor’s hand on instinct, only to find that he was already reaching for her. Their fingers intertwined, curling around each other with the chain cool and smooth between them, and even despite the danger, even in the face of almost certain death, strangely, something settled deep in Rose’s chest--she briefly thought, if she did have to die today, this would be a good way to do it, holding hands with one old friend and one new. “Well, Doctor?” said Rose, not even bothering to mask the fear in her voice as the dragon opened its mouth, its throat glowing a bright flame-yellow hue. “Don’t suppose you’ve come up with some kind of brilliant plan in the last few minutes?” The Doctor pursed his lips, fingers tapping nervously against the chain pressed between their palms. Then, his eyes widened, as if in realization. “No,” he said, and a shot her a manic grin. “But I do have a spectacularly bad one.”

***

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note: as much as i wish i had come up with it all on my own, the conversation about semantics re: betrayal is heavily (heavily!) inspired by some writings from my good friend, the talented @ksgsworld , who is super amazeballs <3

#ficandchips #tenrose #ten/rose #tenxrose #gitf fixit #post-gitf fixit #it feels so good to be posting things again #::cries::#please don't let me be jinxing myself lolololol #anyway i need to take a break from the 'puter bc my eyes are starting to do that thing where they glaze over and refuse to focus on anything #but i'm on that productivity-high and i just wanna wriiiiite and draaaawa #and draw and write #;ldkjfo;sdifj;eorijw;eroijwr;woirj;woeirj #mbb fic #rose x ten #otp of legend

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