Mickey was at his laptop, reading something.
"How's he doing?" Jackie asked.
"Worse. He's only got one heartbeat now," Rose said.
"Rose, I found out what a pilot fish is," Mickey said.
Rose walked over to the computer. "What?" she asked.
"Well, it's a kind of fish. They swim alongside predators, like sharks and stuff, eating the parasites off the sharks, and the leftovers from their meals."
"So if there are pilot fish, then's there's a shark nearby?" Rose asked. Mickey nodded.
"We got this," he showed her an animation of a pilot fish. "So now, we're gonna get this," he said, switching to an animation of a shark.
"Rose, Mickey, come look at this," Jackie said from in front of the television.
There was a man on the screen. "That's that space probe person," Mickey said.
"Project manager," Rose recalled.
"Shush," Jackie said.
"Yes, we are, we're back on shedule," he was saying. "We've recieved the signal from Guinevere 1, the mars landing would seem to be an unqualified success."
"But is it true that you lost contact with Guinevere 1 earlier tonight?" a reporter asked.
"Yes, we had a bit of a scare, Guinevere seemed to fall off the scope, but it was just a blip, only disappeared for a few seconds, she is fine now, absolutely fine, we should be getting the first images, transmitted live any minute now. I'd better get back to it, thanks," he said, running off to the side of the screen.
The picture flickered, and they got some static. Then the picture sharpened, and they saw a face. It looked like it was just bone, and Rose thought it was obviously alien. It roared, and they all jumped back, yelling. The screen went blank for a minute, and then the news channel popped back up again.
"Mickey," Rose asked. "Can you hack into the Guinevere satelite feed?"
He nodded. "Yeah," he said, running over to the laptop. "Just give me a minute," he said.
I reached forward, feeling his forehead again. I wished I had a thermomenter, because it would have made things easier if I could know what temperature he was. If he had just been sick, I would have been treating him with small doses of solar bio-particals, but he was trying to get rid of excess energy. Giving him more, of any kind, could prove fatal. All I could do was sit and wait.
"Rose," Mickey said. "Take a look at our access to the military. They're tracking a spaceship, it's big, fast, and coming this way."
"Coming for what though?" ROse asked. "The Doctor?"
"I don't know," Mickey replid. "Maybe it's coming for all of us."
The screen flickered, and then the picture sharpened, showing more of the aliens they'd seen on the television.
They spoke, and Rose didn't recognize the langauge. "Have you seen these before?" Mickey asked.
Rose shook her head. "No."
"I don't understand what they're saying," Rose said. "The Tardis translates alien langauges in my head all the time, where ever I am."
"So why isn't it translating now?" Mickey asked.
"I don't know," she said. "Must be the Doctor. He's part of the Tardis, and now he's sick, like he's broken."
"So what are we going to do?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said.
Jackie came in and sat with us. She ignored me, and I didn't mind. I liked going unnoticed. It made my job easier sometimes. I could blend in very well. A kind off shadow effect. The Doctor called it a pre-installed Perception Filter, whatever that was. My Creator called it a shadow device. It makes one seem as a shadow. Unnoticed. I practiced it now. So many parts if me that I had neglected for so long. I was out of practice, and things like a shadow device could save my Doctor's life someday.
So I sat there, and Jackie took no notice of me, and she fell asleep eventually. And then Rose appeared at the door. And she just looked at the Doctor. I wondered what she was thinking of. What it felt like to be human, helpless, and to look and see the self-proclaimed defender of Earth, dying. I thought she must feel almost as wretched as I.
Mickey walked up behind her, and I knew that my shadow device was working when neither of them so much as glanced in my direction.
"The Doctor wouldn't do this," Rose said. "The old Doctor, the proper Doctor, he'd wake up. He's save us," she said.
I stood, switching off the shadow device.
"He's trying to," I said. Mickey looked alarmed, but Rose didn't even blink.
"What do you mean he's trying to?" she asked.
"He wants to wake up. He's fighting to wake up."
"Then why can't he?" she asked.
"I won't let him," I said simply.
"Why not?" she asked.
"He needs to sleep, and get better," I said.
"But we need his help" she protested.
"That is not important. All that matters is that he gets better," I said.
"And what if the human race is gone before he gets better?" Rose asked. "What if he's too late?"
I shrugged. "What do you want me to say? All I can do is keep him alive. I cannot consider anything but what will help him recover more quickly."
"But you don't care if the human race gets blown out of existence?" Rose asked. I shook my head. "Protect the Doctor at any cost," I qouted.
"At any cost?" she asked.
"At any cost," I replied.
Rose was about to argue further, but she heard yelling from outside. She walked to the door and poked her head out, to see her neighbor, Kathy, yelling at her husband, Jason.
"What is wrong with you?" she asked.
"Kathy?" Rose said. "Look at him," she said. "He's just walking, he won't stop walking. here's this sort of, ligh thing," she said, before going after him again. Rose stepped out of her door, Mickey foloeing close behind, and saw other people walking too. Like they were in a trance. Every now and then, a kind of blue light would glow around their heads, adn they all seemed to be walking in the same direction. Rose walked down the stairs, following them. "Where are they going?" Mickey asked.
"I don't know," ROse said. They kept walking, and then they started going up. Up stairs, and fire escapes, just trying to go up, to the top of whatever multi-storied buildings they could. Rose didn't follow the crowd up, she and Mickey stayed onthe ground, watching as the people lined the tops of the buildings. They just stopped, standing on the edge of the roofs, staring blankly ahead.
Rose looked at Mickey. "What-" she started to say, but was cut off as a shadow fell over her. She looked up, and saw something that closely resembled a rock, descendiing on the city.
"That's not really a rock, is it?" Mickey asked. "That's a spaceship, right?"
Rose just nodded wordlessly. Then the ground shook, violently. The glass on all the windows, for miles around, shattered. Alarms went off, bells rang, sirens blared. And Rose looked on it all in horror.
"We've got to get out," she said.
"What?" Mickey asked, but she wasn't listening. She was already running into the apartment.
I stared at the Doctor. I could feel him growing weaker. I hadn't felt him in so long. Our link had been closed ever since he'd left me on Earth. Now it was opening again. That was good. I hadn't had a fully developed teepathic link with him when he left me here. If the link opened now, then it would be harder at least for him to maroon me again. Assuming, of course, he didn't die now. There was that final option, that I would use to keep him alive if all else failed, but it was to be used as a last resort only, and this situation was not yet hopless enough to warrant the use of that option. I would wait.