Chapter 6 - Heart of the Wolf
After the events in America, James went back to Torchwood. He hadn't stayed very long before the blue envelope had arrived and he wanted a longer visit. At least that's what he told his parents. Really, he was finding it difficult to hide all of the things he knew about River's past and the fact that Amy was her mother. It would be easier for all of them if he just wasn't there for a while.
So, the Doctor and Rose were travelling with Amy and Rory for the time being. Though they did run into a past James and River while answering a distress call. They had found themselves on a pirate ship that had been trapped by an unknown collision with an alien spacecraft. James and River had helped them figure out the problem and left again, which was good because James hadn't done the Pandorica yet.
Everything was going well. They were floating in space for the moment, thinking about where to go next, when there was a knock on the TARDIS doors. The Doctor and Rose looked at each other in confusion.
"How?" Rose gasped.
There was another knock, as if the person knocking was getting impatient waiting for them to answer.
"What was that?" Amy asked.
"The door. It knocked," the Doctor stated, still unsure of exactly how that was possible.
"Right. We are in deep space," Rory pointed out.
"Very, very deep," the Doctor confirmed.
"A spaceship? Nothing on the sensors," Rose told them, checking the monitor.
The knocking played out the pattern for shave and a haircut. The Doctor looked back at the others as he approached the doors. "And somebody's knocking." He opened the doors to find a floating, white, glowing cube. "Oh, come here. Come here, you scrumptious little beauty!" he exclaimed excitedly.
The little box flew into the room in a wide arch before heading straight for the Doctor and knocking him in the chest. He fell down on the floor and wrestled with it for a moment as he tried to stop it from making another circuit of the room.
"A box?" Rory questioned.
"What is it, love?" Rose asked him from the platform above.
"I've got mail," he cried happily as he sat up and stared at the little cube in his hands. "Time Lord emergency messaging system. In an emergency, we'd wrap up thoughts in psychic containers and send them through time and space. Anyway, there's a living Time Lord still out there, and it's one of the good ones," he explained, popping up from the floor and running towards the console.
"How could there be more Time Lords? Another one hid from the war?" Rose wondered.
"You said there weren't any other Time Lords left," Rory agreed.
"There are no Time Lords left anywhere in the universe, well, other than Jamie. But the universe isn't where we're going. See that snake?" he told them, pointing to the symbol on the cube showing a knotwork snake. "The mark of the Corsair. Fantastic bloke. He had that snake as a tattoo in every regeneration. Didn't feel like himself unless he had the tattoo. Or herself, a couple of times. Oooh, she was a bad girl!"
"You mean, you might regenerate into a woman?!" Rose shouted as she tried to help him pilot the shaking time ship. There was an explosion and the lights flickered around them.
"It is a slight possibility," he admitted, smacking one of the controls harshly.
"Oh, what is happening?" Rory questioned, holding Amy tightly as they clung to the railing.
"We're leaving the universe!" the Doctor shouted.
"How can you leave the universe?" Amy called back to him.
"And we had better be able to get back again!" Rose yelled at him.
"With enormous difficulty. Right now I'm burning up TARDIS rooms to give us some welly. Goodbye, swimming pool. Goodbye, scullery. Sayonara, squash court seven," he listed, hitting various controls as he circled the console and reached around his wife.
There were a few more explosions and crashes before they landed with a harsh bump and everyone fell to the floor. Rose groaned and the Doctor helped her to sit up again.
"Ok, ok. Where are we?" Amy questioned, pulling herself up.
"Outside the universe, where we've never, ever been," the Doctor explained.
The lights went out in the TARDIS and Rose clutched her head, leaning hard on her husband.
"Is that meant to be happening?" Rory asked.
"The power, it's draining. Everything's draining. But it can't. That's, that's impossible," the Doctor cried and Rose passed out in his arms. "Rose! Rose, love, what is it?!" he pleaded, shaking her to get her attention. She hung limply in his arms.
"What is that?" Rory interrupted as the last of the light from the time rotor seemed to disappear.
"It's as if the Matrix, the soul of the TARDIS, has just vanished. Where would it go?" the Doctor told them, watching the light fade and clutching his wife tightly to his chest. "Let's get her outside," he decided and carried Rose through the doors.
