The Doctor sighed happily. The fireplace was repaired. And he was exhausted. For the past three months, he had only left the room to take care of the call of nature. Reinette had visited a few more times, assuring him that he would not be run off and offering more flowery apologies. He had offered to do something to relieve the pain of her tuberculosis as a way of thanking her for that. He wouldn’t cure it – history demanded that she die of the disease at a time that was all-too-quickly drawing near. But, she didn’t have to be in agony the whole time. Still, she had refused. She called it her penance for her sin of separating him from Rose. The Doctor knew better than to argue with a Catholic conscience. Still, he at least needed to tell her he was leaving before he stepped through the fireplace to return to the woman he’d left behind. Hopefully, from Rose and Mickey’s point of view, he would only have been gone a few hours at most. Maybe a day or two. He’d tell Rose the truth once they dropped Mister Mickey off back in London. And, if Rose could forgive him, his next trip when she was sleeping would be to call on her mother Jackie and ask her blessing on him proposing marriage to her daughter.
Jackie Tyler would be his mother-in-law. The thought was nowhere near as terrifying as it once would have been. He’d have to endure her cooking but he’d put up with her slapping him cross-eyed if he meant he could stay with Rose. In time, Rose would age – he would stave that off as long as he could by seeking out advanced medical treatments for her – and he would settle down when she was too old and too weary to keep wandering the universe with him. He knew that when she finally died, he’d die with her. He only had two regenerations left in him and he’d sacrifice them both so that he’d never spend another day apart from Rose.
Provided she could forgive him for being the biggest idiot in all of time and space. If she could do that, then he would spend the rest of their lives making certain that Rose never knew anything other than pure bliss.
Standing up and stretching, the Time Lord walked out of the room. The guards outside gave him respectful nods as he walked towards the chambers where Reinette slept. Even though it was only midafternoon, he knew he’d find her in bed. She’d barely had the energy to get out of bed the past few weeks since winter, with its cold temperatures and rain, had set in. Knocking and waiting to be admitted, he walked in to the chambers where Madame du Pompadour slept.
“How is she doing?” he asked one of the king’s physicians who was sitting in the front room.
“If the Lord is merciful, she will survive this winter. I have suggested that His Majesty arrange for her to be taken to Marseilles in the spring. The fresh air and the sea will do her good.”
“Agreed,” the Doctor said politely. Really, at this point, only medications that wouldn’t be discovered for nearly two hundred years could do Reinette any “good.” “Is she available for visitors?”
“She is always available to see you, Doctor.”
The Doctor nodded and then pushed open the doors to her inner chambers. She lay propped up on her pillows, her hair tumbling down her shoulders and back. The covers were pulled up to her chest and a fire crackled brightly in the room’s fireplace. Dark shadows marred the skin under her eyes and her face was pale from the fever burning in her. Still, she was awake. She heard the doors open and opened her eyes. “My lonely angel,” she whispered, her voice ragged from frequent bouts of coughing that made her vomit. “It has been long since you visited my chambers.”
“I’m leaving, Reinette. I’ve repaired the time window. I’m going back.”
“I wish you well on your journey.”
“You’re not going to argue with me?” he said, somewhat surprised.
“No,” she replied. “Instead, if you are able to return to your British Rose, I ask you to give her something from me,” she gestured to a set of drawers near her bed. “It’s in the top drawer in the blue velvet box.” The Doctor walked over and opened the drawer, pulling out a richly appointed jewelry box. “Tell her that Madame du Pompadour gifts this to the most accomplished woman of all time – the woman who holds the heart of a Time Lord. And that Reinette Poisson begs that woman’s forgiveness.”
The Doctor opened the jewelry box. Inside was a beautiful bracelet. Made of finely-wrought gold, it had a large ruby pendant cut to resemble a rose in bloom. The rose was flanked by two gold medallions with ivory faces etched with gold and silver to resemble clocks. Sapphires trailed down from the clocks all the way to the clasp. All in all, it was a gift worthy of a queen or an Empress. And Reinette had had it made for Rose. “This is beautiful,” he breathed.
“Not as beautiful as the woman whose wrist it should grace,” Reinette smiled. “Go well on your journey, my lonely angel. Return to the woman who the Lord made for you before Time began.”
“I could ease the pain of the fever a bit, Reinette,” the Doctor offered.
“No,” she replied emphatically. “I have lived in ease too long. These days of suffering are given me that I might reflect on the wrongs I have done in my life. I suffer now so that I might repent and be worthy of the grace of the Lord and His mercy instead of suffering in the pits of hell for all eternity. If you take this suffering from me, then what of His will? I suffer a fever and coughing now but My Redeemer suffered crucifixion and death for me. You are my lonely angel, Doctor, but you cannot alter the will of Him who created me. Go back to your Rose, Doctor. Go back to your wife.”
“She’s not…” he started to say but Reinette cut him off.
“She is as she was ordained to be before the creation of the world. Go to her. My blessings on you both.”
