A/N: I apologize for stealing a brilliant line from Torchwood, but it just fit so perfectly.
On a personal note, I am now a free woman! I've finished school!
Chapter Four:
They crawled through the claustrophobic ventilation shaft, Ten leading the way, followed by Rose, then Nine. After a few minutes of wandering, Rose finally asked, "Do you know where you're going?"
"Of course I do!" scoffed Ten, "Brilliant navigator, that's me."
"Only, it's getting kind of hot…"
Rose was right – the metal of the shaft was slowly heating under their palms. The air, already stuffy from their bodies being so close together, passed thickly through their lungs.
"Someone's turning the heat on," muttered Nine.
Crawling faster, they arrived at a fork.
"Left, right, or straight?" mused Ten aloud. "Feels like the TARDIS is left…."
"No, it's right!" called Nine from behind Rose.
"I think I know where my own TARDIS is!" said Ten angrily. The shaft was baking, and even the Doctors were sweating.
"Yeah, except it's not your TARDIS anymore. It's mine, and it's to the right!"
"Will both of you just shut it?" hissed Rose, struggling to breathe in the overwhelming heat, "Seeing as you both can't navigate to save your lives, I say we go straight."
They went straight, crawling until Rose was positive her back would never stand straight again.
Just when she was sure she was going to pass out, Ten stopped. "Alright, I think there's a vent here. No sign of the TARDIS, but I don't think we can stay up here much longer."
Nine slid the screwdriver past Rose, and Ten opened a vent in the floor of the shaft. Cool air rushed to greet them, and they gasped huge grateful gulps.
Screwdriver in his teeth, Ten dropped from the vent onto the floor. He gazed around quickly. They'd landed in a small room, filled with an eerily familiar supercomputer and…..
"Sensors in the floor, hold on!" he said, rushing to sonic the sensor embedded at the base of the wall, but Rose was already in mid-drop from the vent. She landed clumsily, gasping for air. Nine nimbly swung down beside her, and reached out a hand to steady her.
"What kind of sensors?" demanded Nine.
The screwdriver's buzzing ceased as Ten straightened. "The summoning-big-nasty-people-with-guns kind."
As if on cue, the far door opened, revealing several burly Terrahegans holding guns that would make Jack Harkness envious.
"Run!" yelled both Doctors in unison, Ten snatching Rose's hand in a death grip.
They legged it for the door opposite the guards and kept going. Their shoes slid as they rounded corners, barely staying ahead of their pursuers and the shots that left scorch marks in the wall where they'd been seconds earlier.
Nine ducked as one shot sizzled just above his head. "Stunners!" he yelled back to his counterpart, who was half-dragging the thoroughly exhausted Rose behind him, "They're trying to capture, not kill!"
Ten nodded grimly, and somehow his legs pumped even faster, catching him and Rose up with Nine.
Nine stopped in his tracks suddenly, and Ten and Rose barely managed to avoid colliding into him. The sliding doors were sealed, blocking the hallway. Dead end. Pulling out his screwdriver, Nine immediately attacked the control panel on the wall, frying the wiring.
"Terrahegan Barricade," Nine groaned, "Get Rose out, I'll slow them down." As he sonic-ed, the doors fizzled slightly.
"No," Ten snapped, "It's got to be me, I'm later. Between the two of us…." Nine paused, then nodded.
Rose, who was bent over and leaning on her knees for support, was too exhausted to fully realize what was happening. Ten dropped her hand and took the screwdriver from his younger self.
"Guess I do have a tendency to lose things," said Ten with a sad smile. "Take care of her, will you?"
"Doc – Ten – Doctor, what are you doing?" Rose demanded, chest still heaving.
Nine took her hand silently as the Terrahegans rounded the corner.
"Go, run!" ordered Ten as he turned to the wiring. The doors opened slightly, but seemed to resist Ten's tampering.
"Don't be thick!" Rose yanked her hand from Nine's, "If you think I'm leaving you – "
The Terrahegans fired, missing her by centimeters. Nine snatched her by the elbow and hurriedly dragged her, struggling, through the narrow opening.
"We can't leave him!" shrieked Rose, "We can't – "
"Run, you stupid ape, run!" ordered Nine finally, yanking on her arm. His words, or maybe just the man who was saying them, triggered something deep within her, and she let him take her hand.
They ran. The sliding doors slammed immediately behind them, permanently jammed. Numbly, Rose let Nine lead her through the corridors and down flights of stairs, They dashed past another group of Terrahegans, who immediately gave chase. Finally, Nine spotted a hole in the wall.
"There!" He dove down the hole, and Rose followed after him.
They slid down a chute until finally coming to a squishy, smelly stop. Rose landed with a thump on top of the Doctor. He slid out from under her and stood up, sadly inspecting his muck-covered jacket.
"Alright, lost them," said Nine, glancing around. "Looks like a rubbish chute."
Rose said nothing, didn't even flick some of the grime out of her hair. Her eyes were blankly gazing forward.
"And you're not even upset about me landing us in garbage!" continued the Doctor cheerily. "No wonder I like you!"
Rose didn't respond.
