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The entire incident is almost enough to put the Doctor off of bananas for good.
Which is saying something.
It starts on the way to a gig in Hawaii, during a layover in Shanghai Pudong airport. There’s a customs agent with a drug-sniffing dog that fixates on the Doctor’s little blue rectangular suitcase.
“You have something in your bag, sir?”
“’Course I do! Pinstriped trousers — it’s my thing, y’see — and three, no four, bottles of hair gel, and I was just recently talked into switching to boxer-briefs, so —”
Apparently Chinese customs agents aren’t allowed to indulge in humor. “You have something in your bag, sir.” Not a question this time. “Come with us.”
“Thirty minutes ‘til the flight,” Rose whispers, squeezing his hand and glancing at the crowd around them — bandmates and roadies and stylists, all trickling through customs.
“Not to worry, just be a mo!”
The drug dog had caught a whiff of a forgotten banana in the bottom of the Doctor’s suitcase, one from the fruit bowl in the lobby of the New Delhi hotel. The customs officials catch a whiff of a few inconsistencies on his passport — Yes, John Smith is correct. No, there’s no legal middle name. The ‘T.S.’ was something I put down as a joke years ago, a nickname from school, it doesn’t mean anything, really — and when they finally hand him back his mobile, he’s got fifteen missed calls from Donna and four from Rose and even one from Martha.
They bring him to a room with a glass partition and he’s so angry he wants to shout, but he presses his lips together instead, his mind moving a thousand miles a minute, stretching forward into plans and contingencies and the beach estate that’s rented on Maui for next week, after the gig.
Rose stands on the other side of the partition, cell phone at her ear. She isn’t wearing her makeup today; she’s beautiful like this, Rose in her purest form, blinking and waking up in his arms, kisses and morning breath and soft, sleepy words whispered between them. Except her honey-colored eyes aren’t happy right now, they’re full of the same annoyance and worry he feels.
The Doctor moves without thinking, presses his hand to the barrier as though he can reach right through and cup her cheek. She echoes his movement, her smaller hand flat against the other side of the partition, but her touch is only cold, shatter-proof glass.
Donna stands behind her, talking, but the Doctor can’t hear what she’s saying.
Rose speaks into the mobile: “Donna says to tell you we’ve delayed the flight as long as we can, but the airline’s insisting they can’t wait any longer. You and I will catch up to them in Honolulu.”
“Tell Donna to rent me a charter instead of booking me commercial, it’ll be quicker once this is all sorted,” he says. “And you get on that flight with the rest of them, Rose. There’s no telling how long this is going to take.”
“Donna’s already got a charter set up, White Star Airlines, pilot by the name of Astrid Peth, she’s prepping the Gulfstream right now.” Rose frowns at him. “And don’t think for a minute I’m getting on a flight before they let you out of there. I’m not leaving you, Doctor.”
The Doctor meets Donna’s eyes behind Rose and gives a slight nod that Rose misses, caught up looking at their hands on the glass.
He can hear Donna’s voice through the mobile, watches her lips move as she ushers Rose away and through a doorway. Rose follows along, clearly thinking she’s being led to the holding room, and the Doctor winces as she shouts upon finding herself in the jetway.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she says and it’s clear enough down the line that he knows Rose is talking to him.
She appears on the other side of the glass once more. “I’m not going to leave you.”
The Doctor watches as Donna’s mobile rings and, after a few moments, she’s shouting into the receiver, the words too muffled for him to make out.
She hangs up angrily and then gently takes Rose’s phone, clicking on the speaker function.
“The label is demanding someone on the ground to do press. There’s no other option. It’s in your contracts.”
The Doctor sighs, lips forming words of love that are cut off as Donna hangs up the phone and, with help from Martha, wrangles Rose back into the jetway.
He watches the seconds tick by on his watch, a battered and scratched old thing that Rose teases him about endlessly. “At least change the strap, Doctor!”
Ten minutes and 26 seconds later, he hears the plane depart.
Half an hour after that, they finally allow him to go. No apology is given.
He boards his charter quickly – with luck and a few strong winds, he might be able to make up most of the time and arrive before their cars have even left the airport.
Astrid is a bubbly, pretty thing and he finds he doesn’t mind the separation quite so much with her company. He is, in no uncertain terms, not supposed to be in the cockpit, but he charms his way up there more than a few times, chatting amicably with Astrid until her co-pilot, a bloke named Alonso, puts a stop to it.
The first sign of trouble comes just after that, as he’s settling in with the Johnny Cash biography Rose had bought him last time they were in America. Severe turbulence, a loud clanging, and puff of smoke out the side windows – they’re in a rapid descent.
The cockpit door swings open and there’s the sounds and looks of panic. He fights against gravity to get a look at the controls, but it’s no use. Astrid grabs his face and pulls him in for a kiss, something about how much she enjoys his music on her lips and he has a brief thought that this is not the blonde hair he wanted with him before everything goes black.
When he wakes, he’s in a pile of life preservers on a beach, the small plane in pieces around him.
He forces himself onto wobbly legs and locates the split-apart cockpit. Astrid is slumped over the controls, lifeless and still and he recoils in horror and sadness, fighting against the impulse to vomit when he hears noise to his left.
Alonso, still strapped into his chair and struggling to breathe, opens his eyes to look at the Doctor.
He jolts himself to movement, rushing to the co-pilot’s side.
“You’re going to be fine, you’ll be fine,” but he’s cataloging his injuries, the bits of metal lodged and sticking from the other man’s chest. “We’ve got this, you’ll be fine! Allons-y, Alonso!”
Moments later, Alonso’s eyes roll back and he does, indeed, let go.
“I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” he says, reaching down to close Alonso’s eyelids.
Yanking at his own hair, the Doctor stays on his knees next to the corpse — there’s so much blood and he still feels like he’s falling, plummeting from the upper atmosphere, he can’t breathe and his stomach lurches and he retches, keeling over onto all fours on the sand beside Alonso.
The Doctor stays there so long, he can’t remember a time when there wasn’t sand scraping his palms and fingertips.
Everything’s getting dim, and for a terrifying moment he wonders if he’s got a concussion. The idea is frightening enough to sharpen his concentration.
