a/n: Written for submission to a fanfiction charity publication. It had to be a certain length and entirely fit within canon. Although it was a finalist unfortunately it wasn't chosen, but I like it so I'm posting it.

The Disappearing Planet

With a gust of wind and a loud wooshing sound, a tall blue box slowly appeared in the middle of a forest, seemingly from out of nowhere. After it had fully materialized with a loud thump, a young blonde woman dressed in a pink hoodie and jeans emerged from a door in the side of the box. An older man with closely cropped hair and a prominent nose and ears followed, shutting the door behind them.

The young woman stopped short and looked around herself curiously. Fifty-foot trees towered overhead, their arching branches forming a canopy that covered the sky. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, creating a dappled pattern of light on the mossy ground underfoot.

"Doctor," the young woman said, "where are we?"

The Doctor sidestepped around her to avoid knocking her over. "No idea, Rose," he told her. He sounded puzzled, and she glanced at him.

"Again?" Rose asked. "I thought we were aiming at some sort of huge festival on… Arturia or something."

"Arcturus," he corrected absently. He picked up a fallen leaf, crumbled it into his hand and sniffed it. After a moment, he shook his head. "Not a species I'm familiar with."

Rose's mouth twisted into a small grin. "And here I thought you knew everything," she teased. "Being so impressive and all."

"Can't know everything, Rose," he said, not rising to the bait. "And wouldn't want to anyway. You know everything, you might as well just pack it in."

Rose followed as the Doctor walked over to examine the bark of a nearby tree. The moss on the forest floor felt springy under her trainer-clad feet. After he was done, he wandered around, picking a number of others at random and examining their roots, branches, and leaves. Finally he stopped and stared at the treetops.

"I don't get it," he said. "Most of these trees are a hundred years old, but none of them are over a hundred. In a forest like this, you'd expect at least a few to be older than that. Could have had a fire around here a hundred years ago. That would account for the age of the trees. But even with that, there's still something wrong with this forest."

"What do you mean… wrong?" she asked.

"Listen," he told her. "Close your eyes and listen as hard as you can."

She nodded and obeyed. After a moment, she said, "I can hear the breeze blowing through the leaves."

"Listen again," he said.

She opened her eyes and shook her head. "I can't hear anything else."

"That's because there is nothing else to hear," he told her. "No birds singing, no squirrels chattering, not even a bee buzzing from flower to flower. And that's because there aren't any. No birds, no squirrels, no bees, and not even a single flower."

She glanced around. Trees, shrubs, grass, moss…

"Now, not having flowers isn't that unusual in the center of a forest," he continued, "but that combined with the rest is unusual to say the least." He held out his hand to her. "Well, Rose Tyler, fancy a look around before we try for the festival again?"

"Absolutely," she said, taking his hand.

He grinned at her, blue eyes twinkling. "Fantastic!"

They hiked through the forest in companionable silence. A half an hour after leaving the TARDIS they found themselves on the edge of a wide prairie. The forest bordered it on the left and the right, hemming it in, while on the far side, perhaps a mile or two away, the grassland turned into rolling hills which turned into mountains. Overhead, the sky was a clear, brilliant blue, and the sun was intense, making the air warm, much warmer than it had been in the shade of the trees.

Rose peeled off her hoodie, revealing a snug pink vest top emblazoned with the words "World Traveler" in sparkly letters across the front. She tied the hoodie around her waist and then pulled her long blonde hair back into a ponytail, fastening it with a hair tie she kept in her pocket.

"Still no flowers," the Doctor said as he surveyed the field. "And this is where you'd find them if you'd find them anywhere."

"Aren't you hot?" Rose asked. As usual, he was wearing a beaten-up leather jacket with a wool jumper, jeans and heavy work boots.

"Nah. Superior genetics," he told her. "Time Lords can regulate their body temperature better than you lot."

She rolled her eyes. According to him, humans always came up short in comparison to Time Lords, but as far as his insults went, it certainly wasn't the worst she had heard. And she was fairly certain that this one was unintentional.

"What do you say we hike up to that ridge over there?" he said. "If we still don't see anything, we can head back and catch the festival. But first…" He pulled a silver flask out of an interior pocket of his jacket and handed it to her. She looked at him suspiciously. "Go ahead, drink it," he urged. "'S just water."

