A/N: Hint: there is going to be a recurring theme of broken glass running throughout this story. Starting in this chapter. Try and see if you can spot it in the stories yet to come.

Chapter Four: A Coward's Way Out

"What? What do you mean you don't know how to fix this?"

The Doctor looked away from her and started to rapidly pace the length of the steamy room.

"Doctor?"

He stopped abruptly, jumped over the pile of desks and kneeled in front of the main computer. "The rift is not meant to be tampered with, Rose. It's a powerful being meant to be left alone. This ship has been using it as fuel. They've been extracting the very ions and impartial neurons that make the rift what it is – a crack in Time and space. The TARDIS was exhausted after getting you back – probably even a little bit dazed. As we were crashing she must've located the nearest source of energy which she could use to recharge. Meanwhile, the stolen rift energy from this ship called out to the heart of the TARDIS. Vortex energy; they recognised each other. Now, imagine holding two strong magnets a few centimetres apart. The magnetic field would be strong, right? Strong enough to cause some sort of impact on both sides. Now imagine suddenly letting them both go. That's what happened here only with a hell of a lot more power."

"So it was the vortex field that caused our ship to explode – the section storing the rift energy," Lorcan concluded.

"It transported the stolen rift energy back to its rightful place in Cardiff and a big burst of sudden energy like that meant everything on that side of the ship went up in flames," finished the Doctor. He had started to type something into the computer, "I can't fight against rift energy, Lorcan. The other half of this ship is ready to explode any moment. Seven minutes, in fact. All the last remaining droplets of rift energy are being drained from the corners of everything we see. These computers use rift energy to function, as do anything that would usually be electrical – even something a simple as a kettle. The unused rift energy was transported back, yes; it's just a matter of time for the rest to follow."

Lorcan nodded to himself. His muscled arms rippled as he covered his long face with his hands. He sighed, swore and wiped the sweat from his brow. "Only one thing we can do then. The temperature is constantly rising in this place. We have to abandon ship."

Just as he said it, the far section of the engine room burst into thick orange and yellow flames. Grey smoke started to pour from the affected area. Rose let out a screech of horror. The Doctor grabbed her hand and pulled her down as Lorcan and Tobias spun around in shock. The ground beneath them started to rumble like the sound of thunder.

"You said we had seven minutes!" Lorcan shouted in haste.

"No, the computer said we had seven minutes!" the Doctor argued. While still holding Rose's hand, he lurched forward to bolt for the door but the trembling ground made them both stumble to the side.

Lorcan pulled them up with his tremendous strength and held the Doctor in his grip a while longer to get a good look at his face. "You have a ship. Takes us away from here."

"A ship that won't fly!" the Doctor snapped back.

"You said she would've recharged on the rift energy!"

"It wouldn't be enough but you're right – it's the best chance we have. The only problem is making it back to where we started."

Rose let out a heaving sigh and dragged the Doctor and Lorcan forward. "Well, come on then!"

Tobias scrambled after them as they rushed through the titanium door. He stopped to close it behind them but Lorcan shouted after him.

"Tobias, leave it! There's no time!"

"It'll stop it for a while, Lorcan! It's a solid titanium door!"

Lorcan ran back and grabbed his friend by his shirt. "This whole ship is titanium. If titanium could've stopped it, do you think half of our ship would've exploded? Now, come on!"

Just ahead of them, Rose was struggling to keep up with the Doctor. The temperature had risen once again and now it felt as if she was running through boiling water. The air was thick and dry and the metal around them had started to steam. Each step took more effort than Rose could find within her.

"It seems like all we do is run down corridors," Rose wheezed.

The Doctor let out a breathless laugh. Light heartedly, he asked, "Are you okay?"

"Bit hot, but you know, can't be helped."

"That's not what I meant."

Rose knew exactly what he meant but there was no time to talk about everything that had happened just yet.

As they turned the corner into the last corridor with Lorcan and Tobias close behind them, another low rumble echoed under their feet. The glass windows framed in titanium shattered into tiny jewelled pieces and rained down on them all like hailstones. The Doctor's hand slipped from Rose's grip as she covered her head with her hands. Lorcan's dark hair glittered with small crystals and a cut across his cheek showed that a piece of glass had hit his face. He pulled on Tobias's shirt before inspecting the gaps where the windows once were.

"These glass windows were reinforced with diamond molecules in case our platform ever crash landed," Lorcan explained. His eyebrows pulled together. "How the hell did they break?"

The Doctor's gaze held a shadow of doubt. He regained his hold on Rose's hand and shook the pieces of glass from her hair. "Just keep moving!"

Hand in hand, Rose and the Doctor stumbled back into a run. Lorcan and Tobias were a little slower behind them, and it was this that caused the difference.

BANG!

The Doctor and Rose were thrown into the side of the corridor. Behind them a metal beam supporting the ceiling collapsed onto the floor. It was slanted across the extent of the narrow corridor. One end was still connected to wires and raised high against the wall; the other was sparking with flames and hitting the ground.