He runs an inventory — two legs, in working order; ten fingers, wiggling into the fret patterns for ‘Howl at the Moon’ with ease; ears, nose and chin, all where they should be; head, not bleeding or tender. His shirt is ripped and frayed, his tie (the swirly one, Rose’s favorite) hanging askew. His forearm is a bit singed (he can’t feel the pain, is that good or bad?), and there’s blood trickling down his forehead, but the cut doesn’t seem deep.
He looks up, surveys the horizon, and realizes the sun is setting. Which would explain why everything’s growing dark.
“Name: the Doctor.” His voice is raspy, but it works. More importantly, the information comes to his mind with ease. “Rank: the Doctor. Intention: fun.”
He gives a nod, wincing as his neck twinges a bit, and says aloud, “Let’s face it, things could be worse. Body, intact. Cleverness, intact.”
Even though he realizes it’s irrational, part of him waits for Rose to giggle, or for Martha’s steadying bedside manner and reassuring hand on his elbow, or even for Donna’s voice shouting about how White Star Airlines has some serious explaining to do.
“Quite right, Donna! We need to get on the horn and call headquarters.” The Doctor steels himself as he makes his way back over to Astrid. “First order of business, locate the radio and call for help. Second order of business, organize supplies before nightfall. Wait, no-no-no-no,” he interrupts himself, shaking his finger at an invisible conversational partner, “make organization the third order of business — second order’s to find Sexy, because we’ll need to pass the time until the cavalry comes.”
The radio’s broken. Sexy, the Doctor’s guitar, is missing.
After organizing his supplies, the Doctor buries Astrid and Alonso.
~~~~~
The VIP lounge at the Honolulu International airport isn’t very large, so Donna sent the rest of the crew to the hotel and to check in. There are just five of them left waiting: Rose, Donna, Martha, Adam, and Wilfred. Donna’s pacing, all frantic energy and the need to do and to fix, and normally Rose would be right there pacing alongside her, but Wilf has caught hold of her hand, so she’s sitting next to him instead.
It’s probably a good thing; she needs someone’s hand to hold right now, and she’d worry she’s hurting him, with how hard she’s squeezing, but Wilf hasn’t complained once.
“It’ll be fine,” he says in a soothing voice, “Lost in a bit of weather, that’s all. Got to be.”
Donna turns around and throws her hands up in the air before letting them fall down and slap her thighs in exasperation. “How do they lose a plane? They’ve got radar and satellites and — I don’t know — wizards or aliens or something, they keep track of these things!”
Rose laughs at that, the Doctor would know exactly what it was called – the technology for finding a plane. But he’s not here. Still.
She’s peeled off all her nail polish, chewed them down to the quick (and won’t the Doctor be sorry for that – nothing to scratch down his back, and serves him right for disappearing) and started thinking about buying a pack of cigarettes when news finally arrives.
There are specifics, water and engine trouble and emergency landings, but Rose doesn’t hear any of it. She’s stuck on the first sentence, on that there “possibly” could have been a crash.
When the executive leaves, some high ranking thing in a smart-looking suit, Donna opens her arms for a hug, and Rose goes, but doesn’t feel it. She doesn’t want a hug right now, she wants answers and the Doctor grinning at her from the doorway.
“He’s alive,” Rose says, startling even herself. “He’s alive.”
Donna tightens her arms. “If that’s true, we’ll find him.”
~~~~~
The beach is boring and he misses Rose. Those are the two thoughts at the front of his mind. Well, not in that order; he misses Rose first and has thoughts about the entertainment offerings on the beach second, but still the point stands. Also, he’s in pain, still, but he’s trying not to dwell on that.
He’s begun to assess what little made it out of the plane – a rolling cart with some nibbles that he hasn’t inventoried yet, too afraid in his state that he’ll crack and eat all of them, the Johnny Cash book, some blankets and pillows, plus the life preservers he’d landed on.
Further on down the beach, reflecting the moonlight, is a small piece of luggage and his heart swells and then falls. His own luggage is blue and, on closer inspection, this is black and gray, but maybe there will be something good inside.
It’s Alsono’s, full of uniforms and shoes and the other small pieces of someone who lives a life on the road (or in the sky, as it were). Emptying the luggage to rifle through more later, he begins to assemble a lean-to to tuck up in for the night.
There’s not been a single other living thing on the beach and, for all that hopefully means that no threatening people will be waking him up to hurt him, he’s also lonely.
On a bed of life preservers and airplane blankets, he stares at the leafy ceiling of his temporary home and thinks about Rose. Rose who must be angry, or hurt, or – she has to know he’s trying to get back, right?
It’s just, it’s impossible, right now. No radio to speak of, and a head pounding with the crash of the waves. He’ll look around more in the morning.
A body unused to falling asleep without Rose, rambling until he drops off – as Rose likes to tease him – mid-sentence, struggles against his exhaustion.
In a moment of madness he grabs some shoe polish from the pile of Alonso’s things and draws on the luggage like he’s in “Cast Away.” It’s not a volleyball, or a face, or his own blood (thankfully, although there’s plenty of that to go around), but he makes the little luggage into an amp, into his K-9 amp, the one with Sarah Jane now. Fingers pretending to plug in and he plays through a few songs, audibly addressing flubbed chord changes and how much he particularly likes a certain line.
Before he can put away his imaginary guitar, or turn off his pretend amp, he’s fallen into a fitful sleep.
~~~~~
All the way to the hotel, Donna is a flurry of efficiency, making phone calls to the venue and promoters, telling veryconvincing stories of the flu, and by the time they arrive, the gig is cancelled and everyone’s schedule is wide open.
There’s plenty of time, now, to fall apart.
Rose is a picture of quiet, white-kuckled composure. Everything’s in Donna’s capable hands, and there’s nothing for her to do. Martha climbs out of the car in front of her, already on the phone to Mickey, and Rose feels a stab of jealousy. It’s irrational, even petty, but she’s craving a pair of steady arms right now, and Mickey is familiar and comfortable. But as Martha hangs up the phone and grabs Rose’s hand, Rose admits to herself it simply isn’t her place to ask for Mickey’s reassurance anymore.