The Doctor bent over and gave Reinette a light kiss on her feverish forehead. Even if she had trapped him here, she hadn’t done it on her own. “I will remember you always, Reinette. The good and the bad. Take care of yourself and go well on your own journey, little queen.” Reinette closed her eyes and quickly fell asleep as the Doctor tiptoed out of her chambers, closing the doors quietly behind him. He strode down to her childhood room, the jewelry box with the beautiful bracelet for Rose in his pocket. Once there, he paused only for a second before he pushed open the fireplace and stepped back into the 51st century space freighter.
“Rose!” he called out. “Mickey? Blimey, where are you two?” he shouted as he walked back to where he could have sworn he’d left the TARDIS. The room was empty. He stared around the room in horror. How long had he been gone? What had happened to the TARDIS? Neither human could have flown it unless…no. No way. She couldn’t have. She couldn’t have done that! She would have burned! There had to be another explanation.
“Who the hell are you?” a man dressed in a police uniform demanded.
“I’m the Doctor,” the Doctor replied. “What have you done with my friends and my ship?”
“Doctor who?”
“Just ‘the Doctor. Now, my friends and my ship?”
“This is your ship?” the police officer asked, gesturing to the freighter. “The government of New France might have a few things to say about that, mate!”
“No, the freighter isn’t mine. But my ship was right here,” the Doctor said, gesturing to the place where the TARDIS had been. “It’s a big blue box. And I had two friends with me. A man and a woman. Mickey Smith and Rose Tyler.”
“There was no blue box and no people on board when we got here. Do you know anything about what happened to the crew? We’re treating this entire ship as a crime scene.”
“They were killed by the maintenance droids before my friends and I got here,” the Doctor answered. “The droids had opened time windows into eighteenth century France and were planning to kill Madame du Pompadour and bring back her brain to this ship. Never could figure out why.”
“Time windows,” the police officer groaned. “Great, we’ll have to get the Time Agency involved. Damned droids. As for why they were after her,” he sighed, “welcome aboard the good ship Madame du Pompadour. Now, come with me. I have a feeling that my superiors will want to have a nice long chat with you, Doctor.”
“And my friends? Any sign of them?”
“Doctor, you’re the first living person I’ve seen since we got here yesterday. If your friends were on this ship, they were either killed or got off somehow. Now, come with me.”
The Doctor patted the pocket holding the bracelet to calm himself. He prayed that Rose and Mickey and the TARDIS had managed to get off the ship somehow. In a manner that wouldn’t mean Rose burned to death in the Time Vortex.
~*~*~*~
The Doctor tried to swallow his impatience with the bureaucracy in front of him. Humans. No matter where or when he found them, they did so love their paperwork. Right now, the police were working on their reports. He’d been able to shed light on how the crew had died and then he’d shown them the time windows. Luckily, they were able to access the ship’s computers and see that the droids had murdered the crew and built the windows. They’d even seen the Doctor and the TARDIS arrive. And now, the Doctor tried to calm the pounding of his hearts. The footage had shown that Rose and Mickey were trapped aboard the ship for nearly seven months after he rode through the time window to rescue Reinette and history. He watched as Rose made her way through the ship, exploring. Every day, she’d spent hours standing at the time window he’d gone through, stroking it and crying silently.
Then, the TARDIS had dematerialized. His hearts pounded when he thought about what that must mean. Rose must have looked into the Time Vortex again. Somewhere, some when, she was burning. Her life would end in agony. Unless he could get to her again. He’d never had much control over his regenerations but other Time Lords had managed to retain their bodies and their minds from one regeneration to another. Surely he could do the same. All he had to do was figure out where she might have gone. Returning Mickey to London would be his best guess.
However, before he could get back to her – hopefully in time to keep her from dying – he had to deal with these 51st century bureaucrats and their paperwork. He’d lied to them, claiming to be human, because he really didn’t want to deal with explaining what a Time Lord was. In this era, his people and the Time War were just a myth. A legend. He really didn’t feel like dealing with that when all he wanted to do was find Rose and his ship and ensure that they were both safe. They were the two women he couldn’t live without.
“The Time Agency is prepared to hear your story and your request. If you are out of your era, then they’ll be glad to get you home. But, I suggest you be a bit more forthcoming with them than you have with us about your technology and your species.”
“I told you I was human,” the Doctor protested.
“No human has two hearts and a respiratory bypass. There’s no way you’re a member of Homo sapiens sapiens, Doctor.”
“It was worth a shot,” the Time Lord muttered. “Fine, I’m from Gallifrey. You’ve never heard of it. It’s a long way off.”
“Gallifrey,” the police officer sighed as he updated the Doctor’s file. “Where are your friends from? Same place?”
“No, they’re both from Earth. 21st century London.”
“Wait a damned minute,” the lawman growled. “You claim to have traveled with a Rose Tyler from 21st century Earth?”
“I don’t claim any such thing. I am traveling with her.”
“Rose Marion Tyler?”
“That is her name,” the Doctor replied.
“Right. The Time Agency will definitely want to talk with you,” the police officer groaned. “I hope you are being completely honest. The Chief has a bit of a temper with those who waste his time, Doctor.”
The Doctor gaped as the human stormed angrily out of the room. What the hell had happened in the time that the Time Lord had been trapped in France?