He moved closer, and crouched to wipe some of the muck off her forehead. "You alright?"
"I left him," she said dully. "I just….I just ran away and left you there…."
"Rose – "
Her voice broke. "He's probably dead and you haven't even met me yet – "
"Rose!" the Doctor snapped. "Listen, he told you to leave, so it's not your fault. That was a Terrahegan Barricade – it took a lot of tampering with to even open enough to let us through, so someone had to stay to keep them from closing. He stayed because he's the later incarnation."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Last time I met up with the Master, he tried to steal the rest of my regenerations. If he tries that again, there'd be a massive paradox if he took mine. Plus, other me's got less regenerations to give the Master than I do."
"Oh, so that's fine, innit," said Rose harshly, "The Master's draining you of all your lives right now and we're just going to leave you there?"
"Don't be daft, of course we're going to get me out." The Doctor brushed off his jacket, and reached out a hand to help her up. "He's happy."
"You mean hyper," said Rose, corners of her lips turning up slightly. She took his hand, and he pulled her up. She ran a finger through her hair and sniffed. "Stinks a bit down here."
"That's the spirit," he beamed. "Now, how to get out of a rubbish chute…"
The Tenth Doctor hated lab tables, especially when he was the one strapped to them. He wriggled a bit at first, but quickly resigned himself to the fact that he wasn't going anywhere. He tried not to remember the last glimpse he'd had of Rose, screaming for him as he – well, the other him – dragged her away. She'd be fine, the Doctor consoled himself; she was, after all, with himself. He'd taken good care of her during his last incarnation, right? Well, except for throwing a missile at her in Downing Street and not realizing she was dangling from a barrage balloon and leaving her to the mercy of a Dalek and not being fast enough to keep her from being vaporized (alright, transported, but he hadn't known that) on the Game Station….
The Doctor decided to worry about other things, like the footsteps from the next room that indicated the Master was approaching. He had a nasty feeling he knew what the Master was planning….
"Doctor! It's been too long," said the Master cheerily, twiddling his laser screwdriver in his fingers. The Doctor flinched slightly as he aimed it at him, but instead of pain he felt the table he laid upon tilt upwards.
The Master plopped down into a chair next to the lab table beaming as if he'd just been handed a Christmas present.
"How long's it been then?" demanded the Doctor, "Five months? Six?"
"Two and a half! A little mind control – you know that's my specialty – a few subliminal messages, and I was elected Grand Vizier Saxon of Terraheg within the month. Now the ones who aren't falling over themselves to serve me are too scared not to. And they're losing the war with the Posnians now, isn't that brilliant?" He slouched in his chair, letting the back of his head rest in his hands. "I was surprised you managed to follow me here, I'll admit – how did you do it?"
"Nothing you'd understand," said the Doctor, putting on an air of boredom, "Just whipped up a simple auxiliary micro-antenna, hooked it up to a plasti-dampening quasienhancer, hooked that mess up to the Dextima Module, added a dash of filogradient, and then, just for kicks, added a few rubiplasmic circuits. Voila! Master's location."
The Master leaned forward accusingly. "You made that up."
"Course I did. A little technobabble is good for the soul, don't you think?"
The Master sighed. "Straight to business then. Slaves!" he called. Nothing happened for a moment. "Oh, these Ardonians, so technologically advanced for such primitive minds. If they didn't make such excellent weapons….Ah, here they are!" Several blank-faced Terrahegs entered, wheeling in a very large machine.
The Doctor shivered as his suspicions were confirmed. Not good. Not good at all.
"Now the question is, Doctor," said the Master as he unwrapped several cords from the machine and attached the pads on the ends to the back of the Doctor's hands, "Are you older or younger than the one that ran off with – Rose, wasn't it?"
The Doctor did not answer, trying to repress all panic as the Master stuck some of the pads to his temples. He could feel the power emanating through the cords, and the machine had not even been turned on.
"I suppose you're the younger one," drawled the Master as he undid the top buttons on the Doctor's shirt, "So I can't get more information out of you?"
The Doctor laughed dryly. "Oh, no, you've got it backwards. I'm older." A plan formed in his mind. "In fact, I'm oldest. Thirteenth Doctor, that's me."
The Master froze halfway through placing a pad over the Doctor's right heart.
"So your brilliant plan to nick the rest of my regenerations isn't going to work. Haven't got any! I'm on my last!" The Doctor said smugly.
The Master finished his right heart and pressed another pad to his left. "I don't believe you. You're lying."
"Do you really want to test that?" the Doctor went on, as the Master slid a hand down his shirt to attach a cord to his stomach. "Your machine's – pardon the technical term – a piece of junk. That thing looks like it's built out of spare bits of Ardonian machinery, and I bet it's only got one charge – am I right?"
The Master didn't answer the question. "You're one to talk about spare parts. Using an Earth toaster as a heat-spatial converter on your TARDIS – inspired."
The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "What have you – "
"Done to your ship?" the Master grinned widely and rubbed his hands together. "Nothing much. Because you see, I can rig up a fairly impressive paradox machine with one TARDIS – but two? Oh, it's going to be beautiful….."
The Doctor's look of horror made the Master grin even wider.