The arms she really wants should’ve been here fifteen hours ago.
Donna’s still running everything like a general in the field, and she has the five of them checked in in short order. Rose stares at the keycard in her hand, walks down the quiet hallway to her suite, and absentmindedly shoves a bank note into the bellhop’s hand before he leaves — it’s a fifty pound note, she doesn’t have any dollars.
The Doctor’s large suitcase — the one he’d checked through to Hawaii, the one that had boarded the plane even when he couldn’t — sits like a blue monolith in the living room of the suite. It’s dark, the clock beside the bed says 3:26 am, and Rose stares at the glowing red numbers until they begin to blur.
Once the first tear comes, the dam breaks. Rose lets herself feel the helplessness, the horror, of what’s happened; it rolls through her in waves, and she’s sobbing on the floor. She wants to hold something, anything, and she fumbles with the zipper on his bag. The contents inside are a wreck — she’s always teasing him about the fact that he can’t pack, his suits end up a wrinkled wad and he spends an inordinate amount of time ironing afterward.
She plunges her hands inside, pulls out an armful of his things. Everything is brown and pinstripes and blue oxfords, a few of his casual clothes — the things he hardly ever wears, hoodies and jeans, and all of it is him, and he should be here, long fingers unbuttoning her shirt and tongue teasing at her earlobe. She’d protest that she was tired, that she smelled like airplanes, and he’d chuckle (low and soft and teeth now, nibbling at the her neck, because they both know her protests are empty) and she’d follow him to the shower with a grin.
His clothes are cold in her arms and she clutches them, gasping and crying convulsively, until there are no more tears left. Until the sadness and horror have receded like a wave — one that will creep up on her again, no doubt, but one that’s at bay for the moment.
She’s in the bathroom, splashing cool water on her stinging, red face, when someone knocks softly at her door.
Donna’s outside, clutching her mobile, her mouth working soundlessly.
“What else is there for me to do?” she asks Rose, no small amount of panic in her eyes. “There’s got to be something else, another call, something else that needs to be sorted. What else, Rose? Tell me! What else?”
Rose opens her arms.
Trembling and terrified, Donna stumbles into the suite and into her embrace, and as Rose sits with her on the floor, stroking her hair and letting her cry, it dawns on her that none of them can deal with this alone.
Even more than that, Rose realizes that this is not a gig or a business matter, to be left in Donna’s hands. Rose can’t follow along while someone else manages this crisis.
All of the people with them right now love the Doctor, but he’s her Doctor — the love of her life. She can’t imagine life without him. She doesn’t want to. And if she has to break the laws of every country on earth – if she has to break the fundamental laws of the universe – to find him, she will. Because she’ll sacrifice anything for him.
First thing on the altar for sacrifice: incapacitating sadness.
It’s time for Rose to take the lead.
~~~~~
When the Doctor wakes, it’s still dark out, but as he crawls out of the lean-to, the moon glinting off the water illuminates things enough for him to see that nothing has changed.
There’s no rescue ship approaching the shore, no helicopter that’s magically appeared to take him away. It’s just the Doctor, the wreckage of a plane and a few meager supplies. He pats K-9 fondly and hears a low grumbling in return.
His eyes widen at the thought that he’s already cracking up before he realizes it’s his stomach. He pushes himself to stand, fingers scratching for purchase in the sand.
When (and when, not if) he gets off this stupid island, he’ll not be taking to Rose to that Maui rental – or anywhere else with sand. Maybe ever again. That’ll be an interesting addition to the contracts, “The Doctor will not play any venue near a beach or a sandbox.” Donna’s going to be thrilled.
Oh, Donna.
Wherever she is, he hopes she’s with Rose, and that they’re helping each other. According to his watch, it’s been nearly a full day since he watched them disappear down the jetway. It’s the longest he’s been away from either of them in a long time. The longest he’s been away from Rose ever.
What would Rose do, if she were here?
His stomach rumbles at him again and he thinks she’d make him eat something, definitely.
Making his way over to the plane’s battered food trolley, he pries open the door.
There’s a few cans of Coke and bottles of water, some peanuts, crisps, and a handful of sandwiches that look like they’ve seen better days even before they were in a plane crash.
He opens a Coke and makes a face around the warm fizzing as he takes a sip. Crisps are next – salt and vinegar and wouldn’t Rose just love that? HIm chasing her around for a kiss as she threw sticks of gum at him, shrieking about his breath.
This wallowing isn’t doing anybody any good and he finishes his breakfast watching the sun just starting to come up over the water.
There’s more than a few fallen trees littering the island, and plenty of palm fronds and he thinks madly about trying to build a raft.
But what if he leaves just as they’ve located him and he’s off the island when they come? He has to hold tight for a few days, enough time for them to get any search and rescue efforts out. It’s going to be tough staying put, but whatever meager efforts he’d be able to put together would pale in comparison to the army they’re surely raising in Hawaii.
He hopes that’s what they’re doing anyway, the thought of Rose crying in their suite, upset over him, is too much to handle. He has to believe she’s singularly focused on getting him back, because the idea that he’s hurting her, even if it’s not his fault, is unbearable.
(And the voice inside him that says it is his fault , that he should’ve taken that stupid banana out of his luggage days ago, or that he should’ve insisted they hold the main plane for him, or that he shouldn’t have insisted on a charter, is one he’s trying hard not to listen to. Firing off his not insignificant guilt complex isn’t going to help anyone right now.)
He shuffles back to the lean-to and pulls out the Johnny Cash book, flipping open the cover to see Rose’s dedication:
For the Man in Brown, about the Man in Black
XO, Rose
He traces her name with the tip of his index finger a few times before finding his spot and beginning to read.
~~~~~
Rose wakes up on the living room floor of her suite, wrapped in a fluffy duvet. Martha’s asleep on the couch — she’d come knocking not long after Donna showed up — and Donna’s snoring on the king-sized bed in the other room.
Shaking out her numb shoulder, wiggling her fingers to restore bloodflow, Rose walks into the bathroom. Her reflection is haggard, dark rings under her eyes, her hair a haystack. She combs it out, applies a little bit of makeup, and changes into a pair of black jeans and her blue leather jacket, the one the Doctor had bought for her because it was nearly the same color as his touring bus.