The Doctor laid Rose out on the ground and scanned her with his sonic. "She's breathing, but her heart beat has dropped, it's like she's in some sort of stasis," he told them worriedly. Rory was kneeling on the other side of her, checking her vitals as best he could, even though the Doctor's sonic could probably find out more than he could.
"Maybe if we find out what's wrong with the TARDIS it might help? Is this the same as what happened when we were dreaming?" Rory suggested.
"You're right! But how would our subconscious have known that something like this would happen if something happened to the TARDIS?" he wondered.
"Figuring out the problem at hand then, what kind of trouble's your friend in?" Amy asked as she explored the junk that was in piles around them.
"He was in a bind. A bit of a pickle. Sort of distressed," the Doctor told them distractedly.
"Ah, you can't just say you don't know," Amy replied.
"But what is this place? The scrap yard at the end of the universe?" Rory wondered.
"Not end of, outside of," he responded, looking around but hesitant to leave Rose's side.
"How we can we be outside the universe? The universe is everything," Rory argued.
"Imagine a great big soap bubble with one of those tiny little bubbles on the outside," the Doctor told him.
"Okay," Rory replied hesitantly.
"Well, it's nothing like that," he added. He turned to check on the TARDIS again, wondering if the state of her was in fact affecting his wife. "Completely drained. Look at her."
"Wait. So we're in a tiny bubble universe, sticking to the side of the bigger bubble universe?" Amy questioned, trying to follow their conversation while she explored.
"Yeah. No. But if it helps, yes. This place is full of rift energy. She'll probably refuel just by being here and maybe Rose will come around on her own? Now, this place. What do we think, eh? Gravity's almost Earth normal, air's breathable, but it smells like..." he rambled, trying to distract himself from the terrifying thoughts of losing Rose over this little expedition.
"Armpits," Amy decided.
"Armpits," the Doctor agreed.
"What about all this stuff? Where did this come from?" Rory wondered.
"Well, there's a rift. Now and then stuff gets sucked through it. Not a bubble, a plughole. The universe has a plughole and we've just fallen down it," he told them as the new analogy popped into his head.
Just then, a tall woman in a blue, tattered dress came running towards them, shouting, "Wolf! Where are you, my Wolf?"
She immediately fell to the ground next to Rose and placed her hands against the sides of Rose's face. The blonde's eyes opened wide with a gasp and the strange woman pulled her up to sitting. "There we are, oh my Wolf! I thought I'd lost you!" she cried and pulled Rose into an awkward hug.
"Who are you? What did you do?" the Doctor shouted and grabbed his wife's hands to pull her up against him protectively.
"Thief! You're my thief!" she exclaimed happily.
"She's dangerous. Guard yourselves," another woman yelled as she approached them. She seemed to be chasing the first one.
"Look at the two of you. Goodbye. No, not goodbye, what's the other one?" she said confusingly and kissed the Doctor full on the lips.
"Oi! Hands off!" Rose protested.
"Alright," she agreed, then kissed Rose instead.
"Watch out. Careful. Keep back from her. Welcome, strangers. Lovely. Sorry about the mad person," announced a man who stood next to the second woman. Both of them were filthy and looked injured or something.
"Why am I a thief? What have I stolen? And what do you mean your Wolf?" the Doctor asked the woman when she stopped kissing his wife. She wasn't answering who she was, so he might as well address what she had said to them.
"Me. You're going to steal me. No, you have stolen me. You are stealing me. Oh tenses are difficult, aren't they? And she is my Wolf, just as I am her heart," the woman explained, speaking faster than it seemed her thoughts would allow.
"You're what?" Rose asked her.
"Oh. Oh, we are sorry, my dove. She's off her head. They call me Auntie," the other woman told them.
"And I'm Uncle. I'm everybody's Uncle. Just keep back from this one. She bites!" the man growled.
"Do I? Excellent," the younger woman announced and moved to bite the Doctor on the neck.
"Ow! Ow!" he protested and Rose pulled the woman off of him, checking to make sure there was no blood. She was a little disconcerted by the statement that this woman was her heart.