She opened it and tentatively took a sip. It was water, the best tasting water she had ever had, icy cold and pure, with just enough minerals in it to give it flavor without making it bitter. She began to guzzle it greedily.

"Oi, not too much at once," he said, snatching it back. "You'll get sick." He wiped the mouth of the flask and took a sip himself before closing it back up and slipping it back into his pocket.

Hand-in-hand they waded into the tall grass. "No paths," the Doctor said. "And there should be. A field like this, full of graze… Not only should we see signs of grazing animals like trampled and eaten grass, but they should have created paths as they walked back and forth."

"So if there's no paths, there's no animals here."

"Right in one," he told her. "There's plants, there's bacteria—you can tell that because the forest wasn't knee deep in dead leaves—but there aren't any animals. No large, grazing animals, no small seed-gatherers, no birds, no insects. Planet like this, you'd have expected it to evolve animal life."

"Maybe they're just somewhere else," she suggested, "or maybe they just haven't evolved yet."

He gave her a bright grin. "Very good! But still… there should be insects. Unless the plants evolved without them for some reason. Not unheard of, but definitely not usual."

Within minutes they reached the top of the ridge. The view was breathtaking. Rolling hills in green and gold led to purple snowcapped mountains under a brilliant turquoise sky.

"Incredible," she said. "Never went anywhere where there were mountains back home. Closest I ever came to mountains before was a school trip north, but those were hills, not proper mountains like this."

But the Doctor wasn't looking at the vista surrounding them. "Rose, look down there," he said.

In the valley below, she could make out a glint of metal. And then another. And another.

"What is that?" she asked.

"Trouble," he answered gravely.

Five minutes later they were walking through the wreckage of a dozen spaceships.

"Or more," the Doctor said. "That one's a Denali Sunship, and over there's a part of a Sucona 15B5. They must have been part of a convoy." He shook his head. "I can see one crashing, but all of them? Maybe not all. Most of them at any rate."

He went back to pointing out ships, or parts of ships, while Rose wandered around the debris littering the ground. Some of it had writing on it, usually the name or type of ship—for example, Renoran Interstellar Class—or in some cases the manufacturer—Bad Wolf Industries. Even though she had been traveling with the Doctor for a while now, she was still amazed she could read it. She knew it was because the TARDIS was somehow getting into her head, interpreting it for her. She still wasn't sure how she felt about that, but she had to admit that it was helpful while traveling with the Doctor.

She rounded a large, mostly intact piece of fuselage, and gasped in surprise.

"Doctor!" she yelled. "Doctor, over here!"

She heard the sound of his heavy footfalls behind her. "Rose! Rose, what is it?"

She pointed ahead of her. The front end of one of the ships was emerging from the side of the mountain, almost as if it was flying out of a tunnel.

But it wasn't flying, and there was no tunnel. And what's more, the place where ship met rock was completely undamaged, like the ship was an outgrowth of the mountain itself.

"It would have had to have been flying backwards to crash into the mountain like that," Rose said. "And it doesn't even look like a crash. It almost looks like the ship was growing out of the mountain or the mountain was formed around the ship."

"Yeah, it does, doesn't it?" the Doctor said thoughtfully. "Let's get a closer look."

They carefully made their way across the valley until they stood almost directly under the spaceship. It was bigger than Rose had thought at first; still, it was smaller than most of the other ships on the ground. There was some sort of writing near what Rose thought of as the cockpit. From her location she couldn't make it out as her view was being blocked by a smaller version of one of the trees from the forest, but she guessed it was the name of the ship. She looked over at the Doctor, about to ask him if he could read it with his superior Time Lord vision, when she noticed him gaping at it.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Not sure yet," he told her. "We need to get inside."

The lower branches of the tree were only about ten feet over their heads, with the ship possibly double that.

"Okay," she said. "Give me a boost. A bronze in the under-7s, remember? Managed to save your life because of it."

"How could I forget?" he said warmly. He bent down and cupped his hands together. With her hands on his shoulders, she placed one foot in his hands and used them as a springboard to jump up to the lowest of the branches. She then swung herself up to it and began to climb. He followed, somehow managing to shimmy his way up the trunk.

