Author's Note: So... it's been a while since I've written anything. Even longer since I wrote fanfiction. And longer still since it was Doctor Who! What can I say - I missed it. Please be kind. This will, with any luck, be the first of five parts. Slow to start I'm afraid, but the pace will increase next time!

Red Stone Rise
by Cenowar
(formery Avoria)

1. White Rabbit

There was something about the console room that Rose had always found relaxing.

Well, maybe not always. The first time she'd stepped in it, its vastness had given her such a surprise that she had nearly thrown up. (That would have made a great impression on the Doctor, she mused later. She could just imagine it. "Hello, I'm an alien… Oh. Are you alright?")

Still, it hadn't taken long before the soft hum and gentle pulse of the central column made her warm to the TARDIS in a way she couldn't quite put into words. Somehow, whenever she was there, she felt at peace. Like nothing could touch her. Like she was safe. Like she and the Doctor could handle anything outside of those two doors, as long as they could always come here to retreat.

She could see why the Doctor had made the TARDIS his home.

He was sitting on the sofa at one side of the controls — the one that had seen better days, but that he never had the heart to do anything about ("I can't just get rid of it, Rose," he would whine, with those eyes as dark and rich as coffee. "It's part of the ambiance!") — with the sonic screwdriver in his mouth and his glasses tangled up in his flyaway hair. With one hand he held open a book, so battered that Rose worried some of the pages would come loose if she so much as sneezed.

His free hand was toying with something, and as Rose stepped closer, it glinted in the light. It was small, and silver, but other than that she couldn't make it out. He pocketed it as she drew towards him.

Smiling with his eyes, he removed the screwdriver and put down his book. "Hello," he said, infused with warmth. "Have a nice rest?"

A blush threatened to creep to her cheeks. She always felt so self conscious about her need for sleep. The episode at Christmas aside, the Doctor didn't seem to need any kind of recharging whatsoever. He could just continue travelling at a hundred miles an hour, whether he was thinking or talking or running, and he'd never need to stop. Perhaps that was why he had two hearts, she had thought more than once: with just one, he may well have died from exhaustion.

She smiled and said, "Yeah, thanks. Good as new." Her smile turned into a grin, as enticing as she could make it. "Ready for the next adventure."

"Marvellous. I've just the place." He hopped off the sofa and approached the controls, his hands flying to levers and buttons as though it were as easy to him as breathing. Rose, who by now knew that half of it was just for show, leaned against the railing and watched him as he worked. He was like an artist, she thought sometimes, like this; entirely in his element, that secret smile at his mouth, the proud curve of his back as he moved.

He met her gaze above the controls, his eyes glinting. That small, mischievous smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. Rose couldn't help but return it.

After only a few moments, the TARDIS began to shake and shudder, the central column wheezing as the ancient, ethereal engines kicked into action. Rose loved this part. This was the part when they were literally travelling anywhere. Anywhen. No limits.

Sometimes, the Doctor would ask her to describe the kind of place she wanted to visit, or the kinds of things she wanted to see and — to her disbelief — he very often delivered. Sometimes they would get dragged into or out of places, away from any kind of plan, and make their own adventure as they went. And sometimes, the Doctor planned something in Rose's absence, and then couldn't wait to show it to her. Those were her favourite times: the anticipation of what he had in mind to surprise or enchant her.

She laughed above the sound of the TARDIS.

"Where we going?"

"You'll see," came the reply. "Just you wait, Rose Tyler. You want adventure? I've got that in spades."

-x-

The great, groaning sound of the TARDIS materialising echoed in every direction. She faded slowly in and out of existence, the motion unhurried, the effort astronomical. Around her lay a canopy of trees that glittered with unfallen flakes of ice. The ground, covered in snow, was perfectly untouched — like a blank canvas. The sky above was a rich, dark black, like velvet blanketing the night, pinpricked with thousands of tiny stars. Nothing stirred, but for the time machine making her entrance.

And then, all of a sudden, she vanished.

The snow lay untouched. The trees remained still. The planet lay silent.

And the TARDIS was gone.

-x-

The first sign that something was a little bit wrong was in the way the controls responded. He probably couldn't say that at all times he knew exactly what he was doing, but most of the time, the Doctor was confident that when he said 'jump', his magnificent ship would say 'how high?'. More or less. It got a bit tricky if she was in a mood, but there wouldn't be any reason for that right now, he was sure.

He threw an encouraging smile towards Rose for good measure before going back to concentrating on the coordinates he was flying to. Pull this lever, ring that bell, pump this, spin that, twist that — it was all very complicated.

He stared up at the central column, at the glowing light and pulse of the engine, and frowned. "What's the matter, old girl?" he said quietly, under his breath, so that Rose wouldn't hear. Not that that was likely over the noise the TARDIS was making, but you couldn't be too careful. When trying to impress someone, you don't want them to think you don't have the foggiest what's going on. Not that he needed to impress Rose.

The Doctor shook his head, and turned to his companion with words on the tip of his tongue. They never made it out. With a jolt, the TARDIS lurched, and threw him to the floor. It winded him, and it took him a moment to catch his breath. Without his hands at the controls, the entire console room began to tremble and shake, like she was coming apart. Rose managed to stay upright by clinging to the railing, but she shot him a concerned expression, her eyebrows pinched together in the centre as her eyes met his.