"Biting's excellent. It's like kissing, only there's a winner," she announced and turned toward Rose with a predatory smile.
"No! No you don't!" The Doctor shouted and positioned himself between Rose and the strange woman.
"So sorry. She's doolally," Uncle told them.
"No, I'm not doolally. I'mmm, I'mmmm... It's on the tip of my tongue," she said thoughtfully. "I've just had a new idea about kissing. Come here, you!" she added, lunging back towards the Doctor again.
"No, Idris, no," Auntie ordered her as Rose and the Doctor backed away.
"Oh, but now you're angry. No, you're not. You will be angry. The little boxes will make you angry," she pouted at the pair.
"Sorry? The little what? Boxes?" the Doctor questioned.
"What, like the white one from before?" Rose wondered.
The woman Auntie had called Idris stared at the Doctor for a moment before announcing, "Oh, ho, no. Your chin is hilarious!" The Doctor pouted at that and hugged his wife tightly. She then turned to Rory and stated, "It means the smell of dust after rain."
"What does?" he wondered.
"Petrichor," she replied.
"But I didn't ask," he responded.
"Not yet. But you will," she informed him.
"No, no, Idris. I think you should have a rest," Auntie told her as if speaking to a child.
"Rest. No, I can't do that, it hurts my Wolf. She needs me," Idris announced and pulled
Rose and the Doctor into a hug since they seemed reluctant to let go of each other.
"What did you mean that you're my heart? Who are you?" Rose asked her.
"You looked into me to save our Thief, and I became your heart," Idris replied, making Rose gasp in realization.
"Nephew, take Idris somewhere she can not bite people," Uncle told the Ood that suddenly appeared beside him.
"Oh, hello!" the Doctor greeted the Ood happily.
"Doctor, what is that?" Amy asked worriedly as she looked at the new alien.
"Oh, no, it's all right. It's an Ood. Oods are good, aren't they, Rose? Love an Ood. Hello, Ood. Can't you talk? Oh, I see. It's damaged. May I? It might just be on the wrong frequency," he rambled and tried to repair the Ood's translator ball.
"Nephew was broken when he came here. Why, he was half dead. House repaired him. House repaired all of us," Auntie explained.
The Doctor passed his sonic over the white ball several times and the air was suddenly filled with overlapping transmissions. The clearest voice pleaded, "If you are receiving this message, please help me. Send a signal to the High Council of the Time Lords on Gallifrey. Tell them that I am still alive. I don't know where I am. I'm on some rock-like planet."
The voices stopped abruptly and the Doctor's eyes filled with tears. Rose rushed to his side and entwined their fingers together, their bracelets clicking together as their bond intensified and she shared his pain supportively.
"What was that? Was that him?" Rory asked confusedly.
"No, no. It's picking up something else. But that's, that's not possible. That's, that's... Who else is here? Tell me. Show me. Show me," the Doctor insisted angrily.
The older couple flinched at his tone and Auntie replied, "Just what you see. Just the four of us, and the House. Nephew, will you take Idris somewhere safe where she can't hurt nobody?"
"She isn't going anywhere!" Rose shouted and grasped her hand tightly. Rose knew who this was now and she wasn't going to let her out of her sight. Nephew backed off for the moment, but seemed conflicted.
"The House? What's the House?" the Doctor questioned, unsure why Rose was suddenly so attached to the strange bitey lady.
"House is all around you, my sweets. You are standing on him. This is the House. This world. Would you like to meet him?" Auntie replied with an awe-filled smile.
"Meet him?" Rory asked.
"We'd love to," the Doctor interrupted forcefully before Rory or Amy could give away his usual intentions in a situation like this. He knew they could read his tension and building anger, but these strangers didn't seem to realize what they were up against.
"This way. Come, please. Come," Uncle told them as they led the group to another area of the wasteland.
"What's wrong? What were those voices?" Amy questioned surreptitiously.
"Time Lords. It's not just the Corsair. Somewhere close by there are lots and lots of Time Lords," the Doctor responded.
"Are you sure, love? Can you actually feel them? Something feels really wrong about all this," Rose responded nervously, still clutching Idris' hand tightly.
