stay calm. it will be okay. you have my word. Episode Two: Rogue Protocol
This is episode two! To start reading from the beginning, check out Pilot : The Season Two Ending We Deserved
Story Summary
Turn off “The Reality War” at 40:15 and start here instead. This is the story of what happened after—the story where the Doctor, Bel, and their extraordinary daughter Poppy get to live the life they deserve.
It’s about finding family across time and space. It’s the Doctor and Bel co-parenting like the besties they are, Poppy growing up splitting her time between 21st-century London and the far-future of the Preservation Alliance, and a Sanctuary Moon fanclub that spans across the universe. It’s Rogue getting the ending he deserves, Jenny finding her fathers, Murderbot reluctantly acquiring more humans, and a universe where love, in all its forms, is the most powerful weapon we have.
This is a fusion-fix-it full of gratuitous wish fulfillment, because sometimes the best way to heal is to rewrite the story. 💕💕
Episode Summary:
After escaping the wish world, Bel and the Doctor forge a new life together with Poppy, balancing the need for domestic stability on Earth with the desire for adventures across time and space.
Notes:
As a gift, I’m posting this immediately after the prologue. Weeklyish updates on Wednesdays going forward (maybe, idk, it’s a work in progress and y’all should know how i roll by now)
Thanks so much to Fire_Phoenix2305 and tinysugacube for their beta and cheer-reads of this fic, and to Marvin for his seal of approval!
Episode Two: Rogue Protocol
Jenny had been in her stolen spaceship for only about a day before she realized that she had vastly overestimated her own skills at both piloting and being on her own. Not only had she forgotten to pack food and clean clothes, she also was not 100% sure how to pilot this thing.
Which is likely how she had ended up inadvertently going through a wormhole and crashing into a hell dimension.
“Are you alright?” an unfamiliar voice asked as Jenny stumbled out of the craft. She was surprised to find someone else actually there on what appeared to be a barren (albeit slightly on fire) world.
“Depends on your definition of alright.” Jenny grimaced. Given that she could understand this stranger she assumed that her universal translator was still working, but that didn’t mean that the words they both used were one-to-one.
“Well I assume since you are speaking with me you’re alive at least.” The stranger smiled at her and she gave him a smile in return.
“That is something I suppose,” she laughed. “I’m Jenny by the way.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Jenny. I’m Rogue.”
—
One of the first things that Rogue noticed about Jenny was just how young she was. Despite the fact that she appeared to be an adult, he soon realized that she was only a few days old, and the realization came with a feeling of intense protectiveness.
A large part of him yearned to find the Doctor, to make sure that he had taken the warning that Rogue had sent him to heart, but the fact of the matter was that the Doctor was an adult, an experienced time traveler, and could take care of himself. It was also, he knew, not yet time for them to reunite. Or at least that’s what the mysterious woman who had dropped off a communicator he used to send the message (and then left again before he could ask any more questions or request help getting off the planet) had explained. Jenny, meanwhile, knew almost nothing about the universe, and had stumbled into a hell dimension by accident on her first trip away from her home world.
Their first few hours getting to know each other were spent trying to fix up Jenny’s ship. As Rogue had told the Doctor, the hell dimension he had inhabited for the past few months was sliding into the pit, and if it were not for Jenny’s timely arrival he likely would have slid in with it. Rogue would never be the engineer that Art had been, but despite his partner’s gentle teasing and Rogue’s struggles to learn, he was still capable of fixing a beat up ship. It was at least enough to get them off the planetoid and into open space.
The ship, which was honestly more like a pod, was not at all built for two people, but it was enough to get them through the wormhole and into recognizable space. Or, not necessarily recognizable; it was not anywhere that they were familiar with, being neither a time period Rogue had visited before or the 61st century from which Jenny had originated.
“Well, do you know anything about where we are?” Jenny asked as they drifted through space. There was a planet relatively nearby, but they were wary of approaching it, not sure who they would find there, whether or not they would be welcome.
“Not as such,” Rogue replied carefully. He was at a disadvantage without the Yossarian and his Ood translation sphere. Unlike Jenny, he did not have a universal translator, and so was limited to his own personal linguistic repertoire, which despite having existed in multiple time streams was relatively limited. There was no guarantee that he would be able to understand whatever language the people on that planet spoke. He had quite literally nothing but the clothes on his back and the communicator the mysterious woman had dropped off, all of his possessions on a ship abandoned millenia ago. He wondered what had happened to it. The Doctor would know, if he could ever find him again. The woman seemed to believe that he would, but that time was not exactly linear.
“Well, we can’t stay in this ship forever, it’ll need better repairs than we were able to do ourselves.” Jenny replied, pursing her lips.
Before Rogue could reply, the ship’s communicator crackled. Rogue had not the slightest idea what was said, the language wholly unintelligible to him, but Jenny’s expression had brightened.
“What is it, what did they say?” he asked.
“It’s a hail from another nearby ship, see, it’s there,” Jenny pointed to the navigation screen, and sure enough it noted that there was a large ship approaching, larger than theirs by an order of magnitude. “They are offering us their assistance, since they noticed our systems are in disrepair, in particular that we don’t have a… Bot pilot?” Jenny’s head tipped to the side. “I’m not sure what a bot pilot is?” Jenny frowned.
“We must be in one of the eras when manual travel is more rare, in favor of transportation controlled by bots, machines.” Rogue explained. While he did not understand the voice coming through the communicator, they sounded friendly enough. He was uneasy about accepting help from a stranger—especially a stranger whose language he did not understand—but they were not exactly in a position where refusing help was a smart thing to do.
“Oh, I see. Well, they have offered to have us pulled into their airlock so that we can board and explain our situation.”
Rogue did not exactly like this plan, but he’d done weirder things in his time.
—
It had been a terrible plan. As it turned out, they had been hailed by space pirates, and were now being held prisoner and on their way to an indentured camp. They had been locked in the hold for what felt like hours when suddenly it blasted open. Much to his surprise, Rogue could understand—and moreover recognized—the voice that came through.
“Now see, I go through all the trouble to make sure that you made it out of that hell dimension, and you immediately get captured by pirates? Honestly that sounds like something he would do,” the voice chuckled.
“You! What are you doing here?” Rogue asked, jumping up in shock, the cuffs around his wrist jingling “and just who are you anyway?”
“Well, that’s a complicated question that we don’t have time for. This spacecraft is going to blow up in oh, about 30 vexils? We’re on the tick.” The woman pointed a sonic device at them and Rogue and Jenny felt the cuffs around their wrists that they had been trying to escape break open.
“What is that device?” Jenny asked. “I want one!”
“Maybe later, sweetie,” the woman winked. “Grab onto my arm, let’s get out of here.”
An alarm started blasting in their ears, all of the lights around them turning red. Rogue had no idea who this woman was or where she planned on taking them, but whoever she was, she knew the Doctor and could speak a language he understood, which was a better recommendation than the people who had ‘helped’ them before.