Time and Man, part three
Aug. 7th, 2006 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mari4212A long time ago, in the misty hinterlands of about four weeks ago on my journal, I posted the second chapter of a Doctor Who/Stargate crossover. Well, it's taken me a while, but here's the last chapter, finally. Previous chapters are here: http://mari4212.livejournal.com/96414.html for the first one, and here: http://mari4212.livejournal.com/103509.html for the second.
Title: Time and Man, chapter 2
Fandom: Doctor Who, Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Ninth Doctor, Rose
Timeline: DW: Post The Long Game, pre Father's Day, Atlantis: early season three, no spoilers for the third season.
Author's Notes: Again, I must lavish thanks upon![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ljmckay, who beta-read this chapter for me. There is significant improvement between the first and final drafts, thanks to her.
“What are we waiting for?”
Even before she’d finished her question, the Doctor had turned to the main console. He flashed a grin over his shoulder at her. “Right then. We’re off to visit the city of Atlantis, Pegasus Galaxy, in the year 2006.”
He had to have known how much that would shock her. Sometimes she thought he planned these things deliberately, just to provoke a reaction. “Pegasus Galaxy? Doctor, humans haven’t gotten past the moon in my time and you’re telling me that kid winds up in a different galaxy?”
Turning his attention back to the coordinates he was imputing, the Doctor continued. “Well they haven’t exactly told the rest of the planet that they’ve been traveling off-world for the past nine years or so, but his program’s been out there. And when they figure out that the city of Atlantis was in another galaxy, our little Rodney, who’s not exactly little by this point, is the head of the science department.”
Their conversation was interrupted as the TARDIS started shuddering as it faded into existence on Atlantis. The Doctor glanced up at the coordinates and grinned again. “Another perfect landing, right in the middle of their Gateroom. Right then, shall we pop out and go see what Rodney’s been up to here for the past two and a half years?
Rose grinned. This was her Doctor at his most cheerful, and his mood was amazingly infectious at times like these. “Ready when you are, Doctor.”
The doors of the TARDIS opened to reveal a beautiful but thoroughly alien looking room, but Rose’s attention was distracted from the architecture by a rather anxious group of soldiers aiming a nasty set of guns at her and the Doctor. And behind the soldiers, up on the lighted stairs, a much older Rodney McKay stood there staring at them with an incredulous look on his face. A rather silly part of her mind, the part that was getting used to having dangerous weapons aimed at her after travelling with the Doctor, was glad that there weren’t any flies in the room. His gaping jaw and open mouth would have been an irresistible target for the insect.
The Doctor, of course, was ignoring the guns completely. “Hello, Rodney. Did you miss us?”
***
This couldn’t be happening. This could not be happening. It was absolutely impossible for them to be here, after all this time, looking no different than they had back then.
“Did you miss us?” the Doctor had asked. Miss them? The echoes of that one afternoon aboard the TARDIS had shaped so much of his life after that point. Through the years he’d alternately blessed and cursed the Doctor and Rose for opening his eyes to so much beyond what he’d thought possible and then shutting him off from it. He’d only really moved past the Doctor’s rejection of him a few years ago, when Elizabeth had asked him to lead the Atlantis mission’s scientific division and he’d realized that he would have never come to Atlantis if he’d gone with the Doctor then.
And now here they were, about to change everything in his life again, and the Doctor wanted to know if Rodney had missed them!
“McKay…” drawled Sheppard. “Do you want to introduce us to your new guests? Or explain, you know, how the hell they got here?”
Oh great, and now he’d have to deal with Sheppard’s deranged sense of humor about this too. This day had officially gone to hell in a handbasket. The only thing he needed now was…
“Rodney? My office, now.” Elizabeth, of course, wanting to know who was invading her city this week. And of course they’d only just finished dealing with that idiot, Lucius, so she was going to be more concerned about the visitors than she would be normally. Perfect. Unless the Wraith invaded this afternoon, the day could not get any worse.
***
From the look on his face, Rose thought it was pretty obvious that Rodney wasn’t exactly pleased to see them again. And it didn’t help that the Doctor was grinning like an idiot at the guards with guns, big guns to boot, who were escorting them into some sort of conference room. Honestly, if he’d mentioned how much trouble it was going to be to go check on Rodney, she might have thought better of it. She guessed she should consider herself lucky that no one had started shooting at them yet, though if the glare from the muscular guy with the dreads was any indication, that still might happen.
So now they were waiting impatiently for Rodney to explain to this Dr. Weir lady who they were. Or at least, she was waiting impatiently. The Doctor looked like he was content to lean back and see how far he could bend the back of the chair without tipping himself onto the ground or breaking it. It was taking a lot longer for Rodney to fill the others in than she would have thought, given that they’d only spent an afternoon together. But finally Rodney and Dr. Weir and four other people to whom she hadn’t been introduced entered the conference room.
“Well,” said Dr. Weir as she sat down across from them and pulled her chair close to the table. “Dr. McKay has told me a bit about you, and he doesn’t think you’re a threat to the city, but we’re still curious as to why you’re here. Would you care to explain?”