Martha staggers into the bathroom, bleary-eyed.
“I had to share a hotel room with Donna a few years back, in a little town in Russia, because the hotel was overbooked. I swore I’d never do it again,” she says, grabbing her toothbrush just another deafening snore floats in from the adjoining room.
Rose manages a tight smile. “The Doctor always makes sure we’re a couple of rooms away, just in case the walls are thin.”
Martha’s movements stall, the toothbrush stopping in her mouth, and she stares at Rose’s reflection in the mirror. “Oh.”
Rose stares right back. “We’ve got work to do today, Martha. I need you with me. Are you with me?”
“Yeah,” Martha replies, dark eyes focused on Rose’s, as though she’s trying to puzzle something out. “No matter how long it takes, even if I have to scour every corner of the earth. He’s the Doctor. We’re going to get him back.”
Even if he’s in pieces, Martha doesn’t say. A dark corner of Rose’s mind whispers the words anyway, but she grabs them, squeezes them until they’re lifeless, crams them back into that dark corner, and stomps them until they’re dust.
It is, she decides, the last time a thought like that will ever cross her mind. “Good. Because I’ve got a plan.”
“What’s this? A plan? Does it involve lox and bagels? I’m starving.” Donna walks in and unceremoniously leans across Martha for a glass, filling it up and draining it in short order.
“Have you called Jack yet?”
Donna’s forehead wrinkles and she runs her fingers through her hair — somehow, in spite of yesterday’s trauma and last night’s restless sleep, she looks gorgeous, ginger locks cascading around her shoulders in loopy curls. “Nope. I was too busy calling the British consulate and the Home Office and the US Coast Guard.”
Rose bites her lip. “He needs to know. First, because he’s one of the Doctor’s oldest friends. And second … well, the Doctor told me that he used to be in the military.”
Donna breaks out into sputtering laughter, the glass clinking as she drops it on the counter. Martha stares at Rose as if she’s spouting gibberish.
“It’s true,” Rose says calmly, confidently. “After they left high school, the Doctor went to uni to study electrical engineering” — this time Martha laughs “–he left school before he finished his degree, of course. Jack enlisted and became SBS, and got an honorable discharge six months before his first DJ gig. He’s got connections, and we’re going to use every last one of them. Donna, will you give him a call, bring him up to speed, and see what kind of resources he can bring to the table?”
Donna’s not laughing anymore, she’s studying Rose with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah, I’ll give him a call.”
“Thanks.” Rose flashes a smile, turns to Martha. “Do you think you can get in touch with your friends Rita and Anji? I have an idea, and we need people with their kind of expertise.”
Martha nods. “No problem, Rita’s visiting family in Sri Lanka right now, and Anji’s in LA. I can get hold of both of them.”
Rose reaches out and grabs both their hands. “We’re in this for the long haul. And we’re going to bring him home.”
~~~~~
If there were anyone around, the Doctor would have found them by now, not only because they could help him get off this stupid island, but also because the sand kingdom he’s built is brilliant and what good is his brilliance if no one is around to admire it?
He spent the morning pacing off the island as best he could. It’s about 3 kilometers in either direction. Barely enough to make a blip on any mapmaker’s radar and, if the Doctor were a different sort of man, exactly the sort of island he could buy, if he wanted.
There’s a small outcropping of rocks on the far side, not quite tall enough to be called mountains (or even hills), but it’s definitely the highest point and he’ll have to move up there soon, just to make himself easier to spot.
For now though, he’s playing in the sand. He’s spelled out several words just far enough from the water that they’ll be visible no matter the tide. ROSE and HELP and IT’S ME THE DOCTOR.
The wound on his arm is oozing a mixture of clear and yellow fluid and he’s cinched the remains of his tie around it, after washing it with some of the bottled water.
Alonso’s dop kit had a few painkillers and he’s being conservative with the ibuprofen. He’s never done well with aspirin, but if the pounding in his head doesn’t go away, he might have to take it anyway. There’s a small half-empty bottle of the good stuff – real narcotics, but he’s not going to touch those, at least not for a while. The last thing he needs is a foggy head.
After a pack of peanuts and the remains of the bottled water he cleaned the burn with, he takes a short walk into the sea, being mindful to keep his head and his arm above the water.
The sun is beating down and his skin feels warm and tight. He’s going to look like a tomato by the time they find him.
He piles some of the life preservers, pillows, and blankets into K-9 and drags them to the top of the rocks before going down for his lean-to. It’s harder to assemble without sand to plant in to, but he makes it work, creating a little bit of shade on the warm stones. He stretches out on the surface, keeping watch on the sky for any passing aircraft as he thinks of Rose, and how he hopes she’s holding up all right, and remembering to eat.
~~~~~
“Rose Marion Tyler, you will eat something,” her mother’s voice echoes off the walls of the suite.
She doesn’t remember calling her mum and the way Donna drops her gaze to the floor tells Rose everything she needs to know.
She’s about to protest when her mum rushes to close the distance between them, enveloping her in a hug and murmuring into her ear words of love and reassurance.
It’s exactly what she needs and she lets herself crumble into the embrace for a moment, pulling away only when she feels a tap on her shoulder and then she’s pulled into another hug, this time from Mickey.
“It’ll be all right, babe,” he says and the weirdness of him calling her babe while she cries over the Doctor and Martha stands awkwardly holding the ice bucket is enough to pull Rose back to reality.
Donna charges back into the room, practically yanking a bellhop pushing a tray of food in her wake.
Rose turns her nose up at the food and Jackie is just about to light in to her again when Donna holds up a banana with a pointed look.
It’s dirty pool to be sure and Rose takes the fruit with a sniff and a withering glare, peeling it and eating without thinking.
“You know where you ought to be? Back in London with me!” Jackie says.
“Mum, the search efforts are based from here and Brisbane, I need to be close by.”
Jackie harrumphs as she sorts through the rest of the food tray and shoves a croissant into Rose’s other hand. “Need to be.Rose Marion Tyler, there are professionals managing this crisis, there’s no need for you to just linger around —”
“I tried to tell her, the entire trip here, but she wouldn’t listen,” Mickey interrupts, rolling his eyes. He’s gone to sit with Martha on the couch, and there’s a comfortable familiarity between them, in the way they share space, that makes Rose’s throat full and the pit of her stomach hollow. “Martha’s filled me in a bit, about the people you’ve called in.”