Climbing more quickly than she was, he made his way to the ship first and opened the door with his sonic screwdriver. He then climbed in and pulled her in after him.

The interior of the ship was dark with the only light being provided by the doorway behind her. In front of her she could barely make out a tiny room filled with storage compartments. To her right was a narrow hallway leading into the gloom, and to her left was the rocky wall of the mountainside. By the time Rose's eyes adjusted to the light she saw the Doctor disappearing down the hall into the cockpit.

He was staring at the control panel when she joined him. "I can't believe it," he said. "I was right. This is the Rogan Triumph." He sounded shocked.

"And what's that when it's at home?" she asked him.

"Rose, the Rogan Triumph is one of the most famous ships in the history of the human race, mostly because of the mystery surrounding it," he told her. "It was carrying the Crown Prince of Rogan on his first diplomatic mission to Renaldi. Rogan and Renaldi had had strained relations for years, and the last straw was the Prince's convoy going missing. Even though Renaldi insisted they had nothing to do with it, Rogan blamed Renaldi for it. Started a war that lasted a thousand years." He looked back the way they came, at the wreckage of the other ships. "The convoy had disappeared in an area of space called the Black Pit. It was kind of like the Bermuda Triangle on Earth. Countless spaceships had gone missing there over the millennia, and no one could explain why."

His face cracked into a wide grin. "Rose, that means we've solved one of the biggest mysteries of the universe! The convoy wasn't destroyed by the Renaldi. It's been here all along!"

As always, the Doctor's enthusiasm was contagious, and she grinned back at him.

They stood there, both of them grinning at each other, until the moment almost became uncomfortable. They turned away at the same time, the Doctor to examine the controls again, Rose to look around the rest of the tiny room. There wasn't much to see, only a couple of seats for the pilot and copilot and what looked like emergency gear hanging within arm's reach on a wall behind them. She turned back to look at the controls as well and bumped into him.

"Sorry," she said. "Barely enough room to turn around in here. For being the Prince's ship, I would have thought it would be more posh."

"The living quarters were in the back," he told her without looking up. "The cockpit was designed to be purely functional, no more."

Rose moved to get out of his way. It quickly became obvious that she couldn't, not standing at any rate. She had to either sit down on one of the chairs or leave the room entirely. She didn't want to leave, but at the same time she didn't want to sit because everything was covered in a layer of dust. Particularly the chairs where the dust was piled inches high. "It's filthy in here," she said.

"Got to expect a little dust after a millennia or two," he said cheerfully as she moved to brush the seat off. "And you may not want to do that. That's not just dust, that's the Crown Prince."

She jerked her hand back. Grimacing, she stared at the pile in disgust. "What? Seriously?"

"Yep," he replied. "Either that or one of the copilots. Not exactly sure which."

"Where's the rest of him?"

"Evaporated. Humans are almost 60% percent water. After all the water's gone, that's all that's left of you. Humans, broken down to their composite minerals. From dust you were formed and to dust you return. And not just you. Everyone, everywhere. All life ends like this eventually."

The Doctor fell silent, and a dark shadow passed over his face. Rose reached out and took his hand, squeezing it comfortingly, and he almost seemed startled by it. He turned to her and smiled, a gentle, almost grateful smile, and she smiled back. After a moment he continued.

"Still, nothing I've seen here explains what caused the convoy to crash, or how half of this ship ended up inside the mountain." His brow furrowed. "I feel like I'm forgetting something, something important, but for the life of me I can't imagine what it is." He shook his head vigorously and his face cleared. "Oh well. It'll come to me eventually. Shall we go, Rose Tyler?"

Once back on the ground, the Doctor decided to explore the valley a little more before heading back to the TARDIS. As they walked, all that could be heard were the sounds of their breathing and of the swishing grass as they walked through it. Even the breeze had died off.

The Doctor was quiet. Instead of pointing out different ships and sights to Rose, he puzzled over the continuing mysteries surrounding the convoy's crash, why the ships' guidance systems hadn't prevented them from hitting the planet and, in particular, how the Triumph had ended up partially embedded inside the mountain itself.

Suddenly he stopped in his tracks. "I'm still missing something," he complained. "What do we know about this planet, Rose?"

"Uh…" She looked around them. Surrounding them in the field was greenery: grass and bushes interspersed with the occasional tree. "It's full of plants," she said.