"I'm sure, very sure. I can't feel them, but it has to be. They're shielding them from me somehow and I'm going to find them. And who are you? You still haven't answered," he insisted.
"I'm, I'm... Big word, sad word. Why is that word so sad? No. Will be sad. Will be sad," she replied frustratedly, as if she had never answered the question of who she was before in her life.
"Come. Come, come. You can see the House and he can look at you, and he..." Uncle interrupted and tugged them along to a place where an eerie green light was shining up through a grating from the centre of the planet beneath them.
"I see. This asteroid is sentient," the Doctor realized. It wasn't the first sentient planet he had encountered, but this one didn't seem particularly benign.
"We walk on his back, breathe his air, eat his food," Auntie explained.
"Smell his armpits," Amy mumbled, still disgusted by the smell of the place.
Auntie and Uncle both froze and stared straight ahead then, as if taken over by a puppeteer. A loud, deep voice sounded from them, "And do my will. You are most welcome, travellers."
"I don't like this," Rose whispered to the woman beside her.
"Quite right, my Wolf," she replied.
"Doctor, that voice. That's the asteroid talking?" Amy questioned.
"Yes. So you're like a sea urchin. Hard outer surface, that's the planet we're walking on. Big, squashy, oogly thing inside, that's you," he confirmed.
"That is correct, Time Lord," the House replied.
"Ah. So you've met Time Lords before?" the Doctor asked, knowing that he must have because they were here somewhere.
"Many travellers have come through the rift, like Auntie and Uncle and Nephew. I repair them when they break," the House explained.
"So there are Time Lords here, then?" he pressed.
"Not any more, but there have been many TARDISes on my back in days gone by."
"Well, there won't be any more after us. Last Time Lord. Last TARDIS," the Doctor responded while giving the others a look to insist that they not mention Jamie or the baby TARDIS.
"A pity. Your people were so kind. Be here in safety, Doctor. Rest, feed, if you will," the House told them.
"We're not actually going to stay here, are we?" Rory asked quietly.
"Well, it seems like a friendly planet. Literally. Mind if we poke around a bit?" the Doctor announced loudly, trying to make them believe that he was happily accepting their hospitality.
"You can look all you want. Go. Look," Auntie said with a smile and she took Amy into her arms. "House loves you."
"Come on then, gang. We're just going to, er, see the sights," the Doctor told the planet's inhabitants as he led the others away from them to talk.
"Are there a see zero that ito emo we. Ah! What was that? Do fish have fingers? Like a nine year old trying to rebuild a motorbike. What am I saying? Why am I saying that?" Idris babbled by Rose's side.
"Are you alright, Old Girl?" Rose asked her worriedly.
She turned to look at Rose with a fond smile. "I love it when the two of you call me that."
The Doctor wasn't paying any attention to the conversation between Rose and the strange woman that was with them.
"So, as soon as the TARDIS is refuelled, we go, yeah?" Rory questioned the Doctor urgently.
"No. There are Time Lords here. I heard them and they need me," the Doctor insisted.
Rose and Idris looked at him sadly, sure that this was all a trick, but his mind refused to accept that logic for the time being.
"You told me about your people, and you told me what you did," Amy argued.
"Yes, yes, but if they're like the Corsair, they're good ones and I can save them," he insisted.
"And then tell them you destroyed the others?" Amy pointed out.
"I can explain. Tell them why I had to," he told her sadly.
"You want to be forgiven," Amy realized.
"Don't we all?" he pleaded, near tears again.
"Doctor, please listen to me. This isn't what it seems to be, I know it. You have me and Jamie, friends and family with you. I know it hurts and you want the forgiveness of your own people for what had to happen, but we're here for you, love," Rise insisted, wanting to get the TARDIS restored and get as far away from here as possible.
He hugged her and sent her waves of gratitude over their bond, but he was still determined to find the source of those voices.
"What do you need from me?" Amy asked when he seemed more stable.
"My screwdriver. I left it in the TARDIS. It's in my jacket," the Doctor replied.
"You're wearing your jacket," Rory argued.