At that moment, Donna’s mobile rings. She excuses herself and steps into the bedroom. Rose draws a deep breath and turns to face her mum, knowing she’s going to get an earful about how ridiculous she’s being, that clinging to hope like this is only going to make it worse in the end. Jackie Tyler knows about loss —about being a widow — and Rose isn’t remotely ready to let her mother usher her down that emotional path.
“The US and Australian coast guards are performing standard search and rescue operations. Jack Harkness has called in some favors, and he’s got a few ships from the Australian navy out, as well. The Doctor’s in one of two situations: floating on a life raft at sea, or stranded on an island somewhere.”
“There are three situations, Rose,” Jackie says, blunt but not unkind. She blinks rapidly, and Rose realizes her mum is actually on the verge of tears.
Rose plows ahead as though she hasn’t heard a word. “He was on a Gulfstream G650, and the inflatable life rafts in that model are equipped with homing beacons. If he’s at sea, the raft will be transmitting automatically, until the battery runs out. If he’s on land somewhere, assuming the plane (or some part of it) is with him, there’s even more transmitting equipment available. The Doctor’s clever, he’ll figure out some way to send some kind of a signal.”
Jackie opens her mouth again, but before she can get a syllable out, Rose keeps right on going: “Martha’s friend Rita is an experimental physicist, and Anji helped design and build radar telescopes for a dozen space agencies around the world. I’ve hired them both as independent contractors to design and build a device that’ll be able to detect any kind of signal the Doctor might send. We’re already ordering the materials Rita and Anji need, we’ve got a team of engineers working around the clock, and I’ve rented a large ship to build it on.
“Even with Jack calling in his favors, the coast guard and navy will stop searching within a few weeks, max. If the Doctor isn’t home by then, I’m going to be prepared to keep searching. As long as it takes.”
Jackie steps closer, her hand coming to rest on Rose’s cheek. “Oh, sweetie,” she breathes.
Rose bites her lip so hard, she’s surprised she doesn’t taste blood. “I can’t leave him out there, Mum. You don’t know him like I do — he’s clever, cleverer than you can imagine — and I won’t leave him. I just … I just can’t.”
Jackie’s chin moves, the barest hint of a quiver, and she drops her hand with a resigned nod. “You’re so busy being Miss Project Manager and taking care of everybody else, who’s taking care of you?”
“You could, maybe, stay?” Rose replies, throwing her arms around her mum and burying her face in her shoulder.
“’Course I can,” Jackie says, stroking her hair.
~~~~~
For the first time in his life, he’s lost track of time. It’s been weeks, certainly, but how many? How many days, hours, minutes, seconds since he’s seen Rose? When he asks K-9, way past concerns about talking to a piece of painted-on luggage, the only response is “Too many.”
It feels like a long time, whatever the count, and he tries to ignore the idea that they’d have been here by now, if they were coming. Mostly because Rose would slap him, if she knew he was thinking like that. Instead he’s stuck inside his own head, chasing after birds, and shaking down coconuts, starting fires and conserving water. He’s thinking, all by himself, and that’s never good.
He’s relived his entire life on this bloody island; in the smell of salt from the ocean he’d found the Master again.
It’s a few months until graduation, until the Doctor’s supposed to leave for an electrical engineering degree and the Master’s on to – well, he always was a vague sort of bloke. And the motorbike just appears. One day it’s on the edge of campus, no fallen rider or For Sale sign, nothing – just a broken down bike and two boys with a mind to fix it.
He knows now that it would never have worked. Not the bike – they’d fixed that up in a matter of days, wrestling over tools, pushing narrow hips against narrow hips, and the smell of grease and sweat on the air. Tongues and teeth and he never could understand why the Corsair never said anything. Why he didn’t mention coming across the Doctor and the Master in a tangle of limbs and ripped clothes, why he never asked what they thought they were doing or where they thought they were going.
No, the bike had worked from the start.
It was the two of them, blond and brown, Theta Sigma and Koschei, Bunk A and Bunk B, that wouldn’t work, wouldn’t go. The morning they were to leave there’d been a fight. He can’t even remember it now. And then graduation, and uni, and picking a label, where it had all fallen apart for good.
So it’s in the smell of salt that he finds the Master, but it’s in the breeze that carries it that he finds Rose.
She’s standing outside the backstage entrance to Wembley stadium, talking on her mobile. He’d hoped to find her before she’d become the Rose Tyler he’d seen in the papers, hoped they could meet as just two people who played music, instead of two musicians, but she’s already in her normal concert outfit.
The wind is whipping her hair around, somehow making it look better instead of worse, and he can just make out what she’s saying, scattered words like, “Mum” and “Haven’t met him yet” and “I can handle it” and the way she’s playing on her heels, rocking back and forth with the strong breeze, twists something in him.
She’s going to be trouble, or she’s going to keep him out of it, he can’t tell yet.
He’d done his research, of course he had, hours on the internet, more than a few not-so-casual conversations with people in the industry, but this is different and the laugh she lets out as the wind catches her and she falls almost too far before righting herself, oh yes, she’ll be trouble.
He tries to play with the breeze on the island, chases it to the far corners, tripping with it, and gasping, and choking, but it’s not fun, and he doesn’t laugh; it feels a little like drowning.
It’s the breeze that leads him back into the wreckage one morning. He’d searched the debris thoroughly the first two weeks, triggering the beacon on every life raft, sending up a few flares, but somehow he’s missed this, or it’s only just washed up.
The shell of the plane and one of the engines, damaged, but not unusable – it’s a Sun Engine, and he remembers something from a magazine, some air and space thing he’d picked up in an airport lounge, a company advert, “Can’t Turn Off a Sun.”
It takes him the better part of two days, and everything he learned in school, but almost 48 hours later, he’s got a small, sad-looking boat, and a small, sad-looking motor.