He nodded, and clambered unsteadily to his feet.

This wouldn't do. It should not be this difficult to land on Itaxia III at the peak of its ice age. The place should have been deserted, but for a few secrets that waited for them in the shadows. Adventure, no problem. So what was the problem?

The Doctor grabbed for the controls, desperately trying to steer his ship the way he had programmed her to go. But it was like trying to fight against an invisible current. His knuckles were white with the effort of keeping their course steady, his jaw tense. Rose appeared at his side and asked, over the noise, if everything was okay. He gripped his hands tightly onto two different levers and spoke through his teeth.

"Not sure!" Steam hissed from somewhere unseen, and he moved for another lever. "She's not… Responding…"

"Can I help?"

It was worth a shot. He nodded to his side. "Press that button, and hold the ratchet, and don't let go until I tell you to!"

Rose moved without further instruction, straight towards the controls he had described. Her face was set in the grimness of determination, her mouth thin, her eyes frowning but engaged. She looked up to the Doctor and met his eye. He nodded.

Letting go of his own controls, he dashed around to the other side, spinning the dial that marked their trajectory through the time vortex. The ship rattled around him, the crashing and sparking making him jump. He stared into the monitor that stuck out over one side. Pulling his glasses from his head, the Doctor scanned the display, his eyes roaming from detail to detail, searching for an answer he knew he wouldn't find. It was just error after error. It didn't make any sense.

Then, from nowhere, a haze of images flashed on the screen. Things he didn't recognise: places, words, phrases. Things that shouldn't be. The noise from the central column intensified. She was trying to materialise, he realised, his stomach sinking, a stone in a still pond, but it wasn't where he had set. It wasn't anywhere he could see.

"Let go!" he shouted to Rose over the noise of the engines, but she didn't hear him.

He rushed to her side, pulling her free from the controls and settling his hands at her shoulders to steady her. He looked up at the column. He and Rose were dowsed in unnatural blue-green light, so intense it nearly blinded them to everything else.

With a final lurch, the engines came to a stall. They were thrown to the floor. She would be laughing, if he was laughing. The instability happened sometimes, and wasn't unusual. But he wasn't laughing. He was panting.

It was over.

-x-

The grille of the TARDIS floor dug uncomfortably into her back. Rose lay in silence for a few moments, waiting for the Doctor to say something. Or do something. Like, leap to his feet with that manic look in his eye, grin at her, and tell her it was all part of the plan. Instead, when he didn't, she propped herself up on her elbows and looked down at him.

"Some adventurer you are," she said, moving her fingers to his ribs in jest. He jerked away, but gave a weak laugh. "What happened?"

The Doctor stilled and rubbed his hand over his face, casting his glasses askew. He puffed out a breath, apparently not in any hurry to get up. "I don't know. It's like she was… fighting me. Like we were being drawn off course. I mean the kind of energy I was struggling against, it was… ridiculous. Massive." He was doing that thing where it was like he was talking to himself again. Rose humoured him. "That doesn't make any sense at all. She should be fit as a fiddle, this TARDIS, and there's no reason to avoid Itaxia III…"

"That's where we were going, right?" Rose guessed.

The Doctor nodded without looking at her. He was staring up at the ceiling, his gaze half-vacant as he disappeared inside his own head. He did that sometimes. Part of being a genius, he'd told her, when she'd asked about it. Rose imagined it was like following the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, and she wasn't always sure she wanted to join him. The Doctor's mind sounded like a messy place at best, and that was coming from her.

Without waiting for him, she got to her feet. She brushed her knees down, feeling him watch her. "Well then, Doctor. Something wants us here? Might as well go and see what it is, yeah?"

He fixed her with a serious expression which, from the floor, probably didn't have the effect he wanted it to. She bit down a smile.

"You don't even know what's out there," he said with concern. "It could be dangerous. It could be… terrible. I don't even know where we are."

Rose grinned at him, and bit the tip of her tongue. "And?"

It only took a couple of seconds for him to grin right back. When she offered him her hand, he took it, and he got to his feet all of a fluster. He was close enough she could smell his distinctly crisp scent. She didn't know if he wore cologne — it seemed unlikely — but up close he always smelled like fresh washing, clean skin, and something that was undeniably masculine. It made her want to clear her throat and bite her lip.

His gaze caught hers and it was full of his smile. "That's my girl," he enthused softly, their hands clasped, his breath ghosting her cheek. She felt his hand flex against her own. Rose swallowed.

Then, after only a second, he darted for the exit like nothing had happened. Which, she reminded herself, it hadn't. Concealing a sigh, she moved to follow him, pushing away the thoughts that had sprung to mind. Thoughts about how it felt to be close to him, what his eyes said when he looked at her like that, how she wished just once he would... No, she had thought all those thoughts before, and it never did her any good.

She plastered a smile to her face, focusing instead on the adventure at hand.

"Now then," the Doctor was saying, chipper as anything. He raised his eyebrows, and offered her his hand. "Let's see what's outside these doors."