"What else?"

"There's no flowers."

"Okay," he said, nodding. "Flowers have only one purpose, to attract insects, bees in particular. No flowers means no bees. What else?"

"We haven't seen any other animals either," she reminded him.

"Yeah," he agreed. He thought for a moment and then shook his head again. "Still something missing." He groaned in frustration. "What is it?"

"Doctor," Rose began, "what about the convoy? You said something about where it was lost."

His eyes widened. "Yeah, I did. It was in the Black Pit. The Black Pit…" He looked around at their surroundings again, puzzled. "I don't remember there being a planetary system in the Black Pit. This planet shouldn't be here."

"Maybe that's why the convoy crashed… because they weren't expecting it to be here," Rose suggested.

The Doctor shook his head. "Nah. Their guidance systems should have warned them about it, even if it wasn't on the map. And that still doesn't explain why the Triumph was partially inside the mountain." He paused for a moment, frowning and staring into space. Then his eyes lit up, and he grinned. "Got it! I know where we are! And what's more, I know why the convoy crashed, and how the Triumph ended up where it is!"

"How?" she asked.

"You said it yourself! The mountain formed around the Triumph! There's only one place in the universe where that could have happened." At her blank stare, his grin widened. "We're on Brigadoon!"

"Brigadoon?" she asked. "Isn't that a movie?"

"Yeah," he said. "And a stage play before that, about a mythical town in Scotland that appeared for a day every hundred years. But this is the planet Brigadoon. Legend has it that the planet will disappear for ten thousand years, only to reappear for a hundred years, then disappear again. No one has ever found it, well, no one with any credibility at any rate. But scientists have speculated that if it actually existed, that it must be in an unstable part of space. That the whole solar system must be slipping from this dimension to another, or a bunch of others, only to return to this one again. Explains the lack of animals as well. Animals have only a thin membrane around their cells. If the transition is difficult enough, their cells would explode from the inside out."

"If the animals can't survive, how do the plants and bacteria and such manage to?"

"Plants have thick cell walls," he told her. "Must protect them somehow. Or at least their seeds and spores. The plants probably don't survive but the seeds would, allowing life to start over between translations. And as far as bacteria goes, they must have evolved a method of surviving. It takes single-celled creatures a lot less time to evolve than something as complicated as an animal. The convoy must have been passing through this part of space when the planet phased back into existence." Grinning from ear to ear, he clapped his hands together gleefully. "What a day! Solve a mystery that has puzzled people for millennia, and discover a planet that shouldn't be able to exist at the same time!"

Rose frowned. "Doctor, did you say that the planet spends a hundred years here in this dimension and then goes to a different one?"

"That's the legend," he said.

"And didn't you say earlier that the trees in the forest were a hundred years old?"

"Yeah."

"So, if the planet changes dimensions every hundred years, and the trees are a hundred years old, doesn't that mean that the planet is due to change any time?"

"Yeah," the Doctor said. "But the likelihood that we would happen to arrive on the exact day the planet transitions is so small…" His voice trailed off as the sunlight flickered and then dimmed dramatically. Just as quickly it brightened again, as if a cloud had passed in front of the sun. When it happened twice more in rapid succession they both looked up. "That's funny. There's not a cloud in the sky. What could be causing that?"

The sky overhead appeared to shimmer. Seemingly out of nowhere, thick storm clouds gathered, covering the entire sky in a matter of seconds and plunging them into semidarkness. As their eyes adjusted, the wind began to blow and thunder rumbled in the distance. Shivering, Rose pulled her hoodie back on.

"Rose," the Doctor said slowly. "You know how I was saying that there was virtually no chance that the planet could be transitioning today? Well, it, uh, appears I was wrong."

Rose swallowed nervously. "Wrong?" she asked. The Doctor could tell she was trying to keep her voice steady, but it wavered slightly anyway.

"Yeah," he said. "Wrong. It looks like it's going to transition soon. Like… now."

A low rumble that was not thunder interrupted them. The ground trembled. Rose lost her balance, and the Doctor caught her before she fell.

"Earthquake," he said. "We need to get back to the TARDIS. Now."

Another rumble underfoot was accompanied this time by a louder one overhead. A flash of lightning lit up the sky. The Doctor grabbed Rose's hand. "Run!" he ordered.