"My other jacket," he lied.
"You have two of those?" Rory cringed. "And don't you have a sonic, Rose?"
"Doesn't do nearly as much as his does," she answered, deciding that he must be trying to send them to safety in the ship.
"Okay, I'll get it. Rose, you have your mobile, yeah?" Amy asked as she and Rory headed back towards the blue box.
"Of course, Amy," she replied.
The Doctor searched the area for some sign of where the other Time Lords might be. It was only a few moments later that Rose's phone rang and she tossed it over to the Doctor.
"Hey, we're here. Screwdriver's in your jacket, yeah?" Amy asked over the phone.
"Yeah, it's around somewhere. Have a good look," he answered as he used the sonic that he just removed from his pocket to remotely lock the TARDIS doors.
He shut the mobile and tossed it back to his wife.
"Come on. Where are you? Now, where are you all? Where are you?" he mumbled to himself as he continued to search the area. He found a small cupboard type space. "Well, they can't all be in here."
The Doctor looked around curiously though as he thought he could hear the voices again. Opening the small door, he found a dozen or so of the white cubes, all broadcasting the voices of various Time Lords.
"Oh, Doctor," Rose gasped as she felt his anguish.
Auntie and Uncle approached them and Idris placed herself in front of Rose protectively, as if the older couple might be a threat to her.
"Just admiring your Time Lord distress signal collection. Nice job. Brilliant job. Really thought I had some friends here, but this is what the Ood translator picked up. Cries for help from the long dead. How many Time Lords have you lured here the way you lured me, and what happened to them all?" he demanded angrily.
"House, House is kind and he is wise," Auntie insisted.
"House repairs you when you break. Yes, I know. But how does he mend you? You've got the eyes of a twenty year old," the Doctor said to Uncle as he looked him over more carefully.
"Thank you," he replied.
"No. Oh, no, I mean it literally. Your eyes are thirty years younger than the rest of you. Your ears don't match, your right arm is two inches longer than your left, and how's your dancing? Because you've got two left feet," the Doctor analyzed disgustedly.
"Oh my god, you're kidding," Rose cringed.
"Patchwork people. You've been repaired and patched up so often, I doubt there's anything left of what used to be you. I had an umbrella like you once," he commented and pulled Auntie's arm towards him to look at it. It was much bigger than what she should have had and the forearm bared the familiar snake tattoo.
"Oh, now, it's been a great arm for me, this," she said proudly.
"Corsair," the Doctor croaked and Rose rushed past Idris to his side. She took his hand supportively.
"How could you? You just hack these people up and use their parts on yourselves?" Rose growled at them.
"He was a strapping big bloke, wasn't he, Uncle?" Auntie told them, not at all worried about the morality of the situation.
"Big fellow," Uncle agreed.
"I got the arm and then Uncle got the spine and the kidneys."
"You gave me hope, and then you took it away. That's enough to make anyone dangerous. God knows what it will do to me. Basically, run!" the Doctor shouted at them.
As they were leaving, Uncle turned back to sneer at him, "Poor old Time Lord. Too late. House is too clever."
Rose's mobile rang and she picked up to speak to Amy herself.
"No sonic screwdriver. Also the doors seemed to have locked behind us. Rory thinks there's a perfectly innocent explanation, but I think he lied to us," Amy grumbled.
"Look, Amy, he just wanted you two safe. This place is right creepy, I know you guys feel it too. We're coming back your way now, just stay put, yeah?" she told them.
"We don't have much choice," Amy complained but agreed and hung up the phone.
"How did you know about the boxes? You said they'd make me angry. How did you know?" the Doctor addressed Idris.
"Ah, my Thief. You are ready to listen now," she replied.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
"Do you not know me? Just because they put me in here?" she asked confusedly.
"What do you mean?" he wondered.
"Doctor, you know her. She explained it to me. I looked into her heart and she became mine," Rose told him, sure that he would be able to see it as easily as she had.
"I'm the... Oh, what do you call me? We travel. I go vwoorp vwoorp," she told him frustratedly and Rose marvelled at how the human body she was inhabiting was able to produce the TARDIS noise from its mouth.
