Chapter Three

In the meantime, in the parallel universe

Rose and the Doctor were walking along the shore, hand in hand. The waves were licking the polished stones while they headed back without hurrying to their TARDIS. For once, their lovers' walk unfolded without any problem – no infuriated aliens' attacks, no threats of world's end and, unusually, no sulky preteens. They would almost have missed it; it must be said that they weren't used to it.

Rose smiled and rose on tip-toe to plant a soft kiss on her companion's lips. He slid a hand in her blond hair while lovingly responding to her kiss. They prolonged the contact, enjoying this moment of intimacy, before returning to their ship.

Only there was a problem: when they came to the place where they had left their TARDIS, they saw neither ship nor children.

"Are you sure we really parked the ship here?" Rose asked the Doctor.

In truth, she was almost sure it was the right place, but she didn't want to admit what she was seeing – or, rather, not seeing. The Doctor nodded with unusual seriousness, confirming her fears. The TARDIS had definitely vanished, along with their children.

"But… could someone have stolen the TARDIS?"

Rose was seriously beginning to panic. Danger was a part of her everyday life but, like every mother, she was really worried for her children. The Doctor shook his head.

"No," he answered. "The TARDIS wouldn't have left someone enter aside from us."

"What happened, then?"

The Doctor looked at Rose with a face that clearly meant: I've got a theory about this, and you're not going to like it.

"I think the children must have had activated something."

"But… willingly?"

"I don't think so, but that's a possibility," the Doctor answered.

"You told me that they didn't risk anything!" Rose exclaimed. "That the TARDIS would protect them, and that we could leave them alone safely!"

"How could I have known they'd activate the TARDIS?" the Doctor replied.

"Seriously? That's your apology? A ship full of buttons and levers, with two children alone inside, and you really thought they would not activate something?!"

"If you were so sure they would do something, why did you accept to leave them alone in the first place? Don't put all the blame on me!"

Rose was ready to reply, but she changed her mind. Her children were somewhere in the universe, alone in a quite unpredictable ship, and potentially endangered; this was not the time to argue with her companion (though he would get what was coming to him). She was about to say so to the Doctor, when he pointed to something behind her and said:

"However, I think we may have another problem…"

Rose turned around and gauged the scale of said problem: a huge rift, similar to the one which had trapped her in this dimension, was tearing the web of the space-time.

"Oh shit," she muttered. "Don't tell me that's linked to the disappearance of the TARDIS and our children?"

"I'm afraid it actually is," the Doctor answered.

He dipped into one of his pockets – which were, of course, bigger on the inside than on the outside – and pulled out a phosphorescent marker which he put on the ground.

"Fluctuating ionic injection's beacon, found in a market on Jaxkhatar. It should prevent the rift to close itself while we're on the other side."

"You don't want to simply close it?" Rose asked, perplexed.

"There's a high enough probability of Donna and Ian being on the other side; we should go and search them, or at least look for some clues to find where they might be."

"Okay." Rose nodded, decided, before thinking a bit and saying: "However, how exactly do you plan to cross the rift, without the TARDIS?"

"I… haven't thought about this detail yet," the Doctor answered piteously.

Rose sighed. It was such a typical answer from her companion.

"We should go back to the city," she said at last. "Maybe they have something that could help us."

At the same time, in the other universe…

The alarm of the TARDIS went on, indicating a serious problem. The Doctor went away from Jack and ran to the screen.

"What's happening?" the immortal asked while peeking over his shoulder.

"When they came to this universe, Donna and Ian fragilized the structure of the space-time's web, which puts the very entirety of the multiverse in danger. The phenomenon they triggered can happen again at any time. And that's precisely the case now!"

"What do you mean by 'phenomenon', exactly?" The Captain asked before taking a sharp breath when he understood. "An opening rift?"

The Doctor nodded.

"And it seems that we were just pulled inside it!"

Jack thought that his companion was a bit too enthusiastic about the whole thing – but it was a typical reaction from the Doctor, after all: something strange and worrying threatens to destroy all the universes? Cool, let's hurry up to go in the middle of the chaos, so that we can study this phenomenon and save the world! And, after all, the Captain preferred seeing his Doctor in this mood than all depressed like he was just a few moments ago.

"It seems that there's a planet nearby," the Doctor said. "I'll try to land on it. It should be a bit more stable than our current situation."

The TARDIS was actually violently shaken. The Doctor pushed several buttons and pulled some levers, while Donna and Ian came back, holding the items they had been searching.

"Hold on!" the Time Lord exclaimed while hitting the TARDIS's console a last time with his hammer. "The landing will be rude!"

This was the case indeed; the two children were thrown against the commands, while the Doctor found himself half lying on Jack – who was rather enjoying the situation. However, the Time Lord stood up immediately and headed towards the console.

"Donna, Ian, you'll stay here while Jack and I will observe this planet. Above all, don't touch anything! And you, he added to the TARDIS, don't start up until we're back."

"But…" Donna began, obviously annoyed to have to stay behind.

"We should probably do as he says," Ian interrupted her; his lust for adventure had all but vanished after the recent events. "We promise we won't touch anything," he added for the Doctor.

The latter nodded before walking towards the TARDIS's door, followed by Jack.

A vast stretch of short and yellowed grass spread out before them, its monotony only broken by some small trees with mauve leaves. The area seemed utterly uninhabited, except for the small house a few hundreds of meters away from them.

They both looked at each other.

"Allons-y!" the Doctor exclaimed merrily, and they started walking towards the house.

Once they were arrived, the Time Lord pulled his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and unlocked the door. The lock clicked and produced some sparkles, and the door slid open. The two men entered the house. The room in which they stood was empty, except for the translucent capsule which contained a humanoid creature. It was laying on its back and plunged in a deep stasis's state, as was shown by the colorful lights which were blinking along the capsule. The creature was covered with thin blue scales, from the top of its smooth skull to the tip of its numerous tentacles.

"What species is it, Doc?" Jack asked, intrigued.

"I have no idea," his companion answered. "I've never seen a living being like this before."

"Why is it in stasis, do you think?"

"Well, there's only one way to find out," the Doctor answered, sonic screwdriver in hand.

While the Time Lord was checking the vital signs of the creature, while Jack was exploring the house, and while Donna and Ian were playing with the historical costumes in the TARDIS; in short, while nobody was paying attention to it, the rift between the two universes closed itself and vanished like it had never existed.

So here we are, at 4 a.m., publishing this chapter... Fanfictions will soon defeat us... (assuming that's not already the case!)

Anyway, we hope you enjoy this new chapter! :)