They tore across the field, the Doctor pulling Rose along so fast she tripped and almost fell so many times she lost count. The sky opened up, releasing a torrential downpour which soaked them both to the skin in seconds.

"This isn't a normal storm," he shouted in response to her unasked question. "The dimensional instability is causing an atmospheric disturbance."

"In other words, the planet beginning to disappear is making it rain?" she shouted back.

"Yeah," he answered, but his answer was almost lost as it competed with the sounds of the thunderstorm.

They reentered the forest. If Rose had thought the ground was slippery in the field, that was nothing compared to how slick the water-logged moss of the forest floor was under her trainers. The Doctor didn't seem to be affected by it and pulled her to her feet every time she slipped.

A bolt of lightning, with its accompanying clap of thunder, came from almost directly overhead and struck a nearby tree. It burst into flames which quickly spread to the trees surrounding it. The Doctor and Rose, who had been running fast to begin with, put on a burst of speed.

When they were about halfway back to the TARDIS, the Doctor jerked her to a stop.

"What is it?" she yelled. And then she knew. The ground had begun to shake again. A crack in the earth about five feet across opened up directly in front of them. Heart pounding, she looked to the right and to the left. In one direction the fissure seemed to go on for miles; in the other it stopped at a steep rock wall that seemed to have been created by the ground being thrust up by one of the earthquakes.

"We'll have to jump!" he told her. "We don't have the time to go around it!"

She nodded tightly.

"Now let me go first," he said. "That way I can catch you." The Doctor backed up and took a running leap, landing neatly on the other side. "Okay, now it's your turn."

Rose backed up and began to run.

"Rose, wait! Stop!"

Rose managed to stop herself just as she reached the edge. Her forward momentum combined with the slick ground left her teetering on the edge before she threw herself backwards.

"What is it?" she yelled.

"The crack is widening," he yelled as he backed away.

And then he was gone.

With a loud swoosh, the ground had caved in under his feet.

"Doctor! Doctor!" Rose screamed. To her relief, he immediately answered.

"I'm all right," he hollered back.

"Thank God," she said under her breath.

"Don't get too close to the edge, Rose! The ground is unstable."

She backed up a few feet. "Can you get out?"

There was a long pause. "Ground's too wet around here. It's pure mud."

"Maybe I can find a vine or a stick or something and help pull you out," she called. "How far down are you?"

"About twenty feet I reckon."

Pursing her lips, she scanned the area. Although the storm had caused numerous branches to fall, none of them would reach anywhere near that far, and she told him that.

"Wouldn't work anyway!" he shouted up to her. "Ground's too soft! The whole side would collapse!"

"There's a rock wall over to my right. Can you climb up it?"

There was another long pause. "No," he said finally. "The way over to it is blocked."

"There's got to be… Wait! I see something!" she shouted. "There's a spot down the other direction where it looks like you could climb up to the other side!"

"How far is it from here?"

"I can't tell. Maybe a hundred yards."

"That's no good," he yelled. "It would leave you trapped on that side."

The ground shook, and the ground in front of Rose slid into the crevasse created by the quake.

"You have to go before the whole thing caves in on top of you, Doctor!" she ordered.

"I'm not leaving you behind!"

She looked around anxiously, and then spotted the rock wall again. "You won't be!" she told him. "That rock wall I was telling you about. I can climb over it, and we can meet back at the TARDIS."

"It's too dangerous! The earthquakes will have made it unstable!"

"Is it any more dangerous than being stuck on the planet while it's transitioning?"

He didn't answer immediately. "Rose Tyler, you be careful!" he hollered finally. "Watch for falling rocks!"

"Just go!" she shouted. And then she turned and ran for the rock wall.

The Doctor waited to hear her leave before he turned and made his way down the crevasse in the opposite direction as fast as he could manage, which wasn't all that fast. His boots kept on getting stuck. The ground underfoot had been soft to begin with, and the water pouring down from the sky had turned the dirt into several inches of thick mud. Except of course where the water had turned into a stream. Which was rapidly threatening to turn into a river.

After slipping and almost falling in the muck and mire, he realized he needed to find firmer ground even at the risk of starting another mudslide. He climbed as high as he could, which only ended up being a couple of feet up the side of the gully, and continued on.