The Doctor abruptly pulled himself forward out of his sprawl and grinned madly. “Oh, that? Rose was a bit upset that we had to leave Rodney behind last week, so I thought I’d bring her forward and show her what he’s been up to. And it’s been a while since I came to visit Atlantis, so I figured we’d kill two birds with one stone. We just dropped in to say hi, maybe grab a cup of tea, and then we’ll be off.”
There was a derisive snort from the cute American with the puffy hair. “You came all this way to say hi to Rodney?” That comment earned him a huff of indignation from Rodney and a glare from Dr. Weir. Privately, Rose decided he wasn’t as cute as she’d initially thought.
The distraction seemed to relax Rodney slightly, and he shifted his focus back to her and the Doctor. “What do you mean, you had to leave me behind back then, and why did you wait over twenty-two years before you came back?”
Rose glanced at the Doctor, who for once looked like he wasn’t going to start talking at about a hundred words per minute. It seemed that this time he was content to sit back let her talk. Wonderful. Well, here went nothing. “The Doctor’s spent a lot of time travelling in time,” she began, inwardly wincing at the awkward phrasing of that statement, “and he knows human history pretty well, including what we consider the future. He remembered what your role in it was, and he didn’t want to alter the timeline like it would have if he’d taken you with us. And then he wanted to show me what you’ve done here, so that I’d know what happened to you.”
Again, the fluffy-haired guy was the one to start talking. “Oh, come on. If it’s the future, how can you know it before it happens? It’s impossible.”
This guy was going to drive her nuts. “First time I traveled with the Doctor, he took me to watch Earth’s sun explode and destroy the planet. Five million years in the future. We met the woman who called herself the last human, and she looked like a skin-colored trampoline with lipstick on. I nearly got burned to ashes twice when she sabotaged the space station we were on. By that time, all of you will have been dead for millions of years, and everything you do will have been written down as history, and then forgotten. The next place the Doctor took me was Cardiff, Christmas 1869 and we met Charles Dickens. I nearly died there too, over a hundred years before I was born. I don’t believe in impossible anymore.”
That seemed to shock him into silence, and apparently no one else in the room knew what to say either. The quiet stretched on awkwardly, until the Doctor interrupted it by standing up and saying “Right then, Rose, we’ve seen what we came here for and it doesn’t look like they have any tea or chips to offer, so are you ready to go?”
She jumped to her feet and took his hand. “Ready when you are, Doctor.”
“You’re leaving again?” Rodney, of course.
“Yep!” The Doctor replied. “We’ve got lots to do, a whole universe and all of time and space to see, and not a lot of time to do it in. So can we get an escort back to my TARDIS, or do we have to start running for it?”
Title: Time and Man, chapter 2
Fandom: Doctor Who, Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Ninth Doctor, Rose
Timeline: DW: Post The Long Game, pre Father's Day, Atlantis: early season three, no spoilers for the third season.
Author's Notes: Again, I must lavish thanks upon
ljmckay, who beta-read this chapter for me. There is significant improvement between the first and final drafts, thanks to her. “What are we waiting for?”
Even before she’d finished her question, the Doctor had turned to the main console. He flashed a grin over his shoulder at her. “Right then. We’re off to visit the city of Atlantis, Pegasus Galaxy, in the year 2006.”
He had to have known how much that would shock her. Sometimes she thought he planned these things deliberately, just to provoke a reaction. “Pegasus Galaxy? Doctor, humans haven’t gotten past the moon in my time and you’re telling me that kid winds up in a different galaxy?”
Turning his attention back to the coordinates he was imputing, the Doctor continued. “Well they haven’t exactly told the rest of the planet that they’ve been traveling off-world for the past nine years or so, but his program’s been out there. And when they figure out that the city of Atlantis was in another galaxy, our little Rodney, who’s not exactly little by this point, is the head of the science department.”
Their conversation was interrupted as the TARDIS started shuddering as it faded into existence on Atlantis. The Doctor glanced up at the coordinates and grinned again. “Another perfect landing, right in the middle of their Gateroom. Right then, shall we pop out and go see what Rodney’s been up to here for the past two and a half years?
Rose grinned. This was her Doctor at his most cheerful, and his mood was amazingly infectious at times like these. “Ready when you are, Doctor.”
The doors of the TARDIS opened to reveal a beautiful but thoroughly alien looking room, but Rose’s attention was distracted from the architecture by a rather anxious group of soldiers aiming a nasty set of guns at her and the Doctor. And behind the soldiers, up on the lighted stairs, a much older Rodney McKay stood there staring at them with an incredulous look on his face. A rather silly part of her mind, the part that was getting used to having dangerous weapons aimed at her after travelling with the Doctor, was glad that there weren’t any flies in the room. His gaping jaw and open mouth would have been an irresistible target for the insect.
The Doctor, of course, was ignoring the guns completely. “Hello, Rodney. Did you miss us?”
***
This couldn’t be happening. This could not be happening. It was absolutely impossible for them to be here, after all this time, looking no different than they had back then.
