Chapter One: The Beginning

From outside the TARDIS, Rose could hear the Doctor fumbling with his key. He must either be in a hurry, or he was excited about something. She walked over and opened the door for him. "And what have you been up to now?"

"Well, Roes, I just found where we should go next. It's just such a fantastic idea that I can't seem to hold still." He was right about one thing. The Doctor was at this moment practically running from one set of controls to another, jumping here and there because he was so excited.

"Would you mind sharing your plan, if it's such a great idea."

"Not at all, Rose. You see, for centuries people have been fighting about the origin of the Earth. Now what I'm going to do is set the TARDIS to go back to the very beginning and see what really happened." That same old smile covered his features, and Rose couldn't help but smile as well, even though something told her this was not a good idea at all.

The whirring of the TARDIS always seemed to get louder when traveling back in time. Rose had noticed this on several occasions, along with the fact that going back in time seemed a lot harder for the TARDIS than traveling forward.

"Doctor, how are we going to be able to see the creation of the universe if the TARDIS has no windows?"

"Oh, don't doubt me, Rose," the doctor said as the TARDIS finally ceased its whirring noises. "Follow me. It's just down the hall, to the left, third door, up the stairs, to the right, behind the bookshelf, to the left, along the balcony, through the door, and then six doors down."

Rose never quite understood why everything was so hard to get to in the TARDIS. Her second trip with the Doctor, he had sent her to get changed and it had taken her several minutes to find the room with the change of clothes. But she supposed that that was how things had to be in a teleporting time machine.

So she followed the Doctor and his crazy directions to a small observation deck. Outside the glass, all that met her eyes was darkness. Nothing else. The Doctor seemed a bit confused. "What's this? I thought I timed it perfectly." He looked at his watch. "Maybe it's behind us. Come along, Rose." With that, he took Rose by the hand and all but dragged her on another crazy path with several rights, a few lefts, a set of spiral stairs, multiple doors, sliding walls, and a fireman's pole. How all of this worked, Rose had no idea. All she knew was that she was thoroughly lost now, and she tightened her grip on the Doctor's hand.

They burst through a door into a circular room with a glass dome ceiling. Everything was still complete darkness and nothing else. The Doctor seemed a little annoyed with himself over something. He was about to leave again when Rose stopped him. "Doctor! Look!" Something was out there in the sky now.

The Doctor's eyes lit up and his smile once again returned, dominating over the rest of his features. "Fantastic!"

Back in the control room of the TARDIS, Rose practically fell down onto one of the couches near the consol. She had just seen the beginning of the universe, and it wasn't at all like she had been taught in school. The feeling she felt was similar to the one she felt when the Doctor had taken her to the end of the Earth. She didn't quite know how to describe the heavy weight she felt in her chest.

"Fantastic! That's what that was, Rose. It was fantastic! The beginning of the universe. And we got to see it in person." Here, the Doctor noticed that Rose was not in the most chipper mood for some reason. He sometimes forgot that she wasn't a timelord and things involving Earth were personal to her. He sat down next to Rose on the couch and slipped an arm around her shoulders.

"You know, Rose…" he paused. What should he say? Was there anything he should say? He decided that, at this moment, it was probably not the best idea to say anything. And in this respect, he was right.

Rose turned to him and put her arms around him in a hug. All she wanted right now was a big hug, to which the Doctor had no objections.

Rose's cell phone began to chirp in her pocket. She released the Doctor. This was odd. No one had ever attempted to contact her after she had left with the Doctor. Her mum and Mickey both knew that she was moderately safe with the Doctor ant that she would return when she could. So who could this be? The number on the caller idea was one she didn't recognize. It must have been a wrong number or something like that. She hung up and turned back to the Doctor.

"I'm sorry. I don't know who that was."

The Doctor looked at the phone curiously. "Let me see that." Rose handed him the phone without argue. He looked at the number. 1-836-774-9094. Something about this number seemed familiar. But what could it be? The phone began to chirp again in the Doctor's hand. Tentatively, he answered the call. "Hello, this is the Doctor speaking."

The voice on the other end of the line was feminine and panicked. "Help, I need help. Anyone. I need your help. There are creatures. I don't know what they are. But they're after me. Please help me. Oh, God! Here they come!" There was a thud, and the voice was gone. In the background noise of the ongoing call, the Doctor could hear something smashing through sticks as though it were in a forest of some sort. Heavy animal like breathing came across the line, and then the call went dead.

"Rose…I think someone is in trouble."

"Who?"

"I don't know. But she was begging for help."