Chapter 3
The huge grin on his face quickly faded when he threw open the door, only to be instantly drowned in a rush of red liquid. It gushed into the Tardis at an alarming rate, sweeping him and Donna and Reinette to the back of the console room, where they struggled in their surprise to remain afloat.
"Doctor!" they both screamed, and the Doctor, blowing to get it out of his nose, shouted at the Tardis. "Shut the door! Shut the door!"
The Tardis door slowly strained against the huge waves, but it finally closed and the rushing liquid ceased to pour inside. The three of them coughed and gagged, floundering awkwardly in a giant red pool too deep to touch the floor without going under. They couldn't even see the console—it was completely underwater—if it was water, that is.
"Is it blood?" Reinette questioned, looking around her and trying to suppress the horror that showed on her face anyway.
Donna went pale at the suggestion.
The Doctor calmly spat a stream of it out of his mouth before answering. "Naw, seawater!"
"With blood in it," Donna added.
"No, it's red seawater! No blood, no guts—blimey!" he made a face and shuddered, sticking his tongue out. "Heck of a lot of salt, though! That must be why we're not sinking—or at least, not Reinette in that dress of hers. Sorry, love, but in any other kind of water you'd be going under!"
"Whoever heard of sea water colored with red?" Reinette demanded, her bejeweled hands trying in vain to brush her mangled hair back from her face.
The Doctor, however, was busy. He swam to the edge of the Tardis, and, grabbing a hose that apparently wasn't needed for anything very important; he began to climb until he reached the ceiling. He then began tinkering with some type of apparatus attached to the top of one wall, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and working busily with it.
"What," Donna gasped, also trying to clear her thick red hair from her face, "we've landed on the bottom of the ocean?! I've always wondered why that never happened. I mean, the Earth is like, ninety-eight percent water, isn't it?"
"Seventy-one point four six percent!" the Doctor shouted down.
"Oh, you don't have to get all specific!" Donna huffed back at him. "How do we get out of here?!"
"Hold on! I've just gotta turn the drain system on," he replied, bracing himself and then diving from the roof down under the water to reach the console, splashing the two women all over again.
"Donna," Reinette said after he'd gone under, "—I may call you that, am I right?"
"Yeh," she replied breathlessly, "I'm just a temp. Call me whatever you want."
Reinette almost smiled. "I am afraid I do not understand half of the words you or the Doctor speak!"
Donna laughed, a little wildly because of the excitement.
"Donna," she continued, her voice quieter, "you do not suppose that there are—sea monsters and such—under our shoes right now?"
Donna looked down at the water and slowly raised her eyes to meet Reinette's. Just then, the Doctor resurfaced between them, spraying water everywhere as he shook it out of his hair. "You got that drain working?" Donna demanded of him, smiling in spite of herself at the sight of him. He looked like a wet, shaggy dog.
"Well, don't get impatient!" the Doctor said, almost a little embarrassed. "I can't hold my breath as long as you humans can, and it's hard to swim under salt water!"
"Oh, just let me help you," Donna rolled her eyes.
"Fine," the Doctor replied, still annoyed, and the two of them dove under, leaving Reinette at the surface to reconsider the situation she was in.
Now that she thought about it, it was rather frightening. The Doctor and Donna didn't seem to be concerned, but they were all three of them soaked to the skin and there didn't appear to be anything dry left in the vessel.
The Doctor resurfaced first, gasping and grinning at her. "Donna's got it," he said triumphantly. "What's wrong?" he asked, noticing her face.
"Doctor, you really ought to be concerned! The ship is underwater and we're all soaked to the skin. Won't we all catch our death of cold?"
"Oh, no, Reinette," he replied merrily, as Donna surfaced behind him. "Not in this century. Well! Not in this century—I don't even know when this century is! But not in the Tardis, oh no," he continued reassuringly. "Nobody gets sick in here. Well! Maybe a bit heartsick, but that's soon mended," he grinned as he swam over to her and took her hand under the water.
As he spoke, the water had begun to drain from a corner of the great room and they began to float downwards until they were standing on the floor again in only a few feet of red. For a second they were all laughing as they sloshed about, and had started splashing each other, but suddenly Reinette screamed.
They all stopped and turned to where she was pointing. A long tail was visible, translucent and blending with the color of the water, and it thrashed against the wall before moving at lightning speed across the console room, heading straight for the Doctor.