He sets off as day is breaking and he’s been on the water for hours when things go pear-shaped. He’d strapped K-9 in with a ripped up blanket and it’s just as well or he’d be floating away with the choppy waves, and it’s all too much.
He turns back just as the engine begins to smoke, using the very last of the power and more than a bit of jiggery pokery to pulse out a signal, before being forced to paddle back in.
He’d tried to get back to Rose, instead he’d burned up a Sun.
~~~~~
Rose sits in the wheelhouse, mug of instant coffee steaming in her hands, and stares out the window at the field of stars. She’s wearing her blue leather jacket — it’s cold at night, but she’d likely be wearing it in midday heat, too, because it’s become a piece of armor. If she takes it off, everyone will see the shredded mess of her heart, and she can’t lower the façade for an instant.
Even with Jack calling in every last favor he could, the coast guard gave up the search after the first month. Now, in the second, Rose is well aware that even Martha — steadfast Martha, whose very soul is the epitome of dedication and endurance — looks at her with a pitying gaze.
So the blue jacket stays on, and the ship she’s chartered and jury-rigged as an enormous listening device slips through the silent waters of the Pacific. Rose always mans the watch through the small hours of the night, alone, eyes glued to flickering lights and bobbing needles, looking for anything unusual. They’re following official coast guard search patterns, working outward from the last known location of the plane, tracing and retracing and putting into port only when they need to refuel and resupply.
The crew of the charter is happy to be at sea as long as she’s tossing fistfuls of money at them, and the Doctor’s friends have been coming out with Rose in shifts, flying back and forth from London. Jackie went home four days ago and Rose got an email not long after with photos of the tabloid covers — old pictures of her and the Doctor, along with the headlines “Pop Princess Sells Kingdom on Mad Quest.”
It was true, she was burning through her not inconsiderable fortune at a shocking rate. Martha came onboard after Jackie left, and when Rose told her about the tabloids during dinner, Martha had shrugged. “The Doctor’s got plenty of money. If he’s ever … I mean, if they decide to … y’know for legal reasons, they declare him … well, anyway, there’s a certain amount of his fortune that goes to charity, and the rest goes to you. So there’s something in case —”
“What?” Rose had blinked at Martha, forkful of lasagna frozen halfway to her mouth.
The other woman stared back with big eyes, realizing she’d let something slip she shouldn’t have. “They had me do a physical, for some of the insurance paperwork, and I figured he’d told you – had his will changed a while ago, arranged it with the lawyers and everything.”
And now, hours later, sitting alone at her station by the bizarre pile of machinery and clutching her cup of instant coffee, Rose shoves away thoughts of money and wills. Leaning forward, she adjusts a few knobs, watching needles and lights flicker.
At first she’s certain it’s an anomaly — they’ve had plenty before, warped whale song and ham radio operators from local island chains. She sits up straight in her chair and puts the coffee down, fingers flying over the keyboard in front of her anyway. If nothing else, the whale song is pretty sometimes.
When she sees the blip dance across the needles and lights again, her heart twists inside her chest. She doesn’t stop to worry about how erratic it’s beating or wonder if she’s having a heart attack; she’s on her feet, dashing out the wheelhouse door to the main deck. The pilot’s sitting in a chair tipped up on its back legs, his feet propped up on the railing.
“Danny!”
“Yeah, Rose? You want another cup of coffee? I’m about to —”
Unceremoniously hauling him up by his sleeve, she drags him back inside, points at the equipment. “I just got a signal. I need you to chart it; we’re going to investigate.”
Danny’s already leaning over the laptop, staring at the data. “I see it. That’s not whalesong.”
“No it’s not,” Rose replies, and she’s digging her fingernails into his arm. He pulls away, turning to his navigational computers.
“We’re about twelve hours away from — whatever that is. But Rose, you should know, there’s nothing there, nothing anybody’s ever bothered to chart.”
“You can set a course?”
“Doing it now.”
Rose is exploding with sudden energy; she’s bouncing on her toes, resisting the urge to run laps around deck, trying to keep her thoughts in some semblance of order.
It’s him, it has to be, she feels it, the same way you can sometimes tell who’s walked into a room without turning to look at them, just because of the way the air changes, because their presence makes everything shift.
Rose would recognize the feel of the Doctor’s presence from across the universe.
“I have to wake up Martha!”
~~~~~
It’s been 11 hours since she noticed the signal and she hasn’t had a cup of coffee – or any beverage, really – that she hadn’t made herself. Running around the deck, shouting at the crew, and her friends, and the skies, as the ship moved forward in slow motion, stopping seems impossible.
She knows she should sleep, that she won’t be any good to anyone, least of all the Doctor, if she passes out right at the end, but the adrenaline is overriding her common sense (and it would most certainly override whatever’s in that little orange bottle Martha’s waving around).
They’re so, so close. And the next time she sleeps, she firmly intends for it to be curled around the Doctor.
They’re heading toward something, they’ve got confirmation from the air, and the radars are picking it up consistently now.
She doesn’t stop to think about the possibility that this isn’t it. She’s cannoning toward an end to this nightmare, one way or another.
~~~~~
There’s a strange sense of peace that comes over him once he reaches the shore again. He’s given it his best go, and while it wasn’t enough, he has every faith in Rose. If anything was going to work, it would be that final signal, and if she caught it, she’s already on her way.
By this time tomorrow, he’ll either be reunited with the love of his life, or he’ll be resigned to an existence on an island no one’s ever heard of. Maybe he’ll give it a name, even.
He squints at himself in the small mirror from Alonso’s dop kit. There’s a brand new razor, and a small can of shaving foam – he’d barely even noticed them before. He’d catalogued the blade as something to come back to, but he’s made do without.
But it seems like a time to shave now, time to prepare for a new life or – in that bright, hopeful part of him – time to resume his old one.
His beard makes him look mad, a couple inches long and decidedly unkempt. He clips it with manicure scissors first, a calming motion, like trimming that stupid bonsai back on the bus. When it’s short enough, he lathers his face, shaving and watching himself reappear in the mirror.
His hair is longer, curling at the base of his neck and around his ears, but there’s nothing to be done for it. He dunks his head under the water as he rinses the foam off, combing it with his fingers as it dries.