The water level rose. Within minutes he was wading through water knee-deep. Several minutes more and it was waist high. Fighting his way through the mud and the water was eating up precious time, time he didn't have. By now he could see the spot that Rose had mentioned. It was at the base of a tree that somehow had managed to stay upright. In the quake the earth had fallen away, revealing deep roots thick as his arm that stuck out of the ground or twisted among rocks. Rose was right. It wouldn't be an easy climb, but he could get out of the gully that way. If he could just get there.

The rapidly rising stream was now up to his chest. It had gained both speed and strength, threatening to carry him away, and he struggled to make for higher ground. For a moment it occurred to him that if he stopped struggling, it could carry him to where he needed to be. Assuming of course he wasn't swept downstream far out of his way, farther away from the TARDIS and farther away from Rose. Far enough out of his way that he might not even make it back before the planet transitioned and his body exploded.

That also assumed he didn't drown first.

Fifty feet away. The tree was fifty feet away. At the rate he was going, the water would be over his head before he made it there. He'd have one chance, just one, to catch one of the roots that protruded out of the soil just above water level, but he had to risk it.

He stopped struggling and let the water push him downstream.

And caught one.

"Yes!" he cried in triumph as his body was jerked to a stop.

Using the other roots as a ladder, he scrambled to the top and pulled himself over the edge. He jumped to his feet only to trip over one of the roots and land face down in the mud. With a groan, he sat up, wiped the excess mud off his face with equally muddy hands, and flung it away from him.

"Fantastic," he said in disgust.

The rock wall Rose had seen was further away, and much, much bigger, than she had realized. A section of the ground forced up during one of the earthquakes had created a high hill, almost a small mountain, with a cliff over both the crevasse and the side facing her. She had thought she'd be able to climb over the hill, but now that she was at the base of the thing she realized it was impossible. Not only was it too high but past a certain point, possibly ten feet above her head, she couldn't see any handholds and she didn't want to risk getting up there and not being able to find any. She had been a gymnast, not a free climber.

But the hill was enormous. She couldn't go around it. There wasn't time. She'd have to cross over the crevasse by climbing sideways across the cliff face. She could do it, she told herself. After all, the fissure created by the earthquake was only about fifteen feet wide at that point. Maybe only ten. She could do that. Easy.

She stepped out of the shelter of the trees and approached the cliff. Ignoring the sting of the driving rain biting into the exposed skin of her face and hands, she stepped up to the edge. As she'd hoped there'd be, she could see that there were places for her hands and feet all the way across the cliff wall, but unfortunately they were few and far between. Then she made the mistake of looking down. She wasn't typically afraid of heights, but it was a long way down. A long, long way. Not to mention that water was cascading over one section of the wall, creating a mini waterfall she'd have to somehow cross.

A crash of thunder reminded her of the dire situation she was in. She took a deep, steadying breath.

"Time's a wasting. Best just get to it," she said.

Rose grabbed one of the protruding rocks and moved her foot onto another. Slowly, handhold by handhold, step by precarious step she inched her way across the rock face. It felt like there was water everywhere: water running down the rocks from somewhere above her, rain blowing in her face, waterlogged clothes chilling her body. But she was making progress, she thought proudly. She had already made it halfway across. She had even made it through the waterfall without slipping. Only another eight feet to go.

And then another earthquake struck.

While the ground shook and gravel fell from above, the rocks underfoot crumbled away, leaving her body dangling. Heart pounding, she dug her fingers into the rock wall as her feet scrambled for purchase. Once she found it, she closed her eyes and clung to the cliff face until the tremors ceased.

When the rocks stopped raining down on her head, she opened her eyes to look for the next handhold. But she couldn't see anything, neither a rock to grab nor a crack in the wall to hold onto.

"Now what?" she muttered.

"Rose! Rose!" The Doctor's voice was faint over the howling wind, and at first she thought she had imagined it, but then he called again. "Rose! Where are you?"

"I'm here!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "I'm stuck on the cliff!"

She spotted him on the far side of the gully as a flash of lightning illuminated the area. He seemed to be covered in mud, mud that was rapidly being washed away in the heavy rain. At the sight of him, she sighed in relief.