But the most frightening thing of all was that the Doctor and Rose were on one side, and Lorcan and Tobias were trapped on the other.

"Lorcan!" the Doctor shouted. He was back on his feet and reaching over the titanium beam to reach him. Rose was on his other side, reaching for Tobias.

The flames from the engine room had reached them on the opposite end of the corridor; Lorcan and Tobias started to climb over the beam with the help of Rose and the Doctor, but the metal had already started to steam with the temperature of the room. Tobias let go of Rose's hand as his palm blistered and fell backwards onto the floor. It was like climbing across the hot plate of an iron. Lorcan watched his friend fall and jumped down to help him back up. The ground started to rumble again.

"Get out!" yelled Lorcan to the Doctor and Rose. "We'll follow, just get out of here!"

The Doctor could sense what was going to happen before it did. Everything behind the fallen beam exploded into a giant fiery ball of flames. The titanium shattered, bright sparks flared out and travelled like little pockets of air further down the corridor. The gush of heat hit Rose in the face, feeling like severe sunburn. She watched in shock as Lorcan and Tobias were lost in the fire, completely and utterly speechless.

The Doctor's eyes were wide and his lips pulled into a grimace. Ignoring the oncoming threat, Rose spun around to face him.

"They're dead," Rose announced as if it was news. "They're properly dead. How could that happen?"

She received no reply.

"Doctor!" she shouted, trying to wake him up. "How could that happen? Fixed point in time you said, Lorcan was a fixed point in time, so how could that happen?"

"What they were going to do was going to be a fixed point," the Doctor explained. "It hasn't happened yet."

"And obviously never will!" Rose snapped.

The Doctor grabbed her hand and pulled her back into action. She allowed herself to be led into the main platform room, but everything around her was still in a daze. As if it wasn't quite real.

A sharp piece of piping broke off from the main structure. The Doctor dragged Rose to the floor as it flew over their heads.

"It might surprise you to know that I do listen to you sometimes," she told him as the ship fell apart around them. "And I know that shouldn't happen. Lorcan and Tobias were supposed to get out of this. You said so yourself."

"Rose, we don't have time to talk about this."

The TARDIS was only a few metres away now. Only a few more steps would take them there. The Doctor pushed Rose in front of him and the bolted for the safety of the little blue box.

They didn't reach it a moment too soon. The Doctor's just made it through the TARDIS doors when the whole ship exploded into a million tiny pieces behind him. He slammed the doors shut and leaned against them to ensure they were locked. Rose was sitting against the main console, looking up in the dull green light of the central beam.

He did everything he could to avoid eye contact with her. In truth, the Doctor was scared witless at what just happened. Rose was right – this was all never supposed to happen. Tobias and Lorcan safely landed on their destination with the platform fully in tact. They went onto do great things, not necessarily good all of the time, but their names were recorded as some of the most successful travellers Earth had ever produced. What would this affect in the future? The discovery of some medicines they collected on their trips, a pivotal war and now Starship UK would float around the stars without a guide.

Time would not do this intentionally. It was corrupting itself. And the Doctor couldn't help but feel like he was to blame. Perhaps Lorcan was right, perhaps the rift energy wouldn't have corrupted if the TARDIS had never landed. This was all leading to the terrifying conclusion that something had gone terribly wrong when he –

No. He wouldn't even think of that. It was probably just a coincidence. A one off. This would not happen again.

He was pulled back into reality by a small sniffle through the silence. His eyes darted towards Rose, but he could not see her face. With slow steps he walked over to her, and with loving arms he embraced her as she cried into his blazer.

"It's okay," he muttered, "it's okay."

"Sorry," Rose spoke into his chest. "Just everything has happened too soon. Saying goodbye to my mum, and Pete, and Mickey and then what happened to Lorcan and Tobias… It's been a hell of a day."

"Why don't you get some sleep? The TARDIS kept your bedroom," the Doctor said, pulling away to get a good look at her face. Her black mascara was leaving tear tracks as she cried.

Rose nodded and held her head as if it was sore. "Yeah. I think I will."

Before she traipsed off to her usual room, he gave her a gentle kiss on her forehead. She needed some time alone to clear her mind from recent events. He understood that – as long as she wasn't regretting leaving her family.

Hands in pockets, the Doctor walked over to the console screen. It was lit up to show the coordinates of where they were now, following their progress as they casually floated through the stars. In the corner of the screen, directly on the left hand side, was a tiny hairline crack. The Doctor's hand curiously brushed against it and it gave a tiny crunch at his touch. That was unusual. The TARDIS was virtually indestructible.

He sighed as he stared into the green-blue light of the central beam, watching as the tired TARDIS hummed more faintly than usual. Something was going on, the Doctor concluded uneasily, and instead of confronting it he was going to run and keep going without looking back. For once he was using the coward's way out.

After all, when you have something precious, all you can do is run.

A/N: A review or two would be nice, especially since tomorrow at 7pm (well, here in the UK anyway) we find out who the new Doctor is! I sent in some questions, so hopefully they get asked but I'd like to know who you think would be/or should be number Twelve!