He’d spent most of his time without a shirt, the red giving way to a tan weeks ago, but he finds his Oxford, flat and dry on the roof of the lean-to and slips it back on. It hangs baggier than it used to and the sleeves are ragged, so he rolls them to up to his elbows.
His tie is a lost cause, but Alonso had some extras in his luggage. He cycles through a few before deciding to go without. It almost feels like dressing himself for a funeral, if he’s honest.
His trousers are low on his hips, frayed and torn off at the knees and his Chucks have seen better days, but he feels like the Doctor. The Doctor on a reality show maybe, but the Doctor.
There’s one can of Coke left, buried in the sand near the water to keep it cold, and he digs it out, opening the tab like a bottle of the most expensive champagne. He’s either celebrating or giving up, and he counts the seconds like drum beats, as he waits to find out.
The sun is at its zenith when the Doctor grasps proper hold of the reality that he’s prepared himself for his funeral. Not because he’s considering suicide — nothing of the sort, it isn’t in his nature, that kind of senseless death. Sure, he could imagine dying for someone else. But he’d never take his own life.
But living the rest of his natural days in this place, hours and days and years of sand and the pounding of surf, would be a kind of death in itself. This island is a limbo, a void, and deprived of human companionship, the Doctor knows he’s going to slowly go mad.
“Wel-l-l-l-l, you don’t mind, do you K9?” he says to the suitcase propped against a nearby tree trunk. “Me being a bit mad? Mad man with a box — that’d be you, the box, I mean.”
K9, predictably, says nothing.
The Doctor decides it’s definitely the beginnings of madness when he sees a speck on the horizon.
It’s positively a symptom of dehydration and derangement when the speck steadily grows bigger. He gets on his feet, shading his eyes as he squints against the glare of sunlight on the water, and wishes he had his specs. His other hand moves absently, fingers forming fret patterns for ‘Margaritaville’ against his hip.
When the speck begins to resemble a boat, the Doctor doesn’t care if he’s mad or dehydrated or anything else. He shouts, jumping up and down and waving his hands, and he’s so excited he doesn’t even remember to light the wood for the signal fire he’s had carefully prepared since his second day here.
It doesn’t seem to matter; the boat’s making a beeline for his location.
~~~~~
Five of them are piled into the skiff, heading into the shallower waters where the bigger ship can’t go, and Martha sits beside Rose, clutching her hand and shaking. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it,” she keeps saying.
Rose’s stomach is roiling nearly as much as the sea, every one of her nerve endings crackling with anticipation, and when the skiff gets clear of the boat and close enough for her to make out his wild mop of brown hair, she’s gone.
“Doctor!”
She doesn’t wait for landfall, leaps out and slogs through chest-deep water. He’s skinnier (she’d never have thought it possible), his hair is shaggy, his skin is deeply tanned and his freckles are darker than she’s ever seen them. And it’s wildly improbable, all of this — finding him here, in the middle of a vast expanse of dark blue — but most improbable is the fact that he’s still wearing his oxford and pinstripes, and he’s clean-shaven, and he looks exactly like himself.
The impossible man.
He’s wading out to meet her. He spares the skiff a glance, he flashes his beaming grin at Martha, and then nothing else exists except the two of them.
She’s sopping wet and she flings herself at him; she should be careful, Martha has warned her that he’ll be weak and malnutritioned, but the magnetic force that always draws them together is magnified a thousandfold, and she can’t stop herself even if she was inclined to try.
His long arms wrap around her and she cries out, burying her face in his neck and her fingers in his hair, clinging to him as they brace each other against waves of water beating against their thighs. She gasps his name over and over again and he’s mumbling something, she hears Rose and only have one life and she tilts her head back, pulling his face to hers.
His chapped lips are rough, his mouth dry, and she makes a choked sobbing sound as he shudders against her, his fingers digging into her waist.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he murmurs against her mouth.
She kisses him again.
“Did you find Sexy?” he asks when he eventually comes up for air again, arching his eyebrows at her.
“Did we – did we find what?” She’s touching him all over, fingers running over the hard planes of his body, the coarseness of his hair, his smooth face.
“Sexy,” he repeats, the word garbled as her fingers pass over his lips.
“Oh my god, your guitar,” she says, wrapping him in her arms again. “No, no, but I’ll buy you a new one.”
He’s lifted her up, swinging them both in the weightlessness of the surf before they topple together into the water.
“I’ll buy you whatever you want,” she says as they struggle toward the shore, weighed down by wet clothes and their unwillingness to separate hands.
They flop onto the beach gracelessly, him turning to her the moment his knees have touched land, bracing himself over her torso and kissing her once again.
She pulls back, still breathless from the swim. “Do you – is that soda?”
He grins. “Good ol’ Coca Cola, Rose Tyler,” and he chases her mouth once more, mumbling against her lips, “I’ve missed you.”
She manages a reply, “Been busy,” before his tongue slips past her lips and she rolls her body to pin him to the sand.
It’s only Donna’s voice that breaks them apart, a loud, “Oi!” audible even over the sound of the surf.
Rose slips off of him, standing to reach a hand down and help him up, but he’s already on his feet, bounding toward Donna and sweeping her into a hug.
Donna’s arms tighten around him before she’s pulling back with a stern look broken by her bright smile. “Don’t ever do that again, Rock Boy!”
Martha’s next, hugs and tears and even Mickey gets in on it, wrapping them both in a hug before Jack is prying the Doctor away and kissing him full on the mouth.
The trip back in the small boat to the larger one is a blur, it was a tight fit with the five of them and plus the Doctor and a damaged piece of luggage he wouldn’t part with and keeps referring to as “K-9,” it’s even cozier.
It’s just as well though, Rose wouldn’t be able to separate from him even if she’d wanted to, and settled into his lap is the perfect place.
“How big is this boat?” he murmurs into her ear, and she feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
Donna overhears, “Not big enough! I’ll call once we’re aboard and get you two set up in a new room, one in the middle of the island.” She catches Rose’s eye and Rose understands what she’s not saying – that the Doctor wouldn’t want to see the one they’ve had for the last two months, the remains of Rose’s emotional state, cluttered and ruined around the space.