"Come on, Rose. You can do it. Just a little bit farther," he called encouragingly.

"I can't see a place to grab onto," she told him.

"Move your left hand over about a foot." After she had done it he continued. "Now up four inches. Can you feel it?"

"Yeah," she said in relief.

"Now move your foot right under your hand. You should feel a toehold."

The toe of her trainer slipped into a shallow hole just where he said it would be. "Got it," she told him as she moved her right hand and foot to where her left had just been.

He continued to shout directions, and she instantly obeyed them, trusting in his instructions rather than her eyes. Which she had to regardless, since it had grown so dark she could barely make out the holds she was reaching for.

"Okay, Rose," he said finally. "You're almost here. Just a little bit further. But you're gonna have to jump it."

"What?" It was more of a protest than a question.

"There aren't any more places to hold onto," he told her. "But it's only three feet. You can do it."

She looked at him nervously. He was standing a couple of feet from the edge of the crevasse. His arms were stretched out in front of him, just out of reach.

"You can do this, Rose. Just a bit farther. You just need to jump towards me. I will catch you. I promise."

She looked down into the inky blackness beneath her. She couldn't see the bottom. Then she looked back up at him, at his serious, solemn face and outstretched arms.

"Trust me," he urged.

She nodded.

"Okay, on the count of three I want you to let go of the cliff and jump to me, all right? One, two, three!"

She simultaneously let go of the rock and threw herself at him. He caught her neatly in his arms. As he swung her to safety, in the distance they could hear odd popping sounds, almost like a car park full of cars backfiring one after another.

This time he didn't need to tell her to run. They took off pell-mell, dodging trees and leaping over fallen branches. The popping sounds got louder and louder.

As they neared the TARDIS, Rose couldn't resist looking backwards. Behind them, the air seemed to shimmer and glow, almost as if she was looking through a sheet of glistening water. The shimmering grew closer, almost as if it was following them, and as it moved, the trees it touched exploded.

The Doctor yanked her hand. "Come on!" he shouted.

They were running so fast they slammed into the TARDIS. The Doctor pulled out his key, unlocked the door and shoved her inside, following close behind. It wasn't until they had dematerialized that he let out a sigh of relief. They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"You're leaving puddles on my nice, clean floor," he stated. He pulled a twig out of her dripping hair.

"So?" she asked. "At least the puddles I'm leaving are of nice, clean water. You've left muddy footprints all over the place."

Ignoring that, he crossed to the mushroom shaped console and pulled down a lever. The cavernous room was filled with the familiar wheezing sound of materialization. He flipped a switch on the console and then walked to the monitor. "Come here, Rose Tyler. Take a look at something that won't happen again for another 10,000 years."

On the screen was an image of the planet they had just left. As they watched, the whole planet shimmered and slowly faded from sight.

"We almost didn't make it out of there in time," Rose said softly.

The Doctor didn't answer for a moment. Then he asked in a low voice, "Do you want to go home?"

She looked up at him. The Doctor's face was totally expressionless. Only the twitch of a muscle in his jaw betrayed his feelings.

"No," she said quickly. "'Course not. It would take a lot more than a planet disappearing out from under us for you to get rid of me. You're stuck with me, you are."

At her words, the Doctor visibly relaxed. His blue eyes twinkled as he began to grin.

"But, just the same, you owe me," she continued. "You're taking me out to eat."

"Chips, I suppose," he said dryly.

"No, not chips. A nice dinner, 'cause I'm starving." A thoughtful expression came over her face. "Well, maybe with chips," she allowed. "But you're paying this time." She emphasized this by playfully poking him in the chest. Then she glanced down at herself. "After that maybe a trip somewhere where I can get a new pair of jeans, 'cause these are going straight into the bin. They're ripped to shreds."

"A shower might be in order, too," he added.

"You should talk." She wrinkled her nose and waved her hand in front of her face. "I wasn't going to say anything, but you need to do a lot more than change your jumper this time."

He rolled his eyes. "So you're telling me you want a nice dinner and a shopping trip?"

"It's either that or you've got to take me back to Mum's for new clothes," she told him. He pulled a face, and she gave him a wide grin.

Rose turned to walk out of the room. As she left, she chuckled. Behind her she had heard him utter one word laden with sarcasm and disgust.

"Fantastic."