"The TARDIS?" he asked disbelievingly and looked to his wife, who merely nodded with raised eyebrows.
"Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Yes, that's it. Names are funny. It's me. I'm the TARDIS," she agreed happily.
"No, you're not. You're a bitey, mad lady. The TARDIS is up and downy stuff in a big blue box," he denied waving his arms around for emphasis.
"Doctor, listen to her. Please, love, I can feel it," Rose pleaded with him.
"Yes, that's me. We are connected now, my Wolf. We will always be connected. I am your heart. You looked into me, a Type Forty TARDIS. Together we saved my Thief and through me, you can stay with him through all of his lives, just like you asked," she told Rose as she caressed her face.
"But that's impossible," he denied.
"You like that word. I don't. I was already a museum piece when you were young, and the first time you touched my console you said..." she continued, needing to prove herself to him.
"I said you were the most beautiful thing I had ever known," he interrupted.
"And then you stole me. And I stole you," she teased.
"I borrowed you," he insisted.
"Borrowing implies the intention to return the thing that was taken. What makes you think I would ever give you back? Besides, our Wolf stole both of us. We have the Cub and the Water and the Little One. There's no going back now," she rambled.
The Doctor guessed that the Cub and Water were Jamie and River. The Little One? He couldn't be sure about that, but was this really real? "You're the TARDIS?" he asked incredulously.
"Yes," she replied
"My TARDIS?"
"Yes, Doctor," Rose sighed impatiently.
"My Doctor and Wolf," she said with a smile and looked at them both proudly. She tilted her head in thought. "Are all people like this?"
"Like what?" he asked.
"So much bigger on the inside. I'm, oh, what is that word? It's so big, so complicated. It's so sad," she told them, still frustrated with trying to communicate this way.
"But why? Why pull the living soul from a TARDIS and pop it in a tiny human head? What does it want you for?" the Doctor wondered as he got back to the matter at hand.
"Oh, it doesn't want me," she replied casually as she looked around.
"How do you know?" the Doctor questioned, wondering if it had said something to her.
"House eats TARDISes."
"House what? What do you mean?" he gasped and grabbed Rose's hand worriedly.
"I don't know. It's something I heard you say," she responded distractedly.
"When?" he asked, not remembering ever having said such a thing.
"In the future."
"House eats TARDISes?" he questioned.
"There you go. What are fish fingers?" she wondered staring off into the distance as if she could see something that they couldn't.
"When do I say that?" he asked, confused as to why he would talk about those.
"Any second."
"Of course!" he shouted. "House feeds on rift energy and TARDISes are bursting with it. And not raw, all lovely and cooked. Processed food. Mmm, fish fingers."
"Do fish have fingers?" she asked.
"But you can't eat a TARDIS. It would destroy you. Unless, unless..." he trailed off in thought.
"Unless you deleted the TARDIS Matrix first," Idris completed his thought.
"It deleted you? But how are you here?" Rose wondered, trying to follow their conversation.
"But House can't just delete a TARDIS' consciousness. That would blow a hole in the universe. So he pulls out the Matrix, sticks it in a living receptacle and then it feeds off the remaining Artron energy. Oh. You were about to say all that. I don't suppose you have to now," she rambled as if reading his thoughts.
"We sent Amy and Rory in there. They'll be eaten. Amy! Amy? Rory? Get the hell out of there," he shouted as the three of them ran back towards the blue box.
Rose called the couple on her mobile, "Amy! You've got to get out of there!"
"Rose, something's wrong," she replied.
"It's the House. He's after the TARDIS. Just get out of there, both of you," Rose explained urgently.
"We can't, he locked the door, remember?" Amy argued.
"No, but he just unlocked it," Rose told her.
"He bloody well hasn't!" she shouted as they reached the doors. They could hear Amy and Rory banging on the doors from the inside as they tried to get out.
The Doctor tried using his sonic on the door as all of them fought to get it opened. They could hear the cloister bell sounding inside, but nothing they tried made any difference. None of them knew how, but the blue box suddenly disappeared, taking Amy and Rory with it, and leaving the Doctor, Rose, and Idris behind on the little asteroid planet.