The Doctor nips at Rose’s neck, pulling her hips down into his as he growls, “Better get the whole floor.”
Rose is under no delusions that everything is okay. The Doctor’s clearly running on pure adrenaline, acting like he’s been off on a holiday, not trapped on a deserted island, and there are enough issues between the two of them to fill an entire cruise ship, but they’ll have this. They’ll have today and then they can process. Then the therapists can come and Martha can run tests and they can sleep and eat and heal.
But they’ll have today.
~~~~~
Taking the Doctor’s suggestion to heart, Donna books them the entire top floor, it’s just an expansive suite, but there’s no one else around and after several lingering goodbyes and more than a handful of reassurances to check back in soon, the Doctor’s got her pinned to the wall just inside the door, hips rutting against hers as he slides his tongue back into her mouth without preamble.
Her heart is pinballing around her chest, like it’s trying to keep up and burst free and stop all at once, and it’s when she works her fingers into his back pockets and comes away with a handful of sand, that she’s finally able to get herself under control.
It takes the Doctor a few moments to realize she’s stopped, his lips slowing against hers before he pulls back. “Rose?”
She rests her forehead against his chest. “Let’s – let’s get cleaned up. If you still want,” he bucks his hips into hers and she grins despite herself, “If you still want that after, then we can – you’ve been through a lot, Doctor.”
His shoulders slump, but he begins unbuttoning his shirt and making his way to the en suite. “I don’t want to talk about it, Rose.” And he disappears behind the door.
By the time she catches up to him, telling herself that neither of them can have any idea what the other person went through, and they can’t fault each other, he’s already started the shower and stripped down.
She takes her own clothes off, watching them drop wetly to the ground before finally taking him in. His body is freckled and tan, and he’s skinnier than she’s ever seen him, but with muscles she’s never seen either – his arms and his chest, it’s the wiry strength of someone who couldn’t just run down to the market for dinner, who didn’t have a limo to get him where he wanted to go.
Her gaze is lingering around the jut of his hipbones when he finally moves, hands darting to wrap around her waist and propelling her into the cold tile of the wall.
He stops just before he kisses her. “We’ll get there, okay? I promise.” And he gives her a tentative smile.
This crazy man, this man who was trapped on an island for months, is the one reassuring her. She can’t help but smile back, letting her tongue poke at the corner of her mouth before she gives a nod. “Okay.”
Then he’s hoisting her up over the ledge of the shower, an arm wrapped arm her middle keeping her suspended above the ground as he pulls open the glass door and there’s a tiny, horrible part of her brain that doesn’t care where the strength is coming from and just wants to enjoy it.
The water turns brown, grains of sand falling to the floor as soon as the water meets their skin, and it’s enough to remind Rose that they really ought to clean up first, especially if – as she expects – these next few activities drain them of what little adrenaline they’re both running on. They’ll both sleep for hours after, if she had to guess.
She makes short work of shampooing and soaping up, doing him and herself in a matter of minutes, not necessarily ignoring the parts that are rising to meet the flannel, but certainly not encouraging them yet either.
He’s pulling at her as the last suds are ringing the drain, dragging a stack of towels right into the stall with them before giving up and bending down to pick her up. Her legs flail uselessly for a few moments before wrapping around his waist and then he’s walking them to the bed.
All the lean strength and endorphins and energy and she’s not going to fault a bloke stuck in the wild for becoming a little wild himself and then he’s pitching her down on to the bed and crawling to hover over her.
It’s overwhelming to see him here, hair wet and flat against his head, skin golden and smooth, and she pulls him down for a hug. The solid feel of his weight, the rapid thumping of his heart against her chest and she wants to cry and laugh and shout.
He buries his face in her neck, turning the hug into something more as he licks at her skin and winds a hand up between them.
“Coconuts,” he says with a grin.
“What?” her hands scramble down his backside, trying to find purchase to anchor him to her.
“Coconuts! Every time I found a pair, I’d see how they fit,” and he brings his other hand up, cupping and taking her measure, “But, I’d forgotten how soft they are,” he moves his face down the column of her throat, wet little kisses in his wake, before nuzzling into the skin between her breasts, “You’re so soft, Rose.”
She arches into him, trying to move his mouth, his nose, his fingers, anything, to where she wants them.
He pulls up with a jolt, grinning wildly and bracing himself on his hands above her as her legs wrap around the backs of his.
His mouth drops to hers with a calm that belies the way his hips have begun to rotate above hers. “I know where else you’re soft.” And she feels his smirk against her lips at she swats at his arse.
She leans up to take control of the kiss, moving her hands to his hair before pitching her weight to try and roll them so she’s on top. He stops her, grabbing her wrists and pinning them to the bed on either of her head, knocking pillows out of the way with his elbows.
“Now,” he says and slides down just enough that the angle is almost right.
He releases one of her wrists with a wink and she sticks her tongue out at him as she immediately winds it up into his hair.
She feels his hand work between them, fingers circling and testing and, oh, just there, before he’s positioning himself and pressing forward with a groan.
It’s a sloppy rhythm from the start, short, fast strokes and she’s not even trying to keep quiet, biting out fuck and his name and yes and love you love you love you as he releases her hands.
She flails around, trying to find a grip, and then she’s got his bum and he’s worked his arms up under her back, curling at the wrists so his hands can cup her shoulders and there’s just enough leverage –
He meets her mouth for one last messy kiss, tongues and teeth and then he’s going stiff, growling into the skin of her throat and she bites down on his shoulder and it doesn’t matter who’s on this floor, the whole damn hotel just heard her.
He lets his weight settle on to her, pressing tiny kisses where her neck meets her shoulder that make her shiver and buck up under him with the aftershocks.
A few minutes later and he’s pushing himself up to use the loo: “A toilet, Rose! Never thought I’d be so thrilled over indoor plumbing!”
When he comes back to bed, she’s fallen asleep, but his weight on the mattress wakes her, so used to sleeping alone now.
“Shh, it’s just me.” He drops a kiss on her lips and one on her forehead. “Love you.” And then he’s curling up behind her, arm wrapped tight around her waist.
The next time she wakes, it’s to the sound of the Doctor humming in her ear.
“Think I’ll write a song about this,” he says.