“Did you miss us?” the Doctor had asked. Miss them? The echoes of that one afternoon aboard the TARDIS had shaped so much of his life after that point. Through the years he’d alternately blessed and cursed the Doctor and Rose for opening his eyes to so much beyond what he’d thought possible and then shutting him off from it. He’d only really moved past the Doctor’s rejection of him a few years ago, when Elizabeth had asked him to lead the Atlantis mission’s scientific division and he’d realized that he would have never come to Atlantis if he’d gone with the Doctor then.
And now here they were, about to change everything in his life again, and the Doctor wanted to know if Rodney had missed them!
“McKay…” drawled Sheppard. “Do you want to introduce us to your new guests? Or explain, you know, how the hell they got here?”
Oh great, and now he’d have to deal with Sheppard’s deranged sense of humor about this too. This day had officially gone to hell in a handbasket. The only thing he needed now was…
“Rodney? My office, now.” Elizabeth, of course, wanting to know who was invading her city this week. And of course they’d only just finished dealing with that idiot, Lucius, so she was going to be more concerned about the visitors than she would be normally. Perfect. Unless the Wraith invaded this afternoon, the day could not get any worse.
***
From the look on his face, Rose thought it was pretty obvious that Rodney wasn’t exactly pleased to see them again. And it didn’t help that the Doctor was grinning like an idiot at the guards with guns, big guns to boot, who were escorting them into some sort of conference room. Honestly, if he’d mentioned how much trouble it was going to be to go check on Rodney, she might have thought better of it. She guessed she should consider herself lucky that no one had started shooting at them yet, though if the glare from the muscular guy with the dreads was any indication, that still might happen.
So now they were waiting impatiently for Rodney to explain to this Dr. Weir lady who they were. Or at least, she was waiting impatiently. The Doctor looked like he was content to lean back and see how far he could bend the back of the chair without tipping himself onto the ground or breaking it. It was taking a lot longer for Rodney to fill the others in than she would have thought, given that they’d only spent an afternoon together. But finally Rodney and Dr. Weir and four other people to whom she hadn’t been introduced entered the conference room.
“Well,” said Dr. Weir as she sat down across from them and pulled her chair close to the table. “Dr. McKay has told me a bit about you, and he doesn’t think you’re a threat to the city, but we’re still curious as to why you’re here. Would you care to explain?”
The Doctor abruptly pulled himself forward out of his sprawl and grinned madly. “Oh, that? Rose was a bit upset that we had to leave Rodney behind last week, so I thought I’d bring her forward and show her what he’s been up to. And it’s been a while since I came to visit Atlantis, so I figured we’d kill two birds with one stone. We just dropped in to say hi, maybe grab a cup of tea, and then we’ll be off.”
There was a derisive snort from the cute American with the puffy hair. “You came all this way to say hi to Rodney?” That comment earned him a huff of indignation from Rodney and a glare from Dr. Weir. Privately, Rose decided he wasn’t as cute as she’d initially thought.
The distraction seemed to relax Rodney slightly, and he shifted his focus back to her and the Doctor. “What do you mean, you had to leave me behind back then, and why did you wait over twenty-two years before you came back?”
Rose glanced at the Doctor, who for once looked like he wasn’t going to start talking at about a hundred words per minute. It seemed that this time he was content to sit back let her talk. Wonderful. Well, here went nothing. “The Doctor’s spent a lot of time travelling in time,” she began, inwardly wincing at the awkward phrasing of that statement, “and he knows human history pretty well, including what we consider the future. He remembered what your role in it was, and he didn’t want to alter the timeline like it would have if he’d taken you with us. And then he wanted to show me what you’ve done here, so that I’d know what happened to you.”
Again, the fluffy-haired guy was the one to start talking. “Oh, come on. If it’s the future, how can you know it before it happens? It’s impossible.”
This guy was going to drive her nuts. “First time I traveled with the Doctor, he took me to watch Earth’s sun explode and destroy the planet. Five million years in the future. We met the woman who called herself the last human, and she looked like a skin-colored trampoline with lipstick on. I nearly got burned to ashes twice when she sabotaged the space station we were on. By that time, all of you will have been dead for millions of years, and everything you do will have been written down as history, and then forgotten. The next place the Doctor took me was Cardiff, Christmas 1869 and we met Charles Dickens. I nearly died there too, over a hundred years before I was born. I don’t believe in impossible anymore.”
That seemed to shock him into silence, and apparently no one else in the room knew what to say either. The quiet stretched on awkwardly, until the Doctor interrupted it by standing up and saying “Right then, Rose, we’ve seen what we came here for and it doesn’t look like they have any tea or chips to offer, so are you ready to go?”
She jumped to her feet and took his hand. “Ready when you are, Doctor.”
“You’re leaving again?” Rodney, of course.
“Yep!” The Doctor replied. “We’ve got lots to do, a whole universe and all of time and space to see, and not a lot of time to do it in. So can we get an escort back to my TARDIS, or do we have to start running for it?”